Tally followed her down, taking a slow breath. That Shay in possession of hand grenades was a comforting thought showed what kind of a night this had turned into.
She could hear the roar of hovercraft building now. Apparently, the goo hadn’t gotten them all. “They’re getting closer.”
“They’re faster than we are, but they won’t mess with us over the city. They don’t want to kill any innocent bystanders.”
Which doesn’t include us, Tally thought. “So how do we get away?”
“If we can find a river outside of town, we can jump.”
“Jump?”
“They can’t see us, Tally—just our boards. Falling through the air in sneak suits, we’ll be completely invisible.” She was fiddling with one of the grenades. “Just find me a river.”
Tally flipped a map overlay across her vision.
“All that firepower will chop our boards to pieces,” Shay said. “They won’t have enough left to . . .” Shay’s voice faded. All at once, the hovercraft had winked out of existence, leaving the night sky empty.
Tally flipped through various infrared overlays, but could see nothing. “Shay?”
“They must have turned their lifting fans off. They’re running on magnetics, totally stealthy.”
“But why? We know that they’re following us.”
“Maybe they don’t want to freak out the crumblies,” Shay said. “They’re pacing us, surrounding us, waiting for us to leave the city. Then they’ll start shooting.”
Tally swallowed. In the momentary silence, her adrenaline was fading, and the magnitude of what they’d done finally struck home. Because of them, the military was in an uproar, probably thinking the city was under attack. For a moment, the icy glamour of being special slipped away. “Shay, if this goes wrong, thanks for trying to help Zane.”
“Hush, Tally-wa.” Shay hissed. “Just find me that river.”
• • •
Tally counted down the seconds. The city limit was less than a minute away.
She remembered the other night, the thrill of chasing the Smokies to the edge of the wild. But now she was the one being hunted, outnumbered, and outgunned. . . .
“Here we go,” Shay warned.
As they shot out over the dark edge of the city, glowing forms winked into existence all around them. First Tally heard the roar of lifting fans spinning to life, and then bright lances of heat began to streak across the sky.
“Don’t make it easy for them!” Shay cried.
Tally began to weave, slipping around the arcs of blazing projectiles that filled the air. A stream of cannon fire shot past her, hot as a desert wind on her cheek, splintering the trees below like matchsticks. She veered and climbed, barely avoiding another barrage from the opposite direction.
Shay threw a grenade straight up into the air. A few seconds later, it burst behind them, and a concussion wave hit Tally like a fist, setting her board wobbling. She heard the plaintive shrieking of lifting fans knocked awry—Shay had hit one of the hovercraft without even aiming!
Which only proved, of course, how many of them there were. . . .
Two arcing trails of cannon fire streaked across Tally’s path, searing the air, and she twisted hard to avoid them, barely staying on her board.
In the distance ahead, a band of reflected moonlight glimmered.
“The river!”
“I see it,” Shay called. “Set your board to fly straight and level once you jump.”
Tally banked again, another spray of projectiles narrowly missing her. She stabbed at her crash bracelets’ controls, setting the board to fly ahead without her.
“Try not to make a splash!” Shay cried. “Three . . . two . . .”
Tally jumped.
The dark river shone below her as she fell, a winding black mirror reflecting the chaos in the sky. She sucked in deep breaths, storing up oxygen, pressing her hands together to split the water cleanly.
The river’s surface slapped her hard, then its watery roar erased the screams of gunfire and lifting fans. Tally plunged deep into the darkness, its cold and silence enveloping her.
She waved her arms in circles to keep herself from floating too quickly to the top, staying down as long as her lungs could stand it. When she finally surfaced, her eyes scanned the sky, but found only flickers on the dark horizon, kilometers away. The river’s current was brisk and smooth.
They had escaped.
“Tally?” A shout bounced across the water.
“Over here,” she answered softly, paddling to face the sound.
Shay reached her with a few powerful strokes. “You okay, Tally-wa?”
