“You gotta move this thing a lot faster, brother,” Garrett says. “We’ve got an army coming.”
“Army?” Zane shouts. We hit the curves in the road and Zane nearly runs us off, trying to get a glimpse over his shoulder. “Get your head out of the way, Neener!”
“Don’t worry about what’s back there,” Robin snaps. “Just get us out of here.”
“How did they know we were here?” Zane says. “They couldn’t have just been waiting around Clint’s. And it’s too far to come without knowing.”
“It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? They’ve got to be tracing our phones!” Robin says. “We should wipe the memories and ditch our cells!”
“It’s better than the Fury catching us with them,” Garrett says.
Zane and Garrett roll down their windows simultaneously and in seconds, the phones are flying out both sides of the car. Garrett twists in the seat beside me, watching out the back window.
“Looks like there’s at least thirty cars back there,” he says, glancing past me to Zane. “You think we can make the farm gate and close it up before they get there?”
“Sure, why not?” Zane says. He laughs as he grips the steering wheel and bears down harder on the gas. The car shoots over the crazy-straw road at full speed, but the gap isn’t getting any wider. At least, with all the twists and turns, the Fury seem to be having just as hard of a time keeping their cars on the road as we are.
“Whoa!” Zaneen squeals from the back. “Did you see that truck? It just flew off the road into the ditch and it took a car with it!”
I start praying that there will be a pile-up behind us.
“Okay, look,” Zane shouts as we pass the little town that is standing in a line on the side of the road. We’re nearly to the farm. “G, I’ve got to open the gate, so you take the wheel and I’ll hop back in on your side, if I can. If I can’t, just go. We’re going to have to make a run for the Free Ball.”
“What do you mean, if you can?” Robin hollers from the back. “If you don’t make it in, we get out and fight!”
“Thirty cars full of them, Robin?” Zane’s voice is so fierce Robin actually shuts her mouth. Zane pulls something out of his pocket and passes it back to her. It’s the arrow shaped piece of metal that Garrett bought him at the junkyard. “Take the Hydrohome. Somebody can pick up the signal and bring you guys back down, if the thing even works. If I don’t make it in, get to the barn and kill the controls before you launch the Ball.”
“But if we bust the controls, how are we going to control the launch?” Zaneen says. “And what if nobody gets the signal?”
“I don’t know!” Zane explodes. “Just do it!”
The car twists around the last turn and the fortress gate of the farm looms ahead of us. With the bends in the road, we won’t be able to see the Fury until they’re right on top of us.
Zane stomps the brake at the gate and jumps out the driver’s side door. Garrett pulls the handle on the passenger side, but the door won’t budge. Zane gets the gate unlocked and Robin starts screaming from the backseat.
“ZANE, GET IN THE CAR! GET IN THE CAR! THEY’RE COMING!”
I glimpse out the open side door and see the first truck peeling around the bend. It’s coming right at us. The muffler roars as the driver gases it on.
There’s no time.
“Get the window down!” I shout, sliding into the driver’s seat. I yank the car into Drive and stomp the gas. Garrett leans back and kicks the door, as the car bolts forward. The door swings free, but the momentum slams it shut again just as the Fury truck sails past our bumper. The truck tries to brake and skids on the gravel instead. It slides a few more feet and rolls sideways into the ditch across the street.
“THEY’RE COMING!” Robin shouts and this time, Garrett gets the window down. Zane throws himself through the opening, like a super-skinny Superman, landing across Garrett’s lap.
“GO! GO! GO!” he screams at me.
I go. The back end fishtails on the loose gravel, but the car shoots off down the twisty, clumpy drive toward the barn. Another Fury truck loops around and crashes into a car that tries to turn into the drive at the same time.
Zaneen hoots from the back seat, “They’re stuck! They locked up their bumpers and jammed the entrance! They can’t get past the gate unless they’re on foot!”
I won’t look. I stay hunched over the steering wheel and keep my eyes straight on the barn and nothing else. If anything crosses our path, it’ll become part of our wheels.
The sirens on the house and barn suddenly explode in howls. No, more than that. They are louder than any sirens I’ve ever heard. Startled, my hands jump from the wheel to cover my ears and the tires catch on a clump along the side of the road. The car slides sideways and something under the hood buckles up with a crunch. The car lurches to a halt.
