Extras (7 page)

She stared out across the dark landscape, trying to untangle her emotions. This feeling was nothing like the obscurity-panic that consumed her when she saw the lights of the city, the horrible certainty that she would never be famous, that all those people would never care about her at all. Somehow, staring into the darkness, she felt contented that the world was so much bigger than her. Overwhelmed, but calm.

"I know what you mean…it's sort of brain-shifting, being out here."

"Good." Miki smiled. "Now get your head down."

"Oh, right. Tunnel."

They lay flat on the train, snapping their crash bracelets down hard. The mountain grew closer and closer, until it towered over them like a huge wave rolling out of a black sea. Squinting ahead, Aya watched the red warning lights disappearing one by one, gobbled by the tunnel's maw along with the front half of the train.

Then, with a vast shudder of the air, darkness swallowed them. The roar of the train redoubled with echoes and reverberations. Aya's whole body felt the difference in the train's vibrations. The tunnel's blackness was a hundred times heavier than the starlight outside, but Aya could feel the tunnel roof sliding past—close enough to reach up and touch, if she wanted to lose a hand. She felt the megatons of rock overhead pressing down, an infinite mass, as if the sky had turned to stone. Seconds ago the mag-lev had seemed huge, but instantly the mountain had dwarfed it, squashing her into the narrow sliver of space between the two.

"Do you feel that?" Miki called.

Aya turned her head. "What?"

"I think we're slowing down."

"Already?" Aya frowned. "Isn't the bend on the other side of the tunnel?"

"It is. But listen."

Aya focused on the tumultuous roar around them. Gradually her ears began to tease apart the sounds. The rumble of the train had a rhythm inside it, the steady beat of some imperfection in the track. And that beat was slowing down.

"You're right. Does the train ever stop in here?"

"Not that I ever heard. Whoa! Feel that?"

"Um, yeah." Aya's body was sliding forward; the train was braking faster now. Her feet spun in a half circle around the bracelets, carried by her own momentum.

The roar and rumble died slowly around them, the train gliding to a graceful, silent stop. The stillness sent tremors across Aya's wind-burned skin.

"Something must have gone wrong with the train," Miki said softly. "Hope they get it fixed fast."

"I thought cargo trains didn't have crews."

"Some do." Miki let out a slow breath. "I guess we wait and—" A light glimmered across the tunnel roof. It came from the right side of the train, flickering unsteadily, like a carried flashlight. For the first time, Aya saw the inside of the tunnel, a smooth cylinder of stone wrapped around the train. The roof was perhaps twenty centimeters from her head. She reached up and touched the cold stone.

"Crap!" Miki hissed. "Our boards!"

Aya swallowed. The hoverboards were still clinging to the right side of the tram, a few meters above head height. If whoever was out there looked up and saw one, they'd definitely wonder what it was.

"Let's see what's going on," Miki whispered. She unlocked her wrists and pulled herself toward the roof's edge.

Aya released her bracelets and crawled after Miki. If the hoverboards had been spotted, they had to warn the others right away.

At the edge of the roof, she and Miki peered over. A group of three figures had crowded into the narrow space between train and stone, flashlights lengthening their shadows into distorted shapes. Aya realized that they were floating, wearing hoverball rigs like Eden's.

But they hadn't seen the boards. They weren't looking at the train at all. All of them stared at the tunnel wall…

It was moving.

The stone of the mountain was transforming, undulating softly and changing colors, like oil floating on top of rippling water. A sound like a humming wineglass filled the tunnel. The air suddenly tasted different in Aya's mouth, like in the wet season when a downpour was about to start. One by one, thin layers of the liquid stone peeled away, until a wide door had opened in the tunnel wall.

The figures' flashlights lanced into its depths, but from atop the train Aya couldn't see inside. She heard echoes from a large space, and saw an orange glow from the doorway playing among the flashlight shadows.

