"Quick, Tally!" Zane yelled, jumping down into the gondola. He started tugging at his cuff. "Before they cool off."
She leaped down from the rail and started pulling— glad that she had brought two gloves for each of them. The cuff slid down her arm, but came to a halt as it always did, catching at the usual spot. She squinted at the glowing band, trying to see if it had grown. It seemed bigger, but maybe the heat-resistant glove was thicker than she'd thought, making up the difference.
Tally squeezed the fingers of her left hand together and tugged again; the cuff crept another centimeter along. Heat still radiated from the ring of metal, but it was gradually turning a dull red, its light fading. … As it cooled, would it shrink around her hand now, crushing her wrist?
She gritted her teeth and pulled once more, as hard as she could…and the cuff slipped off, dropping onto the floor of the gondola like a glowing coal.
"Yes!" Finally, she was free.
Tally looked up at the others. Zane was still struggling; Fausto and Peris were scrambling to avoid her glowing cuff as it rolled, steaming and hissing, across the gondola floor. "I did it," she said softly. "It's off."
"Well, mine's not," Zane grunted. His cuff was wedged around the thick of his wrist, its glow faded to a dull red. He swore and stepped back up onto the gondolas railing. "Hit it again."
Fausto nodded, and gave another long blast on the burner.
Tally turned away from the heat, looking down at the city, trying to clear the spots from her eyes. They were past the greenbelt now, over the burbs. She could see the factory belt coming up, dotted with industrial orange work lights, and past that the absolute blackness that marked the edge of the city.
They had to jump soon. In a few more minutes they would pass beyond the metal grid that underlay the city. Without the grid, their hoverboards wouldn't fly or even stop a fall, and they'd be forced to crash-land the balloon instead of bailing out.
She looked up at the swollen envelope, wondering how long it would take the still rising balloon to settle back to earth. Maybe if they could rip the envelope open somehow to get themselves down faster…but how hard would a torn balloon crash-land? And without working hover-boards, the four of them would have to hike until they reached a river, giving the wardens plenty of time to find the crumpled balloon and track them down. "Come on, Zane!" Tally said. "We've got to hurry!"
"I'm hurrying! Okay?"
"What's that smell?" Fausto said. "What?" Tally pulled back into the gondola, sniffing at the still, hot air.
Something was burning.
The City's Edge
"It's us!" Fausto shouted. He jumped back, releasing the burner chain, staring down at the gondola floor.
Tally smelled it then: burning cane, like the smell of brush thrown onto a camp fire. Somewhere under their feet, her red-hot cuff had ignited the wicker gondola.
She glanced up at Zane still perched on the railing — he ignored the others' panicked cries, tugging fiercely at his glowing cuff. Peris and Fausto were hopping around, trying to find the source of the smell.
"Relax!" she said. "We can always jump!"
"I can't! Not yet," Zane shouted, still struggling with the cuff. Peris looked as if he was about to leap out of the balloon without bothering to take his hoverboard.
Her vision was finally clearing from burner's glare, and Tally looked down at her feet. A bottle lay there, left behind by the Hot-airs. She reached for it with her gloved hands; it was full.
"Hold on, you guys," she said, and with a practiced motion twisted off the foil and placed both thumbs beneath the cork. She popped it, watching the cork soar into the dark void. "Everything's under control."
Froth bubbled out, and Tally put one thumb over the bottle's mouth. Shaking the bottle, she sprayed champagne across the floor of the gondola. An angry sizzle came from the smoldering flames.
"Got it!" Zane cried at that moment. His cuff fell off and rolled under her feet, and Tally calmly emptied the rest of the bottle onto it. The smell of molten metal rose up around her, tinged with an oddly sweet smell: boiled champagne.
Zane was staring with amazement at his freed left hand. He pulled off the heat-resistant gloves and tossed them overboard. "It worked!" he said, and swept Tally into a hug.
She laughed, letting the bottle drop to the floor and pulling off her own gloves. "Time for that later. Let's get out of here."
"Okay." He balanced his board on the gondola's railing, looking down. "Damn, that's a long fall."
Fausto tugged at a dangling cord. "I'll vent some hot air — maybe we can get a little lower."
"No time," Tally cried. "We're almost at the end of town. If we get separated, meet at the tallest building in the ruins. And remember: Don't let go of your board on the way down!"
They all scrambled to put on their backpacks, bumping into one another in the small space, Zane and Tally struggling back into their winter coats and crash bracelets. Fausto pulled off his interface ring and threw it to the gondola floor, grabbed his board, and jumped out with a whoop. The balloon pitched upward as his weight left it behind.
When Zane was ready, he turned and kissed her. "We did it, Tally. We're free!"
She looked into his eyes, dizzy with the thought that they were finally here, at the edge of the city, at the beginning of freedom. "Yeah. We made it."
"See you down there." He looked over his shoulder at the distant earth, then turned back to her. "I love you."
"I'll see you down…," she began, but the words sputtered out. It took a moment to replay in her mind what Zane had said. Finally she managed, "Oh. Me too."
He laughed, then let out a wordless cry as he tumbled over the rail, the gondola bucking again under its two remaining passengers.
