Laredo Tan, or, more recently, inmate Six-Five-Niner, lately of the Vivo Correctional and Re-education Centre, stumbled to a stop on the edge of a slope overlooking the harbor, doubled-over and sucked in air like he’d been drowning. Or running for his life. Which he had been. Was still doing, actually.

The woman he’d been sprinting alongside for the past twenty minutes—inmate One-Four-Two, didn’t really know her, seemed nice enough—skidded into him and fell, barely able to catch herself with one arm clenched across the wound in her side. She bit off a cry of pain, flopped over onto her back and panted, open-mouthed, up at the sky. The spreading stain on her jumpsuit looked black in the moonlight. It was a lot bigger than it had been twenty minutes ago.

One problem at a time. Laredo concentrated on breathing. He didn’t know where the assholes that were hunting them were but they couldn’t be that far behind. It felt like he’d been running for hours. Hell, like he’d been running for his whole damn life and this was just the latest hopeless effort to keep himself one step ahead of the bear.

“What…what the…?” One-Four-Two wheezed out.

You know what they said about running from bear, Laredo thought. You don’t have to be the fastest, you just have to be faster than the poor sod next to you.

“…hell is…going on?” the poor sod next to him said.

Laredo tried to pant enough air into his lungs to speak. Maybe in a minute. Besides, it didn’t really matter. All they needed to know right now was that the suspiciously well-armed and well-trained squad behind them were trying to kill them both. And alright, maybe it was stupid, but leaving One-Four-Two behind wasn’t an option. The easy way out had never been an option. Which was why he was so damn used to getting smacked around by bears, Laredo thought. Expected it even.

The attack on Vivo Correctional had started just after lights out. There had been a bunch of explosions, a lot of screaming, and suddenly the cell-block was full of body-armoured goons with plasma swords.

They’d blown his door and cut down his cellmate without hesitation. And taken out the rest of the floor in a well-coordinated assault that had telegraphed discipline, training, and someone competent in charge. Private contractors didn’t raid Vivo. That wasn’t a thing that happened. ‘What the hell is going on?’ was right.

Laredo forced himself upright and gingerly leaned over the edge of the slope. The angle of descent was steep down to the beach, choked with vegetation and booby-trapped with sharp rocks. A heavy breeze pushed a wave of scent up the slope, almost overwhelming; rotting seaweed, salt-water and the sharp tang of ozone from the everyday miracle of the Plasma-Shield overhead, a billion dollar outlay of tech fizzing and sparking in a perfect dome over the island-city that kept the poison atmosphere out and the people of Sabara breathing. He could see the edge of it where it met the sea a couple of km off the coast. A prison as well as a shield.

Focus, Laredo. If he could get them both down to the beach maybe they could hide in the rocky crags along the water. Maybe. It was a shitty plan but…

He squinted desperately into the darkness, staring hard down the slope, searching for something, anything; an easier way down or—

Oh hello, wow, that was luck, what was up with his eyesight recently anyway? Laredo could suddenly just make out a deeper darkness about halfway down that had to be one of the big outlets of the city’s stormwater drains. If they could make it into the drain they might be able to work their way away from the water, back into the city, maybe find their way up to street-level and give these assholes the slip.

Alright, so, admittedly that was only a slightly less shitty plan but it was better than the certain death of standing around up here silhouetted against the arc of the dome, sitting ducks.

Laredo cleared his throat. “Uh, One-Four-Two, listen, we gotta move, maybe we can hide in the pipe down there.” Laredo pointed.

One-Four-two rolled over with a groan and peered over the edge of the slope.

“What pipe? And it’s Thompson,” she said, “Sonja Thompson. That’s my name.” She took another look, probably calculating the distance to the beach. Or maybe trying to control the tremor in her voice. “Also you’re kidding me, right?” There’s no effin’ way.”

“Don’t have a lot of options here, Thompson. I’ll get you down there, I promise, just—” Laredo bent, managed to get an arm around her and straightened.

Ow, shit! Wait! Ow—!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Too fast. She was so light. He eased her back to the ground. The arm he’d wrapped around her was darkly wet and sticky. Great. Just great. “Look, we’re on the clock here, Thompson, can you—”

“Wait, wait, just give me a minute. Okay, alright…” Thompson got to her knees, tightened the arm across her middle and staggered to her feet. Laredo rose along with her, ears straining for the inevitable sound of pursuit. He got an arm under her shoulders, taking most of her weight, and started down the slope as carefully as he could with the hairs on the back of his neck standing rigidly upright, knowing that at any second they were gonna have to run.

Right on cue the clear and familiar sound of an armored SUV washed over them as the heavy vehicle rounded a curve in the coast road and roared into view in a blaze of headlights. The bass rumble of the custom ‘Benz was familiar. Laredo had ridden in more than his share of them during the war. Back then that sound had meant that help was on the way. Tonight it meant he was going to die up here in the moonlight.