by Gary Denne
“Oh my God,” he said in a slow voice that spoke of immense pleasure. “I feel ... powerful. I’ve ... never felt this way before. This is fucking incredible.”
Violet barked at him to focus, “Keep your hands around me and hold on. This is not gonna be pretty.”
The Harley sped down 42nd Street, racing past an aging Grand Central Station, which was still considered one of the city’s proudest historic landmarks. If the sprawling subway lines were the city’s arteries, then Grand Central was most certainly still its heart.
Behind them, the black Lincoln Continentals revved their modified engines as they blazed towards the lone motorbike on the road. Violet was well aware of the impending confrontation.
Whatever the Bliss had done, it sparked Sean’s brain cells to fire like a shock-n-awe blanket bombing of his mind, allowing him total recall of even the slightest detail from the last 24 hours. He slowly peered around at Violet from behind as the rain sprayed up on their faces from the road, perhaps unintentionally realizing who this attractive, young savior really was.
“You’re Maddox’s daughter, aren’t you?”
“Who?” Violet replied.
“John Maddox ... in the photos. You’re his daughter,” Sean stated.
Violet didn’t respond. She was concentrating on the road.
“Where are we going?” Sean asked, feeling so high from Bliss that he wondered if there was even just a ray of light—the width of a human hair—beaming the possibility of his survival, not to mention his freedom. His heart began to pound in his chest, harder than it ever had before. His leg wound had seemingly stabilized but was still in serious need of medical attention.
“The tunnels ... we’re headed for the tunnels, aren’t we?” he shouted to her again.
Violet hated backseat drivers.
Behind them, the moaning 1970s police sirens of the jet-black Lincolns began to ring out over the city streets. Sean glanced over his shoulder. They were gaining. As the two of them passed by the Chrysler building, attracting the attention of rain-soaked and storm-worn people on the streets watching the chase, Violet focused directly on the road ahead. She was thinking as fast as she could, thinking of the best route out of the mess they were in. One wrong turn or mistake and it would all be over. But she knew the city well. She turned onto Second Avenue, flooring it as she tried to get ahead. Sean held tight around her waist as they shot down Second Avenue at 80 mph, weaving and diving all over the road, dodging the many potholes and cracks on the unmaintained streets of the city. Despite there being no traffic to get in their way—no yellow taxi cabs grid-locking the streets as they once used to—this was not an easy ride. The rain, the winds and the condition of the road all increased the degree of difficulty tenfold. While the Lincolns behind them could withstand a pothole or two, hitting one of them on a Harley would’ve meant an instant cannonball through the air for the rider and passenger. And as if that wasn’t enough of a distraction, crowds of people were beginning to realize that this kind of chase was a rare sight in the city, and they lined up on the sidewalks to get a glimpse, some spilling onto the road and creating yet another hazard. It was a cat and mouse chase, and those on the streets knew it and watched as the event unfolded before their eyes.
Violet looked in her mirrors. MADDSEC were gaining. She held the handlebars tight with one hand and reached into her messenger bag, pulling out a smartphone. She thumbed at the screen for a moment and then put the phone to her ear, waiting a few seconds for her call to be picked up.
“Change of plan,” she said to the person on the other end of the phone. “I can’t shake ‘em in this weather.”
Sean listened in, holding onto her tight.
From the solemn look on her face, she hesitated to spit out her next words to the person on the other end of the line but finally said, “You’re gonna have to open a gate.”
She listened to the person’s response.
“I know it’s a big deal. Does it sound like I’m joking?” she protested.
“It’s too late ... MADDSEC are all over me.”
She pleaded with the person on other end, almost apologetic. “I wouldn’t be asking if there was another way. I fucked up. I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say...”
She moved the phone away from her ear for a moment, regaining her composure and usually strong, confident voice before returning to the conversation and delivering both a desperate but firm ultimatum to the person on the other end of the phone. “I’m not far from the Manhattan. If you love me, you’ll do it...”
And with that, she pressed her thumb down on the phone’s screen and quickly tossed it to the curb, grabbing the bike’s bars with both hands again. The phone flew through the air for a second, spinning violently as it slammed onto the road at high velocity and smashed into several pieces.
Violet let the throttle rip and they tore down the road at break-neck speed. Her mind was ticking over at a rapid rate. She was making plans. Big plans.
“Sean, listen to me very carefully. Can you swim?”
Sean didn’t respond. He had to think for a second. Did she just say...?
“Can. You. Swim?” she yelled back to him impatiently.
“Yeah ... but what’s that got to do—”
“If you’ve got a god ... just start praying,” Violet shouted back in desperation, glancing at the automobiles behind them. They were getting closer, closer, bearing down on them like torpedoes in the water. She spotted the lead car’s strike team member, stretching himself out of the Lincoln’s window and bringing a revolver up to take aim, trying to line up a single shot that would end the chase.
Violet took immediate evasive action and heaved the bike across the road, Sean barely clasping his battered and bloody fingers around her hips.
“What the hell are you doing!” he barked.
“In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve got a little company!” she snapped back at him, watching the lay of the road closely as she kept the bike as steady as she could in the weather.
