The traffic slowed again. He looked ahead. Red traffic lights, another junction. A crossroads, the road he was on meeting a wider street, buses and trucks zooming along it.

And an illuminated sign above the pavement. The entrance to a subway station.

“Hold on!” He pulled hard on the brake levers, the moped juddering as it sloughed off most of its speed. One end of the handlebars scraped against a car, prompting a howl of protest from its driver. Chase ignored him and guided the bike between the traffic until he reached the roadside, then bounced it up over the curb. People stared in disbelief, only jumping out of his way when they realized that he really was going to ride along the pavement. The buzzing whine of the moped’s little engine echoed back at him as they whipped past shop fronts, the street still busy even at night.

“They’re catching up!” Sophia warned. With traffic on the other side of the road stopped by the lights, their pursuers now had a clear run.

The crossroads was just ahead, traffic speeding through it. The subway entrance yawned on the corner. “This’ll be bumpy!” warned Chase. He stood up on the moped’s running boards. Sophia did the same, still clinging to his back.

Concrete steps pounded beneath the bike as they dropped into the underpass. Pedestrians tumbled after them.

The moped landed on the flat floor with a bang. Chase grimaced as he was slammed down onto the thinly padded seat, but he forced back the pain and twisted the throttle to weave through the throng. He found the button for the horn and pushed it. The sound was as weedy and annoying as the engine note, but it did the job, encouraging people to dive out of his path.

To his relief, directly ahead was a ramp up to the other side of the crossroads. He gunned the engine and sounded the horn in a frenzied staccato rhythm to clear his path. “You all right back there?” he called out to Sophia.

“Oh, it’s just like old times!” she replied sarcastically.

Chase grinned. “You love it really!” he said as they reached street level again. He looked back for their pursuers.

The first car surged across the lanes of traffic on the main road, barely avoiding collisions with several cars as they locked their brakes. The second cleared the first lane-

The hulking flat nose of an articulated truck smashed into its side. The car flipped and crashed down on its roof, the passenger compartment pounded flat in an explosive halo of shattered glass.

“One down!” Chase crowed. In the mirror he saw the truck jackknife and come to a stop, blocking the junction. At least nobody else would be able to follow…

Except the guy on the bike. The single headlight picked its way through the slew of stationary cars before accelerating after him.

With traffic behind stopped, Chase’s side of the road was clear for the next few hundred yards. He swung off the pavement and sped up.

But the first car and the bike now had a clear road too, and they could go much faster. Headlights filled his mirror.

He couldn’t outrun them. Which meant he had to out-maneuver them.

A dark alley between two buildings, coming up fast-

Chase didn’t need to tell Sophia to hold on-she’d already guessed what he was about to do and tightened her grip around him. He turned the bike as hard as he could, the handlebars shuddering in his grasp. The running board rasped against the road, the sudden drag almost pitching them both off.

Chase yanked at the handlebars. The moped lurched, centrifugal force pulling its riders upright again. He fought with the steering, trying to bring the bike back into a straight line before it rammed into the wall.

The protruding mirror hit the brickwork and snapped off, spinning past him. But the moped itself missed the wall by the barest fraction of an inch.

He straightened out. Older buildings rose on each side, a jumbled mishmash of houses abutting commercial properties. The alley itself was strewn with rubbish, empty boxes and pallets, even washing lines hanging across it.

Light shone down the alleyway from behind, shadows stretching away in his path. Chase looked back. The car had also made the turn and was coming after them. The bike shot past the alley, undoubtedly intending to turn at the next junction to intercept them.

He twisted the throttle, but with two passengers the moped couldn’t match the car’s acceleration. Its engine roared behind them-

Sophia shrieked as the car nudged the back of the moped, and even Chase let out an involuntary yelp. He regained control, but the car bumped them again, harder. The top of the wooden box popped open, flapping on its hinges.

“What’s in the box?” Chase shouted.

“What?”

“In the box! Is there anything in it?”

Sophia twisted around. “Food!”

“Throw it at them!”

He expected her to ask why, but instead she did as she was told and lobbed the contents of the box at the car like paper grenades. Bags of cooked rice and noodles burst open on its windshield, spraying stickily across the glass.

The car dropped back, the driver’s vision impaired. Chase glanced at it. The wipers started up, smearing food across the windshield, but it would only take a few seconds to clear.

He looked ahead again, saw a washing line spanning his path, the alleyway narrowing beyond it…

Sophia was out of ammo. “Eddie!”

“Hang on!” He reached up with one hand as the moped shot beneath the line, plucking a hanging shirt from its pegs and tossing it back over Sophia’s head. It landed on the car’s windshield, sticking to the glutinous mess and blocking the driver’s view.

Chase swerved the moped over to the left to avoid a messy stack of barrels and broken planks. The car followed, the man in the passenger seat spotting the obstruction and yelling for the blinded driver to avoid it-

Only to smash into the corner of a building jutting out from the other side of the alley.

The car came to an abrupt and terminal halt. Both men were catapulted through the windshield in a shower of glass and blood.

“Should’ve worn their seat belts!” Chase said as he reached the end of the alley and made a sharp turn back into traffic, once again heading southeast. He raced between more slow-moving cars and buses, the stink of fumes stinging his nostrils. “Not that far to go now-”

The motorbike suddenly swept out from an adjoining street and cut in front of them. The rider grabbed for Sophia.

“Shit!” Chase braked hard, swerving away from the bike and passing in front of a van. It didn’t stop in time, hitting the wooden box and ripping it from its mounts to smash apart on the road. Out of control, the moped skidded and crashed into the side of another car. Chase’s elbow slammed against it hard enough to crack the window.

“Eddie, keep going!” Sophia cried. The bike’s rider, one of Yuen’s uniformed security guards, waved a gun to make the traffic stop and let him through.

Grunting in pain, Chase shoved the battered moped off the car and looked for an escape route. There was nothing in sight. One side of the road was occupied by a shopping mall, all illuminated billboards and glaring neon.

The man on the bike was now in their lane and riding towards them, gun raised-

Chase revved the engine and turned the sputtering moped towards the mall, weaving between other vehicles. He heard the crunch of a collision behind him. The guy on the bike would be forced to go around the accident, but it would only take him a few seconds to catch up.

Glass doors ahead. He hoped they were automatic-

They parted just before the moped reached them, little more than an inch of clearance on each side of the handlebars as they zoomed through. Shoppers dived out of their path.

“He’s still coming!” Sophia warned. Chase didn’t need to look back to know that the motorbike rider had entered the mall as well, the sound of the bike’s engine an echoing roar under the shrill stutter of his own ride.