The warning hit Kael half a second before the shot.
Not a sound. A change in the air against his skin, the specific pressure shift his nerves had learned in Twelve-North corridors when a stun round was about to announce itself.
He moved.
"Down," he said.
Rin dropped before the word finished.
The bolt tore through the space where her chest had been and hit the holo-billboard at the edge of the plaza. The ad glitched, colors running, then burst into static.
People screamed.
Kael hit the ground hard enough to knock the air from his lungs and rolled behind the base of the dry fountain. Concrete scraped his palms. The taste of dust and ozone. He had time to note, in the detached way his mind worked under fire, that the shot had come from above and to his left, building edge, and that whoever was firing had good elevation.
Another bolt hit the stone. Chips stung his cheek.
Rin slid in beside him.
"Sniper," she said.
