In the final instant, Machiko steps sideways and cuts. She cuts with all the power of will and spirit. Her sword cleaves through macroplas cowling, through chromed steel and synthleather and flesh and bone and casts a foaming wave of gore and blood across the breadth of the street. A bisected corpse tumbles to the pavement, trailing a broad smear of red. A riderless Scorpion flips over its front fork and crashes tumbling down the asphalt.