So Yesterday - By Scott Westerfeld Page 0,60

there, a puzzled look on her face, the small room glaringly white behind her. I skidded to a halt, but our battering ram pulled itself from my grasp, rolling unstoppably ahead.

"W-What the...," Mandy stammered as the dolly hurtled toward her; j then, at the last instant, she did the sensible thing and slammed the door shut.

The dolly struck with a bright metal crunch, the sound of a car hitting a garbage can at full speed echoing through the vast space. The door crumpled inward, closing around the dolly's camera crane like a stomach around a fist.

"Mandy!" I cried, leaping forward.

Jen and I pulled the dolly back frantically, and the door swung outward, then tumbled from its hinges, crashing to the floor.

Mandy was standing inside the little room, looking down at us from her perch. I realized she'd jumped up onto a toilet to escape the rampaging dolly - she was in a bathroom. The sounds of flushing noises came from the imperturbable plumbing.

"Are you okay?" I shouted.

"Hunter? What the hell are you - ?"

"No time!" I cried, and pulled her down. Jen was already headed back across the studio floor, out of the pool of work lights and into the darkness. I dragged a very stunned Mandy after me, bruising my shins against shadowy obstacles as we charged for the big sliding stage door.j

The sounds of confusion came from behind me, doors swinging open and light spilling into the studio. If only we could make it back to the security guard at the front entrance or even out into the sunlight...

"Hunter!" Mandy screamed, a dead weight behind me.

"Just run!" I yelled, trying to yank her forward, but she planted her heels and pulled me to a stop.

I spun and faced her.

"What are you doing?" she cried.

"Rescuing you!"

She looked at me for an endless second, then sighed and shook her head. "Oh, Hunter, you are so yesterday."

Then the world exploded, buzzing and powerful banks of film lights hitting us from every direction.

"Oh, shit," I heard Jen say.

I covered my eyes against the blaze of color, completely blind. Footsteps and the sound of metal skate wheels closed around us.

Oh, shit, was right.
Chapter 31~32
Chapter 31

A COMMANDING VOICE CAME FROM BEHIND THE BLINDING WALL of light.

"If it isn't Hunter Braque, skinny white boy looking like his mother didn't have time to dress him."

Even blinded and terrified, I flinched at this unfair fashion analysis. I might be wearing gray cords and a dried-chewing-gum-colored shirt, but I was going for social invisibility.

"I am undercover, you know," I protested.

"Yeah, you look it," a deeper voice called from the opposite direction - the big bald guy.

"And who have we here?" the first voice said.

I heard the rumble of skates on the concrete floor. I agonizingly pried my lids apart and saw Mwadi Wickersham gliding gracefully out of the retina-searing glare. I glimpsed more figures surrounding us, covering every escape route. The trucker cap and cowboy boots of Futura Garamond strolled out of the blinding wall of light. He stared at Jen's feet.

"Yo, look, she's got the laces," he said. A murmur of recognition passed through our captors.

"So she does," Mwadi Wickersham said, dark glasses peering down from her skate-enhanced height. "Did you come up with those yourself, honey?"

Jen squinted back at her. "Yeah. What do you mean, the laces?"

"Mandy had a picture on her. We've all been talking about them." Mwadi nodded, an imperious queen pleased with her subject. "Nice work."

"Uh, thanks."

"Let us go!" I demanded, if high-pitched noises can be construed as demanding.

Mwadi Wickersham turned toward me and said, "Not until we get a deal signed."

I turned toward Mandy, who was giving me the glare she reserves for people who perpetually insist that clam diggers are coming back.

"W-Wait," I stammered. "What deal?"

"The biggest deal of my career, Hunter." She sighed. "Do you think maybe you could not screw it up?"

We sat at one of the tables in the fake restaurant: Jen and me, Mwadi Wickersham, Mandy, and Futura Garamond. A few more henchmen stood around, half visible behind the bright banks of movie lights. I caught the flash of Future Sarcastic Woman's silver hair and the silhouette of the big bald guy, their alert poses suggesting that departure was not an option. From our island of light, the sound stage seemed to extend for miles in every direction, lending an echoey grandeur to our words.

"So you didn't get kidnapped?" I asked Mandy for the third time.

"Well... at first, I guess." She looked at Mwadi Wickersham for help

with