Impaler drifted in sideways toward an unused section of the dock. Her grapples fired and chewed holes in the evercrete. A couple of them hit rotten patches and tugged loose as soon as they started to crank taut. The hovelolader backed off slightly in a mound of stirred-up water and shredded belaweed. The grapples wound back and fired again. Something behind me wailed. At first, some stupid part of me thought it was Virginia Vidaura finally venting her pent-up grief. A fraction of a second later I caught up with the machine tone of the sound and identified it for what it was - an alarm. Time seemed to slam to a halt. Seconds turned into ponderous slabs of perception; everything moved with the lazy calm of motion underwater. - Liebeck, spinning away from the water's edge, lit spliff tumbling from her open mouth, bouncing off the upper slope of her breast in a brief splutter of embers - - Murakami, yelling at my ear, moving past me toward the grav sled - The monitor system built into the sled screaming, a whole rack of data coil systems flaring to life like candles along one side of Sylvie Oshima's suddenly twitching body - Sylvie's eyes, wide open and fixed on mine as the gravity of her stare drags my own gaze in - The alarm, unfamiliar as the new Tseng hardware, but only one possible meaning behind it - And Murakami's arm, raised, hand filled with the Kalashnikov as he clears it from his belt - My own yell, stretching out and blending with his as I throw myself foward to block him, hands still bound, hoplesessly slow - And then the clouds ripped open in the east, and vomited angelfire. And the dock lit up with light and fury. And the sky fell in.