Nico was running for his life.
He’d seen it before in movies and TV shows, but he always thought that if he was the protagonist, he would pull some sweet heroics and fight his way out. He never thought that it would be so…
Life threatening.
His heart pounded in his ears, synced with the rapid footfalls behind him.
His breath was ragged and his legs were on the verge of–
Suddenly he slipped on a patch of grime in the dirty, shadowed alleyway.
His stomach twisted as he realized his face was about to shoot into the slippery asphalt. He threw his hands out and caught himself at the last second, rolling with the momentum. The world revolved and he came back up to his feet, fighting the burning in his chest with a grimace.
“Tell me what to do, tell me what to do,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head violently.
There was a tell-tale click-clack of a gun being cocked.
“How do you fire this thing?” a kid asked. There were several dry clicks of a trigger being pulled.
“Put the clip in you idiot!” a not much older yet gruffer voice commanded. “Now turn the safety off!”
“What’s a safety?”
“Christ, just give it to me!” he screamed and ripped the weapon from the kid’s hands.
Nico’s blood ran cold.
“COME ON, TELL ME WHAT TO DO!” he screamed.
“Receiving new directive…” a disembodied robotic female voice calmly projected from inside his skull. “Turn left. Immediately.”
He took the next left blind and was instantly plunged into darkness.
There were a few drunken groans from ahead but he didn’t slow, his heart about to either stop or explode. He risked a glance over his shoulder: his pursuers hadn’t caught up yet. He turned back – and suddenly got a face full of hobo. He smashed headlong into the smelly and beer soaked old man, sending him spinning in a flurry of slurred, incomprehensible curses.
He stumbled and nearly fell again but he regained his balance and didn’t stop. Bright, multi-colored lights burned and flashed up ahead, along with the noisy den of crowds of busy people packed into a street. Strings of firecrackers reverberated off each wall, every explosion as loud as a gunshot.
“Receiving secondary directive…” the voice in his head announced.
“Can I take the shot?” the older kid barked from behind, shaking his head.
“Do not die,” she calmly ordered.
“No promises,” Nico muttered and started zigging and zagging from one side of the alleyway to the other. Only a few more seconds and he’d be out of the narrow passage.
“Give me a directive!” the kid bellowed, standing at his end of the alleyway with the handgun’s sights trained on Nico’s back. He violently slapped the side of his own head. “Give me one or I’m taking the shot right now!”
His posse caught up, skidding to a halt beside him.
“Do it!” one screamed. “Shoot!”
“What are you waiting for?” another shouted.
Nico was almost to the end, just a few more lunges and–
“Screw it!” the kid roared, and pulled the trigger. He suddenly gurgled in agony and fell to his knees, bringing his free hand to his head, the gun going off harmlessly into the air.
Nico burst onto the tightly packed, neon bathed backstreet and was immediately assaulted with every sense his body could comprehend. Throngs of people in traditional Asian dress danced and jounced and swelled around firecrackers, dragons snaked through the street, their paper-mâché maws gaping wide with teeth, every kind of music possible blared from every direction, the people shouting to be heard over it, scents of frying calamari and rice and hundreds of different mystery meats and vegetables raided his nostrils – even the air tasted of sulfur, smoke, and sweat.
“Go left,” she commanded.
He immediately began to dash and bolt his way in between clearings in the sea of people, but he suddenly found himself trapped in the middle of a hundred dancing and touching bodies. He stared to force his way through the mass, shoving people away to many complaints and angry groans. An old, gray haired Asian woman reached out as he was passing and placed a string of red beads around his neck. They locked eyes as he strode by, her wise, understanding gaze taking him aback.
Nico furrowed his brow, unable to break eye contact.
“Behind you,” she nodded.
“Huh?” he blurted.
“Yoo-hoo, Nicky, hey baby!” a sweet, yet blood curling, skin crawling, familiar voice called.
Without hesitation he dived and tackled the old lady to the ground, a deep, fleshy thunk resounding from inches above his head. He glanced up – only the knife’s hilt was left protruding from the belly of a pig corpse hanging from a stall.
That would have been lethal.
The crowd collectively gasped and parted between them.
“That was my last one, darn!” she bubbled. “Looks like we’re doing this the old fashion way, Nicky.”
“I don’t have time for you,” he uttered, scrambling up and charging her without another word. She yelped as he picked her up around the waist and shouldered her through a stall selling still moving crabs. She shot over the cutting boards and into a tank full of the agitated crustaceans.
He didn’t stay to watch but her screams told him all he needed to know. He broke into a sprint, the crowd starting to thin out – he could see the end of the backstreet up ahead.
“Receiving new directive…” the voice spoke.
He came to the intersection, a dark river on the other side of the street reflecting close clusters of towers and skyscrapers on the skyline, each crowned with varying lights and screens, no building able to outdo its neighbor. His eyes were suddenly drawn to an aggressive looking, rider-less, burning red racing motorcycle bathing in the harsh yellow luminance of a street lamp.
“Take the ride,” the voice commanded. “The girl goes too.”
“What gir–” he started but was cut off by a bear hug embrace from a girl.
“Nico, thank God!” she cried, tears streaming down her face.
“Paz,” he realized and breathed out, quickly squeezing her back. “Come on, we have to get out of here, right now.”
“Wha– what’s your directive?” she stammered.
