The first thirty seconds teach me two things about Turbo Jett.

  One: she's fast. Like, really fast. Gear 2 fast, whatever that means, means she's moving at maybe twice normal human sprint speed. She's gaining ground on me in a manner I would consider "unfair". Which puts her somewhere around Olympic sprinter territory, except she can sustain it longer and take corners without losing momentum.

  Two: she will not shut up.

  "Left turn coming up!" she calls from behind me, her voice carrying that manic energy of someone having the absolute time of their life. "You're gonna want to take it, trust me. Patriot's got units moving to cut off Frankford Avenue."

  I don't trust her. I take the left anyway because the alternative is running straight into a police blockade.

  My sneakers slap against cold pavement. My lungs are already burning - not from exhaustion, that'll take a while, but from the January air freezing the inside of my throat with every gasping breath. The tracker bracelet bounces on my wrist. Behind me, I can hear the weird displacement sound Jett makes when she moves at speed, like air getting shoved out of the way too fast.

  She's gaining.

  I cut right without warning, vaulting over a chain-link fence into someone's backyard. My blood sense picks up the fence before I even see it clearly - there's dried blood on the top rail from where someone cut themselves on the metal years ago, rusty and faint but enough for me to know exactly where to plant my hands.

  "Ooh, parkour!" Jett sounds delighted. There's a metallic clang as she hits the fence at speed and just... bounces over it. No vault, no careful hand placement. Just raw force and trajectory. "You're good at this!"

  "Thanks!" I gasp, already moving. Through the yard, over a low wall, into an alley. "You're good at being annoying!"

  "I know, right? It's like my secondary power! No, wait, my... quarternary power! Second implies two!"

  There's a woman taking out her trash, standing in her doorway. She freezes as I sprint past, then her eyes go wide as Turbo Jett comes pinballing after me, red costume bright even in the darkening evening, skin flushed and starting to glisten with heat-sweat.

  "Call 911!" the woman shouts.

  "We ARE 911!" Jett calls back cheerfully. She laughs like a schoolgirl that just saw a stray puppy.

  I'm already three doors down, cutting through another yard. My blood sense is working overtime - every surface has something on it, dried blood or blood particles in the air or just the general microscopic presence of life that's bled on things over the years. I can feel the texture of the sidewalk before my foot lands, know where the uneven patches are, sense the metal railing on the steps I'm about to jump.

  It's like having cheat codes for parkour.

  Jett doesn't have cheat codes. She just has speed and enthusiasm.

  "So like, real talk," she says, and she's not even breathing hard. I can hear her behind me, close enough that the heat coming off her skin is starting to register. "Did you actually do all that stuff? The stalking, the break-ins? Because between you and me, it doesn't really track with the whole 'reformed hero' thing you've got going on."

  "Didn't do it," I manage, vaulting over a parking meter. "Someone's framing me."

  "Ooh, a frame job! Classic!" Another bounce, another near-miss as her hand swipes past my shoulder. "That's actually way more interesting than you just being bad at retirement. You got any suspects?"

  "I wish. I think the Kingdom," I say, because what the hell, maybe Turbo Jett isn't completely working with Maya Richardson. Maybe she's just an adrenaline junkie doing her job. "Maya Richardson was being impersonated at the Harrisburg hearings by someone else. I have to assume it was them."

  "No shit?" Jett sounds genuinely interested. A grasping hand manages to just barely brush against my clothes. She visibly deflates for a moment, body going from flushed and red back down to tan and Hispanic. She bends down on her knees, sucking in air, steam radiating off of her in waves. "That's pretty sophisticated for a frame-up. Most villains just plant drugs or whatever."

  "Yeah, man. You're telling me," I add, pausing to scope out my surroundings. Just for a split second. I get the impression - confirmed by nothing at all - that Jett isn't a trained military member or whatever. No instincts for that sort of thing. But I'm not looking for her - I'm looking for Patriot. "Hey, you believe me, right? Why are you even chasing me?"

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Law's the law, girlie pop. Can't look bad in front of my employer," she replies, flashing a winning smile. I try to look for something in her face. Something scary. Something frightful. But all I can see is a stray cat chasing a morsel. "If you didn't do it, everything will shake out fine, and the truth will come out. If you did, you're in big trouble. Don't go that way, I want this to last longer."

  "You know your boss is the one I just accused of being a criminal mastermind, right?" I ask, glancing at the red and blue lights swirling down the indicated direction.

  "The arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice. If you're not lying to me, she'll get hers too. In the meanwhile, you can realize how many times I let you go on purpose and come quietly, or we can do this the fun way," she lectures, twisting two small beaded bracelets on her wrists. Friendship bracelets? I file that away for later. "I promise I'll look into it. I'm serious. No Patriot, just you and me. I won't let him lay a finger on you. Really," she tries to assure me, throwing both hands out in front of her. "See? No crossed fingers. Let's shake on it? Please?"

