"Go, Masa!" Eshe grabbed his hand and pulled him away from Joey who was barreling in their direction.

Masahiro jerked into running. He hesitated only a moment before taking the lead and directing her down a couple streets before the familiar dark mouth of a subway entrance leading down into the earth opened before them.

They raced down staircase after staircase. The smell of heated concrete gave way to the olfactory soup of mildew, rats and the tang of electricity underlying the stench of masses of people crowded together.

She paused in surprise at the bottom, gazing around at the cavernous expanse of the white-tiled walls and floor. She'd expected dingy gray concrete, not interior decorating that made it bright and cheerful. There was even a gigantic, beautiful poster of a dragonfly that wrapped around a massive pole.

"I've got you, Eshe!" Joey yelled.

She startled and glanced back up. He was halfway down.

"Masa..." she gripped her friend's hand hard. They looked at each other with wide eyes.

"Come, Eshe." As they ran, he unzipped his onesie and awkwardly dug inside. He had started panting again. "Train card, Eshe. Get card."

She unzipped and slipped it from her front pocket. "Ouch!" she cried when she rezipped and caught her finger.

Their feet slapped on the polished floor as they ran.

Masahiro's panting came more heavily. "Nankai station above. This Midosuji subway. We take. Joey go bye-bye. Then come again Nankai train."

"Good plan," Eshe replied.

Colourful posters flashed past them advertising films and what looked like sumo wrestlers.

They ran up to the turnstiles. Eshe followed Masahiro's example and fed her plastic card into the slot. The flaps snapped open and she ran through.

"Card!" Masahiro called and pointed.

"Right!" she ran back and snatched the precious plastic where the machine spat it out the other side. Her eyes popped and she yelled, "Joey!"

She instinctively backpedalled away as he came running up.

He lay one hand on the turnstile top and launched himself in the air. The flaps snapped back into place, catching Joey's rear foot.

His balance upset, Joey's hand slipped off the side. His shoulder crashed into the metal turnstile. His back leg caught between the flaps and he threw back his head in a shout of pain. When he finally landed on the tile floor, he reached up to cradle his left knee.

Pulling his leg free, he grabbed onto the machine to pull himself up but he fell back gripping his right shoulder.

"Don't think you're safe, Eshe!" he growled and rolled his weight to his right knee and used his left hand to push himself up.

He hobbled forward, his head tipped down, and looked up at Eshe with a sinister smile.

Eshe broke from her stupor and turned, crashing into Masahiro beside her. They fell in a tangle of limbs.

Joey's laughter taunted them.

Masahiro was dazed.

"Masa, get up!" She was pinned to her back. She kicked to get Masahiro's legs free of hers.

Joey was almost on top of them. Her blood ran cold.

Before she could roll away, Joey was there lifting his leg to smash it down in her face.

Her body tensed. She lifted her arms to protect her face.

At the sound of grunting, she peeked out.

Masahiro had hold of Joey's foot and was trying to flip Joey over. The problem was, Masahiro had his arms extended quite far above his head so he wasn't able to apply much force, and Eshe knew Joey had naturally good balance. Having someone weakly pull on his foot wouldn't be enough to make him fall.

"Go, Eshe-san!" Mashahiro cried. "I hold Joey. Remember plan!"

He was right. Right now, she didn't care where the train was going, as long as Joey wasn't on it.

She could make her way to the airport alone. She still had the - No! She didn't have the paper with Japanese directions he'd written for her anymore. It had been in her hand when Leora - her mind seized at the thought of her friend dead in the street. Had Masahiro's friends collected her body yet? She shook the image away.

The paper must have been lost when she attacked Eiji and Joey. It couldn't be recovered now. Saying the name of the train line would have to suffice.

She scrambled to her feet and ran toward the staircase in front of her and down - just in time to see the taillights of a train lighting up the dark tunnel.

"No!" she cried. Her hope plummeted.

She held onto the centre railing as she ran down to make sure she didn't trip and pitch head over heels down the stairs. That would just be her luck, to escape from a madman like Eiji then break her neck falling when freedom was minutes away.

Halfway down, Joey yelled from the top, "There's nowhere for you to go down there, Eshe. I wouldn't plan to jump on the tracks. The trains are too frequent. You'll get hit!"

Her heart thumped in her ears. Her nerve endings were so taut that all she could do was obey the instinct to flee.

She leapt from the second step onto the tiled platform, startling a tiny Japanese woman in a green apron who was mopping the other side with water that was pitch black with dirt.

The woman's wrinkled face tipped up at her curiously.

Eshe smiled and said a hasty "Sorry!" for scaring her.

The woman bobbed her head as Eshe rushed away.

