like someone had squashed it in a sushi maker.
'Look,' Hiro said.
Moggle was making its way across the smoldering ruin of the camo netting with Frizz in tow, the smoke swirling around them.
'Are you okay?' she pinged.
'A little singed,' Frizz said. 'But we got some awesome shots.'
Aya shook her head, for once not caring if any of this was recorded. At last all the threads of the last two weeks made sense, the truth assembling itself like an Extras' ship out of scattered bits of scrap. It was a relief, no longer having to struggle with unwieldy facts and her own total lack of Radical Honesty.
As Frizz landed and took her gently into his arms, a brain-calming hum traveled through Aya's battered body, like a perfect edit falling into place.
She'd finally gotten this story right.
'Remind me again why I'm doing this.'
'To show your support.' Aya adjusted the sparkles on Tally's gown, then took a step back to admire them. 'You're the most famous person in the world, Tally-wa. If you tell everyone you're behind the Extras, they'll get a lot more recruits.'
'And less hassle for all that metal they grabbed,' Fausto added. He adjusted his necktie. 'And for kidnapping everyone who saw them.'
'Plus, Tally-wa,' Shay said, straightening her hair. 'We haven't been to a party in ages!'
Tally just grunted, looking at herself doubtfully in Aya's huge wallscreen. Her ball gown was rippling smart matter and velvet, as black as night and shimmering like starlight. Perfect for the Thousand Faces Party.
'Don't look so glum,' Shay said. 'You used to wear stuff like that all the time.'
'Yeah, back when I was a bubblehead.'
Aya tried to picture Tally perpetually happy and clueless, and shook her head. Even in the ball gown, Tally was still a total Cutter, her face and bare arms laced with flash tattoos and scars.
'You know,' Aya said softly, 'there's still time to fix those if you want.'
'No chance.' Tally ran one finger down her arm. 'They remind me of things I don't want to forget.'
'You look beautiful,' David said. He was wearing one of Hiro's antique silk jackets, having proclaimed that anything from a hole in the wall made him nervous. He'd been jumpy since he and Tally had arrived from Singapore that afternoon, as if the city was too cramped for him.
Aya's apartment was a little crowded tonight. All nine of them were here?Aya, Frizz, Hiro, and Ren; Andrew, David, and the three Cutters?everyone who'd featured in the Leaving Home story. It had kicked two days ago, and all of them were in the top one thousand. Nowhere but Shuffle Mansion had enough security to keep the paparazzi cams at bay.
At least there was room for everyone here. Upon her return home, Aya had found her apartment twice as big as when she'd left, expanding in proportion to her fame. Maybe face rank wasn't everything, but there were some advantages to being the third-most-famous person in the city.
'I still don't see why we have to go to this stupid party,' Tally said. 'Couldn't I do some kind of feed announcement?'
Aya frowned. 'That won't be any fun. And it won't help the Extras nearly as much.'
'Plus,' David said, 'we sort of owe them for a couple of dozen spaceships.'
'I guess.' Tally gave her ball gown one last glum stare.
Shay chuckled. 'They're just lucky we didn't use nanos.'
When they stepped outside, swarms of hovercams were waiting.
'Okay,' Tally said. 'I officially hate this city.'
Aya took a deep breath, but couldn't find it in herself to argue. It was getting annoying, being followed everywhere, constantly pinged and cam-swarmed, her hairstyle imitated by littlies, her nose mocked on slammer feeds. Sometimes Aya wondered if she'd ever get any privacy again.
Even her own hovercam made her a little nervous these days. Ren had taken it apart and removed the Extras' mods, but Aya still had nightmares full of betrayal and swarms of talking Moggles.
But it was useless pretending not to enjoy her single-digit face rank. After all, here she was with her famous friends, all headed toward Nana Love's party, a smile on her face and Moggle in tow to capture every second.
'So how do we get through those things?' Tally asked.
'Glitter bombs?' Fausto suggested.
'Nanos!' Shay cried.
'None of the above!' Aya said. 'You don't always have to blow stuff up, Tally-wa. In this city you've got a reputation bubble.'
'A what?'
'Just start walking, and they'll give you room.'
Tally took a few steps forward, and the wall of hovercams curved away from Shuffle Mansions fifty-meter boundary. David took her arm and pulled Tally farther along, and soon they were headed into the night, an almost perfect sphere of hovercams surrounding them.
'This is very strange,' Andrew Simpson Smith said. 'Are all cities like this?'
'Not really,' Tally answered. 'After the mind-rain, this one went particularly brain-missing.'
'The reputation economy isn't brain-missing!' Hiro said. He'd been practicing English with Andrew Simpson Smith over the last few days, and enjoyed spouting long sentences. 'Wanting to be famous motivates people, which makes the world more interesting!'
Tally snorted. 'I've seen that motivation at work, Hiro. It leads to some truth-slanting, too.'
Aya sighed, wondering when Tally was going to let it go. Most of the feeds had already gotten over the mistakes in her City Killer story. They had better things to kick, now that Aya Fuse had given them a new future to speculate about, a whole new kind of Extra.
And, unlike certain people, she hadn't blown anything up.
Nana Love's mansion was filled with astonishing sights.
The NeoFoodies were there in force, showing off their new aerogel, both edible and smart. It floated overhead, changing forms and flavors as the night went on, contesting with the hovercams for valuable airspace.
The surge-monkeys were all playing Extra, with wide eyes and pale skin, though most stopped short of prehensile toes. Hoverball rigs set to zero-g were fashion-making too, though Hiro kept muttering about how everyone could use some training.
Glittercams, newly invented for this party, were everywhere. Hovering at eye level like nosey fireflies, each recorded only a few pixels, from which city interface assembled a continuous image?everyone in the city could navigate through the party as if they'd sent their own invisible hovercam.
Of course, it wasn't long before the glittercams had annoyed Tally. She swatted a handful to the ground, and the rest retreated into a respectful reputation bubble. Before long Tally had vanished into the recesses of Nana Love's mansion, the other Cutters in tow.
'Good evening, Aya,' a familiar voice said in English.
Aya looked up to find Udzir floating next to Moggle, dressed in a formal sari and holding a champagne glass in one set of curved toes.
She bowed, hiding her expression. The Extras still gave her the creeps, even after Udzir had explained their surge in detail. The Extras' pale skin was to help produce vitamin D from the barest sliver of sunlight. Even the wide-set eyes made sense?the first orbital habitats would be so cramped that normal depth perception wasn't necessary.
Still, the overall effect was unsettling.
'I hope you're enjoying the party,' she said.
'Indeed. It was kind of you to arrange an invitation.'
'It wasn't me,' Aya said. As the new face of extraterrestrial humanity, Udzir's fame was top one hundred.
