"It"s Smokey slang, I guess. Let me show you."
A fleeting expression crossed the Special"s impa.s.sive face-annoyance mixed with suspicion. But he leaped down again and stacked a couple of crates. He jumped onto them and pulled Tally up, sitting her on the edge of the roof as if she weighed nothing. "You touch one of those hoverboards, I"ll put you on your face," he threatened casually.
"There"re hoverboards up here?"
He leaped past her and hauled her onto the roof. "Find it."
"No problem." She walked gingerly up the slanted roof, exaggerating the difficulty of balancing without her hands. The solar cells of the recharging hoverboards were blindingly bright in the sun. Tally"s board lay too far away, on the other side of the roof, and it was unfolded into eight sections. Folding it back up would take a solid minute. But Tally saw one nearby, Croy"s maybe, that had only been unfolded once.
Its light was green. One kick to close it and the board would be ready to fly.
But Tally couldn"t fly with her hands bound. She"d fall off on the first turn.
She took a deep breath, ignoring the part of her brain that saw only the distance to the ground. As long as the Special was as fast and strong as he seemed...
"I"m wearing a bungee jacket," she lied to herself. "Nothing can possibly happen."
Tally let her bare feet trip, and tumbled down the slope.
The rough shingles battered Tally"s knees and elbows as she rolled, letting out a cry of pain. She fought to stay on the roof, her feet scrambling against the wood to slow herself down.
Just as she reached the edge, an iron grip fastened onto her shoulder. She rolled off into s.p.a.ce, the ground looming below. But Tally jerked to a halt, her arm wrenching in its socket, and she heard the Special"s razor voice curse.
She swung for a moment, her fall arrested, then they both started to slip.
She could hear the Special"s fingers and feet scrabbling for purchase. However strong he might be, there was nothing for him to hold on to. Tally was going to fall.
But at least she was going to take him with her.
Then a grunt came from the Special, and Tally felt herself being pulled up in a mighty heave. She was thrown back onto the roof, and a shadow pa.s.sed over her. Something hit the ground below. The Special had thrown himself off the roof to save her!
She rolled up into a crouch, stood, and lifted half of Croy"s hoverboard with one foot, flipping it closed.
A noise came from the edge of the roof, and Tally stepped away from Croy"s board.
The Special"s fingers appeared, then his body swung into view. He was completely unhurt.
"Are you okay?" she asked. "Wow. You guys are strong. Thanks for saving me."
He looked at her coolly. "Just get what we came for. And try not to kill yourself."
"Okay." Tally turned, managed to get a foot tangled on a shingle, and teetered again. The Special had her in his arms in a second. Finally, she heard real anger in his voice. "You uglies are so...incompetent!"
"Well, maybe if you could-"
Even before it was out of her mouth, she felt the pressure on her wrists disappear. She brought her hands around in front, rubbing her shoulders. "Ow. Thanks."
"Listen," he said, the razors in his cruel voice sharper than ever, "I don"t want to hurt you, but-"
"You will if you have to." Tally smiled. He was standing in exactly the right place.
"Just get whatever Dr. Cable wants. And don"t you dare touch one of those hoverboards."
"Don"t worry, I don"t have to," she said, and snapped the fingers of both hands as loudly as she could.
Croy"s hoverboard jumped into the air, knocking the Special"s feet out from under him. The man rolled off the roof again, and Tally leaped onto the board.
Run
Tally had never ridden a hoverboard barefoot before. Young Smokies had all kinds of compet.i.tions, carrying weights or riding double, but no one was everthat stupid.
She almost fell off on the first turn, zooming down a new path they"d spiked with sc.r.a.p metal only a few days before. The moment the board banked, her dirty feet skidded across the surface, spinning her halfway around. Her arms flailed wildly, but somehow Tally kept her footing, shooting across the compound and over the rabbit pen.
A ragged cheer rose up below as the captives below saw her fly past and realized that someone was making an escape. Tally was too busy staying on board to glance down.
