Securely pinned to the tabletop, Ryan felt pressure and pain from all sides as here and there knife points trimmed away select, bite-sized pieces of him. Even so, he wouldn’t surrender his dignity. He chomped down on his tongue until his mouth filled with blood.
Over the guttural, lip-smacking sounds of cannies feasting, he could hear the party music start up. Fiddle and squeezebox played a sprightly jig.
As the blades dug deeper and deeper into him, steel scraping bone, Ryan bit off his tongue. After that, there was no way to hold in the agony. He arched his spine, opened his throat and, spewing blood mist to the ceiling, screamed for all he was worth.
The cannies began to clap and stomp their boots.
The ghastly duet had become a trio.
RYAN CAME TO on his hands and knees, retching.
Jump dream, he thought, as a gray-on-gray world spun madly around him. The same thing happened every time they used the mat-trans gatewaysthe bad nightmares and horrible nausea.
Only this time it was worse.
It felt as if he were vomiting from the soles of his boots. Just when he thought the wrenching spasms were over, the odor of melted plastic made him dry-heave some more.
When he could open his eye, he looked up from the stinking puddle he’d made on the polished concrete floor. A green bulb in a metal cage overhead blinked on and off; it was the brightest light source in the chamber. The woman Nara stood beside him. Inside her black armor, his keeper showed no signs of postjump distress.
“Are you all right?” she asked with concern.
When he nodded that he was, she used a soft towel to wipe at his mouth.
Only then did Ryan realize he was drenched. Not with puke, not with sweat, but with clear oil. It felt like machine oil. It matted his dark curling hair, soaked through his clothes onto his skin. The corded muscles of his bare arms gleamed, as did his chest at the gap at the throat of his shirt.
“Fireblast!” he groaned and tried to take the towel from her.
“No, let me wipe it off,” Nara said.
He gave her a questioning look.
“I want to.”
Ryan let the woman mop his face and arms. There was nothing she could do about the rest.
“Where did we jump to?” he asked as he rose to his feet.
“You’ll find out in a minute,” she said. “But before we go any further and things start to get crazy, I want you to know that I’d like to be your friend. You’re going to need someone you can count on from here on out. I’m afraid what you’ve gone through so far is the easy part.”
The nature of her request took Ryan by surprise. He didn’t know whether to be irritated or amused. “Either I’m your hostage, or I’m not. Which is it?” he said.
“That was in Shadow World,” she told him. “Water under the bridge. Now that we’re here on Earth, things are different. Much different.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“I’m called Nara. What’s your name?”
“Ryan. Ryan Cawdor.”
“Wait here, Ryan. Try to relax if you can. And don’t worry, I’ll be back.”
She walked away from him, heading for a metal catwalk that bridged a gap in the floor’s concrete. On the far side of the bridge, Ryan saw a bulkhead door with a small window in it. Behind the window there was more light, and a press of human faces, fighting for a look inside. Nara opened this door and slipped through it. When the door closed, the faces returned to the window and resumed their wide-eyed gawking.
Ryan pointedly turned his back to them and looked around. Definitely not a gateway, he decided. There was no armaglass, and the distant gray walls were covered with gray pipes, hoses and conduit. Because the huge room was too wide for its height, there was a crushing oppressiveness to it. He stood in the center of a large rectangle painted on the concrete floor. A matching rectangle was in the flat, concrete ceiling just overhead, and it made Ryan feel as if he were about to be smashed flat.