"Whatever we do, let's keep our voices down," she said. "Somehow, I don't think Tally-sama wants the whole city to know she's coming."
Ren shook his head. "She's not from here, Aya, so she doesn't understand how the reputation economy works. About half a million people are watching right now. Your fame will protect us."
"You can't hide, Aya," Hiro said. "Everyone knows exactly where you are. Wasn't that the point of tonight?"
Frizz frowned, looking at her. "I thought the point of tonight was to save the world."
Aya sighed. "There may have been several points, okay? Everyone just be quiet for a second while I think!"
The other three fell silent. Aya stood there, feeling their eyes on her, and the lenses of a hundred hovercams, and another half a million people watching through them. Even Moggle was staring at her.
It wasn't the best spot for thinking.
Frizz drew closer, putting an arm around her shoulder. "If we go back to the party and someone comes after you, who's going to stop them? A bunch of pixel-heads?"
Hiro shrugged. "The wardens, just like any other crime."
"Do we trust the wardens?" Frizz asked. "Remember what that kicker said? Our city might have built this thing!"
"The guy who called her a traitor?" Hiro laughed. "He was totally brain-missing!"
"Well, maybe not totally," Ren said. "The mass driver was built using mag-levs that started here.
Someone from our city must have been part of it."
"Someone with a lot of authority," Frizz added. "To use all that steel with nobody knowing."
Aya swallowed. The city killer was so hugewhoever had built it wielded enough power to hollow out mountains. Could a few wardens really stop them? Would half a million witnesses stay their hand, when they had the audacity to destroy whole cities?
Gazing into the dark ring of trees around the baseball field, she remembered Eden Maru's words "You can disappear in front of a crowd, too."
"Moggle, go as high as you can and look around." She turned to Hiro. "I'm going to do what Tally-sama says and hide."
She started walking againaway from the mansion's lights, away from everything.
Hiro followed, still arguing. "You're thinking like an extra. You can't hide! All anyone has to do to find you is turn on the feeds!"
A dizziness washed over Aya as she walkedthe hovercams were moving overhead now, shadowing her every step, as if she was on a treadmill going nowhere. She felt trapped under their lenses, like a butterfly fixed with a hundred pins.
"Can you do something about those things?" she asked Ren.
"Well, maybe." Ren pulled out a trick-box. "When the big tech-kickers want an industrial-size reputation bubble, they jam everything for a hundred meters or so. I might be able to arrange a couple of minutes out of sight."
"Please." Aya glanced up at the cams overhead. "A little obscurity looks pretty good right now.
Safer, anyway."
"But why would anyone want to come after you?" Hiro kept arguing. "Everyone in the world already knows this weapon exists. What more can you do to them? You didn't hide anything, did you?"
Aya shook her head. "Of course not. You and Hiro always say burying shots is totally truth-slanting. So it's all in there. Well, except " She paused, thinking of the inhuman-looking figures she and Miki had seen.
"Except what?" Frizz asked softly.
"There's one thing I sort of left out." She looked at Hiro. "But I didn't even have any shots of them."
His eyes narrowed. "Shots of who, Aya?"
"Well, that first night I surfed What does it matter, anyway?"
Hiro took a step closer. "Because if you don't put everything on the feeds, someone can silence you! What did you leave out?"
"Well, in the tunnel that first night, I saw some people who weren't quite, um human."
There was a pause. The three of them stared at her, dumbfounded.
A thump came from the darkness nearby, and they all jumped. A few meters away, a hovercam lay on its side, its running lights dark. Another thump came from farther away, then a third. Aya looked up.
The hovercams were starting to fall.
She smiled. "Wow, Ren. How'd you do that?"
Ren lowered the trick-box, a puzzled expression on his face. "Here's some bad news. I'm not doing thatsomeone else is."
The thudding came from every direction now, like a slowly building hailstorm. Raising her arms over her head, Aya saw that the sky was already half empty.
Soon she would be invisible again. And then, once no one was watching, Aya Fuse might disappear forever.