Standing in the middle of the platform, Eshe looked around for anything that would help. There were no benches. Only a few large square pillars in a perpendicular line down the centre of the platform with posters and subway maps on them.

A few people from the loose crowds standing at either edge of the platform turned to look at her.

She ran to the far side of the closest pillar and pressed her back to it to take stock of her surroundings. She laid her hands against the pillar, absorbing the cool of the concrete.

A sensation poked its way into her consciousness. The dead. For the first time ever she had walked on the Earth and been unaware of what lay beneath it.

She snickered. It only took being in mortal danger to do it. At least she could say she'd had a taste of what walking around felt like for the rest of the seven billion people on the planet.

The digital sign overhead looked like it gave information about when trains would arrive but it was all in Japanese. She could only guess the numbers were train times which meant on one side the next train would be in six minutes while on the other side it would be eight.

Joey called out, "Come out, come out, wherever you are, Eshe!"

How was she going to last that long? Joey would figure out where she was in -

"Boo!" he yelled and reached out to grab her arm.

Eshe slapped off his hand and backed away, walking straight into a Japanese businessman who scowled at her.

Joey stalked after her. "There's nowhere to go, Eshe. Your friend Masahiro won't be joining us."

She bared her teeth at him and glanced to the top of the stairs. "You didn't-" She couldn't finish the thought.

Joey smirked. "He's alive, if that's what your worried about. I leave the dirtier work to Eiji. He's good at that. Where is Eiji, anyway? I'm assuming he took care of my ex-boss since he's not here protecting you." Joey hissed when he moved his arm to retrieve the mobile phone from his front pocket and had to use the other one to pull it out.

It was Eshe's turn to smirk. "The last I saw Eiji he resembled a pin cushion. The cooks were giving him a taste of his own medicine."

"No!" Joey exclaimed and jerked towards the stairs which elicited another low hiss from him. He reached across his body to rub his knee.

She held a hand out towards the stairs in invitation. "By all means go and find him. Maybe he's even still alive."

It was unlikely Joey would leave her alone, but if she could keep him talking long enough for the train to arrive, she could hit him in the knee and get on the train before he could get up and on too. It was a long shot but the best plan at the moment.

Joey gave a sarcastic laugh. "Do you seriously think I'll be going anywhere without you? I've worked too long for my meal ticket."

He stepped towards her, favouring his injured leg. She glanced behind her and stepped back again. It was only a few feet to the drop-off.

She grinned at the wickedly delicious image of pushing Joey onto the tracks.

"What are you smiling about?" he asked.

"Just imagining pushing you onto the tracks," she said.

He gasped and scrutinized her carefully. "You don't have it in you."

She shrugged. "Doesn't mean I can't think it."

He stepped towards her but slightly to the side, making her adjust to keep him away. She threw another look over her shoulder. He was hedging her in between the crowd of people and the tracks, betting that she wouldn't jump on the tracks.

With a lunge quicker than she'd anticipated, he grabbed onto her arm and held it in a vicelike grip. He pulled her close into him. "Now, you listen closely to me, Eshe. Eiji may be gone, but he's not my only contact. You are coming with me."

"Over my dead body!" she snarled.

"That doesn't really work into my plans, so, no." He jerked Eshe's arm. "Let's go!"

"I don't think so!" she near-shouted.

She jerked back equally as hard which pulled Joey forward into her.

He stumbled as his knee gave out. He fell towards her, reaching out to grab onto her and prevent himself from pitching headfirst onto the tracks.

Surprised at bearing his weight, Eshe stumbled backwards and twisted away from Joey's weight. His left arm pinwheeled and his right arm flopped slightly, unable to make the rotation. Somehow his flailing arm caught onto the hood of her Pikachu outfit.

"Uggghhh!" she scream-cried and planted her feet, bending her knees, just as he swung out over the abyss.

Eshe spun her arms in the air, grasping at the emptiness to secure her.

Please, no! she thought. She wasn't afraid of dying, but she didn't want to get flattened by a train.

A shiny yellow umbrella handle thrust in front of her face. Eshe grabbed it, just as her heels were about to slide off the platform.

At the other end was an old Japanese woman, grey hair back in a bun and an ordinary navy blue sweater over brown trousers. She grunted and slid to sitting. Within seconds the old woman beside her grabbed on as well.

Joey pulled on the hood of Eshe's Pikachu costume again, desperately trying to haul himself back from the abyss. He was whimpering and muttering a bunch of mostly swear words.

She bent her knees to take the added weight. Did she imagine the vibrations of the threads holding the hood to her costume starting to pop? Or was it just wishful thinking?

"What are you doing, Joey? You're going to get us both killed!"

He replied, "I'm at a weird angle. I can't get my bad knee to support my weight or my other arm to swing up and help me hold on. You've gotta pull me in!"