“Yeah.” Tally did a quick internal diagnostic on her bones and muscles. “Nothing broken.”
“Me neither.” Shay was smiling tiredly. “Let’s head for shore. We’ve got a long walk ahead of us.”
As they swam slowly shoreward, Tally watched the sky anxiously—she’d had enough of fighting off the city’s armed forces for one night.
“That was truly icy, Tally-wa,” Shay said as they dragged themselves onto the muddy riverbank. She pulled out the tool she’d found in the museum. “By this time tomorrow night, Zane will be on his way into the wild. And we’ll be right behind him.”
Tally looked at the alloy-cutter, hardly believing they’d almost gotten killed for something smaller than a finger. “But after everything we did back there, will anyone really believe it was a bunch of Crims?”
“Maybe not.” Shay shrugged, then giggled. “But by the time they get around to stopping that silver goo, they won’t have much evidence left. And whether they think it was Crims or Smokies or a bunch of commando Specials from another city, they’ll know Zane-la has some bad-ass friends.”
Tally frowned. They’d only meant to make Zane seem bubbly, not involve him in a major attack.
Of course, with the city threatened this way, Dr. Cable would probably be thinking about recruiting a few more Specials as soon as possible. And Zane would make a logical candidate.
Tally smiled. “He does have some bad-ass friends, Shay-la. He has you and me.”
Shay laughed as they started into the woods, sneak suits shifting to match the dappled shafts of moonlight. “Tell me about it, Tally-wa. That boy doesn’t know how lucky he is.”
Part II
TRACKING ZANE
When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty,
There arises the recognition of ugliness.
When they all know the good as good,
There arises the recognition of evil.
—Lao Tzu, The Tao Te Ching
CUT FREE
The next night, they found Zane and a small group of Crims waiting for them, clustered in the shadow of the dam that calmed the river before it encircled New Pretty Town. The sound of falling water and the nervous smells of the Crims set Tally’s senses abuzz, her flash tattoos spinning like pinwheels on her arms.
After last night’s adventures, her old random body would’ve been dead tired. She and Shay had walked all the way into the city center before calling Tachs to bring new boards, a hike that would have laid up any normal human for days. But a few hours’ sleep had mostly restored Tally’s body, and their exploits at the Armory now seemed like a practical joke—one that had gotten a little out of hand, maybe. . . .
Her skintenna was crackling with the city’s high alert: wardens and regular Specials out in force, the newsfeeds openly wondering if the city was at war. Half of Crumblyville had seen the inferno on the horizon, and the giant pile of black foam where the Armory had once stood was hard to explain away. There were military hovercraft visible over the center of town, stationed to protect the city government from any further attacks. The nightly fireworks displays had been canceled until further notice, leaving the skyline strangely dark.
Even the Cutters had been called in and told to search for any connection between the Smokies and the Armory’s destruction, which Tally and Shay thought was pre
tty funny.
The buzz of the emergency energized Tally; she found the whole thing icy, like back when school was canceled because of a blizzard or a fire. Even with her sore muscles, she felt ready to follow Zane into the wild for weeks or months, whatever it took.
But as her board touched down, Tally made sure not to catch his watery-eyed gaze. She didn’t want this icy feeling sucked out of her, randomized by his infirmity. So she turned her eyes to the rest of the Crims.
There were eight in all. Peris was among them, his big eyes widening as he took in Tally’s new face. He was holding a cluster of toy balloons, like an entertainer at some littlie’s birthday party.
“Don’t tell me you’re going,” she snorted.
He returned her gaze without blinking. “I know I wimped out on you, Tally. But I’m bubblier now.”
Tally looked at Peris’s full lips, the softness of his trying-to-be-defiant expression, and wondered if his new attitude had come from one of Maddy’s pills. “So what are those balloons for? In case you fall off your hoverboard?”
“You’ll see,” he answered, mustering a smile.