She started running.
Run And Hide
"Get us four hoverboards," Hiro was yelling. "Property override! I don't care who owns them, this is an emergency!"
Aya led them back toward the bashat this point, a crowd seemed better than darkness. The last few hovercams trailed them doggedly, tumbling from the air one by one.
"Moggle, are you still up there?" she hissed. The hovercam's view appearedshe saw herself and the others from a distance, specks against the vast expanse of the baseball field. No one else was in sight. "Stay up high, Moggle! Someone's jamming everything around us."
On cue, another hovercam crashed to the ground in front of Aya. She jumped over it, her party dress threatening to tangle around her ankles.
"There they are!" Hiro shouted.
Four hoverboards were shooting across the field toward them, silhouetted by the lights from the tech-head party.
"Won't they just crash?" Aya asked. "Like the cams?"
"I think I can block the lifter jamming," Ren said, poking at his trick-box as he ran. "Just stick close to me."
"But is anyone chasing us?" Frizz asked.
Aya scanned the darkness between mansions. Still nobody in sightnothing but the motionless remains of cams littering the ground.
Then she heard the whoosh of a hovercar.
It shot overhead, drowning out the thudding of their footsteps, whipping her hair with its passage.
For a moment Aya thought it was the wardens, but then she heard the scream of lifting fansthe car was designed to work outside the city where wardens never went.
And somehow she doubted it was Rangers overhead.
The car wheeled violently, dropping in front of them. The grass shimmered underfoot, roiling in the tempest of the lifting fans. Whirlwinds of dirt rose from the baselines of the baseball diamond.
Through the windshield, two drivers gazed back at her with a strange calmtheir eyes set too wide apart, their skin pale and hairless, just like the ghastly faces in the tunnel.
She stumbled to a halt. Like Miki had said that night, they didn't look human.
Frizz pulled her back into a run, angling around the hovercar. Flying dust forced her eyes half-shut, and her dress billowed like an open parachute around her.
As the car settled to the ground, its side split open, spilling a wedge of light across the field. Two more figures stood silhouetted inside, visible for a moment among rolling clouds of dirt.
Then Aya heard a cryRen and Hiro zooming out of the dust storm, two empty hoverboards following them.
"I've never ridden one of those before!" Frizz shouted.
"Just stick with me!" Aya leaped onto a board, pulling him on behind her. They veered wildly for a moment, Frizz swaying like a littlie on a balance beam.
"Stay close or they'll jam you!" Ren yelled, waving the trick-box as he shot past.
Aya leaned into a hard turn, following Ren and Hiro. She felt Frizz's arms wrap around her, his body pressing close as they gathered speed.
Behind them, the whine of the hovercar rose again, the wind of its fans battering the air. Aya thrust her arms out wide, wishing she hadn't worn platform shoes tonight. At least the last two weeks were paying off: Riding double through a roaring wind wasn't half as tricky as mag-lev surfing.
Frizz's extra weight was a problem, thoughHiro and Ren were pulling aw
ay. Aya leaned forward, urging the board faster. If they fell too far behind Ren, they'd drop like the jammed hovercams.
And they weren't even wearing crash bracelets "Hold up!" she shouted, but the scream of the pursuing car erased her words.
Luckily, the mansion wasn't far away now. She could see partygoers on its roof watching the chase, probably wondering what sort of publicity stunt this was.
The hovercar roared overhead again, the wash of its fans sending her and Frizz into a series of serpentine curves. Aya twisted her body, barely keeping them onboard.
"Up there!" Frizz shouted.
Two figures had jumped from the open hovercar door, their freakish arms and legs splaying wide as they fell through the air. They hover-bounced, spinning in the whirlwinds beneath the car, but quickly gained control. Aya spotted lifter pads bulging from their thin-limbed bodies.
"They're wearing hoverball rigs!" she shouted. "Not good!"
The figures were zooming toward them now, riding the car's wash like windsurfers in a gale.
