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silver saucer sailed through the air, hit him squarely in the back of the head, and felled him like a tree. He dropped at Dagmar’s feet, unconscious. Dagmar looked in complete surprise at the VW hub-cap spinning in triumph on the pavement outside the store.
    “Hey!” she said, to no one in particular.
    And then the streets were full of running figures, scores and then hundreds of Indonesian men. Some carried sticks, some carried signs, and a few carried what looked like machetes.
    The demonstration that she had seen in the public square a short while ago had become a riot.
    The source of the metallic clanging sounds became apparent. The runners were banging on the hoods, roofs, and sides of the cars as they ran past them. Banging with their sticks or their fists. The trapped drivers stared at them in horror as they streamed past.
    There were shrieks as a windshield caved in.
    At the sound of the breaking glass, a wave of adrenaline seemed to pick Dagmar right up off the floor. The unconscious boy’s legs stretched out into the street, and she couldn’t lower the screen with him in the way. She knelt by him, hooked both hands in his arm-pits, and dragged him clear.
    Then she looked up to see one of the rioters bent to enter the store. He was a small man with a goatee, a bare chest, and a cloth headdress. He carried a knife as long as his forearm.
    He looked just like one of the men in the store’s heroic action vids.
    Dagmar gave a yell, which startled the rioter. He drew back, then got a better look at Dagmar and took another step toward her.
    Dagmar yelled again, jumped to her feet, and ran for the back of the store. She found a toilet cabinet and slammed the door shut and shot the little bolt. The cabinet was a little over three feet deep, with a discolored, streaked hole in the ground, a tank of water, and a battered green plastic scoop. Dagmar looked for an exit and saw a screened window too high to reach. She then looked for a weapon and saw a mop and bucket. The mop was too long to use in the confined space, so Dagmar snatched up the plastic scoop and held it like an ice pick as she faced the flimsy door and its flimsy lock.
    In the store were a series of crashes and thuds. The music out front stopped playing. More crashes. Footsteps. Then silence.
    Dagmar stayed braced behind the toilet door, scoop raised, ready to gouge whatever flesh she could out of an attacker. The air in the tiny room was hot and rank, and sweat dripped from Dagmar’s chin, patting down onto her silk shirt. Through the open window overhead she could hear, faintly, the poink-whong-bang of the rioters hitting the cars on the street.
    But no sounds any closer than that.
    She thought about calling for help on her cell but had no idea what number to call, and rather doubted she’d ever reach anyone who could help her. Even if she reached someone, she had no idea where in the city she was or what the street address of the store was.
    Dagmar stayed in the toilet for another fifteen minutes, until the sounds of the riot had faded completely. Then—scoop poised to stab any intruder—she flicked the little bolt open and slowly pushed open the door.
    Nothing happened.
    Carefully she leaned out of the cabinet to scan the store. She could see almost the entire room. The kid still lay on his face near the front door. Several of the plasma screens had been smashed, and others carried away. Brilliant sunlight shone through the narrow windows and the open door.
    Dagmar crept out of the cabinet and approached the front. What she could see of the street was empty: the cars and trucks had dispersed. No human beings were visible. The kid on the floor was still breathing and had bled freely from a cut on his scalp, though it looked as if the bleeding had stopped. The mesh screen was still partly deployed.
    She stepped over the boy, looked left and right—smashed windows, broken bicycles, a Honda burning, sending up greasy black smoke—and then grabbed the