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They whipped across a concrete path and screamed up a low grassy field, becoming airborne as they crossed the brow of the hill. Again, Jason found himself floating in mid air holding onto the seat with one hand and Lily with the other. They hit the ground with a thud and Jason figured they must have flown a good fifteen to twenty feet. Clods of grass flew from beneath the wheels of the motocross bike as they bounced on the landing. It felt as though they were losing their balance.

Jason was terrified. All he could think about was the kinetic energy they had gained and how a collision with one of the trees would break just about every bone in his body.

Lily hunched over the handle bars with her head down. As they raced through a thicket Jason quickly realized why as twigs and branches slapped at him in anger.

Lily seemed to be able to anticipate the gaps in the trees before they appeared. It was as though she had memorized the route, knowing every single bump and depression, understanding precisely how the motorcycle would respond. She shifted her weight, working with the handlebars and lining up the bike as they roared through the trees and out into an open field.

Several police cars were still in pursuit, but they had fallen a considerable way behind them. Lily’s hair no longer whipped through the air regardless of their speed, and it took Jason a second to realize why: they were both dripping wet.

Lily wasn’t stopping for anyone, of that Jason was sure, and that scared him, but there was nothing he could do other than hold on for dear life.

“Stop!” Jason pleaded. “You’ve got to stop.”

Lily ignored him.

The motorcycle shot out of the park and across Fifth Avenue, getting airborne again as they flew off the curb. They cut off a taxi and darted away as the driver honked his horn at the empty air.

Lily accelerated along East 72nd Street, flying across Madison and Park Avenue.

Jason wasn’t sure how he knew, perhaps it was merely instinctive, but as Lily raced along she brought the bike hard up against the curb on the left hand side of the road and he knew she was going to swing hard to the right. Had there been any oncoming traffic they would have run headlong into them, but she didn’t seem to care.

Hadn’t she heard of brakes?

As absurd and comical as it seemed, he felt like pointing out to her that slowing for a corner was the norm. Racing around a corner at the same speed as you travelled in a straight line was not advisable. The law of the conservation of angular momentum meant there would be an illusion of centrifugal force causing understeer and they’d hit the building on the far corner. How his mind arrived at such a conclusion in that fraction of a second was something even he didn’t fully understand, but it did. She was pushing physics too far!

The motorcycle raced along barely half a foot from the curb as Lexington Avenue raced toward them. The streets were slick, with pools of water still sitting on the surface after the rain. Oil floated on the road, giving the concrete a glossy sheen. This was suicide. Jason clenched, expecting to be hurtled from the bike as Lily cut in across the apex of the corner.

The motorcycle slid on the oily surface water.

The rear tire slipped out from beneath them.

Lily had her right foot down. She was standing on the road with one foot, or she would have been standing if she’d been stationary. Instead, her thick riding boots acted as a foil, skimming across the concrete, stabilizing them as they skidded around the corner, gliding across the slick road. She was standing, with her weight split between the bike and her right leg as they drifted through the corner. The bike lay sideways, almost parallel to the concrete. Jason found himself shifting his weight, trying to stay on the bike.

For a moment, he thought his leg was going to be pinned beneath the bike, but the exhaust took the brunt of the slide, scraping on the ground and kicking up sparks.

Lily gunned the throttle, dropping down a gear and accelerating through the corner. The motorcycle responded like a demon possessed, howling at the night as she straightened up.

Police cars poured into East 72nd almost two blocks behind them, but they’d made the corner into Lexington Avenue at speed.

Jason was shaking, his hands trembled as he struggled to hold on to the bike. Shock was setting in.

“Please,” he cried. “Please, let me off.”

Lily raced south along Lexington Avenue, coming up rapidly behind a semi-trailer trundling down the road before them at a leisurely pace. To Jason’s surprise, the back of the semi opened, with its door lowering and becoming a ramp. Without either the bike or the truck stopping, Lily raced up into the back of the darkened truck, slamming on the brakes at the last minute.

Lights came on inside the trailer as the ramp raised, closing behind them, and the truck turned off Lexington.

Standing there at the rear of the truck, holding onto a set of ropes was Professor Lachlan.