Tally blinked, dazzled for a moment by Zane's unexpected words. But she shook her head to clear it. This was no time to get pretty-headed; she had to jump now.
She pulled the straps of her backpack tight, wrestling her hoverboard up onto the rail. "Hurry up!" she shouted at Peris.
He was just standing there, staring over the side.
"What are you waiting for?" she cried.
He shook his head. "I can't."
"You can do it. Your board will stop your fall — all you have to do is hang on!" she shouted. "Just jump! Gravity does the rest!"
"It's not the fall, Tally," Peris said. He turned to face her. "I don't want to leave."
"What?"
"I don't want to leave the city."
"But this is what we've been waiting for!"
"Not me." He shrugged. "I liked being a Crim, and being bubbly. But I never thought we'd get this far. I mean, like, leaving home forever?"
"Peris…"
"I know you've been out there before, you and Shay. And Zane and Fausto always talked about escaping. But I'm not like you guys."
"But you and me, we're…" Tally's voice caught. She was about to say "best friends forever," but the old words wouldn't come anymore. Peris had never been to the Smoke, had never tangled with Special Circumstances, had never even been in trouble. Everything had always gone smoothly for him. Their lives had been so different for so long.
"You're sure you want to stay?"
He nodded slowly. "I'm sure. But I can still help. I'll keep them busy for you. I'll stay airborne as long as I can, then push the pickup button. They'll have to come out and get me."
Tally started to argue, but she couldn't help remembering sneaking across the river right after Peris's operation, visiting him in Garbo Mansion. He had adjusted so quickly, loving New Pretty Town right from the beginning. Maybe the whole Crim thing had just been a joke to him…
But she couldn't leave him here in the city alone. "Peris, think. Without us around, you won't be bubbly anymore. You'll go back to being a pretty-head."
He smiled sadly. "I don't mind, Tally. I don't need to be bubbly."
"You don't? But don't you feel how much…better it is?"
He shrugged. "It's excit
ing. But you can't keep fighting the way things are forever. At some point, you have to …"
"Give up?"
Peris nodded, the smile still on his face, as if giving up wasn't really that bad, as if fighting was only worthwhile as long as it was amusing.
"Okay. Stay, then." She turned away, not trusting herself to say anything more. But when Tally looked down, all she saw was darkness. "Oh, crap," she said softly.
The city had run out. It was too late to jump.
Side by side, they stared into the darkness, the wind carrying them farther and farther away.
Peris finally broke the silence. "We'll come down eventually, right?"
"Not soon enough." She sighed. "The wardens probably already know that our cuffs are fried. They'll come looking for us soon. We're sitting ducks up here."
"Oh. I really didn't mean to screw things up for you."
"It's not your fault. I waited too long." Tally swallowed, wondering if Zane would ever find out what happened. Would he think she'd fallen to her death? Or would he guess that she'd chickened out, like Peris?
Whatever he thought, Tally saw their future fading out, disappearing like the distant lights of the city behind them. Who knew what Special Circumstances would do to her brain when they caught her again?
She looked at Peris. "I really thought you wanted to come."
"Listen, Tally. I just got caught up in everything. Being a Crim was exciting and you were my friends, my clique. What was I supposed to do? Argue against running away? Arguing's bogus."
She shook her head. "I thought you were bubbly, Peris."
"I am, Tally. But tonight is about as bubbly as I want to get. I like breaking the rules, but living out there!" He waved his hand at the wild below them, a cold, unfriendly sea of darkness.
"Why didn't you tell me before now?"
"I don't know. I guess it wasn't until we got up here that I realized you guys were so serious about…never coming back."
Tally closed her eyes, remembering what having a pretty mind was like — everything vague and fuzzy, the world nothing but a source of entertainment, the future nothing but a blur. A few tricks weren't enough to make everyone bubbly, she supposed; you had to want your mind to change. Maybe some people had always been pretty-heads, even back before the operation had been invented.
Maybe some people were happier being that way.
"But now you can stay with me," he said, putting his arm around her. "It'll be like it was supposed to be. You and me pretty — best friends forever."
Tally shook her head, a sickening feeling sweeping over her. "I am not staying, Peris. Even if they take me back tonight, I'll find a way to escape."
"Why are you so unhappy there?"
She sighed, looking out over the darkness. Zane and Fausto would already be headed toward the ruins, thinking she wasn't far behind. How had she let this opportunity slip away? The city always seemed to claim her in the end. Was she really like Peris, somewhere deep inside?
"Why am I unhappy?" Tally repeated softly. "Because the city makes you the way they want you to be, Peris. And I want to be myself. That's why."
He squeezed her shoulder and gave her a sad look. "But people are better now than they used to be. Maybe they have good reasons for changing us, Tally."
"Their reasons don't mean anything unless I have a choice, Peris. And they don't give anyone a choice." Tally shook his hand from her shoulder, staring back at the distant city. A set of winking lights was rising into the air, a fleet of hovercars gathering. She remembered that the Specials' cars were held aloft by spinning blades, like the Rusties' ancient helicopters, so they could fly beyond the grid. They must be headed this way, pursuing the final signals of the cuffs.