Sean turned to see the automobiles only a couple of body lengths away and suddenly realized the gun he had picked up earlier was still in the back of his jeans. He reached around and brought it out. Without hesitating, he bent around on the back of the bike and pointed it at the Lincolns behind them. He squeezed the trigger and fired several shots off, as if the anger of his first day in this city had finally built up enough that he didn't need to think for a second before firing guns at those who were responsible. He was not exactly a skilled marksman, but his aim was enough for the shots to hit the front grilles of the cars and at least give the MADDSEC team in pursuit reason to take cover themselves.
But that was the extent of the fight. The revolver was empty.
Mother Nature was enraged with anger. Sean looked out to the distance to see a fork of lightning reach the tips of the skyscrapers downtown. It was an incredible sight, which, for a moment, distracted him from the direness of the situation. No sooner had the heavy downpour subsided, did it start up again. Thunder cracked overhead, putting the fear of God into the city and shaking the earth outside. The rain fell so hard in this new wave that it almost punched even more potholes in the road than there already was, and was certainly going to help existing ones continue to erode.
“Reach into my bag,” Violet said as they raced through the old Chinatown district of the city. What was once host to hundreds of Chinese-language street signs, cultural statues and exotic decorations had since been transformed to resemble a more diverse global village district for entrants and residents alike. The bustling and crowded atmosphere was still present, along with grocery supply stores, restaurants and a variety of fresh produce stalls, but the Asian influence and culture had been largely removed due to the historic Asian War. Now, this district of the city was simply known as the ‘Global Village’ with a very international flavor of culture, goods, services and people.
“Take the Bliss. You’re going to need it until you get that bullet du
g out.”
“What am I looking for?” Sean asked.
“The pink stuff,” Violet replied.
Sean followed her instructions and reached into the bag, fumbling about until he could feel the syringes in his hands. He lifted them from the bag and shoved them into his back pocket, not taking any particular care of their transport or storage requirements given the present situation.
Gunshots fired from behind. Bullets whizzed past them. This was getting serious. Violet did her best to randomly take the road as best she could. However, ahead of them suddenly, huge concrete barriers blocked the road, which was not uncommon for many district streets that had been reclaimed for foot traffic. It was time to improvise. She knew this moment had been coming, sooner or later. The moment when it could all be over in a split second. She yanked at the handlebars, turning onto the neighborhood sidewalk as the bike’s tires tried to grip the road in the wet. People screamed as they tried to get out of their path, some having to throw themselves onto the wet roads, out of the way. As they sped down the sidewalk, operators of food carts and merchandise trolleys dove out of the way and then screamed a mixture of foreign obscenities, picking themselves up off the ground to check if their stock was still intact. The two of them raced underneath lines of soaked laundry suspended high above the streets, dangling from one side of the street to the other. Pigeons scrambled for cover as they tore through. Violet was under the hammer, dodging obstacles like she was running down a basketball court with the ball, trying to dodge an entire team of opponents with seconds on the clock. Sean held onto her tight, helplessly watching from behind like a spectator on the sidelines with no control in the game as the clock ticked down to the wire.
Behind them, MADDSEC unexpectedly dared to follow them, driving up onto the sidewalk through the path that the Harley had forged, continuing the chase through the tight streets of the Global Village. But where a bike could weave in and out of crowds and vending carts, full-size cars could not. Two of the Lincolns quickly sideswiped a daisy chain of food carts, slamming them with tremendous force. Mountains of fresh produce flew through the air like it was a celebratory airborne food festival. Cart owners screamed out both in horror and anger, rushing to their carts as if they had just witnessed a loved one mowed down in a hit-and-run.
Sean and Violet shot out of the cluttered side street. Somehow, they had managed to dodge all the hazards of the market street and were now back onto open, but torn up road. The Harley raced towards the Manhattan Bridge entrance, being driven by a determined yet worried young woman. For up ahead, there was a slight problem … there was nowhere else to go. The grand entrance to the Manhattan Bridge had stood intact all these years, with the triumphal arch and sculptured colonnade still standing strong, but in some disrepair. The island’s seawall had just come into view and was beginning to tower around them on both sides of the bridge entrance as they began to rise up above street level. There was only one way they were going to get out, and that was through the rock solid, intimidating black gates blocking the archway entrance up ahead of them.
Violet looked directly at the gates, as if she was willing them to open. The worry on her face was starting to show. She had tried her best. But perhaps it was not meant to be. As she eased back on the throttle and lingered at the closed gates coming up fast in front of them, a tear gently formed in her eye. It seemed the love she had with another on the island was not what she had thought it to be. And if that was the truth, if she had been mistaken all this time, then she had nothing left worth fighting for. Her tear softly spilled over and rolled down her cheek. With that, she put power to the throttle again and the bike flew full speed towards the bridge doors. It seemed she had every intention of smashing into them and ending this run.
But suddenly, the bridge gates began to groan.
They creaked and cracked like an old man getting up from his recliner, as they ever so slowly split apart and light began to emerge from the other side.
Violet’s face lit up.
