She twitched against the ankle restraints, needing to escape this room now.
“Almost got it,” Shay said soothingly.
Tally’s right arm itched, and she found a braid of wires and tubes stuck into it, life support for major surgery. She hissed and ripped them out. Blood spattered across the spotless white floor, but it didn’t hurt—the collision between anesthetic and whatever Shay had used to awaken her had filled Tally with a pain-numbing fury.
When Shay finally got the second ankle strap unlocked, Tally leaped up, her fingers curled.
“Um, maybe you better put this on,” Shay said, tossing her a sneak suit. Tally looked down at herself. She was wearing another disposable nightgown: pink with blue dinosaurs.
“What is it with hospitals?” she shouted, ripping the gown off and sticking one foot into the suit.
“Quiet down already, Tally-wa,” Shay hissed. “I’ve plugged the sensors, but even randoms can hear you shouting like that, you know. And don’t turn on your skintenna yet. It’ll give us away.”
“Sorry, Boss.” A sudden wave of dizziness came over Tally; she’d stood up too fast. But she managed to slide her legs into the sneak suit and pull it up around her shoulders. Detecting her wild heart rate, it booted up straight into armored mode, scales rippling, then lying flat and hard.
“No, tune it this way,” Shay whispered, one hand on the door. Her own suit was set to a pale blue, the color of hospital scrubs.
As Tally tuned her suit, trying to match the color of Shay’s, her head still spun with wild energy. “You came for me,” she said, trying to keep her voice low.
“I couldn’t let them do this to you.”
“But I thought you hated me.”
“I hate you sometimes, Tally. Like I’ve never hated anybody else before.” Shay snorted. “Maybe that’s why I keep coming back for you.”
Tally swallowed, looking around once more at the operating tank, the table full of cutting instruments, all the tools that would have turned her average again—despecialized her, as Shay had put it. “Thanks, Shay-la.”
“No problem. Ready to get out of here?”
“Wait, Boss.” Tally swallowed. “I saw Fausto.”
“So did I.” There was no anger in Shay’s voice, simply a statement of fact.
“But he’s . . .”
“I know.”
“You know . . .” Tally took a step forward, her mind still spinning from waking up, from everything that was happening. “But what are we going to do about him, Shay?”
“We have to go, Tally. The rest of the Cutters are waiting for us on the roof. Something big is coming. A lot bigger than the Smokies.”
Tally frowned. “But what—?”
The shriek of an alarm split the air.
“They must be getting close!” Shay cried. “We have to go!” She grabbed Tally’s hand and pulled her through the door.
Tally followed, her mind reeling, her feet still unsteady beneath her. Outside the room, a long, straight hallway stretched in both directions, the alarm echoing down its length. People in hospital scrubs were spilling out of doors on either side, filling the hallway with confused babble.
Shay sprinted away, slipping among the stunned doctors and orderlies like they were statues. She was so light-footed and quick, the milling crowd hardly noticed the matching pale blue streak hurtling through them.
Tally thrust aside her questions and followed, but her just-woken-up dizziness was fading very slowly. She dodged people as best she could, plowing straight through any who got in her way. She caromed off bodies and the walls, but managed to keep moving, letting her wild energy carry her.
“Stop!” a voice shouted. “Both of you!”
In front of Shay, a cluster of wardens stood in their yellow-and-black uniforms, shock-sticks glowing in the soft, pastel light.
Shay didn’t hesitate, her suit turning black as she plunged into them, hands and feet flashing. The air filled with the smell of fresh lightning as shock-sticks struck her armored scales, sizzling like mosquitoes frying on a bug light. She spun wildly amid the fracas, sending yellow figures staggering in all directions.
By the time Tally reached the struggle, only two wardens were left standing, backing down the hall and trying to ward off Shay, their shock-sticks flailing through the air. Tally stepped up behind one and grabbed her by the wrist, twisting it with a snap and pushing her into the other, sending them both sprawling to the floor.
