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.
Pursuit
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.
Tally angled back and shot up over the cliff's edge, skimming the earth to a spot directly below the helicopter, out of view of its bulbous windows. Behind her the two villagers had shrunk to mere dots. Her sneak suit was tuned sky blue, so even if they were still watching, they would only see the sliver of her hoverboard.
As Tally climbed toward the thundering machine, her board began to shiver, the vortex beneath the helicopter flailing at her with invisible fists. The air pulsed around her, like a sound system with the bass turned way too high.
Suddenly, her board dropped out from under her, and Tally found herself falling for a moment. Then its grippy surface bucked up under her feet again. She glanced down to check if one of her fans had failed, but they were both still spinning. Then the board dropped again, and Tally realized that she was hitting random pockets of low pressure in the maelstrom, the board abruptly finding itself without enough air to push against.
Tally bent her knees and climbed faster, ignoring the white-hot glow of her lifting fans and the buffeting blows of the tempest around her. She didn't have time for caution— the helicopter was still climbing, still gaining speed, and would soon be out of reach.
Suddenly, the wind and noise quieted—she had reached a zone of calm, like the eye of a hurricane. Tally glanced up. She was directly underneath the machine's belly, sheltered from the turbulence created by the spinning blades. This was her chance to climb aboard.
She climbed higher, reaching out with grippy-gloved hands. Her crash bracelets tugged upward, connecting with the metal in the craft. Another meter higher and she would be there…
Out of the blue, the world seemed to tilt around Tally. The helicopter's belly dipped to one side, then pulled away. The machine was banking hard, making a sudden turn inland, stripping her of the protection of its massive body, like coming around a corner into the path of a storm.
The wind hit Tally in a roiling wave, whipping her legs out from under her and sending the hoverboard fluttering away. Her ears popped in the eddies and currents of the helicopter's vortex, and for a terrifying second she saw the giant blades loom close to her in a great blurred wall of force, their ear-shattering beat pounding through her body.
But instead of cutting her to ribbons, the blades' fury flung her away; she spun in midair, the horizon wheeling around her. For a moment, even her special sense of balance failed, as if the world was whirling into chaos.
After a few seconds of freefall, Tally felt a tug on her wrists, and made the gesture to recall her hoverboard. It had leveled itself off and was shooting toward her at top speed, its lifting fans so hot they had turned whiter than the sun.
She made a grab for the board, and the superheated riding surface burned her hands even through gloves, the scent of grippy plastics at their melting point assaulting her nostrils. The heat was so intense that her sneak suit switched itself to armored mode, trying to offer some protection.
Still spinning, Tally hung from the board for a moment, until its winglike shape stabilized her. Then she rolled herself up onto it and rose to a riding stance.
She switched the sneak suit back to sky blue and looked ahead—the helicopter was receding into the distance.
Tally hesitated, realizing that she should give up now, return to the pickup point, and wait for the next group of runaways. Surely helicopters made this trip regularly.
But Zane was in there, and she couldn't abandon him now. Shay and the rest of Special Circumstances might already be on their way.
Tally urged her overheating board faster. The helicopter had lost altitude and speed during its turn, and soon she was catching up.
The heat of her hoverboard's surface began to burn the soles of her feet, and Tally felt its vibration shifting beneath her. The metal fans were expanding in the white heat, changing the board's sound and feel. She pushed it forward, until the tempest swirling around the helicopter began to batter her again, the air rumbling as she made another approach.
But this time Tally knew what to expect; she had learned the shape of the invisible vortex in her first trip through. Instinct guided her through its whorls and eddies and into the small bubble of protection underneath the machine.
Her hoverboard was whining furiously now, but she urged it upward toward the undercarriage, arms outstretched…