"We need her alive. The device is implanted," the first voice barked. Lyra's blood ran colder at that confirmation—whatever was jammed into her, they wanted it badly enough not to shoot her outright. Small comfort.
"Team Alpha, sweep the shoreline," the modulated voice ordered. "Team Beta's on the way to cut off perimeter."
Lyra's fingers were numb as she gripped the rough concrete of the pylon. She knew she had mere moments before they'd search the water more thoroughly. With quiet strokes, she began moving from pylon to pylon beneath the pier, away from the drainage outlet. Every so often she'd duck down, leaving only her eyes and nose above water like an alligator, using the darkness as cover.
A searchlight from one of the dock cranes flared to life, beginning a scan over the water. They had resources and reinforcements coming. Her bike was still back near the warehouse—no chance to get to it now. She had to slip their net and circle back to civilization on foot.
As Lyra swam under the next pier over, she spied a ladder leading up to a mooring platform. Above it, the dockyards stretched north, a maze of containers and parked freight trucks—the only hope to lose her pursuers. She made for the ladder, gritting against the searing throb in her neck and the exhaustion creeping into her limbs.
She pulled herself up onto the deserted platform, dripping and shivering. Not far off, she heard the heavy boots of the search team moving along the shoreline, scanning. They'd find this wet trail soon.
Lyra forced herself into a limping run, slipping between two towering stacks of cargo containers. The world around her was a blur of metal shadows and the distant glow of city lights. In her mind, the pain from the implant fought with her survival instincts. Questions later, she told herself. For now, just run.
Behind her, an authoritative shout: "There! Stop or we will fire!"
Lyra ducked just as a stuttering burst of automatic gunfire lit up the night. Rounds sparked off a container inches from her head. She felt a hot line of pain as a bullet grazed her upper arm. She hissed but kept going, adrenaline numbing the wound.
Ahead, the container stack dead-ended against a chain-link fence topped with razorwire. Beyond it lay a service road and beyond that, the flicker of streetlights from the edge of a slum neighborhood—freedom, of a sort.
Lyra didn't slow. She hurled herself at the fence, climbing it with desperate speed. The razorwire at the top tore at her jacket and sliced into her forearm, but she gritted her teeth and rolled over and down the other side, landing hard on cracked asphalt. Fresh pain jolted through her knees from the impact, but she scrambled up.
Another burst of gunfire rattled behind her, tearing holes in the fence. They were close. Too close.
Lyra sprinted across the service road and into the maze of shanties and makeshift structures that clung to the city's underbelly. It was a squatter district—tents, scrap-built huts, and the smell of burning trash. A few startled faces looked up as she barreled past. She could use that; more people around meant more places to hide, more confusion for her hunters.
She zigzagged through narrow alleys between shacks, overturning a rickety cart behind her, dodging a pack of feral dogs that barked at the sudden commotion. The black-ops team had gone quieter now, likely spreading out, using thermal or motion scanners. But in the warren of shacks, there were dozens of heat signatures from squatters, cooking fires, old circuitry. It might buy her some time.
Her vision fuzzed at the edges and she realized she was running on fumes. Blood dripped from her arm and forearm wounds, leaving a trail. And the thing in her spine... it felt like ice and fire at once, radiating tendrils of discomfort through her entire body. She stumbled into a dark alcove behind a half-collapsed building, pressing her back to the cold brick. Every breath was ragged, her heart pounding an erratic rhythm.
Voices and footsteps echoed distantly through the shantytown. Flashlights sent beams dancing over corrugated metal walls. Lyra slid down to a crouch, hugging her knees, trying to make herself as small and silent as possible. She clenched a hand over the bleeding cut on her arm to stanch it, biting her lip until the coppery taste of blood filled her mouth, anything to keep from screaming out in pain or frustration.
In the darkness, Lyra became aware of the subtle hum in her nerves, a resonance that wasn't entirely her own. It dawned on her that the initial shock of the implant was wearing into a strange new sensation: she could almost feel it inside her spinal column, a hard presence, synchronizing with her heartbeat. She felt nauseous at the violation, at the thought of some machine now living under her skin.
But she was alive. And free, for the moment. The soldiers were still combing the area, but the sounds grew more distant as they fanned outward, possibly missing her in the chaos of the slums.
Lyra knew she had to keep moving soon—staying put too long would only let them tighten the dragnet. But she allowed herself a few precious seconds to breathe and process. Her mind raced: the scientist's words, that ominous name he mentioned... Project Mantis. And the way he had sacrificed himself to embed the device in her rather than let it fall back into corporate hands.
She felt a pang of guilt; she hadn't seen what happened to him, but she doubted he survived. He had given his life to entrust her with this thing... whatever it was. The weight of that sank in. This wasn't just about money anymore. She had a piece of something big, something worth killing for. And it was literally a part of her now.
A sudden shout nearby snapped her back to the present danger. A flashlight beam flickered just beyond her hiding spot. Lyra tensed, muscles coiled. If they found her, she would fight—knife versus guns be damned. But a moment later the light swept away, the footsteps moving past her down another path.
As they receded, Lyra carefully peeked out. The immediate area was clear. The night sky above was beginning to lighten ever so slightly with the approach of dawn, casting a deep blue hue over the ramshackle settlement. She needed a plan, and fast.
First, she had to get away from the search perimeter entirely and back to someplace familiar. Her apartment? No, that would be the first place they'd check once they identified her. If they hadn't already from security cam footage or her abandoned bike's registration. Damn—the bike. It was probably impounded or worse, bugged now. She'd have to assume they knew who she was, or would very soon.
Maro. Should she contact her dispatcher? Maybe he could help her lay low. But if Prysm-Sek was involved, she couldn't risk dragging him into it. They wouldn't hesitate to hurt anyone helping her.
Lyra pressed a hand to the wall and hoisted herself up. Her legs trembled, but held. She tore a strip from the edge of her damp shirt and bound it around her bleeding forearm, hissing at the sting. It would have to do for now.
Only one person came to mind—an underground medic who operated out of a back-room clinic in Old Mercado district. Doc Zhang had patched her up once after a crash and kept quiet about it. If anyone could take a look at whatever had been implanted in her without immediately selling her out, it might be him. It was a risk, but all her options were.
Decision made, Lyra took a final steadying breath and slipped out of the alcove. She moved cautiously, blending in as best she could with the early-morning stirrings of the slum. A few vagrants and laborers gave her passing glances, but in Mirage City people learned not to ask questions. A bloodied woman with a far-off look wasn't the strangest thing they'd seen.
As she worked her way toward the edges of the settlement, she heard distant rotor blades chopping the air—likely corp drones or a dropship scanning overhead. They would keep looking for a while, but she hoped they'd assume she fled further, maybe even into the bay or beyond. With any luck, she could get across town before they recalibrated their search.
Lyra's teeth chattered as the adrenaline ebbed, leaving her painfully aware of her soaked clothes and the throbbing foreign object in her spine. She bit down and endured. Keep moving, she urged herself. The horizon to the east glowed faintly with the promise of a new day, but for Lyra Vale, courier of Mirage City, the longest night of her life was only just beginning.