Pain. Sudden and immense, like white-hot wires threading into her spine. Lyra screamed, arching away, but the man held her firmly with surprising strength. She felt a pressure, a sickening crunch just above her shoulder blades as the device latched onto her vertebrae. A flood of sensation surged down her limbs, electric and alien.
She tore free from the man's grip, stumbling forward, hands clawing at her nape in panic. "What did you do?!" she gasped, vision blurring with tears of pain. Her fingertips brushed a slick metal protrusion now embedded at the base of her neck. She could feel it fused there, an unnatural weight along her spine.
The scientist's face was etched with remorse and resolve. "No choice," he wheezed. "It's the only way to keep it from them. You have to run, now. Use the old drainage tunnel behind the warehouse... leads out to the dock. Go!"
Lyra's head swam, but training and instinct drove her into motion even as her mind reeled. Footsteps pounded closer; the black-ops team was advancing tactically, weapons ready. Gritting her teeth against the agony radiating from the foreign object in her spine, Lyra bolted toward the rear of the warehouse where the man had gestured.
Another gunshot rang out, and a crate just left of Lyra exploded in a hail of splinters. She zigzagged, making herself a harder target. In the corner of her eye, she saw the scientist slump against a crate, the fight draining out of him. One of the soldiers broke formation to charge at him, a combat knife gleaming. Lyra had seconds at most.
She spotted the drainage tunnel—a rusted grate about a meter wide in the back wall, hanging half-open. With a burst of effort, she dove into it, scraping her knees and palms on the corroded metal but squeezing through. The tight tunnel echoed with her ragged breaths as she crawled and slid over slick algae-coated concrete. Behind her, shouting voices—"Target is in the tunnel!"—and then gunfire. Bullets pinged off the drainage pipe with sharp clangs, one ricocheting past her ear. Too close.
Lyra forced herself onward. The tunnel was a maintenance conduit that sloped downward, water trickling under her. Each movement sent lances of pain from the foreign object in her spine. She bit down on her lip to keep from crying out. Keep moving. Just keep moving. If she got out of the pipe, she could lose them in the dockyards.
A dim circle of moonlight became visible ahead—the tunnel's exit. She half-slid, half-tumbled out onto a slimy concrete ledge overlooking the bay. The cold sea air hit her face. Outside. But she wasn't safe yet.
With no time to think, she dropped from the ledge into the water below. The frigid harbor water shocked her system, stealing her breath. She went under, disoriented for a moment in the dark brine before her survival instincts kicked in. Kicking hard, Lyra surfaced quietly amidst debris and the shadow of the pier.
She clung to a barnacle-crusted pylon, catching her breath, trying to make herself invisible in the murk. A few seconds later, a pair of dark figures emerged from the drainage tunnel above her. One shone a tactical light around the ledge. Its beam sliced just above Lyra's head across the water. She pressed against the pylon, making herself as small as possible.
"Lost visual," one of the operatives said, voice distorted by a helmet modulator. "She might be in the water."
Another answered with a curse. "Thermals can't pick up through all this interference." Likely referring to the warm waste water mixing from the city outlets, confusing their heat sensors.
"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.