Metallic teeth grated each other as the shaft pivoted. Its pylon aimed down Bruen Street, every ring alight with hateful amber. Its electric hum took a deep breath.

Yaya’s skin crackled, the air stinging with heat. She shuffled toward the nearest brick wall and curled into a ball at its foundation, poised on the toes of her shoes.

Thunder screamed across the night. A yellow sword of light slashed overhead, peeling bricks far over Yaya’s head. Debris rained down on her in a white and red cloud. She scuttled away, dust coating her suit and stroking her throat. She started coughing, eyes stinging. Above her, someone was screaming.

Magenta’s voice slid through the din. Blood on them. They want me dead.

They want you dead.

Yaya wanted to calm Magenta, but an electric hum choked the words in her throat. The death machine’s rings bloomed again with light. Its pylon now aimed her way while charging, the glow encircling it, an amber iris to a steel gray pupil.

The death machine ramped faster this time, its engine warm.

She scrambled on all fours and then onto her belly at the sidewalk’s edge.

Her suit scraped pavement as she crawled beneath a slender parked car. The friction made her chest ache, but there wasn’t time to seek better shelter. She wasn’t sure shelter existed from that thing.

Thunder screamed again. This time she felt the sword of light, its terrible fiery heat all around her, choking her in a different way from dust and noise, the air too dry to breathe.

The car ruptured. One tire burst, its air blowing against her side. She dragged herself out just as the undercarriage snapped apart and its steel frame heated to dripping molten slop. Fire raked across its seats, dashboard, and hood.

No more time for subtle escape. Yaya dodged into the street and crossed before the steel frame burst, shattering nearby car windows and setting off every alarm down the block. Pedestrians huddled against trees or dashed mad for an unlocked building. As if that would protect them.

The death machine’s yellow lights curled around half a dozen lined-up silhouettes. They wore gas masks, same as Doc and her team, and carried weapons that Yaya couldn’t make out. She didn’t want to, either. This was as close as they would get. She turned around again and headed for Elm.

Cop tanks crawled behind a solid line of cops. Armored uniforms shimmered in the tank lights, each face hidden under hard, expressionless masks.

Yaya couldn’t see what they held any better than the ABP agents’ weapons, but at least she would understand them. Nightsticks, teargas, pistols with live rounds. The cops were ready for her,

Every muscle in her body sighed with exhaustion. “I’m not in the mood.”