CHAPTER NINETEEN
Mia landed hard on top of Arek. She lifted her head from his chest, blinking at the rough, silvery floor. "Huh? Wasn't this the ceiling a sec ago?"
"Quark it," he muttered, underneath her. "They're playing with the gravity. I should've requested gravity belts."
Mia pushed up onto her hands and knees and clambered off of him. "Do you really think they would've given grav belts to us?"
He knifed up, grimacing as he rubbed the back of his head. "No."
They rose, and looked along the next stretch of passageway. "So can we assume the gravity only changes at the end of each passage?"
"Let's not, and stay alive." Arek pulled a stretch of soft, thin rope from one of his pockets and held out his hand. "Give me your hair clip."
Mia opened her mouth to ask why, but closed it and pulled the heavy clasp from the end of her braid. Arek clipped it to the end of the rope, and flipped it out ahead of them. The clasp skated along the slick surface beneath them, stopping when it reached the end of the rope.
"Oh, very clever," she approved, following Arek after his gadget. Now they not only knew where they were, they could keep from falling into another gravity trap. "Just try not to lose my clasp, okay? It was a gift."
He flipped it out again and they followed. "From an admirer?"
"Hardly. Tryon gave it to me."
Flip and follow. "Your brother ought to admire you. You are intelligent, brave and innovative."
Mia put her hand in his big, powerful one, and squeezed. "Thank you. Same goes, big guy."
"Of course. That's how I achieved my rank."
Mia's retort froze on her lips as her senses twanged again. She peered around Arek, and noted that they'd reached a tee in the corridor. Her hair clasp fell, not down, but to the right side of the passageway they were already on. "Here we go again."
They moved to that side of the corridor and thus, when the gravity swung, they were crouched on the floor, not landing on it. "Good thing we didn't turn the other way," Arek said, sounding angry. "We would have fallen from several meters high. I would've landed on you and injured you, all for the entertainment of the blood-thirsty."
"Ah-ah-ahh," grated a voice in their coms. "We must not speak negatively of our Great Race fans, must we?"
"Shut it, Bartoo," Mia snapped as she accepted Arek's hand to rise. "He's right, and you know it."
"I concur," Deuce chimed in. Mia and Arek's eyes met. Well, that was unexpected.
With an indignant chirp, their handler was silent.
They walked on. Their technique worked for two more corridors. However, they next found themselves in a small rotunda, with corridors branching out in all directions. Gravity remained constant, leaving them to choose.
Mia stared, feline senses tingling and sparking as she gazed along the identical dark corridors. She looked to Arek. "Which way shall we go? What does your nav device say?" she whispered.
He was scowling down at the readout, and peering closer, she saw why. The small readout had gone blank, only a shifting gray pattern visible. "What's wrong with it?"
"I don't know. It's being blocked somehow."
"Deuce?" Mia said, tapping her com. "Deuce? Can you help us?"
"Sorry, Tygress," the AI said, his voice muffled. "I cannot. But you should hurry—the other teams are on the move."
Mia's fingers twitched. "Now what do we do?" They didn't have a guide, and they were so deep in this horrible place, she had no idea how to get out. "We should have been marking our path manually."
"Yes," Arek agreed. "My fault. I placed too much reliance on tech."
He moved behind her, and grasped her shoulders so she faced the open mouths of the corridors. "Which way, Tygress?"
"I—I don't know," she protested. They all looked equally foreboding.
"Guess," he ordered. "Use your senses."
She glared up at him. Big, bossy warrior—who did he think she was, one of his troops?
"No, I think you are a beautiful, aggravating female with genetic capabilities which you've used to bring us safely through an asteroid field," he answered. "And my gut says you can do the same in here... if you try."
Mia flushed. Oh, furballs, she was thinking aloud again. It was his fault for making her feel so—so safe. Emotionally, at least. They certainly weren't physically safe right now.
And scariest of all, their safety for the next part of their journey might be up to her. All right, time to Tygress up.
She closed her eyes. Feeling Arek's reassuring grasp on her shoulders, the stone under her boots, the atmosphere around them... and then she let her breath out, and let her senses unfurl. She flinched as her nerves twinged, even more sharply than before, but forced herself to accept the discomfort, the fear and her increasing sense that she could reach ahead, out of herself, and know things she didn't fully understand.
