Shabaz watched Wobble’s pod seal tight with mixed feelings.
She was thrilled he was finally getting a chance to repair the damage that had haunted him for so long. But Krugar had a point: he was their big gun. Shabaz had gotten so accustomed to having the machine cover their stripes; now that he was gone, she felt exposed. Not only that, but Wobble was the only one who knew anything about where they were.
“So,” Onna said, staring at the pulsing chamber. “What just happened?”
“It would appear Wobble will be indisposed for a time,” Torg drawled.
“He couldn’t have waited a bit?” Kesi said. “He could have at least shown us around first.”
“Hey!” Torres barked. “Wobble gets to decide whether or not he plays tour guide. If he wants to get repaired first—you got a problem with that?”
Kesi sighed. “Look, I’m not shredding your friend. That guy saved us all a crazy amount of times. But Krugar’s right, what are we supposed to do now?”
“We look around ourselves,” Shabaz said, rolling back to the main hallway. She understood Kesi’s concern, but Torres was right. Mixed feelings or not, after everything Wobble had been through, he could do what he wanted.
“Is that safe?” Zen said, glancing at Krugar.
“I’m pretty sure Wobble wouldn’t have left us if he thought there was still any danger. He took care of the Antis, Betty doesn’t know we’re here, and I doubt any Vies are getting in. Look at this place, it’s spotless.”
“Yeah,” Kesi said, “but Wobble didn’t say we could look around.”
“Didn’t say we couldn’t, rhi,” Dillac said, nudging her tread as he rolled past. “Let’s go see where at’s at.”
Shabaz led them back to the main hub. She couldn’t believe the size of the factory—how were they supposed to get something this big up and running? Could Wobble do it all by himself? If he could get it going, could they create enough Wobbles to clear the Vies that surrounded the facility? Could they create more?
For the first time since falling back into the Thread, Shabaz felt a surge of hope. They’d had disaster after disaster, but this place was so immense and it was untouched by Vies or corruption. No black, no grey. Nothing looked broken. It might not be working yet, but when it did . . .
“We could win,” Shabaz said softly.
“Well, we’re due,” Johnny said, rolling up and giving her a nudge. “Right, Krugar?”
“Amen,” the soldier said, his gaze sweeping the entire factory. “This is a good idea. We find out what else is here; maybe find a place to defend, if necessary.”
“Why?” Onna said. “Betty doesn’t know about this place, right?”
“Yet,” Krugar said. “But SecCore sounded like that wasn’t guaranteed forever.” He pointed up. “I’ll see if I can’t get to the upper floors, find some lines of sight.”
“All right,” Shabaz said. She looked at Johnny. “What do you think?”
A grin split his face. “Hey, this was your plan. Point me in a direction.”
She loved cocky Johnny, she really did, but some things deserved a response. Which is why she said, “All right, we’ll go in pairs. Stay in touch. Find anything, report it over the com.” She pointed at one of the corridors, and added in her sweetest tone, “Why don’t you and Dillac take that one, Johnny?”
The grin faded a bit, then, remarkably, intensified. “Absolutely, boss-mama-sir.” He jerked an eye. “Come on, Dillac, let’s go see where at’s at.”
Okay, she was definitely going to get him later for the boss-mama-sir thing. That and the smug whatever-you-can-dish-out look in his trail-eye as he rolled away. She tried to ignore the way her heart seemed to be accelerating as his eye remained on her.
“Shabaz?” Torres said, but there was a little smile on her lips. “Any other pairs? Or was that it?”
“Shut up,” Shabaz murmured, although it was good to see Torres smile. On a whim, she said, “Okay, why don’t you and Onna take that one?” The two skids glanced at each other and their stripes flushed almost in unison. Thought so.
“Sure,” Torres said.
“No problem,” Onna said, with the same flustered edge. Together they rolled off.
“That was nicely done,” Torg drawled.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shabaz grinned. “How about you and Zen go together?”
Torg gazed at the Level One. “You promise to take it easy on me?”
“Okay,” Zen said, his eyes a little wide.
After they left, Kesi said, “So I guess that leaves us. Didn’t trust Dillac and me together?”
