“Barely.” Aya glanced up at the departing construction lifter. “Were they trying to kill us?”
“They didn’t even see us,” Tally said.
“You saved me, Aya,” Frizz said softly.
“It wasn’t just me . . . ,” she started, but Frizz took her shoulders and pulled her into a kiss. His lips tasted of concrete dust and sweat.
When they pulled apart, Aya glanced at Tally, who rolled her eyes.
“Good to see that you two are okay.”
“We’re fine.” Aya smiled at Frizz, then glanced at a scrape on her elbow. “Except I’m going to get that Rusty disease.”
“Relax. Shay’s got meds for anything.” Tally glanced upward. “And here she comes.”
Aya looked up into the reaches of the skeletal tower. The ruin stretched as high as she could see, shafts of sunlight cutting straight through its crumbling walls. She heard the faraway echoes of metal being cut, and heard debris filtering down through the empty, broken floors.
As she stared, shapes began to shimmer against the darkness, like ripples in the air. They took on human form as they descended, surrounding Aya, Tally, and Frizz. They were standing on hoverboards, the riding surfaces wrapped entirely in camouflage.
One shimmering arm pulled a sneak suit hood away, revealing Shay’s face.
“Wow. You three look like crap!”
“How’d you get here?” Hiro said, pulling off his own hood. “In a rock grinder?”
“Just about.” Aya pointed back at the still groaning pile. “We almost got crushed under that. . . .”
She paused. There were five of the sneak-suited figures: Hiro, Ren, Fausto and Shay . . . and someone else.
A boy pulled his hood off, revealing a scarred and ugly face.
“You found us,” Tally said softly.
He shrugged. “It was a little tricky, after you escaped earlier than planned. But I figured you’d come to the usual place.”
Tally turned to Aya and Frizz, a smile breaking across her face.
“This is David. He’s here to rescue us.”
THE USUAL PLACE
It was David who’d brought the hoverboards. He’d also brought real city-made food, and the air was already full of slurping sounds and the scent of self-heating meals.
Aya and the others were halfway up the Rusty skyscraper, on a mostly intact floor. The nearest deconstruction crew was a hundred meters above, their metal-chewing blades whining in the background. But there was no chance of being discovered: David’s rescue equipment included lots of sneak suits. Aya’s felt as smooth as silk pajamas against her skin, though the outer scales were steel-hard to the touch. Everyone was almost invisible from the neck down, bodies blending into the half-missing walls, heads floating eerily as they ate.
“David followed us here,” Tally explained between bites of CurryNoods. “In case we couldn’t break out on our own.”
Aya looked at David. She remembered him from mind-rain class, of course. His name was mentioned in Tally’s famous manifesto, when she’d declared her plan to save the world. During the Prettytime he’d been one of the Smokies, a group who’d lived in the wild, fighting the evil Specials and helping runaways from the cities. So it was natural that Tally would want him around, now that she lived in the wild too. But Aya couldn’t figure out why he was wearing an ugly mask.
“Like anyone could keep you three locked up,” David said. “My real job was to bring extra equipment and a hovercar.”
“Any trouble tracking us?” Tally asked.
David shook his head. “Never more than fifty klicks behind you. The plan would’ve worked perfectly if you hadn’t decided to jump out.” He glanced at Frizz.
“It’s okay,” Hiro said, slurping his own noodles. “I already explained Radical Honesty to them.”
“What is it with you city kids and surgery?” David muttered.
“But how did you find each other?” Aya asked. “I thought we couldn’t use pings.”
“When I got into town, these ruins looked like they had burning flares on top.” David laughed, looking out through the crumbling wall at sparks falling past. “I thought it was you signaling me!”
“That’s how we got in touch with David in the old days,” Shay explained.
“After I figured out what the sparks were, I waited here anyway,” David said. “Just in case you decided to come to the usual place.”
“You always know where to find me,” Tally said with a soft smile.
Aya frowned. “One thing I don’t get, David. Why are you in disguise?”
