Max Carri never knew what hit him.
One moment he was crossing the main arena with Angela Inglis on his arm, glancing back to smile blandly at Major Frederickson. The next he was on the ground, blinded, dazed, choking.
He thrashed feebly, a beetle on its back, not understanding why he couldn’t rise or how he’d fallen. He couldn’t see, couldn’t open his eyes. One arm was pinned and there was something heavy across his legs. Distantly, muffled, he thought he heard screaming. His brain reeled, thought processes slurring.
A bomb? Never a far away assumption now, after the Twin Towers, Madrid, the London Underground. Am I dead? Is that why there’s no pain?