Chase

Unlike last time, the police didn’t seem like they’d be dismayed by a simple playground slide.

As the wind rushed through my hair the sirens came. First one set, then a dozen. The street behind me was a funnel of cops, sirens blaring red white and blue–and I was the main target. All these vehicles for one girl, didn’t they have anything better to do?

Rubber burned against the smooth concrete–a smokescreen of tar and ash. “Surrender and pull over! Or face the consequences.”

“Blow me!” I stuck my finger up, turning the corner. The Iero police were glorified herd animals. With such little crime, they were free to sick half the force on whatever unlucky sap happened to get in their way–me in this instance–yet that didn’t make them particularly efficient. Or remotely competent for that matter.

If they wanted to take me, they’d have to earn the privilege first!

We blasted past the edge of Kivo, heads turning. They wanted to keep me restrained, contained in the winding streets of Iero where they could corner me given enough time. That wasn’t happening.

This was a game of cat and mouse sure, but give the mouse a jet engine and break half the cat’s legs and then it’d be an accurate picture. Even in the winding streets I could duck, turn, hide–all things their bulky floating trash dispensers couldn’t dream of.

Yet that still wasn’t my goal. In a drag race, electricity beat gas for the first few seconds, then any lead it had disappears in a sea of smoke. Even with all Iero’s tech that constant held true. If I wanted to blow past the cops, the city's edge was the only logical place to do it. And they were well aware of that fact.

The stoplights blurred in a scattered hue of red and greens. Well, if they were this committed might as well make it interesting.

I spun around, sending a cascade of rocks towards their windshields before driving off back towards Sani–the deserted clusterfuck of a district right next to Kivo. If Kivo was clean and quaint, then Sani was a mirror image. Constriction sights littered the ground, the few people there always far away to avoid the debris and falling rocks. Ever since a freak tornado struck the area last year anyone with more than two thoughts in their head avoided it like the plague.

A half finished district with mountains of dirt and scattered rocks–my paradise.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my entourage hesitate as dust coated their windshields in thick brown coats. I slammed on the gas. The engine roared, a funnel ten times my height dragging my every move.

Wind started to whip through the earth. Iero was massive, four times the size of even the largest of the old world cities, and with something so massive the weather tended to not be exactly uniform. Soon, dust scattered throughout the air, and not just from my bike.

I covered my forehead, eyes narrowing. In the dust I could barely see three feet ahead. Those clankers behind me would assuredly have scanners to bypass any need for sight. Sadly I didn’t have such luxuries.

But I had already got everything I needed.

With every bump my suspension shuttered–brakes squealing for relief. Come on… just a bit more…

Sweat soaked through my clothes only to be whipped away by the wind. Fifty, sixty miles an hour? I couldn’t tell, but just staying on course was a workout.

Their blaring lights started to creep up. I could see the red and blue, flashing beacons coating my bike in a secondary layer of light. Traction wasn’t a thing while floating midair. Just a bit more…

Boom. From the dust covered horizon construction markers popped into view. Ramps, cranes, holes, everything I could want.

Hovering, despite how techy it sounded, operated in a simple enough concept. Thing gets energy, then levitates a certain set distance from the earth. The more energy used the higher it floated. So, what if one of those variables changed?

I stepped on the gas again, accelerating straight for the largest hole I could find–a gap fifty times my height and who knew how deep. Gravity shoved me down, sand shoving me back as I clattered onto a wooden onlook.

Or the perfect ramp.

“Bye bye!” I called out, the outlook disappearing in a trail of sand and rubber. I sailed through the air as I braced for the upcoming opera.

And like most performances in Iero, it did not disappoint.

As I finished my assent ground graced my wheels at the opposite end, I could hear a ballard of muffled sirens and crushed metal. Police car after police car plummeted face first towards the void. Only the smart ones shoved their brakes.

Another point against the cops, had to be zero to a hundred by now. Despite riding in the everyday, the police never bothered to explain to their officers how those hover cars actually worked. They couldn’t carry momentum like my bike, much less a sudden change in elevation. The ramp may have pushed me up, but for them with no elevation change gravity got to take full control.

With one final salute, I bid my entourage goodbye. Those few cars still not at the bottom of a pit hovered around. Driving around would be a ten minute detour. I’d won, and they were well aware.

I clattered out of the dust storm after some time, rubbing my eyes. “Becca,” I called out to my AI. “Give me directions to Kat’s apartment. Iero’s police were a far cry from the cops of old, too used to robots taking care of all the hard parts and not experienced enough to have a hint of intuition. If the police’s dedication said anything, it was that they were locked in–no way my apartment was remotely safe. I could see the lines forming outside now.

I’d just have to hope they couldn't connect the dots.