“Just get on the bike,” Nico hurried. He climbed onto the saddle and gripped the handle bars. Paz slid in behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“The key is in your front right pocket,” the voice revealed like a creepier, more surgically implanted version of a street magician. Without even questioning how it got there he dug into his pocket and pulled out a single key with a keychain that read, ‘I got ninety-ninety problems but speed limits ‘aint one.’
He jammed it into the ignition and twisted, the bike roaring and sputtering to life, its engine revving desperately for take off. He had to resist smiling – he could almost feel the torque between his legs.
“Do not forget your secondary directive,” the voice reminded.
Nico gripped the clutch, dropped it into neutral with his left foot, revved the engine to the breaking point, and kicked it into fourth gear with his right.
Blast off.
Suddenly they were ripping down the road at breakneck speed, Nico struggling to keep the bike from doing a wheelie, wind tearing at his eyes and hair. He started to weave into the traffic, holes suddenly riddling a van’s back door in front of him, three shots ringing out over the river. He glanced into his mirror but saw that the gunman had quickly turned his weapon to his group that had just been following him, more rapid shots echoing out, the crowds screams coming in waves.
Directive change, Nico thought darkly.
He shifted and accelerated, drowning it out with the throaty roar of the massive engine. Paz gripped with all the strength she had, put her head against his back, and closed her eyes like she was on ride at an amusement park that her friends had talked her into trying that she really didn’t want to be on. Cars around them turned into blurs of taillights as Nico dodged mopeds, swerved around semi’s, and cut through intersections and red-lights.
“Okay!” he hollered over the wind. “Where am I going?”
“Receiving new directive…” the female voice replied in its usual apathetic tone. “Go to the top of the bridge. Immediately. You have exactly fifteen seconds to complete this directive or you will fail it and your secondary as well. Do not worry about law enforcement: they have been taken care of.”
He looked ahead: a bridge extended out over the river, washed in light and covered in traffic. He gripped the clutch with white knuckles, kicked it into 6th, and pushed the bike to the limit, the wind making it almost impossible to see anything. He barely avoided pulverizing a rickshaw by jumping into the next lane and narrowly cutting between two honking cars into the next.
“Ten seconds,” she announced.
Nico willed the bike to go faster, gripping the handlebars with all his strength.
“Five seconds.”
He kicked it into neutral, slammed on the brakes, and skidded through the bridge’s intersection. He almost put the bike on its side as he cut onto the bridge, the frame shuddering with the strain.
“Three seconds.”
He twisted the accelerator as far as it would go and smashed it into gear, rocketing up the bridge.
“One second.”
They reached the apex and he crossed his fingers, waiting for the end.
“Get off the bike,” the voice commanded.
He breathed out and relaxed his fingers, pulling the motorcycle to the edge and coming to halt.
“Okay, we have to get off,” he instructed, but Paz refused to let go, her grip crushing his ribs. He tore her arms away and slid off, striding to the edge. The view would have been appreciable if he wasn’t trying to not die. 
Paz grabbed his shoulder. “What’s next?”
“I don’t know yet,” Nico replied his eyes darting in every direction, standing still for this long didn’t feel natural. “What’s your directive?”
“To stay with you,” she answered.
“Push her off.”
The voice’s order reverberated inside his skull, unable to be comprehended. 
He met Paz’s suddenly wide gaze.
“It just told me – I have too –” Nico stammered.
“Push you off,” she finished for him in disbelief.
Her pleading gaze told him everything he needed to know: they both had the same directive.
For a moment they said nothing.
Her hand slipped into his.
“It should be me, I–” she started.
“No!” Nico shook his head. “No way! We aren’t doing this, there is no way in hell we’re doing this!”
“Nico–”
“Do you hear me!” he shouted at the night sky. “I said NO! We’ve done everything you’ve asked, but I am not doing this!”
Suddenly his inner ear felt like it was being diced into mince-meat. He fell to his knees and then onto his stomach, gasping in pain, his hands gripping at his skull.
“You will follow your directive,” the voice ordered forcefully.
Paz stood there, unable to decide. 
Her eyes darted back and forth between the edge and Nico.
The edge.
Nico.
“No,” she whispered. “No, I won’t do it.”
She suddenly collapsed to the asphalt as well, her whimpers of pain falling on Nico’s deaf ears – he couldn’t hear anything save for his own breathing and a slight ringing. They laid there together for a few heartbeats that felt like eternity.
Suddenly a harsh pool of white light bathed them in luminance from above.
He rolled over onto his back: a helicopter hovered over them, circling the bridge, the wind off its blades buffeting against his skin.
“Law enforcement has be re-instated,” the voice echoed in his head, like it was his own thought. “Directive priorities shifting, one moment…”
Nico dragged himself to his knees, his entire body screeching in pain and protest. With the last of his strength he picked Paz off the ground and propped her up against him. She was barely conscious – her eyes open but not really seeing. He put her arm over his shoulder and began to hobble back to the edge of the bridge.
“Your secondary directive is now your primary,” the voice informed.
The helicopter’s doors opened and ropes fell around them. Muscular and ruthless looking body armored officers sliding down, rifles slung around their shoulders.
“Do not die.”
They reached the edge.
Nico peeked over.
It was too dark to tell how far down it was.
“No promises,” he muttered, and threw himself and Paz off the bridge.