"I see you are awake," he said. "And no one is injured?"
His Japanese was imperfectAya realized that after six hours in flight the hovercar could be anywhere in Asia. She wondered where the inhumans really came from.
"We're all in one piece," she said. "But not very happy."
"We did not expect to have to take seven of you," he answered, performing a little midair bow.
"We apologize for any discomfort."
"Discomfort!" Hiro cried. "You kidnapped us!"
The inhuman nodded, an expression of regret passing over his strange features. "It is necessary to hide ourselves for the moment. You have to be silenced."
"Silenced?" Aya said, swallowing. "You mean you're going to kill us?"
"No, indeed! And I am sorry for my Japanese," he said. "I only mean you cannot communicate with your home. But very soon there will be no more need for secrecy, and you may return."
"Why can't we go now?" Aya asked.
"We land shortly, then we can explain everything," he said. "In the meantime, my name is Udzir.
May I ask yours?"
Aya paused for a moment, then bowed and introduced herself. Ren and Hiro followed suit. The Cutters got the hint, giving false names when Udzir turned to them.
But his stare lingered on Tally.
"You do not seem like the others," he said.
Aya wondered exactly what he meant. Back in the Prettytime, the Global Concord Committee had averaged the different regions of the world, and the crazy surgery since the mind-rain had only further confused the old Rusty genetic categories. But uglies still showed their heritage, and the Cutters' smart-plastic masks didn't look particularly Asian.
But Udzir was singling Tally outhad he glimpsed a hint of uncured Special in her eyes?
"It's true," Frizz said through gritted teeth. "She isn't like the rest of us."
Aya snapped out of her silence. "What Frizz means is that our friends are students from another city. They don't speak Japanese very well."
"They don't speak it at all!" Frizz proclaimed. Aya squeezed his hand, willing him to stay silent.
"English, then?" Udzir switched effortlessly.
Tally nodded. "Yes, English is better. Did you say where we're going?"
"You will see soon."
"We've been flying south for hours," Fausto said. "And it's pretty hot. We must be near the equator."
Udzir nodded, smiling. "And you are very good students, I see. Let me reward your cleverness: We will soon land on an island that the Rusties called Singapore."
Aya frowned, trying to remember her geography. The name wasn't ringing any bells, but there were hundreds of Rusty cities that had been lost. At least the change in subject had quieted Frizz's need for Radical Honesty.
The hovercar was descending now, the ride growing rougher as clouds darkened the windows.
The hold began to pitch from side to side, setting the cargo straps swinging. Aya felt her stomach lurch, and was suddenly glad she hadn't eaten anything since dinner the night before.
Tally, Fausto, and Shay seemed unfazed by the turbulence. They shifted their weight like hoverboard riders, compensating for every movement of the car. It was as if they'd learned to read the storm's howls and anticipate the next assault of the wind.
Udzir, unperturbed in midair, looked down at the Cutters with renewed interest. "You've ridden in a tropical storm before?"
"We travel a lot," Tally said simply.
"I noticed your hoverboards were made to fly in the wild. Most unusual, especially for uglies."
"Really?" Shay said. "They're all the rage where we come from."
Frizz tensed up beside Aya, and she dug her fingernails into his hand.
"Which is where, exactly?" Udzir asked.
"We're from Diego," Shay said, and Aya felt Frizz relaxing a little at the sound of the truth.
"A city known for its forward-looking nature," Udzir said approvingly. "Perhaps you will appreciate our project."
"Which is what?" Tally asked.
"When we land," the man said. The hovercar banked suddenly, and he glanced toward the drivers' cabin. "As you will all realize very soon now. If you wish to take a look at our home, you may."
"Why not?" Tally said. She pulled herself up and peered down through one of the tiny windows.
The other Cutters followed suit.
Moggle was probably shooting from the bottom of the car, but Aya decided to take a look herself. She gulped a deep breath of the dense, muggy air to fight the nausea rising in her stomach, and pulled herself up by the cargo webbing.
"Be careful, Aya," Frizz said.