She had to get out of this balloon now.
Before he'd jumped, Fausto had tied off the descent cord, and hot air was spilling from the envelope every moment. But the balloon, superheated as they'd burned off the cuffs, was losing altitude so slowly…the ground hardly looked any closer.
Then Tally saw the river.
It stretched out below them, catching moonlight like a silver snake, winding out of the ore-rich mountains to make its way toward the sea. On its bed would be centuries' worth of metal deposits, enough to make her hoverboard fly. Maybe enough to catch her fall.
Maybe she could get her future back.
She pulled her board back up onto the rail. "I'm going."
"But, Tally. You can't—" "The river."
Peris looked down, his eyes wide. "It looks so small. What if you miss?"
"I won't." She gritted her teeth. "You've seen those formation bungee jumpers, haven't you? They've only got their arms and legs to guide themselves down. I've got a whole hoverboard. It'll be like having wings!"
"You're crazy!"
"I'm leaving." She kissed Peris quickly, then threw one leg over the rail.
"Tally!" He grabbed her hand. "You could die! I don't want to lose you. …"
She shook him off violently, and Peris took a fearful step back. Pretties didn't like conflict. Pretties didn't take risks. Pretties didn't say no.
Tally was no longer pretty. "You already have," she said.
And, clutching her hoverboard, she threw herself into the void.
Part III
OUTSIDE
The beauty of the world…has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.
— Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own
Descent
Tally dropped into silence, spinning out of control.
After the stillness in the balloon, the rush of passing air built around her with unexpected strength, almost tearing the hoverboard from Tally's hands. She held it tightly to her chest, but the wind's fingers continued to search for purchase, hungry to pry away her only hope of survival. She clasped her hands around the board's underbelly, kicking her legs, trying to control the spinning. Gradually, the dark horizon steadied.
But Tally was upside down, looking up at the stars and hanging from the board. She could see the dark orb of the balloon above. Then its flame ignited, giving the envelope a silvery glow against the darkness, like a huge, dull moon in the sky. She guessed that Peris was headed upward to throw off the pursuit. At least he was trying to help.
His change of heart stung her, but she didn't have time to worry about it, not while plummeting toward the earth.
Tally struggled to turn herself over, but the hoverboard was wider than she was — it caught the air like a sail, threatening to pull itself from her grasp. It was like trying to carry a large kite in a strong wind, except that if she lost control of this particular kite, she'd be splattered all over the ground in about sixty seconds.
Tally tried to relax, letting herself hang there. Something was tugging at her wrist, she realized. Up here in the void, the board's lifters might be useless for flying, but they would still interact with the metal in her crash bracelets.
She adjusted her left bracelet to maximize the connection. Her grip on the board made surer, she straightened out her right arm into the rushing air. It was like riding in her parents' groundcar as a littlie, her hand stuck out a window. Flattening her palm increased the resistance, and Tally found herself slowly beginning to turn over.
A few seconds later, the hoverboard was beneath her.
Tally swallowed at the sight of the earth spread out below, vast and dark and hungry. The rushing cold seemed to cut straight through her coat.
She'd been falling for what felt like forever, but the ground didn't look any closer. There was nothing to give it scale except the winding river, still no bigger than a piece of ribbon. Tally angled her outstretched palm experimentally, and watched the curve of moonlit water turn clockwise beneath her. She pulled her arm in, and the river steadied.
Tally grinned. At least she had some control over her wild descent.
As she fell, the silvery band of river grew in size, first slowly, then faster, the dark horizon of earth expanding like some h
uge predator advancing toward her, blotting out the starlit sky. Clinging to the hoverboard with both hands, Tally discovered that her outstretched legs could guide her descent, keeping the river directly below her.
And then in the last ten seconds, she began to realize how large the river was, its surface wide and troubled. She saw things moving in it.
It grew, faster and faster…
When the board's lifters kicked in, it was like a door slamming in her face, flattening her nose and breaking open her lower lip, the taste of blood instantly in her mouth. Her wrists were twisted cruelly by the crash bracelets, and her momentum squashed her against the braking hover-board, forcing the breath from her lungs like a giant vice. She struggled to pull in a breath.
The hoverboard was slowing rapidly, but the river's surface still grew, stretching farther in all directions like a huge mirror full of starlight, until…
Slap!
The board struck the water like the flat of a giant hand, catching Tally's body with another battering jolt, an explosion of light and sound filling her head. And then she was underwater, ears filled with a dull roar. She let go of the board and clawed for the surface, her lungs emptied by the impact. Forcing her eyes open, Tally saw only the faintest glimmer of light filtering down through the murky river. Her arms struggled weakly, and the light grew slowly closer. Finally, she broke into the air, gasping and coughing.
The river raged around her, the swift current kicking up whitecaps in every direction. She dog-paddled hard, the weight of her pack trying to pull her back under. Her lungs sucked in air, and she coughed violently tasting blood in her mouth.
Turning from side to side, Tally realized that she hit her mark too well — she was in the dead center of the river, fifty meters from either shore. She swore and kept paddling, waiting for a tug on her crash bracelets.
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