Extras

It wasn't the most happy-making trip. Moggle's absence nagged her like a constant toothache, and the thick, humid air felt like soup in Aya's lungs. Sweat soaked her Ranger coverall.

When Aya complained that she and Frizz hadn't eaten since the night before, Tally produced emergency bars from the pockets of her sneak suit. While they ate, Tally found and munched her way through a bunch of tiny bananas, entirely green and inedible-looking. Apparently her Special stomach could digest anything.

They made gradual progress toward the cluster of skyscrapers. A steady stream of lifters laden with scrap flowed outward from the spires, marking the route.

With only a few kilometers to go, Tally pulled Aya and Frizz down into the jungle.

"We have to stay out of sight the rest of the way."

Aya groaned. "Does that mean we have to walk again?"

"I don't have time for your mud-crawling," Tally said. "Just keep those rigs in zero-g mode, and stay close to the cables."

Tally gave them both a firm push deeper into the jungle, until the slanting afternoon sun disappeared behind the tangle of vines and branches.

"Aren't you going to tow us?" Aya asked.

Tally snorted. "It's a little too crowded down here to hold hands. Just make like a monkey."

To demonstrate, she grabbed a nearby branch and pulled hard, sending herself shooting away through the dense vegetation. Reaching out to snag a passing tree trunk, she swung herself to a halt.

"See? It's easy when you're weightless."

Aya shared a sidelong glance with Frizz, then sighed and looked around for a handhold. A nearby stem of bamboo looked strong enough. But as she air-swam closer, Aya spotted a creature with about a million legs crawling along it. She reached out gingerly avoiding the crawly thing, and gave the bamboo a tug.

The effort propelled her a few meters before the heavy tropical air eased her to a halt beside a lichen-wrapped tree trunk. She twisted herself sideways and kicked out at it, and was rewarded with a much longer glide through the tangled forest.

It was a strange sensation—though the hoverball rig carried her weight, Aya still had plenty of mass and inertia. Getting herself moving took real effort, especially through the humid air. But once she'd built up speed, coming to a stop—or even changing direction—proved just as tricky.

It didn't help that every surface seemed to be slimy or sticky or covered with insects, or that all the vegetation was still water-laden from the storm. Every time Aya plunged through a growth of ferns, she shook loose a clothes-soaking spray. But gradually she got the hang of it, her brain learning to juggle the tasks of spotting clear paths through the obstacle course, checking ahead for the next object to push off from, and avoiding sticky spiderwebs and water-dumping ferns.

Gliding through the dense canopy, Aya marveled at how rich and intertwined the jungle was, how much more complicated than some ten-minute feed story. She wondered how hard becoming a Ranger would be. At least then she'd be doing something useful, protecting something beautiful instead of stirring up fake calamities for a bunch of bored extras.

After half an hour of pulling herself from vine to trunk to branch, Aya realized she was being watched.

A troop of red-faced monkeys perched in the trees nearby, silently observing as she and Frizz crashed through the ferns and vines. Aya couldn't blame them for their perplexed expressions. She was painfully aware of the eons of evolution that separated her from them, her lack of simian reflexes and Prehensile toes.

Aya grabbed hold of the next vine to bring herself to a halt.

"You okay?" Frizz asked, sliding to a stop beside her.

She nodded. "Yeah. But I think I just figured out their crazy body mods."

"The inhumans'?" he asked, then laughed. "You mean you could actually concentrate while swinging along like a …" He trailed off, looking at the tiny faces watching them through the leaves. "A monkey."

She nodded again. One of the monkeys dangled from its feet, long toes curled around a branch like fingers.

"Even Hiro noticed," she said. "Back when we were hiding and waiting for Tally-wa…the freaks are like monkeys."

"What are you two gossiping about?" Tally called impatiently from ahead. "We're almost there!"

Aya realized they'd been talking in Japanese, and she gave a little bow. "Sorry, Tally-wa. But I think we figured out something. If you're getting around in a jungle wearing zero-g rigs, another pair of hands is a lot more useful than feet."

"Like the freaks?" Tally thought for a moment, drifting closer in her rig. "I guess it makes sense having more fingers, if you're never going to touch the ground."

"So maybe they're collecting metal for a huge grid," Aya said. "You think they want people to give up cities and live in jungles, like some sort of hovering monkeys?"

"And go backward five million years?" Tally raised an eyebrow. "That's a pretty radical way to get along with nature."

"Radical is what the mind-rain is all about, Tally-wa," Frizz said.

Tally sighed. "Why does everyone always say that like it's my fault?"

Frizz looked at her and shrugged. "Well, you started it."

"Don't blame me. I didn't tell everyone in the world to go crazy!"

"But didn't you expect some weird stuff to happen?" Aya asked.

Tally rolled her eyes. "I didn't expect anyone to change their feet into extra hands. Or let hovercams follow them all day. Or get brain surge just so they could tell the truth!"

Frizz shook his head. "But we lost so much in the Prettytime—all the foundations were gone. So we're stuck making it up as we go along!"

Tally laughed. "So what else is new, Frizz? Life doesn't come with an instruction manual. So don't tell me that humanity being logic-missing is my fault." She spun herself around and pointed up through the trees. "Anyway, we're almost at those skyscrapers. Shay and Fausto are probably already there."

Above them, the skeletal spires glinted with afternoon sunlight through the trees. The upper reaches were swarmed with construction lifters, and the screech of metal-chewing blades echoed down from them.

"But if we can't use pings, how do we find them?" Aya asked.

Tally shrugged. "We make it up as we go along."

The Pile

The jungle was clear-cut around the base of the spires, but the ancient Rusty streets were heaped with lattices of salvaged steel.

The pile reminded Aya of a game littlies played: You dropped a bunch of chopsticks onto the floor, then tried to pick up one without moving the others. But instead of chopsticks, these were huge metal beams, encrusted with ancient concrete and rusted cables.

There was no sign of the freaks down here at ground level. The deconstruction crews were all up in the spires, cutting more metal for the pile.

"See the tallest one?" Tally pointed. "Stay under cover till we get there."

"You mean crawl through this?" Aya glanced at Frizz. "But I heard that some ruins have Rusty skeletons in them."

Tally laughed. "That's up north. Down here in the tropics, the jungle eats everything." She pushed off into the pile, threading her way through the rubble and steel.

"Oh, lovely," Aya said, then followed.