‘Rubies!’ Aviary yelled.
Sophia saw the lights shift to red. The cab in front slowed, brake lights on. The SUV pushed faster.
‘You’re not getting away,’ Sophia said.
The SUV punched through the lights, gaining distance between them. They were probably completely unaware of her presence, but they’d pushed through to catch up with the vehicle carrying the kidnapped operative.
Sophia pulled hard on the wheel and struck the corner of the cab in front of her. She pushed through, hearing metal grind and glass shatter. She didn’t know whether it was the cab’s taillights or her headlights and she didn’t really care.
She made it into the SUV’s lane. The SUV was already halfway through a busy roundabout and Sophia had a fresh red. She pushed through the red light and realized the roundabout was actually a large, heavily congested traffic circle. She saw the SUV winding around to the right.
Weaving around the other cabs, Sophia guided her cab straight through the center. Aviary shrieked and clung to her armrest. Sophia drove onto the footpath, through the center of Columbus Circle. She hit the horn to clear people around her, then dodged a monument and made for the other side. The SUV came into her view from the right. She aimed straight for it.
Aviary screamed from the back seat.
‘Hold on,’ Sophia said.
She kept her arms bent and accelerated, shooting the cab off the footpath and back into the traffic circle. She missed a passing car on the inside lane, clipped another in the second and smashed perfectly into the side of the SUV, just behind the rear wheel. Her body whipped back and then forward, restrained by the seatbelt. Her cab spun, facing the wrong way.
Sophia checked her rear vision. The SUV she’d struck had spun and collided with a car in the adjacent lane, slowing to a halt. It was about to take off again but another car rammed in behind it. The SUV was pinned into place, at least for the moment.
‘That should do it,’ Sophia said under her breath.
She reached under the steering wheel and snapped it to the left, pulling the cab around to avoid an oncoming vehicle. She went hard over a curb and down 8th Avenue. It wasn’t the street she wanted but it would do.
She heard Aviary exhale with relief from the back seat. Sophia spotted the leading gray SUV. It was five vehicles ahead. She closed as fast as she could.
‘You’re insane,’ Aviary said quietly from the back seat.
‘Sorry,’ Sophia said.
‘No, it’s awesome,’ Aviary said. ‘Don’t stop.’
Sophia looked down at her phone but it slipped off her seat.
‘First left, here!’ Aviary shouted, excited. ‘Get back on Broadway. The SUV’s about three blocks ahead. On 55th.’
‘Got it.’
Sophia took the left, cutting off a sedan. The driver hit his horn and yelled. She ignored him and weaved around a bus that lumbered in front.
‘Is this Broadway?’ Sophia asked. She didn’t have time to check the signs or get her bearings.
‘Yes!’ Aviary said. ‘Right! Right! Turn right!’
Sophia turned and hit gridlocked traffic.
‘Oh,’ Aviary said. ‘The hurricane evacuation.’
‘And the explosion,’ Sophia said.
‘Yeah,’ Aviary said. ‘Maybe I should’ve taken you around here.’
‘Yes, maybe you should’ve,’ Sophia said.
‘Now what do we do?’ Aviary said. ‘Actually, I’m afraid to ask.’
‘I can still get us around,’ Sophia said.
She hurled the cab onto the wide footpath beside them and accelerated, horn blaring. A man and his five bags of shopping leaped into a printing shop to avoid her. She crossed a small intersection and Broadway was still locked with traffic. Fuck it, she thought. She hit her horn again and continued on the footpath, negotiating pedestrians and smashing through tables and chairs. Maybe she’d just stick to the footpath the whole way.
She drove past a few banks and dodged a FedEx van before hitting a dead end. The footpath disappeared just beyond a RadioShack: temporary walls were erected to block off a new construction site. So much for that idea, she thought.
She pulled the cab off the footpath and completely destroyed the front of a parked Mercedes. Aviary cheered from the back seat.
Sophia was back on the road, driving over a turning lane.
‘Straight ahead?’ Sophia yelled. ‘How far?’
‘Straight ahead!’ Aviary said. ‘One block!’
Sophia dodged a small traffic island — grazed between the curb and a stationary car — and nudged through a minor intersection. Tall, ponderous buildings loomed before her. She had no idea what was around the corner or a block ahead.
‘You’re my eyes now,’ she said to Aviary.
‘Copy that, Ms Super Operative person,’ the redhead said.
‘Don’t ever call me that.’
Pedestrians scattered from the crossing as she tore across it, overtook a brown UPS truck and flattened a neat row of orange traffic cones outside the Late Show with David Letterman. She ground to a halt as pedestrians walked one cab in front of her. There was room to go around on the right but she was blocked off by yet another goddamn UPS truck.
‘Fucking UPS trucks!’ Sophia yelled.
Aviary remained silent in the back seat.
On the right, a black Cadillac half-merged into the left lane, cutting her off on the left. She was boxed in from pretty much every angle.
‘How far off?’ Sophia said.
‘Two blocks now, but they’re gaining,’ Aviary said.
Sophia ground her teeth. She had to make her own way out. She moved her cab in behind the Cadillac, crunching into its right taillight.
‘So is this just a case of you’re doing enough damage,’ Aviary said, ‘so you might as well just maintain that level of destruction all the way through?’
Sophia didn’t reply. She kept going. The Cadillac driver started shouting hysterically. She paid him no attention, kept pushing through. He was stuck between her and the pedestrians walking in front of her. He had no choice but to nudge forward, triggering a heated standoff with pedestrians trying to walk in front of him.’
And then she had just the gap she needed.
She roared through, smashing parked bicycles on either side. They rattled and scraped, and were briefly carried along for the ride before being slung onto the concrete like broken toys. People looked on in shock.
Sophia was on the other side of the road, in a bike lane. It was clear here so she shoved her cab through the pedestrians and accelerated into another intersection. It was chaos around her. Ahead of her the left was clear but the right was almost at a standstill. She didn’t know if she was driving on the wrong side of the road or whether it was a service lane or bike lane, and she didn’t care as long as it got her there. She hit the gas again. She noticed a green sign above that read W 52 St.
‘How far?’ she asked.
‘Two blocks,’ Aviary said.
This is taking too long, she thought.
She slowed as she reached another intersection, just enough to see if anyone was going to collide with her. A Starbucks flashed by on her left. Posters and billboards for musicals were everywhere, lights blinking and neon signs pulsing. They smeared across her vision as she watched for obstacles.
A bright orange SUV lurched to a stop ahead of her, preparing to turn left. She weaved around it and took the center of the road over the white lines, through another pedestrian crossing. A bus roared past her and ground to a stop behind a queue of cars. She maneuvered around it, caught herself in another lane of traffic. She slammed her fists on the steering wheel.