Artemis- Holding Breath

He scrambled to his knees and saw he had been funneled onto a padded pallet. Before he could roll off, octobonds sprang from recessed apertures along the pallet’s steel rim, trussing him tighter than a tumbled rodeo cow. Purple gas hissed from a dozen overhead nozzles, shrouding the pallet.

Hold your breath, Artemis told himself. Animals don’t know to hold their breath.

He held on until it felt as though his sternum would split, and then just as he was about to exhale and suck in a huge breath, a second gas was pumped into the chamber, crystallizing the first. It fell onto Artemis’s face like purple snowflakes.

You are asleep now. Play possum.

A small door sank smoothly into the floor, with a sound like air being blown through a straw. Artemis peeked through one half-closed eye.

-The Time Paradox, Chapter 12