Adrenaline never raced through him like it did on these rare occasions. Michael knew he didn’t have long before he would be automatically disconnected by his own deck. He whirled his spear around in a circle just above ground level, hanging tough. There were hundreds of the fraggers and he could feel his core body temperature spiking as his heart began to pound wildly. The frame was already executing a sensor-triggered withdrawal when the shock hammered through him and he was flung bodily across the room, the ripped-out wires quivering over the side of the table. Michael twitched in delicate spasms for a moment, then lay still.