Run, Rabbit, Run

When he noticed the cops on the corner, Quentin ate faster. Yes, he’d plucked the sandwich out of the trash, and yes, someone had dropped half of a coffee onto it. Perhaps that piece of onion was really a cigarette, but Quentin devoured it anyway. He ate fast and tried to look anywhere but at them.

Two cops, a man and a woman. White, both with black hair. An assault rifle hung off the woman’s shoulder. The man’s hung to his back like wings. Tucked angel wings. They both wore pants and combat boots. Bulky bulletproof armor made them more menacing, which Quentin had always believed was more than half the point. Brick-sized radios hissed like consiglieri on each’s shoulder.

Quentin tossed the sandwich’s dry nub into the mulch bed for the birds—because he always poured one out for his homies—and smeared mustard off his chin. When the cops weren’t looking, he hopped down from the cradle of the lion statue’s paws. He’d been hanging in the library because it was hot enough outside to boil steam. He’d come outside because his stomach noises had started making other patrons look at him. Not that Quentin was technically a patron. He couldn’t be if no one would give him a library card.

Anyway.

To be a street kid in the city was a crime. Didn’t matter if no one got hurt, or stolen from, or even looked at. They’d stop you for anything. Eating out of the garbage was a crime. So was littering. They called resting on public art and humming to yourself loitering. Quentin tried to vanish into the static of tourists taking pictures, itinerants jogging to catch buses, and students walking in walls four-wide. He didn’t, though. He heard their budup-bup war boots. The di-der-o-ats of their radios got louder. He was stupid enough to glance over one shoulder, and yep, they were striding toward him. He took off.

He ran around the corner onto 163rd. The cops yelled at him to stop. He didn’t stop. He ran harder. At the end of 163rd, he shot across the street. A private car nearly hit him. Probably on purpose. But Quentin won every race in fifth grade, and only the wind of the car’s wake grazed him. He ran up 17th. One block. Two blocks. The crowds thinned. The area got more residential. The boots buduuped after him.

Quentin was barely twice the weight of his clothes, probably. They were well-fed, armored, AI-enhanced drones of war. He felt them gain. He dashed across 17th. A bike clipped him and made him spin. A taxi car nearly got him, but Quentin jolted back and didn’t get flattened. He raced down 165th, toward the water. There was a park somewhere over here. He was stupid for trying to outrun them. He had to hide, get under cover. Run, rabbit, run.

He was just a little rabbit. And they were dogs. Not wolves—wolves needed to kill things like rabbits. Dogs just did it for fun.

He ran through 18th and 165th, dodging cars and trucks. He heard sirens. Oh, he was so fucked. He dared to glance back as he ran into 165th. The two cops were still behind him, closer. Past them, a cop car veered onto the street. Where was the park? Quentin ran faster than he ever had in fifth grade, when he was still being fed, when impressing Michael Matthews was all he cared about. Surviving today was all he cared about. Run, rabbit, run.

Through 19th. He looked both ways, desperate to find that park. It was full of trees. There was a splash ground in it. Kids would be mobbing the place. On instinct, he veered south, against traffic, and ran a block down 19th, back to 164th. The park emerged like heaven through the clouds, around the backside of an idling delivery truck. Quentin whooped with breath he couldn’t spare. The two cops were right on him. He sprinted into the intersection. The cops yelled and sirens screamed louder, and louder, and louder, and louder, and—