wrapped tree trunk. She twisted herself sideways and kicked out at it, and was rewarded with a much longer glide through the tangled forest.
It was a strange sensation?though the hoverball rig carried her weight, Aya still had plenty of mass and inertia. Getting herself moving took real effort, especially through the humid air. But once she'd built up speed, coming to a stop?or even changing direction?proved just as tricky.
It didn't help that every surface seemed to be slimy or sticky or covered with insects, or that all the vegetation was still water-laden from the storm. Every time Aya plunged through a growth of ferns, she shook loose a clothes-soaking spray. But gradually she got the hang of it, her brain learning to juggle the tasks of spotting clear paths through the obstacle course, checking ahead for the next object to push off from, and avoiding sticky spiderwebs and water-dumping ferns.
Gliding through the dense canopy, Aya marveled at how rich and intertwined the jungle was, how much more complicated than some ten-minute feed story. She wondered how hard becoming a Ranger would be. At least then she'd be doing something useful, protecting something beautiful instead of stirring up fake calamities for a bunch of bored extras.
After half an hour of pulling herself from vine to trunk to branch, Aya realized she was being watched.
A troop of red-faced monkeys perched in the trees nearby, silently observing as she and Frizz crashed through the ferns and vines. Aya couldn't blame them for their perplexed expressions. She was painfully aware of the eons of evolution that separated her from them, her lack of simian reflexes and Prehensile toes.
Aya grabbed hold of the next vine to bring herself to a halt.
'You okay?' Frizz asked, sliding to a stop beside her.
She nodded. 'Yeah. But I think I just figured out their crazy body mods.'
'The inhumans'?' he asked, then laughed. 'You mean you could actually concentrate while swinging along like a ?' He trailed off, looking at the tiny faces watching them through the leaves. 'A monkey.'
She nodded again. One of the monkeys dangled from its feet, long toes curled around a branch like fingers.
'Even Hiro noticed,' she said. 'Back when we were hiding and waiting for Tally-wa?the freaks are like monkeys.'
'What are you two gossiping about?' Tally called impatiently from ahead. 'We're almost there!'
Aya realized they'd been talking in Japanese, and she gave a little bow. 'Sorry, Tally-wa. But I think we figured out something. If you're getting around in a jungle wearing zero-g rigs, another pair of hands is a lot more useful than feet.'
'Like the freaks?' Tally thought for a moment, drifting closer in her rig. 'I guess it makes sense having more fingers, if you're never going to touch the ground.'
'So maybe they're collecting metal for a huge grid,' Aya said. 'You think they want people to give up cities and live in jungles, like some sort of hovering monkeys?'
'And go backward five million years?' Tally raised an eyebrow. 'That's a pretty radical way to get along with nature.'
'Radical is what the mind-rain is all about, Tally-wa,' Frizz said.
Tally sighed. 'Why does everyone always say that like it's my fault?'
Frizz looked at her and shrugged. 'Well, you started it.'
'Don't blame me. I didn't tell everyone in the world to go crazy!'
'But didn't you expect some weird stuff to happen?' Aya asked.
Tally rolled her eyes. 'I didn't expect anyone to change their feet into extra hands. Or let hovercams follow them all day. Or get brain surge just so they could tell the truth!'
Frizz shook his head. 'But we lost so much in the Prettytime?all the foundations were gone. So we're stuck making it up as we go along!'
Tally laughed. 'So what else is new, Frizz? Life doesn't come with an instruction manual. So don't tell me that humanity being logic-missing is my fault.' She spun herself around and pointed up through the trees. 'Anyway, we're almost at those skyscrapers. Shay and Fausto are probably already there.'
Above them, the skeletal spires glinted with afternoon sunlight through the trees. The upper reaches were swarmed with construction lifters, and the screech of metal-chewing blades echoed down from them.
'But if we can't use pings, how do we find them?' Aya asked.
Tally shrugged. 'We make it up as we go along.'
The jungle was clear-cut around the base of the spires, but the ancient Rusty streets were heaped with lattices of salvaged steel.
The pile reminded Aya of a game littlies played: You dropped a bunch of chopsticks onto the floor, then tried to pick up one without moving the others. But instead of chopsticks, these were huge metal beams, encrusted with ancient concrete and rusted cables.
There was no sign of the freaks down here at ground level. The deconstruction crews were all up in the spires, cutting more metal for the pile.
'See the tallest one?' Tally pointed. 'Stay under cover till we get there.'
'You mean crawl through this?' Aya glanced at Frizz. 'But I heard that some ruins have Rusty skeletons in them.'
Tally laughed. 'That's up north. Down here in the tropics, the jungle eats everything.' She pushed off into the pile, threading her way through the rubble and steel.
'Oh, lovely,' Aya said, then followed.
Sneaking through the chopped-up buildings was a little like moving through jungle. The rain had left the girders wet and slippery, and lichen grew on their rusty sides.
Hard steel was less forgiving than ferns and bark, though. As they floated after Tally, scraping past girders and jagged chunks of concrete, Aya and Frizz collected scratches like they were crawling through a thornbush.
'Remind me to drink some tetanus meds when we get home,' Frizz said, inspecting a bloody scrape across his palm.
'What's tetanus?' Aya asked.
'It's a disease you get from rust.'
'Rust gives you diseases?' Aya cried, pulling her hands away from the ancient steel beam before her. 'No wonder the Rusties died out.'
'Shh!' Tally hissed. 'Something's coming.'
Shadows flickered around them: a large object passing overhead.
Through the tangle of metal Aya glimpsed its clawed shape?a heavy construction lifter carrying a giant severed piece of skyscraper, like the steel rib cage of some long-dead giant in a predator's jaws.
The freshly cut edges sparkled in the sunlight.
'I wonder where they plan to put that down,' Frizz said softly.
The lifter came to a halt directly overhead, and Aya felt a shudder pass through the pile. Girders shimmered around her, the magnetic fields straining under tons of ancient metal.
Suddenly the trembling stopped 'Uh-oh,' Frizz said.
The chunk of skyscraper dropped from the lifter's claws.
Aya grabbed the nearest beam and pulled hard, scrambling away.
The falling iron skeleton struck home above her, metal pounding and shrieking, the whole heap ringing with the collision. A shower of rust and pulverized concrete rained down on Aya, clouds of eye-stinging dust billowing from above. She saw steel beams bending around her, twisting under the weight of the new addition.
'Aya!' she heard Frizz call.
She turned?his formal jacket was caught in a cluster of ancient cables, their twisted points like fishhooks through the silk. As he struggled to pull his arms out, the sleeves flipped inside out, trapping his hands inside.
Aya spun around and pushed back toward him, reaching out to grasp his shoulders. She pulled as hard as she could?and with a shredding sound, Frizz ripped free, the jacket tearing into ribbons.
