I love being shot at.

Quelle's heart pumped as a bullet whizzed by her head, and the shot of adrenaline that followed made her giddy with delight. She could feel death reaching out for her soul. The brush of his cold fingers. The sinister heat of his smile. She delighted herself in teasing him, coming just within his grasp only to skitter out when he tried to grab her.

Quelle pumped her legs as fast as they would go. Neon lights in every colour imaginable, blurred and stretched in her peripheral as she tore across the city. The mechanical sounds of three creepers rang out in her wake.

The city's nightmarish police crawled over the ground on six legs, with lasers on their faceless heads and guns mounted on their shoulders.

She picked up speed and made the grand leap from one building to the next, the cool night air cuddling her clothing, and her stolen treasure and speargun bumping against her hip. Gravity pulled her, and she hit the next rooftop without breaking her stride.

The landing was hard on her knees but her augmented body could take more abuse than a human's. She glanced back in time to see two creepers still in pursuit while the other are the edge of the building before falling to the street.

Their chase continued across the city's rooftops, backdrops by its rainbow of never-ending lights. Giant billboards with capitalism on display, and holographic concerts filled with squealing teens who thought they knew what it was like to be alive. But Quelle was adrenaline made flesh, truly alive and primed for a grand finale to end this delicious chase.

And so, instead of jumping to the next building, she veered left and climbed on the ledge before turning to face the advancing creepers. Thirty stories below, cars and pedestrians bustled by, the witnesses who would extol her glorious virtues.

Quelle leaned back and allowed gravity to drag her into a freefall, and the creepers came over the side of the building crawling down its face.

Her vision funneled, and the world slowed around her as she whipped out her speargun. She looked down its barrel at her pursuers. "Rest in peace." The recoil of the shot kicked her hand back, and the spear flew true. It ripped through the neck of one creeper before punching into the head of the other.

Her freefall ended when she crashed through the top of a tent and into someone 's party. A wooden table, laden with food broke her fall. The wind was knocked from her, and her vision blurred, but she scrambled to her feet and got out of there as fast as she could. In no time, she was blending with the city's crowd.

Quelle knew that one day her her ambition would catch up to her. It would swipe her feet from beneath her, and she'd go stumbling into death's arms.

But today was not that day.