Measured in physical reaction time, the speed of thought is between two hundred and seventy and five hundred feet per second. Even at the lower value, Ki’s brain would have sent signals to his body over three times faster than the passenger van coming toward him. As an analyst with a trained, supple, sharply honed mind, his thoughts probably clipped along at the high end of the speed scale.

In the crosswalk between Musil and the yellow taxi van, he had enough time to hear the loud surge of its revving engine to his left, glance in that direction and then see the van hurtling up the avenue from almost half a block down, sprung high off the ground, its front end broad, thick and massive and bearing straight at them.

Neurons fired.

Muscles responded.

The speed of thought.

“Jot!” he shouted and pivoted slightly toward his friend, arms extended, his outspread hands slamming into Musil’s arm below the shoulder. They pushed him hard and back toward the east side of the avenue, the side they had just stepped off moments ago.

Ki felt Musil stagger away from him, saw pedestrians scatter wildly in the street, heard people screaming and horns honking and tires screeching, and above it all heard the loud, swollen vroom of the accelerating passenger van as it came on. High, broad, thick, massive, surging and deadly.

Ki stood at five-six, and the taxi’s elevated front bumper struck him just below the hip, pushing his legs up to its fifty-mile-an-hour velocity. The initial impact carried them forward while his upper body and head remained relatively motionless. The physical stress on his skeleton instantly snapped his spine and split his pelvic bone down the middle. A millisecond later he was pitched off his feet. His body twisted halfway around as it flew over the front bumper and hood, his head smashing into the windshield, partially shattering its glass before the van’s continued linear momentum sent him flying up across the roof, where he tumbled backward like a broken mannequin to land on the street behind it.

Meanwhile, Musil found himself sprawled facedown near the curb. As he’d stumbled off balance, a large running body had slammed into him, knocking him hard to the pavement. Now he boosted himself up to his feet, his dastār gone, his long black hair spilling down into his eyes. Blood was running down his face from a cut on his forehead.

He looked around for Ki but didn’t see him. The taxi van was also gone—he didn’t know where. Around him the avenue was all clamor and commotion. Shrieks, wails, horns. People running wildly through the intersection. Pouring out of hastily stopped cars. Digging phones out of their pockets, crying, calling the police.

Ki.

Where was he?