Part 29 (1/2)
”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 s.h.i.+ngles 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 s.h.i.+ngle, 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 s.h.i.+mmering 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.