“You bubbleheads better be ready for a long trip,” Shay said. “The Smokies may wait a while before they pick you up. I hope that’s survival gear in those packs and not champagne.”
“We’re ready,” Zane answered. “Water purifiers and sixty days of self-heating meals each. Lots of SpagBol.”
Tally winced. Ever since her first trip into the wild, the merest thought of Spagbol made her stomach flip. Luckily, Specials gathered their own food in the wild; their rebuilt stomachs could extract the nutrition out of practically anything that grew. A few Cutters had actually taken up hunting, though Tally stuck to wild plants—she’d eaten her share of dead animals back in Smokey days.
The Crims started hoisting their backpacks, keeping their faces solemn, trying to look serious. She just hoped they didn’t chicken out in the middle of the wild and leave Zane alone. He already looked a little shaky, even with his board still on the ground.
A few of the other Crims were staring at her and Shay. They wouldn’t have seen a Special before, much less a scarred and wildly tattooed Cutter. But they didn’t seem scared—like normal bubbleheads would be—just curious.
Of course, Maddy’s nanos had been making the rounds for a while now. And the Crims would be the first to try anything to make themselves bubbly.
How would you run a city where everyone was Crim? Instead of most people going along with the rules, they’d always be stealing and doing tricks. Wouldn’t you eventually wind up with real crimes—random violence and even murders—like back in Rusty days?
“All right,” Shay said. “Get ready to move.” She pulled out the alloy-cutter.
The Crims slipped their interface rings from their fingers, and as Peris handed each a balloon, they tied their rings to the dangling strings.
“Clever,” Tally said, and Peris beamed a satisfied smile at her. When the balloons were let go with the rings attached, it would look to the city interface as though the Crims were taking a slow hoverboard trip together, letting the wind push them along in typical bubblehead fashion.
Shay took a step toward Zane, but he held up his hand. “No, I want Tally to set me free.”
Shay let out a short, barked laugh and tossed Tally the tool. “Your boy wants you.”
Tally took a slow breath as she crossed to where Zane stood, vowing to herself that she wouldn’t let him randomize her brain. But when she reached out to grasp the metal chain, her fingers brushed his bare throat, and a shudder passed through her. Her eyes stayed on the necklace, but standing this close, fingertips centimeters from his flesh, brought up old and dizzy-making memories.
But then she saw the trembling in Zane’s hands, and the repulsion rose in her once more. The war in her brain wouldn’t end until he was a Special—his body as perfect as her own.
“Hold steady,” she said. “This is hot.”
Tally dimmed her vision as the tool sparked to life, a sputtering blue-and-white rainbow in the darkness. The heat hit her face like opening an oven, and a smell like burnt plastic filled the air.
Her own hands were shaking.
“Don’t worry, Tally. I trust you.”
She swallowed, still not looking up into his eyes. She didn’t want to see their watery color, or Zane’s thoughts so obvious on his face. She just wanted him to get moving, out into the wild where he could be found by the Smokies, recaptured, and then finally remade.
As the bright arc touched metal, Tally heard an alert ping go through her. Standard city procedure: The necklace was wired to send a signal if damaged. Any warden in the vicinity would have heard the ping too.
“Better let those balloons go,” Shay said. “They’ll come looking soon.”
The arc sliced through the last few millimeters of the chain, and Tally lifted it from around his neck with both hands, careful to keep the glowing tips from his bare flesh.
Her arms were halfway around him when Zane took her wrists. “Try to change your mind, Tally.”
She pulled away, his grip no stronger than the strands of a spider web. “My mind is fine the way it is.”
His fingertips slid down her arm, along the ridges of cutting scars. “Then why do you do this?”
She looked at his hands, still afraid to meet his eyes. “It makes us icy. It’s like being bubbly, but much better.”
“What is it that you’re not feeling, that you have to do that?”
She frowned, unable to answer the question. He just didn’t understand cutting because he’d never done it. On top of which, her skintenna was carrying every word to Shay. . . .