She was operating on instinct. Her genetic heritage as a humanoid able to partially shift into feline.
She opened her eyes and gazed at each of the passages ahead. Flared her nostrils and inhaled delicately. Flexed her gloved hands and let the knowing prickle through her. All of the passages smelled, and felt wrong. Stale, dead air-space where nothing stirred nor moved.
Except one to the right. "That one," she said. "It's the only one that is not blocked."
"Oh, my stars," Deuce said in her ear, sounding startled. "Tygress, you are special, are you not?"
"Yes, she is," Arek said. He gave her shoulders a squeeze and moved to her side. "Ready?"
She nodded, and they walked forward together.
But Octiron won again. No sooner had they hit the midpoint of the rotunda than the area went pitch black, and the floor tilted at a sharp angle under them. Mia let out a yowl of fear as she landed on her ass and began to slide and jolt downward into the abyss of black. She felt every bump in the rock underneath her, even through her protective suit. It hurt, and so did trying to grab for handholds with only thin gloves to protect her hands.
"Mia!" Arek's powerful arm wrapped around her. He clamped her to him, her head under his chin, and wrapped his other arm around her. "Hang on!"
She clung to him as only a feline can, her hands clawed into the folds of his suit, her legs tangled with his. He grunted with effort, their progress halted as he managed to grasp hand or footholds, only to lose them as the floor shifted yet again.
As they careened downward, sheer fury consumed Mia, bright and hot as a molten star in her middle. Octiron was watching them fall. They could stop this if they wanted to. She and Arek were just game pieces, being tossed about for amusement of heartless beings they'd never see.
"No!" she shrieked, her voice rising from some feral place deep inside her. "No! You are not going to destroy us—do you hear me? We will not die!"
Well. He'd expected his lovely feline to shriek, perhaps—but in fear, not with her voice roughened with sheer fury. This thought had only just raced through Arek's mind when light blazed around them, and their deadly slide halted with a dramatic swoop as the floor tilted under them, curling up a smooth lip.
He sat up carefully, wincing as a myriad of bruises and abrasions on his back, ass and legs made themselves known. His eyes widened, and his grip tightened on Mia until she grunted. Between their feet hanging over the edge, lay a dizzying void. One sec later and they would have plunged to their deaths.
"What is this place?" Mia growled.
"A big, quarking chamber," Arek muttered, glaring out and down. "One invented by beings who are completely rezzed."
The open space spanned hundreds of yards deep as well as high. Dozens of passage ways led out in all directions and a dizzying array of staircases connected them, each oriented differently from a gravitational perspective. It was indeed a place created by insanity.
And they were trapped here... but not alone.
At various points around the room, four other teams peered out at them. They must've been the last to arrive. Team Nebula seemed to be the lucky ones, as they stood on the floor of the immense room.
Mia curled upright in his arms with swift grace, and leaned to peer over the abyss. She gave a hiss that sounded not like fear, but fury. Arek held her close, a cerametal grip on her slim waist. "Careful. We're going to need to turn over and crawl up away from this. Let me go first, and I'll reach down for you."
He loosed his hold carefully, easing away from her slowly, for one incautious move could dump them both over the smooth stone lip underneath them, and into freefall.
When she moved, he stiffened, terror for her galvanizing him. "Mia!"
But she was already gone, vaulting back up the way they'd slid to crouch, looking down on him. She held out her hand. "Come, I will help you."
"You'll help me?" he gritted. "Woman, when I get my hands on you, I'm going to—" He reached up, found handholds, and crawled up the rough stone to her. She was perched on a flat area, squatted with her hands flat before her, her head cocked.
"You reckless, stupid little fool—" he began, his voice rough with fury of his own. "You could have died!"
Then the light fell on her face, and he froze.
"What is wrong, Arek?" she asked, her voice rasping like rough velvet on his ears.
"You've shifted," he said hoarsely. A powerful feeling swelled in him, pushing out his fury, fear and the uncertainty of their situation—pride. "Tygress. You are beautiful."
