Kendra met the guardian's hook with both hands locked around a barrier spike. The spike bent instead of breaking, but the impact forced her backward across the wet tile until her shoulder struck a counter frame.
Nox used the opening to reach Vasa at the pipe junction. She had drawn a thin blue line on the floor with scanner chalk, marking the point where the guardian's reset pattern entered the anchor pit.
"It rebuilds through that line," she said. "Yeda can expose it for less than a second. Nothing ordinary will stay inside it."
"Nothing ordinary is what it was built to reject," Nox replied.
The clamp in his hand had stopped heating. That was worse. The black strand inside the released sponsor core rested against the glass as if it had learned patience while he tried to decide whether it existed.
