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He’d always hated intimacy with strangers. He saw it as a violation of his personal space, but he forced himself to take his mind off the herd and focus on the cops.  
    If I stay put, my odds of getting caught and cuffed are one-in-two. I don’t like those odds. And I’ll never get to Cathren if they get me first.
    He called to Rudra, who had been pushed a few feet farther by the crowd.  
    “I have a plan,” he said. “Follow me!”  
    But in another blink of an eye, Rudra vanished. He’d just been there, and now… Nothing. Arrested or run away, Donovan didn’t know, and he couldn’t waste time trying to find out.
    *   *   *
    Donovan remembered something he used to do as a small child to see the parade pass by: he’d crawl on his hands and knees through the legs of the crowd, past baby strollers and puppies, until at last he’d get to the front of the crowd. There, he would raise his six-year-old body to its full height and be rewarded with a clear view of the parade.
    He initiated Operation Baby Crawl. He felt the whooosh of a police baton through his hair as he dropped to his hands and knees.  
    Now at ground level, he saw mostly the black boots of the cops amid a sea of sneakers and sandals, one or two pairs of heels, and the occasional bare feet.  
    Donovan knew he was vulnerable where he crouched. The cops could easily pluck him from his new position like a cat snatching a mouse from the grass, so he moved swiftly toward a pocket of light to his left.  
    On his hands and feet, he scuffled along, moving from pocket to pocket, taking a few swift kicks in the ribs as he went.  
    Suddenly, just like when he was a little kid, he could dash away from the confusion, on his own if only temporarily. Not looking back, he sprinted toward the now-abandoned gate.  
    The conflict had moved almost into the middle of the street in front of ATELIC now.  
    Donovan scanned the campus to assess the proximity of the nearest cop. Then, suddenly, he broke free, running across the parking lot at full speed.  
    Rudra—somewhere behind him—shouted at him to stop. But stopping meant being overtaken by the crowd.  
    No fuckin’ way.
    Taking full advantage of his sudden freedom, he sprinted to the middle building where he’d last seen Cathren. Voices behind him commanded him to return.  
    Rubber bullets cut through the air all around him.
    In a minute, he’d put a large fuel tank between him and his pursuers.  
    As he ran between parked trucks, he knew that someone, maybe a whole battalion, would be after him. He’d left himself exposed and isolated from the crowd.  
    He’d made himself a target.
    Donovan tried to identify the building where he’d last seen Cathren but they all looked identical. A smaller, three-story building near the back stood out.  
    The building blazed like a furnace, all of its windows blown out from the intense heat. A number of fat pipes, maybe a hundred or so, coiled in and out of the sides of the structure. Black or silver metal of different sizes made it seem as if the building was on life support.
    Donovan looked behind him toward the gate and spotted riot cops pouring in. Off in the distance, more cops packed protesters into trucks by the dozens. These vehicles looked like delivery vans, though Donovan knew they weren’t. It was now or never.
    He took off, staring only at that one building. Then, as he sprinted closer, he focused only at the door where he’d seen Cathren enter. He was only a few yards away, lungs burning as he pushed himself for the touchdown.
    That’s when a peculiar feeling shuddered through his right leg behind the knee. A rubber bullet had hit a reflex point—lucky shot, really. Donovan went down.  
    As he fell, Donovan rolled and slid across the tarmac, ripping his clothes. Dirt and pebbles abraded his skin where the ground sliced it open.
    Before he could reorient himself and jump up to finish his run, Donovan found himself surrounded by cops in riot