"Hold on tight!" she cried, and spun the board into a quick reverse, heading back across the field.
Frizz's arms wrapped around her tighter, his weight shifting with hers.
But the inhumans were closing the gap quickly. When Hiro and Ren turned to follow, the spindly figures shot past them without a second glance.
Aya Fuse was who they wanted.
She headed for the nearest trees, trying to urge the board faster. But it was a city toy, nothing like the Sly Girls' high-speed boards.
The trees rose up before them, and Aya twisted from side to side, banking between thick trunks.
Beams of light from the hovercar stabbed through the leaves, scattering bright coins across the forest floor.
Frizz's lips pressed against her ear. "Why aren't we crashing?"
Aya blinkedRen and Hiro had to be fifty meters away.
"Of course!" she cried. "They had to stop jamming to use their rigs, which means Moggle, come here! I need you!"
"Aya!" Frizz shouted. "On the right!"
One of the figures was swooping down at them, long fingers splayed like talons. Frizz dropped down, pulling both of them into a crouch as the figure swept past.
"Ouch!" Frizz flinched behind her. "Something stuck me!"
"What?" Aya stood again, pulling the board into another hard turn. She craned her neck to look at him. "Are you okay?"
"I think so. But I feel a little watch out!"
Aya whipped her head around to find the other inhuman waiting directly ahead, arms out wide, fingertips glistening with needles.
She twisted her whole body to one side, banking the board to a halt. But Frizz's body was going limp, his arms slipping from around her waist.
"Frizz!" she called out, but heard only a groan in response And then he was toppling from the board.
"Frizz!"
She reached out to grab him, but he was already tumbling through the air. He flew straight into the waiting inhuman, their bodies colliding with a grim thud. The spindly figure crumpled, its long arms wrapping around Frizz, both of them flying backward into the darkness.
Suddenly free of his weight, the board went into a lopsided spin. Tree trunks whirled around Aya, sharp branches whipping her face and hands. She knelt and clutched the edges, letting the board gyrate its momentum away.
When it had slowed a little, Aya let go and rolled off into the leaves. She stood and ran to where the two figures lay sprawled and unmoving on the forest floor.
Her eyes were drawn to the inhuman's strange face. His skin was pale, his arms thin and weak-looking, but the needles on his fingertips were unambiguousthey were designed to do some damage.
But the strangest thing was the inhuman's feet. Bare and misshapen, they looked almost like hands, their long toes curled up like a dead spider's legs.
She dragged Frizz free of the tangle. "Can you hear me?"
He didn't answer. Then Aya saw the tiny red mark on his neck. One nick from those needle fingers had knocked him unconscious or worse.
She pulled him closer, her head swimming. The hovercar still drifted overhead, spilling a trembling light through the leaves. The shadows slanted as it moved, as though the whole world was swaying.
"Aya!" came a shout. She looked up, and saw Hiro and Ren angling through the trees.
But in front of them flew the other inhuman, zooming straight toward her, arms outstretched and fingers glistening. His pale skin glowed in the darkness.
She pulled Frizz closer, feeling utterly abandoned. Where were the wardens? Where were the half-million others who'd been watching her every move five minutes ago?
He was ten meters away, five A small dark shape shot from the shadows, barreling into the inhuman's stomach. He crumpled into a ball with a grunt, then whirled past Aya, the hoverball rig keeping him airborne as he spun.
"Moggle," Aya breathed. The hovercam bounced away, crashing through the brush.
The inhuman hung unconscious from his hoverball rig, his handlike feet swinging a meter from the ground. A groan escaped from his lips, and his eyes began to flutter open Aya ran toward him, leaping up to grab his shoulders. They glided across the forest floor together, the rig adjusting to her weight.
His hand reached for her, but Aya grabbed his wrist and stuck a handful of needle fingers into his own neck. He sputtered for a moment, eyes widening, then passed out completely.
"Aya!" Hiro banked to a halt. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." She jumped down, glancing up at the hovercar. It waited overhead, unmoving, lights probing through the leaves uncertainly. "Help me with Frizz."
