JD put his foot down further, watching the road in strobing flashes of clarity as the wipers cleared the rain. The roads were empty, but that would change just as soon as the football crowds filtered out of the stadium and into waiting auto-cars. A few vehicles passed through the intersection ahead as the van sped toward it—green traffic lights flared across the windscreen, while police lights gained in the side mirror.
“Straight ahead,” Red yelled. “Floor it.”
Flash of white glitched black: static obscuring JD’s vision. His right eye cleared and the traffic lights turned red, too late to stop. His left eye crackled with visual noise and JD yanked the wheel hard to the right, steering away from the distortion as though it were a solid obstacle. The van fishtailed as the back wheels lost traction in the wet, and they took the corner drifting sideways. A flash of bright blue passed through JD’s vision—not another glitch, an auto-bus, traveling across the intersection at speed. The bus passed so close JD could have reached out to touch it, but his hands were gripped tight to the wheel, knuckles white, fingers aching with the strain. More adrenaline flooded into JD’s system as he realized how close they came to a collision. Vehicles honked and slammed on their brakes, and JD steered the van through the gaps, powering out of the intersection.
“Oi, dickhead, wrong way,” Red said.
JD put his foot down and sat up straighter to see out the rear-view mirror. Police and security cars slowed as they picked their way through the intersection, civilian traffic steering clear of the flashing lights, but neither authority willing to give way to the other. Khoder’s head appeared in the mirror and JD started.
“Giving me motion sickness back here, bro.”
“Got bigger things to worry about right now.”
Through the rain JD could see the next intersection—lights green, no traffic. He accelerated toward it, then a glitched red bar flashed dead across his vision. JD slammed on the brakes and the van slid, tires shushing over the wet asphalt before they stopped, all four passengers jolting forward with the sudden loss of inertia. JD’s sight cleared in time to see a cop car shoot across the intersection in front of them. JD hit the accelerator and turned left, heading for the stadium again—now two blocks left and two ahead.
“Holy shit, Jules,” Soo-hyun said. “I never knew you could drive like this.”
“I can’t.”
Behind them, blue smoke poured from cop car tires as they spotted the van and did a tight one-eighty across three lanes. The other pursuit vehicles caught up to the late arrival, and together the three police and two security cars formed a vanguard across the width of the street. Ahead, every light turned red—police traffic control locking the grid down—but JD wouldn’t stop. Couldn’t, not now, with the cube slotted into his phone and fifty thousand euro riding on this moment.
JD pushed his foot down and ignored the strained sound coming from the engine. Through one intersection, all lights red, a few cars stopped and waiting while the occupants stared wide-eyed at the chase flitting past.
Next intersection, they needed to go left, then a straight run to the stadium and chaos. Chaos to get lost in.
JD’s throat ached dull as he swallowed. Sweat poured from every pore, the stink of himself thick in his nose, cut with the scent of artificial pine. JD glanced down at the speedometer, visual static covering half the readout. JD slammed the accelerator pedal to the floor and watched the needle peek out from behind the glitch as the engine whined.
More flashes across his right eye, as though his brain were screaming LEFT LEFT LEFT. JD turned left, hand over hand as he spun the steering wheel—the van tore sideways through the intersection, barely missing cars loaded with World Cup revelers, hands pumping the air, horns blaring in celebration, cheering him on. JD grinned. The stadium was dead ahead, the opposite lane choked with traffic as cars poured out of the arena, blocking the pursuing cars, blocking the roads in every direction. JD backed off and the van slowed.
Just ahead, a crowd surged up the footpath, banners, scarves, and balloons all held high overhead. JD aimed the van toward the crowd, and when they were still twenty meters off, he pulled up onto the sidewalk, jumping the curb with a nasty grind of metal on cement.
With the van stopped, JD fell forward against the wheel. His chest heaved as