She nodded, gaining her feet unsteadily. The window was small and streaked with rain, the plastic thick and vision-warping.
The car was passing through a layer of clouds, the window revealing nothing but a dark gray mass and streaks of rain. But gradually the clouds grew thinner, boiling away into tendrils as the car descended.
The view cleared, the hovercar abruptly steadying.
A steely gray ceiling hung just above them, a solid sheet of clouds. Beneath the storm a dense rain forest spread out all the way to a shimmering glimpse of ocean. The mass of jungle was wrapped around the largest rums she'd ever seen. Clusters of huge towers reared up from the wind-whipped treetops, their metal skeletons disappearing into the clouds.
Even with the storm raging, construction lifters were attached to the ancient Rusty buildings, grasping iron beams like birds of prey, as if waiting for a break in the weather to tear them apart.
The car banked hard, tipping the view in a dizzy-making way, the Rusty towers disappearing.
Now Aya could see a broad clearing cut from the jungle. A hoverport sprawled out beneath herhundreds of cars and heavy lifters arrayed across a landing field, mag-lev lines converging from every direction on a central station.
"This is huge," Tally breathed.
"Yes," Udzir said. "We are very proud of all we've done."
"But you're clear-cutting the jungle!" Tally said, and Aya heard razors in her voice.
"We serve a greater cause," Udzir said. "Once you see more, you will understand the sacrifices we've made."
The car banked harder, gyrating around the port like a tiny boat being sucked into a giant whirlpool, and more structures rotated into Aya's view. Long storehouses, prefab housing, automated factories all jumbled together without rhyme or reason. Figures darted among them, wearing heavy plastic coats against the rain and flying.
None of them walkedthey glided from place to place, pushing from poles driven into the ground, gripping with hands and feet to fight the wind.
Aya turned from the window and sank back to the metal floor, her nausea rising again.
"What is it?" Frizz asked.
"You were right, Ren," she said softly. "There really is a whole city of them."
"We're not a city," Udzir said. "We are a movement."
"Sounds bubbly," Tally said. "What kind of movement?"
Udzir spun himself in midair, reaching out a hand to grasp the webbing on the cabin's ceiling.
"We're saving the world from humanity. Perhaps you'll want to join us."
Tally smiled. "Maybe we will."
"I doubt that," Frizz muttered.
Aya recognized the pained look from when Frizz had been trying not to blurt out her face rank; he was about to explode! If only Udzir would shut up and go back into the drivers' cabin.
But both inhumans were looking at Frizz curiously now, as if he'd said one radically honest thing too many.
"Your cities are expanding across the wild like a brushfire, young man," Udzir said. "So don't judge us before you know our purposes."
"I'm not judging you," he said, squeezing Aya's hand so hard it hurt.
Udzir frowned. "Then what exactly are you doing?"
"He's just airsick," Aya said.
"I'm not airsick!" Frizz's voice was choked. "I'm trying not to tell you everything!"
"
What the ?" Shay began.
"What are you trying not to tell us?" Udzir said sharply.
Aya saw Frizz's willpower failing, and she reached out to try and stop him. But one of her hands was clenched in his, the other tangled in cargo webbing.
"That this is Tally Youngblood!" Frizz burst out. "And she's here to take you down!"
Hard Landing
For a moment no one said anything.
Then Shay broke the silence, yelling at Frizz, "You bogus little moron!"
Tally launched herself across the cargo hold, flying beneath Udzir and into the woman hovering at the door. As she flew, her face seemed to explode, the smart-plastic disguise vanishing in an angry puff.
The woman swung her needle-tipped fingers, but Tally snatched her wrists and propelled a shoulder into the woman's stomach. She crumpled instantly, and Tally rolled past her into the drivers' cabin.
Across the hold, Shay rose almost casually to punch Udzir in the face. As he spun in midair, she slipped past his flailing limbs and after Tally.
Fausto stood up, his mask bursting from his face to reveal cruel-pretty features.
"I don't want to hurt you," he announced. "But nobody move."
"We're not moving!" Hiro said.
Aya turned to Frizz, whose face was pale. "Are you okay?"
