The air pressure inside the sealed Board dropped past zero point four-five sea-weights, thin enough that sound began to lose its sharp sound edges. It traveled through the chamber with a hollow, muted deep ring.
Lin Tao felt the familiar tightness wrapping around his chest. The body signed name of acute hypoxia. His tiny blood vessels throbbed behind his temples. His vision got a faint, outer tunnel of gray static. His mouth tasted of dry copper, and the chill streaming from the dark rock floor was seeping steadily through the double-thick leather soles of his work boots. The surrounding heat was hovering just three degrees above freezing, causing pale frost to feather along the seams of the marble tiers.
He didn’t panic. Panic burned up four times as much oxygen as cold, dispassionate math.
Reaching to the handle knob of his star-white-gold metal pen, Lin Tao drove the micro-needle a tiny fraction of an inch into his right thumb callus. The sharp, clean bite of physical pain cut through the mental fog like a razor through silk, resetting his sense feedback loops and anchoring his nervous system to the physical reality of the chamber.
[Branch checked: physical main]
“Tie Shan,” Lin Tao said, his voice clipped and economical. “How are your lungs?”
