Prologue
She left the library and precisely 9pm, closing time. On the front steps she pulled her arms into her thin sweater and shivered in the howling winter winds. A new moon was somewhere up there in the dark sky, but no worries. She knew the route home well enough, even in the dark.
A low growl seemed to come from behind her as she darted down the steps and around the library to the narrow alley on its southeast side. She hesitated, nervous, but a moment later an old car drove by on the road with its engine grumbling and rattling in protest of the cold. She smiled and continued to the alley. For several blocks she ran down it- cutting across deserted streets and dodging piles of trash as the neighborhoods grew rougher and darker. The wind whipped away her body heat, adding urgency to her jog.
She went to the library because there was no heat at home, but this time she'd stayed too long. The air was sub-zero, and already her exposed skin was growing numb. Her nose and lungs burned, the thin arms wrapped around her torso held in no heat, and her teeth chattered violently and audibly, regardless of her efforts to stop them. Still, home wasn't too much further. Yes, she had to go to an even worse neighborhood yet, and yes it as likely just as cold in the condemned apartment building they squatted in, but at least it was out of the wind.
This neighborhood was full of thugs and creeps, though on a night like this she didn't expect to see any. Still, as she crossed to a narrow street on her right she couldn't ignore the tingle on the back of her neck that had nothing to do with impending frostbite. Her shoes crunched on the thin layer of snow and ice covering everything, but every so often she'd hear a crack, two steps in the snow slightly out of sync. She glanced behind her- nothing, and no footprints besides her own extended back from where she'd come.
She began walking again but this time changed her pace at random- faster, slower, faster, normal, faster- there! A step totally out of sync with hers! Again she turned, her fight-or-flight instincts were kicking in. Again there was nothing.
It wasn't that she couldn't hold her own in a fight- she was a poor kid from the slums, of course she knew some moves. She was just too cold. She couldn't focus, couldn't keep her thoughts from jumping all over the damn place, and certainly couldn't throw a decent punch when her shoulders were numb. A fight in this condition would end with her bloody in the gutter- or worse.
"I know you're there!" she shouted to the night, "It's only fair to warn you- back off or I'll-" she thought she heard a soft click nearby, but before she could so much as pinpoint the direction of the noise a wave of pressure slammed into her. Her muscles locked, then began to spasm violently. She managed a strangled scream as she collapsed in the sow. After that noise she was lucky to even manage small gasps of breath. Her eyes were locked open through it all and while her body burned with pain, a small part of her mind tried to save her, to find some way out of this. Was it a tazer? She felt something itching, crawling at her ear. It dripped into the snow as she shook and convulsed- blood. Tazers didn't usually make you bleed out your ears.
Someone came towards her with slow, measured steps. No more hiding. She wanted to curse him, strike out, hurt him- anything! For all her brave intentions she could still hardly breathe, let alone move. A hand entered her field of vision, then an arm. She couldn't look up to see his face, but she did see the syringe in his left hand. Surprisingly, she also felt it in her neck through the pain. As the world fell out of focus and went black she noticed something strange. Irrationally, her mind focused on that over the pain or whatever these people might be drugging her for.
The man's left hand- was it made of metal?