“Excuse me?”
“Why are you still wearing . . . ?” Aya began. “Oh, that’s not smart plastic? You’re really an ugly?”
David rolled his eyes, and Shay said quietly, “David’s never had any surge at all. But I wouldn’t use the word ugly—Tally might eat you.”
“I just figured he was a Cutter, but with . . . ,” she began, but found herself silenced by Tally’s death-threatening stare.
Aya went back to slurping her PadThai, wishing she’d paid more attention in mind-rain history.
David pointed at a shiny satellite dish on the floor. “We’re set up to call in help if you want, Tally. That antenna is focused on a comm satellite, and it transmits as straight as a laser—no one else will hear a thing.”
Everyone looked at Tally, who paused, chopsticks halfway to her mouth.
“I don’t want any help yet,” she said. “We still don’t know what the inhumans are up to. And I’m starting to think Aya-la’s City Killer story might be a false alarm.”
Their stares turned to Aya, who was chewing a mouthful of noodles. She swallowed them slowly, hoping Tally would keep going. It seemed a million times more shaming to explain the mistake herself.
“Yeah,” Aya finally said. “The mass drivers might not be weapons.”
“What else would they be?” Hiro asked.
“A way to slow down the cities,” Tally said. “To strip the world of metal and send it here. No more cheap metal, no more expansion.”
“You’ve got to be kidding!” Shay cried. “You mean these weirdos are on our side?”
“It makes sense,” Fausto said. “They could even get rid of the metal permanently—just shoot it into orbit. Those cylinders don’t have to come down.”
Hiro let out a disgusted sigh. “You mean you got this story wrong, Aya?”
“I got it wrong?” Aya cried. “You and Ren were the ones who came up with the city killer angle!”
“But it was your story, Aya!” Hiro said. “We just gave you an idea!”
“But before you guys started talking about re-entry speeds and TNT, I just wanted to kick the Sly Girls mag-lev surfing!”
Frizz frowned. “I thought you said you weren’t going to kick that?”
“Would you randoms be quiet?” Tally said, her voice suddenly full of razors. “You want those freaks up there to hear us?”
Aya fell silent, glaring at Hiro. It was bad enough that every feed in the city would blame this bogus story on her; she didn’t need her own brother piling on. She glanced at Frizz, hoping he understood what she’d meant.
“Don’t forget, we aren’t sure of anything yet,” Tally said. “They could be building a hundred mass drivers right here, getting ready to bombard every city in the world. We may have to blow something up, after all.”
“We’re almost at the equator,” Fausto said.
“The equator?” Tally shook her head. “What does that have to do with it?”
“The closer you are to the equator, the faster the Earth’s spinning—more centrifugal force.” Fausto made a whirling motion over his head. “Like a pre-Rusty sling—the longer it is, the more momentum it gives the stone. Right here’s the best place to shoot something into orbit.”
“So maybe there are mass drivers here!” Aya said. Maybe her story hadn’t been totally truth-missing. . . .
“Don’t get too excited, Aya-chan.” Ren stood up and cr
ossed to the largest opening in the wall. “I haven’t seen any mountains on this island.”
“The nearest ones I saw were more than a hundred klicks north,” David said.
“If you drill a mass driver shaft at sea level, your projectile starts too low,” said Ren. “And on a tropical island you’d have to worry about flooding. It’d be a nightmare.”
Aya sighed. This island wasn’t the best place to destroy the world from, and it was guilty-making how that fact filled her with sadness. If only the inhumans had been up to something world-threatening here . . .
“So why are they salvaging these ruins?” Frizz paused, listening for a moment to the shriek of saws echoing through the ruin. “And why are they on a schedule? In the hovercar, Udzir told us that they’d let us go soon.”
“When did he say that?” Tally asked.
“Oh,” Frizz said. “I think that was when we were speaking Japanese.”
“Thanks for telling me!” Tally shook her head. “Here I’ve spent all day babysitting you two, while these freaks are getting ready to . . . do whatever!”
