"Nice going." Eden's eyes scanned the darkness. "So what are we chasing, anyway?"
"Beats me." Aya shrugged, careful not to look in the direction Moggle had fled. "I think maybe Miki's seeing things."
"That doesn't sound like Miki," Eden murmured, her surged eyes scanning the cylinders. Her gaze came to rest in the direction Moggle had flown. "What's over there?" Aya squinted into the darkness. The other Sly Girls' flashlights were growing closer now, and her unsurged eyes could just make out where the ranks of metal cylinders ended. She took a few steps closer, and saw a meter-wide circle of blackness—the mouth of a passageway. Aya let out a silent sigh. Moggle must have decided to hide in there. Eden Maru was already on her way, gliding through the air.
"Maybe we should wait for the others," Aya called, jogging after her. "Whatever it is could be dangerous."
"I thought you said Miki was seeing things," Eden said. She landed in front of the circular hole and crawled inside.
As she ran to catch up, Aya realized that the opening was exactly the right size for one of the cylinders to pass through endwise. At its mouth, she felt the familiar pattern of inlaid studs beneath her palms, metal to carry the cylinders on hover-lifters.
Aya crawled after Eden as fast as she could. "Find anything?"
"Yeah. But it doesn't make sense."
A few of the Sly Girls had reached the tunnel entrance behind Aya. Flashlight beams flickered down the tunnel, revealing what Eden had discovered.
A thick metal door stood open, one small window glinting in its center.
Aya frowned. "That's the only door I've seen down here."
"You mean airlock," Eden said, pointing ahead. "There's another one up there."
"An
airlock?"
Aya shook her head. "Why would anyone have an airlock inside a mountain?" But as they crawled farther, she saw more metal glinting ahead—another heavy door, standing open just like the first. She swallowed. If this really was an airlock, this tunnel
had
to be a dead end. Which meant that Moggle was trapped.
"I better go first!" she said, pushing past Eden.
"But you can't even see!"
Aya ignored her, scrambling down the tunnel. At least she could warn Moggle that someone—judging from the echoing voices behind her,
everyone—w
as coming.
"Moggle!" she said with the barest hiss of sound.
She slowed a little, trying to listen. Somehow the air felt different in here. A step later Aya's foot twisted beneath her, coming down wrong on an uneven stretch of floor. She grunted, reaching her hands out ahead to steady herself…
They touched nothingness.
And then Aya was rolling forward, falling into a void.
SHAFT
Aya dropped in absolute darkness, spinning head over heels into the mountains depths. She reached for her crash bracelets, hoping they would find enough metal to keep her from splattering. At the first twist, the bracelets found purchase, jerking her upright with a shoulder-wrenching snap. Her feet swung out with unspent momentum, and one cracked against solid stone. Aya hung there stunned for a moment, pain sparkling against the solid blackness. As her head cleared, the echo of her own breathing pressed close around her. She swung her feet out—they connected with stone, pushing Aya backward into a wall of rock. The impact prized a cry of pain from her lungs.
"Quit kicking!" came Eden's voice from the darkness just above. Seconds later strong arms wrapped around her waist, lifting her up. The agony in her shoulders lessened a little.
"You okay, Nosey?" Eden said.
"I'll live. But maybe no more falling tonight."
"I hope you don't keep trying to get killed just to impress me." Aya only grunted. As Eden carried her back up through the formless darkness, she felt the tingle of blood rushing back into her hands.
Eden set her down firmly on a ledge—the one she'd just plummeted off. "Maybe you should leave the exploring to people who can see in the dark. And can fly."
"Sure," Aya said, gingerly rubbing her shoulders. "And thanks."
"Thanks
again,
you mean."
Voices echoed around them—the other Sly Girls were headed down the tunnel.
"Slow down!" Eden shouted. "It's a trap … or something."
"Yeah, something," Aya muttered, pulling out her flashlight and leaning carefully over the shaft. It was circular, big enough across for the cylinders to travel down. The walls were striped with copper coils as thick as Aya's arm, laid into the stone under clear plastic.