Hiro glided to a halt. "He'll be fine, Aya. They don't care about him."
"Yeah, but I do." She ran to Frizz's unconscious body, towing the hoverboard behind her. She knelt and pulled at his arm, trying to get his weight up onto the riding surface.
He let out a groan.
"Are you all right?"
"Feel weird," he murmured. "Heavy."
"Tell me about it!" Aya strained. "If only we had a way to " She glanced at the inhuman lying next to Frizz.
Hiro stepped off his board beside her, staring down at the inhuman. "Whoa. You left this out of your story?"
"Help me get the hoverball rig off this freak." Aya grunted, tugging at the inhuman's shin lifter.
"We can put it on Frizz!"
"All right," Hiro said, kneeling. "Here's how you do it."
He loosened the straps with practiced fingers, pulling the lifter pad free and slipping it onto Frizz's leg.
"What happened to him?" Ren asked, joining in the scramble.
"That freak stuck him with those needle fingers." Aya glanced up at the hovercar. Its side door was opening again, light spilling out around two more silhouettes. "Crap. More coming!"
"I'm done." Hiro was strapping the last forearm pad into place. "I've set the rig to neutral. He should be zero-g."
Frizz lifted easily from the ground, suddenly weightless. She wrestled his drifting body onto her board and knelt across him.
Hiro and Ren slipped up on either side and reached out their hands, pulling her forward like a littlie between two parents. Soon they were shooting ahead through a gap in the trees.
"Are they following us?" Aya asked.
Ren looked back. "I don't think so. They're picking up the other two."
"Two freaky bodies are worse than one live witness, I guess," Hiro said. "Speaking of which, you have some explaining to do, Aya."
"When we get to safety."
"Which is back at the party, right?"
"No. We're doing what Tally sayswe're hiding."
"Where?" Ren asked.
Aya bit her lip, holding tight to keep Frizz's unconscious form from slipping off the board. "The underground reservoir."
"Cold and wet," Ren said. "But it's the one place in the city with no cams."
"Exactly," Aya said. Something was skimming through the trees in the corner of her eye, and she
dared a glance. It was a camo-black hovercam, still wobbly from a recent collision.
It flashed its night-lights happily, and shaky images began to spill across Aya's vision. Whatever the inhuman creatures were, this time they'd been caught by more than just her eyes. She found herself smiling.
Moggle had gotten the shot.
The Wisdom Of The Crowd
The new construction site glowed dull orange, the earthmoving machines resting quietly in their foundation pits.
"Check your pings again," Hiro said. "Before we get cut off."
Aya scanned her eyescreen, then shook her head. A few priority pings had come in on the wardens' channeland maybe ten thousand more asking her what was going on, not to mention a million theories burning up the feeds but nothing from Tally Youngblood.
"If she's coming on a suborbital, she'll be out of contact for a few hours," Ren said.
Aya sighed. "As long as she gets here fast."
They dropped toward the tunnel below them and slipped inside.
"Hey, am I passing out again?" Frizz groaned, his weight shifting as the darkness closed around them.
"No, we're just going underground." Aya squeezed him tighter. "No lights, Moggle. Too obvious."
"Your dress," Frizz murmured. "Sparkles."
Aya nodded, flexing her fingers, and the party dress sputtered to life. The battery was down to its last dregs, but the flickering embers were enough cut the gloom.
"Told you this was the right dress, Hiro," she said.
"Very funny. Are you going to tell us about what happened back there?"
"Not yet."
They descended, the orange worklights of the surface fading behind them. After long minutes, the echoes of trickling water reached their ears, then the tunnel opened over the reservoir's huge expanse.
Aya brought her board to a halt in midair.
The cavern flickered with the dying lights of her dress, the ceiling shimmering with the water's trembling reflections. Moggle seemed to remember the place, and was soon drifting in nervous circles around the cavern, checking for hidden Sly Girls with lock-down clamps.
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