The liquid began to sizzle, and the smell of burning plastic filled the museum.
The alarm changed tone, and in one corner of the room a tiny door popped open, disgorging two little hoverdrones. Shay leaped toward them and whacked one with the rifle butt, sending it into the wall. The second dodged around her and let loose a spray of black foam at the silver liquid.
Shay's next swing choked the spray off. She leaped across the growing silver spider on the floor. 'Get ready to jump.'
'Jump where?'
'Down.'
Tally looked at the floor again, and saw that the spilled liquid was sinking. The silvery spider was melting its way straight through the ceramic floor.
Even inside the cool of her sneak suit, Tally felt the heat from wild chemical reactions. The smell of burnt plastic and charred ceramic had become choking.
Tally took another step back. 'What is that stuff?'
'It's hunger, in nano form. It eats pretty much everything, and makes more of itself.'
Tally took another step back. 'What stops it?'
'What am I, a historian?' Shay rubbed her feet in a patch of the black foam. 'This stuff should help. Whoever runs this place probably has an emergency plan.'
Tally looked up at the crumbly, who had reached the top shelf, his eyes wide with fear. She hoped that climbing the walls and panicking wasn't the whole plan.
The floor groaned underneath them, then cracked, and the center of the slivery spider dropped out of sight. Tally gawked for a moment, realizing that the nanos had eaten their way through the floor in less than a minute. Tendrils of silver remained behind, still spreading in all directions, still hungry.
'Down we go,' Shay cried. She stepped gingerly to the edge of the hole, peered down, then cannonballed through.
Tally took a step forward.
'Wait!' the crumbly cried. 'Don't leave me!'
She looked back—one of the tendrils had reached the shelf he was clinging to, and was swiftly spreading up into the jumble of ancient weapons and equipment.
Tally sighed, leaping up onto the shelf next to him. She whispered in his ear, 'I'm saving you. But if you mess with me I'll feed you to that stuff!'
The voice distortion that hid her identity turned the words into a monstrous growl, and the man only whimpered. She prized his fingers from the shelf, balanced his weight across her shoulders, and jumped back down to an untouched part of the museum floor.
Smoke filled the room now, and the crumbly was coughing hard. It was as hot as a sauna, and it was dripping inside Tally's sneak suit, the first time she'd sweated since turning special.
Another section of the museum floor fell through with a crash, leaving a gaping view of the room below. The soccer field full of machines was ribboned with silver tendrils, one of the giant vehicles already half-consumed.
The Armory was fighting back against the hungry nanos in earnest now. Small flying craft filled the air, frantically spraying black foam. Shay hopped from machine to machine, whacking them with the rifle, helping the goo spread.
It was a long drop, but Tally didn't have much choice. The shelves had begun to tilt as the nanos consumed their bases.
She took a deep breath and jumped, the old man on her shoulders screaming the whole way down.
Landing atop one of the machines, she grunted under the crumbly's weight, then dropped to an untouched bit of floor. The hungry silver goo was close, but she managed to dance to a halt, grippy shoes squeaking like panicked mice.
Shay paused in her battle with the sprayer drones for a moment and pointed over Tally's head. 'Watch out!'
Before Tally could even look up, she heard the creaking sound of another collapse. She hopped away, avoiding tendrils of silver and blotches of slippery-looking black foam. It was like some littlies' game of hopscotch, but with lethal consequences if she made a mistake.
Reaching the other end of the room, Tally heard more of the ceiling collapse behind her. The contents of the museum's shelves rained down on the construction machines, two of which had been turned into boiling masses of silver. The sprayer drones were trying to cover them with black foam.
Tally dumped the crumbly into a heap on the floor and checked the ceiling directly overhead. They weren't below the museum anymore, but the silver stuff would keep spreading even through the walls. Was it going to eat the whole building?
Maybe that was Shay's plan. The foam seemed to be working, but Shay leaped from safe spot to safe spot laughing, swinging at the sprayer drones, preventing them from getting the outbreak under control.
The alarm changed tone again, shifting to an evacuation warning.
Which seemed like a good idea to Tally.
She turned to the crumbly. 'How do we get out of here?'
He coughed into a fist. The smoke was filling even this giant room. 'The trains.'
'Trains?'
He pointed downward. 'Subways. Just below ground level. How did you get in here? Who are you, anyway?'
Tally groaned. Subway trains? Their boards were on the roof, but the only way up was through the hovercraft bay, full of deadly machines that would be very awake by now…
They were trapped.
Suddenly, one of the huge vehicles sprang to life.
It looked like some piece of old farm equipment, the sharp metal threshers across its front slowly beginning to spin. It struggled to turn, working its way out of its cramped parking space.
'Boss!' Tally called. 'We need to get out of here!'
Before Shay could answer, the whole building rumbled. One of the construction machines had been turned entirely into silver goo and was starting to sink through the floor.
'Look out below,' Tally said softly.
'This way!' Shay cried, her voice barely audible in all the commotion.
Tally turned to pick up the crumbly.
'Don't touch me!' he cried. 'They'll save me if you just get away from me!'
She paused, then saw that two little sprayer drones were hovering protectively over his head
Tally dashed across the room, hoping the floor wasn't about to collapse. Shay was waiting for her, swinging the rifle to protect a growing web of silver on the wall. 'We can get through here. Then past the next wall. We have to reach outside sooner or later, right?'
'Right…,' Tally said. 'Unless that thing crushes us.' The farming machine was still struggling free of its parking space. As they watched, a bulldozer next to it started up, rolling out of its way. The larger machine untangled itself and began to roll toward them.
Shay looked back at the wall. 'Almost big enough!'
The hole was widening quickly now, its silver edges glowing with heat. Shay pulled something from one of her sneak suit's pouches and hurled it through.
'Duck!'
'What was that?' Tally shouted, crouching down.
'An old grenade. I just hope it still—'
A flash of light and a deafening roar came through the hole.
'… works. Come on!' Shay ran a few steps toward the lumbering farm machine, skidded to a halt, then turned and faced the hole.
'But it's not big enough…'
Shay ignored her, diving through. Tally swallowed. If one drop of the silver stuff had gotten on Shay…
And she was supposed to follow?
The rumble of the farm machine reminded her that she didn't have much choice. It had detoured around the
