Eddie Mohr could hardly see through the blood and sweat running into his eyes. Somebody had knifed him just outside the bar. It wasn’t a deep cut. The blade had glanced off a rib. But between that and the open gash on his forehead, he was starting to lose more blood than he ought to. He knew, from working on the floor with his old man, how that sort of thing could sneak up on a guy. One of the boners at the stockyard had shivved himself with a knife so sharp he didn’t feel the cut. He bled to death, standing in a lake of his own blood, boning a yearling calf.

The riot wasn’t breaking up, but it was spreading out. Eddie didn’t like the way every breath felt like he was sucking in fire. He’d broken a knuckle on somebody’s head and was limping from a kick to the back of his knee. It was time to get going. The MPs would be here in force soon, breaking heads with their nightsticks. And if they brought any reinforcements from the Multinationals with them, they’d be carrying those electric batons. He didn’t fancy getting one of them stuck in his ass.

He’d lost contact with the other guys. Last he’d seen of Pete Craven the dumb bastard was pounding on a corporal from the engineers. Hundreds of men still fought like that, piled atop each other, gouging, biting, and knocking heads. Nothing like the fights you saw in the movies. He’d fought his way clear by using a trick his old man had taught him. Swinging a bar stool like a club, he’d made as though he was going to brain any bastard who challenged him. When they instinctively threw up their hands, Mohr swung the stool low and fast into their knees, knocking them down like cornstalks. The stool had broken after the fourth time, but by then he was outside.

Smoke and dust, hot ash and the sounds of the riot filled the air.

He felt dizzy and tired.

He started to move off, closing up like a prizefighter and taking a couple of poorly aimed hits on his shoulders and arms. A section of burning wooden sunshade crashed down in front of him. Men jumped away from it, cursing and shouting. Mohr altered his course, heading for a side street that seemed a little quieter.

He turned the corner at a bar called the Black Dog and recognized one of the chiefs from the Leyte Gulf. The guy’s face was badly banged up, but he was pretty sure it was Jose Borghino, or Borgu, or something. He was leaned up against a car, obviously in trouble. Mohr started to move toward him when a man in a torn, bloodied suit crashed into him and knocked him to the ground.

He heard somebody call out, “Get away from the car, asshole.”