Regaining her balance, Tally realized she wasn"t wearing crash bracelets. Any fall would be for real. Her toes gripped the board, and she vowed to take the next turn more slowly. If the sky had been cloudy this morning, the sun wouldn"t have burned the dew off Croy"s board yet. She"d be lying in a crumpled heap in the pen, probably with a broken neck. It was lucky she, like most young Smokies, slept with her belly sensor on.
Already, the whine of hovercars taking off came from behind.
Tally knew only two ways out of the Smoke by hoverboard. Instinctively, she headed for the railroad tracks where she worked every day. The valley dropped behind her, and she managed to make the tight turn onto the white-water stream without falling off. With no knapsack and her heavy crash bracelets missing, Tally felt practically naked.
Croy"s board wasn"t as fast as hers, and it didn"t know her style. Riding it was like breaking in new shoes-while running for your life.
Over the water, spray struck her face, hands, and feet. Tally knelt, grasping the edge of the board with wet hands, flying as low as she dared. Down here, the spray might make it even harder to ride, but the barrier of the trees kept her invisible. She dared a glance backward. No hovercars had appeared yet.
As she shot down the winding stream, swerving through the familiar hard turns, Tally thought of all the times she and David and Shay had raced each other to the work site. She wondered where David was.
Back in camp, bound and ready to be taken to a city he"d never seen before? Would he have his face filed down and replaced by a pretty mask, his brain turned into whatever mush the authorities decided would be acceptable for a former renegade raised in the wild?
She shook her head, forcing the image from her mind. David hadn"t been among the captured resistors.
If he"d been caught, he definitely would have put up a fight. He must have escaped.
The roar of a hovercar pa.s.sed overhead, the shock wave of its pa.s.sage almost throwing Tally from the board. A few seconds later, she knew it had spotted her, its screaming turn echoing through the forest as it cut back to the river.
Shadows pa.s.sed over Tally, and she glanced up to see two hovercars following her, their blades shimmering as bright as knives in the midmorning sun. The hovercars could go anywhere, but Tally was limited by her magnetic lifters. She was trapped on the route to the railroad.
Tally remembered her first ride out to Dr. Cable"s office, the violent agility of the hovercar with its cruel pretty driver. In a straight line, they were much faster than any board. Her only advantage was that she knew this path backward and forward.
Fortunately, it was hardly a straight line.
Tally gripped the board with both hands and jumped from the river to the ridge line. The cars disappeared into the distance, overshooting as she skimmed the iron vein. But Tally was out in the open now, the plains spreading out below her as huge as ever.
She noticed fleetingly that it was a perfect day, not a cloud in the sky.
Tally lay almost flat to cut down wind resistance, coaxing every ounce of speed from Croy"s board. It didn"t look like she"d make it to the next cover before the two cars had swung around.
She wondered how they planned to capture her. Use a stunner? Throw a net? Simply bowl her over with their shock waves? At this speed and without crash bracelets, anything that knocked Tally off the board would kill her.
Maybe that was just fine with them.
The scream of their blades came from her right, louder and louder.
Just before the sound reached her, Tally dragged herself into a full hoverskid, her momentum crushing her down into the board. The two hovercars shot past ahead, missing by a mile, but the wind of their pa.s.sage spun her around in circles. The board flipped over and then back upright, Tally hanging on with both arms as the world spun wildly around her.
She regained control and urged it forward again, bringing it back to full speed before the hovercars could turn back around. The Specials might be faster, but her hoverboard was more maneuverable.
As the next turn drew near, the hovercars were headed straight for her, moving slower now, their pilots realizing that at top speed they would overshoot her every time.
Let them try to fly below tree level, though.
Now riding on her knees, gripping the board with both hands, Tally twisted into the next turn, dropping to skim just above the cracked dirt of the dry creek bed. She heard the whine of the hovercars steadily build.
They were tracking her too easily, probably using her body heat to pick her out among the trees, like the minders back home. Tally remembered the little portable heater she"d used to sneak out of the dorm so many times. If only she had it now.
Then Tally remembered the caves that David had shown her on her first day in the Smoke. Under the cold stones of the mountain, her body heat would disappear.
