by Jeff Seymour
You there, Raj? I ask tentatively over the Panpathia. It’s risky keeping contact with him like this, given that Silvermask is out there on the web somewhere and probably looking for me, but we all agreed it was better than being totally on my own.
Absolutely, Nadya, Raj says. I’ll be right here if you need anything.
I let out a deep breath and watch the street. I’m getting a few funny looks from pedestrians on the sidewalks, and occasionally a car buzzes by me a little close for comfort, but mostly it’s just a sea of strange faces passing without looking twice. I guess in a city this big, people must see kids on unusual inventions all the time.
“There they are,” Tian Li says, pointing across the road to a little vendor stand selling newspapers and candy, where two shadowy-looking goons have stepped off the sidewalk and are moving our direction.
“Just the two?” I ask.
“That’s all I see,” she says. The goons start to cross the street toward us. “You ready?”
I swallow. “Guess I have to be, huh?”
Tian Li puts her hands on the back of my bike, then leans down and smiles. “You’ll do great, Nadya. You got this. Now go!” When the guys get halfway into the street, she plants her feet and gives the bike a big shove, and I shoot forward, past their grasping arms and out into traffic. I nearly turn the bike over because I have to swerve around an open manhole cover, and steering while pedaling in the real world is a lot harder than I expected it to be.
Once I’m clear of that, I look back. The two goons are chasing me all right, just like we planned, and as I look at the rest of the street, I see more of them. Another pair is working their way up the sidewalk to my right, moving pretty fast. I shift up a gear and really start cranking on the pedals. My first turn’s coming up. I’m supposed to go left into an alley just before a big intersection where the street I’m on meets a thoroughfare that leads downtown.
As I approach the turn, I hear squealing tires and jerk the bike to my right. A car swerves into the spot I was in just a second ago, and I catch a glimpse of a shadowy goon driving it. I hit the brakes to drop behind him and shoot left again, all the way across four lanes of traffic, dodging a vegetable truck and a street mime as I zoom into the alley we picked out.
Okay, I say to Raj over the Panpathia. I’m on my way, and they’re following me.
Good, he says. We can still see you from the roof. You’re doing great. The car’s circling around to try to cut off the other end of the alley, but you’ll get there first. Just go straight and maintain your speed.
I nod, starting to breathe hard. My arms are buzzing. They’re the biggest risk of this whole scheme—they aren’t used to this kind of work, and my shoulder’s barely healed. If they wear out, I’m stuck up a cloud balloon without an engine.
I shoot out of the alley into an open street just ahead of the car with the goons in it, which is screaming around the corner. I shift again a couple of times. Now that I’m heading straight, I can work up some real good momentum as long as nothing gets in my way, and for now, it’s all clear. I keep racing down alleys and zipping across thoroughfares, Raj feeding me directions as I go.
Excellent, Nadya, he says as I navigate a roundabout and turn onto a narrow cobblestone street that jars my teeth. The first ambush is coming . . . shoot. Hold on. I clench my jaw to try to keep my teeth from clacking. The first ambush was supposed to happen in an alley on the next block.
There’s more construction here than we were expecting. The road’s blocked off, and there’s a fissure down to the cavern where the fire spirit under the city lives. It looks like the street collapsed and they’re repairing it.
My heart clenches as I judder around on the cobblestones. Y-y-you m-mean I-I’m h-heading straight t-toward a CLIFF?
Yes, he says. But Rashid’s spotted a bridge across it. It’s narrow, probably meant for construction workers on foot, but you can make it.
I frown. I can see the end of the street now. There’s a huge chasm where the road should be, and the bridge he’s talking about is only two or three feet wide, made of rickety planks. It’s got handrails, but they won’t stop this bike if I make a wrong move. Is th-th-there a-another w-way?
One moment, Raj says. I’m about to stop pedaling and let the bike coast when a car roars behind me. I look over my shoulder and recognize it as one belonging to the Shadowmen.