“No need to break them, Tally-wa.”
Tally looked down at the woman, who was clutching her wrist, a pained cry spilling from her lips. “Oh, sorry, Boss.”
“It’s not your fault, Tally. Come on.” Shay pushed through the stairwell door and headed upward, taking each flight in two long bounds. Tally trailed behind, her dizziness almost under control, the manic energy from the wake-up shot fading a little as she ran. The stairwell doors closed behind them, dampening the earsplitting shriek of the alarm.
She wondered what had happened to Shay, where she had been all this time. How long had the other Cutters been here in Diego?
But the questions could wait. Tally was simply glad to be free again, fighting alongside Shay and being special. Nothing could stop the two of them together.
A few flights up, the stairs came to an end. They burst through the last door and onto the roof. The night overhead glittered with thousands of stars, beautifully clear.
After the padded cell, it felt glorious to be out under the open sky. Tally tried to suck in a breath of fresh air, but the smell of hospital still poured from the forest of exhaust chimneys around them.
“Good, they’re not here yet,” Shay said.
“Who isn’t?” Tally asked.
Shay led her across the roof, toward the huge, darkened building next to the hospital—Town Hall, Tally remembered. Shay peered over the edge.
People were streaming out of the hospital, staff in pale blue and white, and patients in flimsy gowns—some walking, some being pushed along on hovercarriers. Tally heard the alarm echoing out of the windows below, and realized that the sound had changed to a two-toned evacuation signal.
“What’s going on, Shay? They’re not evacuating just because of us, are they?”
“No, not us.” Shay turned to her, put a hand on her shoulder. “I need you to listen carefully, Tally. This is important.”
“I’m listening, Shay. Just tell me what’s going on!”
“All right. I know all about Fausto—I tracked down his skintenna signal the moment I got here, more than a week ago. He explained everything.”
“Then you know . . . he’s not special anymore.”
Shay paused. “I’m not sure if you’re right about that, Tally.”
“But he’s different, Shay. He’s weak. I saw it in his . . .” Tally’s voice faded as she peered closer, breath catching in disbelief. In Shay’s eyes was a softness that had never been there before. But this was Shay, still so fast and deadly—she’d cut through those wardens like a scythe.
“He’s not weak,” Shay said. “Neither am I.”
Tally shook her head, pulled away, and stumbled back. “They got you too.”
Shay nodded. “It’s okay, Tally-wa. It’s not like they turned me into a bubblehead.” She took a step forward. “But you have to listen.”
“Don’t come near me!” Tally hissed, her hands curling.
“Wait, Tally, something big is happening.”
Tally shook her head. She could hear the weakness in Shay’s voice now. If she hadn’t been so groggy, she would have seen it from the start. The real Shay wouldn’t have been so worried about some random warden’s wrist. And the real Shay—special Shay—would never have forgiven Tally so easily.
“You want to make me like you! Like Fausto and the Smokies tried to do!”
“No, I don’t,” Shay said. “I need you the way you—”
Before Shay could utter another word, Tally turned and started running for the opposite edg
e of the roof as quickly as she could. She had no crash bracelets, no bungee jacket, but she could still climb like a Special. If Shay was as soft as Fausto, she would no longer be as reckless. Tally could just escape this crazy city, and get help from home. . . .
“Stop her!” Shay cried.
Faceless human forms flickered into being among the shapes of exhaust chimneys and antennas. They leaped out of the darkness at Tally, grabbing at her arms and legs.
This was all a trap. “Don’t turn on your skintenna,” Shay had said, so the rest of them could talk to each other silently, plotting against her.
Tally threw a punch, her wounded fist connecting painfully with an armored suit. A faceless Cutter gripped her arm, but Tally turned her suit slippery and pulled away. She let her momentum carry her into a backward roll, springing up from the ground, leaping to the top of a tall exhaust pipe.