A panel in the train slid open, matching the gap in the tunnel wall. The tram settled slightly on its levitation magnets, descending until the two openings were aligned.

One of the figures moved, and Aya jerked her head back into the shadows. When she peeked out again, all three of them had stepped aside to watch a massive object drift from the opening in the train.

It looked like a cylinder of solid metal, taller than Aya and a meter across. It must have been heavy: The four lifter drones clamped to its base trembled unsteadily, carrying it across the gap with the measured pace of a funeral transport.

Before the object had disappeared into the mountainside, another followed, exactly the same. Then a third emerged.

"Do you see them?" came Miki's soft whisper.

"Yeah. But what are they?"

"Not human.''

"Not…
what?"

Aya glanced at Miki's face and realized that she wasn't watching the metal objects floating past. She was staring wide-eyed at the people down below.

Aya peered through the darkness, and finally saw that the flashlights weren't distorting the figures'

shapes as she'd thought. The people hovering in the gloom were simply
wrong—t
heir legs absurdly stretched and gangly, arms bending in too many places, fingers as long as calligraphy brushes. And their faces…the large eyes were set too wide, the skin hairless and pale.

As Miki had said: not human.

Aya let out a shallow gasp, and Miki pulled her back from the edge. They lay there side by side, Aya's eyes squeezed shut, her heart pounding as she imagined one of those spindly hands reaching up onto the top of the train and grasping her.

She forced herself to breathe slowly, clenching her fists until the panic subsided. Finally she slid to the edge of the train once more and looked down, wishing for the hundredth time tonight that Moggle was hovering at her shoulder. But she had only her own eyes and brain. The inhuman figures still floated there, watching a procession of lifter drones glide from the tunnel door into the train. They carried chairs and wallscreens, food synthesizers and industrial water recyclers, countless garbage canisters. Even a full aquarium balanced between two lifters, the bubbler still rumbling, fish darting around unhappily inside.

Someone was obviously moving out of the hidden tunnel space…but what were those metal things they'd moved
in?

At last, the train slid shut, and the air began to hum again. Dark strands wove across the opening in the tunnel wall, like a time-lapse of a spider building a web. Then rippling layers began to roll across them, until the gap was completely covered.

"Smart matter," whispered Miki beside her.

As Aya nodded, the surface shivered one last time, then turned into a perfect imitation of stone. The flashlights flickered off, dropping the tunnel back into absolute darkness.

"Come on," Miki whispered, pulling her back toward the centerline of the train. Soon it shuddered into motion, and the wind began to swirl around them again. "We'll be jumping off soon, and we can tell the others."

"But who were those people, Miki?" Aya said.

"I think you mean,
what
were they?"

"Yeah." Aya lay there exhausted in the rumbling darkness, trying to replay in her mind what she'd seen. She needed time to think; she needed the city interface. And most of all, she needed Moggle. This story had just gotten much more complicated.

RESCUE

"You know, when I waterproofed Moggle, I didn't think you'd ever
need
it."

"Sorry," Aya sighed. She'd said "sorry" about a thousand times since meeting up with Ren this morning; even she had to admit it was getting old. "Um, I mean, it won't happen again." Ren dropped his gaze back to the motionless black water. "You still haven't told me how it happened in the first place."

"They must have snuck up on Moggle. They used a lock-down clamp, I'm pretty sure." Aya stepped to the front edge of her hoverboard, peering down. She wasn't even certain if she had the right spot. Her memories of that night were all shadows and chaos, and now Ren's hoverlamps were illuminating the underground reservoir with a cheery glow. Nothing matched the images in her mind.

"They dropped it here, I think."

"They…the Sly Girls, you mean?"

