Evasive maneuvers and look good doing it

  EP watched the plex rotate on the monitor. She had sed the area for hours before Lindsey arrived, taking out lights, spoofing key fobs, looking for any lookouts or pin clothes cops. It might have just been bad luck. On one monitor, she watched the police helicopter, miles away, hover over a traffic act, and hoped like hell it stayed there.

  The cruiser parked ireet below the apartments aimed a spotlight up at the south wall of Cooper’s unit, sweeping it to the baly on the east side of the building, then back again. A slice of the beam shot past the roof and into the rain. The other two cruisers pulled into the lot.

  EP gripped the mouse and dug her heels into the chair mat.

  “They’re ing up, lights on the south wall. Go out the west window.”

  Inside, Lindsey pulled her mask down and flicked off the fshlight as the living room window lit up. She stepped over trash and clothes on her way to the west window at the back of the bedroom, screwing a suppressor on her Walther as she went. The b curtains came off the window with a cttering of tacks and the blinds rose with a sp. There was no s. She got the window up quietly, tapping into distant teenage memories of sneaking out through a simir window, and the heavy sound of rain broke the silence.

  Somewhere a car door smmed, distinctly police-like, and she paused just long enough to inhale, look for anyone below, and holster her pistol, before slipping out the window in a siep. Even i solid bess, it erfect roll. She stuck the nding without sliding in the mud and came up silently in a low crouch, hidden in solid darkness. EP had been thh with the outside lights, at least.

  Behihe air glowed above the street, where the cop pointed his spotlight towards the back window. In front of her, at the end of the space between the units, the sidewalk led up a few stairs and through a feo the raised parking lot.

  “Move up and ght behind that apartment,” EP said.

  Lindsey put one hand on her Walther and stepped through a sheet of water p off the clogged gutters above, then hugged the side of the unit and moved in a smooth crouched stride towards the lot. Another car door smmed, and she heard the distinctive sound of police gear moving on a belt and the murmur of a voice speaking into a radio. Fshlights shot suddenly out of the misting darkness above the parking lot, glittering beams seekiweewo walls of solid darkness, like a ufo was nding just out of sight.

  “Get in that gap, get low, stay still!” EP said. Lindsey went right to the side of the small staircase and got in the gap between the back wall of the unit and the side of the raised lot. The slim crevice was solid bd streaming with water. She crouched doressed against the t barrier as heavy falling footsteps approached from the lot.

  “He doesn’t see me,” she thought, mantra-like. She waited for that telltale feeling, like someone whispering wordlessly in her head, that she was being watched, that someone had seen her.

  A cop came doweps pointing a fshlight at his feet. He traced the t ith it ohen flicked it up to the side of Cooper’s apartment, probably aiming at the window she had just e out of. She heard more ove up the metal staircase oher side of Cooper’s apartment, and then muffled shouts as they annouhemselves.

  “Hey, got this back window open,” The fshlight cop said into his radio. His voice was broken in pces by the rain, but Lindsey got the idea.

  “Move as fast as you ,” EP Said.

  Liimed her escape with the reply on fshlight cops radio, and in a few seds she had put another unit between her and him.

  Just as she made it past awo units, EP came on the line again.

  “They know you’re not inside.” She was obviously trying too hard to sound calm. Another spotlight broke across the dark and sed the lot.

  “Right, hide. I’ll distract.” EP said. Liurned iween two units and ducked down behind an AC. The cop down oreet fshed his spotlight up over the fence just a few yards away from her, washing out the distant city lights for an instant. The other cops shouted somewhere. Thunder cpped and the sidewalk in front of her lit up in blue. A window slid open and she heard drunken voices.

  An earted up in the parking lot and revved repeatedly as the cops shouted for the driver to get out. The spotlight i froze. They yelled some more, useless. There was no driver. EP’s drone had spoofed the remote starter.

  “They think you’re i.” EP sounded proud. The spotlight from the street vanished as the cruiser sped down the road to the back of the lot. Lindsey exhaled. A way out.

  “They’re moving dow,” EP said. Lindsey was already halfway to the fence, preparing for the drop down to the street, when she saw the light and EP hissed.

  “Wait! Cop, ing down the south side.”

  Lindsey watched the light spread across the grass between her and the fence. She hugged the wall and holstered her pistol, and got her baton out of an inside pocket. Somewhere a door opened, and Lindsey noticed with an adrenaline spike oohat the cops had stopped shouting at the phantom driver. The light grew on the grass and footsteps squished uhe rain.

  “He’s gonna shi at you,” EP said.

  Lindsey saw herself flick the baton open, saw the cop turn at the sound, the metal rod fsh in a swift arc, crack him on the bridge of his nose, saw him crumple, ahe fen her hands. The vision was vague in all the right pces, the cop just a silhouette, shifting i a, but the baton finding the nose every time.

  A boot squished into the sod just behind the brid the front of the light came into view. The vision pyed o time, this time half a sed before reality obeyed.

  The ch was a bit louder than she had imagined, and he made a sound, almost like a burp, that she never would have expected, but he went down just the same. Gun and fshlight still in hand, to his credit. He fell backward and his fshlight rolled off behind him. She was over the fend in the air before he had settled.

  It was like flying, for a few glorious seds. The nd dropping down in front of her into dripping darkness, the distant fairy lines of headlights, a fsh of lightning illuminating purple puffing clouds, the bck street ing up to meet her like death, and the deep darkness of the empty lot in front of her, like a piece of the Otherworld, breaking into this world to fort her.

  She rolled on the asphalt and took a beating on her bad hands, but shot up sprinting and cleared the street in a few strides. The lot wasn’t paved and there could have been anything on the ground to trip her, but she never so much as stumbled, feet nding right where they o.

  EP watched the motorcycle burst out of the bush and curve onto the road, a bit of bess fighting against amber. Lindsey was off into the night at double the speed limit before the cops had cleared the parking lot.

  You ever run from the cops? ime, Gradie finds his exits cut off, so he makes a new one. episode, Nightride.