Ren nodded slowly. 'Like David said, the freaks will never hear a thing.'
The sun was down, and the horizon was dotted with worklights and sprays of cutting sparks. The first cool breeze of the day was wafting in from the sea, bringing the smells of salt and brine.
'That looks like the place,' Frizz said, pointing into the darkness. 'Two towers in a clearing, one twice as tall as the other.'
'But the inhumans are there again.' Aya watched the sparks tumbling from the taller spire. 'Won't they hear us?'
Ren looked at the satellite dish. 'The transmission will only hit a small area, and those workers have a building to chop up. Why would they be listening for random radio noise?'
'I guess so.' Aya twitched her fingers nervously, playing with her sneak suit's controls. The scales shifted, a texture like tree bark flickering across her body. Her hoverball rig was completely hidden beneath the suit.
'See that heavy lifter?' Ren pointed at a machine leaving the ruin. 'If Moggle follows that cable line, then turns there, it'll be here in twenty minutes.'
Aya shook her head, remembering all the random twists and turns Tally had taken on the way here. Down in the treetops the network of cables had been invisible. But from this height, the lifters and hovercars flying to and fro revealed its shape, like a glowing, moving map spread across the darkness.
'I'll stay here and guide Moggle while you wait down there.' Ren pointed to where the pile of scrap spilled into the jungle. 'Take your hoods off, and I'll tell Moggle to look for a couple of heads glowing in infrared.'
'There'll be three of us,' Hiro said.
Aya turned to face him. 'Sorry, Hiro. But Moggle can't tow three people.'
'You forget: I actually know how to fly in a hoverball rig. I don't need to be towed.' Hiro drifted into the air, spinning around once to demonstrate. 'And I'm not going to let my little sister upstage me twice in one week.'
She smiled. 'Glad to have you along, Hiro.'
Ren carried the satellite dish to the outer wall and knelt, balancing it on a pile of rubble. He carefully aimed the metal parabola at the distant ruin.
A flicker of lights blossomed across its controls, but Ren kept his stare focused on the horizon.
He adjusted the dish in tiny increments, probing the darkness with its invisible beam.
Long minutes passed that way, Ren's fingers moving the dish as slowly as a minute hand. There was no sound in the room but the metal saws overhead.
'I still can't believe we got the story wrong,' Hiro murmured.
Aya smiled. 'Thanks for saying we, Hiro. But you were right?it was my fault.'
He grunted. 'You're just lucky to get a do-over.'
'Maybe ?' 'No, definitely,' Ren said, staring into the flickering controls. 'I finally got an answer!'
'Is Moggle okay?' Aya asked.
'Looks fine from here. The batteries are even recharged?must have found a sunny spot!'
Aya felt a smile growing on her face. She had a hovercam again.
'Let's get moving,' Hiro said. He glided to a hole in the floor and dove through, slipping out of sight. Frizz followed, pushing with his hands to propel himself downward.
Before she dropped, Aya turned to Ren. 'You'll be okay all alone?'
'Sure. Just don't leave me here too long.' He patted the satellite dish. 'If no one makes it back in twenty-four hours, I'm kicking this to the whole world.'
They descended through the iron skeleton of the tower, floating past ruined floors in darkness, like divers exploring an ancient shipwreck. The whine of cutting blades faded above, the darkness growing around Aya.
With Moggle on its way here, finally she could make up for all those cam-missing hours flying over the jungle. Not that nature shots were ever famous-making?quite the opposite. Like Miki had said, the point of fame was to be obvious, and so much of the jungle was hidden.
But Aya wanted to remember its quiet magnificence nonetheless.
'Through there?'
Hiro asked when she landed at ground level. He was pointing to the pile of steel and rubble.
'Yeah, but wait a minute,' Aya said. 'A lifter's coming down.'
They stayed in the shadows, watching until the construction lifter dropped its load of scrap. Metal shrieked and bent, grinding concrete rubble into dust as the new addition settled onto the pile.
'Okay, quick,' Frizz said. 'Before another one comes.'
Hiro was already shooting ahead, slipping into the twisted maze without a glance backward. Aya vowed to learn how to use a hoverball rig properly some day. Floating in zero-g mode was faster than crawling, but way too slow when bone-crushing piles of steel were being thrown around.
It seemed to take forever, making her way through the rubble. As the spires fell behind, stray cables clinging to the girders grabbed at Aya from the darkness?only the sneak suit's armor protected her from countless tetanus- infecting scratches. And she couldn't help imagining another lifter overhead, bringing a giant mass of scrap to squash them all.
Finally the jungle grew closer. Vines had crept into the snarl of metal around her, and the buzz of insects drowned out the distant cutting saws. Aya could barely see, but the shrill cries of birds guided her to the edge of the pile.
'Whoa,' Frizz's voice came from absolute blackness. 'It's totally different at night.'
It was true?the jungle was transformed. The oppressive heat had lifted, and the darkness echoed with a hundred unidentifiable noises. The air was laden with the rich smell of night-flowering plants, and half-glimpsed shadows darted across the stars.
'Pull off your hoods,' Hiro said. 'Moggle's expecting three of us in infrared.'
Aya pulled her hood off, and a buzzing swarm immediately gathered. The cloud was so dense that her first startled breath drew bugs into her mouth. She spat them out. 'These mosquitoes are crazy-making!'
A slapping sound came from Frizz's direction. 'We'll have to take malaria meds when we get home,' he said.
'What's malaria?' Aya asked.
'A disease you get from mosquito bites.'
'Gah! Is there anything in this jungle that doesn't give you diseases?'
'Hey, Frizz,' Hire's voice called from the darkness. 'How do you know all this stuff, anyway?'
'When I was studying brain surge, I took a few medical classes. Maybe I'll be a doctor once Radical Honesty gets old.'
'It's already old,' Hiro said.
'A doctor?' Aya swatted at a buzzing near her ear. 'I didn't know that.'
Frizz chuckled. 'Even with Radical Honesty, there's a lot you don't know about me.'
'Wait a second!' Hiro hissed. 'Do you hear that?'
They fell silent, and a sound came through the buzzing jungle. Something tentative and wary was slithering among the vines, setting the branches above them creaking.
It slowly grew closer.
'Um?hello?' Aya called softly.
Reflected starlight glinted through the tangled vines? Aya recognized the familiar pattern of lenses bobbing happily in the air.
'Hey, for once you didn't blind me!' Aya said, and felt a smile growing on her face.
She finally had a hovercam again.
They flew so fast that even the mosquitoes couldn't catch them.
Aya had one arm wrapped around Moggle and the other around Frizz, their bodies pressed tight together. The hovercam towed them across the treetops, following the cable network toward the inhumans' base. Hiro flew alongside, visible only in the fleeting moments when his sneak suit blotted out stars from the sky.
