Wind whipped through Yue's hair as he raced through the long grass. Wildflowers brushed his shoulders, dusting them with pollen as the moon looked on. Behind him the other bikes whined in pursuit, belching out black exhaust. What little suspension the motorbike had left was no match for the stony ground and Yue could barely keep hold of the handlebars. He rattled his way along the valley aiming for the safety of the railway camp. Every now and again his engine faded then spluttered back into life. Each time this happened his pursuers gained a few more metres on him until he could hear them shouting to one another over the roar of the wind.

Yue realised that at this rate he wasn't going to make it back to camp. Dinking leftwards in a bid to outfox the Uzbeks, Yue exited the long grass and found himself riding along the riverbank. Safety was tantalisingly close. On the other side of the river was a two metre high metal fence topped with barbed wire. The fence protected two railway lines. One was the old soviet line that carried lumbering goods trains. The other was the brand new high speed line that his father had designed. When it was finished you would be able to travel from Samarkand to Almaty and then on to Beijing in less than a day. A single line cutting across steppe and desert, like a brushstroke across a blank canvas.

His pursuers burst out from the long grass, their wheels throwing up clods of earth from the soft soil of the riverbank. Yue's engine started to fade again, letting out a death rattle before failing completely. Out of options, Yue steered his bike down the riverbank and into the water. Momentum carried him to the mid-point of the river before his bike gave up the ghost and came to a complete standstill, hissing out steam as the river met the heat of the engine. The water came up to Yue's waist. Despite it being a hot summer night, the river carried the bite of winter down from the mountains. Teeth chattering, Yue waded across.

As he dragged his waterlogged boots through the shallows, Yue turned to look back at the far bank. At first he felt a sense of triumph. The Uzbeks had parked their bikes on the riverbank and were lined up on the shore shouting curses across the water. Let them shout, thought Yue, he'd made good on his escape and they couldn't' hurt him now. But his sense of triumph quickly evaporated. One of the Uzbeks, the man who had come so close to breaking a bottle over his head, was busily undressing. He slipped off his shoes and then undid his belt and pulled off his shirt, standing stark naked beneath the moonlight. Another man handed him a knife and the naked Uzbek clamped it between his teeth then strode into the dark waters of the river.

Panicked, Yue started to tug at the bottom of the metal fence, hoping to find a loose section. He hobbled along the perimeter, rattling it with both hands. By this point the Uzbek was past the middle of the river, surging forward with big powerful strokes. The whole time he kept his head above water, so that the knife clamped between his teeth glinted menacingly, like the tooth of some prehistoric monster. Yue tugged desperately at the fence until it peeled away from the dusty ground.

He wriggled through the gap, ignoring the tearing sound of his shirt being shredded by the metal wire. He was halfway through when he became stuck. He'd had forgotten about his backpack. Its buckle had caught and wouldn't budge. He tried to sloop it off his shoulders and writhe forward when a hand grabbed his ankle. He lashed out wildly with his other foot, his boot connecting with something solid. There was a crunch and the iron grip on his ankle momentarily loosened. Yue surged forward, using every point of his body to claw his way free of the fence.

The Uzbek clutched his nose. Blood flowed freely between his fingers. From the other side of the fence he wordlessly pointed his knife at Yue. The meaning was clear. Yue turned and fled along the railway tracks as the Uzbek dived for the hole in the bottom of the fence, not caring as his naked body was gouged by the sharp metal underside. A low hum raced along the rails. Yue looked down the tracks to see the flaring light of an approaching train. The loose gravel of the rail bed began to shake and jump. Yue crossed into the middle of the tracks, hoping to put the train between himself and the Uzbek.

Caught in the beam of the approaching train, Yue was about to jump to one side when he felt something strange fall upon his cheek. It was snow in the middle of summer. He looked up but the night was still clear. There wasn't a cloud in sight. He looked down and was shocked to see a person, about his age, lying on a snowdrift that had suddenly covered the tracks. Their clothes were ancient looking and soaking wet. Their hair was cut short and their features were rubbed raw by the cold, making it hard to tell their gender. They looked up at Yue, startled.

"Watch out" cried Yue.

But his warning was lost in the blast of the train's horn. He jumped to one side, out of the path of the train. The lumbering engine ploughed through the snow drift as if it wasn't there, sending up a puff of white flakes. There was no sign of a person having lain on the track and Yue began to wonder whether he had imagined them. Only the damp spot on his cheek where the snowflake had melted assured him that what he had seen was real.

Yue found himself caught between the need to escape and wanting to look for the mysterious person in the ancient clothing. Between the passing wheels of the train, he spotted the Uzbek prowling up and down the track. Danger clarified his thinking and he hobbled as fast as possible alongside the moving train. Grabbing hold of a protruding handle, Yue hauled himself onto a passing sideboard. A childhood spent growing up around railways lines had taught him a thing or two about mounting a moving train without dying. As he looked back down the tracks, he saw the Uzbek silhouetted in the moonlight. He stooped down low and picked an object from off the tracks, then he raised it above his head. Although Yue was far away, he could have sworn that the Uzbek was holding a spear.