Shade: Unbound

Time seemed to slow as Finn watched his mission partner, teammate and companion get brutally slashed and plummet towards the ground. His legs moved on their own, kicking off another wall and swinging with his grappling hook to catch her.

He had attached the wooden box to his back in order to carry Lyra’s unconscious form while sprinting through the district. Under his mask, he cringed how roughly he was jostling her, but the alternative was leaving her at Havoc’s mercy.

Ducking in midair, he evaded another green disc by a hair. When he landed on another building, Finn’s HUD reminded him just how precipitously Lyra’s vitals were dropping, and all he could do was awkwardly try to stem the bleeding in the middle of an active chase with a villain. “Calliope? Stay with me,” was all he could think to say. He’d always thought that line was cheesy whenever he heard it in movies growing up, but here he was.

“You need to shock her awake,” Jack told him when his repeated shakes were having no effect.

Finn didn’t even question it, knowing there was no time. He set his electro modulator glove on the absolute lowest setting and triggered a slight jolt. She stirred in his arms. “Listen,” Finn said, his voice hurried. “You need to stop the bleeding as much as you can. And stay awake, alright?”

The only reply he got was a wet cough, but her hands found her wound and covered it.

Yellow flashes on his HUD alerted him of a new suggested route. A second later, Gridlock said, “Shade, follow those directions. We’ll meet there, and you’ll drop off Cal, okay?”

Finn braced himself for another explosion before responding. “Drop her off? She needs to go to a hospital.”

“Two reasons why she can’t go there. One, Havoc is on your tail. Two, that’s going to be the first place the Venin will look even if you do lose him. He’ll have men stationed there at the very least.”

Taking in those words, Finn’s thoughts were in rapid fire. Right after, he said, “What about Radi?”

“In another district for an emergency. You know she’s overworked, and she was outsourced in the first place. And it would take too long to get to her even if she were here.”

“Then where do we take Calliope?” Finn snapped.

“Just follow the route I set for you. I have a plan.”

Finn didn’t argue further. He had no more time to talk; Havoc was catching up. He could take in the man’s appearance now. Wild black hair, green suit and tie, and a white mask with a crudely drawn vertical mouth on it.

Most importantly, Havoc was flying on an energy disc. He jumped off and let the lethal weapon collide with one of its cousins. The resulting explosion was so massive that Finn was able to ride the shock wave, letting it propel him away from his enemy as the thermal regulation of his suit shielded him from the heat.

Havoc fired another disc which Finn barely sidestepped. At this point, it was clear that Finn couldn't let it go on like this, but he could not engage this man in a fight, even if he wanted to. There was no time, plain and simple. Meaning that what he needed was a distraction to create more distance to get Lyra to safety.

How to go about that? The darts he shot were being blocked by bursts of green, and his staff was of no use at long range. Unless…

Finn grasped the staff with one hand and tapped it against every solid surface he came across. With his latest upgrade, he was able to build up kinetic charges inside his weapon and release them in a much more powerful strike.

But again, that would be useless without the ability to get in close range. The solution was therefore to fasten the metal rod to his grappling hook and shoot it.

Spinning in midair, he loosened the shot just as Havoc was forming another disc. The villain used it as a shield, and Finn had no idea how much damage it ended up doing.

The explosion was in the way.

Retracting his cable as he ran, he observed the damage to his gadgets. The staff was fine, but the end of his grappling hook was cracked, and the cable had started fraying. Fortunately, he’d gotten into the habit of splitting his grappling hook into two separate ones by default these days, having learned from his incident with Orion.

However, that did make his escape less smooth. Despite how careful he was trying to be, Lyra still whimpered. “We’re almost there,” he told her. Though he didn’t let himself relax, he was getting the impression that he’d widened the gap between himself and Havoc.

Four jumps later, he noticed a drone hovering above him. It veered off in the opposite direction. “I disabled the tracker they had on the box. Stay low so Havoc doesn’t find you again,” Gridlock spoke hurriedly.

That was what he’d been doing, but it was good to have confirmation of the tracker’s existence. He ducked into another alley upon hearing another explosion go off. Jack informed him that Havoc was going in the wrong direction.

Still, the fact that a point blank detonation of his own power had barely affected him was disappointing. Finn had hoped to incapacitate the man or discourage him from chasing altogether. Neither scenario came to fruition, in the end.

He shook his head. Such thoughts were irrelevant now. What mattered was making sure Lyra didn’t bleed to death.

When he finally got to the rendezvous point, Jack’s van was parked near a side road, and the boy himself, wearing a balaclava, quickly ran out carrying a metallic tube when Finn arrived. He hovered over lyra’s body and sprayed the wound.

“What is this?” Finn asked.

“Blood coagulant; it’s the only thing I had on hand for emergencies. Don’t ask how, there’s no time. I’ll take her somewhere safe and you complete the mission.”

