38 | CAPTURE
Tyler kept his gun level and steady.
Sam stood in the doorway and stared at him, his mouth, and his eyes, wide open.
“Where’s Dodge?” Tyler asked.
Vienna’s eyes flicked to the side, and Tyler nudged the door open a bit wider with his boot.
Dodge stood to one side, staring off at nothing, his eyes vacant and a strand of drool hanging from the corner of his mouth.
“Shame,” Tyler said. “He was a good kid. Maybe the doc can fix him up when we get you back to CDD.”
“You know that’ll never happen,” Vienna spat at him. “You saw what happened to Swamp Witch. That’s what’s going to happen to all three of us if you take us back in.”
“Save the dramatics for the trial,” Tyler said calmly. “Now turn around and face the wall.”
They did, except for Dodge, who stayed in the center of the room and drooled.
Tyler tried to flick off a quick neuro-message to the team, but there seemed to be something wrong with the connection. Either his headset or the neuro-network was off-line. A glance at the security console showed that most of the monitors were dead also, and the central computer screen showed only a blue screen covered with error messages.
No matter, he still had his radio. He stepped forward, covering Vienna and Sam with his gun as he pulled his handcuffs off his belt. He just had the one pair, but that would do until backup arrived. There were only two of them to be concerned about, and he could handcuff them to each other.
A guard—Gordon, no doubt—was handcuffed to the security desk. He seemed confused about what was going on.
“Am I glad to see you,” Gordon said. “Agent Tyler?”
“That’s right,” Tyler said. “Have they been in here the whole time?”
“Since before you first called, yes. They had a gun on me, told me what to say.”
“Figures,” Tyler said, holstering his pistol and grasping Sam’s wrist. “Can you tell me if they have done anything, other than just hiding out in here?”
“Yes. After the punk one woke up, they uploaded some kind of computer file, maybe a virus, to somewhere. They didn’t say where.”
Tyler’s brain was still registering the words “the punk one woke up” when he felt a tug at the back of his neck as his neuro-headset was forcibly unplugged. At the same instant, his pistol was lifted from his holster. He made a grab for it and started to spin around, but it was already far too late.
“Hello, guv’nor,” Dodge said. “You miss me?”