“Not at all,” Shabaz said easily, studying the remaining skid. “I just thought Johnny had it coming.” She was pleased Kesi laughed at that. “And besides, we haven’t had a chance to spend much time together.”
“No,” Kesi said, hesitating. “I guess not.” She considered the two remaining corridors. “So which one do we take?”
They both looked the same: gleaming white and impossibly long. She was going to let Kesi pick as a peace gesture when Shabaz remembered something Wobble had said, just before he’d entered his repair pod. “Let’s try the one on the left.”
The hallway was lined with pods, stretching up into the heights. Shabaz counted thirty levels before she finally gave up. At a certain point, the uniform white and the haze from the glow made everything blend together. Same thing with the corridor: if it had an end, she couldn’t see it.
“You really love him, don’t you?” Kesi said suddenly.
“Hmm?” Shabaz said, squinting into the distance. “You mean Johnny?”
“I know you guys are together—everyone knows that—but you’re different around him. You guys don’t . . . you act different than other skids who get together. That thing where you sent him off with Dillac; he’d just said he was going to follow whatever you said. Why’d he have it coming?”
Shabaz chuckled. Explaining this, when she’d barely begun to understand what she and Johnny were going through herself, would be interesting. “Johnny sometimes gets this look when he thinks he’s doing something noble, like letting someone else lead. And given how much he likes to lead, it is kind of noble. But he still gets a little cocky. Which I like.” She grinned. “But I can’t let him get too cocky.”
Kesi bobbed an eye in understanding, then a spasm of grief crossed her face. “Hey,” Shabaz said, rolling closer. “Are you all right?”
The teal skid popped a Hasty-Arm. “I’m fine.”
It took her a second before she got it. Oh, Shabaz thought, feeling a wave of empathy. So that’s why Kesi was asking about her and Johnny. “Kesi,” Shabaz said gently, “is this about Trist? Were you—?”
“No,” Kesi said sharply. “We were just going to the woods. That’s it. He was just a snug.”
Shabaz studied her. “Was he?”
They rolled in silence for the next few hundred metres. Just when Shabaz thought Kesi wasn’t going to answer, the teal skid said, “He was different.”
“Trist?”
“Yes.” Kesi’s gaze wandered over the pods, her eyes full. “Crisp, this place is big.” Another silence, then she sniffed violently. “I don’t know exactly what it was, but Trist . . . thought different. I liked the way he was willing to stand up to you and Johnny. Lots of skids didn’t like what you were doing.” She glanced at Shabaz. “I think I get it a little now, although I’m still not sure how I feel about what you did.”
“It’s okay, Kesi, you don’t have to apologize.”
She sniffed again. “That’s nice. And if you were hanging out with skids when they died . . . I guess that was pretty nice too.”
“Thank you.”
“But I only say that because now I know about all this.” Her eyes swung around the corridor, shaking in disbelief. “Back in the sphere, no one knew why you and Johnny suddenly started doing what you were doing. Especially you. With Johnny some skids thought it was just a Ten thing, but you . . . no one could fathom why you’d quit at Eight. I sure couldn’t.” Her gaze narrowed. “Although you’re not really an Eight, are you?”
Shabaz grimaced. “It’s complicated.”
“Right. Okay.” Kesi stared at Shabaz’s eight stripes, then shook her stalks. “Anyway, lots of skids complained but Trist was the only one who did anything about it. He was the one who said if we went and told you to cut it out together then we’d have a better chance. Funny, but when I think about it now, he was helping other skids. The same thing we were mad at you for.”
Shabaz smiled. She’d said something similar to Johnny not long after Trist and his gang first showed up.
“So yeah,” Kesi continued, “I guess I felt . . . I mean, we weren’t like you and Johnny but . . . I liked him. More than the other guys I’d been with.” She took a long ragged breath. “But I guess that doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, Kesi—”
The Hasty-Arm thrust out again. “Don’t. Please, just . . .” Her hand clenched into a fist, which she banged off one of the empty pods. “Crisp Betty, I’m doing it again. Whine, whine, whine. It’s like that’s all I’ve done since I got out here. Even Dillac isn’t complaining as much as me. When did that happen? I swear I’m not usually like that. That’s not the skid I am.”
Shabaz chuckled. “I was.”