Weirdly, Finn found himself hesitating a second before letting Lyra go. It almost felt like he was abandoning her, but he rationally knew that wasn’t the case. He didn’t have the knowledge, skill or powers to treat the fatally wounded, anyway.

He watched Jack carry her gently into his vehicle and drive away. When his friend put his foot on the gas, Finn activated camouflage again. Now that Havoc couldn’t track him anymore, he had no reason to rush.

Not that he was going to waste time on purpose, of course. He made his way to the designated drop-off point for the mission whilst making sure no one spotted him.

As it turned out, the drop-off point was some type of vent he was supposed to drop the box into. He did so and walked away, thinking about how anticlimactic that had been. Part of him had been expecting another obstacle to show up and prevent him from completing the mission, but nothing came for him.

Minutes later, his credit balance was updated.

Credits: 108’429

To say the number caught him off-guard would be an understatement. Though Finn supposed it shouldn’t have. It wasn’t as if they had gotten through that mission unscathed, and they had recovered an item of untold value.

Granted, that didn’t mean they should expect to receive this many credits every time they went up against a major gang, because opportunities like this were rare. Besides, even if the Venin had other such things in their possession, they would undoubtedly up their security after this incident, so it was naive to think they would be able to gain this many credits.

And yet, considering all of that, it was still an impressive gain. Because he had only gotten half the reward. The other half was Lyra’s.

“Where are you?” he asked over the comms.

Jack didn’t speak, instead sending a written reply. It gave him an address, and his HUD directed him there. He shot his grappling hook in that direction and swung there, keeping a decent pace. Even after all this running, his legs weren’t all that tired. His physical condition over the past two months had done wonders for his body.

When he arrived, he saw an unassuming, but well kept building. Tidy, but not eye-catching by any means. Cautiously, he walked into the main lobby. Aside from Jack in one of the waiting seats and a receptionist behind a polished desk, no one else was present.

Finn gestured around when he drew near, his unasked question evident.

Once again foregoing a verbal reply, Jack explained over text that this was one of the available services he found on Aegis, and that, in exchange for credits, they could receive treatment here if the hospital wasn’t an option. Discretion was what they staked their reputation on, meaning that they apparently didn’t have to worry about their identities being compromised here.

Currently, Lyra was undergoing surgery in one of the clinic’s secure medical facilities. Jack had arranged for her to receive treatment in advance, rather than paying upfront. As the receptionist offered Finn a warm smile, he started to feel uneasy about their situation. They were relying on a service he hadn’t thought they'd need, and the gravity of it weighed on him.

After completing such a huge task, he should’ve been more excited, but he could barely focus on his many credits. Intellectually, he had always known that this path of theirs could come to an abrupt end. That death was a risk every time he put on the suit. But here and now, he was beginning to realize the trajectory of his choices.

Was this what his life was going to be like? Constant escalation of danger, increasing risk for greater reward, until one day, he was strong enough to fight Omega? It would all be for nothing if he died along the way.

And that was only considering himself. What if he lost Lyra? What would he even do if that happened? He’d be all alone on the field again. She had uprooted her life to work with him, and now she might…

Jack’s hand on his shoulder brought him back from those dark thoughts. He beckoned Finn to walk with him up through the stairway, closer to the room in which their teammate was being operated on. The sterile, white walls seemed to close in around him, and his tension heightened.

Finn forced himself to calm down, trying to ignore the dried blood on his gloves and falling into step behind his friend. The sight of Lyra narrowly avoiding being cut in half played in his mind over and over, but he ignored it.

Concentrating on his Aegis app, he thought about what he should buy from the store. But all that came to mind was a replacement for his grappling hook and some more tranquilizer darts. The store offered more things that he wanted, just nothing he didn’t think he could do without. And the things he did want no matter what, were still outside of his price range, so he decided saving would be best for now.

They sat down in the waiting room, and Finn wondered if this facility also offered body enhancement surgery. He’d seen it in the Aegis store before, but the cost was in the millions of credits every time. Assuming he could one day afford it, though, he wasn’t sure how willing he was to let himself get cut open by complete strangers. Regardless, it wasn’t a dilemma he had to solve today, given that he was nowhere near reaching it in the first place.

Hours passed while they waited, and Jack suggested for Finn to go home, but he refused.

“Only one of us needs to be here,” Jack reasoned, speaking up for the first time. “There’s no reason to make more people suspicious than we need to. And you should get some rest.”

“You’re right. Only one of us needs to be here,” Finn shot back. “Just go home.” It wasn’t like Finn would get any sleep, even if he left.

Jack’s response was interrupted by the sound of the door opening. A middle-aged lady in scrubs stepped out and delivered the news.

The surgery was successful.