Скотт Вестерфельд - Specials

Remembering how Andrew had detected her, Tally stayed well clear of the group. But she was close enough to make out their clothes. The city pretties' seemed all wrong, totally fashion-missing, or maybe a few years out of style. But these kids hadn't been out here that long.

Then Tally heard one boy asking how far it was back to camp, and the strangeness of his accent sent a shiver through her. They were from another city, somewhere far enough away that they talked differently. Of course, she was halfway to the equator. The Smokies had been spreading their little rebellion far and wide.

But what were they doing here? she wondered. Surely this little patch of cliff wasn't the New Smoke. Tally crawled along behind the group, still watching them warily as they approached the sleeping Crims.

Suddenly, she came to a halt, feeling something in her bones—something all around, as if the earth were rumbling under her.

A strange noise came from the distance, low and rhythmic, like huge fingers drumming on a table. It faded in and out for a few moments before steadying.

The others could hear it now. The villager heading up the little party let out a cry, pointing toward the south, and the city pretties all looked up expectantly. Tally could already see it, thundering across the hills toward them, its engines glowing hot in infrared.

She raised herself into a half crouch and started running for her board, the thrumming sound building around her. Tally remembered her first trip into the wild, when she'd gotten a lift to the Smoke in a strange Rusty flying vehicle. The rangers, naturalists from another city, had used old contraptions like this one to fight the white weed.

What were they called again?

It wasn't until she had made it back to her hoverboard that Tally remembered the name.

The "helicopter" landed not far from the cliff's edge.

Twice the size of the one Tally had ridden to the Smoke, it descended with an awesome fury, the whirlwind battering down the grass in a wide circle. The helicopter kept itself aloft with two huge spinning blades that mercilessly beat the air, like huge lifting fans. Even in her hiding place, their sound rattled Tally down to her ceramic bones, her hoverboard bucking beneath her like a nervous horse in the windstorm.

The Crims were awake by now, of course, shaken to consciousness by the thundering beat. Whoever was flying the helicopter had spotted them from up high, and had waited for them to furl their boards before landing. By the time the machine came down, the other group had made its way back to the cliffs. The two sets of runaways were eyeing each other warily as the helicopter's crew jumped out onto the beaten grass.

The rangers, Tally remembered, came from a city with different attitudes from her own, one that didn't particularly care whether the Smoke existed or not. Their main concern was preserving nature from the engineered plagues that the Rusties had left behind, especially the white weed. The rangers had traded favors with the Old Smoke sometimes, giving runaways lifts in their flying machines.

Tally had liked the rangers she'd met. They were pretties but, like firefighters or Specials, they didn't have the bubblehead lesions. Thinking for themselves was a part of their job description, and they possessed the calm competence of the Smokies—without the ugly faces.

The helicopter's blades kept spinning as it sat on the ground, stirring the air beneath her board and making it impossible to hear a thing. But from her vantage hovering just below the edge of the sea cliff, it was obvious that Zane was introducing himself and the other Crims. The rangers didn't seem to care, one listening as the others checked over their ancient, cantankerous machine. The two villagers regarded the newcomers suspiciously, though, until Zane produced the position-finder.

At the sight of it, one of them pulled out a scanning wand and began to wave it around Zane's body. She took special care to check his teeth, Tally noticed. The other villager was busy scanning another Crim, the two of them checking all eight of the new arrivals thoroughly.

Then they began to herd the runaways, all twenty of them, onto the helicopter. The thing was much bigger than a warden's hovercar, but it was so crude and loud and ancient-looking…Tally wondered how it could carry them all.

The rangers didn't seem worried. They were busy sticking the city kids' hoverboards onto the machine's undercarriage, sandwiching them together magnetically.

As crowded as the runaways would be inside, it had to be a short trip…

The problem was, Tally wasn't sure how she could tag along. The helicopter she'd ridden in was faster and could go much higher than any hoverboard. And if she lost sight of them, there would be no way to follow the Crims the rest of the way to the New Smoke.

Tracking the old-fashioned way had its disadvantages.

She wondered what Shay had done when she'd reached this point. Tally boosted her skintenna, but found no trace of another Special nearby; no waiting beacons pulsed a message for her.

But Andrew's position-finder must have led Shay here as well. Had she disguised herself as an ugly and tried to fool the villagers? Or had she managed to follow the helicopter somehow?

Tally peered at the undercarriage again. Among the twenty sandwiched hoverboards was just enough space for a human being.

Maybe Shay had snuck a ride…

Tally pulled on her grippy gloves, readying herself. She could wait until the helicopter took off, then pursue it in a short chase across the hills, followed by a quick climb up through the windstorm of its spinning blades.

She felt a smile spreading across her face. After two weeks of skulking after the Crims, it would be a relief to face a real challenge, one that would make her feel like a Special again.

And even better, the New Smoke had to be close. She had almost reached the end of the line.

Soon the pretties were all loaded into the helicopter, and the two villagers stepped back, waving and smiling.

Tally didn't wait for it to take off. She headed southward down the coast, back in the direction it had come from, staying below the cliffs to keep out of sight. The trick would be waiting until the machine was far enough from the villagers before climbing into the open sky. After weeks of hiding, she didn't want to be spotted this close to her goal.

The helicopter's spinning blades changed pitch, the whine building slowly to a thunderous beating in the air. She resisted the urge to look back, keeping her eyes on the winding and rugged cliff wall. She snaked along it, only an arm's length away, staying low and out of sight.

Tally's ears told her when the helicopter lifted into the air behind her. She urged her hoverboard faster, wondering what the Rusty contraption's top speed was.

Tally had never pushed a Special Circumstances board as fast as it could go. Unlike hoverboards designed for randoms, the Cutters' didn't have safety features to keep you from doing anything stupid. If you let them, the lifting fans would spin until they overheated, or worse. She knew from Cutter training that fans didn't always fail gracefully—you could push them until they tore themselves apart in a shower of white-hot metal…

Tally flicked on her infrared vision and glanced down at the fan in front of her left foot; it already had the red-hot glow of campfire embers.

The helicopter was catching up, its thunder closing in behind and above her, battering the air. She dropped farther below the cliff level, the crashing waves passing beneath her in a wild blur, every outcrop of rocks threatening to take off her head.

By the time the helicopter drew even overhead, it was a hundred meters off the ground and still climbing. She had to make her move now.