She struggled to pull her suit hood down over her face, to turn invisible before they reached her, but a pair of gloved hands grasped Tally’s ankles, pulling her feet out from under her. As she fell from the pipe, another figure caught her. Still more hands grabbed her arms, checking her wild flurry of blows, and with a gentle strength dragged her back down to the roof.
Tally struggled, but special or not, there were too many of them.
They pulled off their hoods—Ho, Tachs, all the other Cutters. Shay had gotten every one of them.
They smiled softly at her, an awful, average kindness in their eyes. Tally struggled, waiting for the sting of an injection in her bare neck.
Shay stood before her, shaking her head. “Tally, would you just relax?”
Tally spat at her, “You said you were saving me.”
“I am. If you’d settle down and listen.” Shay let out an exasperated sigh. “After Fausto gave me the cure, I called the Cutters. I told them to meet me halfway here. On our way back to Diego, I cured them one by one.”
Tally looked around at their faces—a few of them grinning at her as if she were some littlie who wasn’t in on a joke—and saw no doubts, no hint of rebellion against Shay’s words. They were sheep now, no better than bubbleheads.
Her anger faded into despair. All of their brains had been infected with nanos, made weak and pitiful. Tally was completely alone.
Shay spread her hands. “Listen, we just got back here today. I’m sorry that the Smokies tried to jump you; I wouldn’t have let them. This cure isn’t what you need, Tally.”
“Then let me go!” Tally growled.
Shay paused for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. Let her go.”
“But Boss,” Tachs said. “They’re through the defenses already. We’ve got less than a minute.”
“I know. But Tally’s going to help us. I know she will.”
One by one, the others cautiously released their grip. Tally found herself free, still glaring at Shay, unsure what to do next. She was still surrounded and outnumbered.
“There’s no point running, Tally. Dr. Cable’s on her way here.”
Tally raised an eyebrow. “To Diego? To get you all back?”
“No.” Shay’s voice broke, almost like some littlie about to cry. “It’s all our fault, Tally. Yours and mine.”
“What is?”
“After what we did to the Armory, no one believed it was Crims or Smokies. We were too icy, too special. We terrified the whole city.”
“Since that night,” Tachs said, “everyone in town goes by to see the smoking crater you two left. They bring classes of littlies out to gawk at it.”
“And Cable’s coming here?” Tally frowned. “Wait, you mean, they figured out it was us?”
“No, they have another theory.” Shay pointed at the horizon. “Look.”
Tally turned her head. In the distance beyond Town Hall, a mass of bright lights had filled the sky. As she watched, they grew closer and brighter, shimmering like stars on a hot night.
Just like when Tally and Shay had been chased from the Armory.
“Hovercraft,” Tally said.
Tachs nodded. “They’ve given Dr. Cable control of the city military. Everything that’s left, anyway.”
“Get your boards,” Shay said. The others scattered in all directions across the roof.
Shay pushed a pair of crash bracelets into Tally’s hands. “You have to stop trying to run away, and face what we started.”
Tally didn’t flinch at Shay’s touch, suddenly too confused to worry about being cured. She could hear the approaching craft now, a swarm of lifting fans humming like some vast engine warming up. “I still don’t get it.”
Shay adjusted her own bracelets, and a pair of hoverboards rose up from the darkness. “Our city has always hated Diego. Special Circumstances knew about them helping the runaways, about the helicopters carrying people to the Old Smoke. So after the Armory was destroyed, Dr. Cable decided it must have been a military attack. She blamed Diego.”
“So those hovercraft . . . they’re coming to attack this city?” Tally murmured. The lights grew larger and larger until they swirled overhead, dozens of hovercraft, a great vortex of them surrounding Town Hall. “Even Dr. Cable wouldn’t do that.”
“I’m afraid she would. And the other cities will just sit back and watch, for now. The New System has them all totally scared.” Shay pulled her sneak-suit hood down over her head. “Tonight we have to help them here, Tally, we have to do whatever we can. And tomorrow, you and I need to go home and stop this war we started.”
