The zombies converge towards the center of the city, to a tall building where Kubo has been fiddling with several machines, tapping out various rhythms on the body of his shamisen, while fellow Legionnaires engage the zombies. Rich and Grif's race has pulled them into bottleneck after bottleneck, and the chase has given Kubo all the time he needs . . .

To prerecord his percussion lines.

Surrounded by a circle of looper machines, microphone clipped to the collar of his robes, Kubo raises his bachi. He's been given a job only the Legion Bard can do - and he's about to do it to the best of his considerable ability.

He strikes the electrically charged strings of his shamisen. A wave of sound slams into the zombies, rippling out through the city, a physical and powerful force, perfectly pitched.

"If you must blink!"

Kubo's voice fills the city.

He raises his bachi, holds his foot over the pedal of the first of the loopers. He doesn't need to save his voice for this performance. He'll only need it just this once. And no zombie in the city must be left without knowledge of where to come to be eliminated.

He howls at the top of his lungs.

"DO IT NOW!"

The initial note when he brings his bachi down again strikes the robo zombies, pushing them back as before, resolving suddenly into a riff familiar to those who know classical Earth music.

He engages the first looper's prerecorded percussion and the cover really gets going.