Pursuit

3:45 AM, 15/2/96 AUC, Arkadia, Hub

"Stop, in the name of the Law!"

The wiry man did not stop in the name of the Law. With a laugh, he leapt, the rags of his shirt billowing behind him, and clattered onto the next rooftop along. He began to run without a look behind him, a devil in tailored clothing.

With a snarl, the policeman followed. The tiles bucked under his feet, and he almost didn't make the jump. Powered suits, he decided as he followed in a whirr of nano-motors, were not an advantage. How did anyone wear these? Not that, legally, he was allowed to wear it in the first place.

The criminal darted around a slab of air vents, losing himself in a cloud of steam from the street below. The policeman didn't make the jump blind, his visor flicking through spectrum in a rainbow. When he landed, almost within grasping distance of the captive, the asphalt erupted into lead slivers. He lost a second goading the suit into a sprint, a second that his target used to barrel his way into the markets.

Civilians parted like the red sea. Being hit by half a ton of metal would be good grounds for a lawsuit, if any of them recovered enough to make phonecalls and felt like taking on the Arkadian police. The policeman dashed through them, darting around obstacles - the thin man upturned a ramen cart, knocked over a stall of fake jeans, darted left and right like a minnow, and the policeman either leapt or barrelled through every one. But he wasn't gaining.

Suddenly, a darting motion took the chase down an alley, rich in the stench of piss and stale barbecue sauce. The policeman felt the shoulder pads of his armor scrape the walls, but the narrow aperture didn't matter. Ahead was a solid brick wall,  a complete dead end -

That filled with a white tear, a cut in space that was blinding to look at. The thin man leapt into it without hesitation.

"Fuck!"

The policeman slapped his hand on something on his belt. The worst part of a chase - if the crim had a leaper, the device now blinking at his waist would pull him back here after six minutes.  He had the only one in the department, and every time a suspect went dimension hopping was a chance for him to break or lose it.

He leapt, suit motors screaming -

forever it's forever in here much much longer and longer

A cliffside, topped with dead grass like a hopeless man's comb-over. A sea of pitch black and a sky of burnt copper. Another world.

As the policeman chased, dangerously close to the crumbling edge, he looked up and saw the bronze clouds rent by a myriad of colors and shapes, dragon-shapes, hissing and spitting as they writhed and breathed ultra-violet fire. A name came to his head - Tiamat? Some nursery rhyme he'd been told as a kid, maybe. Not important. Focus.

The dragon-shapes hurt to look at. He averted his gaze and chased the thin man, who was already diving into another white aperture. Feet pounded on grass dirt stone bone flesh forever and ever and ever and landed on rough stone tiles.

A dark hall stretched in front of him, full of statues of things with too many tentacles and eyes. In the flickering lamplight, he first saw the criminal bolt through a door, then the gathering of cultists in red robes between him and the exit. They had drawn various sigils on the floor in blood, and had tied a voluptuous young woman to an altar. She seemed as annoyed by the interruption as the cultists. Odd.

"Excuse me," began the lady on the altar, "do you mind?"

The policeman ignored the question, breaking back into a sprint and pushing through the gathering of cultists. He heard a shout of "How rude!" but didn't care. He wrenched the ancient wooden door open, saw a flash of ruined shirt and followed it. He was losing ground.

A labyrinth now, a maze of corridors and banners and tapestries depicting various nasty gods. Left, right, right again, left, over and over again. Down a flight of stone stairs, and through another rip of blankness into the forever oh yes its much longer than you think -

A swamp, black and thick and choking. He could feel the dimension anchor on his hip vibrating, getting ready to pull him back. Time was running out. He had seconds. Something gave way under his feet, and he realised he was slowly sinking into the murk.

So was the criminal, a few feet ahead. Seizing the chance, the policeman lurched forwards, his suit motors howling as it tried to combat the quagmire. One step, two step, sinking too fast and too heavy to stop himself, he reached out, grabbed -

backwards, backwards through the forever

And hit the ground in the alley, caked in mud from the chest down. The thin man was there too, trying to wrench free of his glove and out of his shirt. The other hand came up, crackling with electricity.

"Arnold Grengis," said the policeman, "you're under arrest!"

He slapped the man across the back of his neck. Arnold - for it was he - jerked like a hooked fish, then fell limp.

Sirens wailed, somewhere in the distance. People crowded around the entrance of the alleyway, watching. He stood, gasping for air, leaning against the brickwork, wrenching his helmet off. At the sight of his eyes, the crowd took a pace or two backwards.

God, he wanted a drink.