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Wayne steps in front of Wax as the first bullets come down the storm drain from the bend — there is no cover in this canyon, so the right play is to *become* some — and takes the rounds in Wax's place. Bullets, he reflects, just plain hurt; the body doesn't even have the decency to send him into shock. The two of them duck back around the curve and trade theories under fire.

The pair waiting for them is unmistakably a custom-made counter. Wax tells Wayne what he's worked out: after the Set's previous losses, the organisation spiked a handful of its members with stolen powers and trained them specifically to fight Wax and Wayne. The Coinshot up the tunnel — Dumad — can burn his steel in one supernatural Push and Leech anyone he touches. The woman beside him is doing a kind of Wayne impression so bad it makes Wayne wince — inner-city Roughs enclave with a dialect-coach overlay, the parody of a parody.

Their plan: close confines. Wayne catches all four of them inside one of his speed bubbles, dueling canes out, and goes straight at his shadow. The exchange hits like a drumbeat. He gets one hit on her; she gets several on him. He cracks ribs and resets a broken arm in the same motion; she barely flinches when he connects. She slides out of his way in a way that is genuinely good. *Oi*, she protests — when he punctures her parody with the real thing — *that's cheatin'.*

Meanwhile Wax handles his own counter by feel — flings a handful of bullets into the air, drops underneath, and gives Dumad both barrels while the man Pushes on the decoy. The doppelgangers regroup; the fight breaks back into pairs. Wayne takes more punishment than he gives. She is younger than him. Faster than him. Better drilled with the canes. He is better with his powers, but in this concrete tube that does not really matter. He admits to himself, in passing, that this must be what Wax has been feeling for a while now.

Then Wax gets thrown — completely out of Wayne's bubble — and freezes in mid-air with his mistcoat tassels caught around him and his gun hanging from his fingers. *Uh-oh,* Wayne thinks. A spray of coins drops him. Not-him complains that Dumad is hogging her kill. *You're inefficient, Getruda,* Dumad answers, and pins another fistful of coins through Wayne. The names land — *Getruda. Dumad.* — but Wayne has nothing left in his healing reserves to spare and a doppelganger lifting him for the finish.

He tries the truth.

He puts his back to the curved wall, drops his accent, and starts again in something older and broken — the cadence of his earliest memories, the speech he learned at home. *You can't hurt me. Ain't nothin' that can hurt me more than life already has. You can't kill me. I'm already dead. I been dead for years, sister.* People notice accents whether they think they do or not; their brains attach meaning to the tone. Dumad frowns and Pushes harder. The coins inside Wayne tear forward through his back and he lets them; he keeps walking. *Real pain,* he tells them with a wide, terrible smile, *is wakin' up each mornin' knowin' you're worthless. Anythin' you could do to me — that's just a little bit o' fun. Thank you, by the way, for tossin' Wax outta here. That way I got a few moments to have you two all to myself.*

Getruda lowers her canes. Dumad hesitates. Neither of them notices that under the patter Wayne has dropped his speed bubble. From the side, Wax puts a hazekiller round through Getruda's face — the secondary charge blows off half her skull — and a second through Dumad's chest, out his back. The Coinshot doesn't fall. He shoves a grate off the tunnel ceiling, grabs his bloodied partner, and Pushes them both up and out, one with a hole through him that doesn't hurt enough, the other with most of her head missing and possibly dead.

Wax slumps against the wall, breathing hard. They came very close to losing. Wayne uses the last juice in his metalmind to seal the coin wounds, then stops, because the metalmind is almost empty and he has to ration what's left. He sits down on the dry concrete next to Wax and complains about the mud on his clothes, then complains about feeling old, then accuses Wax of *infecting* him with the idea. *You're thirty-nine,* Wax reminds him. *It catches up to you.* *Ideas is infectious. More than diseases.*

A moment of quiet, then Wax looks across at him. *Did you mean any of that?* Wayne looks away. *Nah, of course not.* Wax presses — *Wayne…* — and Wayne kicks the conversation down the road. *Not the time, mate.* They both know they have to keep moving. The Set knows they found this tunnel; if there is a lab at the end of it, it's being cleared out as they sit. Wax heaves Wayne back to his feet. They head deeper in, Wayne muttering about the next part of Ma's story — *the mesa, which is gonna gobble you up* — and reminding Wax, earnestly, to remember to choke it from the inside.