Mitzi turned her head so that her cheek was pressed to the cool glass, and she looked towards the front of the shuttle. A flickering yellow glow in the distance caught her eye, and she thought she could hear quiet, periodic booms. Drums.

“We have experienced an unexpected delay,” a cool woman’s voice said over the speaker system. “Please remain in your seats.”

“Like hell,” Mitzi growled. If the shuttle had stopped because of a protest—and the beating drums made her increasingly certain that was the cause—she could be stuck for hours.

She slipped out of the aisle seating and tried the doors. They were sealed shut and wouldn’t open until the shuttle was docked at the station. A swearword slipped out as Mitzi turned and dashed down the length of the shuttle, towards the emergency exit near its front. The chanting was rapidly growing closer. By the time she’d reached the emergency doors, Mitzi could see the glow of harsh flashlights—used to blind anyone who tried to break up the protest—and hear wild whoops and shrill calls.

The Cymic situation had started the riots, but there was no guarantee that was what the protest focussed on. An air of hysteria was gradually overwhelming the city; more often than not, the riots had no real purpose except for the marginalised, and those who felt they were marginalised, to unleash their frustration.

Mitzi pressed the button to unlock the emergency exit door and wrenched it open. The protesters had gained on her shuttle faster than she’d expected. As soon as she opened the door, hands grabbed her arms and pulled her into the swell of bodies.

“I completely agree with whatever you guys want,” Mitzi yelled then squirmed out of the hands that had a grip on her and began worming through the riot.

It was a colourful, chaotic mess. Many in the crowd had splashed themselves with neon paint or dyes that made their clothes shine in the erratic flashlight beams. The militia were already descending on them, pouring out of side streets to clash with the protesters. The last thing she needed was to be mistaken for a protester and stunned, so Mitzi shied away from them and began pushing through the screaming, aggressive rioters, moving against the flow to stay away from where the two groups were meeting. She heard several quiet snaps as the militia started firing tranquilizer rounds into the crowd. The clash of metal on Perspex followed as the civilians beat their homemade weapons against the militia’s shields.

You made the right choice. Mitzi had reached the edge of the crowd, where the older and less aggressive protesters were watching the action. She glanced back at the riot, which had spilled onto the tracks. That shuttle would have been stuck for ages.

On the other hand, she no longer had transport. As Mitzi jogged through the streets, relieved to leave the enraged yells and tranquilizer snaps behind her, she tried to calculate how much time she had left. Not enough to find another station—besides, with one shuttle delayed, there was no guarantee that the rest of the network was running on schedule. Taxis were expensive, but that was her only chance of getting to Port Four.