"What the heck are you doing?" Mel laughed, as she watched Hazel fall painfully on her backside. "You weren't going NEAR fast enough, if you were being chased by a couple of greenshirts you'd be up against the choice right about now."

"Let's see you do it then, Melanie Mouth," said Hazel, as she picked herself up and dusted herself off.

"Don't call me that. Told you, it's Felony now."

"Nobody's gonna call you that, it sounds stupid." Hazel twisted around to try to see the back of her shorts. "I didn't tear 'em, did I?"

"Nah, you're fine," said Mel. "Now watch and learn."

Mel stretched as she studied the high stone wall at one end of the dead-end alley—it was around four metres high, and had once been part of a large stone building. There were a couple of crates weighted down with rocks stacked up against it, and it was covered in marks drawn with rocks or pencil or paint.

"I'm waiting," said Hazel, from where she sat on a broken crate. "Come on, 'Felony'. Show me something."

Mel shot her friend a grin, then she was moving, bursting forward from a standing start, her left foot on a crate and her right foot on another and then against the wall, the sharkskin soles of her shoes giving her traction as she pushed herself up, and for a single beautiful second she was weightless, she was floating, she was flying, and then she pushed hard and twisted, propelling herself away from the wall and spinning and the ground was coming up now, fast, almost too fast, but then her foot was moving forward and angling itself just right and she slammed into the ground and pushed herself onwards almost in the same motion, a transferral of energy that sent her barrelling forward—she just barely slowed down in time to stop from running into the opposite wall of the alley, putting her hands up to absorb what was left of her momentum, then she pushed herself off to spin around, throwing her arms out to bow in an exaggerated fashion to Hazel, who was clapping in a way that was only half-joking.

"I gotta admit it, you got some moves," she said. "How do you do that?"

"You know I don't like to give away my secrets."

"Come on, you've gotta have some advice for me."

"Work on your sprint."

"That's it?"

Mel shrugged. "Without speed you can't do anything."

"Yeah, but ... you know I hate admitting this—"

"You know I love making you admit it."

"So, okay, you're faster than me—quit grinning like that!"

"Get to your point then."

"What I don't get is how you can go so fast so quick, it's like you're being launched out of a catapult or something, how do you DO that?"

Mel shrugged.

"Guess I just practise harder and longer and better than anyone else."

Hazel growled a little. "Do you have any idea how annoying you are?"

"Probably because I practise harder and longer and better at that, too. I gotta be the best at everything I do."

Hazel huffed.

"I think you're just lucky. You were just born fast."

"Hey." Mel's eyes lost a little of their warmth, her voice became just a little harder. "I work hard to be as good as I am. You wanna say different?"

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"I'm not saying you don't work hard. Maybe you do practise harder than me. But I think you've got some kind of natural advantage. Maybe it's because you're so teeny-tiny small."

"Yeah, I guess I wouldn't be nearly as fast if I had the saddlebags you're loaded down with."

"You didn't just say that."

"Maybe I wouldn't have, if I thought you had the slightest chance of ever catching me."

The two girls stared at each other, then they were moving—Mel leaping away into a run with a wild, elated whoop, Hazel sprinting after her, growling in a happy kind of way.

"Small is best!" Mel yelled, as she ran up along the side of the alley just for the fun of it, "I should take you along with me on my jobs, just in case I run into any greenshirts—because I know I don't even have to run faster than them, just faster than yooooou!"

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"MEL!"

"Wesh, what the HELL is going on?"

"I dunno, I dunno, have you seen anyone? I thought I heard Hazel back near Three Steps, but the place was swarming with greenshirts when I headed back, I couldn't—"

"Hazel's gone." Mel's face, normally animated and cheeky, was now flat and ashen. "What about any of the others?"

"I dunno, I just ... what do we do? What the hell do we do?"

Mel shook her head as she checked her knives, one had worked itself loose in its sheath as she'd run and she pushed it firmly down as she struggled to think—she was exhausted, she'd been running and hiding and running again for hours now, ever since a piercing series of dozens of whistles had signalled the start of some kind of attack—greenshirts had flooded the streets, come from every direction, hundreds of them, too many to run from because everywhere you ran there were more of them, and they all had swords and this time there wasn't a choice; if they catch me, Mel thought, they'll kill me—

"But first they have to catch me," she muttered. She looked up at Wesh. "Come on. You're heading home, right?"

Wesh nodded.

"Let's go, then. Stick close and try to keep up. I'm not slowing down for you."

Wesh didn't say anything in response to this, which didn't make Mel feel any better. Together they sped across the rooftops of Clock Face, Mel's pace fast and constant as she sprinted, leapt, crawled, climbed, Wesh struggling to even keep her in sight.

He finally caught her as she stood on the edge of a tall building, staring out at one of the city's large open squares. It took him a few seconds to realise what had caught her attention.

Gallows.

Dozens of them.

And hanging from the ropes—

"West gate," Mel said, her voice flat. "Through Heaven's Way, along Stepping Pretty then up over the wall near Dies Alone."

"Mel—"

"That's my plan, follow it if you want. If we don't see each other again ... goodbye."

As the clouds above broke and the first drop of rain fell on to Mel's cheek, she turned and started running, and she didn't look back.

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Heroes die.

Open rebellion marks you as trouble; an irritation to be dealt with.

Underground rebellion could only work when there was an underground to live and work in.

This was no longer the situation in Clock Face.

Fresh Wednesday, the authorities called it, the day the city got its fresh start, free of the criminal underclass that had plagued its streets for so long.

Death Wednesday, those members of the 'criminal underclass' that had managed to escape called it, the day a thriving culture built on principles of freedom and family was destroyed.

Felony (before it had been a fanciful nickname, the latest of many, but now it was what she was; her very existence a crime punishable by death) headed west from Clock Face, towards the city of Unity; the largest city in Targe. A big city's gotta have a lot of cracks, she thought. I'm sure I can find one that'll fit me.

----------------------------------------

Felony walked slowly up the street, a tightness around her mouth and a hardness to her eyes.

"Just pain and more pain," she muttered.

"Need some help?"

Felony looked around to see an imposing young man looking at her, his pale blue eyes amused. Beside him was a short blonde girl, sharply dressed and expressionless.

"If you two are looking for trouble—"

"Not trouble," said the blonde girl, looking straight at Felony. She had a clear Rosanthian accent. "We're looking for talent."

"I'm not that kind of girl," said Felony.

"You're some kind of girl, though," said the young man, the 'k' in 'kind' particularly hard. Harmonian, Felony thought. What the hell are a Harmonian and a Rosanthian doing here, together?

"You should come with us," said the girl. She smiled at Felony, a cold smile that didn't come near to reaching her eyes. "It would be in your own best interests."

"Thanks, but I think I'll pass," said Felony, turning to leave, very aware that the narrow street she was on was empty aside from her and these two. She got a few steps before spinning around again, right hand on the hilt of her knife.

"No need for that," said the young man, his hands raised as if in surrender. He grinned. "No need at all."

There was a bright flash, and a loud crack, and then darkness.