Drawn remorselessly on, like a fish on a line, like bait on a hook, Kim Sterling was dragged struggling backwards through the corridors and tunnels; and JC ran after her. He pursued her up and down stairs and around sharp corners, sometimes drawing close but never, ever, allowed to catch up. Now and then her ghostly form would be pulled suddenly through a solid wall, and JC had to hunt frantically back and forth before he could pick up her trail again. He could always hear her, even when he couldn’t see her, calling out to him in fear and anger or richly cursing her unseen abductor, and that kept him going . . . She hadn’t given up, and neither would he. He pounded headlong down corridors and passageways, breathing harshly, legs and ribs aching, his arms pistoning at his sides. And somehow Kim was never hauled away so fast that JC couldn’t keep up—as long as he pushed himself to his limit. The chase was a challenge, a taunt, goading him on, almost allowing him to catch up, then snatching Kim away again.

JC ran on, back and forth through the maze of corridors, on and off platforms, up and down the stationary elevators, knowing that the chase was meant to break his spirit, to force him to give up and abandon his new-found love. But he wouldn’t do that. He had already decided, quite calmly and rationally, that he would drop in his tracks first.

JC was so caught up in the chase that it took him a while to realise that his surroundings were going through subtle, deceptive changes.

Passageways seemed to stretch away before him, their ends growing more and more distant as the walls grew infinitely longer, elongating unnaturally like the passages we run through in nightmares, with no hope of getting anywhere. He ran and ran, and Kim receded endlessly before him. But the floor beneath his feet was still reassuringly hard and solid, so JC lowered his head like a charging bull and ran on. The walls on either side of him seemed to slump and bulge inwards, as though they were melting, then snap back into form again, all their details smudged and meaningless, but it took JC a while to realise that he didn’t recognise anything and had no idea as to where he was.