The fires still burned outside, mockingly beautiful against the dark and perfect sky. That was what no one else could see, that the world was too bubbly and gorgeous for Zane to be missing from it.
Tally reached out and touched his hand. Her exquisitely sensitive fingertips told her that his flesh was cooler than it should be.
This was all her fault. She'd coaxed him here to become what she wanted; she had wandered around the city instead of watching over him; she had started the war that had torn him apart.
This was the final price of her massive ego.
'I'm sorry, Zane.' Tally turned away. Five minutes was suddenly too long to stand here, eyes burning, unable to cry
'Okay, let's go,' she whispered.
'Tally, are you sure? It's only been—'
'Let's go! On our boards. This war has to stop.'
Shay put a hand on her shoulder. 'Okay. First light. We can fly without stopping—no bubbleheads to slow us down, no Smokey position-finder taking us on the scenic route. We'll be home in three days.'
Tally opened her mouth, about to demand that they head for home right now, but the exhaustion on Shay's face silenced her. Tally had been unconscious most of the last twenty-four hours, but Shay had traveled to meet the Cutters and cure them, had rescued Tally from being despecialized, had led them through this long and terrible night. Her eyes were barely open.
Besides, this wasn't Shay's battle anymore. She hadn't paid the price that Tally had.
'You're right,' Tally said, realizing what she had to do. 'Go get some sleep.'
'What about you? Are you okay?'
'No, Shay-la. I'm not okay.'
'Sorry, I mean … are you going to hurt anyone?'
Tally shook her head and held out her hand, which didn't tremble at all. 'See? I'm under control, maybe for the first time since I became a Special. But I can't sleep. I'll wait for you.'
Shay paused, unsure, perhaps sensing what Tally had in mind. But then fatigue fell across her worried expression, and she hugged Tally one more time. 'I only need a couple of hours. I'm still special enough.'
'Of course.' Tally smiled. 'First light.'
She walked with the other Cutters out of the room, past the doctors and nervous wardens, away from Zane forever, from all their imagined futures. And with every step, Tally knew she had to leave not just Zane, but everyone, behind.
Shay would only slow her down.
Tally left the moment Shay was asleep.
It was pointless, both of them giving themselves up. Shay had to stay here in Diego; at this point the Cutters were the closest thing this city had to a military. Dr. Cable wouldn't believe Shay, anyway. Her brain would show the marks of Maddy's cure—she was no longer special.
But Tally was. She ducked and weaved among branches in the forest, knees bent and arms stretched out like wings, flying faster than she ever had before. Everything was icy clear: the warm wind across her bare face, the shifting gravities of flight beneath her feet. She'd taken two boards, riding one while the other followed, jumping back and forth every ten minutes. With her weight shared between them, top speed wouldn't burn out the lifting fans for days.
She reached the edge of Diego long before the sun began to rise, when the orange sky was just becoming radiant overhead, like an immense vessel emptying its light down upon the wild. The world's beauty hurt like razors, and Tally knew she'd never have to cut herself again.
She carried a knife inside herself now, one that was always cutting her. She could feel it every time she swallowed, every time her thoughts strayed from the splendor of the wild.
The forest thinned as Tally reached the great deserts left by the white weed. As the wind against her face became rough with airborne sand, she angled toward the sea, where her magnetics could grip the railroad line, lending her more speed.
She only had seven days to end this war.
According to Tachs, Special Circumstances planned to wait a week for the situation in Diego to grow worse. The destruction of Town Hall would impair the city's workings for months, and Dr. Cable seemed to think that non- bubbleheads would rise up against any government if their needs weren't met.
And if the rebellion didn't happen on schedule, Special Circumstances could simply attack again, destroying more of the city to make conditions still worse.
Tally's software pinged—another ten minutes gone by. She called the empty board closer and leaped across the void, for a moment nothing but sand and scrub below, then landing in a perfect riding stance.
She found herself smiling grimly. If she fell, there was no grid below to catch her, only hardpacked sand racing by at a hundred kilometers per hour. But the doubts and uncertainties she had always suffered, the ones Shay had complained about even after Tally had become a Cutter, had finally been burned away.
Danger didn't matter anymore. Nothing did.
She was truly special now.
As dusk began to fall, Tally reached the coastal railroad line.
Clouds had glowered at her from the sea all afternoon, and as the sun went down, a black veil rolled in, covering the stars and moon. An hour after nightfall, the day's heat stored in the railroad tracks began to fade, leaving the path invisible even in infrared. Tally navigated by ear, using only the roar of the surf to stay on course. Here over the metal rails, her bracelets would save her if she fell.
Just as dawn broke, she shot over a camp full of sleepy-looking runaways. She heard shouting in her wake, and glanced back to see that the wind of her passage had scattered embers from their campfire across the dry grass. The runaways were scampering around trying to keep the fire from spreading, beating the flames with their sleeping bags and jackets, screeching like a bunch of bubbleheads.
Tally kept flying. She didn't have time to turn back and help.
She wondered what would become of all the runaways still making their way across the wild. Could Diego still spare its meager fleet of helicopters to bring them in? How many more citizens could the New System handle, now that it was fighting for its own existence?
Of course, Andrew Simpson Smith wouldn't realize there was a war on. He would still hand out his position- finders, guides to nowhere. The runaways would reach their collection points, but no rides would come. They would slowly lose faith, until they ran out of food and patience, then head back home.
Some might make it, but they were all city kids, clueless about the dangers out here. Without a New Smoke to welcome them, most would be consumed by the wild.
On her second night of flying without rest, Tally fell.
She had just noticed that one board was acting up, some microscopic flaw in its forward lifting fan causing it to run hot. She'd been watching it carefully for the last few minutes, a detailed infrared overlay blotting her normal vision, and she never even noticed the tree.
It was a lone pine, its upper leaves sheered by salt spray like a bad haircut. The board she was riding struck a branch dead center, snapping it clean, sending Tally flying head over heels.
Her crash bracelets found the metal in the rail line just in time. They didn't snap her up short, like they would have in a straight-down fall, but bounced her along the tracks at speed. For a few wild moments, Tally felt like she'd been strapped to the front of some ancient train, the world rushing by on either side, the dark rails stretching before her into blackness, cross-ties a blur beneath her feet.
She wondered what would happen if the railroad line curved suddenly, whether the bracelets would carry her through a turn, or dump her unceremoniously on the ground. Or off the cliff…
The track ran doggedly straight, though, and after a hundred meters her momentum petered out. The bracelets set Tally down; her heart was pounding, but she was unhurt. Both boards found her signal a minute later, nosing out of the darkness like sheepish friends who'd run off without telling her.
Tally realized that she should probably get some sleep. When her next lapse of concentration came, she
