"And it's cold down there!"
"Good." He nodded. "Maybe next time you'll think about that before you lose your hovercam."
Aya stared at Ren, realizing that Hiro must have put him up to this. If the two of them only knew how kick this story was, they'd understand why sacrificing Moggle had been worth it. But she couldn't explain yet, not until she found out what was hidden in that mountain.
"Fine." She clutched the helium tank closer to herself, glaring down into the luminous water until she spotted Moggle again. "Anything else I need to know?"
He smiled. "Just be careful, Aya-chan."
"Whatever."
She sucked in a deep breath...and jumped.
The splash rumbled in her ears for a moment, but the weight of the tank carried her swiftly through the turbulence to the still waters deeper down. The hoverlamps glowed through her closed eyelids, and it was freezing cold.
Her feet bumped against the reservoir floor, grippy shoes skidding for a moment on loose dirt.
The heavy tank threatened to drag Aya to her knees, but she managed to stay upright.
She opened her eyes...
Rotten leaves and twigs swirled around her head, a mini whirlwind thrown up by her landing.
Depth had turned the light dull green, and spinning shadows danced across the reservoir floor.
A flash caught her eye - one of the shiny stickers on Moggle's cover, shimmering in the lamplight like the eye of some bottom-dwelling beast.
She walked in slow motion toward the hovercam, feet skidding on the slippery bricks. Every step stirred up whirligigs of silt and slime, dark clouds billowing around her. Moggle almost disappeared among them.
But there was no time to let the muck settle. Her heart was beginning to hammer against her rib cage, demanding more oxygen, and her fingers and toes were going numb in the freezing cold. The pressure of the water was dizzy-making, like two hands squeezed around her head.
Squinting through the murk, she maneuvered the helium tank over Moggle and let it drop. The clank carried straight to Aya's eardrums, a certain and final sound.
She fumbled for the nozzle of the air tank, lungs screaming, heart pounding, but her frozen fingers managed to give it a twist. A rumbling filled the water, and the weather balloon began to expand.
Aya let go and pushed away, shooting up from the reservoir floor. She kicked hard, propelling herself toward the blinding suns of the hoverlamps.
With one last glance down, she saw the balloon growing, straining against the tank's weight as it gained buoyancy. Slowly the whole contraption began to rise.
Aya broke the surface gasping, sucking in welcome lungfuls of air.
"You okay?" Ren was kneeling on his hoverboard.
"It's right behind me!" she sputtered, paddling water.
The weather balloon exploded from the water, sending hoverlamps scattering in all directions.
Momentum carried it up into the air, cascading water like the head of a breaching whale. Then it crashed back against the surface, splashing them once more before coming to a bobbing halt.
"You actually did it!" Ren said.
"What did you think?" she asked, twisting a crash bracelet with cold-numbed fingers. "That I was going to drown?"
He shrugged. "I was expecting it to take a couple of tries."
The weather balloon was rising again, carried by its helium into the air. Moggle still clung to the bottom of the tank, dripping like a wet dog.
Ren slid his board closer, reached out, and shut off the flow of helium.
Aya pulled herself onto her hoverboard, shivering with cold.
"I still can't believe that worked," Ren murmured.
Aya coughed water into a fist. "Rope would have been simpler."
"Simpler?" Ren said. "That word's not in the tech-head language."
"Just check if Moggle's okay."
He chuckled, detaching the hovercam. As it fell into his hands, the balloon shot up to bounce against the ceiling. "Hey, did you know your lips are turning blue?"
"Great." Aya wrapped her arms around herself, trying to squeeze the water from her dorm uniform. She sat there shivering and watching Ren.
He pulled the lock-down clamp from Moggle, his eye-screens flickering to life. "My waterproofing held! I'm a genius!"
Aya let out a sigh of relief, which turned into a full-body shudder; her teeth were chattering now.
She held herself tighter, promising never to sacrifice Moggle to a watery grave again.
But she had a hovercam. This story was going to kick.
RADICAL HONESTY
Flying home to Akira Hall, Aya wondered if she was catching a bug.
The sun was shining, but shivers kept rolling through her body. Last night had been so exhausting, and it didn't help that her uniform was wet and covered with reservoir gunk.
"Remind me to drink some meds when we get home."
Moggle flashed its night-lights, and Aya smiled. Even slimy and shivery cold, the world felt better with a hovercam flying beside her. All she needed now was a hot shower and things would be back to normal. Well, as normal as they could be after her midnight ride through the huge and brain-shifting wild.
Everything looked so sedate here in the city.
In the perfect weather, the parklands were crowded - parents out with littlies, an ugly baseball team playing against crumblies. The soccer fields beside Akira Hall were roped off for a bunch of littlies fighting a mech battle. They clanked around in robot warbodies, clobbering each other with plastic swords, shooting foam missiles and safety fireworks. It was all very silly - even the best mech players never got famous - but it still looked like fun.
As she and Moggle skirted the soccer fields, a spinning war wheel escaped from the roped-off battle zone, bouncing past them into the trees. Moggle went after the trail of safety sparks, and Aya followed, laughing, descending to where it had rolled to a stop in the grass.
Stepping from her board, she hefted the war wheel in her hands. It was sizzling harmlessly, the fireworks not yet expended.