She ignored the sound of her pursuers, shooting down the creek bed and across a spur of ore, then onto the river that led to the railroad. She careened along above the water, and the hovercars stayed above tree height, patiently waiting for her to run out of cover.
As the turnoff to the railroad approached, Tally increased her speed, skimming the water as fast as she dared. She took the turn at full skid and hurtled down the track.
The cars swept away down the river. The Specials might have expected her to turn off on another river, but the sudden appearance of an old railroad track had surprised them. If she could make it to the mountain before the hovercars completed their slow turns, she would be safe.
Just in time, Tally remembered the spot where they had pulled up the track for sc.r.a.p metal, and angled her board for a stomach-wrenching moment of freefall, soaring over the gap in a high arc. The lifters found metal again, and thirty seconds later she came to a skidding halt at the end of the line.
Tally jumped from the hoverboard, turned it around, and gave it a shove back toward the river. Without her crash bracelets to pull it back, the board would drift along the straight line of the railroad until it reached the break, where it would drop to the ground.
Hopefully, the Specials would think she"d fallen off, and start their search back there.
Tally crawled up the boulders and into the cave, scrambling back into the darkness. She pulled herself as far as she could go, hoping that the tons of stone overhead would be enough to hide her from the Specials. When the tiny aperture of light at the mouth of the cave had shrunk to the size of an eye, Tally dropped to the stone, panting, her hands still shaking from the flight, telling herself again and again that she"d made it.
But what had she made it to? She had no shoes, no hoverboard, no friends, not even a water purifier or a packet of SpagBol. No home to go back to.
Tally was completely alone. "I"m so dead," she said aloud.
A voice came out of the dark.
"Tally? Is thatyou ?"
Amazing
Hands grasped Tally"s shoulders in the darkness.
"You made it!" It was David"s voice.
In her surprise, Tally couldn"t speak, but pulled him close, burying her face in his chest.
"Who else is with you?"
She shook her head.
"Oh," David whispered. Then his grip tightened as the cave shuddered around them. The roar of a hovercar pa.s.sed slowly overhead, and Tally imagined the Specials" machines searching every crevice in the rock for signs of their prey.
Had she led them to David? That would be perfect, her final betrayal.
The low rumble of pursuit pa.s.sed over them again, and David pulled her deeper into the blackness, down a long, twisting path that grew colder and darker. A stillness settled around her, damp and chill, and Tally imagined again the trainload of dead Rusties buried among the stones.
They waited in silence for what seemed like hours, holding each other, not daring to speak until long after the sounds of the cars had faded.
Finally David whispered, "What"s happening back at the Smoke?
"The Specials came this morning."
"I know. I saw." He held her tighter. "I couldn"t sleep, so I took my board up the mountain to watch the sunrise. They went right over me, twenty hovercars at once coming across the ridge. But what"s happening now?"
"They put everyone in the rabbit pen, separating us into groups. Croy said they"re going to take us all back to our cities."
"Croy? Who else did you see?"
"Shay, a couple of her friends. The Boss might have made it out. He and I made a break together."
"What about my parents?"
"I don"t know." She was glad for the darkness. The fear in David"s voice was painful enough. His parents had founded the Smoke, and they knew the secret of the operation. Whatever punishment awaited the other Smokies, it would be a hundred times worse for them.
"I can"t believe it finally happened," he said softly.
Tally tried to think of something comforting to say. All she could see in the darkness was Dr. Cable"s mocking smile.
"How did you get away?" he asked.
She pulled his hands to feel her wrists, where the plastic bracelets of the handcuffs remained. "I cut through these, got up onto the roof of the trading post, and stole Croy"s hoverboard."
"With Specials guarding you?"
She bit her lip, saying nothing.
"That"s amazing. My mother says they"re superhuman. Their second operation augments all their muscles and rewires their nervous system. And they"re so scary-looking, a lot of people just panic the first time they see one." He held her tighter. "But I should have known you would escape."
Tally closed her eyes, which made no difference in the utter darkness. She wished they could stay in there forever, never having to face what was outside. "It was just good luck."