Скотт Вестерфельд - Extras

"But the clique I'm kicking, they have this crazy brain condition about fame—they hate any whiff of it. If they see me out cam-grubbing with you, they're going to get suspicious."

"Suspicious of what? That you like picnics?"

"Frizz," Aya groaned. "I'm incognito, remember? The clique doesn't know I'm doing a story on them."

There was a long pause. "Wait a second … I thought it was just secret from other kickers, but it's secret from the clique, too?"

"Yeah. They don't know I'm a kicker."

"You mean you're doing the same thing to them that just happened to us? Taking shots without telling them?"

Aya's mouth opened, then shut again, her words tangling in her head. Finally all she managed was, "It's completely different!"

"How is it different?"

"I'm not slamming them, Frizz—I'm showing how kick they are! This story's going to make them famous!"

"But I thought you said they hated fame."

"They do but…," Aya started, but her words got snarled again. Frizz's Radical Honesty was crazy-making! Sometimes it was like he was from some face-missing city.

"I need to think about this, Aya," he said softly.

"You need to … what?"

"Sorry, but it's strange for me, all this incognito stuff. But it sounds like you have to stay clear of me anyway. So maybe we should back off a while."

For a moment Aya wanted to argue, or even to rush out and see him, hovercams or not. But she couldn't just blow her cover. Things were already bad enough with her name all over the feeds.

Maybe he was right about holding off for a few days, even if it was very unhappy-making to admit it.

"Are you sure, Frizz?"

"Yes. I need to think about this. It's hard to know what kind of person you are sometimes."

Aya clenched her fists, grasping for something to say. Now Frizz thought she was some brain-missing slammer! If only she could explain to him that this story was more important than the Sly Girls' privacy; whatever was hidden in that mountain could be dangerous.

But thanks to his Radical Honesty and his fame, anything she told him would be on the feeds the next day. She didn't dare.

Finally they said good-bye, and the connection went dead.

Aya lay there, deleting mocking pings, growing more miserable every second. Maybe avoiding Frizz was already pointless. What if one of the Sly Girls stumbled on the Slime Queen story? Would they blame Aya for her sudden spurt of fame? It wasn't her fault that Frizz was famous and beautiful and a total hovercam-magnet Exactly the sort of boyfriend she would've killed to have a week ago.

Aya frowned, realizing that this was the first morning since littlie days that she hadn't checked her face rank— and for once it might have risen. She blanked the fashion-slammer feed, clearing away the meme-lines and gossip threads that cluttered her eyescreen, until she could see her little corner of shame.

She sat there for a moment, staring at it, not sure what to think.

Her face rank hovered at 26,213—much higher than she'd ever been before. At long last, Aya Fuse was famous.

For being slimy.

There were hovercams lurking in front of Akira Hall.

The Slime Queen story was already fading—there were much bigger faces to slam in the city, after all—but Aya decided to be careful. A few more days of obscurity and she'd be happy with all the cam-swarming she got.

Arms wrapped around Moggle, she jumped out a fifth-story back window, landing hard in the dorm's new chrysanthemum garden. A monitor drone chirped at Aya angrily—she'd crushed a flower flat into the mud.

This wasn't going to be a good day for merits, it seemed.

"Get my board, Moggle," she said. "But don't let any of those cams see you."

Moggle spun away toward the hoverboard racks, pausing to peer around the corner. After last night's adventure, it was finally getting the hang of sneaking.

Aya scanned the forest as she waited, wondering if any paparazzi cams were hidden among the trees. Her skin prickled as she imagined being watched. Was this what it felt like being Kai? Skulking around all the time, nervous of any whiff of a reputation? It seemed like a paranoia-making way to live.

Moggle reappeared with her board in tow, and Aya jumped on.

"See you at Hire's," she ordered.

Moggle flashed, then shot ahead into the forest, toward the famous part of town.

"Hey, Slime Queen!"

Aya groaned. "Let me in, Hiro. Someone might recognize me."

"But how could they? You're not wearing your raiment of slime."

"Hiro!"

More laughter, but finally the elevator door slid open, and she and Moggle slipped inside.

Hiro and Ren were still laughing when the door opened again. The two were splayed across the couch, playing a thumb-twitch game on Hiro's giant wallscreen. Explosions and the chatter of gunfire were making the strings of paper cranes rattle and dance.

"What are you two doing?" Aya shouted over the noise.

"The Nameless One just kicked some story slamming thumb-twitch games," Ren yelled. "So we've devoted ourselves to a day of war!"

She rolled her eyes. Hiro was still annoyed at the Nameless One for slamming the crumblies in his immortality story calling them freaks and world-wreckers. "Isn't it kind of loud, though?"

"Sorry, Slime-sensei," Hiro yelled. "Nice work on your face rank, by the way. A few more appearances as Slime Queen, and you'll get an invitation to the Thousand Faces Party!"

She scowled. "Aren't you the one who always says there's no bad fame?"

"No, that's the city interface," Hiro cried. "I'm against slime-fame!"

Ren giggled, falling to one side to coax his thumb-twitch character through some perilous maneuver.

"What are you laughing at, Ren?" Aya shouted. "You're the one who made me go underwater!"

"I didn't know you were going to talk to some big-face pretty boy on the way home."

"Neither did I!" Aya screamed over the explosions.

"Sure you didn't," Hiro answered. "Just like when we saw Frizz Mizuno's feed yesterday, and you had no idea who he was."

"I didn't know him yesterday. I didn't know his name, anyway. I'd just met him the night before

… at this party."

Hiro frowned, then made a gesture. The wallscreen images froze, the sound abruptly shutting off.

"Since when do you get invited to the same parties as Frizz Mizuno?"

"I wasn't exactly invited," Aya said. One of Hiro's eyebrows rose, and she groaned. "I crashed this tech-head bash, okay? I was looking for the Sly Girls."

"Oh, the imaginary Sly Girls again." Hiro let out a long sigh. "Why are you wasting your time with unicorns, Aya-chan?"

"They're not imaginary. Actually, I joined up with them last night."

"You joined the unicorns?" Hiro asked.

"The Sly Girls, you bubblehead. I even went surfing with them."

"What do you mean?" Ren asked.

"You guys haven't heard of mag-lev surfing?" Aya gestured, and Moggle started loading a stack of shots into Hiro's wallscreen. "Then you need to watch this."

Hiro started to say something, but the wallscreen was already flickering to life. He crossed his arms, staring in silence as Aya's night as a Sly Girl began to unfold.

When it was over, the first thing Hiro said was, "Mom and Dad will kill you."

Aya couldn't argue. Her parents didn't even approve of bungee jumping. She couldn't imagine what Mom was going to say after watching her mag-lev surf.

"Crumblies are the least of your worries," Ren said. "After you kick this, the wardens are going to visit."

"I know." Aya sighed. "That's the bad part about kicking this story. Nobody's ever going to mag-lev surf again."

"That's not what I mean," Ren said softly. "The wardens will forget all about surfing once they spot that mass driver."