The fear-octopus jumps out and wraps around my face. Th-they’re r-right on my t-t-tail! I call out. Raj!
There’s no other way, he says. We can see more of them on the right and left of you. You have to cross the bridge.
The bike slaloms on the cobblestones. It’s really hard to control. I can barely keep that little bridge in the center of my vision, let alone try to line myself up.
You can do this, Nadya, Raj reassures me. Just stay centered and believe in yourself.
The car engine roars. The bike fights me. I get closer and closer to the chasm, zooming downhill. My arms feel like lumps of iron from struggling to keep the bike straight. Just as I think I’m lined up, I hit a cobble that bumps the bike to the right. For a second, I’m flying straight toward a three-hundred-foot drop into a cauldron of fire and smoke.
The fear-octopus takes control. I can’t do this. There’s no way.
I grab the hand brake as I hit the bottom of the cobblestone street, sending the bike into a screeching turn to the right. I feel the whiff of a hand just missing my head as the car behind me slams to a halt before it goes over the cliff.
I didn’t make it! I shout to Raj. Tell me where to go next!
I pedal up toward full speed again, but there’s another car in front of me, parked sideways blocking the street. Two goons spill out of it carrying a huge burlap sack. The car behind me starts up again, and my only choice is to duck into an alley too narrow for them to follow and head back uphill.
Raj curses. Where are you? he says. Are you okay? We can’t see you.
There’s no engines behind me, but this alley’s long, and going uphill is killing my arms. The bike’s slowing down a lot. I’m in an alley, I wheeze. They’ll be after me again soon!
Another alley opens up to my left and I take it. Maybe if I go far enough I can find a place where there’s no chasm and get back to the ambush teams.
We still can’t see you, Raj says. Can you head back toward the collapsed street?
I’ll try, I say. The alley spills into a wider street, and I turn downhill. I’m just getting moving again when a Shadowman dashes off the sidewalk and tries to catch me with his jacket like it’s a net. It hits me in the face, but the bike hits him right in the stomach and I’m moving so fast it knocks him down. Unfortunately, it also knocks the bike up and shoves it to the side. For a second I’m balanced precariously on two wheels with the jacket wrapped around my face. I careen across the street and down an alley before the bike finally flips and I tumble onto the pavement.
I jump right up, worried I might be in the middle of a busy street.
But there’s no traffic. No horns, no squealing tires, no swerving. No voices yelling, no policemen blowing whistles. Just silence that feels very, very wrong.
I’m in a big loading area behind a bunch of buildings. Shadows cover everything. I can’t even see the sun, the walls above me rise so high. It smells like garbage and oil, and the hair rises on the back of my neck.
The other side of the loading area is full of Shadowmen. There must be at least two dozen, milling around by two cars and two motorcycles, maybe thirty yards away.
Like they were waiting for me.
“Oh no,” I whisper. “Oh no, oh no.”
I scramble on hands and knees back to my bike, which is still on its side. Footsteps thump toward me. Engines crank. But still there’s no yelling, no shouting, no voices saying, “There she is!” or “Get her!” or “Great job, Frank!”
There�
�s just a cold, dark feeling on the back of my neck and then Silvermask in my ear. Hello. I’m so glad you came out to play.
His iron-screech voice just about takes my leg out from under me, but I don’t have time to be afraid, or to think about how all those guys I ran into must’ve been put there to make me run into this ambush. I plant my shoulder against the bike and push, and it flips upright again. I jump into the seat on top of the Shadowman’s jacket, then get turned around and head down the alley.
Engines thunder behind me like storm surge breaking on tall cliffs. The motorcycles enter the alleyway, followed by the two cars.
Raj! I shout over the Panpathia. Raj, I need help!
The response sounds like he’s a hundred miles away. . . . arely hear . . . omething block . . . e . . .
What a friend you have there, Silvermask says. Almost strong enough to get a message to you straight through me. He laughs. What a joy. I think I’ll track him down and see how he does when I’m a little closer.
