13'Sao-La
And as chivero, he started the play.
13'Sao-La turned to face the purchasing counter. He nonchalantly shook hands with the
agent-for-trade to put his volatile fake-identity in this place and time. Then, still apparently
casual, he gandered the proprietor. Confident of his audience, he went for Shock:
He jerked back. He dropped the amphora. He scrubbed his hands on his pants legs. "I had no
idea!" he shouted angrily. "Your kind don't touch what I use. Your kind leave disease. Your kind
soil my life. Your kind—" He choked with rage and stepped back again. He nudged ribs with his
elbow and leaned into them. He jostled that Voiceless aside, sensing a cascade of collisions, a
domino of pain and intrusion and insult. Objections and apologies flew.
The proprietor, outrage painting red high on his pallid cheeks, glared back and slapped his
agent-for-trade closed.
13'Sao-La thundered, "I must wash!" and tore a path through the crowd with rough, pinwheeling
arms. On the outskirts, the Voiceless lulled, stunned by his outrageous breach of etiquette. Like
pushing through a stand of mannequins. He turned on them and completed Control over their
reactions. Posed in the narrow entrance, he bellowed, "Fools! Open your eyes! Throw away the
patterns of Byukan-Hamil. Reveal your own identity; do not swallow it. Seize your differences; do
not gloss them. Stand free! Destroy their kind!"
Two other voices pierced the hubbub. On the left, his golpe shrilled with simulated fright: "Your
kind scared my kids, insulted my wife!" Followed by a surprised cry of pain. On the right, his
topador shouted angrily: "Your kind don't belong here. I'll drive you away!" A sickening crunch
of bone spurred a wave of shock and revulsion.
The two strikers of his triad started to Destroy. They sortied through the crowd, scattering
epithets and blows. And the Voiceless joined in, feeding on rage and fear or defending against
their effects. Cries of "Your kind" rocketed out of the seethe like ugly, sulfurous fireworks.
Score! Not a yachuach, not the tlaxtli coup de grƒce that he used to specialize in, but even
better: a play laid out and executed as a team, tactics planned together, tactics improvised
apart, focused on a single objective. Glorious!
Gloating, 13'Sao-La turned away to his next task, looking out for Ruleskeepers. The Governor
wanted to know how quickly the anshin responded. The Kata-for-Delivery demanded the report.
13'Sao-La didn't expect soon, not according to their schedules and alarm system, but he checked
anyway. He predicted that his golpe and topador would inflict significant pain before he had to
call them away. Yet he stepped smartly out of the doorway and looked.
Off to his left, the promenade sprawled wide and swarming with shoppers. Normal, expected. He was
turning away when a surge caught his eye. He glanced toward it. Three constables suddenly
appeared, urgently shouldering their way toward him. He spun in the other direction. More
promenade curved out of sight. An outside entrance glared with full sunlight — broken abruptly as
more — two, no, four more — constables plunged through it, quick, alert, armed with dreamsticks.