“Sorry?”
“The complainer. That’s exactly the kind of skid I was for most of my life. Hole, the first time we fell into the Thread, I never stopped moaning. Sometimes I think it’s a miracle Johnny and Bian didn’t vape me.”
“Who’s Bian?”
“Ahhh. . . .”
That was dumb. She did not want to think about Bian. Or Peg. Or Bian and Peg. Or Johnny and . . .
“That’s also complicated,” she said, then bit her lip, angry with herself. “No . . . no, it’s not. She . . . she was one of the skids who was with us the first time we were out here. She was my friend.”
It must have been in her face, because Kesi hesitated before asking, “She died?”
“She did. Saving the Skidsphere.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. Anyway, I spent most of my life complaining. About everything. If I lost in a game, I complained. If I got to the sugarbar and didn’t get a booth I liked, I complained. And once we were out here . . .” She winced, remembering the entire time leading up to meeting Betty. “Seriously, it’s a miracle Johnny didn’t kill me.”
“What changed?”
Shabaz smiled. “He saved my life instead.”
“Oh, like how you and him did with us?”
“Yeah. It was Johnny and Albert.” A small pang went through her heart at the thought of the silver skid. She took a ragged breath. “I was certain I was going to die—another skid just had, right in front of my eyes—and then . . . they saved me. And I helped. And that’s when I realized that maybe I didn’t have to be a victim. Maybe I’d never been a victim. I mean, there were all these skids, even the little ones like Torres and Aaliyah,—” another pang “—all feeling overwhelmed, all beat up and half-vaped . . . but they were doing something about it. So I decided that maybe I should do that too.” Her stripes tilted. “And that was it.”
Kesi bobbed an eye. “Yeah. Maybe I should start doing that.”
“Hey. You geared up for Torres in that prison sim. And besides, you and Trist and even Dillac weren’t complaining in general.” She stopped. “Okay, maybe Dillac was.” She smiled and was rewarded with a smile in return. “You guys had a specific problem: Johnny and me. Even if I think you were wrong at the time, you were trying to do something. And as for what you were like when you first got out here . . .” She swept an arm across the immense hallway. “Everyone gets a little vaped by the Thread.”
They rolled in silence, past pod after pod. Then Kesi smiled a little smile and said, “Thanks.”
“No problem. We’re all in this together.”
“Yeah. So . . . are we supposed to be looking for anything in particular?”
Shabaz laughed. They’d already rolled over four kilometres. Every five hundred metres, there was a side corridor that looked like a slightly smaller version of the first. “Beats me,” she said. “I guess it’s like Krugar said: get an idea of what this place looks like, maybe find a spot we can defend if we need . . .” Her voice trailed off as she stared down the hall.
“What?” Kesi said, swinging a second eye out front.
“Hold on.” She couldn’t believe it, she’d just been talking about her. Shabaz turned on her com. “Johnny?”
“Hey babe,” his voice came over the com. “Is your hallway as exciting as ours is, ’cause we’ve been rolling—”
“Don’t care. Drop what you’re doing and get over here.”
“Uh, that’s a pretty long haul back. Is there a reason—”
“Your girlfriends just showed up.” She couldn’t believe it, but there were two smears of colour in the distance: one pink, one red.
She half-expected Johnny to say something about Bian not being his girlfriend, but instead there was just a short pause and then: “I’m on my way.”
“What’s going on?” Kesi said, as they continued to roll. “Johnny has other girlfriends?”
“Do you see anything down this corridor?”
“Uh . . . no? But I might not scope as well as you.”
I’m not scoping. Ahead of them, she saw the pink and red shapes turn. “Hey!” she yelled, gunning it. “Don’t you dare!”
After about thirty metres, she geared down. She was not going to do this. She was not going to chase Bian and Peg—vaping Peg!—down a hallway to hole knows where. She’d follow, but she was not going to chase them.
“Uh, Shabaz . . .”
“Listen,” she said, “I know what this looks like. I just need you to trust me, all right? And if you do see anything, let me know.” It’ll mean I’m not vaped off my gears.
“Okay,” Kesi said sceptically. But she did follow.
