The transition tore them from one reality and violently deposited them into another.
There was no preamble, no slow ascension up a groaning elevator shaft. There was only a blinding flash of geometric, grid-like blue light, followed by the sickening, weightless sensation of their atomic mass being briefly zeroed out by P.A.C.I.F.I.C.'s Eraser Tech.
A heartbeat later, the Vanguard slammed down onto a polished poly-glass floor.
One moment, they had been fighting for their lives in the freezing, rusted dark of the Labyrinth, their lungs burning with the taste of oxidized iron and ancient dust. The next, they were standing in the center of the VIP Processing Lounge of P.A.C.I.F.I.C.'s upper tier.
It did not look like a prison cell. It looked exactly like a hermetic, exclusive airport first-class terminal from the years before the System had rewritten the world.
