Tally stepped from the board and walked across the grass on rubbery legs. She found a broken stone big enough to sit on, and lowered herself shakily onto it.
Shay jumped off her board. "Hey, sorry."
"That was horrible, Shay. I was falling."
"Not for long. Like, five seconds. I thought you said you'd bungee jumped off a building."
Tally glared at Shay. "Yeah, I did, but Knew I wasn't going to splat."
"True. But, you see, the first time someone showed me the roller coaster, they didn't tell me about the gap. And I thought it was pretty cool, finding out that way. Best time's the first time. I wanted you to feel it too."
"You thought falling was cool?"
"Well, maybe at first I was pretty angry. Yeah, I definitely was." Shay smiled broadly.
"But I got over it."
"Give me a second on that one, Skinny."
"Take your time."
Tally's breathing slowed, and her heart gradually stopped trying to beat its way out of her chest. But her brain stayed as clear as it had for those seconds of free fall, and she found herself wondering who had found the roller coaster first, and how many other uglies had come here since. "Shay, who showed you all this?"
"Friends, older than me. Uglies like us, who try to figure out how stuff works. And how to trick it."
Tally looked up at the ancient, serpentine shape of the roller coaster, the vines crawling up its framework. "I wonder how long uglies have been coming here."
"Probably a long time. You pass along stuff. You know, one person figures out how to trick their board, the next finds the rapids, the next makes it to the ruins."
"Then somebody gets brave enough to jump the gap in the roller coaster." Tally swallowed. "Or jumps it accidentally."
Shay nodded. "But they all get turned pretty in the end."
"Happy ending," Tally said.
Shay shrugged.
"How do you know it's called a 'roller coaster,' anyway? Did you look it up somewhere?"
"No," Shay said. "Someone told me."
"But how'd they know?"
"This guy knows a lot of stuff. Tricks, stuff about the ruins. He's really cool."
Something about Shay's voice made Tally turn and take her hand. "But he's pretty now, I guess."
Shay pulled away and bit a fingernail. "No. He's not."
"But I thought all your friends-" "Tally, will you make me a promise? A real promise."
"Sure, I guess. What kind of promise?"
"You can never tell anyone what I'm about to show you."
"It doesn't involve free fall, does it?"
"No."
"Okay. I swear." Tally held up her hand with the scar she and Peris had made. "I'll never tell anyone."
Shay looked into her eyes for a moment, searching hard, then nodded. "All right. There's someone I want you to meet. Tonight."
"Tonight? But we won't get back into town until-" "He's not in town." Shay smiled. "He's out here."
Waiting for David
"This is a joke, right?"
Shay didn't answer. They were back in the heart of the ruins, in the shadow of the tallest building around. She was staring up at it with a puzzled expression on her face. "I think 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 through a 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 she had cleanup duty tomorrow at her dorm. Just because it was summer didn't mean she could sleep all day.
But Tally followed Shay through the gap. Arguing would probably take longer.
They rose straight into the air, the boards using the metal skeleton of the building to climb.
It was creepy being inside, looking out of the empty windows at the ragged shapes of other buildings. Like being a Rusty ghost watching as its city crumbled over the centuries.
The roof was missing, and they emerged to a spectacular view. The clouds had all disappeared, and moonlight brought the ruins into sharp relief, the buildings like rows of broken teeth. Tally saw that it really had been the ocean she'd glimpsed from the roller coaster. From up here, the water shone like a pale band of silver in the moonlight.
Shay pulled something from her shoulder pack and tore it in half.
The world burst into flame.
"Ow! Blind me, why don't you!" Tally cried, covering her eyes.
"Oh, yeah. Sorry." Shay held the safety sparkler at arm's length. 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 sparks floated downward to be lost in the depths of the wrecked building.
Finally, the sparkler ran out. Tally blinked, trying to clear 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 have been seen from anywhere in the valley. Maybe even out to sea. "Shay, was that a signal?"
"Yeah, it was."
Tally looked down. The dark buildings below were filled with phantom flickers of light, echoes of the sparkler burned into her eyes. Suddenly very aware of how blind she was, Tally felt a drop of cold sweat creep down her spine. "Who are we meeting, anyway?"
"His name's David."
"David? That's a weird name." It sounded made up, to Tally. She decided again that this was all a joke.
"So he's just going to show up here? This guy doesn't really live in the ruins, 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 expression in the darkness. "Something like that."
Shay returned her gaze to the horizon, as if looking for a signal in answer to her own.
Tally wrapped herself in her jacket. Standing still, she began to realize how cold it had become. She wondered how late it was. Without her interface ring, she couldn't just ask.
The almost full moon was descending in the sky, so it had to be past midnight, Tally remembered from astronomy. That was one thing about being outside the city: It made all that nature stuff they taught in school seem a lot more useful.
She remembered now how rainwater fell on the mountains, and soaked into the ground before bubbling up 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 along the rivers, like in the really old days before the Rusties, when the not-as-crazy pre-Rusties traveled around in small boats made from trees.
Her night vision gradually returned, and she scanned the horizon. Would there really be another flare out there, answering Shay's? Tally hoped not. She'd never met anyone from another city.
She knew from school that in some cities they spoke other languages, or didn't turn pretty until they were eighteen, and other weird stuff like that. "Shay, maybe we should head home."
"Let's wait a while longer."
Tally bit her lip. "Look, maybe this David isn't around tonight."
"Yeah, maybe. Probably. But I was hoping he'd be here." She turned to face Tally. "It would be really cool if you met him. He's…different."
"Sounds like it."
"I'm not making this up, you know."
"Hey, I believe you," Tally said, although with Shay, she was never totally sure.