I can almost see him now, a giant spider perched on the Panpathia between me and Gossner’s tower. He must be interfering somehow so Raj and I can’t talk to each other. Which means I really am all alone, with Shadowmen chasing me in a part of the city I don’t know at all, and no idea where my friends are to help me.
It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, I tell myself. I just have to stay one step ahead of them.
I get to the end of the alley, and the guy I knocked down earlier lunges at me. I swerve around him and take a hard right, heading downhill again and praying there’s no chasm when I get there. The turn slows me down, and I have to crank extra hard to get up to speed. The motorcycles roar out of the alley behind me, but they’re going so fast they have to stop to make the turn, which buys me a little more space. I can’t see the cars, but I bet they’ll catch up fast now that we’re in the open again.
Raj! I try again. Raj, can you hear me?
. . . es. Keep talk . . . ending Ra . . . at do you see?
I try to look around, but there’s a lot to concentrate on. I’m heading downhill on a little street surrounded by big brick buildings. There’s an intersection ahead. No chasm. It’s got a statue in the middle of it. Where should I go?
There’s no response. I head straight toward the statue. The engine sounds draw awfully close. The motorcycles are almost on me, and the cars are closing in too. My shoulder feels like it’s about to fall apart, and my arms are exhausted, but I keep pushing and pushing, because if I slow down even a little I’m pretty sure that’ll be the end of Nadya Skylung.
I shoot into the intersection, and Raj’s voice comes clear again. Turn right, Nadya! Turn right at the statue! Can you hear me? Turn right!
I’m almost past the statue, but I grab the brake to make the turn and just barely keep the bike upright. The tires screech like angry owls and I arc across the intersection, dodging a truck and two bright yellow cars on the way.
Okay, I say, panting, feeling tingles down my spine at how close I came to the wheels of that truck. What next?
Go straight ahead. The road will dead-end at a set of stairs down to a promenade by the Doubleflow River. Take them, then turn right again and stay parallel to the water. Get in with the pedestrians and make the cars follow you. Ra . . .
Raj’s voice goes dead.
Raj? Raj! I shout. My arms are so tired they feel like fraying pieces of rope. I’m slowing down. I can’t help it. I see the end of the street and the staircase ahead, with the river just beyond it. I hit the curb as fast as I can to jump it, even though it makes me bite my tongue, and start rattling down the stairs. At its bottom there’s a wide, paved promenade about twenty feet above the surging brown waters of the Doubleflow. I turn right and ride parallel to it like Raj said, weaving around pedestrians and street performers. The cars rattle and bang down the stairs behind me, honking their horns. People nearby start yelling.
Raj, where are you? I call. Raj, help! My arms are getting worse. I can’t keep this up.
Uh-oh, Silvermask says softly. Got your friend. And soon you too. Won’t be long now. I can feel him trundling over the Panpathia toward me, so big he shakes the web and makes the whole city tremble.
Raj! I shout again. RAJ!
And then I have to let go of the Panpathia because Silvermask has almost gotten to me. I’m all alone, listening to the Shadowmen’s cars race up behind me and trying to come up with a new plan. I don’t see how to get away. I start sobbing. I can’t catch my breath.
“Nadya!” somebody shouts.
I must be hearing things. I look up, blinking tears away and trying to find the voice in the crowd. There’s a swish above my head.
“Nadya, I’m here!”
It sounds like the voice is behind me now, and above, but it’s hard to tell. I glance over my shoulder and see a car coming up fast with a Shadowman hanging out of the door, reaching toward me.
“Nadya, hands up, legs clear!”
I don’t understand. I can’t put my arms up. I have to keep pedaling. And what does “legs clear” mean? I want to ask, but I’m breathing so hard I can’t get the words out.
“Hands up! Legs clear! Trust me! Now, Nadya, now!”
I shut my eyes and stick my hands up. I take my leg and residual limb off their footrests and try to make sure they’re clear of anything. I feel like I’m giving up, and I’m sure the Shadowmen are going to get me.
But it’s not the Shadowmen who nab me.
