[This begins the “Boat Chase” Engagement”.] Sirens fill the air as the police notice the high speed chase and gunfight running through their streets. Two officers on aquabikes and two more in a patrol skiff swing off of a side street to fall in behind the Bartletts. “Please drop your weapons and turn off your motors,” calls an officious voice from the skiff’s external speakers.

Angel ignores them and watches the GPS. Three more seconds. Two… one…

She presses the detonation button on her wrist. For a moment, nothing happens. Then sparks shoot out of all the streetlights on the boardwalk behind them. The police sirens die out and the skiff grinds to a halt against the waterfront while the aquabikes bob unpowered.

Unfortunately, neither of the Bartletts’ ’bikes are caught in the EMP blast radius. They must have been just outside the effective range.

“Shit,” says Angel. She hopes the EMP at least blanked their computers back at Coopersmith’s. She sights on Gwynnie, preparing to put a bullet in that pretty blonde head. She squeezes the trigger, and just as she does, Mikio whips the boat around a sharp corner. Her bullet creases the ’bike’s cowling instead of Gwynnie’s face. [Stunt 1]

Angel turns to berate him for his timing, and gasps as she realizes the boat is running up toward a traffic jam. Several boats are stuck around an intersection where a barge lists to one side. “There!” She points to a loading ramp. “Gun it!”

Mikio hammers down the throttle. The boat leaps forward. It hits the ramp with a bone-jarring thud and sails up into the air, startling pedestrians and other drivers alike. The boat glances off the roof of a ferry at the crossing and starts to spin. Just when Angel thinks they’re going to catch the far waterfront and prepares to jump, Mikio vents the starboard hydrogen tank. The pressurized gas blows out the side and heels the boat over just enough to splash down in the opposite lane so close that Angel could reach over and touch the pier if she wanted to. [Stunt 2]

The Bartletts attempt the same trick. The lighter aquabikes clear the ferry, but Gladys must have hit her launch angle wrong. Her ’bike lands on the pedestrian walkway in an explosion of carbon fiber splinters and skids into a storefront. Angel doesn’t see what happens to Gladys, but hopes it’s fatal. [Stunt 3]

The tenacious Gwynnie doesn’t falter in the least. She sails up and over the traffic jam, then splashes the ’bike down at a steep angle to dive underneath a barge in the oncoming lane. She pops back out of the water behind it and tosses away her wet and useless gun. [Stunt 4]

Angel smiles and takes aim, safe in the knowledge that Gwynnie can’t shoot back.

As she fires, another police skiff roars out of an inlet and rams them. Angel’s gun flies away and she struggles to keep from tumbling after it. “Shit!” she screams in frustration. [Stunt 5]

“Pull over your vehicle now and shut down your motor!” orders the skiff’s driver. His partner has an assault carbine leveled at them. So much for the tradition of British cops going unarmed.

“Give me your gun,” Angel hisses at Mikio.

“I do not have one.”

Her jaw drops open in shock. “You what? You don’t have a fucking gun? What kind of ninja are you, anyway?”

“This is your last warning! Pull over or we will…ulp—”

“Ulp?” Angel and Mikio look at each other in surprise, and then glance back at the skiff.

Gwynnie must have come up behind the skiff and jumped on board from her bike while the officers were preoccupied with Mikio’s boat. She’s just relieved the driver of his gun and thrown him overboard. The other officer whirls and she points the gun in his face. “Jump off,” she screams at him. [Stunt 6] He must not be paid well enough to take a bullet for the King, and hits the water. Gwynnie puts the skiff into full pursuit mode. Armored airbags puff outward from the forward hull, and the engines take on a deeper hum as she pours auxiliary power into them. “You fuckin’ bitch,” she screams over the external speakers. “I’m goin’ to smear you all over this city.”

The skiff rams into the back of the boat. Mikio fights the wheel to keep Gwynnie’s prediction from coming true. Mindless of other boats, traffic buoys, or anything else between her and them, Gwynnie smashes the skiff again and again into the back of Mikio’s boat. [Stunt 7]

“Can’t this thing go any faster?” shouts Angel.

“I fear not.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake! Next time spring for something with some balls.” Angel scrambles over the seats to the very rear of the boat. Just as Gwynnie drives the skiff in on them again, she leaps onto its prow. Angel just manages to catch the railing and hang on for dear life. Gwynnie sees her right away and spins the wheel hard to bounce the skiff off a dock and shake Angel loose. [Stunt 8]

The broken bones in Angel’s left palm grate together and her hand slips loose to leave her dangling by one hand. She resists the urge to vent her implants again. She was too impatient to read the entire manual for each one and doesn’t know what kind of bad things can happen to her if she uses too much of the combat drugs in too short a time span.

Gwynnie bangs the skiff against a ferry and Angel falls, but instead of hitting the water, she tumbles onto the hood of Mikio’s boat, which he’s maneuvered next to the skiff to catch her. [Stunt 9] Gwynnie raises her gun in exasperation and empties it at Angel, who twists and gyrates on the weaving boat to avoid being hit. One bullet grazes her thigh and another flies through her hair near enough to her ear she can feel the skin burn with its passing. Galvanized by the pain, Angel vaults onto the skiff over its railing. [Stunt 10]

“I hate being shot!” She charges at Gwynnie. [Out of breath yet? Because we’re not done yet! Tune in tomorrow for the “Boat Fight” Engagement!]