“RUN!” Zane shouts, scrambling for the door. “They set off the sensors! They’re coming on foot! Get to the barn!”
The Fury swarm on foot over the jammed gate. They flood over the cars and they rise up from the eastern edge of the field. I have no idea what setting off the sensors will do, other than blow out our eardrums with the alarms.
“It’s an ambush.” Deeta’s voice quivers as Robin pulls her from the car, but once her feet hit the dirt, Deeta bolts like a rabbit up the road toward the barn. She’s a quarter mile ahead of us before we even start running.
But it’s not any better that The Fury mob is about a mile behind us. Some of them were once Alo or Contego, so the distance that’s between us now is going to close up fast.
Garrett dodges a glance at Zane. “We can’t take this many all at once,” he shouts.
“Gonna have to break the bat cave, G.” Zane shouts back. Still, the only way I can hear him over the wailing alarms is to focus the way Garrett’s taught me and even then, the blaring sirens just about drown out every other word.
“Doesn’t matter now.” Zaneen shouts from Zane’s back. “It’s the only way out, isn’t it?”
Garrett grabs my wrist and we pick up speed together.
One glance over my shoulder and I see the Fury closing in on us, like a puddle. Garrett’s hand is like an iron cuff as he pulls me toward the barn. Another glance and I spot a former Alo- it must be, since they’re the only ones faster than us- pulling ahead of the rest and gaining speed.
“The Alo!” I shout, as if Garrett doesn’t know it all ready. But I hope he understands what I mean. And he does. Without breaking stride, he scoops down and lifts a rock off the ground. Still dragging me along with him, he twists and whips the rock. It shoots by my nose, so close that another millimeter would’ve shaved off skin. I watch Garrett’s rock as it whistles a hard, straight line past Zane and Robin, and through the distance separating us from the Fury. It keeps going, like a heat-seeking missile, until it finally smashes into the Alo that was pulling ahead. It gets the guy in the face and he goes down like bricks.
Seeing what Garrett did, Robin drops down and scoop up rocks in mid-stride too. On both sides of me, rocks start flying and when I focus on the sound, I hear thud after thud after thud as they hit their targets. I join in too and maybe it’s just that there’s so many of them, but it’s surprisingly easy to hit them.
The Fury’s Alo buckle and drop behind us, widening the gap. The Fury Contego don’t try to protect them. Instead, they trample the Alo that aren’t useful as human shields anymore.
Deeta reaches the barn doors first and Zane cups his hands around his mouth to shout at her, “Open ‘em Deeta!”
Deeta probably gets the crazy arm gestures that follow, more than the words that are lost under the howl of the sirens. The Alo don’t have our focus, but she figures out what Zane wants and throws her body against the barn doors. They slide open.
But even if we get to the Free Ball, I don’t know how we’ll make it work. Zane had said before that someone’s got to work the controls on the ground to make that happen. And that means someone’s got t
o stay behind.
It’s all scrambled up in my head as we hurtle into the barn. There’s no time to stop and ask. Garrett spins me up against one of the harnesses and his hands move at lightening speed, fastening me in. Then he’s gone. Deeta buckles in beside me and I’m hanging there beside her and the empty harness that I assume is Garrett’s.
“It’s only scary the first time!” Deeta shouts to me and she gives me a quivery, unsure smile with a thumbs up before peering back out the door at the advancing Fury.
The ball shakes as Zaneen and Robin jump into the other harnesses. Through the open barn door, the Fury is only a couple yards away and coming at us like a storm cloud. All I can do is hang here, listening to Robin shout to Zane, as Zane and Garrett shout to each other, against the white-noise of the alarms and the Fury’s feet, pounding the ground. Garrett’s harness still hangs empty.
Please…I beg in my head. Please, let this work!
The podium scrapes across the dirt floor and then Zane and Garrett knock it over, kicking it in. The wood crunches and splinters fly up in the air. Through the open door, I can almost make out which are the Fury men and which are the women. In seconds, I can distinguish stuff like hair color and clothes and curled fists.
“They’re coming!” Deeta shrieks and I scream Garrett’s name.