Several times, the pink and red smears disappeared and then reappeared. Not playing, ladies, she thought, although that was a little absurd because she was following. When she caught up to them . . . well, she wasn’t really sure what she was going to do. She was chasing ghosts—she might not be racing after them, but she was still following two dead skids.
She wasn’t sure who made her more angry: Peg or Bian. She wasn’t sure it was sane to be angry at dead skids, but then again, they refused to stay dead.
“Okay,” Johnny said over the com. “We’re in your corridor. Be there soon.”
The flashes disappeared and reappeared again. “No rush,” Shabaz muttered to herself. “We’re having a grand old time.”
She suddenly realized that the smears of colour had stopped. As Shabaz and Kesi approached them, the corridor came to an end. They’d traveled ten kilometres from the central hub.
Shabaz stopped about twenty metres away from Bian and Peg. The ground trembled, but she ignored it. The two skids sat there, just shy of the end of the corridor. They didn’t shimmer or fade in and out. She couldn’t see through them. Bian looked alive and well, although Shabaz noticed that she was missing the arm that had been lopped off when they’d invaded the Core. Peg didn’t look nearly dead enough.
When they didn’t say anything, a surge of impatience went through her stipes and she said, “Well?”
“We will wait for Johnny,” Peg said.
“Sweet snakes,” Kesi said, rolling back a tread.
Shabaz couldn’t help but laugh. “See them now?”
“Yeah,” Kesi said, her eyes wide. “Yeah . . . okay.”
Welcome to the circus, Shabaz thought as she turned back to the ghosts. “Johnny’s going to be a minute. Why don’t you tell me what you want?”
“We will wait for Johnny,” Bian said.
“Well then you should have shown up in his vaping corridor!” she yelled, her anger echoing off the walls. She rolled forward a tread. “Seriously, it’s nice to see you again, Bian, but unless you both got some reason for being here, unless you got something to say, you can scram. So speak up.”
“You will not lose him,” Peg said.
“You will lose each other but you will not be lost,” Bian said.
“And talk sense!” she screamed again. Snakes, she hated this. She glared at Peg. “You’re vaping right I won’t lose him. I’m not you.” She was pretty sure this wasn’t fair—she actually had no idea how Peg had died—but she didn’t care. “And as for you . . .” Her eye swung towards Bian. “I loved you like a sister, but stop talking like Wobble and talk like Bian.”
“We can’t,” Bian said. “He didn’t remember doing this.”
“He will,” Peg said, “but there isn’t time. They’re coming.”
With her trail-eye, she saw a powder blue smear appear, then a crimson one. Johnny was booking it top speed. Behind them, another two skids appeared: Torg and Zen.
“Yeah,” Shabaz said, “I can see that.” She rolled right up to Peg. “So before they get here, let me tell you something. You want to talk to my boyfriend, you talk to me first. Are we clear?”
Peg didn’t respond. She silently met Shabaz’s gaze until Johnny rolled up, slowing as he got near. “So . . .” he said, in that way he had when he tried to sound casual. “How’s everyone doing?”
“Like sugar,” Shabaz said, backing away from Peg, holding her gaze. “The ladies here were just talking about getting lost.”
“Easy to do in this place,” Torg said, arriving with Zen. “Any of you check down those side halls? It’s like a maze.” He looked at Shabaz. “Heard over the com. Thought I’d come and see this for myself. Bian, Peg. You’re looking good.”
A faint smile graced both their faces then faded. “We are sorry, Torg. They are coming.”
“You said that before,” Johnny said, inching forward. “Who’s coming? Who’s they?”
“The stars grow narrow and fall,” Peg said.
“The Core is falling,” Bian said.
That sent a chill down Shabaz’s stripes. “Explain that,” she snapped.
“We can’t,” Peg said. Now that others were here and she wasn’t quite so worked up, Shabaz realized they both looked sad. They’d carried a sense of sorrow from the moment Shabaz and Kesi had arrived. “There’s no time. He would have shown you, but there’s no time.” She looked at Johnny. “This will be the last but one.” Before Shabaz could react with the anger that surged again, Peg’s gaze spread as if to encompass them. Bian did the same.
“We love you all,” they said together. Then they disappeared.
Where they’d been sitting, a door appeared at the end of the corridor.