“War? But cities don’t . . .” Tally’s voice faded. The roof under her feet had begun to rumble, and under the drone of a hundred lifting fans she heard a small, thin sound from the streets below.
People were screaming.
A few seconds later, the armada overhead opened fire, filling the sky with light.
Part III
UNMAKING WAR
One faces the future with one’s past.
—Pearl S. Buck
PAYBACK
Streams of cannon fire ripped through the air, their traces burning across Tally’s vision. Explosions battered her ears, and shock waves thudded against her chest, like something trying to tear her open.
The hovercraft armada rained its fire down onto Town Hall, cascades of projectiles flaring so brightly that for a moment the building disappeared. But Tally could still hear the sound of shattering glass and the shriek of tearing metal through the blinding display.
After a few seconds, the furious onslaught paused, and Tally glimpsed Town Hall through the smoke. Huge holes had appeared—the fires burning inside the building made it look like some insane jack-o’-lantern carved with dozens of glowing eyes.
From below, the cries rose up again, full of terror now. For a dizzying moment she remembered what Shay had said: “It’s all our fault, Tally. Yours and mine.”
She shook her head slowly. What she was seeing couldn’t be true.
Wars didn’t happen anymore.
“Come on!” Shay cried, leaping onto her board and rising into the air. “Town Hall’s empty at night, but we have to get everyone out of the hospital. . . .”
Tally broke from her paralysis, jumping onto her hoverboard as the bombardment began once more. Shay hurtled over the edge of the roof, silhouetted for a moment against the firestorm before dropping out of sight. Tally followed, vaulting the guardrail to hover a few seconds, peering down at the chaos below.
The hospital hadn’t been hit, not yet anyway, but crowds of terrified people were still spilling from its doors. The armada didn’t have to shoot anyone for people to wind up dead tonight—panic and chaos would do the killing. The other cities would see only a proportionate response to the attack on the Armory: one mostly empty building for another.
Tally cut her lifting fans and dropped, kneeling to hold her board tight. The pounding concussions from the attack had turned the air into something palpable and shuddering, like a choppy sea.
The other Cutters were already below, their sneak suits set to the yellow and blac
k of Diego’s warden uniforms. Tachs and Ho were herding the crowd around to the other side of the hospital, away from the debris spilling from Town Hall. The others were rescuing the pedestrians who had fallen between the two buildings; all the slidewalks had jammed, throwing their late-night passengers to the ground.
Tally spun for a moment in the air, overwhelmed and wondering what to do. Then she spotted a stream of littlies pouring from the hospital. They were lining up along the hedgerow barrier around the helicopter landing pad, their minders stopping to count them all before moving on to safety.
She angled her board toward the landing pad and dropped as fast as gravity would take her. Those helicopters had carried runaways from other cities to the Old Smoke and now here to the New System—Tally somehow doubted Dr. Cable’s attack was going to leave them untouched.
She brought her descent to a halt just over the littlies’ heads, lifting fans screaming, terrified faces staring up open-mouthed.
“Get out of here!” she yelled down at the minders, two middle pretties with classic faces: calm and wise.
They looked up at her in disbelief, then Tally remembered to switch her sneak suit to a rough approximation of warden yellow. “The helicopters could be a target!” she cried.
The minders’ dumbfounded expressions didn’t change, and Tally swore. They hadn’t realized yet what this war was about—runaways and the New System and the Old Smoke—all they knew was that the sky had exploded overhead and they had to account for all of their charges before moving on.
She looked up and spotted a glittering hovercraft breaking from the armada. It swept through a wide, leisurely turn, descending toward the landing pad like a lazy bird of prey.
“Get them to the other side of the hospital, now!” she yelled, then reversed course, climbing toward the approaching hovercraft, wondering exactly what she could do against it. This time she had no grenades, no hungry nano-goo. She was alone and bare-handed against a military machine.
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