Getting out of the city was a nightmare. Panic radiated out from the square like a tidal wave, and they were trying to outrun it. The mayhem was fueled by the trid broadcasts from on-the-spot camera crews expecting to be showing the proud Doge to his people. The drunkenness of the carnival added to the propensity for hysteria, and the lurid trid report of the blood spirit even had wild rumors of the return of the Red Death and numerous variants on the same theme circulating within minutes like wildfire through a tinder-dry forest in August. Venetians and tourists were running everywhere. In their costumes and masks they made the streets, bridges, and canals of the city look like a labyrinth peopled by the escaped, deranged inmates of an immense asylum.