The Rusty Ruins
A few blank windows stared down on them in silence from the husks of the giant buildings. Any glass had long since shattered, any wood had rotted, and nothing remained but metal frames, mortar, and stone crumbling in the grip of invading vegetation. Looking down at the black, empty doorways, Tally's skin crawled with the thought of descending to peer into one.
The two friends slid between the ruined buildings, riding high and silent as if not to disturb the ghosts of the dead city. Below them the streets were full of burned-out cars squeezed together between the looming walls. Whatever had destroyed this city, the people had tried to escape it. Tally remembered from her last school trip to the ruins that their cars couldn't hover. They just rolled along on rubber wheels. The Rusties had been stuck down in these streets like a horde of rats trapped in a burning maze.
"Uh, Shay, you're pretty sure our boards aren't suddenly going to conk out, right?" she called softly.
"Don't worry. Whoever built this city loved to waste metal. They aren't called the Rusty Ruins because some guy called Rusty discovered them."
Tally had to agree. Every building sported jagged spurs of metal sticking from its broken walls, like bones jutting from a long-dead animal. She remembered that the Rusties didn't use hoverstruts; every building was squat, crude, and massive, and needed a steel skeleton to keep it from falling down.
And some of them were sohuge . The Rusties didn't put their factories underground, and they all worked together like bees in a hive instead of at home. The smallest ruin here was bigger than the biggest dorm in Uglyville, bigger even than Garbo Mansion.
Seeing them now, at night, the ruins felt much more real to Tally. On school trips, the teachers always made the Rusties out to be so stupid. You almost couldn't believe people lived like this, burning trees to clear land, burning oil for heat and power, setting the atmosphere on fire with their weapons. But in the moonlight she could imagine people scrambling over flaming cars to escape the crumbling city, panicking in their flight from this untenable pile of metal and stone.
Shay's voice pulled Tally from her reverie. "Come on, I want to show you something."
Shay cruised to the edge of the buildings, then out over the trees.
"Are you sure we can - "
"Look down."
Below, Tally saw metal glinting through the trees.
"The ruins are much bigger than they let on," Shay said. "They just keep that part of the city standing for school trips and museum stuff. But it goes on forever."
"With lots of metal?"
"Yeah. Tons. Don't worry, I've flown all over the place."
Tally swallowed, keeping an eye out for signs of ruin below, glad that Shay was moving at a nice, slow speed.
A shape emerged from the forest, a long spine that rose and fell like a frozen wave. It led away from them, off into the darkness.
"Here it is."
"Okay, but what is it?" Tally asked.
"It's called a roller coaster. Remember, I told you I'd show you one."
"It's pretty. But what's it for?"
"For having fun."
"No way."
"Yeah, way. Apparently, the Rusties did have some fun. It's like a track. They would stick ground cars to it and go as fast as they could. Up, down, around in circles. Like hoverboarding, without hovering.
And they made it out of some really unrusty kind of steel - for safety, I guess."
Tally frowned. She'd only imagined the Rusties working in the giant stone hives and struggling to escape on that last, horrible day. Not having fun.
"Let's do it," Shay said. "Let's roller coaster."
"How?"
"On your board." Shay turned to Tally and said seriously, "But you've got to go fast. It's dangerous unless you're really moving."
"Why?"
"You'll see."
Shay turned away and sped down the roller coaster, flying just above the track. Tally sighed and leaned hard after her. At least the thing was metal.
It also turned out to be a great ride. It was like a hoverboard course made solid, complete with tight, banked turns, sharp climbs followed by long drops, even loops that took Tally upside down, her crash bracelets activating to keep her on board. It was amazing what good shape it was in. The Rusties must have built it out of something special, just as Shay had said.
The track went much higher than a hoverboard could go on its own. On the roller coaster, hoverboarding really was like being a bird.
It wound around in a wide, slow arc, circling back toward where they'd started. The final approach began with a huge climb.
"Take this part fast!" Shay shouted over her shoulder as she zoomed ahead.
Tally followed at top speed, rocketing up the spindly track. She could see the ruins in the distance: broken, black spires against the trees. And behind them, a moonlit glimmer that might have been the sea.
Thiswas really high!
She heard a scream of pleasure as she reached the top. Shay had disappeared. Tally leaned forward to speed up.
Suddenly, the board dropped out from under her. It simply fell away from her feet, leaving her flying through midair. The track below her had disappeared.
Tally clenched her fists, waiting for the crash bracelets to kick in and haul her up by her wrists. But they had become as useless as the board, just heavy strips of steel dragging her toward the ground. "Shay!"
she screamed as she fell into blackness.
Then Tally saw the framework of the roller coaster ahead. Only a short segment was missing.
Suddenly, the crash bracelets pulled her upward, and she felt the solid surface of the hoverboard coming up from under her feet. Her momentum had carried her to the other side of the gap! The board must have sailed along with her, just below her feet for those terrifying seconds of free fall.
She found herself cruising down the track, to where Shay was waiting at the bottom. "You're insane!"
she shouted.
"Pretty cool, huh?"
"No!" Tally yelled. "Why didn't you tell me it wasbroken ?"
Shay shrugged. "More fun that way?"
"Morefun ?" Her heart was beating fast, her vision strangely clear. She was full of anger and relief and...joy. "Well, kind of. But yousuck !"
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 wasfalling ."
"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 Iknew 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 wascool ?"
"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."