15

Static exploded on the left side of my vision, spilling into my right and feeling like it was sizzling down my spine. The pain drove me to one knee.

“Not now!” I grunted, then cursed.

Michaels turned.

I rushed him, tackling him as I screamed at the unfair fucking universe. We hit the ground so hard, we bounced. I used the momentum to get to my feet. With no loss of movement, I slammed into Olathe. He flew backward into the street and was nearly hit by a car.

Horns honked. “Watch where you're falling, you dumb ass!” a driver shouted, shaking his fist out of a window.

“That’s Cain!” Crank shouted from nearby.

Briggs roared something else that I didn’t quite make out because I was already moving into my next action.

Fights like this happened in a matter of seconds. It felt like we had been at it for minutes, or even hours. Michaels and Olathe came to their feet and rushed me, impressing me with their teamwork. I had to leap sideways to get clear of them, kicking Michaels in the knee.

He twisted to minimize the damage, but I saw the mixture of anger and pain on his face.

Olathe rushed around him. “Try punching me out when I’m ready for it, you son-of-a-bitch!”

Twisting in place, I drove a back kick into his sternum, sending him into the street again. There were no cars to almost hit him this time.

I barely saw the Greendale contract killers because I had bigger problems.

On the upside, Frank was dragging his family into a public bus and screamed for the driver to get the hell out of there.

On the downside, Crank was about to rock my world if I didn’t do something. The man was one of the best individual fighters I’d encountered in the Union military, and that was saying a lot.

The Greendale contract killers also rallied and made a fresh assault. They lacked the training of professional soldiers but seemed ready to fight dirty.

“Now would be a good time to get the fuck out of Dodge,” X-37 snapped.

“What, no warning beep? How rude,” I said as I sprinted into traffic, causing cars to hit their brakes and swerve.

Crank out-ran the others, closing the gap between us.

I reached the opposite sidewalk, stepping onto a bus stop bench and bounding over it rather than weave between pedestrians waiting there. A couple shouted at me and others laughed, apparently oblivious to the fight that had happened just across the street.

“You know I’ll catch you!” Crank shouted, sounding out of breath but determined.

“Don’t slow down, Reaper Cain,” X-37 warned. “He’s still gaining on you.”

I dashed into an alleyway and poured on the speed. This was a dangerous choice. If I came to a dead end or if he proved to be faster than I anticipated, I’d wind up fighting him until his partner caught up.

And I doubted his partner was far behind, maybe a few seconds at best.

A chain-link fence materialized in the gloom. Trash littered the area near it, but nothing solid enough to serve as a ladder. Leaping into the air, I grabbed the cheap barrier halfway to the top and scrambled higher.

Crank hit the fence about the time I was swinging over the top and tumbling to the other side. After tucking and rolling, I came to my feet and ran toward an intersection. The walls were so close together here that I could almost touch them and there wasn’t much light. A murky yellow ambiance glowed from one window where a man and woman argued.

A shuttle streaked high above the buildings, engines reversing to slow for some nearby spaceport. Crank cursed. Behind him, Briggs shouted at me to stop or face the consequences.

I turned the next corner, searching desperately for a way out of the alley maze. These buildings had been designed as a self-contained neighborhood with walkways between them and tiny courtyards seemingly placed at random. What I saw was trash piled up in corners and laundry hanging out of windows. And hungry dogs. And the occasional homeless person scooting deeper into temporary shelters that smelled like piss and alcohol.

“How about a little help, X?” I grunted, getting winded and wondering if Crank was ever going to give up. He sounded like he was dying but just kept coming. His labored breathing was animal rage personified.

“Relax, Reaper Cain,” X-37 advised.

“Relax!” I turned another corner, not entirely sure I wasn’t moving in a circle.

“You will come to a street after the next left turn,” X-37 promised.

“Fucking thanks for the last-minute tip,” I gasped. “I was about to turn right.”

The alley opened onto a busy street with cars parked seemingly chaotically. There had been a minor accident. The drivers stood near cops filling out accident forms on beat-up tablets.

I climbed into the first car I came to, tapping at a palm reader. X-37 could give me a bypass code if we had time. Fortunately, the driver had been too lazy to disable the security protocols. It started immediately, electric motors coming to life.

“X, how do I turn off the auto-drive?” I asked.

“There is no auto drive on this vehicle. You made an excellent choice for an escape vehicle,” X-37 said, continuing with some other details I ignored.

I steered into the street and raced through an intersection, narrowly avoiding cross traffic. The rearview screen showed Crank stealing his own ride—some kind of delivery vehicle that looked like it had been involved in the fender bender.

Cranking the wheel, I drove through on-coming traffic for half a block, then moved onto a one-way street heading the direction I needed to go. Ideally, I would abandon the car near the diner, then go after Elise.

A booming crash sounded behind me. I checked the screen and saw that Crank had slammed a vehicle out of his way, causing it to spin through an intersection.

“I think he chose an even better vehicle. That thing looks rugged,” I said.

“It has the weight and mass to push smaller vehicles aside. You have three ways to defeat his pursuit: raw speed, cutting through narrow alleys, or staying ahead until he accumulates enough damage to disable the van,” X-37 said.

“Are you enjoying this?” I asked.

“I’m a limited AI without emotion,” X-37 pointed out.

“You sound like you’re enjoying it,” I said, swerving as a car came close to hitting me in an intersection. Moments later, I found the traffic ahead of me stalled.

I pushed the nose of the small vehicle between lanes and accelerated, scraping the cars on both sides of mine. Horns honked. Men and women cursed and shook their fists at me.

I took out a cigar and stuck it in the corner of my mouth. “Piss off, you non-driving fucks.”

“Road rage is one of the major causes of accidents in Zag City,” X-37 warned.

“No shit?” I bumped one more vehicle hard enough to move it sideways, then raced into the clear street ahead of the traffic jam.

Behind me, Crank was taking a different approach, slamming vehicles ahead of him until there were too many to push through. He turned onto the sidewalk, sending a park bench into the air and causing pedestrians to dive for cover.

The sound of police sirens converged on the area. I caught a glimpse of them on the next street over.

“Their dispatch system is old,” X-37 informed me. “They are several seconds behind events. That won’t last. You should have a plan to deal with local law enforcement in the near future.”

“Not something I’m looking forward to,” I said, sliding around a corner and looking for a place Crank wouldn’t be able to drive his larger vehicle.

Behind me, the scene was chaos. Horns blared. People got out of their cars and yelled at each other. Smoke filled the air as hover police cars and an ambulance siren added to the confusion.

I drove on hoping I looked inconspicuous.

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