People are scattering all around her as Nikki tumbles across the floor, trying to maintain her grip on the guy she’s just tackled. She’s grateful it’s all coated in that rubberlike stuff they’re so fond of in the reclaimed sub-surface. Everything is covered in it here beneath Mullane.
Before it became a neighbourhood of any description, the area was primarily used for construction and fabrication works, back when they were building this section of what became the first wheel. Mag-line conveyor channels were laid beneath sub-surface storage vaults, distributing materials to manufacturing facilities as the section gradually grew its way around into a ninety-degree arc. So much had to be done beneath the surface of each extension before the canopy caught up and allowed people to work above without EVA suits.
Later, once Mullane got repurposed as a residential area, the mag-line channels remained functional but these days they are primarily used by through traffic, passing underneath the neighbourhood. However, the vast network of suddenly redundant sub-surface storage vaults offered all kinds of potential in a burgeoning entertainment district.
Nikki and her fugitive are rolling over and over, trying to be the one who finishes on top. According to her lens his name is Anders, but that’s merely the hacked alias he’s currently rocking. His real name is Fernando.
Folks are getting out of the way so they don’t get bowled over but they’re not panicking. Two assholes rolling on the floor trying to throttle each other is not exactly an exotic sight around these parts.
She doesn’t identify herself as Seguridad. It’s not like anybody would rush to her aid out of a sense of civic duty if she did. They’d just look the other way a little harder.
She’s almost managed to pin him when Nikki feels two hands around her shoulders, trying to pull her off. Fernando’s girlfriend Julia just came up on the flank. She must weigh forty kilograms soaking wet, so she’s not the strongest, but her intervention is enough to loosen Nikki’s hold, allowing Fernando to change grip and shift his weight. The world turns upside down again and suddenly he’s on top of her.
Lying flat on the floor, Nikki looks up in time to see Julia staring intently towards the corridor leading back to Sin Garden, where a door has just closed. She signals to her partner and he lets go, rolling off and scrambling to his feet. The two of them book, zigzagging among the oncoming bodies. They’re out of sight before Nikki is even upright, impossible to track in the crowd. Nikki knows there’s got to be eight or nine doorways out of here. They’re gone.
A young male Seguridad officer in uniform hurries over to where she is crouching, breathless. She doesn’t know how much he’s seen, but he came to check on her rather than chase after fugitives, so at least she knows he’s got his priorities straight. She thinks of some of the overeager Nazi whackjob rookies she worked with in LA. They’d leave the victim bleeding out while they chased after the perp, thinking only of the take-down.
“You call this in?” he enquires.
He knows to ask, understands that it’s her decision. Attaboy.
“Carlos, right?” she asks, though her lens already tells her this.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Forget it. I know who they are and what it was about. I’ll be catching up to them soon enough.”
“Understood.”
Nikki makes her way back upstairs to Sin Garden, where it’s really filling up.
When she gets back to the dining area, there is no sign of Alice. Given the growing line waiting for a table, she is surprised to find that their plates are still there, the remnants of their food not enough to look unfinished. Maybe it’s the untouched mojito that swung it, sitting in no man’s land between the two plates.
“You see where she went?” Nikki asks their waitress.
“She took off after you.”
“Just like I told her not to.”
Oh well, Nikki thinks. The girl didn’t follow an explicit instruction, so it’s her own lookout where she ended up. Nikki can’t be responsible for her, and she can’t waste time searching either. She’s got pressing inquiries to make: an urgent investigation to pursue.