Her hair waved around her face and shoulders like a tousled mane, framing her face. Her face, that was still Mia, and yet changed. As if she'd been molded by a loving hand into the fantasy of a female. Her skin glowed, taut over the bones of her face which were somehow exaggerated, her brow bones, cheekbones and jaw more prominent. Her lush lips were damp, and when they parted, he saw the tips of gleaming white incisors. And her eyes—they locked with his, glowing golden with danger, and yet the promise of such lush sensuality that everything male in him responded, rose to meet her.
He wanted to roar, to bellow to the great chamber below, and their unseen audience of billions that she was his. He claimed her, he alone had the right to touch her.
He reached out and carefully cupped the side of her face, her skin like hot velvet under his hand.
She leaned into his touch, her lashes drooping as she smiled, almost looking... shy?
"I did not expect this to happen here," she told him. "But, Arek... I do not repel you, like this?"
"What?" he demanded, drinking her in with his gaze. "Mia. Tygress—you're the most sensual, beautiful... the hottest thing I've ever seen, aside from a supernova! How could you possibly think you'd repel me?"
She purred, a delicious sound deep in her throat. "I am Tygean. You are Aurelian—always a perfect, masculine specimen of your race."
"I'm a male, all right," he told her, leaning in to nuzzle her face and inhale her scent. "And despite where we are, I want nothing more than to fuck you every way possible, until you understand just how much you attract me, at all times."
She nuzzled him back. "And I want it too, my prince. But first, I am going to get us out of this cursed, caninoid excuse for a mountain. I do not know why I've shifted, but if Octiron somehow manipulated a facsimile of my moons to do this, they are in for a surprise. In shift, I am stronger, I am faster and my senses are now unequaled."
"We will get us out of here," he corrected her. "Lead the way, Tygress."
"You trust me to lead?"
He nodded. "I do. I trust you with my life... partner."
She gave him a lovely, ferocious smile, and rose with one lithe movement. "Then let's go kick some Octiron ass."
"Which passage?" he asked, ready to climb up after her.
She shook her head, and leapt down to stand on the very lip over the abyss. "No. We are done with their tricks. How long is that rope of yours?"
Arek's teeth were clenched with the effort of holding himself back from sliding down and grabbing her, hauling her back from the edge where she balanced so gracefully. "Long enough. We just need a place to tie it off."
She nodded, surveying the walls around the opening. Arek got busy and hauled the rope from his pocket. Being Aurelian, and thus always well-prepared, it was excellent rope. Woven from Pangaean lii silk, it was thin, flexible and very strong.
He scooted back down to join her, cursing to himself as the bruises on his backside protested. He felt like a kid who'd taken one too many turns going down the river slide at home on Aurellon. At least this time he wasn't attired in only thin swim shorts.
The rope fastened securely around a protrusion in the rough rock, Arek gave it a test tug, and then rose to stand on the lip beside Mia. "I'll go first. I can take them both down if need be."
"Yes. I will follow when you are down."
One of the teams watched them from their perch, while another navigated one of the crazy staircases down one wall, upside down. They were clearly in another gravity. Meanwhile Team Nebula was on the floor below, necks craned to look up. "Be careful," called the woman Vin, waving her arms at them. "It's higher than it looks."
The man shook his head and said something to her. The voluptuous woman tossed her head and pouted.
"Go," Mia growled, tensing. "Something is about to change again. Go!"
"You're right after me," he ordered.
She nodded. "Yesss, go!"
Arek gripped the rope and let himself off the ledge. For a sec he hung dizzyingly above the floor, and then he relaxed his hands just enough to let the rope slide through his gloves. He crossed his legs around the rope and sailed downward in a controlled fall.
Vin and Armond backed away, watching him tensely.
When he was nearly to the height from which he could jump, the air quivered around him. The rope swung him like a pendulum, first one way, then circling back around. Arek let go and leapt down, landing with knees bent, already looking back up.
Mia was tiny above him, perched on her shelf like one of the lovely, miniature figurines his mother liked.
The room yawed like an old ship with a faulty rudder, and the rope danced between them like a line loose in the ship's wash.
"Mia—now!" he bellowed. His hands fisted, he watched as she swung out and down. The rope jerked, swinging her back and forth, and Arek grabbed the end, pulling it carefully taut to steady it.
She was going to fall... and he was stuck down here, unable to do a single thing to help her.