“Go!” Zane yells over all of it. “Once I nail this, we’re gone!”
Garrett speeds toward me from the podium. Behind him, Zane brings his foot down on whatever it is that will make us gone.
Then my eyes are jerked shut in their sockets as the roof explodes like toothpicks. We shoot into the sky and my stomach goes whooooooooooooooooooooop.
The air is so cold as we rocket up that it feels like it’s cutting my face open. I hear Garrett…I hear him, but he doesn’t sound right. I open my eyes. His harness is still empty. He’s hanging near my feet with his arms laced through the Free Ball’s structure.
I shriek his name. Garrett’s hair is blown back as he looks up, struggling to hang on. Every muscle and bone seems right on the surface of his face, straining. It’s taking everything he’s got to hang on.
Then he looks down and I follow his legs to his ankles. I nearly choke. Dangling in the air, over the tiny dot of the barn we left on the ground, is Zane, clutching Garrett’s left ankle. The wild force of air, as we continue to zoom upward, flaps Zane around like a t-shirt on a laundry line.
And I see what the problem is. Garrett can’t let go of the ball to grab Zane or he could lose his grip all together. And Zane is too far below the Free Ball to get a hold of it himself.
“Hang on!” I shout and I feel around for the buckles that Garrett fastened around me. All at once, Deeta and Garrett are shouting No! Don’t! Stop! It’s not like I want to wiggle out of the harness, but I know Zane won’t be able to hold on forever.
My field orbs around me, but my body doesn’t move on its own. I guess I’m not wired to automatically protect my fellow Contego while dangling off a Free Ball, but it doesn’t mean I can’t move myself. Because, while it may be true that I’m probably a lot more coward than warrior, this isn’t about bravery.
It’s about looking Zane in the eyes as he flounders at Garrett’s ankle and seeing how neither of them can do anything about this on their own. This is about living the rest of my life knowing I might’ve been able to help, but didn’t even try. So, it’s not bravery that steadies my fingers enough to unfasten the final buckle. It’s being too big of a coward to face the guilt.
The wind grabs me like it was waiting for that last buckle to come free and yanks me upside down by the ankles. I grab the pipes of the Free Ball and dig my feet through the holes before the wind can drag me away. I cling to the Ball as it continues to sail up into the sky, trying to come up with any kind of plan that will end with all three of us back in our harnesses.
I creep down the ball until I am cheeks to chins with Garrett. His face is white as the clouds. We’re still shooting upward and the air claws at me, trying to tear me off the Ball, but I hang on.
“Don’t do this!” Garrett shouts to me. The wind clips his words. I nod as if I’ll do what he says, but my arms already ache with the truth. I don’t know how I’m going to get a hold of Zane. I’ve never even been able to do one chin-up in gym class. But when I glance down at Zane, I know I’ve got to try.
“What are you going to do?” Garrett shouts as I inch away from him. I can hardly hear him at all as I climb down lower, but there’s no point in trying to explain that I’ve got to figure it out when I get there, so I look up and wink. Whether or not he gets it or believes me, he clenches his jaw as he wiggles to renew his grasp. It’s taking all his strength to hang on with Zane, and the g-force of the still-upward-climbing Ball both weighing him down.
Then my plan comes to me. The only way for me to get at Zane is to get inside the Ball and work my way down to the base, at the very bottom. So that’s what I do. I get my hands on a bar inside the Ball and slide in. The Ball wobbles every time I move and Zaneen starts shouting on the other side. Even focusing, it’s hard to siphon her message out of the wind.
“Keep it balanced! There’s too many of you on that side!”
There’s nothing I can do about that now. I get a good grip on the frame and slowly slide my legs out of the hole they’re in and pull myself further inside the thing. The inside of the Free Ball is a bunch of bare pipes that break some of the force of the wind blowing through it. It’s a little easier to hang on, but there’s no time to feel relieved.
I need to land on the solid base at the bottom of the ball. If I fall right on it, I’ll be fine, but if I miss, I’ll go right through one of the holes. Or maybe the wind will shoot me up to the top of the ball. Hard to tell. I don’t let go. I creep my way downward, toward the round, solid disk at the bottom, as fast as I can. But when I get within a couple feet of it, the ball does a hard jerk. I scream and realize I can hear myself do it.
