Victor crossed the street and stepped into a nearby park, a sprawling network of running paths, vendor carts, open lawns, packed tight with people in the midday sun. He didn’t look back. He hadn’t been able to pick his pursuers out of the crowd, not yet. Population was working in their favor, but it could also work in his.

Victor picked up his pace, allowing a hint of urgency to creep into his stride.

Catch up, he thought.

He heard a set of steps quickening, clearly expecting him to break into a run. Instead, Victor turned on his heel.

He doubled back on the crowded path, and started walking again in the opposite direction, forcing his pursuer to either stop and retreat, or maintain the illusion by continuing toward him.

Nobody stopped.

No one retreated.

Usually people bent away from Victor, their attention veering like water around a stone. But now, in the tangle of joggers and walkers and ambling groups, one man was still looking straight at him.

The man was young and dressed in civilian clothes, but he had the gait of a soldier, and the moment their eyes met, a ripple of tension crossed the younger man’s face. He drew a gun, but as he swung the weapon up, Victor flicked his own fingers, a single, vicious pull of an invisible thread, and the man fell to his knees on the path, the gun skidding out of his hand. Victor kept walking as the crowd turned, half in worry at the man’s scream and half in horror at the sight of the weapon on the park’s pavement.

Chaos erupted, and in that chaos Victor cut left, onto a different path, aiming for the street side of the park. Halfway there, a second figure rushed toward him, a woman with cropped dark hair.

She didn’t draw a weapon, but she had one hand to her ear and her lips were moving.

A group of cyclists whipped around the corner and Victor cut across the path just before they passed, a sudden, whooshing barricade that bought him just enough time to step between two carts and out of the park.

Victor moved swiftly, cutting across traffic and down a side street, seconds before an unmarked van skidded around the corner at the other end. It drove straight at him. He reached for the man behind the wheel, turning the dial up until the driver lost control and the van veered, slamming into a hydrant. Victor heard more footsteps, the hiss of radio static. He ducked into the nearest subway stop, swept past the turnstile and down the stairs, taking them two at a time toward the train pulling into the station below.