It seemed like separate gifs to her now. The front of Clovis’s paramedic crotch pack open like a clamshell. The fat plastic pistol clipped in it, same color as the pack. Clovis, who’d shoved her to the side so hard that it really hurt, the pistol in both her hands, arms out shoulder-high, leaning into recoil, the muzzle flash continual, until the magazine was empty, and no more expression on her face than if she’d just been driving, paying serious attention to the road. Another was ejected brass, from Carlos’s rifle, weightless cartridges, floating, like they were frozen by a strobe, but one bounced off the back of her hand, burning her. Another was the thing the squidsuits did as bullets hit them, how whatever stolen color and texture flared, whited out, died, as whoever wore it fell. And Burton on the ground, eyes open, blank, nothing moving but the blood pumping from his thigh with every heartbeat.