“You can rewire yourself again, Tally,” he said. “The fact that they made you into a Special means you can change.”
She stared at the still-glowing cutting tool, remembering what they’d gone through to get it. “I’ve already done more than you think.”
“Good. Then you can choose what side you’re on, Tally.”
She looked up into his eyes at last. “This isn’t about what side I’m on, Zane. I’m not doing this for anyone but us.”
He smiled. “Neither am I. Remember that, Tally.”
“What do you . . . ?” Tally dropped her gaze, shaking her head. “You have to get moving, Zane. You won’t look very bubbly if the wardens catch you here before you’ve even taken a step.”
“And speaking of being caught,” Shay whispered, handing the tracker to Zane. “Give that a twirl when you find the Smoke, and we’ll come running. It also works if you throw it into a fire, doesn’t it, Tally-wa?”
He looked at the tracker, then slipped it into his pocket. All three of them knew that he wouldn’t use it.
Tally dared another glance into Zane’s eyes. He might not be special, but his fierce expression didn’t look like a bubblehead’s either.
“Try to keep changing, Tally,” he said softly.
“Just go!” She turned and took a few steps away, snatching the last few balloons away from Peris, twisting their strings around the still-glowing necklace. When she let them go, the balloons struggled against the necklace’s weight at first, until a gust of wind buoyed their strength.
By the time she looked back at Zane, his board was rising, his arms outstretched unsteadily, like a littlie walking a balance beam. One Crim flew on either side of him, ready to help.
Shay let out a sigh. “This is going to be way too easy.”
Tally didn’t answer, keeping her eyes on Zane until he disappeared into the darkness.
“We better get moving,” Shay said. Tally nodded. When the wardens came sniffing, they might think it was somewhat random to find a couple of Specials hanging around Zane’s last known location.
The scales of her sneak suit shuddered through their little boot-up dance, and Tally pulled on her gloves, drawing the hood down over her face.
Within seconds, Tally and Shay were as perfectly black as the midnight sky above.
<
br /> “Come on, Boss,” she said. “Let’s go find the Smoke.”
OUTSIDE
Zane’s escape went much easier than Tally had expected.
The rest of the Crims and their pretty allies must have been in on the trick—hundreds of them released their interface rings on toy balloons at the same time, filling the air with false signals. Another hundred or so uglies did the same. The wardens’ channel was full of irritated chatter as they went around collecting rings and putting a halt to dozens of pranks. The authorities weren’t in the mood for practical jokes after last night’s attack.
Shay and Tally finally switched off the wardens’ babble.
“Pretty icy so far,” Shay said. “Your boyfriend should make a good Cutter.”
Tally smiled, feeling relieved to have Zane’s shakiness out of her sight. The excitement of the chase was beginning.
They followed the little group of Crims from a kilometer back, the eight figures so clear in infrared that Tally could tell Zane’s glowing silhouette apart from the others’. She noticed that at least one of them always flew close to him, ready to lend a hand.
The runaways didn’t speed up the river toward the Rusty Ruins, but made their unhurried way to the southern edge of the city. When they ran out of grid, they descended into the forest and hiked, carrying their hoverboards toward the same river that Tally and Shay had jumped into the night before.
“That’s bubbly of them,” Shay said. “Not taking the usual way out.”
“Must be tough on Zane, though,” Tally said. Hoverboards were heavy carrying without a grid beneath them.
“If you’re going to worry about him this whole trip, Tally-wa, it’s going to be extremely boring.”
“Sorry, Boss.”
“Relax, Tally. We won’t let anything happen to your boy.” Shay dropped into the pine trees. Tally stayed up high for another moment, watching the little group’s slow progress. It would be an hour before they made the river and could use their boards again, but she was reluctant to lose sight of the runaways out here in the wild.
“A little early in the trip to burn your fans out, don’t you think?” Shay’s voice came from below, intimate in the skintenna network’s feed.
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