The wind grew stronger as the train neared the city's edge, and lying flat against her board, Aya could feel every tug and shudder in the air. The breeze was blowing straight across the arc of the turn, its energy blending with the turbulence of the train's passage, like two swift rivers merging into boiling rapids.
Her first contact with the slipstream knocked Aya into a barrel roll, spinning earth and sky around her. Only Eden's souped-up crash bracelets kept her hanging on, her fingers white-knuckled around the board's front end.
She struggled for control, wrestling the board level again. But every time she edged it toward the train, the tumult knocked her into another spin.
No wonder Lai and Eden had told the other Girls to stay home!
The train began to humit was straightening again, speeding upand Aya gritted her teeth. No way was she spending another day locked in her dorm room, sitting on the biggest story since the mind-rain She leaned hard to the left, yanking her hoverboard toward the train, willing it through the slipstream's barrier.
The board spun into another set of barrel rolls, but this time Aya didn't fight the spins. She let the world twist around her a dozen times, until the pattern of the track lights steadied. Then, letting the board's gyrations carry her, she rolled across the tumult.
In the calmer air, Aya wrestled her board back to level flight. Her head was still spinning, but the train stretched out beside her, as steady as a house.
She slipped up against its metal flank and climbed aboard.
A few meters ahead Lai and Eden were already standing, watching with amusement.
"Not bad," Lai called. "Maybe you're ready to learn some new tricks!"
The train was still speeding up, and Aya didn't answer, scrambling to shift a crash bracelet to her ankle. She stood just as the train hit cruising speed, and the three of them rode in silence together, ducking decapitation hazards, the wild shooting past on either side.
Soon the mountains rose into view, their dark bulk a hundred times more ominous now that Aya knew what was inside.
Ren had sent her more math today: Only a mountain could hide a mass driver large enough to hurl a projectile into orbit. Conveniently, the atmosphere was thinner up around mountaintopsless air resistance for the cylinders once they left the shaft. Whoever had built this had thought long and hard about how to destroy the world.
As the dark peaks grew before her, Aya wondered for the first time if mind-rain slammers like the Nameless One were right. Maybe humanity really was too dangerous to be free. It was only three years since the cure, and already someone had built a weapon that would have made the Rusties proud.
At least the discovery made one thing easier: Once they realized what the mass driver was for, the Sly Girls would have to understand that they couldn't keep it secret anymore.
"So what's this theory of yours?" Lai asked.
"Well, it has to do with that stuff." Aya pointed her flashlight at the hidden door.
Eden Maru was kneeling beside it, the matter hacker in her hands, her fingers jumping across the controls. The tunnel was pitch-black except for Aya's flashlightthe other two had infraredand the darkness around them came to life as the door began to hum.
"You mean smart matter?" Lai asked.
"Exactly" Aya swept her light across the surface, watching it ripple and undulate, smelling the scent of ram. "What if those cylinders are laced with it?"
Eden glanced over her shoulder at Lai, but neither said anything.
"That shaft Eden found looks like a mass driver to me," Aya continued. "And if the cylinders can change shape, they must be missiles of some kind."
For a moment there was no sound except the hum of smart matter, then Lai said, "You mean this whole mountain is a weapon?"
"Exactly. An old-fashioned, Rusty sort of weapon."
"Interesting theory." Eden watched the last layers of the door slip aside, revealing the orangey glow of the tunnel. "How sure are you about this?"
"Almost positive. I can prove it when we get to the cylinders."
They stepped inside, and Eden turned to close the hidden door again. As expected, Moggle would be trapped on the other side tonight. At least Aya had her spy-cams.
"Clever," Lai said. "But you're not the only one who's been clever this week."
Aya frowned. The two of them didn't even seem surprised. "This is serious, Lai. Those cylinders could take out a whole city. They're much deadlier than anything used in the Diego War."
"Maybe so, Nosey. But wait till you see what we've cooked up."
"But this could mean" "Aya, I said wait!"
The door rippled closed, and Aya fell silent. She'd forgotten that Eden Maru was also a tech-head, a much more famous one than Ren. What had she and the Sly Girls been up to for the last week?
The three of them made their way down the stone hallways, through clutter and equipment. When they reached the cylinder room, Aya paused at the top of the stairs, letting her spy-cams take in the ranks of metal missiles.
"What's the matter, Nosey?" Eden said.
"If I can borrow the hacker for a minute, I'll show you something."
"It's not a toy," Eden warned.
"I know that. Just let me try something."
"Let her," Lai said. "This could be interesting."
Eden sighed, then handed Aya the device. It was heavier than it looked, its topside thick with controls and readouts. Ren had warned that it was one of the few machines deliberately designed to be tricky to useno voice help, no handy instruction screen, as opaque and interface-missing as the Rusty gadgets in the city museum.
Aya made her way down the stairs and chose a cylinder at random. She pulled Ren's memory strip from her pocket and slid it into the hacker's reader.
"You wrote code for a matter hacker?" Eden snorted. "You're full of hidden talents, aren't you?"
Aya shrugged. She was tired of lying.
The hacker sprang to life, and she pressed it against the smooth metal flank of the cylinder. A hum filled the air, much lower than the sound of the hidden door. Like the rumble of a train approaching, but as smooth as a bow drawing across a cello string.
A scent filled the air. Just like when the door opened, she tasted rain and lightning.
The cylinder began to change, rolling slowly into another shape, like metal syrup poured into an invisible mold. First it transformed into a cone, its point rounded and colored pale white. Ren had said that would happenthe white part was made entirely of smart matter, a heat shield to protect it from burning up on the journey into orbit. Four stubby wings protruded from the sides, one reaching toward Aya like the pseudopod of some metal bacteria.
She stepped back, fascinated by the undulating shapes.
The wings shifted and turned, designed to use the upper atmosphere to guide the missile into the right orbit. Then the transformations came to a halt, like a liquid suddenly freezing in the cold, and the metal sat in front of them unmoving.
Maybe it was waiting for specific instructions, something beyond the simple command Ren had programmed.
"Is that it?" Lai said.