"I'm sorry," he said. "I couldn't stop myself."
Suddenly the hovercar banked, twisting into a violent turn. Udzir's unconscious body crashed against the ceiling, then bounced back into the middle of the hold, spinning in midair. As Aya gripped the cargo webbing, her stomach lurching toward her mouth, she realized that he wasn't really spinninghe was steady in the air, the hovercar spinning around him Shay appeared at the drivers' cabin door, shoving the crumpled inhuman woman out of her way.
"A quick question," she said, bracing herself in the frame. "Do any of you bubbleheads know how to fly a hovercar?"
"What?" Aya cried. "Don't you?"
Shay spread her hands. "What are we supposed to be? Magic?"
The car pitched into a wild climb, and the two weightless inhumans went tumbling again, their limbs flopping like rag dolls. The needle-tipped fingers of the woman whizzed past Aya's face, missing her by a few centimeters.
"Someone grab her!" Aya shouted.
Frizz reached out and snagged the woman's leg, which snapped her body down against the cabin floor with a sickening thud.
"Oops, sorry," he said.
"You'd think Tally would have asked before she knocked out the drivers," Shay said from the doorway. "But that's Tally for you."
"Get in here and help me!" called Tally's voice. Shay turned and disappeared as the hovercar went into another series of wild spins, dropping again.
Fausto leaped across the hold, grabbing the unconscious woman. He guided her into the cargo webbing, making sure her needle fingers weren't exposed.
The car dipped and twisted, the hold spinning all the way around every few seconds. But Fausto gathered and secured Udzir's body easily. He darted across the tumbling surfaces, stepping from wall to floor to ceiling, like a littlie playing in a funhouse.
The lifting fans shrieked unhappily, drowning out the howl of the wind. Aya clutched the cargo webbing with white knuckles, barely keeping her grip. Gravity twisted around her, like some wild animal trying to pry her from the wall.
Then suddenly the car leveled out, the scream of the lifting fans settling into a steady roar. At last the floor of the cargo hold felt like down again.
Shay appeared in the doorway. "Everyone okay?"
"More or less," Fausto said. "Took you long enough to find the autopilot."
"I wish we hadn't," Shay said. "It's programmed to take us straight into their hoverport. And it looks like the drivers got off a warning, so they'll be expecting us. We have to jump. Everyone's got crash bracelets, right?"
"Sure, but are we still over their city?" Fausto asked.
"After all that craziness?" Shay said. "Kilometers away. But there's plenty of Rusty metal down there, as far as we can tell."
Fausto's eyes widened. "Are you kidding? Isn't that a little risky?"
Shay shrugged. "Safer than staying in here."
"At this speed, we'll need more than crash bracelets." Fausto knelt and stripped the forearm lifter pads from Udzir, tossing them to Shay.
She strapped them on, turning to Ren. "Come on, you and me first."
"We're jumping out into a storm, with only ruins to catch us?" he cried. "But that's brain-missing!"
She laughed. "You'd rather wind up with a bunch of insane surge-monkeys? Are you thinking of joining them?"
Ren groaned, then started to unwind himself from the cargo webbing.
"Open the side door!" Shay called to Tally. "And we'll see you at the usual place!"
The wall behind Aya and Frizz began to move. They scrambled away, suddenly doused by driving rain, the wind tearing at their clothes and hair. As the door opened, the hovercar lost its stability again, shivers passing through its frame, the storm rushing greedily inside.
In the hard gray light that spilled into the cargo hold, Aya saw how close they'd come to crashingthe tops of storm-tossed trees were shooting past, their highest branches whipping the underside of the car.
"Ready?" Shay yelled against the wind.
Ren nodded, and she wrapped her arms around him, jumping through the sliding door with a wild and wordless cry.
"Our turn, Hiro!" Fausto said as he stood up, the inhuman woman's lifter pads hastily strapped onto his forearms.
"This better work!" Hiro cried, then turned to Aya. "Good luck, and don't forget Moggle."
Fausto grabbed Hiro and yanked him out of the hovercar, the two of them disappearing into the driving rain without a sound.
