“Take us away, Superman,” Bryson said.
“Weber should be Lifting us out any second,” Sarah added.
Michael’s mind felt as if it was shutting down, as if the quick explosion of effort to code them away from the armies had sapped him of all mental strength. He halfheartedly tried to repeat what he’d done, but he knew it was hopeless as soon as he began.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “That was a one-act play, folks.”
“What in God’s name happened down there?” Sarah asked in a rush, as if they didn’t have two hideous dark beasts coming right at them, rising like heat. “Who are those people who came to help? And how did Kaine find us?”
“Maybe we can talk about it later?” Bryson yelled. “Looks like we’re going to fight after all.” He balled his fists—as if they’d do any good.
And then the creatures were on them.
The long, snakelike form went at Michael, its battering ram of a head slamming into his chest. He barely had time to see the flash of yellow eyes before he was hurtled head over feet through the darkening purple goop. Swinging his arms wildly, he righted himself just in time to see those eyes again, directly in front of him. A gaping mouth opened, black teeth glistening, and it snapped at him.
Michael jerked away, throwing his hands out to grab the horror by the neck. He squeezed its smooth, muscular skin, holding the thing back as it opened and shut its jaws, snapping again and again in its attempt to bite Michael’s head off. He dodged left, then right, wrenching the neck of the beast back and forth to keep it away.
The thing wrapped itself around the length of Michael’s torso, then his legs. Soon he was wrapped head to toe, sheathed in blackness, and the creature tightened its grip, squeezing the breath out of him. Michael gasped for air, searching for a way to get some help, but there was nothing. With every bit of strength he had left, he fought, trying to rip the foul thing’s head right off.
The flurry of movement sent the pair spinning like a corkscrew. Dizziness overwhelmed Michael and he lost his grip, the creature’s neck slipping from his grasp. In an instant, the creature opened its jaws and struck, lightning fast. It clamped down, and suddenly the world was black. Michael’s entire head was inside the beast’s mouth. Its jaws tightened and its teeth pierced Michael’s skin. He couldn’t even hear his own screams—it was all a muffled fog of terror and pain.
He flailed, half inside the mouth of the creature, as their death spin continued. Michael fought the overwhelming dizziness and struggled to grab hold of the enormous fangs puncturing his neck. His muscles tensed and his stomach quivered with nausea. The creature’s long, muscular body continued to squeeze the life out of him, tighter and tighter, making it impossible to breathe. The dizziness turned into light-headedness; stars and flashes swam in his vision. His pulse pounded in his head, and he remembered the KillSims. How they suck the digital life out of their prey.
How they’d killed Ronika and almost killed him.
This stupid thing wrapped around his body was some sort of cousin to the KillSims; Michael knew it. He wasn’t just dizzy from the spinning and the pain. It was an all-out attack on the essence of his life.
He tried harder, screaming with the effort as he pulled on the mouth of the giant snakelike beast. Its teeth started to move, to slowly slip out of his skin; blood oozed from the wounds on Michael’s neck. He pulled harder. Farther and farther apart creaked the jaws, the gap widening, the pressure on his head weakening, the dizziness and lights subsiding, feeling returning to his body, surging through him as though a dam had been breached—pain and adrenaline and elation and fire. Michael screamed again, and this time he heard it, a raw, piercing, strangled sound. And still farther he opened the creature’s mouth, the world of purple returning to view around him.
With every inch the monster’s jaw opened, Michael’s confidence grew. He could hear the cracking of bone, the ripping of tendons, the cry of the creature as it lost the struggle. The pressure of its body on his weakened, then fell away altogether. Michael braced himself for one final burst of effort, readied to tear the monster’s head apart.
But there was a popping sound. A sweeping rush of noise and a blur of streaming colors. The world tilted, bent, spun. Darkness swept it all away. And then Michael was blinking, gasping for air, staring up at the lid of Agent Weber’s Coffin.
She’d Lifted them out of the Sleep. Across his body the NerveWires prickled as they receded from his skin, slithering into their hidey-holes.
He was back.
Chapter 18: The Lance Code
Michael was soaking wet—partly from the LiquiGels, but also from sweat slicking his every inch of skin. His chest heaved as he gasped for air, feeling like he could never get enough to satisfy his lungs. Somehow he composed himself enough to find the release, and he sprang it, then waited, impatiently, the hundred years it took for the lid to swing open on its hinges. Warm light spilled in from the room, and he saw Agent Weber herself standing there, looking down at him, her face blurry. His vision hadn’t quite adjusted yet.
On the edges of his consciousness, he had the thought that he was glad he’d worn shorts for the trip, at least. Usually he went stark naked to experience the full effects of the sensory elements within the Coffin. But lying down in his birthday suit had seemed a bad idea this go-round. He’d been right.
“Are you okay?” Agent Weber asked.
Michael blinked a few times and she came into focus. The look of concern on her face seemed genuine enough. And she’d fulfilled her promise to bring them back.
He sat up, ignoring how wildly his head spun from the movement.
“Sarah!” he shouted. “Bryson!”
“They’re fine,” Weber said, kneeling down next to the Coffin. “I was able to get them out a little early—I’m not sure why it was so hard to Lift you. There was … something interfering, as if the system couldn’t quite lock on to your signal. I’m sorry. I really am. Things must’ve gotten bad in there.”
Michael waved his hand, as if swatting away her concern. He knew very well what had happened, and why it had been such a struggle to Lift him. That creature—that twisted version of the KillSim—had been sucking away his digital essence. He felt such a rush realizing how close he’d come to permanent brain damage that he found it hard to breathe. Fumbling and slipping, he scrambled out of the Coffin, stood up, swayed, sat down, breathed in deep pulls of air. What if he hadn’t yanked the thing’s jaws apart, gotten it off his head? How close had he come to dying?