“No one leaves tonight.” Yelva’s words hung in the air, a final, poisoned promise. The district sealed. Zavrina’s gaze swept past the wreckage of her interceptor, past the prone form of Zhevan, to the towering blast walls already rising, their hydraulic groans echoing through the avenue. Panic was a luxury she couldn’t afford. Not now. Not when the cold, hard knot of betrayal had solidified into a blade. She reached, not for a tool, but for the small, insulated pouch secured to her belt, the one holding the EMP detonator she’d salvaged from the server room. Yelva had technology; Zavrina had always known how to break it. “Oh, you’re mistaken,” Zavrina said, her voice a low growl that cut through the metallic screech of the rising walls. Yelva paused, her cruel smile faltering, a flicker of confusion in her eyes. Zavrina pulled the detonator free, a sleek, palm-sized device with a single, glowing crimson button. “I’m not trying to leave. I’m trying to make sure *you* don’t.” Yelva's stare locked wide, her smirk vanishing as recognition dawned. She lunged, a desperate, animalistic cry tearing from her throat. But Zavrina was faster. Her thumb slammed down on the trigger. An invisible wave ripped through the air. The neon glow of the shopfront signs shattered, not with glass, but with a sudden, absolute cessation of light. Every lantern post, every building display, every illuminated window in the ward died in an instant. The blast walls froze mid-rise, their hydraulics seizing. The motor blocks of Yelva’s convoy coughed, spluttered, and then went silent, leaving only the sound of grinding metal and the wind. Darkness. Utter, disorienting darkness swallowed the alleyways. The only light now came from distant, unaffected sectors, painting the underside of the storm clouds with a faint, bruised purple. Zavrina blinked, her pupils struggling to adjust. Yelva, enraged, snarled in the sudden void, her form a ghost in the gloom. “You *bitch!*” Yelva screamed, her voice hoarse with fury. “You just plunged us into the dark ages!” “Better for fighting,” Zavrina retorted, already moving. She dropped to Zhevan’s side, her hands quick and precise. His breathing was ragged, a thin line of blood still tracing his ribs, but his eyes were open, lucid. “The… plan?” he rasped, his voice strained. “Changed,” Zavrina stated, already assessing the abandoned wrecks around them. “We’re not escaping. We’re ending this.” She saw the faint shimmer of his revolver, still clutched in his hand. “Can you move?” He pushed himself up, wincing, but his grip on the custom firearm was steady. “For you, Kosh. Always.” “Good. Find high ground. I need eyes. Keep her off my back.” Zavrina pointed towards a rickety fire escape clinging to a darkened tenement. “You’ll have a clear shot from there. Wait for my signal.” Before Zhevan could respond, a raw motor roared to life. Yelva. She’d somehow hotwired one of the convoy’s abandoned cruisers, a relic of chrome and heavy steel, its intake roaring even without working lights. The coupe's massive grille suddenly appeared, a dark phantom, heading straight for them. “She’s coming for us,” Zavrina yelled, pulling Zhevan behind the cover of a overturned vendor stall. “Go!” Zhevan, despite his wound, moved with a surprising, lethal grace, scrambling up the fire escape. Zavrina’s eyes scanned the pavement. Most of the syndicate rigs were too damaged, too heavy, or too sluggish for what she needed. Then she saw it: a low-slung tuned coupe, its chassis battered, a racer’s banner still fluttering from its antenna. It was a beast designed for speed and agility, not brute force, but it would have to do. Its owner had clearly left it in a hurry, keys still in the ignition. She vaulted into the driver’s seat, the worn leather familiar beneath her. The spark plugs caught with a cough, pistons firing hard in counterpoint to Yelva’s approaching thunder. No lights. No navigation. Just raw power and her own preternatural sense of the asphalt. “Come on, you rust bucket,” she muttered, jamming the shifter into gear. The coupe lurched forward, its tires squealing against the blood-slicked asphalt. Yelva, a shadow of rage, swerved her rig, attempting to clip Zavrina’s smaller ride. The roar of Yelva’s manifold filled the night. Head-on, a game of chicken. “You can’t outrun me, Zavrina!” Yelva’s voice, amplified by the open window of her car, carried across the empty boulevard. “Not in that piece of junk!” Zavrina didn’t reply. She weaved through the debris, the broken glass and twisted metal of the earlier fight. Yelva was powerful, but clumsy. Zavrina was a ghost in the dark, her hands flying across the dash, her foot a blur on the pedals. The tuned coupe bucked and snarled, an extension of her will. She could smell the exhaust fumes, feel the vibrations of Yelva’s monster rig on the road. She needed to turn the chase into a duel, an intimate dance of metal and instinct. Zavrina glanced up, catching a fleeting glint from the fire escape. Zhevan. He was ready. She veered sharply, forcing Yelva to commit to a direction. The heavier rig, caught off guard, overcorrected, its frame sliding. Yelva cursed, fighting the wheel. This was it. Zavrina slammed her foot down, the coupe's cylinders screaming as she rocketed past a crumbling brick building. “Now!” she yelled, her voice lost in the machine's roar. A crack echoed from above, followed by another. Zhevan’s revolver barked, spitting flares of orange light into the darkness. The first shot blew out a tire on Yelva’s cruiser, sending it skidding wildly. The second struck the motor housing, a groan of metal followed by a cloud of white smoke. Yelva shrieked in frustration, fighting the dying machine. Zavrina spun the coupe, positioning herself. Yelva, blinded by smoke and fury, saw only one target. She straightened her course, abandoning all pretense of a chase, turning the crippled iron frame into a battering ram, aiming for Zavrina head-on. A final, lethal game of chicken. The gap closed in an instant. Yelva’s face, contorted with hatred, was visible for a split second in the faint ambient light. Zavrina held her nerve, her eyes locked on Yelva’s. At the very last moment, a fraction of a breath before impact, Zavrina wrenched her wheel hard, slamming the coupe into a precise, impossible drift. With a gut-wrenching screech of metal, the cruiser, still on its suicidal trajectory, missed Zavrina by inches. It continued, driverless and doomed, straight towards the perimeter guardrail. The barrier, weakened by years of neglect, offered no resistance. The heavy machine tore through it with a splintering crash, disappearing into the blackness below. A sickening splash echoed from the depths. Zavrina skidded to a halt, peering over the shattered railing. Below, the canal, usually a forgotten ribbon of frost, now held a new, terrible resident. Yelva’s rig had crashed through the ice, its headlights, miraculously still working, casting an eerie glow on the churning, freezing water. The ice cracked further, groaning under the sinking chassis. Yelva, her face a mask of terror, appeared in the shattered driver’s side window, her hair plastered to her face. “Zavrina!” she shrieked, her voice raw with desperation, “Save me! Please!”

Blackout Drive