Serpentine Squiggles

J couldn’t get that worker off her mind. A worker, standing over her, those violet eyes gloating with incontestable triumph, that gun roaring with so much electromagnetic power it made her coils quake. A worker. How could she lose to this? But she had lost. More than lost. She was going to die. She was dead. Unless‍—

But it wasn’t enough that a worker had left her about to offer surrender. It had left her speechless.

Or: in which J holds her tongue, and Uzi holds her hostage.