Ivan’s boot kicked pain into Deverau’s ribs. Crying out, he fell sideways and struck his head on the wall of the maintenance area. Struggling to right himself, he saw through blurred vision the fleeing figure of Ivan Volkov.
Deverau lifted his shockgun to fire and saw the blood-red burns on the back of his hands where the fireball had torched him. Ignoring it, he pulled the trigger. But his hands were shaking and the dart veered to the right where it hit the edge of the dome and dropped uselessly to the ground.
It started to rain.
Deverau was confused.
He didn’t think it rained on Mars.
“Dev?” Jones was suddenly leaning over him. “Are you all right?”
Deverau – winded – nodded.
“Are you sure?”
“Go after him,” Deverau managed.
He watched Jones run after the suspect who had already disappeared around the curve of the wall.
Deverau stood and the pain worsened in his side. Wincing and holding onto his ribs, he saw that the fire was out, but one of the uniformed officers held a red-raw arm under the sprinklers to douse it with cooling water, while the remnants of a burnt sleeve dangled beneath it.
One of Ivan’s gang stood with his hands cuffed behind him under the charge of a uniformed officer. The gang member looked distressed, but unharmed. Another was unconscious after being hit by a shockdart and had been propped up against the wall, still handcuffed, and sitting in a flopped over position.
Mel was nowhere to be seen.
The water made a gurgling sound at his feet as pipes hidden in the floor sucked back the valuable resource to be recycled.
Deverau selected his WristTab to contact all MSS officers in the area. “This is Inspector Deverau. Suspect Mel Erdan seen at my current location within the last few minutes. Believed to be on the run and heading in…” He looked at the other officers who responded with either shrugs or blank looks. “… heading in an unknown direction. Urgent response needed. Also believed on the run is suspect Ivan Volkov, with Sergeant Jones in pursuit – use his location to coordinate urgent response.”
Deverau also pinpointed Jones’ location and headed down the maintenance corridor in that direction. Clutching his aching side while ignoring the pain in the back of his hands, he tried to break into a run. But the exertion was too much and it soon became more of an uneven jog.
He emerged through the inspection hatch feeling a little woozy. He rested against the perimeter wall while he checked Jones’ position on his WristTab. It showed the shortest route to reach him was down between two housing blocks. Deverau pushed himself off the wall and resumed his jog.
After five minutes, Jones appeared to have stopped. Deverau hoped that meant he had the suspect in custody and not that the suspect had shot him or something worse had happened.
Deverau picked up speed, wincing again at the pain in his ribs, and jogged down a residential street. A passing man stared at him like he was a monster that had crawled out of a lake and it was only then that he realized he was still soaking wet from being under the sprinklers. It would be many minutes before he dried off in the ambient temperature of the city and automatic systems were able to reclaim the water vapor.
Up ahead, he saw what appeared to be Jones’ leg sticking out of a doorway as he stood half in and half out of one of the residential blocks. Fierce yelling was coming from inside. By the sound of it, it was the sort of yelling officers used when demanding a suspect obey them.
“He’s inside,” said Jones when Deverau approached, answering the unspoken question. “Two officers have gone in after him. He’s locked himself in somewhere up on the third floor. We think he’s got someone in there with him.”
“A hostage?”
“Unclear.”
Deverau sighed and ran through the ramifications in his head. None of them were pleasant. Hostage situations generally had two outcomes. Either a long, protracted negotiation in which the criminal realized he was never going to get out and surrendered. Or exactly the same process with a more gruesome ending.
He looked up and down the street to get his bearings. It had a strange familiarity about it which took him a moment to place. He had considered moving out that way after Jessie had left, before eventually deciding he would be better off staying near the center of the city where he was closer to the office.
It had been a hard decision because the apartments were larger and generally nicer than the one he lived in. He had theorized they had been designed by either an Earth architect or by one heavily influenced by Earth architecture because they included details that reminded him of the homes where he grew up. Most notable was the provision of back windows.
“How many officers have you got covering the back?” said Deverau.
“Back?” said Jones, like the question made no sense.
Deverau swore and started running again. “You really need to do a sabbatical on Earth, Jones!” he called back to his sergeant.
The blocks were long and it took him too many minutes to find a pathway that led to the rear. He turned to look down the long line of red bricks peppered with back windows. Three stories up, a man’s body dangled out of one of them.
Deverau closed in.
He raised his shockgun and gripped it tighter. His hands stung at the cracking of the scabs which had begun to form across his burns.
“Stop! MSS!”
Ivan could not stop. His entire body was hanging, feet first, out of the building with his hands gripping onto the edge of the window frame. Unless he had some kind of super strength, or someone helped him, he wasn’t going to be able to haul himself back inside. The only thing he could do was drop to the ground. Even for a tall Mars-born, it was a nine-meter drop.
Ivan let go of the window. Deverau heard the nauseating crack of bone as his feet hit the ground, coupled with a pained yell. But it didn’t stop him. Fueled by the fear of capture, Ivan was on his feet and hobbling away.
“Stop! MSS!” Deverau raised his shockgun, stopped to ensure his aim was true, and fired.
The dart struck Ivan square in the back. In the quiet behind the residential building, it was possible to hear the shocks discharging into his body. His muscles contracted and he collapsed to his knees. The weight of his torso tipped him forward and he fell onto his front.
Deverau walked up to him and waited for the dart to fully discharge. Savoring his moment of victory, he grinned as he imagined the expression on the faces of his bosses at Noctis City when he informed them he had captured the man behind both the train raid and the incident at the tropical resort. Possibly even involved in the crop deaths.
Deverau cuffed him with two satisfying clicks so his hands were secure behind his back. Ivan was unconscious, but Deverau didn’t want to take any risks when he awoke.
One of the officers who had gone inside the building peered out of the window and paused at the sight of Ivan under Deverau’s control. “All clear in here,” she shouted down. “The resident’s shaken up, but he didn’t hurt her.”
Jones arrived just as Deverau ensured Ivan was safely laying in the recovery position.
“You see,” Deverau explained to him. “On Earth, a lot of criminals try escaping through back windows. This is something police officers on Mars often forget.”
Jones looked down at Ivan. “Is that really the man who caused all the crops to die?”
“You can ask him when you get him back to the station,” said Deverau.
He expected Jones to arrange to take the suspect away, but instead he stood there giving Deverau a very strange look. “Are you OK, Dev?”
“Of course I’m OK,” he said. As he was thinking that, the image of Jones went blurry and he felt dizzy. He was suddenly aware of Jones catching him. He must have blacked out for a second because he didn’t remember falling.
“You’re not OK,” said Jones. “Let’s get you to the hospital.”
“No hospital.”
“Yes, hospital. Sergeant’s orders.”