But, no, of course not, what was she thinking? The bridge was going to be a madhouse, probably blocked or even collapsed if enough people and cars had been dropped on it.

She rode on, the scooter buzzing, her leg that had been skinned now burning in the wind and salt of the air near the water. The sky was full of gold now, the outer bay racing with whitecaps. This most beautiful of cities still appeared fair in the spreading morning, but for the black scar of debris and ruin that filled the inner bay.

Racing down the street, she stood up on the scooter and roared her rage and her fear, then, as the scooter wavered, dropped back down.

She now possessed only one thought, only one need, which was to survive. She would head south into the wilderness of Big Basin and hide there. There were caves down there, so she’d live in a cave. She’d go down the Pacific Coast Highway through Half Moon Bay and then out into the Basin, to the isolated towns back in there.

Then she heard another sound, strange, hard to understand. Rhythmic, hard, and hot. That, and clattering on the pavement around her, clattering and deep humming.

Something grabbed her neck, digging into it from behind, and she cried out and reached back and ripped at the squirming, buzzing thing. It was another of those big bugs like the one that had torn up Mrs. Arthur, a metal insect from hell.

She arched forward screaming, controlling the scooter with one hand while she pulled at the thing with the other, and its wings snarled and its scissor mandibles snicked frantically.

Then she had one of its leathery wings in her hand, and she yanked and yanked, and finally it came off and she saw the creature in detail, the complicated face working, metal flashing, and beneath deep burnished steel brows, two glaring eyes. And they were brown. And they were human eyes.

She hurled it away from herself and let the vomit of her terror splash away into the wind as she gagged and screamed and drove the bike as hard as it would go.

She was on Skyline passing a jewel-blue lake, and the morning air racing at her was sharp with the sea. A commuter bus trundled past in the opposite direction, on its innocent way into the stricken city. Even yet, apparently, there had been no general warning. Perhaps there would never be, perhaps the shock of what was happening was too great. Yet a jet had come. Managed nothing, but come.

The bike swerved, she fought for control, felt it slipping, then it jumped the median and she found herself facing the oncoming traffic.