The wind isn’t whistling anymore. The air isn’t slicing across my face. We’re finally floating and everything’s gone so silent, I wonder if the wind’s made me deaf. I make it onto the base and the ball evens out a little more, even though it’s still tipped slightly to one side.
“URGH!” Zane groans from below.
“I’m coming!” I call to him. “Hang on!”
I loop an arm over either side of the hole nearest me and let my legs fall through. I dangle there a second and then slide myself down until I’m hanging by my armpits.
“Swing!” Zane shouts and I kick out toward his legs. The ball shakes and I almost lose my grip. I squeeze my upper arms around the bars and try again.
I swing out, harder this time, and I knock right into him. The ball sways as I wrap my legs around Zane like a Venus Fly Trap.
“Ready?” he hollers.
“Yes!” I shout back. My armpits already ache. I don’t know if I’ll be able to hang onto him once he lets go of Garrett, but Zane doesn’t give me a long time to think about it.
“Here I come!” he shouts as he lets go of Garrett’s ankle. I’m tugged down hard through the hole and the ball tips. I groan, but I hang on as the bars chew into my armpits. My chin is over one of the pipes and Zane’s weight bashes my trachea against the frame.
“Somebody’s got to balance the friggin’ ball!” Robin hollers. Garrett scales around the side of the ball until it’s stable again. He clings there, shouting down through one of the holes, “Are you okay, Nalena?”
I can’t answer him. I feel like a piranha’s chewing on me as Zane climbs up around my waist. My limbs stretch from my sockets with his weight. Every movement shakes the ball and pulls me a little further down through the hole.
“Hurry up!” I yell. “I can’t hang on!”
And then one of Zane’s hands appears over the side of my bar, grasping it. His head pops through the hole and we both heave ourselves up, groaning, until our torsos are lying across the inner pipes. We dangle there, breathing hard, our legs still han
ging out the bottom.
“I knew one day my prince would come.” Zane puffs in a really weak, girly voice. He bats his eyes at me.
“You guys okay?” Garrett shouts from overhead. Deeta and Zaneen and Robin are all shouting at Garrett to tell them what’s going on, since they can’t twist enough in their harnesses to see us.
Zane gives Garrett an exaggerated smile with a thumbs up.
“You need help?” Garrett calls down, but Zane frowns and shakes his head and gives Garrett a thumbs down.
“Of course we need help, you idiot.” Zane mumbles through his grin to me. “Trouble is, Gare’s been hanging around with a Zane-weight tied to his ankle. His biceps are probably mustard as it is. Not gonna do us much good. It’s all on us, Nali Girl.”
I make the mistake of looking down and seeing water and land, way, way, way down below my dangling feet. The panic wells up in me but the adrenaline, now that Zane’s hanging here with me, is totally gone.
I’m a coward again, but I don’t have a choice besides trying to get back up in my harness. I look down again and gulp.
“Don’t do that.” Zane says. “Don’t look down there. Look at me. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to pull ourselves up and we’re going to climb back up to our harnesses, so keep it balanced.”
“Alright,” I say as smoothly as I can, even though I feel the exact opposite of all right.
Zane hoots. “No fear now, Nali Girl? Impressive! But if you lose your nerve, just see yourself climbing up, getting into the harness. That’s it. Nothing else. Got me?”
I just nod. There really isn’t any other choice besides falling.
I climb, my arms numb and shaky, back toward the harness. Garrett stays put near his own, which steadies the ball. He tries to hold out his hand out to me once, but the ball rocks and Robin and Zane both shout that he’s got to stay put. I have to do this all on my own.
I can’t help but look down again and when I do, on the road below us, the Fury’s cars speed away from the Middleditch farm and after us. As the Free Ball floats sideways, the cars change direction, but the roads are way more awkward to navigate than the sky. We drift miles away from them in minutes. I reach my harness and slide in, doing the best I can to fasten the buckles and hang on at the same time. Garrett climbs back into his own and from around the side of the ball, Zane shouts, “Everybody in?”
Cornerstone 02 - Keystone Page 20
