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swept through her body.
21
Muscles froze instinctively like rock. Lungs held their breath in shock. The eyelids, caught open, did not
dare blink as the field from the r-con expanded into the pit. Tsia felt the burn grip her nerves, from the
skin that held the roots of her hair to the toes that pressed for balance inside her boots. Her temple link
became a whip of electrical pulses that flayed her nervous system. The movement of every muscle
burned. The rise and fall of her chest with her breath was a bath in fire that scorched her ribs and lungs.
The instinctive clench of her jaw was a punch from a fist of acid.
No one screamed. No one cried out. Each larynx was caught in that sudden, searing pain. This was not
like a wash of heat from a firepit, nor the point pain of a laze. This was a ubiqui-tous burning that struck
every cell in their bodies. The pulse that pushed the skin out in their throats it was a drum of tor-ture.
The pumping of their hearts it was a crushing pain. And still the rain fell and the water seeped in, and
the pit pool rose toward their knees.
Tsia hid within her mind from the burning of her body. She knew this pain. Her biogate was shut down
tight the single scream from Ruka had made her jerk it closed. She could not draw strength from him,
or any other cat.
Don't move, her brain screamed. Don't shift an inch.
Turn your head, she told herself. Move your feet, or die.
Slowly, carefully, deliberately, she forced her eyes to shift to the left. Her optic nerves shrieked in
response. She ignored them, though her body tried to sob. Blindly, she looked toward the r-con. With
the sallow pit lights rippling over the gritty, inky water, the red-black box gleamed like a demon's face on
the rain-black stone of the walls. Oval shadows danced with their reflections. Pale faces flickered black,
then flashed yellow-white as the water shook and rippled at the meres' feet. Mina, caught standing away
from the wall with one hand raised, started to lose her balance, and a hoarse cry ripped it-self from her
throat. She fell, jerked her arms instinctively, and the cry became a scream. Her body, rigid as a board,
struck the side of the pit. Her shoulders took her weight against the rock wall as her head barely missed
striking stone. Like a ladder, her body leaned in silence while the cords on her neck and jaw stood out,
and she did not dare relax.
On the other side of the pit, Tsia did not take her eyes from the box. Her knowledge of pain did not
diminish the shocking burn in her muscles, nor did it protect her mind from the flashback that swept out of
her memories. Nerve whips, chains, and r-cons& She had felt them all. And reality was worse again
than memory had let her believe. She blinked and stifled the scream in her throat. She swallowed
deliberately and whimpered. The convulsive movement made her mind tear as if her own thoughts were
now made of claws. She forced her-self to blink again. She knew what she had to do.
Nitpicker's body was a handspan from the surface of the ris-ing pool. Laz, the only one near the pilot,
was still folded up in his long-legged crouch. The other meres were all standing. Even Striker had gotten
to her feet when she saw the r-con brought down. Striker was the only one who had braced her hand
against the wall; the others leaned on their shoulders.
"Laz& " Tsia's voice was a withered hoarseness. The fire from the r-con field seared away the sound
before she even finished it. She blanked her mind and forced her tongue to move again, "Laz& " This
time, she projected the sound with her guts, and the shock of the nerve burn in her torso cut her off.
"Get her face away from the water."
Each word a shriek of torture on her lips and tongue. Each sound a searing flash of pain that licked her
jaw and settled in her chest. Doetzier forced his eyes to turn toward Tsia, and he could not stifle the
sound that tore from his own lips at the tiny movement.
Tsia did not look at him. She had moved her foot, and then her hand. The water pressed her thin trousers
against her leg so that the chill reached her skin like ice. She ignored it like the bum that lanced up her
legs and lower back from the movement she dared to force. Her foot, an inch. And then one more&
Deliberately, she turned her head and let the waves of pain wash through her.
"Wren," she croaked. She could not see for a moment. The red-black face of the r-con seemed to have
burned its colors into her mind, and waves of light and darkness drowned her thoughts. A minute passed,
then five before her eyesight cleared. When it did, she could see Wren's face tight with hor-ror. His jaw
was white, his eyes blind. His brutal hands hung limply at his side. Against the muddy wall, his back was
hunched in some inner nightmare. And the mindless fear that radiated from his body was palpable in the
pit. She did not try to open her biogate to sense his biofield. The flashbacks that tore through his mind
froze his thoughts even more than the r-con that locked his body in place.
A shadow appeared in the water, and Tsia felt more than saw the presence of the woman overhead. The
zek looked down, nodded to herself, then moved away.
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