I stepped out of the roofless Ram-9. My knuckles were white bone. My one good eye was bleeding from the pressure.
I slid under the rogue masin's front axle, my roof shrieking against its oil pan. At the last second, I popped the Ram-9's emergency ejector bolts—the roof blew off, and I drove out from under the beast like a snake shedding its skin. The rogue masin crashed into the ones behind it. A chain reaction of twisted metal. skacat- city car driving 100 masin
I didn't brake.
I took a long drag.
I flicked the ash.
I pulled into the Outer Fissure depot. Forty-seven masin left. Smoking. Bleeding hydraulic fluid. But alive. I stepped out of the roofless Ram-9
And somewhere in the burning city, fifty-three ghosts of steel kept driving, driverless, toward a destination only I understood. I slid under the rogue masin's front axle,