Neutral Gear

How many seconds does a ten-ton logging truck need to spot an idling flatbed before its crew opens fire? Tan Boyan wedged the master peptide lockbox between his boots on the floorboards of the captured diesel truck, wiped slick rain from his forehead, and stared down the wet asphalt of Provincial Route 219. Three hundred paces below them, the timber hauler straddled both lanes like a concrete dam, its high-mount halogens cutting through the pine fog and blinding the lower switchback. If he wanted to deliver six million yuan of synthetic capsules and keep his skin intact, he had to clear that road before the syndicate riflemen reloaded.

Officer Meng Qiaoling kept her fingers resting flat against the steering wheel, the parking brake engaged and her service weapon resting beside the lever, waiting for his answer.

"My van is an eighty-horsepower miracle of budget domestic manufacturing," Boyan said, pointing his extendable snake hook out the cracked passenger window toward the dark incline thirty paces behind them. "More importantly, it weighs a thousand kilograms, sits on a twelve-degree grade, and currently contains twenty newly awakened, venom-heavy serpents—along with zero functioning brakes."

Qiaoling glanced into the side mirror at the crooked microvan, its twin rear doors swaying gently in the damp wind. "You put it in first gear when the radiator blew."

"I did," Boyan said. "Which means right now, one fragile aluminum shift linkage is the only thing keeping twenty very pissed-off pit vipers from rolling down this hill like an avalanche of pure justice."

"You want to turn your delivery vehicle into an unguided projectile."

"I prefer to call it an innovative, zero-emission freight delivery system," he said, popping the passenger door latch. "Keep this engine turning over. When the road clears, drop the brake and floor it."

Before Qiaoling could quote whichever provincial traffic ordinance prohibited launching unmanned microvans at logging blockades, Boyan dropped from the running board into the drainage ditch.

Cold runoff soaked straight through his sneakers. He stayed low, ducking behind the concrete culvert lip. Downhill, a burst of three-round carbine fire chewed into the roadside gravel near the flatbed, but the timber hauler's gunners were shooting blind into the heavy mist. Judging by the random spread, they had not spotted him yet.

He scrambled up the slope, his fingers digging into wet fern roots until he reached the microvan's rear bumper.

The cargo bay smelled of burnt wiring, copper, and cold reptilian musk. From the dim interior, a dry, rhythmic buzzing vibrated through the floor pan. Boyan froze against the rear quarter-panel. A four-foot habu was coiled around the spare tire bracket, its triangular head raised, tasting the humid air with a black tongue. Near the front footwell, a thick banded krait looped lazily over the handbrake lever, while the larger king cobra patrolled the driver's floor mat.

Reaching inside with bare hands was suicide. One graze from the habu meant systemic hemorrhaging within forty minutes, and the nearest antivenom sat in the yellow satchel inside the flatbed down below.

Boyan extended the veterinary snake hook to its full four-foot reach. He circled toward the driver's door, keeping his boots silent on the wet asphalt. The driver-side window was half-shattered from an earlier ricochet, leaving a jagged gap just wide enough for the stainless-steel shaft.

He leaned against the wet doorframe and guided the tip through the opening.

The king cobra flared its hood instantly, rising two feet off the floorboards with a hollow hiss that sounded like a punctured air hose. The serpent struck at the glass, its snout smacking hard against the remaining safety pane.

Boyan didn't flinch. He had handled agitated elapids in cramped cages since his uncle ran an unlicensed breeding barn outside Bose. He ignored the flared hood and maneuvered the hook past the striking radius, slipping the curved crook beneath the plastic shift knob.

The Hafei's transmission linkage was notoriously loose—worn down by six years of grinding gears on mountain switchbacks. He gave the shaft a sharp, calculated jerk upward and toward the center console.

The lever popped out of first gear with a metallic clack.

The van groaned. The chassis shifted two inches down the slope, settling onto the emergency brake cable.

Inside, the sudden lurch sent the banded krait tumbling off the center console into the passenger seat. The king cobra whipped around, snapping wildly at the seat cushions.

Boyan adjusted his grip on the hook, sliding the crook downward along the transmission tunnel until the tip caught the underside of the handbrake lever. The release button on the tip was jammed with old grit, but the ratchet pawl was exposed along the side bracket. He wedged the hook's steel tip against the release tooth, leaned his shoulder against the van's window pillar for leverage, and yanked back.

The pawl clicked free. The handbrake lever dropped flat to the floorboards.

Gravity took over.

The microvan's rear suspension unloaded with a rusty creak. On the slick, wet pavement, the bald rear tires rolled forward. Boyan yanked his snake hook clear of the window, planted his boot against the rear pillar, and gave the vehicle a hard, running shove.

The microvan rolled away from the shoulder, tires biting into the slick downhill camber of the oncoming lane, safely clear of their parked flatbed. It gathered speed with surprising silence, the open rear doors flapping like tin wings in the wind. A wooden terrarium box slid out the back, shattering on the asphalt and scattering two more agitated vipers onto the roadway.

Boyan didn't linger. The moment the tires broke free, he turned and sprinted downhill along the ditch, staying low as gravity did its work behind him.

In the open lane, the van rumbled past him and their idling truck, accelerating as the nose dipped into the gradient. Shouts echoed from the timber hauler as the cartel crew reacted to the unguided van barreling through the fog toward their barricade. A frantic rattle of automatic fire erupted from the roadblock, rounds punching holes through the microvan's sheet metal without slowing its thousand kilograms of rolling steel.

Boyan reached the flatbed, leaped onto the steel running board, and wrenched the door open. He tumbled into the passenger seat, hauling his legs inside and slamming the heavy door shut behind him.

Beside him, Qiaoling stared through the rain-streaked windshield. Down the slope, the microvan was a charging shadow, hurtling toward the timber hauler's iron push-bar at fifty kilometers an hour, carrying an open bay of furious, airborne reptiles directly into the syndicate's front line.

Boyan snapped his seatbelt into the buckle, grabbed the dashboard handle with both hands, and exhaled a long breath of pure adrenaline.

"Delivery is on schedule," he said, turning his head toward her with a broad, sharp grin. "Officer Meng, put this tractor in gear and follow that van."