Lyra obeyed, exhaustion trumping pride. As she sat, the world tilted and she realized just how light-headed she was. Jax knelt and carefully rolled up the torn leg of her pants. The graze wound was still oozing blood. From a medkit under the cot, he produced a spray-hypo and applied it. A cool numbness spread as coagulants and painkillers did their work.
He examined her other injuries,a nasty bruise along her ribs where she'd slammed into a console, and cuts on her arms. "No internal bleeding, I think," he said, prodding gently and making her wince. "You'll be sore, but you'll heal." He hesitated, then lightly touched the port at her neck. "What about... up here? How's the implant?"
Lyra stiffened slightly. "Glitching," she admitted. "I'm getting phantom feeds, static. It overloaded when I interfaced with their system." She tried to keep her tone even, but a tremor of worry slipped through. If her neural implant was fried, she'd lose more than just tactical overlays—her link to Noel's last known data, her extra memory storage, maybe even motor functions.
Jax frowned. "We'll have Eris take a look. If anyone can debug a fried neural aug, it's her."
Lyra managed a tired smile. "Yeah." She was relieved Jax was talking about the future—about what they'd do next. It meant he intended to stick around. She still wasn't entirely sure why he'd left just before she went into the arcology, or why comms had gone silent at the worst moment. But those questions could wait. Right now, they were alive and together, and that was enough.
Her eyes drifted to the corner of the room as Jax stood and busied himself checking the vehicle under the tarp—a squat hoverbike cobbled from scavenged parts. Lyra's gaze unfocused as fatigue pulled at her. Jax said something about leaving at first light to meet Eris, but his voice became a murmur in her ears.
Lyra's eyelids grew heavy despite her efforts to stay alert. The cot was surprisingly inviting for just a sheet of fabric on a frame. "Just... a minute," she mumbled, easing herself down fully.
"Rest," Jax said gently, placing his coat over her as a blanket. "I'll keep watch."
Lyra wanted to protest—there was so much to discuss, and danger still loomed—but her body betrayed her. As she drifted off, images swirled in her mind: the cold blue lights of the arcology lab, the terrified face of a scientist as she snatched the data shard, the sensation of drowning in foam. Then a memory from long ago: Noel's smile on the day he handed her the small silver locket now resting against her collarbone. "You come back to me, okay?" he had said with a teasing grin as he fastened it around her neck.
The memory shattered and reformed into something darker: Noel strapped to a chair, eyes glassy, a mantis-like machine looming behind him. Lyra stirred, half-aware this was a nightmare but unable to wrench free. The machine's steel claws snapped and a distorted voice echoed, "Signal lost... signal lost..."
She gasped awake, heart in her throat. Jax was at her side in an instant, kneeling. "Lyra! It's alright. You were dreaming."
Lyra sat up, cold sweat on her brow. Her implant buzzed faintly, and she rubbed the port, taking shuddering breaths. Just a dream, she told herself. Noel was not here, not hurt like that... not yet. She clenched her jaw. Noel was still out there and alive—he had to be.
"I'm okay," she whispered, more to herself than to Jax.
He offered her a canteen of water. "Bad one?"
She nodded and took a sip, the water soothing her dry throat. "The worst."
Jax placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "We're going to get him back, Lyra. We are. But we need you at 100%."
Lyra closed her eyes and let the promise wash over her. They had each other's backs again. Jax was here. Eris was a call away. She wasn't alone in this fight anymore.
After a few minutes, she swung her legs off the cot, shaking off the lingering dread of the nightmare. Outside, through the gaps in the boarded-up window, dawn's first light crept in, pale and weak through the smoggy sky.
"We should move," Lyra said. Her voice was steadier now. She carefully folded Jax's coat and handed it back to him with a grateful look.
Jax nodded and started prepping the hoverbike. "Eris will be expecting us at the rendezvous. There's an abandoned transit station a few klicks east, under the old highway. That's where she said she'd meet us."
Lyra secured the data shard inside a hidden pocket of her boot and double-checked her pistol, ejecting and reinserting the magazine. Only a few rounds left—she'd need to resupply soon. She flexed her wounded leg; the painkiller had dulled the ache to a faint throb. It would hold.
With a roar louder than Lyra would have liked, the hoverbike sprang to life. Jax swung a leg over and nodded for Lyra to get on behind him.
She did, wrapping her arms around his waist.
They sped out of the garage and into the awakening city. As they darted between towering hab-blocks and under flickering neon billboards, Lyra cast one last glance toward the distant silhouette of the Prysm-Sek arcology dominating the skyline. The monolithic structure glinted coldly in the toxic sunrise, an imposing reminder of the power now hunting them.
Lyra narrowed her eyes, a surge of resolve welling up through the exhaustion. She'd survived the worst night of her life. Now she had to make sure it wasn't for nothing.
Noel, just hold on a little longer, she thought. We're coming.
The bike shot forward into the maze of streets, leaving the safehouse and the chaos of the arcology raid far behind.