Tally looked down at her still-tingling hand. Then she reached out with it and touched Shay's cheek. 'Thank you.'
Shay shook her head. 'No thanks necessary, Tally-wa. Not after the way you looked back in Zane's room. I hate seeing you all miserable like that. It's just not special.'
'Sorry, Boss.'
Shay laughed and tugged her into motion again, off the river and toward the factory belt, descending to normal flying height. 'Like you said, you didn't leave me behind last night, Tally-wa. So we're not leaving Zane behind either.'
'And we'll get Fausto back, too.'
Shay turned back toward her and half-grinned. 'Oh right, let's not forget about poor Fausto. And that other little bonus…what was that again?'
Tally took a deep breath. 'The end of the New Smoke.'
'Good girl. Any more questions?'
'Yeah, one: Where are we going to find something that can cut orbital alloy?'
Shay spun in one complete circle on her board, holding a finger in front of her lips.
'Somewhere very special, Tally-wa,' she whispered. 'Follow me, and all will be revealed.'
'You weren't kidding about dangerous, were you, Boss?' Shay chuckled. 'Backing out already, Tally- wa?'
'Not a chance,' Tally whispered. The cutting had left her restless, full of energy demanding to be expended.
'Good girl.' Shay grinned at her through the tall grass. Their skintennas were shut down so that the city records wouldn't reveal they'd been here tonight, and Shay's voice sounded tinny and far away. 'Zane will get mega-bubbly points if they think he organized a trick like this.'
'That's for sure,' Tally whispered, staring up at the formidable building before them.
Back when she was little, older uglies had sometimes joked about sneaking into the Armory. But no one had ever been stupid enough to actually try.
She remembered all the rumors. The Armory held every registered piece of hardware the city possessed: handguns and armored vehicles, spy-tech, ancient tools and technologies, even strategic, city-killing weapons. Only a select few people had ever been allowed inside; the defenses were mostly automatic.
The dark, windowless building was surrounded by a wide-open field marked with the flashing red lights of a no-fly zone. The grounds were ringed with sensors, and four auto-cannon guarded the Armory's corners, serious defenses in case some unthinkable war ever broke out between the cities.
This place wasn't designed to warn trespassers off. It was designed to kill them.
'Ready for some fun, Tally-wa? '
Tally looked at Shay's intense expression, and felt her own heart beating faster. She flexed her wounded hand. 'Always, Boss.'
They crept back through the grass to their hoverboards, which waited behind a giant, automated factory. As they ascended toward its roof, Tally zipped up the front of her sneak suit and felt its scales do a little boot-up dance. Her arms turned black and blurry-looking, the scales angling themselves to deflect radar waves.
She frowned. 'They'll know that whoever did this had sneak suits, won't they?'
'I already told Dr. Cable about the Smokies going invisible on us. So maybe they loaned the Crims some toys.' Shay flashed a razor smile, then pulled her hood over her head, turning herself into a faceless silhouette. Tally did the same.
'Ready to go ballistic?' Shay asked, pulling on gloves. Her voice was altered by the mask, and she looked like a person-shaped smudge against the horizon, her outline blurred by the random angles of the scales.
Tally swallowed. The hood over her mouth made her breath hot against her face, like she was suffocating. 'Ready when you are, Boss.'
Shay snapped her fingers, and Tally crouched, counting off ten long seconds in her head. The boards began to buzz as they slowly built magnetic charge, the fan blades spinning up to just below take-off speed…
On ten, Tally's board leaped into the air, pushing her down into a squat. The fans screamed all the way up to maximum, angling her toward the Armory like an arcing firework. A few seconds later, they shut down, and Tally found herself soaring through the dark sky in silence, excitement rushing through her once again.
She knew this plan was crazy, but the danger filled her mind with iciness. And soon Zane would be able to feel this way too…Halfway across, Tally grabbed the board and pulled it to her body, hiding its surface behind her radar-deflecting suit. Tally glanced over her shoulder—she and Shay were soaring over the no-fly barrier, high enough to escape the motion sensors on the ground. No alarms sounded as they passed the perimeter, falling silently toward the Armory's roof. Maybe this was going to be easy. It had been two centuries since there had been any serious conflict among the cities—no one really believed that humanity would ever go to war again. Besides, the Armory's automatic defenses were designed to repel a major attack, not a couple of burglars looking to borrow a handheld tool.
She felt another smile grow on her face. This was the first time the Cutters had dared to trick the city itself. It was almost like ugly days again.
The roof rushed toward her, and Tally held her board over her head, hanging from it like a parachute. A few seconds before she hit, the lifting fans burst to life, bringing her to a sudden halt. Tally landed softly, as easy as stepping from a slidewalk.
The board cut off and settled into her hands. She lowered it gently to the roof. They could make no sound from now on, communicating only with sign language and through their suits' contacts.
A few meters away, Shay held both thumbs up.
With soft, careful steps, the two made their way to the doors in the center of the roof, where hovercars entered and exited. Tally saw a seam down the middle where they would open up.
She touched her fingertips to Shay's, letting the suits carry her whisper. 'Can we cut through this?'
Shay shook her head. 'This whole building's made of orbital alloy, Tally. If we could cut through it, we could free Zane ourselves.'
Tally scanned the roof, seeing no signs of access doors. 'I guess we go with your plan then.'
Shay drew her knife. 'Get down.'
Tally flattened herself against the roof, feeling her suit's scales shift to match its texture.
Shay threw the knife hard, then hit the ground herself. It arced beyond the building's edge, spinning out into the darkness and toward the sensor-strewn grass.
Seconds later, earsplitting alarms shrieked from all directions. The metal surface beneath them jolted, the doors parting with a rusty groan. A tornado of dust and dirt leaped from the gap, a monstrous machine rising in its midst.
It was barely bigger than a pair of hoverboards lashed together, but it looked heavy—four lifting fans screamed with the effort of hauling it through the air. As it emerged, the machine seemed to grow, unfolding wings and claws with shuddering alien movements, like a giant metal insect being born. Its bulbous body bristled with weaponry and sensors.
Tally was used to robots; cleaning and gardening drones were everywhere in New Pretty Town. But those looked like amiable toys. Everything about the mechanism above her—its jerky movements, its black armor, the shrieking blades of its fans—seemed inhuman and dangerous and cruel.
It hovered for a nervous-making moment, and Tally thought it had spotted them, but then the fans twisted at a sharp angle, and the thing shot off in the direction that Shay had thrown her knife.
Tally turned just in time to see Shay rolling through the still-open hovercar doors. She followed, slipping into darkness just as they began to lurch closed…
And found herself falling, tumbling down a lightless shaft. Her infrared only transformed the blackness into an incomprehensible riot of shapes and colors flying past.
She dragged her feet and hands against the smooth metal wall, trying to slow herself, but skidded downward until one grippy toe jammed into a fissure. She came to a momentary halt.
Scrambling for a handhold, Tally found nothing but slick metal. She was tipping over backward, her toe losing its grip…
