"Just be careful!" Lai yelled. "And enjoy your fame!"
She planted a boot on Aya's chest, and shoved her away
Aya spun head over heels away from the sled, her breath knocked out of her. She was suddenly all alone, falling helplessly through the air. Even if it was just a bunch of useless hoverboards, at least she'd had something to cling to a moment ago.
Now it was just her and the rushing air.
Spreading out her arms, Aya tried to get control of her fall. She was supposed to count to thirty before pulling the cord. But was that from the top of the climb ... or from when Lai had pushed her off?
And how many seconds had already passed?
Gradually Aya's descent steadied. But her eyes were streaming from the wind, the Earth a dark blur beneath her. If she popped the parachute too soon, she had no idea how far the wind might carry her.
She looked frantically around for the others and saw them ten meters away, clinging to the sled, Eden reaching inside to pull its chute cord. The two kicked away from it, and a rippling stream of fabric burst from the top.
The chute blossomed into shape, and the whole contraption shot upward into the darkness away from Lai and Eden.
The Earth below was growing visibly - Aya could see the Sly Girls now, their flashlights a circle around the mass driver's mouth.
Lai and Eden were a dozen meters away, still screaming their heads off, reveling in every second of their final jump. Aya realized that waiting for them to pull their cords might not be the best idea.
She stared down at the spinning Earth. It was growing faster now, trees and rocks and bushes shimmering into focus. She imagined herself hitting at full speed...
And pulled the cord.
The parachute bloomed over her head, fluttering for a moment, then snapping into shape with an ear-kicking pop. The straps jerked her upright, like a puppet yanked from the floor by its strings.
A brief moment of violence...then suddenly the air was still around her.
The moon glowed hazily through translucent silk, and Aya could see the rectangular outlines of silk sheets and pillowcases that the Girls had sewn together. The mountainous panorama around her steadied.
Lai and Eden had already zoomed past, tendrils of their screams trailing behind. They dropped farther and farther away, arms outstretched as if rushing to embrace the mountain below.
Were they trying to kill themselves?
At the last second, chutes blossomed from their packs, pouring out in long streams, then billowing into shape.
Lai and Eden were still moving fast, though. The wind carried them sideways across the top of the mountain, the other Sly Girls scrambling behind. They coasted for a moment a few meters high, then dropped again, boots scraping through the dust and scrub, skidding to ungainly halts.
The other Girls reached them, swarming to gather the crumpled folds of their parachutes.
But Aya was still more than a hundred meters up. The wind seemed to strengthen, pulling her away from the opening of the mass driver. She passed over Lai and Eden, the parachute carrying her like a silken sail. The mountains edge slipped past to reveal the valley below, and Aya realized she still had a very long way to fall.
This was why they'd picked such a windy night. It would be long minutes before she touched down, maybe hours before she could hike back to the mag-lev tracks. Plenty of time for them to make their own escape before she could even think of kicking the story.
Aya fixed her gaze on the bright silver streak of the mag-lev line. She swung her feet and pulled on the straps, trying to guide herself toward the tracks. But the parachute puffed up overhead, caught by another updraft.
It was going to be a long hike. For the moment, though, there was nothing to do but let her spy-cams take in the scenery and - slowly, slowly - fall.
Lai's final warning echoed in her ears, but Aya wasn't afraid. Once the story went to feed, none of this was her problem. Since the Diego War, the world had very strict rules about stockpiled weapons.
The Global Concord Committee would swoop down within hours, pulling the mountain apart.
Someone was in big trouble.
But not Aya Fuse. Her biggest problem now was what to wear to Nana Love's Thousand Faces Party. Because with an ending like this, the City Killer story was going to make her that famous.
Maybe for the rest of her life.
KICKING IT
"You are not wearing that!"
"Why not?" Aya twisted the ringlets in her hair, which was puffed up like a manga-head's and dyed bright purple. Her dress was spattered with sparkle lights, and her shoes were variable-friction platforms - she'd skidded into Hire's apartment like the floor was made of ice. She took two handfuls of the dress and spread it out, looking down at herself. "This outfit is totally kick!"
"Maybe if you're fifteen," Hire muttered.
Aya rolled her eyes. "Well, I happen to be fifteen. And you can't tell me how to dress for this party. My story's the whole reason we're going!"
"Yeah, but I'm the one with the invitation, remember? You're just tagging along."
"For now," Aya said softly.
Tonight wasn't the party - the Thousand Faces was still a week away - this was just a monthly tech-head bash. But Ren had said Aya should be there tonight when her City Killer story kicked. Full of physics-heads and mag-lev spotters, the bash would spawn the interviews, feed wars, and rampant rekicking that every big story demanded.
"Whatever, Aya-chan. Just please don't visit Mom and Dad till those flash tattoos fade."
Aya stuck her tongue out at him, which made the spirals on her cheeks spin. The temporary tattoos still tickled when they moved, and she let out a giggle.
"Ren Machino," Hiro told the room, then asked, "Where are you?"
"Almost there," he pinged back.
"Just wait downstairs. We're almost out the door."
"What's the rush?" Ren sounded amused. "City Killer doesn't kick for an hour."
"I know. I've been staring at the clock all night."
"Clock-staring makes him grumpy," Aya cut in, spinning in place on her platforms. "It's my story, you know, and you don't see me getting all shaky."