She stood up, snapping for her hoverboard. The other Cutters and David scrambled to their feet.
“Good,” Shay said. “I’ve had enough sitting around.”
Aya stood. “Yeah, let’s go get some answers.”
Tally turned to her. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Um, with you?”
“Forget it. You four are staying right here.”
“Here?” Aya cried. She had a story to rekick! “But what if you don’t come back? Or if the freaks find us?”
“In those sneak suits they’ll never see you.” David pointed at the satellite dish. “And if we’re still gone at sundown tomorrow, you can call for help.”
Tally stepped onto her hoverboard. Its riding surface shimmered for a moment, then faded into the background. The four of them pulled on their hoods, and soon they were little more than ripples in the air.
“See you later, randoms!” Shay’s voice said from nowhere.
The four shapes rose up, slipping without another word through the gaps in the broken wall.
“Wait, Tally-wa . . .” Aya’s cry trailed off.
“They’re already gone,” Frizz said, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Aya shook him off and went to the crumbling wall of the skyscraper, looking out across the jungle. The sun had set over the trees, and in the distance the inhumans’ hoverport was coming alight. The outlines of storehouses and factories glowed against the blackness of the jungle.
All the answers were right there in front of her. All she had to do was go get them.
Aya looked down at her own hand, almost perfectly invisible in her sneak suit glove. . . .
“Aya-chan,” Hiro asked, “are you thinking of doing something brain-missing?”
“No.” She set her jaw. “I’m thinking that I don’t care what Tally Youngblood says. This is still my story.”
DO-OVER
“You’re nuts,” Hiro said.
“Look out there,” she said. “The freaks’ base isn’t that far away. And we’ve got sneak suits!”
“But the Cutters took all the hoverboards,” Ren said. “Are we supposed to walk there?”
“Well . . .” Aya frowned, looking at the floor. “We’ve got enough pieces of hoverball rig for three of us. We can move pretty fast in those.”
“You want to float through the jungle at night?” Frizz said. “It was tricky enough when we could see!”
Ren nodded. “There are wild animals down there, Aya-chan. And poisonous snakes and spiders.”
Aya groaned. Why was everyone suddenly so backbone-missing?
“You’re just self-shaming because you got the story wrong,” Hiro said.
“That’s not why I’m—,” Aya started, then glanced at Frizz. “Okay, it’s totally shaming. But there’s still a story here, and we’re still kickers, right?”
“I’m actually more of a clique founder,” Frizz muttered.
“Doesn’t matter how big a story it is,” Ren said. “We don’t even have a . . .” He paused, staring at her. “Um, where’s Moggle?”
“Of course!” Aya cried. “Moggle could tow me in a hoverball rig, maybe two of us. Then we could fly over the jungle, above all the vines and poisonous stuff!”
“But it’s still back at that ruin,” Frizz said.
“You lost Moggle!” Hiro cried. “Again?”
Aya shook her head. “Moggle isn’t lost, okay? Just waiting at this ruin we found. We have to send a ping.”
“Brain-missing for two reasons,” Hiro said. “One, if we send a ping, the freaks will swoop down and capture us. Two, a ping won’t travel more than a kilometer here. There’s no city interface to repeat it—just jungle.”
“He’s right, Aya,” Ren said, spreading his hands. “There’s nothing we can do but wait for Tally.”
Aya sighed, sinking to the floor.
If she couldn’t rekick the story somehow, she’d be remembered forever as the ugly who’d blown the biggest story since the mind-rain, a useless kicker who’d needed Tally Youngblood to find the real facts.
The name Aya Fuse would forever be synonymous with truth-missing.
She looked up. For some reason, Frizz was making a low growling sound through his teeth.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“It’s nothing. . . .” He flinched. “I mean, practically nothing.”
Aya recognized his pained expression, and smiled. “You’ve got an idea, haven’t you?”
He shook his head, biting his lip. “Too dangerous!”
“Come on!” she pleaded. “Tell me!”