Images of falling onto the tracks kept flashing in her brain. Her hands were becoming slick with sweat. She didn't dare look to see if there was a crawl space under the edges she could roll into if she fell. It felt like any movement would make her lose the precarious hold she had on the woman's umbrella or make her feet slip out from beneath her and send her flying backwards.

As it was, she could only pray she wasn't far enough out for a train to actually hit any part of her.

It definitely would hit part of Joey, though.

"Why should I even save you anyway? You killed Leora!"

"I didn't! That was Eiji. He's out of control. I didn't want anyone to get hurt."

Joey adjusted and Eshe squawked in protest. "Stop that or we both fall! Which you deserve for wanting to enslave us. If we get out of this, I'll make sure you go to prison, Joey."

Her heart soared to see Masahiro talking to the cleaning lady on the stairs.

Several people had gathered nearby and had mobile phones out taking pictures and filming. No one stepped forward to help her and the two little old Japanese ladies holding the umbrella, much less Joey who hung out into the subway track with only a toe keeping him from falling outright.

Directly across from her two young women posed for a selfie and Eshe screamed, "Helping us is what you should do!"

The two young women turned and waved enthusiastically at her, then covered their mouths while they giggled. Their phones came up to continue recording the event along with so many others.

The old Japanese ladies holding the umbrella grit their teeth and held on.

The one who'd caught Eshe's hand with the handle in the first place gave a grin that was more a grimace. She said, "We climb Machu Picchu last year. If we can go up big mountain and come down, we can hold you! We strong!"

The small, tickley hairs along Eshe's forehead moved in a warm wind that blew from the dark of the tunnel. Moments later the sound of an approaching train echoed along to them.

The low murmur of the crowd rose to a panicked crescendo. Smiles dropped into frowns and several people clicked on their phones, then held the screens out towards Eshe with the time. They began pointing at the displays then down the tunnel and shouting at her in Japanese.

She had no idea what they were talking about. It was clear a train was on the way. Whether it was early or on time didn't really matter at the moment.

The little old lady holding the umbrella shook her head and explained, "They scared the train be delayed. You fall, train stop to clean. Train late. You pay big money to clean."

"What?" said Eshe, incredulous. "Why won't they just help us?"

"Help me!" shrieked Joey. "Pull me back in!"

"I can't!" Eshe yelled back. "If I move, we both fall on the tracks!"

"If you don't move, I'm dead, and if I'm going down, I'm taking you with me!" he promised.

She sent up a quick prayer and thought of the date she'd never take with Ruslan. Perhaps it was better. Not only was the information in her head dangerous, but the world had come to rely on her ability overmuch.

Joey pulled so hard she began coughing slightly as the fabric bit into her neck.

She heard his sobs behind her. "I don't want to die!"

In her peripheral vision, Eshe saw the headlight of the train illuminate the end of the tunnel.

"God forgive me," Eshe said. She had seconds to decide whether to let go. If the train took her because she was leaning too far out, it might also pull along and harm these two valiant ladies trying so hard to rescue her. If Joey somehow managed to hold onto her hood when he got hit, she would get pulled into the path of the train, and, again, these two ladies might get pulled in and injured as well. If she was a goner, she could at least spare their innocent lives.

Movement overhead caught her eye. Something black was flying. A bird? A drone? That would be the end-all and be-all if someone actually had a drone down here. It came closer. A shoe! A shoe?

She felt the breeze of its passing on her cheek as it flew right over her shoulder with amazing precision. Suddenly Joey's weight was gone, and she was pitching forward towards the Japanese ladies. She landed with an unladylike sprawl on her belly.

There was one scream, then a sickening thunk followed by the train's brakes.

Rising to her hands and knees, Eshe crawled over to the two women who were still sitting where they'd fallen back and hugged them to her. Their bony shoulders shook with hers as they all cried in relief. When Eshe pulled back, they stared at each other and their tears quickly turned to relieved laughter.

She didn't know any Japanese, probably wouldn't have been able to remember it at that moment anyway, so Eshe just said, "Thank you! Thank you so much!"

The crowd had pressed in closely now.

Eshe looked up at them, a sea of faces hidden by phones held extended in hands or on selfie sticks. Within an hour her ordeal would be splashed across the internet. It was the kind of thing to make the day's headline news the world over.

Whistles started blasting and people started shuffling around, pushing backwards to get away from the authoritative voices that had begun shouting from behind the mass.

The crowd shifted apart as the wizened old woman in the green apron pushed her way to the front, Masahiro just behind her, his nose bloodied.

She bowed low to Eshe and said "Pika! Pika!", flashed two thumbs up and a nearly toothless smile then hobbled away. Just before she melted into the crowd, Eshe saw she wore only one black shoe.

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