“Sienna, I need to get stick control. You need to override the speed governor on this thing, or we’re done,” He Feng said intently, as she tried in vein to maneuver the pod more rapidly through traffic.

“I … understand … mom,” Sienna hissed through her teeth, concentrating on the display in her glasses.

The pod was shaken by a huge impact from behind as the ground pursuer caught up and struck them. As though stunned into reason by the collision, their pod shot forward with a burst of new speed and upward and over the ground traffic as it finally responded to He Feng’s hand at the controls.

“There you go,” Sienna said with a satisfied look in He Feng’s direction.

“Great job, sweetheart,” replied He Feng not taking her eyes off the rising and dipping landscape in front of. She made a hard right to head over another residential area and towards the old Burj Dubai tower in the distance.

Another hard left later and they were awash in the glow of the high rises turning lower Sheikh Zayed Road into a canyon of metal, glass and neon. He Feng was deftly maneuvering their pod on the wrong side of the air corridor, fighting a never-ending stream of pods as they tried to head upstream to keep their pursuers at bay.

“Mom, I think we’ve got a problem,” Sienna said.

“What?”