* * *

…Eddy slipped into the carriage in the last moment and the guillotine doors shut with a bang behind his back. A siren howled and the train dashed forward whistling and rumbling, immediately picking up speed. Somebody cried involuntarily, having fallen on the pinned elbow rest. Eddy only smiled – this one would get off at the first or second circle. Or would die. The Subway doesn’t tolerate the likes of him.

Before his eyes flashed the face of that guy there, above – beaten, distorted with pain and despair; and his doglike glance up to a policeman raising his club. It was his own fault – he hadn’t crossed the road in time, while there was a green light – but still…

…The train braked even more abruptly than it had started, but this time nobody hit the needles sticking out from the front wall. Eddy pondered for a moment whether he should go down here, and this pause saved his life. A tall guy in a chequered cowboy-like shirt and blue trousers sitting tight on his hips dashed to the exit – and got himself into a break-mode. The door-leaves flashed and the guy was cut into halves. The blood gushed out, the black maw of the utiliser opened wide in the floor, and the body stumps fell down. The floor closed.

The break-mode works rarely, especially at the first circle, so until the next station one shouldn’t be afraid of dirty tricks. But there he’d have to get off. The strict rule of Death-Riders: one carriage – one stop.

Below the ceiling the ghost-lamps were blinking with lurid light and in this light all of the passengers seriously resembled ghosts. “Most of them actually will be dead soon enough,” thought Eddy. As for Eddy himself, he was not intending to become dead. As well as all the rest, for that matter. Including that guy who had been cut by the break…

Eddy had no time to finish his thought. The train braked at the far end of the station, but their carriage stopped where it was still possible to reach the platform in a jump. Eddy was the first who jumped to the platform, getting over the seven-foot gap without an effort. Almost simultaneously a young lad with a just appearing black moustache landed nearby. Eddy appreciated the accuracy of his movements in passing. A strong rival. You must have your wits about him. Who knows what there is in his pockets.

…The escalator ended abruptly, and a precipice opened behind his feet. Eddy was ready for this. Only a novice can be caught on “the gap”. He threw his body in a spurt over to the neighbour escalator, which was going down. The first circle is over. But this is just warming-up.