<em><br/>With your training and experience you react quickly, giving the woman a head start of only a few steps as she drives through the crowd, her path seemingly pointing straight to the road at the northside of the square. People are giving her a wide berth, allowing her to easily manoeuvre through the stunned crowd, all of them seemingly afraid of finding themselves on her bad side. The crowd that has gathered near you is less cooperative, many of them continuing to stare at either the assassin or the Consul and paying little attention to anything else, but even as you push your way through the group nearest to you and find some open space, you are confident you will come out maybe only a few steps behind her at worst.<br/><br/>As you try to anticipate the assassin’s avenue of escape, you notice that the woman keeps looking up. You follow her gaze upwards and surmise that she plans to get off the street and lose any pursuers in the buildings or perhaps on the rooftops. Ahead of you both on the north road you can see a stack of crates and barrels that one could use to get onto a balcony overhead before disappearing into the attached building—which based on the lack of signage implies to you it is a boarding house of some kind.<br/><br/>However, as you near where you suspect she is going you see a dark alley leading from the square, which is nearer to her than to you. All your instincts tell you that escaping through the alley would give her the best chance for escape. It occurs to you then, in the span of only an instant, that someone who has the training and skillset to assassinate a political figure in broad daylight and get away, might be the same kind of person who would be skilled in deceiving pursuers.<br/><br/>Given your speeds and vectors, you will likely come to the stack of crates and barrels at the same time, and you believe you would have a very good chance to grab her before she could clamber up them and reach the balcony. However, if she were to take the alleyway, she would gain some distance on you as you would have to cross through more crowds of people to get to her. If you were to head towards the alleyway now, before she’s made her move, she wouldn’t get any further ahead of you and you might even gain a few steps on her; however, if you begin to move towards the alleyway and she climbs to the balcony, you will lose some distance on her as you waste time getting back on course.</em><br/><br/><div align="center"><em>[Once you’ve decided what to do, open the Spoiler to see her choice.]</em><br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Assassin’s Choice</div><div class="spoiler_body"><div style="text-align: left;">The Assassin takes the alleyway.<br/><br/>If you decided to change course, you are only steps behind her now and can attempt to grab her (Athletics DC 12). On a success, you tackle her to the ground.<br/><br/>If you continued to run to where she might climb up, you notice too late her change of course. You could continue to the crates and attempt to take to the rooftops yourself (Athletics DC 10), or cut through the crowd and try to follow her into the alleyway.</div></div></div></div>