Oh, but they are, she said quietly to herself, through gritted teeth.

She twisted her head around until she could just about see the two bead-zombies in their own couches. Didnt they need to pee? Somehow she had never thought to wonder about that.

She rolled her shoulders to relax the muscles, then slowed her breathing until she could focus more clearly.

Then she went to work.

Focusing was always the hardest part of this kind of work. A single break in concentration could ruin everything. Through her implants, she studied the flow of data between the pair of zombies and the dropship control systems to which they had now been slaved for the duration of the journey.

There was, she knew, no way a dropships auto-control was up to that kind of job. But hacking the two zombies was still going to take a great deal of effort, and not a little time. It looked, however, as if time were something she would have in abundance.

She painstakingly tested each potential point of entry, one after another. Buckled into the couch and with her arms cuffed behind her back, it was far from easy to get a line of sight on the two zombies, to see if either of them reacted in any way to her remote prodding. Soon her neck was starting to throb like a bitch.

She took a break after a couple of hours that were rewarded with little success, and tried not to let self-doubt and despair swallow her up. Then she got back to work, studying and exploring each potential backdoor into either the dropship or the zombies themselves.

It wasnt long before she felt a band of tightness across her forehead that heralded an oncoming migraine. Respond, damn you. She kicked her feet against the couch in frustration, but it made no difference. No matter what she tried, it just wasnt working.

She glanced around at the zombies, and . . .

Had she imagined it when she saw the hand of one of them twitch?

Of course she had.

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to ignore the throbbing of her muscles and the dryness of her throat.

Maybe she hadnt imagined it.

She restructured various custom routines she had created in order to probe the potential points of entry she had identified, keeping her gaze focused on that zombie in particular.

This time, she saw it. Definitely a twitch.

Megan rocked her head from side to side to try and alleviate the painful kinks that had developed in her neck and shoulders. Her wrists were sore and chafed from the cuffs they had left on her.

She modified another routine and set it loose. The zombie twitched again, then shifted suddenly in its seat, the fingers of both its hands spasming in a kind of rippling motion.