“Linear transmission!” Frizz blurted out, pointing to the satellite dish that David had left behind. He rubbed his temples. “We just need to point that in the right direction.”
Ren nodded slowly. “Like David said, the freaks will never hear a thing.”
• • •
The sun was down, and the horizon was dotted with worklights and sprays of cutting sparks. The first cool breeze of the day was wafting in from the sea, bringing the smells of salt and brine.
“That looks like the place,” Frizz said, pointing into the darkness. “Two towers in a clearing, one twice as tall as the other.”
“But the inhumans are there again.” Aya watched the sparks tumbling from the taller spire. “Won’t they hear us?”
Ren looked at the satellite dish. “The transmission will only hit a small area, and those workers have a building to chop up. Why would they be listening for random radio noise?”
“I guess so.” Aya twitched her fingers nervously, playing with her sneak suit’s controls. The scales shifted, a texture like tree bark flickering across her body. Her hoverball rig was completely hidden beneath the suit.
“See that heavy lifter?” Ren pointed at a machine leaving the ruin. “If Moggle follows that cable line, then turns there, it’ll be here in twenty minutes.”
Aya shook her head, remembering all the random twists and turns Tally had taken on the way here. Down in the treetops the network of cables had been invisible. But from this height, the lifters and hovercars flying to and fro revealed its shape, like a glowing, moving map spread across the darkness.
“I’ll stay here and guide Moggle while you wait down there.” Ren pointed to where the pile of scrap spilled into the jungle. “Take your hoods off, and I’ll tell Moggle to look for a couple of heads glowing in infrared.”
“There’ll be three of us,” Hiro said.
Aya turned to face him. “Sorry, Hiro. But Moggle can’t tow three people.”
“You forget: I actually know how to fly in a hoverball rig. I don’t need to be towed.” Hiro drifted into the air, spinning around once to demonstrate. “And I’m not going to let my little sister upstage me twice in one week.”
She smiled. “Glad to have you along, Hiro.”
Ren carried the satellite dish to the outer wall and k
nelt, balancing it on a pile of rubble. He carefully aimed the metal parabola at the distant ruin.
A flicker of lights blossomed across its controls, but Ren kept his stare focused on the horizon. He adjusted the dish in tiny increments, probing the darkness with its invisible beam.
Long minutes passed that way, Ren’s fingers moving the dish as slowly as a minute hand. There was no sound in the room but the metal saws overhead.
“I still can’t believe we got the story wrong,” Hiro murmured.
Aya smiled. “Thanks for saying we, Hiro. But you were right—it was my fault.”
He grunted. “You’re just lucky to get a do-over.”
“Maybe . . .”
“No, definitely,” Ren said, staring into the flickering controls. “I finally got an answer!”
“Is Moggle okay?” Aya asked.
“Looks fine from here. The batteries are even recharged—must have found a sunny spot!”
Aya felt a smile growing on her face. She had a hovercam again.
“Let’s get moving,” Hiro said. He glided to a hole in the floor and dove through, slipping out of sight. Frizz followed, pushing with his hands to propel himself downward.
Before she dropped, Aya turned to Ren. “You’ll be okay all alone?”
“Sure. Just don’t leave me here too long.” He patted the satellite dish. “If no one makes it back in twenty-four hours, I’m kicking this to the whole world.”
NIGHT FLIGHT
They descended through the iron skeleton of the tower, floating past ruined floors in darkness, like divers exploring an ancient shipwreck. The whine of cutting blades faded above, the darkness growing around Aya.
With Moggle on its way here, finally she could make up for all those cam-missing hours flying over the jungle. Not that nature shots were ever famous-making—quite the opposite. Like Miki had said, the point of fame was to be obvious, and so much of the jungle was hidden.
But Aya wanted to remember its quiet magnificence nonetheless.
“Through there?” Hiro asked when she landed at ground level. He was pointing to the pile of steel and rubble.
“Yeah, but wait a minute,” Aya said. “A lifter’s coming down.”