The shaft also continued upward, past where her flashlight faded in the distance. Moggle had certainly found an odd place to hide.
Eden grunted. "I see you found your flashlight, Nosey."
"Oh, yeah." Aya shrugged. "I guess it was in my pocket all the time." Eden nodded slowly.
"You found something?" Kai's voice called. She pushed her way past the other Sly Girls crowding the tunnel, crawled to the edge of the shaft, and peered into its depths. "Wow. What
is
this?"
"I guess we're not sure," Eden said. "Are we, Nosey?"
"No clue," Aya said, rubbing her wrists. "But take it from me—don't jump down it." Kai crouched there, her hands tracing the metal studs in the tunnel floor. She glanced back toward where the cylinders stood waiting in their rows.
"This must be where those big metal things wind up."
"I guess so," Aya said. "Maybe it's some kind of elevator."
"An elevator with an airlock?" Kai shook her head. "Not likely. Can you see the bottom?"
"No, but I can go there." Eden stepped off into the void, her hoverball rig's lifters catching before she fell even a centimeter. "Sorry to steal all the glory, Kai." Eden smiled as she dropped out of sight. Aya watched her fall into the depths, hoping that Moggle had gone up rather than down…
Kai turned to her. "What were you and Miki chasing, anyway?"
Aya shrugged, which sent a twinge of pain through her shoulders.
"You okay?"
"I've been using my crash bracelets a lot tonight."
"I noticed that." Kai chuckled. "I knew you were one of us, Aya-chan."
"Thanks." Aya smiled weakly—another dizzy-making wave of exhaustion was hitting. "But maybe I'll rest a minute. My adrenaline needs a recharge."
"No problem." Kai leaned out to peer down the shaft and sighed. "This could take a while."
Aya crawled past the other Sly Girls in the tunnel, waving off their questions, saying she needed a rest. She climbed out and made her way through the cylinders and to the stairs. Halfway up, she crouched down, booting her eyescreen.
"Moggle?" she whispered.
The hovercam's point of view appeared against the darkness. It took Aya's tired brain a moment to adjust to infrared, but Moggle was looking down.
The cluster of body-heat blobs below were the Sly Girls crowded at the shaft's edge. Eden Maru was a pinprick of light farther down, the lifters of her hoverball rig shimmering against cold stone. Moggle had lucked out so far. Of course, Eden would explore the upper part of the shaft eventually.
"Keep climbing," she whispered. "And look for a way out." The sides of the shaft passed by unchanging—thick copper coils every meter or so, no way in or out. But a subtle infrared glow came from directly over Moggle, a sliver of heat at the top of the shaft.
"Find out what's up there. But
don't
use your night-lights!" Aya dimmed her eyescreen for a moment, checking to make sure no one had followed her. The room full of cylinders was still empty.
As Moggle climbed, its signal began to fritz, shimmers of static dancing across her eyes. The connection was punching through a lot of stone, and Aya wondered how long the shaft was. Her skintenna could only reach a kilometer without the city network helping. By the time Moggle reached the top, Aya could barely see through the clouds of interference. The hovercam seemed to be in a transparent bubble; soft lights shone down through the rounded plastic walls.
They looked like…stars.
Aya moved a few steps up, and the static cleared for a moment. It was true: Moggle was looking out from the top of the mountain.
Suddenly the whole mountain range was laid out around her. Sharp peaks cut into the starry sky, and down in the valley the mag-lev's solar collectors glimmered with reflected starlight. Aya could even see the lights of the city glowing faintly in the distance.
But what was the point of carrying the cylinders up to the top of the mountain? There were simpler ways to move big hunks of metal, after all—lifting fans and heavy vehicles. And why do it all from inside a mountain?
The signal fritzed again, and Aya shifted on the stairs until she found a better spot. When the image cleared, she frowned. Something glittered in the corner of her eye.
"Turn left a little, Moggle."
The view rotated to bring the mag-lev line in front of her, and Aya swallowed. The warning lights along the expanse of tracks were blinking…
Then she saw it in the distance, a string of lights crawling silently from the city. An unlikely, maybe-once-a-month, unscheduled train was headed toward the tunnel.
