In the gloomy dark no one paid much attention to a solitary runner wearing unlit clothes who chose to run along the ground without gymnastics. All around were vaulting, wheeling, flick-flacking urban athletes. For a moment, as he sprinted around the side of the theatre, he lost his target – light and movement, runners everywhere – and then he poured on the speed – there – and in a moment he had her.
Come on, run.
Her motion matched the gait of the figure in the surveillance logs, and she appeared to be doing the same as him: running without worry about spectacular moves, in her case because she was fleeing. Pointing his phone like a gun as he ran, he redfanged the target code – got her – and immediately the back of her shirt began to pulse pink like a strobing Barbie, a beacon impossible to miss.
Tumbling figures were all around and someone must have guessed what he was up to because – "Got him!" – there was a grip on his sleeve – no – and he slammed into the gekrunner instead of pulling away, twisting and using momentum, and then he was free – run hard – as another grabbed and Josh's kick scythed low – "Ah shit!" – taking out the knee, tipping Josh forward but he fell into a sprinting step and continued – faster – then he was pouring on the speed – push it – as his assailants fell behind.
The concrete ramp sloped into darkness, the pedestrian underpass leading to Cardboard City, its walls alight with gekrunners in sparkling shirts. Josh looked up – move – as one of them dropped like a hunting spider, arms clamping hard around him – roll out – so he dropped forward as if falling, clasping the gekrunner to go with him, managing to hook an ankle – got it – and they went over together, a combat sambo classic, concrete-nightsky-concrete filling his vision – move on – hearing the cry and soft crunch, then he was rolling up from the prostrate body, running once more, looking for his target.
Flashing pink, ahead.
Sprint now.
Still on the downslope with the girl further below, obstacles everywhere, dodging homeless folk and gekrunners, gaining on her now because this was fellrunning of a kind, the art of accelerating where other runners would slow to avoid injury, definitely gaining – getting close – and into the underpass, tearing past cardboard-box homes, faces open or blank with confusion at the blazing, lit-up gekrunners bounding and somersaulting all around. Then he was into the circular plaza that was below ground level, open to the night sky, dominated by the cracked and blackened cylinder of the Imax Ruin.
The girl jerked left, altering course.
Spotted me.
Possibly, but this area was more open, and by turning a right angle she opened up the possibility that he would follow the hypotenuse of the triangle, cutting her off, and perhaps she did not understand evasion, but she was a gekrunner and they had good instincts and – there he is – because the boy Richard was up ahead, and Opal had changed direction to draw pursuit away, but it wasn't going to work. He poured on the speed, reaching to grab the stumbling boy.
"I'm a fr-"
Something massive barrelled into him as he twisted, arcing back with his right elbow – a thud of impact – continuing the spin to slam a knee into the liver, then haul the head down to concrete – no, not to kill – and redirect the flow, spinning the attacker to ground as – another one coming – and the second gekrunner was fast, a woman, whipping a kick toward him – no – as he slammed his palm-heel into her spleen and spun her aside, leaping forward and hooking his hand to grab – got you – and then he had the boy, his target.
The gekrunners were not finished because three of them were making a spectacular run sideways along the curved wall – you have to be kidding – and he got ready for their hurtling approach as a foot slipped, a gek-gauntlet struck concrete at the wrong angle, and then the gekrunner was tumbling, arms flailing, striking another, arcing through the air and trying to twist out but too late as her head struck concrete with a crack of sound, stopping everything.
No.
Everything but the second gekrunner toppling, her balance thrown off, shirt pulsing pink as she dropped, hitting sideways and rolling to stillness.
Next to Josh, the boy was frozen, not running anywhere; and the third gekrunner, a male, had halted, clinging to the wall. Beyond, on the far side of the circular atrium, a beautiful flow of light continued: the majority of the gekrunners into their night run as planned, oblivious to the chase, the tragedy splayed upon concrete.
A dark puddle spread, slow and viscous, beneath the first gekrunner's head.
Blood looks black at night.
Then Josh's phone was out, and he was stabbing the emergency icon. "Ambulance, this location, now. One probable fatality, one possible. Gekrunners, made a long fall. There are others injured."
He disabled the normal misdirection, so they could read his coordinates in clear.
Shit. So stupid.
As the third gekrunner inched down to the ground, others drew closer, switching off their shirt displays, congregating around their fallen friends. All were silent. One knelt to check pulse and breathing, taking care not to shift the head. Beside Josh, Richard was trembling.
Within minutes sirens burped and whooped. Green strobing light preceded the arrival of a paramedic motorcycle, manoeuvring with care amid the makeshift cardboard homes, rolling down to the flat ground. Overhead, more lights reflected off the Ruin, as an ambulance circled the roundabout, looking for a way in.
Richard whispered: "Opal."
A gurney came rattling down a ramp, pushed by the ambulance crew. Their motorcycle colleague was already snapping support-braces around Opal, and spraying fast-foam to stabilise her. Then the ambulance guys slid a thin pallet beneath her, before raising her onto the gurney. As they turned, the back of their jumpsuits revealed a cheerful bulldog symbol and the slogan "Timmy Is Your Friend". From some children's hospital.
Richard gave a cry, then shuddered into stillness.
What the hell?
Josh kept his hand on the boy's shoulder.
The paramedics conferred. Then the ambulance guys pushed the gurney, now with Opal, back the way they had come. The motorcyclist returned to the other fallen body. After less than a minute, the siren whooped overhead as the ambulance sped into motion.
So the other gekrunner was dead.
Perhaps Richard made the connection, too, because he slumped, and Josh had to move fast to catch him. Then, carrying the fourteen year-old in his forearms, he backed away. Soon the police would arrive. Moving softly, he circled around the back of the Imax Ruin, took an exit ramp directly opposite the accident site, and went up to ground level, checking for spycams, his phone polling and disabling, getting him clear.
Finally, down a narrow street behind an ornate Victorian red brick building, he put Richard down, feet first. The lad swayed then stood there, like a window mannequin.
Josh thumbed his phone and raised it.
"Hi," said Suzanne's image. "How are y-?"
"I need you now."
She might have blinked.
"All right."
[TWENTY-TWO]
Big Tel's taxi came to a halt, and the nearside passenger door opened, the interior light revealing Suzanne. Josh swept Richard up and lifted him inside. Suzanne settled Richard in place, strapping him in. Tel's hands flickered across the dashboard, checking surveillance.
"He's almost catatonic," said Suzanne. "What happened?"
"Bad accident, one fatality, another hurt badly. She's a friend of his. He saw it happen."