Dissolution

Chapter 7 - The Chase

I moved. I exploded. I started running almost before I knew it. An animal terror wrapped around my head, slowing everything down. My legs weren't working properly: they staggered across familiar territory as if I were drunk. Across the yard, back to the security lock. I had to pull up my sleeve twice with shaking fingers. One swipe of my UConn later and the skimboard came free in my hands. I immediately staggered and almost fell over. Idiot! I'd forgotten to activate it before I unlocked it. The noise of first one side and then the other hitting the ground seemed incredibly loud to me, like gunshots. I turned it over with shaking hands and flicked it on.

The front door opened. "There she is!"

I didn't think, I just moved. A flare of the engine and I was off, skimming down the street. Muscle memory turned me to the right. I saw the road back to the heart of Unilox stretching out in front of me. Lights from whirring skimboards and hovercars danced at the end like stars: I flew toward them, every inch of me reaching out for the safety of numbers.

Behind me, I heard the hovercar whine sharply. My heart stuttered. Think, Maddie, think. It was Friday. Late enough that most people would be out. I could lose them in the city traffic. Maybe. I gunned my engine, grimly thanking those hours I'd spent tinkering and the late nights I'd spent looking up how to mod custom parts. My own vanity was going to save me. If I'd had a normal skimboard, the hovercar would have overtaken me a long time ago.

But it was still just a skimboard, and the hovercar was still a hovercar, and the road was long and straight. They pulled up next to me. The heat from their windows burned as they folded away. The wind was roaring in my ears now, loudly enough that I could barely hear the suit even with his mic'd-up implants. I glanced across and almost choked. He really was wearing a suit. Above it, I caught the fleeting impression of sharp bones, low-set eyes, and sunken cheeks. "Madeline Anron," he said, and I heard my death in that voice. "I am a representative of ANRON Life Limited." His voice changed suddenly, modulating as his implant took over. "I need you to stop. I repeat, stop your vehicle now."

I almost did. He'd changed his implant to the same voice they played straight into our ears when they were making announcements. The voice that told us to get down and find cover, that the war was over, that Unilox would never be caught off guard again. The instinct to obey was so powerful I slowed before I even realized it. The hovercar drifted forward for a moment as I fell behind, and I caught a glimpse of the interior through that open window. The other suit was fumbling with something on his lap. Something that shone silver and black with text. It took a moment for me to place it. An EverCube. Like the one in my bag.

They were going to cut my skimboard.

I looked ahead. The bridge was coming up. Beneath it—down, down—the clear waters of Unilox River ran.

The world was moving and I was staying still. The bridge came and then we were on it, rails flying past and repeating. We roared along side by side and I felt the wind cut down to my bones. Mr. Soft finally clicked his EverCube together and aimed it. And in that one moment, I triggered my skimboard to leap.

Up and over the edge. The bottom of it scraped against the rail and sent me tilting crazily forward. I screamed. Cold air scalped my lungs. I coughed, and then I was falling. If I'd waited three more seconds, I would have run out of earth and fallen to my death in the river. Instead, the sightseeing trail that ran down to the riverbank rushed toward me. I tried to angle the skimboard back. I'd done jumps on it before, but nothing like this. My brain calculated the distance and spat out pain.

The skimboard dropped and then flattened out. It was like hitting dirt. Even the buffered shock of it traveled all the way up from my legs to my neck. For a moment, my head was thrown back and I saw the starless sky. And then my sockets pulled and I was thrown forward again, the bars digging deep into my stomach as the board spiraled forward.