Invisible hands pluck strings, move muscle, create song— a marionette's control bar held high in the black swell above lighting fixtures. She doesn't want this. She knows how this ends and she doesn't want it.

What effort Carolina puts into shaping herself defiantly, fleeing from the stage and freeing them both, is thwarted. Impossible to know if it's the captive audience, the music or some omnipotent other that moves them. She raises her arm, pantomiming a weapon. No— no, there is a gun in her hand. Another cheap replica.

We don't need you.

We just need your armor.

The sheer volume of her own voice shocks her, projected across stage in female baritone, reverberating inside her costume helmet and driving her eardrums to madness.

With a dramatic and dancerly flourish, Carolina moves toward her prey.