Tap Dance Under Fire

The targeting beams glide over the broken asphalt. Three red dots climb up Jade's ankles. She arches her back, breathless from the effort. My heels scrape the rubble of the alley. Uzume whispers her invoice between two of my heartbeats. Your very first flash of anger, sweetheart. The root of the mask. Hand it over. I close my eyes. The memory of a fist slammed on a table, of a burning injustice in the slums of Manille-Drift... ripped away. A molar extracted without anesthesia. The hole empties instantly. I no longer know what I clenched my teeth against that first time. The indignation disappears. What remains is a puppet stripped of its strings. I violently push Jade's arms away. I stumble. I spit a dark clot. — Get out of here. I pivot toward KARTIKEYA.X's firing squad. My crushed knee refuses to bear weight? No matter. I use it as a comical crutch. I throw my hands up, snap my bruised fingers, and start a disjointed tap dance. A macabre vaudeville. Blood spurts onto the pavement with every grotesque jolt. I hop straight toward the barrels, arms dangling, head bobbing like a broken automaton. The grey helmets take a half-step back. Their firing algorithms spin in a void. You don't configure executions for suicidal clowns dancing the Charleston. Their stupor creates the opening. I hear Jade's soles fading behind me. She is running. A first burst fires. My shoulder shatters. I keep hopping, smiling beneath the metal, a punctured marionette amused by an erased joke. The Incoherence demands its due, and Notre Parade concludes in gunpowder. I still waltz under the gunfire. Flesh yields, bones crack. Without the slightest anger to keep me upright, how many seconds can my body maintain the illusion of the Grand Récit before crashing into the mud?