"Hey!" said Lupus.
        Nobody answered him. It was almost as if he didn't exist. He unholstered his sidearm, and automatically checked the charge in its corrosion cells, just as he had done ten thousand times on the shooting range. He leveled the weapon ... hesitated ... then gunned down one of the tourists. The tourist thrashed to fireball and kicked down, jerked, smoked, then lay still.
        The others did not turn a hair, but continued to take photographs.
        Annoyed by this lack of reaction, Lupus

        Then stopped.
        For he could hear breathing.
        It was heavy breathing, the gasping of a hard-laboring athlete, the wrenching air-spasming of a mountaineer enduring high-altitude duress. A pregnant woman heavily into her labor might make such a sound - as might a man locked in a death-wrestle with a crocodile.
        Till now, Guest had been carrying the weight of his sword's nakedness on his shoulder, for the weight of the weapon made it uncomfortable to carry at the challenge. But the ominous, indecipherable threat of that breathing jolted his heart to a stammering run. As the blood-spring impetus of fear shocked his heart to fresh endeavor, he handled his sword as adroitly as if it were no more than a dagger.
        With that sword poised like a knife - held low, with the blade slanting upwards, ready to spear through latticed ribs to the sweat-thump heart - Guest took the darkened stairs at a barefooted sprint.
         Red fire flashed on the blade as he