All That Lives Must Die

Fiona figured they’d been on the gym for about five minutes (she made a note to buy a shockproof, waterproof watch after this). So there’d be time to do the right thing and win. But there was no time for Team Falcon if they were breathing methane-so they were the priority.

“Robert, Eliot, and Amanda get down there,” she said. “I’ll be right behind you. Go!”

The boys nodded, Eliot slung his guitar over his back like a samurai sword, and they clambered over the side.

To Mitch she said: “Get up to Jeremy and Sarah. They would have transformed that tar if they could have, so something’s stopping them. Get them free, and then get down to help us.”

Fiona tried to communicate all her concern and her confidence in Mitch with a nod, and failed miserably, she was sure, but Mitch smiled anyway.

“I’m on it,” he said.

Amanda looked at her feet. “I can’t go down there,” she mumbled. “Not near the gas.”

Was Amanda really so much of a coward that she’d let people die? Maybe she was more shaken from those water cannon than Fiona had realized-almost getting knocked off the course and then nearly drowning.

“Okay,” she told her, “go help Mitch.”

Fiona scrutinized the course, a lattice of supports, ramps, stairs, and moving clockwork parts-and the plumes of water and fire that filled the air, mixed smoke and mist. . and then she glanced down. Somewhere down there a cloud of natural gas billowed and expanded, complexly invisible. . and lethal.

The encyclopedic part of Fiona’s mind clicked on. Natural gas was primarily methane, and lighter than air, so it would be rising. If it didn’t ignite off the open flames, it’d displace the oxygen and asphyxiate them all.

Either way-this was not the place to mull over what to do next.

She eased over the edge and climbed down.

Methane was odorless, but the gas companies added mercaptans as a safety feature so it smelled like sulfur.[54]

She hesitated, only a second, but the fear washed over and through her all over again.

No. She had to do this.

That’s what Mr. Ma had been teaching her in the Force of Arms class-to push past doubt and fear on the battlefield-to keep thinking and trying and moving even if it looked like you were going to die.

She continued down. The fear was there, but she could deal with it.

She stepped onto a bamboo platform.

Eliot and Robert were waiting.

So was Team Falcon. All of them passed out (or dead, it was hard to tell) on the floor ten paces away. Near them, but too deep to reach in a tangle of pipes, a ruptured gas line hissed.

Eliot was on one knee and strummed his guitar. Robert stood by him. The notes were a simple scale, but they make the air swell and ripple about them.

Fiona got dizzy.

She ignored the urge to run as fast and far away as she could from the danger, and instead joined Robert and Eliot.

The stink cleared. The air within the circle Eliot had created smelled sweet.

“Can you make this area of clean air bigger?” she whispered. “Or move closer?”

“Methane concentration too high closer,” Eliot said, through gritted teeth. “Trying to expand the circle from here. Still getting used to the steel strings. The methane in the air is. . slippery.”

Fiona stopped asking questions. Eliot had tried to explain the intricacies of his music, and it’d been as enlightening a square trying to explain “corners” to a circle.

Robert looked at her expectantly, and then stepped toward the fallen members of Team Falcon. “They can’t wait any longer.”

Fiona grabbed his arm. If Robert charged in and tried to pull them out one by one, and she’d end up rescuing him, too.

“Agreed,” she said, “but that way is too slow. She nudged Eliot. “Strings?”

Eliot paused a beat. The odor of sulfur rushed back. He ripped off a tiny envelope taped to the back of his guitar and handed it to her. After Lady Dawn had busted a string, he always carried spares.

Eliot went back to playing. The air cooled and the noxious odor again vanished.

Fiona took two strings from the envelope, uncoiled them, stared along their lengths-and the steel wire stiffened straight.

She looked up into the lattice of the course and spotted Sarah, Jeremy, Mitch, and Amanda as they clambered to a pole and slid down to safety. Good. Four less lives to worry about.

“We do this my way,” Fiona said. “Get the rest of them down all at the same time-fast.”

Robert nodded. “A twenty-foot drop.” He looked over the platform that held Team Falcon. “Four supports,” he said. “I’ll take the closest. You get into position near the far two.”

“Then we go together.”

Robert held her gaze. Emotions flashed in his normally too-cool-to-let-anything-show eyes. There was courage and determination. . and worry.

At that moment he had never looked like more of a hero to her, and she knew that she still cared for him.

Fiona looked away. There was no time to feel for Robert now, though.

She took a huge breath and ran.

She jumped over the prone bodies of her classmates and stopped on the far side of the platform-between two telephone poles that held up the bamboo floor.

Robert darted to the other corner. He dropped to all fours, stared at the foot-thick posts, lashing, and bamboo. . and drew back his fist.

He struck.

The wood shattered.

Robert rolled back as the platform, now free from the support, dipped toward the mangled corner.

The brass knuckles he’d worn when he’d displayed such feats of strength before weren’t there. Robert had done that bare fisted. He was stronger, and tougher, and it wasn’t just from the training they were getting in Mr. Ma’s class. Something else was going on with him.

Robert knelt by the post on the far side and looked to her.

Fiona, still holding her breath, nodded.

She held one stiffened steel string in each hand. She looked along one, then the other; the metal glistened. She fixed them both in her thoughts, imagined them thinner and thinner until their leading edges were so fine and sharp that they flickered in and out of existence.

She lashed out-both arms at once, angled to intercept the floor, ropes, and two supporting telephone poles.

Robert punched.

It sounded like shotgun fire-three shells simultaneously blasted as wood cracked, bamboo fractured, and ropes snapped.

The platform hitched and dropped.

Fiona fell along with it and lost her focus. The bamboo floor rushed up and swatted her. She crumpled-hard- and bit her tongue. The edges of her vision blurred.

She spit and shook her head to clear her confusion.

Dust filled the air, but it no longer stank of sulfur.

She shakily stood and saw Robert dragging two Team Falcon boys away by their feet.

Eliot dropped down, too, and helped by picking up and carrying off one of the unconscious girls.

Fiona grabbed the nearest limp body, a boy, and pulled him by his armpits to the relative safety of the grass- far enough from the jungle gym so if it blew up there was a decent chance they wouldn’t all get incinerated.

Mitch, Amanda, and Jeremy and Sarah (both covered in black splotches) appeared as well, and got the remaining members of Team Falcon away from the danger.

Fiona checked the pulse of the boy at her feet. It was weak, but steady. Would there be brain damage?

How could Mr. Ma do such a dangerous thing?