A flash of neon catches the edge of the blade as it flicks from its sheath in the downpour. The last breath she takes never reaches her blood, as it spills back out into the night from her ruptured lung. She does not see the face of her killer, just the holograms on the monoliths, as she coughs blood and falls into the cold.
A flash of neon catches the edge of the blade as it flicks from its sheath in the downpour. This time she lunges forward and grabs at the knife in the killer's grip, only for her palm to be shredded in the struggle. She feels the rip of an artery in her neck. As she falls to the concrete, she lands on a broken green bottle which catches her eye and darkness engulfs her.
A flash of neon catches the edge of the blade as it flicks from the sheath in the downpour. She ignores the advance of the killer to stoop low and grab a broken green bottle. She hurls it at the killer's face as she rises and uses the moment he screams to wrestle the knife from his distracted grasp. She tears his face and neck to ribbons, so much that she never gets a good picture at what he looked like.
The chip in her temple is burning with the exertion of running so many simulations of the immediate moment in nanoseconds. But she is alive and the killer is not. She cuts the credit chip from his wrist to make it look like a robbery, washes her hand in a neon soaked puddle, and disappears into the lashing rain.
Paddy Dobson
11th September 2022