Hiro sighed. "She refused to hide the sled sequence in the background layer, Ren. It's going to give my parents brain damage."
"And Hiro keeps forgetting whose story this is!" Aya said. "But don't worry. I keep reminding him."
Ren's laughter boomed. "I'll remind him too, Aya-chan!"
Hiro snorted, cut the connection with a snap of his fingers, and turned the giant wallscreen into a mirror. He'd borrowed one of their fathers old formal jackets: black spider silk and real bamboo buttons.
He didn't look half bad.
Aya skated across the room on her platforms, watching her dress trail sparkles in the wallscreen, Moggle tracking the motion. She'd paid for the dress with Hire's reputation, but paying him back was going to be a cinch.
She didn't get why Hire was so nervous. Tonight felt long overdue to Aya, more real than all the merit-grubbing and obscurity of her life so far. All that had merely been preparation for this ... for fame.
Best of all, Frizz was coming to the bash. He still felt bad about the Slime Queen story, but tonight would banish all that awkwardness. Though Frizz didn't know it yet, Aya and he were finally going to be face-equal, not to mention headed to the Thousand Faces Party together next week.
"Stop skating around like that!" Hiro said. "You look like an ugly about to kick some pictures of your cat!"
She skidded to a halt. "Oh, no!"
"What? Did you forget an edit?"
"No, it's just that...maybe this story would be better with a cat!"
Hiro finally cracked a smile, then turned back to the mirror. "Actually, it's pretty much perfect, Aya-chan. Even if it does give Mom and Dad a heart attack."
"Perfect?" she asked, hoping Moggle was getting this. "Really?"
"Really." He shrugged. "If it wasn't, I wouldn't be rekicking it. Want to see something?"
He flicked his finger, and the screen changed - a schematic of an apartment. It was huge, with walk-in closets and smart-matter windows, and a hole in the wall that could grind out almost anything.
"What's that?" she asked.
"An apartment in Shuffle Mansion. It just opened up."
Aya blinked. Shuffle Mansion was where the absolute biggest faces in the city lived. It had the best views and the strongest privacy, and even its walls were profoundly status-conscious. Every few weeks they moved a little, giving the mansion its name, every square centimeter reflecting the latest updates in the face ranks.
"Shuffle Mansion? You think I'll be that famous?"
He shrugged again. "You may have stopped a war, Aya-chan. That means merits on top of fame.
Ready to go?"
Aya felt heat on her cheeks, not just from the new flash tattoos. She glanced into the wallscreen one last time and gestured, changing the view back to her profile. Tonight, somehow, she almost looked like a pretty. Even her nose seemed perfect.
She nodded. "Yeah, I'm totally ready."
It was time.
Ten hovercams were drifting overhead, and dozens more waited over the mansion's steps. Their lenses flickered with torchlight as they swiveled to focus on Hiro, Aya, and Ren. Everyone knew that Hiro Fuse's new story was going up tonight, and rumors were flying that it was even bigger than immortality. What nobody knew was that the story was blank except for a rekick to his little sister's feed.
Piggybacking on Hiro's face rank annoyed Aya, but she had to admit it was the quickest way to spread the news.
As they reached the mansion's steps, she pushed her dress's sparkling into overdrive.
"Don't run down your batteries," Ren whispered, smiling for the cams.
"But Hiro said I needed to make a big entrance!" Her own smile faltered a little as she climbed the stairs. Her right ankle was still sprained from being dragged across rocks and brush by that stupid parachute. "Maybe I shouldn't have worn this," she mumbled.
"You look fantastic," Hiro said. "Just keep the friction on those shoes turned up - falling on your face is the wrong kind of famous-making."
"And remember," Ren added quietly "one hour from now, you'll have the biggest face in the room."
Aya glanced nervously at Hiro, and he took her hand.
She checked her eyescreen: The average face rank of the party was already at two thousand, much higher than the one she'd crashed ten days ago. And that number would only climb as the big faces arrived, the popular tech-kickers who could explain mass drivers in terms that extras could understand.
Inside, the air was so thick with hovercams that Aya wondered how any of them could get a clear shot. Whole swarms moved together, like minnows in an overcrowded fish tank. Moggle joined the dance overhead, looking oversize and clumsy amid the finger-size cams.
The funny thing was, she'd watched a million parties like this on the feeds, and she'd never once noticed all the hovercams. But now their flitting forms were as distracting as mosquitoes in the rainy season.
But she could understand why they were here. The surge-monkeys alone were eye-boggling.
Dozens of new skin textures abounded: fur, scales, strange colors, and translucent membranes - even a stony crust, as if living statues had joined the party. Aya spotted face-types based on animals, historical figures, and she-didn't-know-what, all vying for the attention of the swarming cams.
With Nana Love's party only a week away, everyone was pulling out all the stops, trying to eye-kick their way into the top one thousand.
Somehow, though, none of the surge-monkeys here was as unnerving as the figures she and Miki had glimpsed in the mag-lev tunnel. This party was all about fashion and eye-kicks, but those freaks were something...inhuman.
She took a deep breath, banishing body mods from her mind. Not everyone here was a surge-monkey. There were also the geniuses: math-heads playing with puzzle cubes and airscreen mazes, science cliques in lab wear, all blended together in a tech-kicker's paradise.