This if the first chapter to my short story. PC Anna Smith lives in London, on what she believes is Earth. She soon learns that all is a lie. The year isn’t 2018 but 2225, where she lives isn’t London or even Earth. Also where she lives is a tourist attraction for the rich. Someone isn’t playing my the rules anymore. Now knowing the truth. Why should Anna?

 

For a guy with short legs, he sure could move. Feet pounding she tried to catch up. Anna caught a glimpse of an arm turning around a corner. Using more speed she swung herself around the corner, again catching sight of him. She gripped onto her belt, trying to stop it swaying so wildly. It was throwing her off balance with the weight. He dodged a bollard, darting to the left down an alleyway. Pushing herself harder she felt her feet slipping on the pavement. Reaching out to the wall she got her balance again, throwing herself around the bollard. Where the hell was he? They were now on another house road. Taking deep breaths and slowing her run, she swiveled her head left and right down the street. There, another glimpse at the edge of the road.
How the hell is he that fast!
He is 12 for crying out loud. With a grunt she sped off again, full well knowing she had no chance of catching him. But also knowing she couldn’t just let him get away so easy, she had to at least try. Working out daily and eating a decent enough diet, she was not a couch potato. But she had nothing on this kid. She sprinted using the last of her energy to dart across the road and around the corner he had vanished around.
Gone.
Pfft.
Vanished.
She stopped dead, hands on her knees, breathing heavily and no doubt looking like a beetroot. Breathing so heavily, no other sound reached her. Plus, she was too busy trying to catch her breath to even bother looking around. She knew it was a lost cause. The moment he legged it, she knew she was screwed. Not like her partner, Bill, was much help, she hadn’t seen him since the chase started.
‘Suspect lost.’ She looked for the road sign, ‘Roman Road. Suspect is wearing blue tracksuit pants, a blue hoodie, and a leather strapped bag.’
Standing up straight, she stretched out her back and heard a car approaching. She didn’t even turn to know that it was a police car. It was past 2 am, no other cars were about. The car pulled up beside her and the passenger window wound down.
‘Hey baby, want a ride?’
She ignored him and got into the car.
‘Lost him, eh?’
He full well knew she had. One she wasn’t holding onto the arm of the suspect. Two, he heard it on the radio. So she ignored him, which was a running theme between them: he would joke, she would ignore him.

He started moving the car slowly down the road, both of them looking left and right to try and see anything. Both knew it was a lost cause but they also both knew they had to go through the motions. There was little else to be doing anyway. Not much happened here in London, the odd theft here and there, some drugs and that was it. To say they were bored was an understatement. At least the pay was good. Grabbing a tissue from the inside the door, she wiped the sweat from her face. Holding up her ponytail she then wiped the back of her neck. She had been chasing him for a solid 5 minutes.
‘Marcus is going downhill fast,’said Bill.
‘Yes.’
‘He can’t keep this up, we know where he lives,’ said Bill with a sigh.
Marcus Jenkins, 12 years old. Drug runner for a local gang. Main drug he distributes is cannabis, a class B substance. A minor offense if caught because he never carries anything more than a few grams. He knows the system well. He has been doing this since he was 10. They’ve only ever caught him once and that was because he tripped and banged up his knee. Which really annoyed Anna, she wanted to help him get a better life. They’ve seen him plenty of other times dealing but couldn’t do a damn thing about it. They take the drugs off whoever he sells them to and that’s it. He could be a country track star if he wanted. But that would involve him going to school, which he doesn’t do and his mother doesn’t force him to. Hell she’s barely conscious half the times they had called into Marcus’s house. Alcoholism runs in the family. His dad was the same until it killed him. Drank to the point of where his liver was f this I am gone.
‘Check his house?’ asked Bill.
‘No point. He won’t be there’
‘True. Industrial estate then?’ Bill asked again.
‘Worth a shot.’
Most of the alleyways here, all either lead back to the town centre or to the industrial estate. If he wasn’t hiding out at someone’s house or in someone garden, chances were he would head to the estate. Lots of abandoned warehouses, and dark places to hide out at.

The rain started slowly, it beat a nice rhythm on the windscreen.
‘Typical.’
She didn’t say anything. Yes, it made it harder to see but she wasn’t going to lie to herself. She had always loved rain, the feel of it on her skin, but mostly just the sound of it. It wasn’t heavy rain, it didn’t look like it was going to suddenly start hammering it down either. Just a warm light rain. The windshield wiper screeched across. Then back. The rain looked pretty cool in the headlights. It took them all of half a minute to reach the estate. Silence but the rain and the engine. Here it was expected. No one lived here and no night shifts were afforded here. You got the occasional homeless person now and then. But they mostly kept to the town centre. That was where the money was at. Her eyes had not stopped darting around from the moment she lost him. Yes, she lost him. She wasn’t ashamed to admit that. It happens more often than you think. Even to the best of coppers out there. Not that she was saying she was the best. She had a job to do and she tried to do it well, which is easier said than done in this day and age. She saw something in one of the side passages.
‘Stop.’
He slammed on the brakes a little too hard. Both of them jerked forward. He didn’t apologize. Neither did she expect him too. Both of them had worked with each other long enough to trust each other. And to know one another. With the little she showed people.
‘What?’
‘Reverse back between the buildings. On the left.’
He did as she asked and then turned the car so the headlights faced in between the alleyway she mentioned. He stopped the car. Both of them stared. Neither one of them moved. Neither one of them looked at each other. They just stared.
‘Fuck,’ he muttered.
In front of them, perfectly silhouetted by the headlights was a figure. A girl.