Icarus

Part 1

The drug dealer stopped in the middle of a dark alley, heart racing. He was sure he’d seen movement in the shadows. He was a coward and readily admitted as much. However, even a brave criminal would have been scared on a night like this, with the police out in force, combing down every street for something, or maybe . . . someone.
He was considering calling off his rendezvous when a fist hit his chin, knocking him out. He crumpled to the trash-covered sidewalk with a faint groan. His attacker quickly rifled through his pockets, eyes impassive above a mask covering her mouth and nose. She tossed her long blue hair and hissed between her teeth, frustrated.
“Nothing. Dammit, Roger!”
Her lightly-accented voice was deep for a girl, and tight with anger. Moving with uncanny speed and grace, the girl leapt up onto the wall of the building next to her, finding seemingly invisible handholds as her gloves and boots stuck to the window glass.

In a matter of minutes, she was bounding over the moonlit rooftops, heading for a particularly huge silo in the city’s abandoned industrial area.
When she reached it, she looked over each shoulder, checking that she hadn’t been followed before opening a concealed door in the base. The girl slipped through, then closed the door and leaned against it, catching her breath.
The silo she’d just entered looked very different on the inside, brightly lit with several mezzanines and galleries connected by catwalks going up into the gloom near the roof, the walls painted with a different mural on each floor, some of which weren’t quite finished, and a clutter of comfy furniture, books, technology, toys, tools, weapons, and art supplies filling the space.

The roughly two dozen kids and teens scattered throughout the space sent up a raucous cheer when they saw her. One boy, in his late teens and likely the oldest, grinned at her through his floppy brown bangs. “Did you find it, Lyr?”
“No.”
Everyone’s faces fell.
“Why not?” One little girl asked.
“The guy didn’t have it.” Lyr said shortly. “He must have handed it off right before I got there. Or it could be Roger is sending us on a wild goose chase again.”
The boy, Roger, stood up from the desk he’d been sitting at. “You know I’m not, Lyr.”
“Then why wasn’t it there?!”
“I don’t know!” The boy snapped, finally getting angry. “Maybe if you ever used the communication devices I made you, you’d have been able to help me make a plan B.”
“Those things can get hacked, Roger! What if those weirdos on my tail overheard us?”
Roger crossed his arms. “You’re being paranoid again.”
“I’m not paranoid!” Lyr ripped her mask off and threw it at him.
He caught it. “Then why do you never trust us, huh?!” He demanded. “We’re trying to help you!”
“Well you can take your “help” and toss it down the sewer!”
She threw down the backpack full of gadgets and weapons she’d been wearing, then sprinted out the door, slamming it behind her.