Tally shook her head. She could hear the weakness in Shay's voice now. If she hadn't been so groggy, she would have seen it from the start. The real Shay wouldn't have been so worried about some random warden's wrist. And the real Shay—special Shay—would never have forgiven Tally so easily.
'You want to make me like you! Like Fausto and the Smokies tried to do!'
'No, I don't,' Shay said. 'I need you the way you—'
Before Shay could utter another word, Tally turned and started running for the opposite edge of the roof as quickly as she could. She had no crash bracelets, no bungee jacket, but she could still climb like a Special. If Shay was as soft as Fausto, she would no longer be as reckless. Tally could just escape this crazy city, and get help from home…
'Stop her!' Shay cried.
Faceless human forms flickered into being among the shapes of exhaust chimneys and antennas. They leaped out of the darkness at Tally, grabbing at her arms and legs.
This was all a trap. 'Don't turn on your skintenna,' Shay had said, so the rest of them could talk to each other silently, plotting against her.
Tally threw a punch, her wounded fist connecting painfully with an armored suit. A faceless Cutter gripped her arm, but Tally turned her suit slippery and pulled away. She let her momentum carry her into a backward roll, springing up from the ground, leaping to the top of a tall exhaust pipe.
She struggled to pull her suit hood down over her face, to turn invisible before they reached her, but a pair of gloved hands grasped Tally's ankles, pulling her feet out from under her. As she fell from the pipe, another figure caught her. Still more hands grabbed her arms, checking her wild flurry of blows, and with a gentle strength dragged her back down to the roof.
Tally struggled, but special or not, there were too many of them.
They pulled off their hoods—Ho, Tachs, all the other Cutters. Shay had gotten every one of them.
They smiled softly at her, an awful, average kindness in their eyes. Tally struggled, waiting for the sting of an injection in her bare neck.
Shay stood before her, shaking her head. 'Tally, would you just relax?'
Tally spat at her, 'You said you were saving me.'
'I am. If you'd settle down and listen.' Shay let out an exasperated sigh. 'After Fausto gave me the cure, I called the Cutters. I told them to meet me halfway here. On our way back to Diego, I cured them one by one.'
Tally looked around at their faces—a few of them grinning at her as if she were some littlie who wasn't in on a joke—and saw no doubts, no hint of rebellion against Shay's words. They were sheep now, no better than bubbleheads.
Her anger faded into despair. All of their brains had been infected with nanos, made weak and pitiful. Tally was completely alone.
Shay spread her hands. 'Listen, we just got back here today. I'm sorry that the Smokies tried to jump you; I wouldn't have let them. This cure isn't what you need, Tally.'
'Then let me go!' Tally growled.
Shay paused for a moment, then nodded. 'Okay. Let her go.'
'But Boss,' Tachs said. 'They're through the defenses already. We've got less than a minute.'
'I know. But Tally's going to help us. I know she will.'
One by one, the others cautiously released their grip. Tally found herself free, still glaring at Shay, unsure what to do next. She was still surrounded and outnumbered.
'There's no point running, Tally. Dr. Cable's on her way here.'
Tally raised an eyebrow. 'To Diego? To get you all back?'
'No.' Shay's voice broke, almost like some littlie about to cry. 'It's all our fault, Tally. Yours and mine.'
'What is?'
'After what we did to the Armory, no one believed it was Crims or Smokies. We were too icy, too special. We terrified the whole city.'
'Since that night,' Tachs said, 'everyone in town goes by to see the smoking crater you two left. They bring classes of littlies out to gawk at it.'
'And Cable's coming here?' Tally frowned. 'Wait, you mean, they figured out it was us?'
'No, they have another theory.' Shay pointed at the horizon. 'Look.'
Tally turned her head. In the distance beyond Town Hall, a mass of bright lights had filled the sky. As she watched, they grew closer and brighter, shimmering like stars on a hot night.
Just like when Tally and Shay had been chased from the Armory.
'Hovercraft,' Tally said.
Tachs nodded. 'They've given Dr. Cable control of the city military. Everything that's left, anyway.'
'Get your boards,' Shay said. The others scattered in all directions across the roof.
Shay pushed a pair of crash bracelets into Tally's hands. 'You have to stop trying to run away, and face what we started.'
Tally didn't flinch at Shay's touch, suddenly too confused to worry about being cured. She could hear the approaching craft now, a swarm of lifting fans humming like some vast engine warming up. 'I still don't get it.'
Shay adjusted her own bracelets, and a pair of hoverboards rose up from the darkness. 'Our city has always hated Diego. Special Circumstances knew about them helping the runaways, about the helicopters carrying people to the Old Smoke. So after the Armory was destroyed, Dr. Cable decided it must have been a military attack. She blamed Diego.'
'So those hovercraft…they're coming to attack this city?” Tally murmured. The lights grew larger and larger until they swirled overhead, dozens of hovercraft, a great vortex of them surrounding Town Hall. 'Even Dr. Cable wouldn't do that.'
'I'm afraid she would. And the other cities will just sit back and watch, for now. The New System has them all totally scared.' Shay pulled her sneak-suit hood down over her head. 'Tonight we have to help them here, Tally, we have to do whatever we can. And tomorrow, you and I need to go home and stop this war we started.'
'War? But cities don't …' Tally's voice faded. The roof under her feet had begun to rumble, and under the drone of a hundred lifting fans she heard a small, thin sound from the streets below.
People were screaming.
A few seconds later, the armada overhead opened fire, filling the sky with light.
One faces the future with one's past.
—Pearl S. Buck
Streams of cannon fire ripped through the air, their traces burning across Tally's vision. Explosions battered her ears, and shock waves thudded against her chest, like something trying to tear her open.
The hovercraft armada rained its fire down onto Town Hall, cascades of projectiles flaring so brightly that for a moment the building disappeared. But Tally could still hear the sound of shattering glass and the shriek of tearing metal through the blinding display.
After a few seconds, the furious onslaught paused, and Tally glimpsed Town Hall through the smoke. Huge holes had appeared—the fires burning inside the building made it look like some insane jack-o'-lantern carved with dozens of glowing eyes.
From below, the cries rose up again, full of terror now. For a dizzying moment she remembered what Shay had said: 'It's all our fault, Tally. Yours and mine.'
She shook her head slowly What she was seeing couldn't be true.
Wars didn't happen anymore.
'Come on!' Shay cried, leaping onto her board and rising into the air. 'Town Hall's empty at night, but we have to get everyone out of the hospital…'
Tally broke from her paralysis, jumping onto her hoverboard as the bombardment began once more. Shay hurtled over the edge of the roof, silhouetted for a moment against the firestorm before dropping out of sight. Tally
