“This is a joke, right?”
Shay didn’t answer. They were back in the heart of theruins, in the shadow of the tallest building around. She wasstaring up at it with a puzzled expression on her face. “Ithink I remember how to do this,” she said.
“Do what?”
“Get up there. Yeah, here it is.”
Shay eased her board forward, ducking to pass througha gap in the crumbling wall.
“Shay?”
“Don’t worry. I’ve done this before.”
“I think I already had my initiation for tonight, Shay.”
Tally wasn’t in the mood for another one of Shay’s jokes.
She was tired, and it was a long way back to town. And shehad cleanup duty tomorrow at her dorm. Just because itwas summer didn’t mean she could sleep all day.
But Tally followed Shay through the gap. Arguingwould probably take longer.
They rose straight into the air, the boards using themetal skeleton of the building to climb. It was creepy beinginside, looking out of the empty windows at the raggedshapes of other buildings. Like being a Rusty ghost watchingas its city crumbled over the centuries.
The roof was missing, and they emerged to a spectacularview. The clouds had all disappeared, and moonlightbrought the ruins into sharp relief, the buildings like rowsof broken teeth. Tally saw that it really had been the oceanshe’d glimpsed from the roller coaster. From up here, thewater shone like a pale band of silver in the moonlight.
Shay pulled something from her shoulder pack andtore it in half.
The world burst into flame.
“Ow! Blind me, why don’t you!” Tally cried, coveringher eyes.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” Shay held the safety sparkler at arm’slength. It crackled to full strength in the silence of the ruins,casting flickering shadows through the interior of the ruin.
Shay’s face looked monstrous in the glare, and sparksfloated downward to be lost in the depths of the wreckedbuilding.
Finally, the sparkler ran out. Tally blinked, trying toclear the spots from before her eyes. Her night vision ruined,she could hardly see anything except the moon in the sky.
She swallowed, realizing that the sparkler would havebeen seen from anywhere in the valley. Maybe even out tosea. “Shay, was that a signal?”
70 Scott Westerfeld“Yeah, it was.”
Tally looked down. The dark buildings below werefilled with phantom flickers of light, echoes of the sparklerburned into her eyes. Suddenly very aware of how blindshe was, Tally felt a drop of cold sweat creep down herspine. “Who are we meeting, anyway?”
“His name’s David.”
“David? That’s a weird name.” It sounded made up, toTally. She decided again that this was all a joke. “So he’s justgoing to show up here? This guy doesn’t really live in theruins, does he?”
“No. He lives pretty far away. But he might be close by.
He comes here sometimes.”
“You mean, he’s from another city?”
Shay looked at her, but Tally couldn’t read her expressionin the darkness. “Something like that.”
Shay returned her gaze to the horizon, as if looking fora signal in answer to her own. Tally wrapped herself in herjacket. Standing still, she began to realize how cold it hadbecome. She wondered how late it was. Without her interfacering, she couldn’t just ask.
The almost full moon was descending in the sky, so ithad to be past midnight, Tally remembered from astronomy.
That was one thing about being outside the city: Itmade all that nature stuff they taught in school seem a lotmore useful. She remembered now how rainwater fell onthe mountains, and soaked into the ground before bubblingUGLIES 71up full of minerals. Then it made its way back to the sea,cutting rivers and canyons into the earth over the centuries.
If you lived out here, you could ride your hoverboard alongthe rivers, like in the really old days before the Rusties,when the not-as-crazy pre-Rusties traveled around in smallboats made from trees.
Her night vision gradually returned, and she scannedthe horizon. Would there really be another flare out there,answering Shay’s? Tally hoped not. She’d never met anyonefrom ano............