Extras (6 page)

"You mean slyer … as in
less
famous?"

Miki winked. "As in kissing a million."

"Get ready!" Eden Maru called, barely audible above the growing roar of the train.

"Surf's up!" Miki yelled, kneeling.

Aya grabbed her hoverboard's forward edge, trying to focus. This story was suddenly much stranger than just surfing a mag-lev. For some reason, the Sly Girls had turned the reputation economy upside down.

They
wanted
to disappear. But why?

Her crash bracelets snapped against the board, locking her down tight. The factory roof itself was shuddering now, the gravel strewn across it dancing like hailstones hitting grass. She could finally kick a story like one of Hire's: long, dizzy-making interviews, a dozen background layers tracing the Girls' histories, wild footage of tram rides and underground meetings. If she could just shoot it without them finding out…and with her hovercam at the bottom of a lake. Aya glanced over her shoulder at Jai, feeling a cold smile creep onto her face. Finally she knew how to take the perfect revenge for Moggle's watery burial. She was going to kick this story big, and make the Sly Girls famous beyond their wildest nightmares.

She'd make sure
everyone
knew their names.

"Hey, you look a little funny," Miki called above the roar. "Not finally getting scared, are you?" Aya laughed. "No. Just getting ready!"

The thunder built louder and louder, finally exploding as the train arrived, a solid blur of lights and noise shooting past. A dozen whirlwinds of dust swirled to life across the rooftop. Then the train leaned into the curve, and Aya heard a chorus of humming slowly build, like an orchestra of wineglasses tuning up. Three hundred tons of levitating metal and smart matter were bending into a new shape, slowing down just a little bit.

"Now!" Eden screamed.

And they rose into the air.

SURFING

The board shot forward, dragging Aya along by her wrists.

It wrenched and twisted like a bad spinout, when crash bracelets could almost jerk a rider's arms from their sockets. But spinouts never lasted this long. Aya's hoverboard was still accelerating, faster and faster along the slow curve of the mag-lev line.

She squeezed as flat as she could against the board, her feet dangling off the back end, her dorm jacket snapping like a flag in a gale.

Squinting against the wind, Aya could hardly see anything. Only a few meters ahead, Miki was nothing but a teary blur. Luckily, the board was programmed to fly itself until it matched the speed of the train.

Sneaking out the night before to look for Eden and her friends, Aya had never expected to wind up riding the train
herself.
She'd imagined zooming along at a safe distance, with Moggle closer in, capturing images for her feed.

Yet here she was, taking the most brain-kicking ride of her life, and it wasn't even being recorded!

The ground flashed by below, but the train beside her seemed to be gradually slowing down. The hoverboard was really catching up.

Soon she'd have to climb aboard.

For a second, she thought about veering off, shooting away into the night. She could still kick a secret clique bent on wild tricks and avoiding fame.

Of course, she'd have nothing to prove her story but two crash bracelets, a high-speed board, and a waterlogged hovercam. Except for Eden Mara, she didn't even know any full names. No one would believe her—especially not Hiro.

To get the footage she needed, she had to make the Sly Girls think that Aya Fuse was one of them. And to do that, she had to surf this train.

In the howling wind, she could feel the awesome physical forces all around her, waiting for any mistake. The mag-lev seemed to drift into place beside Aya as her board matched its speed. The hoverboard's autopilot flashed once—it had done its job.

Now Aya was in control.

Jai had warned her about this part. Any sudden shift of weight could send the board crashing against the tram, or spinning away into a passing building.

Ahead of her, Miki was swaying back and forth, testing her control.

Aya held her breath…and lifted the fingers of her right hand. The wind bent them back painfully, and her board shuddered, veering away from the train.

She dragged her fingers back into a fist, and the stabilizers kicked in, steadying the hoverboard. Her whole hand throbbed.

This
was fast. … If only Moggle were watching.

Ahead, Miki was only a meter from the train—another girl farther on was already reaching out a hand toward the roof. Aya had to get onboard before the mag-lev line straightened out.