Aya grinned, turning back toward the battle and taking aim.
"Watch this!"
Her throw was clumsy, but as it flew through the air the war wheel sputtered back to life, gaining speed from its spinning jets of safety fire.
It careened through the battle, hopping like a flat stone across water, and finally hit one of the mech warriors smack in the middle of his back. It was a clean kill, and his war-body went into wild death throes, flailing its arms and gushing sparks before crumpling to the ground. The littlie inside crawled out and looked around in annoyance, trying to figure out who'd made the kill.
Aya giggled at the lucky throw, stepping back onto her board. It felt as though fate was finally taking her side, and fame couldn't be far away.
"Good shot," a voice said. "But not entirely rule-abiding."
She turned and finally saw a boy sitting cross-legged on a hoverboard, his shape concealed by the dappled shadows of the trees. He smiled a radiant smile.
Frizz Mizuno, appearing out of nowhere again.
"What are you...doing here?" she said softly.
"I came to see you," he said, bowing. "And when you weren't home, I thought I'd watch the battle. I haven't seen any mech combat since I turned sixteen. Which is very Prettytime of me - I used to love mechs."
Aya returned his bow, trying to imagine Frizz doing anything as face-missing as wearing a warbody Sometimes it was hard to remember he was only a year older than she was.
"Plus, I was hoping you'd come home," he said. "It's rather mysterious, turning off your locator. It makes you hard to find."
"Oh, I didn't turn off my locator. I was just sort of... underground."
He frowned. "You don't feel stalked, do you? I'd go away if you did."
"Um, no. I don't feel stalked. Just sort of..."
"Damp?" Frizz asked. "And covered with muck?"
Her arms wrapped around her shoulders, as if that would hide her wet, bedraggled uniform.
"Um, yes. Muck-covered."
"As looks go, it's even more mysterious than your Reputation Bomber robe."
She stood there, trying to think of something to say, but it seemed as though the cold of the reservoir had leaked into her brain and frozen it. It didn't help that Frizz's eye-kicking gaze was raining down on her, tangling her tongue in her mouth. The bigness of her nose suddenly loomed in the bottom of her vision.
"I was doing some...underwater rescue."
"Underwater and underground?" He nodded again. "That would explain wetness. And yet I'm still mystified."
Another shiver went through her; her head felt hot now. "Me too. I didn't tell you my last name.
How did you find me?"
Frizz smiled. "Now that's an interesting story. But I think you should change."
"Change?" Her hand went to her nose.
"Into dry clothes - you keep shivering. Maybe some meds?"
Moggle's night-lights flashed.
He waited outside, watching the battle while Aya went upstairs.
She stood under a hot shower for a solid minute, dizzy from watching twigs and slime swirl down the drain, wondering how he'd found her. This was all so shaming. Frizz had figured out her last name, which meant he knew she was an ugly and a party-crashing extra.
And yet he'd come to see her anyway...
What was wrong with him? Had the honesty surge broken his brain? His face rank had been steadily climbing - it was under three thousand now - and Aya was practically invisible!
Clean and dry, she faced the hole in the wall. Nothing but dorm uniforms, and no merits to waste on disposable clothing. Of course, Frizz had already seen her covered with slime - a clean uniform wouldn't be that much worse.
She dressed quickly and turned toward the door.
Moggle barred her way, flashing its lights once.
"Oh, right," she said, and told the room, "Meds, please. I was underwater and I'm all shivery and hot."
The wall's hand-plate flashed, wanting to feel her temperature and taste her sweat. Aya lay her palm on it, and soon the hole was coughing up something murky into her favorite teacup. Drinking down its orangey sourness, she stared at her standard-requisition furniture and face-missing clothes, the smallness of the room, the obscurity of everything about her.
At least medicine didn't cost any merits. And there must have been nanos in the drink - by the time the elevator reached the ground floor, her dizziness had mostly gone.
"Finding you was easy," Frizz said. "I knew your first name, after all."
She frowned. "But the city must have a thousand girls named Aya."
"More like twelve hundred." Frizz chuckled as another warbody exploded into death throes. The battle was gathering intensity, littering the soccer field with casualties. Moggle was flitting along the edges, practicing tracking shots on rubber missiles and looking completely recovered from being submerged in ice-cold water.
Aya couldn't say as much. Sitting next to Frizz in the dappled shade, she still felt tremors playing on the surface of her skin, as if the medicine had transformed her fever into reputation shivers. At least his tongue-tying manga gaze was focused on the battle instead of her.
"But I knew you'd been reputation bombing," he continued. "So I checked the face rankings for that night. Someone named Yoshio Nara became Yoshio-sensei out of nowhere."
Aya flinched. Even hearing Yoshio's name again sent a sharp little ping through her brain. "But how did you get from him to me?"
"I went through his meme-lines, looking for the name Aya."
"You can do that? I thought conversations were private! Not that it was a real conversation, just me saying the same name for an hour. But still!"
"No, you're right. The city interface won't reveal what you say." He shrugged. "But our city isn't designed for privacy; it's designed for publicity, to spawn connections and debates and buzz. So you're allowed to trace face-hits back to the source, especially if it's a lot of hits. And you were the only Aya to mention Yoshio Nara three thousand times that night."