Icarus

Part 3

When Lyr woke up, it was near dawn and she was aboveground. Or more precisely, high in the air, on the highest monorail track in the city, the one that wound around the bases of the Elite Towers. The towers were the oldest part of the city, six gleaming spires made by ancient science-mages to look like smooth needles of the six metallic colors: Silver, Gold, Copper, Brass, Platinum, and Bronze.
They'd stood unchanged for most of Port Nerona's history and housed the oldest, wealthiest families of every regime to rule the city. Currently, the Elites lived there, right up at the top amongst the lower cloud banks, rarely venturing down to have to deal with the so-called rabble. They were also the ones who'd declared Lyr Public Enemy Number One. Being so close to them made her chest feel tight and hot with anxiety and her feet itch to run away. As soon as the train finished its circuit of the towers and headed down into the rest of the city, Lyr was on her feet and ready to leave.
She was on her own now, she had to remember that. She couldn't afford to let her guard down like this. And the first thing she needed was a disguise.
Lyr left the train at a brisk walk, trying to blend in with the scattered crowd of home-bound night shift workers and hungover party people. She wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans, fighting a sudden wave of nausea as the smell of cooking meat from a food cart hit her nose. She hadn't been able to eat meat, ever. Just the smell always made her gag. The one time she'd forced herself to eat some bacon, she'd only made it halfway through the second slice before glancing at her scars, noticing the similarity, and heaving up her whole breakfast.
Lyr quickly changed direction, finally arriving at an all-night convenience store that looked like it had what she needed. She walked in, keeping her hood up and avoiding eye contact with the two scruffy, clearly drunk men arguing in one corner.
"May I help you?" The AI checkout counter asked.
It wasn't very well maintained, so the words were barely intelligible over their own glitchy static. Lyr ignored it, walking right past it to search the shelves herself. She wanted as few traces of her in the city's data system as possible. Roger would probably say this was overkill, but Roger wasn't here right now.
Finally, she found what she was looking for: a pair of cheap sparkly reading glasses and a few little packets of Instadye hair gel in various shades of blond. Using the wad of money she'd snatched from the drug dealer's pockets last night, which was thankfully pretty sizeable, she paid for her supplies. Then she headed for the store's tiny public bathroom.
Lyr flipped open her pocketknife and started to work on her long hair, sawing away at the neon cobalt locks until she was left with a messy chin-length bob. Then she opened the Instadye packets and squeezed them out onto her head, working the slimy jelly-like substance into her hair until it was thoroughly slicked down. The squelching noises it made on her hands would have been funny in any other situation.
After washing her hands, Lyr covered her ears, steeled herself, and stuck her head under the automatic hand-dryer. The whooshing roar of air in her face was bad enough without the gel-covered strands of hair sticking to her skin, but finally her hair was dry and convincingly blond. She gave it a quick shake, then looked in the mirror to put on the glasses. A different girl stared back at her, looking lost and bewildered. Something still looked a bit too familiar about her, though.
The hoodie. It was Roger's originally and way too big, but she'd made it hers, doodling symbols on it with sharpies and fraying the strings by chewing on them, even ironing the crest patch of her favorite sports team onto the left sleeve.
Lyr bit her lip, fighting tears as she unzipped the sweater, rolled it up, and tossed it under the sink. It felt wrong, doing that to something that had essentially been her security blanket for the last few months, but sentimentality was a luxury she couldn't afford right now.
Feeling unpleasantly vulnerable, she cleaned up the mass of hair on the floor, then went out into the store again to make her last purchase: several bottles of Booster Fuel, the common stimulant drink used by people who needed a safe, but stronger, alternative to espresso.
She had nobody to watch her back now, so she'd need to sleep only when absolutely necessary. Now she was ready.
But ready for what?
Finding out where she came from?
Leaving the city?
No, she couldn't do that. Even with the police on alert, she could survive here, and Port Nerona felt familiar somehow, like her past life had been here too.
"Guess I'm staying then." She muttered to herself as she headed out of the store and into the awakening world.