  She sounds sincere, but her sincerity gets me beaten by a turbofascist. He only needs one punch to concuss me, and his reaction time is faster than hers. Doesn't she get that?

  I grin at her. I'm not wearing tooth caps today, so it's all sharp teeth. While she's been busy lecturing me, I've been pacing sideways, strafing to get a car behind me. "What do you think?"

  "Gear two!" She shouts, her skin taking a second or two to charge back up to bright red flush. She slams forward - not running any more, more like shoving herself off the ground like a human bullet - and immediately rams shoulder first into the car with a loud grunt of pain while I start running.

  I take a hard right into a narrow passage between two row homes - barely wide enough for me to fit through sideways. Behind me, I hear Jett curse and then there's a loud *thud* as she hits the corner at speed.

  "Okay, that was rude!" she calls.

  I'm already emerging on the other side, back on the street. There's an old guy walking his dog, and his head swivels as I burst out of the gap between buildings.

  "Sorry!" I gasp as I pass him. "Excuse me!"

  The dog barks. The old guy just stands there looking confused.

  Turbo Jett comes out of the passage half a second later, having apparently just... shoved through instead of going around. Her costume has brick dust on it.

  "Gear three!" she announces, like she's calling a play in football.

  Ah, shit.

  The heat shimmer around her intensifies. Her skin goes from flushed to bright red, steam starting to rise off her shoulders. She moves and it's like watching someone hit fast-forward on a video - same motion, just faster. Too fast.

  She closes the distance in maybe two seconds.

  I go up.

  There's a dumpster against the side of a building, and I hit it at a run, one foot on the lid, push off, grab the fire escape ladder. My blood sense tells me it's solid - someone bled on this ladder once, probably cut their hand on the rusty metal. Good enough. I haul myself up, already moving to the first landing.

  Jett hits the wall below me and bounces up like a rocket, grabbing the ladder two rungs below my feet.

  "Vertical!" she laughs. "I love vertical!"

  We're both climbing now, racing up the fire escape. I can feel the heat coming off her, like standing near a bonfire. My regeneration's already working on the blisters I'm probably getting on my palms from the cold metal. Below us, more people are starting to notice - someone's recording on their phone, someone else is yelling something I can't make out over the sound of metal clanging under our feet.

  I reach the roof. She's right behind me.

  "You know," Jett says, and she's panting now but still grinning, "most people quit after the first block. You're actually making me work for it. I appreciate that."

  "Happy to provide," I gasp, already running across the rooftop. "Quality customer service."

  The next building over is lower. I can make that jump. Probably. My blood sense tells me there's a small gap, maybe six feet, definitely doable if I don't think about it too hard.

  I don't think about it.

  I jump.

  For a second I'm flying, cold air rushing past, the street below visible in my peripheral vision. Then I'm landing, rolling, coming up already moving toward the next roof access door.

  Behind me, Turbo Jett makes the jump look easy.

  "Okay, serious question," she says, and we're both running along the rooftop now, heading toward the far edge. "If you've got an alibi, why run? You could've just come with us, showed the tracker data, been home by midnight."

  "Because Patriot hates me," I say flatly. "And I've seen what happens when I'm in custody with people who hate me."

  "Yeah, okay, that's fair. He's kind of..." She makes a vague gesture. "A lot. But I'm not gonna let him beat you up in a patrol car or whatever. That's not how I operate."

  "Great!" I hit the roof access door at speed - it's locked but my shoulder hits it hard enough that something gives with a crack. "So you'll testify when I sue for wrongful arrest?"

  "I can't say I'm fond of his methods!" she answers noncommittally, voice tight. What? What sort of a response is that? "Do you trust me to keep you safe?"

  "Not at all!" I yell back. Down the stairs, three at a time. My blood sense maps out the stairwell ahead of me - someone had a nosebleed here once, there's splatter on the wall going down. I can see exactly where to put my feet.

  Jett's right on my heels, heat pouring off her like a furnace.

  We burst out into another alley, this one wider, with dumpsters and recycling bins creating an obstacle course. I weave through them, muscle memory and blood sense working in tandem.

  There's a gap between buildings ahead - narrow, dark. I can lose her there.

  I fake left, then cut right at the last second, diving into the gap.

  Jett doesn't course-correct in time.

  I hear her sail past the opening, her momentum carrying her forward, and there's a very satisfying sound of surprise and then some extremely creative cursing.

  I press myself against the wall, breathing hard, watching my breath plume white in the narrow space.

  Two blocks down. One block to go.

  I can hear Jett doubling back, her footsteps getting closer.

  "Okay!" she calls out, and she sounds genuinely impressed. "That was actually pretty slick! You almost had me there!"

  I'm already moving deeper into the gap, looking for another way out.

  My house is so close I can almost taste it.????????????????