“this is a joke, right?”

shay didn’t answer. they were back in the heart of theruins, in the shadow of the tallest building around. she wasstaring up at it with a puzzled expression on her face. “ithink i remember how to do this,” she said.

“do what?”

“get up there. yeah, here it is.”

shay eased her board forward, ducking to pass througha gap in the crumbling wall.

“shay?”

“don’t worry. i’ve done this before.”

“i think i already had my initiation for tonight, shay.”

tally wasn’t in the mood for another one of shay’s jokes.

she was tired, and it was a long way back to town. and shehad cleanup duty tomorrow at her dorm. just because itwas summer didn’t mean she could sleep all day.

but tally followed shay through the gap. arguingwould probably take longer.

they rose straight into the air, the boards using themetal skeleton of the building to climb. it was creepy beinginside, looking out of the empty windows at the raggedshapes of other buildings. like being a rusty ghost watchingas its city crumbled over the centuries.

the roof was missing, and they emerged to a spectacularview. the clouds had all disappeared, and moonlightbrought the ruins into sharp relief, the buildings like rowsof broken teeth. tally saw that it really had been the oceanshe’d glimpsed from the roller coaster. from up here, thewater shone like a pale band of silver in the moonlight.

shay pulled something from her shoulder pack andtore it in half.

the world burst into flame.

“ow! blind me, why don’t you!” tally cried, coveringher eyes.

“oh, yeah. sorry.” shay held the safety sparkler at arm’slength. it crackled to full strength in the silence of the ruins,casting flickering shadows through the interior of the ruin.

shay’s face looked monstrous in the glare, and sparksfloated downward to be lost in the depths of the wreckedbuilding.

finally, the sparkler ran out. tally blinked, trying toclear the spots from before her eyes. her night vision ruined,she could hardly see anything except the moon in the sky.

she swallowed, realizing that the sparkler would havebeen seen from anywhere in the valley. maybe even out tosea. “shay, was that a signal?”

70 scott westerfeld“yeah, it was.”

tally looked down. the dark buildings below werefilled with phantom flickers of light, echoes of the sparklerburned into her eyes. suddenly very aware of how blindshe was, tally felt a drop of cold sweat creep down herspine. “who are we meeting, anyway?”

“his name’s david.”

“david? that’s a weird name.” it sounded made up, totally. she decided again that this was all a joke. “so he’s justgoing to show up here? this guy doesn’t really live in theruins, does he?”

“no. he lives pretty far away. but he might be close by.

he comes here sometimes.”

“you mean, he’s from another city?”

shay looked at her, but tally couldn’t read her expressionin the darkness. “something like that.”

shay returned her gaze to the horizon, as if looking fora signal in answer to her own. tally wrapped herself in herjacket. standing still, she began to realize how cold it hadbecome. she wondered how late it was. without her interfacering, she couldn’t just ask.

the almost full moon was descending in the sky, so ithad to be past midnight, tally remembered from astronomy.

that was one thing about being outside the city: itmade all that nature stuff they taught in school seem a lotmore useful. she remembered now how rainwater fell onthe mountains, and soaked into the ground before bubblinguglies 71up full of minerals. then it made its way back to the sea,cutting rivers and canyons into the earth over the centuries.

if you lived out here, you could ride your hoverboard alongthe rivers, like in the really old days before the rusties,when the not-as-crazy pre-rusties traveled around in smallboats made from trees.

her night vision gradually returned, and she scannedthe horizon. would there really be another flare out there,answering shay’s? tally hoped not. she’d never met anyonefrom another city. she knew from school that in some citiesthey spoke other languages, or didn’t turn pretty until theywere eighteen, and other weird stuff like that. “shay, maybewe should head home.”

“let’s wait a while longer.”

tally bit her lip. “look, maybe this david isn’t aroundtonight.”

“yeah, maybe. probably. but i was hoping he’d be here.”

she turned to face tally. “it would be really cool if you methim. he’s . . . different.”

“sounds like it.”

“i’m not making this up, you know.”

“hey, i believe you,” tally said, although with shay, shewas never totally sure.

shay turned back to the horizon, chewing on a fingernail.

“okay, i guess he’s not around. we can go, if you want.”

“it’s just that it’s really late, and a long way back. andi’ve got cleanup tomorrow.”

72 scott westerfeldshay nodded. “me too.”

“thanks for showing me all this, shay. it was all reallyincredible. but i think one more cool thing would kill me.”

shay laughed. “the roller coaster didn’t kill you.”

“just about.”

“forgive me for that yet?”

“i’ll let you know, skinny.”

shay laughed. “okay. but remember not to tell anyoneabout david.”

“hey, i promised. you can trust me, shay. really.”

“all right. i do trust you, tally.” she bent her knees, andher board started to descend.

tally took one last look around, taking in the ruinssplayed out below them, the dark woods, the pearly strip ofriver stretching toward the glowing sea. she wondered ifthere was anyone out there, really, or if david was just somestory that uglies made up to scare one another.

but shay didn’t seem scared. she seemed genuinely disappointedthat no one had answered her signal, as if meetingdavid would have been even better than showing offthe rapids, the ruins, and the roller coaster.

whether he was real or not, tally thought, david wasvery real to shay.

they left through the gap in the wall and flew to the outskirtsof the ruins, then followed the vein of iron up out ofthe valley. at the ridge, the boards started to stutter, anduglies 73they stepped off. tired as tally was, carrying the boarddidn’t seem so impossible this time. she had stopped thinkingof it as a toy, like a littlie’s balloon. the hoverboard hadbecome something more solid, something that obeyed itsown rules, and that could be dangerous, too.

tally figured that shay was right about one thing: beingin the city all the time made everything fake, in a way. likethe buildings and bridges held up by hoverstruts, or jumpingoff a rooftop with a bungee jacket on, nothing was quitereal there. she was glad shay had taken her out to the ruins.

if nothing else, the mess left by the rusties proved thatthings could go terribly wrong if you weren’t careful.

close to the river the boards lightened up, and the twoof them jumped on gratefully.

shay groaned as they got their footing. “i don’t knowabout you, but i’m not taking another step tonight.”

“that’s for sure.”

shay leaned forward and eased her board out onto theriver, wrapping her dorm jacket around her shouldersagainst the spray of the rapids. tally turned to take one lastlook back. with the clouds gone, she could just see theruins from here.

she blinked. there seemed to be the barest flicker comingfrom over where the roller coaster had been. maybe itwas just a trick of the light, a reflection of moonlight fromsome exposed piece of unrusted metal. “shay?” she saidsoftly.

74 scott westerfeld“you coming or what?” shay shouted over the roar ofthe river.

tally blinked again, but couldn’t make out the flickeranymore. in any case, they were too far away. mentioning itto shay would only make her anxious to go back. therewas no way tally was making the hike again.

and it probably was nothing.

tally took a deep breath and shouted, “come on,skinny. race you!” she urged her board onto the river, cuttinginto the cold spray and for a moment leaving a laughingshay behind.