"But there's two of us left," Frizz said. "And only " "Me," Tally said. She stood in the doorway of the drivers' cabin, slipping on a hoverball shin pad.
"Lucky those freaks all wear these things. I think they can't walk on those feet of theirs."
"You can carry us both?" Aya asked.
Tally scowled. "Why should we take this moron? He betrayed us!"
"But he can't help it!" Aya cried.
"What is he, brain-missing?"
"No," Frizz said. "I just have to tell the truth."
"You have to do what?"
"Radical Honesty," Frizz said. "It's a kind of brain surge."
Tally's eyes narrowed. "Wow. Your city is officially the weirdest place on Earth. Why would they do something like that to you?"
Aya tried to think of something distracting to say, but Frizz was already explaining, "I asked for the surge. I designed it, actually."
"You mean you're a voluntary bubblehead? That's itI'm leaving you behind. Come on, Ayathere's no time to argue!"
Aya struggled out of Tally's grip. "You can't just leave him here! Those freaks will get him!"
"So? He's a freak too. And this is dangerous enough with only two of us!"
"I'm not a bubblehead," Frizz said. "But she's right, Aya. You'll be safer without me. Leave me!"
"Crap," Tally growled. "You just had to say that!"
She grabbed them both, then jumped.
At this speed the rain felt hard as stones.
"Moggle!" Aya yelled as they tumbled away from the hovercar. "Follow me!"
Then the treetops hitwet ferns whipping and slapping at her face and hands, branches crunching as they tumbled through the air. Tally's grip around Aya was lung-crushing, the gray light spinning into darkness as they dropped beneath the canopy of jungle.
The roar of the hovercar slipped away, and Tally twisted next to Aya, the borrowed hoverball rig straining to maneuver among tree trunks and shafts of rusty iron. Aya felt magnetic forces wrenching at her crash braceletsthe three of them rose up above the trees again in a shallow hover-bounce, like a speeding rock skipping off water.
They dropped again, tearing through tangled vines and ferns, every obstruction heavy with rain.
> Aya felt thorns tearing at her clothes and hairthen suddenly the forces in her crash bracelets disappeared, and the Earth itself crashed up against her.
They hit at a shallow angle, tumbling through brush and leaves, skidding across meters of thick, wet mud. She felt her ribs cracking in Tally's grip, her breath forced from her like a punch to the gut.
Finally they slid and rolled to a halt.
Aya took deep, painful breaths, slowly opening her eyes.
Above her, vast flocks of birds were wheeling, scattering away from their wild and unexpected arrival. The jungle was dense down here, the sky almost completely hidden. Aya could actually see the path their sidelong fall had taken, a tunnel of wrecked branches that stretched away into the distance.
Water still spilled from the leaves and ferns they had shaken in passing, as if the storm had followed them down.
"You two okay?" Tally asked.
"Uh," Aya managed. It hurt to breathe.
"Let me guess," Frizz said. "We ran out of metal."
"Barely enough," Tally said. "Any less and we would have splatted."
"We did splat," Aya grunted. Her soaking hair was tangled around her face, leaves and ferns and mud plastered over every inch of her body.
Tally raised herself into a crouch, pointing up at a towering structure that stretched up beside them. "Yeah, but if we hadn't fallen past that, we'd be paste right now. Whatever those freaks are up to includes salvaging all the ground-level metal from these ruins."
Aya groaned, sitting up slowly. If they'd almost crashed, what about ?
She started to flex her ring finger.
"No pings!" Tally snapped, grabbing her wrist. "You'll give us away. Besides, we must be a few kilometers from the others. Much too far for your skintenna to carry."
"But they could be hurt!"
Frizz took Aya's hand, pulling it gently from Tally's grip. "Fausto and Shay were only carrying one passenger each. They probably had a softer landing than the three of us."
"Probably? You mean if they didn't fly straight into a tree!" she cried, but resisted the urge to boot her eyescreen. She scanned the jungle, wondering if Moggle had found enough metal to come down soft. "You mind if I yell, at least?"
Extras u-4 Page 20
