Be-deep-deep! The earpiece trilled, louder and sharper than before. She’s very close, its wearer realized.

The sight of the girl’s ponytail bobbing through the crowd caught his eye before she disappeared again, headed towards the far end of the shopping district. The device he wore began to beep angrily, set off by the instant of direct line of sight with its quarry. He pressed a finger to the device and spoke: “There! I see her! Kusa’s coming your way.”

The girl called Kusa passed through a narrow alleyway into an area where the crowd was thinner. She knew she’d been spotted by now. She didn’t understand how; even knowing she was within a few blocks, they zeroed in on her too quickly.

There was no more point in worrying about propriety or causing a scene. She broke into a flat-out run, her legs pumping, well-used sneakers pounding the cobblestones that lined the pedestrian mall. For an instant, she was almost lost in the sheer joy of pushing a well-trained body to its limits – until her senses registered what lay ahead of her. She stopped short as two additional well-dressed, thuggish men—one bald, one with dark hair, slicked back against his skull—stepped out of a bakery’s entryway and moved to block her path.

“What the hell?! How many of these guys are there?”

Kusa turned on her heel, pushing people aside, ignoring complaints and shouts. Dimly, she realized she was calling even more attention to herself, that people would remember the girl they saw being pursued by vaguely official-looking men, but there was nothing she could do about it. It was better to be remembered than caught.

She doubled back for the second time, then stopped short and turned down an alley. On the other side, she paused. Her head whipped left and right, searching for some avenue of escape. She realized she was almost back where she started. Just a block or so down, she spotted the sign for the nearest train station. She allowed herself a grin, thanked whatever god of luck was keeping an eye on her and pressed her speed to the fullest, dodging and weaving through the crowd towards her escape. Within moments, she disappeared down the stairs leading underground.

At nearly the same instant the girl he called “Kusa” left street level, the man who first spotted her burst out of the same alleyway shortcut she’d taken, one of his companions on his heels. Unaccustomed to this much exercise, both men gasped for air, their chests heaving with the exertion. Dark half-moons of sweat appeared beneath the first man’s arms and the other’s bald head shone with a sheen of moisture.

The bald-headed man pointed towards the stairs to the station. “She must have gone in. There’s no other way out of here.”

“Maybe,” the other wheezed. “Or maybe that’s just what she wants us to think.”

“No.” The man who wore the tracking device at his ear appeared at the wheezing man’s elbow. The device emitted a series of continuous beeps that only he could hear. “This is right. Let’s go.”

The station was busy, but wouldn’t reach its peak for hours. There were plenty of people around, but not enough that it could be called crowded. The low ceiling and tile-covered walls made even the smallest sounds echo, however, filling the space with noise and making it seem fuller and more claustrophobic. On one nearby wall, a large electronic sign blinked as the train schedule was updated, and a young woman in a gray vest and pencil skirt let out a gasp of frustration at what she saw. The man with the tracking device’s head turned at the sound, but saw the girl wasn’t Kusa and pushed it from his mind.

“Split up,” he ordered and the three men broke apart, each heading in a separate direction. The station was small, just a minor spur of the main line, and there were few places to search. Within moments, they gathered again, by a wall of pay-lockers. “No luck,” “no sign,” “no nothing” were the results of their search.

“What now, boss?” the bald-headed man asked.

The man called “boss” frowned and rubbed a knuckle across his forehead. The tracking device at his ear beeped continuously. The girl was here. He knew that for a fact. It didn’t help him unless he could find her, though.