Icarus

Part 5

“Hey, you!”
Lyr spun around to find the source of the shout. It was a policeman, better known as a Greenie due to their dark green uniforms. This one had been tailing her ever since she’d bought herself breakfast two hours ago. He was pretty good at staying unnoticed, but she knew every trick in that particular book.
“What do you want?” She demanded wearily.
“You bought weapons without a license. Could be a mistake, could be you’re up to no good. Let’s see your Chip, sweetheart.”
She froze. A Chip was like a credit card, a driver’s license, and a social or legal ID all in one, and every citizen of Port Nerona over the age of five had one painlessly implanted in the back of their right hand. Even people who weren’t legal citizens usually had something like it. Lyr didn’t. Miri and Roger had made her a fake one in case of situations like this, but they hadn’t updated it in a while. It wouldn’t hold up under close scrutiny.
That left her with three options: run, attack the Greenie, or try to bluff her way out.
She ran, dodging expertly around passerby as the policeman ran after her, yelling, “Stop! Halt!”
Lyr didn’t understand why people always did that. Did they really think it would work? Well, she couldn’t think about that right now. She had to run.
She’d always loved running. There was something clean and simple about it, even more so than fighting. There were no more choices or dilemmas to distract you, all you had to do was let your body take over and do what it was born to do. That, combined with the adrenaline rush of hunting or being hunted, had made chases through the nighttime city her favorite part of working with Roger’s gang.
But now it was daytime, she was tired, and she had nobody to call on for backup. Lyr felt her chest start to burn as her breath came in gasps. She had to shake this guy quickly, before she couldn’t anymore.
Lyr darted into an alleyway, scaled the side of a nearby building at top speed, and flopped onto the roof, panting hard. Rolling over onto her back, she dug one of the little bottles of Booster Fuel out of her back pocket and fumbled to open it. You were really only supposed to drink a few sips at a time, but safety rules didn’t mean much to Lyr at the moment. She gulped down a quarter of the bottle, wincing at the overpowering spicy-sweet taste, and scrambled to her feet.
The building’s rooftop door opened, and out poured about a dozen people in black clothes and masks with a stark white insignia on their chests: a skull and crossbones. Lyr shuddered. She’d seen that symbol before, seen these people before. They were the ones who’d attacked her when she was out on her first mission for Roger. She’d barely escaped then, and hadn’t been able to fight them face-to-face. Now it looked like she didn’t have a choice.
The mysterious fighters circled around her, then attacked with no warning. Lyr’s mind became a blur as she kicked, punched, dodged. Finally, she managed to grab one and wrestle their arms behind their back. The others froze as she backed up towards the edge of the roof.
“Leave me alone or this one dies!” She yelled.
For several agonizing minutes, nobody moved. Then the wailing of sirens split the air. Risking a look over the edge, Lyr saw not one but three police cars parked at the base of the building. One of the skull and crossbones people made some kind of hand signal to the others and they disappeared, fading out of sight with no warning. She couldn’t see the one she was holding onto, but she definitely felt it when they headbutted her in the face. They wrenched away from her and were gone.
Lyr dropped to her knees, spitting blood. Her nose didn’t feel broken, but only barely. As the shock of what had just happened wore off, plenty of other aches and pains started to make themselves known. She knew from experience that if she lived to see the next day, she was going to turn several really interesting shades of purple.
Living to see the next day, though, didn’t seem too likely at the moment. Uniformed Greenies swarmed up onto the roof, grabbing her arms and hoisting her upright. Lyr didn’t bother struggling. She was wounded and outnumbered, she wouldn’t get far even if she did escape.
“You’re under arrest, kid.” Snapped the one who’d been chasing her earlier.
Lyr flashed an obscene gesture at him. “Yeah, I know.”
He slapped her. A short, stocky woman grabbed his arm.
“Stop, Gray. I’m the senior officer here.”
“But--”
“No buts. We need to get her back to the station and scan her Chip more thoroughly before anything else. Squad Two, come with me. Squad Five, she clearly wasn’t alone up here. Find her accomplices.”
The police took her weapons, handcuffed her and hustled her along to a car, shoving her into the backseat. It was a pretty short ride to the nearest station, a drab gray building that stank of chemical cleaner and hopelessness.

Lyr stumbled as they marched her into a small, windowless holding room. It had sickly green walls, a floor covered in nubbly beige carpet and a thick layer of grime over that, and a couple office chairs upholstered in cracked, peeling brown pleather.

“Don’t try any funny business, understood?” Gray told her over his shoulder.
Then he slammed the door closed. Lyr heard the sharp click of a lock engaging, and Gray’s retreating footsteps, then nothing. She was alone.
She busied herself going over the room for possible escape routes, but found nothing.

No windows, the door was too thoroughly locked and she had nothing to pick the lock with, and the air ducts were too small for her to fit down. Lyr plunked herself down in a chair and sighed.
She was going to die once they found out who she was. It might be now from being executed, or sometime in the future after being left to rot in a government prison or work camp.
But either way, she was going to die, and she’d never had the chance to really live first. She didn’t even know what she wanted to do with her life. Did it even matter? Did she even matter? Probably not.
“No!”
With a start, Lyr realized she’d said it out loud. To hell with it, she wanted to live. She wanted to see the world, change the world. If nothing really mattered, then she was going to make it matter. And that started with getting out of here.
“Okay.” She muttered. “Time to quit moping and make a plan.”