tally had never ridden a hoverboard barefoot before. youngsmokies had all kinds of competitions, carrying weights orriding double, but no one was ever that stupid.
she almost fell off on the first turn, zooming down anew path they’d spiked with scrap metal only a few daysbefore. the moment the board banked, her dirty feet skiddedacross the surface, spinning her halfway around. herarms 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 belowsaw her fly past and realized that someone was making anescape. tally was too busy staying on board to glancedown.
regaining her balance, tally realized she wasn’t wearingcrash bracelets. any fall would be for real. her toes grippedthe board, and she vowed to take the next turn more slowly.
if the sky had been cloudy this morning, the sun wouldn’thave burned the dew off croy’s board yet. she’d be lying ina crumpled heap in the pen, probably with a broken neck.
it was lucky she, like most young smokies, slept with herbelly sensor on.
already, the whine of hovercars taking off came frombehind.
tally knew only two ways out of the smoke by hoverboard.
instinctively, she headed for the railroad tracks whereshe worked every day. the valley dropped behind her, andshe managed to make the tight turn onto the white-waterstream without falling off. with no knapsack and her heavycrash bracelets missing, tally felt practically naked.
croy’s board wasn’t as fast as hers, and it didn’t knowher style. riding it was like breaking in new shoes—whilerunning 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 mightmake it even harder to ride, but the barrier of the trees kepther invisible. she dared a glance backward. no hovercarshad appeared yet.
as she shot down the winding stream, swerving throughthe familiar hard turns, tally thought of all the times she anddavid and shay had raced each other to the work site. shewondered where david was. back in camp, bound and readyto be taken to a city he’d never seen before? would he havehis face filed down and replaced by a pretty mask, his brainturned into whatever mush the authorities decided would beacceptable for a former renegade raised in the wild?
314 scott westerfeldshe shook her head, forcing the image from her mind.
david hadn’t been among the captured resistors. if he’dbeen caught, he definitely would have put up a fight. hemust have escaped.
the roar of a hovercar passed overhead, the shock waveof its passage almost throwing tally from the board. a fewseconds later, she knew it had spotted her, its screamingturn echoing through the forest as it cut back to the river.
shadows passed over tally, and she glanced up to seetwo hovercars following her, their blades shimmering asbright as knives in the midmorning sun. the hovercarscould go anywhere, but tally was limited by her magneticlifters. 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 prettydriver. in a straight line, they were much faster than anyboard. her only advantage was that she knew this pathbackward and forward.
fortunately, it was hardly a straight line.
tally gripped the board with both hands and jumpedfrom the river to the ridge line. the cars disappeared intothe distance, overshooting as she skimmed the iron vein.
but tally was out in the open now, the plains spreading outbelow her as huge as ever.
she noticed fleetingly that it was a perfect day, not acloud in the sky.
tally lay almost flat to cut down wind resistance,uglies 315coaxing every ounce of speed from croy’s board. it didn’tlook like she’d make it to the next cover before the two carshad swung around.
she wondered how they planned to capture her. use astunner? throw a net? simply bowl her over with theirshock 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, louderand louder.
just before the sound reached her, tally dragged herselfinto a full hoverskid, her momentum crushing her downinto the board. the two hovercars shot past ahead, missingby a mile, but the wind of their passage spun her around incircles. the board flipped over and then back upright, tallyhanging on with both arms as the world spun wildlyaround her.
she regained control and urged it forward again, bringingit back to full speed before the hovercars could turnback around. the specials might be faster, but her hoverboardwas more maneuverable.
as the next turn drew near, the hovercars were headedstraight for her, moving slower now, their pilots realizingthat 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 bothhands, tally twisted into the next turn, dropping to skim316 scott westerfeldjust above the cracked dirt of the dry creek bed. she heardthe whine of the hovercars steadily build.
they were tracking her too easily, probably using herbody heat to pick her out among the trees, like the mindersback home. tally remembered the little portable heatershe’d used to sneak out of the dorm so many times. if onlyshe had it now.
then tally remembered the caves that david hadshown her on her first day in the smoke. under the coldstones of the mountain, her body heat would disappear.
she ignored the sound of her pursuers, shooting downthe creek bed and across a spur of ore, then onto the riverthat led to the railroad. she careened along above the water,and the hovercars stayed above tree height, patiently waitingfor her to run out of cover.
as the turnoff to the railroad approached, tallyincreased her speed, skimming the water as fast as shedared. she took the turn at full skid and hurtled down thetrack.
the cars swept away down the river. the specials mighthave expected her to turn off on another river, but thesudden appearance of an old railroad track had surprisedthem. if she could make it to the mountain before the hovercarscompleted their slow turns, she would be safe.
just in time, tally remembered the spot where they hadpulled up the track for scrap metal, and angled her boardfor a stomach-wrenching moment of freefall, soaring overuglies 317the gap in a high arc. the lifters found metal again, andthirty seconds later she came to a skidding halt at the endof the line.
tally jumped from the hoverboard, turned it around,and gave it a shove back toward the river. without hercrash bracelets to pull it back, the board would drift alongthe 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, andstart their search back there.
tally crawled up the boulders and into the cave, scramblingback into the darkness. she pulled herself as far as shecould go, hoping that the tons of stone overhead would beenough to hide her from the specials. when the tiny apertureof light at the mouth of the cave had shrunk to the sizeof an eye, tally dropped to the stone, panting, her handsstill shaking from the flight, telling herself again and againthat she’d made it.
but what had she made it to? she had no shoes, nohoverboard, no friends, not even a water purifier or a packetof spagbol. no home to go back to.
tally was completely alone. “i’m so dead,” she saidaloud.
a voice came out of the dark.
“tally? is that you?”