She wiped away her tear. For a second, she could’ve been mistaken for having injected Bliss into her own body. Her face was beaming. She seemed to fall into a micro-sleep daydream. Whoever the person she had pleaded to on the other end of the phone was, they had come through. They had answered her ultimatum.
She snapped to again. Realizing the moment, she knuckled down, focused, and got back in the game. “Hold on!” she screamed with a ferocious tenacity.
Sean immediately complied, and they sped through the arched bridge entrance incorporating the enormous Manhattan seawall, like a single drop of water bursting through a dyke. Their vintage machine carried them up onto the historic suspension bridge, passing over an area of the city known for its decaying apartment buildings and rundown streets below. The MADDSEC team followed and was gaining slowly but surely. The engines of the black Continentals growled and snarled behind them, like a pack of angry dogs chasing down their prey. Breaching the city’s seawall was about as serious a security situation could get for MADDSEC, and while they may have had some restraint whilst in pursuit on city streets, they had now increased in aggression and seemed to want to end the chase once and for all, at any cost.
As Sean and Violet sped up a ramp to the bridge’s upper roadway, the view of the East River was a sight for sore eyes for anyone who had been living in Manhattan for any length of time. A body of water was still one of nature’s wonders, no matter the amount of pollution and degradation the river had accumulated since the start of the century. Looking beyond the bridge to the other side of the East River, Sean could see Brooklyn had become a very bleak, empty urban landscape of decaying factories and warehouses, much like many of the other cities and towns across the country. As the wind brushed by his ears and whistled in the open air, the once thriving and most populated of New York City’s boroughs appeared still. Parts of the landscape were covered in shanties, with a high concentration of homes constructed from scrap materials and an oddball assortment of 20th-century junk. Sean and Violet admired the impressive structure they were now travelling on, but at the same time looked apprehensive in the way one might when traveling over a bridge that had been left to rot. Above, as they sped along empty lanes, they could see the bridge’s framework had corroded heavily from the harsh elements. Mother Nature had taken its toll. Having lay idle for years, unused and uncared for, the bridge had slowly begun to succumb to both time and loneliness, like a plant wilting in the hot summer sun. However, what the two of them were yet to notice, was that the Manhattan Bridge’s decay and corrosion was the least of its problems…
Violet squinted, as she held tight to the bike’s handlebars, trying to process if what she was seeing up ahead was not some kind of mirage. Sean’s expression mirrored her, as he too stared ahead and wondered if his mind wasn’t playing some kind of trick. But it was no trick. This was no illusion. Ahead of them, the bridge was out. The center-span of the Manhattan Bridge was completely missing, demolished by explosives in a deliberate attempt to prevent passage in and out of the city. Suspension cables haphazardly wrapped around the bridge’s framework and dangled loose. They had been shredded. Strands of mangled wire mixed with roadway rubble made the halfway point of the bridge look like a chocolate bar that had been ripped apart by hand. Alongside the Manhattan, Sean quickly spotted that the same demolition job had been duplicated on the Brooklyn Bridge, too. Quite clearly, at some point in the history of this city, someone clearly wanted to prevent the use of these bridges, despite the city’s seawall deterrence.
“Wait … you knew about this?” Sean exclaimed over Violet’s shoulder, starting to panic as they tore down the bridge.
“If you want out, this is all I got,” she said, just loud enough for Sean to hear her, as the shock of screaming towards the end of the line sent chills through her body and quickly made her previously calm and collected demeanor vanish. Her words may have been confident, but her body language was not. She glanced down to the grey waters of the East River below a
nd eased off on the throttle for a moment, trying to think of an idea. Unfortunately, as quick thinking and capable as she had been in the East Village during the shootout, she had somehow seemingly run out of ideas in this tense situation. Sean could see the strain and worry showing on her face. He quickly looked behind them.
The MADDSEC strike team was right behind them now. Only several feet away, the Lincoln Continentals drove side-by-side down the bridge, blocking any way of Violet swinging the bike back around and getting past them. Contact was imminent.
“Oh shit. Floor it!” Sean yelled at her.
Violet looked behind her. She wanted to see exactly what kind of mess she had gotten herself into. The worry increased on her face. This was some serious shit they were in and she knew it.
“I can’t … I can’t swim,” Violet shouted at him, hesitating to say the words aloud.
Sean was confused for a second. “What do you mean you can’t swim?” he asked anxiously. But suddenly it clicked. He quickly added, “Oh, hell no. Are you out of our mind?”
Sean looked behind them once more, starting to hyperventilate. One of the MADDSEC strike team was already sticking their head out a passenger window, carefully holding a black handgun in the fierce wind and teeming rain and slowly taking aim down at the bike’s tires.
“They’re gonna shoot the tires!” Sean shouted to Violet. “Do something!”
Violet responded and accelerated down the bridge lanes seemingly with all the confidence in the world. They were doing just shy of seventy, with only mere seconds until they ran out of road. She tried her best to see through the rain slamming into in her face and held their position firm, racing down the middle of the roadway, towards the drop of almost 130-feet to the water below. She turned back to Sean, no longer watching the road, and sincerely told him, “I’m sorry.”
BAMMM!
The Harley’s back tire blew out.