Chapter 20: The Thing That Hamlet Does After

The cannon fires at 0743 by the arena's artificial light, and Hamlet is already moving.

He does not decide to move. He has not decided anything. The hand that held Rue's hand releases it with a gentleness that he is not conscious of performing, and then his body is upright, and then his body is in motion, and there is no interval between these things, no gap in which a thought could insert itself and ask whether this is the right response, whether response is even the correct category, whether rightness is a coherent standard to apply to a situation that has no—

He is moving through the catwalk's eastern hatch before Mira can say his name.