And Kai had left the hidden door wide open.
AIR PRESSURE
"Stay up there until I call you," she whispered. "But be ready to move!" Aya ran down the stairs, wondering what would happen if the train shot past the open doorway. Equipment and furniture were piled up around the entrance, along with a big stack of the Sly Girls'
hoverboards.
Aya had felt with her own body what the wake of a speeding mag-lev train could do. She ran through the cylinders, her reflection a blur in their smooth metal sides, her mind spinning. How was she supposed to explain how she knew a train was coming?
The mouth of the tunnel glowed with the Sly Girls' flashlights. They were sprawled around its entrance and down its length, crowding the narrow space.
"Out of my way!" She dove into the tunnel, crawling straight across the Girls, ignoring their annoyed shouts. "Everyone, listen! A train's coming!"
Silence fell, and Kai turned to peer at her. "What do you mean?"
"You know those unscheduled trains you weren't worried about? Well, one's headed toward us!
It'll be here in a few minutes!"
Kai narrowed her eyes. "What makes you think that?"
"I was heading back toward the main door … to get a hoverboard. I thought maybe some of us could go down the shaft on one."
"You got all the way there and back in five minutes?"
"No…but halfway there I could feel the ground rumbling. Come
on,
Kai. We don't have time to lose!"
Kai hesitated, and a murmur of disbelief traveled through the tunnel.
Aya groaned, scrambling over more bodies and up to the edge of the shaft. ''Eden … a
train's
coming!"
A few seconds later Eden Maru shot up into view. "A train? We didn't seal the door!"
"So what?" Kai said. "At that speed, who'll notice anything? Most mag-levs don't even have crews."
"But our boards! They'll get sucked into the slipstream, along with anything else that's not tied down!"
"And you didn't mention this before?" Kai cried.
"You
said there wouldn't be any trains!"
"I said
probably!”
"Just get out of my way!" Eden put her hands together like a diver, and shot down the crowded tunnel.
Instantly the narrow tunnel was full of scrambling bodies. The Sly Girls were shouting and shoving past one another, tumbling out to follow Eden back toward the entrance to the mountain. Kai hesitated for a moment, her eyes fixed on Aya. "You sure you didn't just imagine this?" Aya nodded, still breathless.
Kai swore and rose into a hall crouch, scrambling after the others.
Aya waited until the sounds of pursuit faded away, then booted her eyescreen again. She lay against the stone floor, staring straight up into the blackness of the shaft. There was nothing but air between her and Moggle now, the view from the mountain top crystal clear. The train was much closer, a bright string of pearls crawling along the flashing mag-lev line, only minutes away.
"Get down here fast, Moggle!'' she said. "Don't hover— just drop!" Moggle angled its lenses downward, and Aya watched the fall from the hovercam's point of view. The hot yellow infrared speck of her own head grew, faster and faster as Moggle accelerated down the shaft, until she could see her own wide-eyed expression.
"Stop!" she shrieked.
The hovercam came to a perfect halt a few centimeters from her nose, and flashed its night-lights happily.
"Its nice to see you too. And ouch, blinded, etc." Aya scuttled down the narrow tunnel. "Follow me, but not too close. If we run into anyone else, remember to hide!"
Aya dashed through the stone warren of the hideout, following the metal studs back toward the entrance. That was how Moggle had found her, of course. Just like the cylinders, a hovercam could only travel along the metal path.
By the time she reached the main hallway Aya was breathless from running, her heart pounding. Straight ahead, the crowd of Sly Girls was silhouetted by the entrance to the mag-lev tunnel. Staggering to a halt, Aya felt the trains rumble beneath her feet.
''Any time now," Kai was saying.
"I'm
trying!"
Eden knelt by the doorway, the matter hacker clutched in one hand, the other flitting across its controls.
But the smart matter of the door wasn't moving.
Aya glanced over her shoulder and caught Moggle peeking out to get a shot. She smiled. Whether the door closed or not, whatever happened next was going to be very kickable.