"Yes, Ren, they're real. You just haven't seen them because they don't like kickers very much." She pointed at the black surface. "Hence my hovercam under water." He snorted, thumbs twiddling with the instrument in his hands, his eyescreens spinning. Ren made his own trick-boxes, gadgets that could talk to any machine in the city. "Well, they used a serious clamp. Moggle isn't showing up at all: no city signal, no private feed, not even battery flicker." Aya groaned, and the sound glanced across the still surface of the water, echoed off the ancient brick walls in a chorus of defeat. The reservoir was even bigger than she remembered, vast enough to store the whole rainy season. Finding one little hovercam down here would be impossible.

"What are we going to do?"

"Well, us tech-heads have a saying: If you can't use the kickest new technology, just use your eyes." He fiddled with his gadget's controls, and one of the little hoverlamps focused into a blinding spotlight straight down into the water. The hoverlamp flew toward Aya, sliding to a stop beside her, illuminating the depths of the reservoir.

Aya eased her hoverboard down to the water's surface and knelt to peer into its depths.

"Whoa … we actually drink this stuff?"

"They filter it first, Aya-chan."

The water was murky, speckled with suspended dirt and debris carried down by the storm drains. It smelled like damp earth and rotten leaves.

"Does this light get any stronger?"

"Maybe this will help." He flicked his hand, and the hoverlamp descended until its nose broke the surface.

The spotlight grew in intensity, and a half sphere of luminous water bloomed beneath Aya, as if she was hovering above an upside-down sunset in shades of green and brown. She could finally see the bottom of the reservoir: a fine layer of silt, twigs, and construction rubbish with a few spots of ancient brickwork showing through.

But no Moggle.

"Hmm, this might be the wrong spot."

"Too bad." Ren lay back and stretched out on his hoverboard, staring at the arched ceiling. He raised his arms out in front of him, gesturing through the start-up sequence of some thumb-twitch game.

"Let me know when you find the right one."

"But Ren-chan—"

"See you later, cam-loser."

She started to protest again, but Ren's eyescreens started blinking a full immersion pattern, his fingers flexing and twitching—he was deep in the game.

Aya let out a sigh, stretching out facedown on her board, her chin resting on the front end. She let herself drift slowly across the water, peering down through the luminous muck. Ren had been right about one thing: This was definitely boring. Every time the hoverlamp obediently followed her, its nose rippled the surface, and Aya had to wait for the water to settle before she could see again. She spotted a few surprising bits of rubbish—a boomerang, the remains of a crumpled box kite, a broken warbody sword—but still no Moggle. She could see why Ren would rather play games than stare into the bottom of a garbage-filled lake.

At least all her test scores yesterday had been aces, and her littlie-watching duty after lunch would build up the last few merits she needed for some black camo paint for Moggle. When this story finally kicked, she'd be famous enough to never worry about merit-grubbing again.

As Aya peered into the underground lake's mysterious depths, her thoughts returned to what she and Miki had seen last night. What was so secret that you had to hide it in a mountain? And why had those people looked so strange? Even the most serious surge-monkeys never bent their bodies
that
far out of shape.

The Sly Girls were headed out again tonight to look for clues. Ren had given Aya a spy-cam the size of a shirt button, but it was only good for grainy close-ups. To capture the Girls in all their eye-kicking glory, Moggle had to be sneaking along behind.

Down in the depths, a small silt-covered bump rose from the reservoir floor.

"Moggle?" she murmured, rubbing her eyes.

It was the perfect shape and size, like a soccer ball cut in half.

"Hey, Ren," she cried.
"Ren!"

His immersion blinker sputtered to a halt, the eye-screen glaze slipping from his face.

"Moggle's down there!"

He stretched his arms, swinging his legs over the side of his hoverboard. "Great. Time for stage two, which is
much
more kick."

"Good. I was kind of getting bored."

He smiled. "Believe me, you won't find this boring."

Stage two turned out to involve a tank of compressed helium the size of a fire extinguisher, with a limp weather balloon hanging from its nozzle.

Aya stared at the contraption. "I don't get it."

Ren tossed her the tank, and Aya grunted under its weight. Her board dipped for a moment before the lifters compensated, smacking flat against the water.