Roger was feeling bad when he woke up. It was like he'd been on a three day binge in Cabo San Lucas with a tequila salesman. But soon he remembered some of what happened and that got him focused on the current problem. He could see some guys sitting a few feet away but he couldn't make out any faces or features. Too dark. He did notice the background light though. It was computer monitors and peripheral activation lights blinking. Miniature desk lamps illuminated a few small work areas next to the computers 20 or 30 feet away. The air had a layer of cigarette smoke floating motionless just above the heads of the men Roger could see. He tried to reach up to rub his eyes and that's when he noticed his arms were strapped to the chair.

One of the men asked him how he was feeling and Roger's response was to ask about Darlene. The man laughed at him and corrected him, "Her name was Melanie and she woke up in a hospital bed yesterday morning. She probably doesn't remember you either, Tango."

As the man was talking Roger was looking past him at the computer systems. Something was bothering him. It was the software! None of the systems looked even vaguely familiar. Letters? Numbers? Was it even language? It wasn't Russian. Roger would have no trouble recognizing Russian or Chinese or Egyptian hieroglyphics for that matter. But he couldn't place this. What was it?

Over the next couple minutes of tough-guy conversation, Roger learned that he'd been out for almost two days. These schmucks had been sitting there with him ever since. They weren't saying where they were which was a good sign. It meant they were planning to release him at some point and didn't want him to know too much. They had just been told to wake Roger up. That's when they gave him the syringe full of pink fluid instead of the yellow-colored stuff they had been injecting every two hours. And apparently these guys are just the gophers. They didn't know anything about the computer gear and hadn't seen anybody touch it in the past two days. They didn't exactly sound to Roger like the digital generation anyway.

When Roger pressed for a clue about the reason for this whole visit, he found out they didn't know that either. The gopher spokesman did say he wouldn't worry about it too much since they were supposed to drive him back to his place in about an hour. That helped Roger relax a little more. At least until a heavy steel door moved sideways on the wall in front of him. What now? The guy he'd been talking to got up and moved in behind Roger's chair wheeling it toward the sliding door. It was pitch black ahead and he was strapped in for the ride. He kept telling himself that nothing too bad could happen in an hour...



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