PeterWatts_Blindsight

Peter Watts 251 Blindsight
I felt a moment of confusion—(Oxygen? Why would oxygen set
off the alarm?)—until I remembered: Scramblers were anaerobes.
Sarasti muted the alarm with a wave of his hand.
I cleared my throat: "You're poisoning—"
"Watch. Performance is consistent. No change."
I swallowed. Just observe.
"Is this an execution?" I asked. "Is this a, a mercy killing?"
Sarasti looked past me, and smiled. "No."
I dropped my eyes. "What, then?"
He pointed at the display. I turned, reflexively obedient.
Something stabbed my hand like a spike at a crucifixion.
I screamed. Electric pain jolted to my shoulder. I yanked my
hand back without thinking; the embedded blade split its flesh like
a fin through water. Blood sprayed into the air and stayed there, a
comet's tail of droplets tracing the frenzied arc of my hand.
Sudden scalding heat from behind. Flesh charred on my back. I
screamed again, flailing. A veil of bloody droplets swirled in the
air.
Somehow I was in the corridor, staring dumbly at my right hand.
It had been split to the heel of the palm, flopped at the end of my
wrist in two bloody, bifingered chunks. Blood welled from the
torn edges and wouldn't fall. Sarasti advanced through a haze of
trauma and confusion. His face swam in and out of focus, rich
with his blood or mine. His eyes were bright red mirrors, his eyes
were time machines. Darkness roared around them and it was half
a million years ago and I was just another piece of meat on the
African savannah, a split-second from having its throat torn out.
"Do you see the problem?" Sarasti asked, advancing. A great
spider crab hovered at his shoulder. I forced focus through the
pain: one of Bates' grunts, taking aim. I kicked blindly, hit the
ladder through sheer happenstance, careened backwards down the
corridor.
The vampire came after me, his face split into something that
would have been a smile on anyone else. "Conscious of pain,
you're distracted by pain. You're fixated on it. Obsessed by the
one threat, you miss the other."
I flailed. Crimson mist stung my eyes.