"Here goes," she said through gritted teeth.

She crooked her left thumb, barely lifting it from the hoverboard's front edge. The board responded more evenly this time, angling toward the steady expanse of the mag-lev's roof. She drifted closer in cautious stages, like handling a kite with minute tugs on its strings. A few meters from the train, her board began to jump and shudder again. Jai had warned her about this, too: the shock wave, an invisible boundary of turbulence stirred up by the train's passage. Aya fought the tumult with twitches and gestures, every muscle straining. Her ears popped with pressure changes, and her eyes streamed tears into the wind.

Suddenly she pulled free of the turbulence, sweeping across the remaining space to bump softly against the metal flank of the train. Aya felt the mag-lev's vibrations buzzing in the board beneath her as its magnets firmed up the connection.

The wind was muted now—she was inside a thin bubble of calm surrounding the train, like the eye of a hurricane.

Aya demagnetized her left crash bracelet, then slowly slid her hand across the board's grippy surface to the roof of the train.

It smacked down hard and secure.

But it was nervous-making, disconnecting her other crash bracelet. The hoverboard was Aya-size, the mag-lev inhumanly huge and powerful. She was like a rat hitching a ride on a stampeding dinosaur.

Shutting her eyes, she pulled her right hand free, then hauled herself up onto the roof and slapped her wrist down.

She'd done it! The tram rumbled below her like an unsettled volcano, and the half-muted wind still tore at her hair and clothes. But Aya was onboard.

The humming rose up around her—the train's smart-matter joints pulling it back straight. She'd made it just in time.

The train's roof stretched out dead straight ahead of her, dotted with nine Sly Girls along its length. Glancing back, the wind whipping handfuls of hair into her mouth, she saw the other three—everyone had made it.

The wind built as the train accelerated, and most of them were already surfing, standing with their arms out to catch the wind. Just like flying, Eden had said.

Aya sighed—as if riding on top of a mag-lev wasn't risky enough without
standing up!

But if the Girls were going to accept her, she'd have to be as crazy as they were. And it wasn't really surfing if you were lying down.

She unthreaded the straps on her right bracelet, pulled it off, and curled up to wrestle it over her foot. It was all very clumsy, but after a minute's fumbling, she had the bracelet strapped tightly around her ankle.

She magnetized it, and felt her shoe plant hard against the metal roof.

Gingerly she released her other wrist…the wind didn't whip her away.

Time for the scary part.

Aya pushed herself up gradually, feet planted wide apart and arms out, like a littlie standing on a hoverboard for the first time. Up ahead, Miki's body was angled sideways into the wind, like a fencer presenting the smallest possible target. Aya imitated her as she stood up. The higher she got, the fiercer the wind grew. Invisible, chaotic whirlwinds buffeted her body, twisting her hair into knots.

But finally Aya was fully upright, every muscle straining.

All around her, the world was a wild blur.

The train had reached the outer edge of the new expansion, where the city grew every day. Banks of work-lights shot past like bright orange comets, earthmovers the size of mansions flitting by. The wild lay just ahead, its dark mass the only steady shape in the maelstrom of lights and noise and rushing wind.

Then the last glow of construction streaked past, and the train plunged into a sea of darkness. As the city network fell behind, Aya's skintenna lost its connection with the city interface. The world was quickly emptied: no feeds, no face ranks, no fame.

As if the screaming wind had stripped everything away.

But somehow Aya didn't miss it all—she was laughing. She felt huge and unstoppable, like a littlie on horseback galloping at breakneck speed.

The train's awesome power flowed across her hands. Angling her palms flat, she felt the airstream lift her up, pulling her against the straps around her ankle, like a bird straining to fly. Every gesture whipped her body into a new stance, as if the wind was an extension of her will. But just ahead, Miki's dark outline was crouching. Something was in her hand…

A yellow light.

"Crap!" Aya angled her palms down and bent her knees.

As she crumpled to the train's roof, something huge and invisible sliced the air overhead, hissing like the blade of a sword whipping past. Its shock wave rang through her body like a blow. Then it was gone. Aya hadn't even seen what it was.

