Abe set the edges of the cutter blades against a bloodied black sock, resists an urge to look away. Just like scissors. “That’s it, right there.” He squeezes the master handles together gently. “Quick now.” There’s no resistance at all to the flesh. Only a little resistance, a slight crunch, as the blades cut through the bone. The footless driver sighs. X slaps a fix on the stump, hands flying, breath whooshing in and out of him as he wiggles around, lifts the driver out, they pull him free of the dash and get him on a street gurney. “Cut that foot free and bring it along,” X says as he runs the gurney to the truck.

“Fuck.” Abe attacks the motor from the front, puts the snips to it and presses together hard as he can; it takes all of his and the teleoperator’s strength to cut the driveshaft in half, but that done he can sink the cutter into the motor and pull it forward by main strength. Then he can get a grip on the driveshaft wall, a tricky maneuver, but he does it and bends the wall back, runs around to the driver’s door, reaches in, yep, there, he can reach in and grab the thing, shoe all full of blood, and here he is running back to the truck with a foot and ankle in his hand. Part of him can’t believe it’s happening. He throws it in back on the bed with its owner, X looks up from his man, “Let’s get this guy to an ER fast.” Abe is in the driver’s seat, seat belt on, off he goes, Mission Viejo’s got a little hospital with a good ER to handle all their swimming casualties, no track now, it’s full speed ahead and X’s sweaty face in the window. “I got him stabilized, I think. He’s looking good.”

“Will they be able to graft that foot back on?”

“Yeah, sure. It’s a clean cut. They could graft your head back on these days.” He laughs. “You shoulda seen the look on your face when you tossed it in to me.”

“Shit.”

“Ha, ha! That’s nothing. On Java once I was carrying a whole leg out, hip down, and damned if it didn’t keep kicking me.”

“Shit.”

“You didn’t feel anything twitching or anything? Ha, ha.…”

“Please, X.”

Abe flies down La Paz and up the tortured curving streets that are supposed to make old Mission Viejo somehow different. To the hospital, onto the ER dock, wheel the guy and his foot inside. Whew. They sit on the dock.