There’s an enormous whoosh, and Rash grabs my wrists and hoists me out of my bicycle.
“Oof!” he grunts, and I have the sensation of my stomach falling away and my body rising. The jacket on my seat wraps around my ankle, and I dangle out of reach over the Shadow- men as they grab the bicycle and haul it into the back of their car, then race off down the riverwalk. I blink a few times, my body swirling with strange sensations and my mind full of so many emotions it goes blank. Eventually I figure out that Rash is in a glider, there are big wings above me to either side, and I’ve been rescued.
Rash grunts again and head-butts some kind of switch. The glider changes direction and sails over the river. The wind ripples past us, cool and refreshing. “Can you grab the harness?” he asks. My arms are shaking, but I get my fingers around the leather straps, and he lets go of me with his flesh-and-blood hand—his prosthetic one stays locked in place—and winds a strap around my torso and underneath my armpits. It’s not much to trust my life to, but it might hold me for a second if I lose my grip. “Okay,” he says. “Now we go home.”
He hits that switch again, and the glider banks right and sails over a garbage scow on the river. We gain altitude, riding sickly sweet, stinking hot air off the piles of trash. I glimpse the Shadowmen standing outside their cars on the riverwalk, staring at us, and I shiver and shake and cling to Rash’s harness for all I’m worth, trying not to think about how close that was, wondering whether Silvermask really got to Raj.
Rash doesn’t say another word. He just grunts every once in a while. He’s breathing hard. It must be a lot of work to control the glider with two people in it. He gets up as high as he can and glides over to another thermal and then another, rising and rising, and when we’re up high enough, he wheels around and takes us back toward the glimmering glass dagger of Gossner’s tower, while the sun starts to set and turn the whole city and its hundred thousand windows gold.
CHAPTER 16
IN WHICH CONSEQUENCES ARE HEAVY.
As Rash lands at Gossner’s tower, a crowd gathers to meet us. Alé’s there, and a bunch of Gossner’s kids, plus Tam. I dunno where the adults and the rest of the crew are, but I’m most worried about Raj.
Got him, Silvermask said, and I really hope he was lying.
Rash flares the glider and comes down softly. I slip out of the line he tied around me while the other kids run up to give him a hand. Tam and Alé catch me.
Tam purses his lips. “What? He’s fine. He just looks tired, maybe a little gray.”
My guts tumble like the pieces of paper that blow around in alleys here. Nic told me last month that people touched by the Malumbra at the Roof of the World got sick and then better, and then they started acting like something was controlling them, just like the Shadowmen. “I’ve got to get to him,” I say. “Where is he?”
Alé sighs. “He’s on the second floor at the big table, having some tea.”
“Thanks,” I say. “Can you—”
But Alé’s way ahead of me. She hands me her crutches and sits on a bench that runs along the railing. “Somebody will bring me another pair. Just go.” She tugs on her cuffs. “I hope everything’s all right.”
I could kiss her, and Rash for that matter, since he saved my life, but I’ve got to get to Raj. He was only on the Panpathia at all because of me, and if anything happened to him it’s my fault.
Tam comes with me as I crutch toward the nearest swing. “What happened?” he asks. “My team got the signal to come back to base, but when we got here the place was total chaos, Rash was gone, and everybody said you were in trouble.”
“I chickened out,” I say, struggling over to the swing. “And then they almost got me.” Alé’s crutches are too big for me because she’s taller, and they’re really uncomfortable. “Can you get me down?”
Tam helps me into the seat of the swing, hands me the crutches, then starts the crank that lowers it. We keep talking as I drop away. “What do you mean you chickened out?” he asks.
I feel like dirt. I could’ve made it onto that bridge. Raj was sure of it. But I lost my nerve. “The route ran over a big chasm. Raj found me a bridge over it, but I was too scared to take it. Then I got chased. Raj was giving me directions on the Panpathia, and . . .” I swallow. It’s hard to say out loud. “I think Silvermask got him.”