She swallowed, squinting into the wind. Ahead, a string of yellow lights stretched away toward the front of the train. They flicked off one by one, the danger past.

How had she missed them?

"Don't get too excited,"
Jai had warned.
"Or you'll lose your head."
Trembling, she rose slowly from her crouch, her momentary sense of giddy power vanished. The darkness stretched out ahead as far as she could see.

Suddenly Aya Fuse felt very small.

TUNNEL

There were four things Aya was realizing about the wild.

It was formless. The forest rushing by on either side blurred into one impenetrable mass, a roiling void of speed.

It was endless, or maybe time had broken. Whether she'd been surfing for minutes or hours, she had no idea.

Third, the wild had a huge sky, which didn't make sense—it seemed like the sky would be the same size everywhere. But the blackness overhead sprawled out—unmarked by the city's jagged skyline, unstained by reflected light— starlit and vast.

And lastly, it was cold. Though that was probably thanks to the three-hundred-klick wind in Aya's face.

Next time, she was bringing two jackets.

Some time later, Aya saw Miki's outline drop into a crouch. She looked worriedly at the other girls ahead, but no decapitation warning lights were showing.

Miki seemed to be playing with the bracelet around her ankle—then suddenly she was untethered, sliding backward across the train's roof on the seat of her pants, carried by the fierce headwind.

"Miki!" Aya screamed, kneeling and sticking out a hand.

As she slid within Aya's reach, Miki slammed a crash bracelet down, spinning to a halt. She was laughing, the wind whipping her hair in a frenzy around her head.

"Hey, Aya-chan!" she shouted. "How's it going?"

Aya pulled her hand back. "You scared me!"

"Sorry." Miki shrugged. "The wind always carries you straight down the train. Enjoying yourself?" Aya took a deep breath. "Sure. But it's kind of icicle-making."

"No kidding." Miki pulled her standard-requisition shirt up, revealing Rangers' silks. "These work, though."

Aya rubbed her hands together, wishing Jai had warned her about the cold.

"I came back because we're almost in the mountains," Miki shouted, rising to one knee. "That's where the train slows down again."

"And we jump off?"

"Yeah. But the tunnel comes first."

"Oh, right." Aya shivered. "The red-light warning. I almost missed that first yellow."

"Don't worry. It's hard for a mountain to sneak up on you." Miki put her arm around Aya. "And it's not as windy in there."

Aya shivered, huddling closer. "Can't wait."

The mountain range rose slowly from the horizon, black outlines against the starlit sky. As they grew nearer, Aya realized how big the mountains were. The one straight ahead looked wider across than the city's soccer stadium, and much taller than the central tower in town. It ate the sky as they approached, like a wall of blackness rolling toward them.

By now Aya was getting used to the unexpected size of everything out here. She wondered how anyone had managed to cross the wild back in pre-Rusty days, before mag-levs or hoverboards or even groundcars. The scale was enough to drive anyone crazy.

No wonder the Rusties had tried to pave it over.

"Here we go," Miki said, pointing.

At the front of the train, a red light was flickering. Another appeared behind it, a string of seven more igniting like a chain of sparklers.

Miki pulled a flashlight from her pocket and flicked it on. She twisted it to red, then waved it toward the tail of the train.

Aya was already unlacing the bracelet from her ankle. She wanted both wrists magnetized by the time they reached the tunnel.

"You okay?" Miki asked. "You look funny."

"I'm fine." Aya shivered. Suddenly she felt small again, the way she had after the train had first plunged into the wild.

"It's okay if you're not sure yet," Miki said. "I don't just surf because it's fun, you know? It also changes me. And that part takes a while to settle in."

Aya shook her head. She hadn't meant to sound unenthusiastic. The Sly Girls had to believe she was one of them, that she'd embraced their insanity keenly enough to give up kicking for good. But it was true—something had shifted inside Aya, something she didn't quite understand yet. The ride had whipped her so quickly from terror to elation, then just as suddenly to insignificance…