end titles over the opening scene

meg green’s mean city streets don’t know the rhythm of her stride. they’re just pavement. they’re broken in places, busted by vandalism.

vandalism. that’s the new term they’re using. a news-friendly and less panic-inducing word for a blast that took chunks out of buildings, gouged out the roadways.

maybe the ground does shake under her loafers, her heavy shoulders. the local cops on the scene don’t look like their world is moving when her badge flashes. she stands tall as half of ‘em and doesn’t look half as shaken. interplanetary safety regulation. urban security division. euphemism on euphemism. her eyes don’t say much at all, but the corner of her mouth draws up around the words like they have a stench to them.

not much smells once you’re used to tar and silicone and crime scenes made of ash and spattered insides. once a local, a rookie, took notice.

seeing a live-eyed one, inspector green briefly inclined her head and nodded just once (just a little).

all-angles-- elbows and face, knees and ways-- and with hair sharply pulled back into a mourning tail, angie stepped forward and looked up. “cadet martin, ma’am.” she said. even her uniform was crisp. it contrasted against the inspector’s rumpled street clothes, haphazardly short-chopped hair. she saluted anyway.

the interregs had no such tradition and inspector green simply stared. her lip twitched. it could have been in entertainment or annoyance.

“cadet.” she said in her steady, dry drone. “I’m going to req you for transport. where’s the nearest art supply store?”

angie blinked. “three cubes down, three up. there’s a shopping center there. ma’am.”

“I’m stealing the kid here to go check out a lead!” called out inspector green to the chief man on the scene.

“at an art supply place?” he scoffed around his handkerchief. He was red-eyed. In a way so were they all.

the inspector paused. “take a good whiff of the air.” she rumbled. “this one was old-fashioned.

the city streets have no marks from meg green, but angie sees an impression left in the airway guard poles as they careen in and out of traffic. green’s whole upper body is out the window and twisted to face behind them and shots are pinging as they hunt for an alley to duck into and take this out of the crowded roadways. there’s fifty gallons of volatile pigments and five quarts of solvent they seized sloshing in the back of the cruiser.

“hey, ki-- martin!” green shouts hoarsely. “I’m gonna need a favor from you, no time for questions!”

“ma’am,” says angie.

“drop the engine out when I give signal. we are gonna crash.”

“yes ma’am.”

vehicle full of explosives and ground a way’s away under the unsteady and unsettling burnout of the nets below,

she did.

but maybe that’s the wrong place to start the story. green hails from an awful small town--