Page 115 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

A low pulse moves through the floor and I look down. A narrow green circle has appeared around my left boot.

“Shit.”

I jump back, but too late.

The circle snaps tight around my ankle. There’s nothing I can cut, just a green light that becomes pressure the second I try to move. My foot is jerked out from under me and I drop onto one knee.

Syin whirls toward me.

“Don’t,” I shout, holding up one hand to stop him, but he does anyway.

A pulse blasts out from the console and catches him in the side. He flies into a slab of broken metal and drops to one knee, one arm wrapping his ribs.

Renn comes over the low rail housing with blood on his temple and a knife in his hand. Another green line lashes across the floor in front of him.

“Stay there!” I yell.

He actually listens. Miracles do happen.

Gray gets to his feet and pulls a curved control wand from his belt. One of the guards beside Rhazek moves between him and Syin. The other keeps his weapon on Renn.

I test the ring around my ankle once. It tightens until pain shoots up my leg.

Okay, not going to do that again.

Gray looks at the broken rod in my hand.

“You understood the external path faster than projected.”

“What can I say, I’m full of disappointing qualities.”

“You stopped the send.”

“Yes.”

“But you came inside.”

I hate the satisfaction in his voice. The console wakes again. Not all of it. The cradle stays dark and the proof packet doesn’t reform above the epis. Instead a single green line moves from the cracked panel into the floor track beneath Rhazek’s cage.

The hook under his throat answers and his entire body locks.

“Rhazek.” His head jerks up. Gray is watching us instead of the console. “There. Much better.”

I understand a second too late.

The false version of my count was bait. A copy. Something they could use to wake the implants in Rhazek and pull me here.

They don’t need the copy anymore. They have me.

The ring around my ankle pulses with my heartbeat. The receiver answers through Rhazek’s hook. Something moves through the connection between us, pulled thin and bright by the machine.

Once.

Pause.

Again.

This time the rhythm isn’t almost mine.