He swung, first from the right, then from the left, backing Miller off each time. Miller tried to wrap him up, but Rauch managed a kick at his legs, knocking Miller to one knee. He grabbed wildly at Rauch’s chest, catching enough of his uniform to keep himself from falling further. Rauch winced in pain as the action jerked his weakened arm. Miller tried to stretch it further, and to use it as a sort of ladder to help him climb back to his feet, but Rauch twisted violently, and shoved him away before he could regain his balance. Miller stumbled backwards. He crashed against the side of the console, grunting as his momentum threw him back against its surface. Rauch was on him like a shot, pinning him with one of his bony knees. He brought the club of his fists down on Miller’s head. Miller raised a forearm to block the blow but he was too slow; it landed near his temple, knocking his head violently to one side. His defenses slowed, affected noticeably by the blow. Rauch slipped past them, arms still bound at the wrists, and wrapped his hands around Miller’s neck.

He squeezed.

Miller’s eyes bulged in panic as his mind snapped back in focus. He clawed at his assailant’s wrists, but now the bandages aided Rauch, protecting them from Miller’s nails. Miller’s eyes widened further. His throat rasped airily, jaw strained in a desperate gape, as he sucked a wisp or two of air. His tongue curled, as if that could somehow help him breathe. He gave up beating Rauch’s wrists and groped the side of the console instead. His hand found the access panel, still open from the work he and Britt had been doing earlier, and played over switches, signals, and readouts as Rauch’s grip tightened and turned. “Come on,” Rauch hissed, “let’s hear that snap…” Miller’s hand found the cable that led to the re-initialization handheld. “Just a little more,” Rauch whispered as Miller fed the cable through his fist, inch by agonizing inch. Miller’s face began to purple. His chest shuddered uselessly as his lungs tried their best to expand, creating vacuums in his lungs. Blood bloomed in both his eyes as the veins that fed them swelled, then burst. His fist ate the last of the cable; his hand grabbed the device at its end. He swung it sharply up at Rauch.

Rauch, crazed though he was, sensed the blow coming, and ducked his head beneath it. It glanced up the nape of his neck, taking a thin scrape of skin with it. Miller lost his grip as it did. It skittered across his neck and dribbled down his unset shoulder, cable straddling his neck like a sock being hung to dry. If Rauch felt any further pain as it settled in the open joint, he didn’t let them show.

“Now now, none of that,” He whispered, and twisted his grip again. His hollow showed a robed figure hued with more of the violent purples, now laced with a hint of green that somehow came across as smug. Miller’s eyes closed and his head lolled back, semiconscious. “Just relax. It will all be over sssssaghghghgh…!”

He choked on the final word. The girl had grabbed the end of the cable and wrenched it around the front of his neck, cutting of his air supply. His grip on Miller’s neck faltered, allowing his victim a rasping breath. Rauch clawed at the cable as Miller had clawed a moment before, but he was hampered by his shoulder. He thrashed, trying to disrupt her balance. Miller, recovering now, clamped his hands on Rauch’s wrist, preventing him from throwing her off. His eyes bulged as Miller’s had. His pallor likewise purpled.

“Enough,” Miller breathed, once they had him under control. “Ease off. We’ll tie him up again.”

“No,” she whispered. “We can’t. Look at his holo. Look at that rage. He’ll keep fighting. Whatever bonds we put on him, he’ll find a way out. He won’t give up until you’re dead.” Her unfocused gaze fell between Rauch and Miller as she spoke. She tightened the cable.

Rauch’s slump tilted backwards, away from Miller’s grip. The girl shuffled back a step, giving him room to fall, and followed him all the way to the floor. He clawed at the cable with his now-free fingers, digging into the skin trying to somehow get beneath it. He kicked at the console around Miller’s legs, but weakly, far too weakly to back her off.

“But…it’s murder,” Miller choked.

“Self defense,” she countered. A convalescing holo on her shoulder confirmed the she, at least, believed what she was saying, but her grip on the cable appeared to loosen, ever so slightly. Her eyes remained unfocused.

Miller rubbed his own neck, where bruises were already starting to form in the indentations Rauch had left. His eyes were almost as wide as Rauch’s. He stumbled as one of Rauch’s kicks caught him just below the knee, only catching himself on the console at the very last minute. He looked at the hand that had saved him, spreading it wide, palm to his face, as if amazed it wasn’t damaged. Then he looked at Rauch again. Then at the girl.

He nodded.

She re-strengthened her grip on the cable and jerked it upwards as hard as she could, lifting Rauch partway off the ground. His eyes bulged further and rolled back in their sockets. His face looked like a pimple being popped. Blood spilled over his fingertips as they broke an artery in their furious attempt to loosen the cable. A few fibers frayed and strayed from the bundle, but not enough to weaken its hold. His legs slowed to a twitch, feet twisting uselessly to their sides.

The girl’s lips curled in a hint of a snarl, and her breathing quickened with exertion, but she held her formless stare. Miller watched, alternately rubbing his neck and the wrist that had held the device, as if he’d strained it with his blow. His fingers smeared with red from a tiny cut where Rauch’s nails had broken skin. Twice he moved as if to intervene, but both times he held back, eyes focused on Rauch’s holo, which now showed the robed figure beating its fists against a cage made of bars of blinding white. Frothy spittle gathered at the corners of its mouth as it screamed.

Rauch’s tongue tumbled out of his mouth and dangled, like an empty sack, against the purple of his cheek. His eyelids fluttered. His eyes, now devoid of pupils, twitched frenetically beneath them. His clawing stopped. His arms went limp, falling off to either side, and his head lolled back against the girl’s stomach. A drop of blood from the gouge on his neck beaded on the fingers of his left hand, dangling inches off the floor. His right smeared against the tile.

The girl sloughed as Rauch’s weight went dead. The bridge his body had been forming as he’d struggled collapsed, swinging towards her as it folded. She let him fall, unable to hold him any longer, but she kept her grip on the cable tight. For the first time in minutes her eyes focused on something, flicking towards Rauch’s holo. The robed figure lay on the ground, against the wall of its cage, and was still. A wind ruffled the edges of its cloak as it lay, and then that too froze, like a movie stalling on a frame. It remained that way for several seconds.

“It’s OK,” Miller whispered. “He isn’t faking. He’s…gone.”

The girl nodded, tears welling in her eyes. Miller put an arm around her shoulder, giving her a gentle squeeze.

She turned to him, and let them flow.