Struggling to her boots, Silver saw the flashing knives converge on her and raised her arms to protect her face. The whirling blades broke by the dozen against the armor of the Jym suit, the blades careening off to ricochet among the machinery on either side of the moving belt. Proceeding past the broken shredders, the Jym suits were whisked through a thundering curtain of steaming water and came out the other side into bright lights. As their faceplates dripped clear, they saw a score or more of chairs lining the moving belt, a double line of people, norms and metas, young and old, all wearing stained jumpsuits and hairnets, the knives in their hands paused in the act of chopping off the heads and tails. Further down the line, one side was sorting the filleted bodies into different boxes. The other group was separating the heads from the tails onto conveyor belts going in different directions.