Something jerked violently at Hackworth's neck. The woman had tossed a 
noose around him while he'd been staring out the window, and now she was 
hauling him out the door of the bar like a recalcitrant dog. As soon as she 
cleared the doorway, her cape inflated like a time-lapse explosion, and she 
shot twelve feet into the air, propelled on jets of air built
into her clothing somehow—she payed out the leash so that Hackworth 
wasn't hanged in the process. Flying above the audience like the cone of fire 
from a rocket engine, she led the stumbling Hackworth down the sloping floor 
and to the edge of the water. The thrust stage was linked to the water's edge 
by a couple of narrow bridges, and Hackworth negotiated one of these, feeling 
hundreds of lights on his shoulders, seemingly hot enough to ignite his 
clothing. She led him straight back through the center of the Chorus, beneath 
the electric sign, through the backstage area, and through a doorway, which 
clanged shut behind him. Then she vanished.