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"Get your ass down! Now!" Lyra's voice cracked like a whip, and she slammed her shoulder into me, pinning me against the rusted metal grating of the tunnel.
Above us, the front door of the safehouse didn't just open—it vanished in a roar of concussive force. Dust and splinters rained down on us, smelling of burnt ozone and old concrete. Then came the sound: the rhythmic, heavy stomp of Cartel heavies. Not just soldiers. These were the borg-units. Steam-powered monstrosities in plated steel, their hydraulic joints hissing with every step.
"I can't just hide while they burn the place down," I spat, trying to shove her off. My right arm was already humming, a low-frequency vibration that made my teeth ache. The forbidden reactor fused to my bone wasn't just humming—it was boiling. I could feel the heat creeping up my shoulder, turning my blood into liquid fire.
"You're a walking beacon, Darek!" Lyra snapped. She didn't let go. Her hand was clamped tight on my collar, her knuckles grazing my jaw. I could smell the metallic tang of the blood from where she'd ripped that tracker out of her own skin. Her eyes were wide, fierce, and dangerously close. "If you step out there now, you're not a soldier. You're a target. Stay. Put."
"Target?" I let out a jagged laugh. I looked down at my forearm. The skin was glowing a faint, sickly blue, the runes etched into the metal plating beginning to bleed light. "I'm the only one here with enough juice to actually kill those things."
"We do this my way, or I'll put a bullet in your leg just to keep you stationary," she whispered, her face inches from mine. The tension between us was thick, a wire stretched to the breaking point. She wasn't joking, but her grip on my shirt lingered a second too long, her thumb brushing against the hollow of my throat.
BOOM.
Another explosion rocked the tunnel. The ceiling groaned, and a slab of concrete crashed down three feet away, sending a cloud of grey grit into the air. Through the smoke, the first heavy stepped into view. He was seven feet of reinforced brass and iron, a Gatling-style lead-spitter mounted where his left arm should have been.
"Found you, little rat," the heavy growled. His voice was a distorted, metallic rasp. "The Magnate wants the core. He didn't say anything about keeping the meat attached to it."
Lyra didn't hesitate. She whipped her pistol up and fired three shots—precise, lethal. They pinged off the heavy's chest plate like pebbles.
"Useless," the borg sneered. He leveled the lead-spitter.
"Move!" I screamed.
I didn't just move; I launched. I threw myself from the grating, the reactor in my arm hitting a critical spike. I didn't feel the pain anymore—only the pressure. It felt like a steam engine was trying to explode inside my marrow. I hit the heavy mid-chest, the impact sounding like a car crash.
We slammed into the tunnel wall. The borg tried to shove me off with his massive iron hand, but I didn't budge. I gripped his chest plate, my fingers digging into the seams of his armor.
"You want the core?" I roared, my voice sounding deeper, distorted by the surge of aether. "Here! Take it all!"
I didn't punch him. I vented.
I opened the floodgates of the reactor. A blinding torrent of raw, blue plasma erupted from my palm, screaming through the gaps in his armor. The heavy didn't even have time to scream. The blue fire cooked him from the inside out. The brass plating turned white, then molten, and then—with a sickening pop—his power core detonated.
The blast threw me backward, sliding me across the wet floor of the tunnel. I coughed, tasting copper and ash. My arm was smoking, the metal plating glowing cherry-red.
"Holy hell," Lyra breathed. She was standing over me, her gun still raised, but her expression had shifted. The coldness was gone, replaced by something that looked like genuine shock—and maybe a flicker of something else. "You almost took the whole tunnel down with you, you idiot."
"But it worked, didn't it?" I gasped, trying to sit up. The heat in my arm was receding, leaving behind a cold, hollow ache that made me shiver.
"Barely," she said, reaching down to grab my hand. Her palm was warm, her grip firm as she hauled me to my feet. She didn't let go immediately. For a heartbeat, we just stood there in the wreckage, the silence of the tunnel returning, broken only by the distant hiss of leaking steam.
"We need to move. Now," she said, her voice returning to its command tone, though she didn't pull her hand away from mine. "The rest of the squad will be here in two minutes. There's a lift cage at the end of this sector. It leads to the lower vents."
"And if it's guarded?" I asked, leaning into her slightly.
"Then I'll shoot them, and you'll blow something up. Deal?"
"Deal."
We sprinted. The tunnel was a blur of dripping pipes and flickering emergency lights. Every time my boots hit the metal floor, I could feel the reactor in my arm pulsing, like a second heart beating in sync with the city's machinery. Lyra stayed close—too close. Every time we turned a corner, her shoulder brushed mine, her breath hot against my neck as she whispered directions.
"Left! Now!"
We dove into a narrow maintenance shaft just as a volley of lead shredded the wall behind us. I felt a hot sting across my shoulder—a graze. I didn't stop. I couldn't.
"Almost there!" Lyra yelled over the gunfire.
We reached the lift cage—a rusted iron box suspended by thick, grease-covered chains. I slammed the lever down, and the cage groaned, beginning a slow, shuddering ascent toward the upper vents.
I leaned against the bars, gasping for air. Lyra was watching the shaft we'd just left, her eyes narrowed.
"You're shaking," she noted, glancing at my arm.
"It's... just the adrenaline," I lied.
"Liar," she whispered. She stepped closer, the space in the cage so small that her chest was nearly pressing against mine. She reached out, her fingers hovering just an inch above the glowing runes on my skin. I could feel the heat radiating off me, and the way her breath hitched. "This thing is eating you alive, isn't it?"
"I can handle it," I said, though my voice lacked conviction.
"You can't. Not alone." She looked up at me, her gaze softening for the first time since I'd met her. "If you burn out, I lose my only ticket out of this city. So don't you dare die on me, Darek."
I opened my mouth to respond, to say something arrogant or stupid, but the lift gave a violent, metallic shriek.
CRAAACK.
One of the primary chains snapped. The cage jolted, slamming sideways against the shaft wall with a force that knocked us both off our feet. We tumbled into a heap on the floor of the cage, Lyra landing hard on top of me.
I groaned, my arm pinned beneath her. For a second, neither of us moved. I could feel her heartbeat racing against my chest, the scent of gunpowder and something floral clinging to her skin. Her eyes were locked on mine, and for a moment, the chaos outside didn't matter.
Then, a soft, rhythmic clicking sound started coming from above.
Lyra froze. She slowly looked up at the ventilation grate at the top of the shaft.
"What is that?" I whispered.
She didn't answer. She didn't have to.
A small, metallic cylinder dropped through the grate, hitting the floor of the cage with a dull thud. Then another. And another. Small, green canisters with a single red light blinking on the side.
"Gas," Lyra hissed, scrambling to get up. "Toxic nerve agents. They're not coming down for us—they're just flushing the pipes."
I looked up. The lift was jammed mid-shaft. We were trapped in a metal box, and the air was already starting to turn a sickly, neon yellow.