She dived for the ground, an arrow's feathers skimming past one shoulder as she twisted through the air, the sizzle of its electric charge raising the hairs on her scalp. Another shot past as Tally rolled to her feet, blindly hoping that more weren't on the way.
The board was three meters up and climbing slowly, wavering under its double load. She jumped straight up, the furious wind of the fans blowing straight down on her. At the last moment Tally imagined her fingers thrusting into the lifting fans—chopped into a spray of blood and gristle— and her nerve faltered. Her fingertips caught the riding surface's edge, barely clinging, and her added weight began to pull the board slowly earthward.
In her peripheral vision, Tally saw an arrow flying toward her, and twisted wildly in midair to dodge it. It shot past, but her fingers had lost their grip. One hand slipped, then the other…
As Tally fell, the growl of a second hoverboard ripped the air. They were stealing another one.
Shay's cry shot through the noise: "Give me a boost!"
Tally landed in a crouch inside the whirlwind of pine needles and saw Shay's yellow-glowing form running full tilt right at her. Tally laced her fingers together and cupped her hands waist-high, ready to throw Shay up at the board, which was straining to climb again.
Another missile streaked toward Tally from the darkness. But if she ducked, Shay would take the arrow in midleap. Her teeth clenched, waiting for the agony of a shock-stick slamming into her spine.
But the board's rotor-wash eased the arrow downward like an invisible hand. It struck between Tally's feet, exploding into a brilliant spiderweb on the icy ground. She tasted electricity in the damp air, and tiny and invisible fingers played across her skin, but her feet were insulated by the soles of her grippy shoes. Then Shay's weight landed in her cupped hands, and Tally grunted, flinging upward with all her strength. Shay screamed as she soared into the air. Tally threw herself to one side, imagining more arrows in flight, her feet skipping across the still-buzzing shockstick. She spun around and fell backward to the ground.
Another arrow shot past her in a blur, missing her face by centimeters…
She glanced up: Shay had landed on the hoverboard, setting it teeter-tottering wildly. The lifting fans shrieked at its triple load. Shay raised a stinger hand, but David's dark silhouette shoved Tachs toward her, forcing her to catch his limp form. She danced at the board's edge, trying to keep them both from tumbling off.
Then David lashed out, catching Shay in the shoulder with a handheld shock-stick. Another web of sparks lit the night sky.
Tally rose to her feet, running back toward the struggle. The Smokies were not fighting fair!
Above her, a bright yellow form was tumbling from the board, headfirst…Tally leaped forward, stretching out her hands. The dead weight thudded into her arms—the special bones as hard as a sack of baseball bats—and sent her sprawling to the ground. "Shay?" she whispered, but it was Tachs.
Tally glanced up. The hoverboard was ten meters up now, hopelessly out of reach, Shay's limp form wrapped around David’s sneak-suited darkness in an awkward embrace.
"Shay!" Tally screamed as the hoverboard rose still higher. Then her ears caught the snap of a bowstring, and she threw herself to the ground again.
The arrow missed wildly—whoever had fired it was running. Sneak-suited forms were everywhere, and more boards were buzzing to life all around her, the Smokies lifting into the air.
She twisted her crash bracelet, but there was no responding tug. They had taken all four of the Specials' boards—Tally was stranded on the ground, like some random hiker lost in the forest.
She shook her head in disbelief. Where had the Smokies gotten sneak suits? Since when did they shoot people? How had this easy trick gone so wrong? She connected her skintenna to the city network, about to call Dr. Cable. Then she hesitated a moment, remembering Shay's orders. No calls, no matter what—she couldn't disobey. All four hoverboards were in the air now, their lifting fans giving off orange glimmers of heat. She could see Shay unconscious in David's arms, and the glowing form of another Special being carried off on a different board. Tally cursed. Tachs still lay on the ground, so they'd gotten Fausto, too. She had to call for reinforcements, but that would be breaking orders…A ping came through the network. "Tally?" the distant voice asked. "What's going on out there?"
"Ho! Where are you?"
"Following your locators. A couple of minutes away."
He laughed. "You're not going to believe what that boy at the bash told me. The one your Smokey was dancing with?"
"Never mind! Just get here fast!" Tally scanned the air, watching in frustration as the Cutters' boards lifted higher into the dark sky. In a minute, the Smokies would be gone for good. It was too late for regular Specials to get here, too late for anything…
Rage and frustration surged through Tally, almost overwhelming her. David was not going to beat her, not this time! She couldn't afford to lose her head. She knew what to do.
Making a claw with her right hand, Tally dug her fingernails into the flesh of her left arm. The delicate nerves woven into her skin screamed, a torrent of pain piling through her, overloading her brain.
But then the special moment struck, icy clarity replacing panic and confusion. She drew in the cold air in gasps…
Of course. David and the girl had ditched their own hoverboards. They had to have left them close by
She turned and ran back toward the city, hunting in the darkness for the half-remembered smell of David.
"What happened?" Ho said. "How come you're the only one online?"
"We got jumped. Be quiet."
Long seconds later, Tally's nose caught something: David’s scent lingering where his hands had polished and tuned, where his sweat had fallen in the chase. The Smokies hadn't bothered to recover their old-fashioned boards. She wasn't completely helpless.
At the snap of her fingers, David's board rose from its hasty covering of pine needles and into the air. She jumped on and it wobbled unsteadily like the end of a diving board, without the sense of power that the lifting fans gave. But Tally had ridden one just like it all those months ago, and it was enough for now.
"Ho, I'm coming to meet you!" The board shot along the city's edge, speeding up as its lifters grabbed hold of the magnetic grid.
She climbed up through the trees, scanning the horizon. The Smokies flickered in the distance, the bodies of their two captives glowing like embers in a fire.
Glancing up at the stars, she calculated angles and directions…
The Smokies were headed out toward the river, where they could use magnetics. Carrying two passengers per board, they needed all the lift they could get. "Ho, head for the western edge of the Trails. Fast!"
"Why?"
"To save time!" She had to keep her quarry in sight. The Smokies might be invisible, but the two captive Specials shone like infrared beacons.
"Okay, I'm coming," Ho answered. "But what's going on again?"
Tally didn't respond, whipping through the treetops like a slalom rider. Ho wasn't going to like what Tally had to do, but there was no other choice. That was Shay out there, being dragged away by David. This was Tally's chance to pay her back for all those old mistakes.
To prove that she was really special.
Ho was there, waiting where the dark trees of the Trails began to thin.
"Hey, Tally," he said as she zoomed toward him. "Why are you riding that piece of junk?"
"Long story." She twisted to a halt beside him.
"Yeah, well, could you please tell me what's—" He let out a startled cry as Tally pushed him off his board, sending him tumbling into the darkness below.
"Sorry, Ho-la," she said, stepping from the Smokey board onto his and angling it toward the river. Its lifting fans spun to life as she crossed the city's border. "Need to borrow your ride. Don't have time to explain."
Another grunt reached her ears as Ho's bracelets brought his fall to a halt. "Tally! What the—"
"They've got Shay Fausto, too. Tachs is back in the Trails, unconscious. Go make sure he's okay"
"What?" Ho's voice was fading as Tally shot out into the wild, leaving the city's network repeaters behind. She scanned the horizon and caught distant flickers of infrared, like two glowing eyes ahead—Fausto and Shay.
The hunt was still on.