the end of the roof, a high beam grazes my side. They’ve seen me. My headset shakes static in my ear. I hear a click-click-click-ing, like someone changing stations, then more static, like all the other channels have died.
Leaving only one.
“It’s over,” Chief growls through my earpiece.
Throwing my wheel right, dodging out of the beam’s way, I see my heading for the next is now out of whack.
My Rimbo careens over the building’s edge, and Chief’s voice is back in my head. “Tell your boy Kent that Governor Voss would personally like to thank him,” he says.
“I don’t understand. . . .” I whisper into the mic, stomach muscles cementing together, and not just ’cause I’m currently sailing over a boardwalk. “My boy Kent?”
“He called you in, told us you were alive.” Chief snorts. “Wanted to see that his father got the stuff. Didn’t exactly turn down the reward money, either.”
Of course not.
I imagine pulling him to pieces, limb from limb. We were never on the same team. Stupid of me to think that we were.
Then, steely through the comm, “Last chance, Dane. Where can the governor locate another spring?” Chief Dunn asks.
It’s a question I’ll never answer.
“I’ll take my last chance,” I say into my mic, looking ahead.
Why haven’t I landed already? Right, left, I look . . . and I see nothing. No roof to catch my fall. Not even a building facade that I could aim for. I’ve completely overshot my next roof.
I’m in free fall.
Buildings tower past. They grow larger. Wider.
Punching my fist to the steering wheel—it’s over. It’s over. I can’t make the other drop-offs. A curling, constricting rage forces its way out my throat. How do you know when to give up? How can this be the end?
Like yawning forever, I’m thrown down into the center of the earth. My stomach wants out of my body so badly, the drop has made me sick. I can’t even relax my jaw; my tongue’s latched to the roof of my mouth. This is the longest jump I’ve ever made, and still I’m falling.
When my Rimbo finally hits Broad Walk, it thuds and screeches, clobbering the planks. They groan and smoke under my tires, and the sharp, coated smell of rubber wafts in, even though the weight chute is closed.
“Have it your way,” Dunn says.
A spotlight pins me. I’m a fly needled to a wall.
I watch a heli carve through the black and glance at my water tank—almost empty, but I floor it anyway. Under my tires, the wood rattles and shakes, not made for mobile travel. Jamming on the brakes, I spin the wheel to face east again, closer to Mad Ave.
I need to hide. Right now, I’m just too easy a target.
As I’m wheeling down the boardwalk, time turns to sludge. The seconds rush by, but minutes take forever. Then, the first net falls.
I remember from when they netted me before. The edges flap like impatient wings. Electronic, motion-detecting pulses keep the nets open, and magnets woven into them are attracted to any mobile’s steel frame. They’ll jam your props if you get caught.
I turn the steering wheel left and push RETRACT, folding the wheels into the underbelly. My Rimbo hurtles in an arc off Broad, and within moments it’s living up to its name. It skips along the surface of the water, and I flip on the propellers to give a boost.
Once I’m closer to the end of the gutter, I risk looking behind me: about a hundred feet up, and one block over, I watch the net float down, looking for motion from my Rimbo. When an easy wind sways the suspension bridge, the net gets caught on the zigzags, its motion sensors confused. Don’t watch—go.
I steer left under the Mad Ave boardwalk, so I’m out of the helis’ sight. Since the walkways were built with tides in mind, the canals are high. My Rimbo skips under the walk, leaving me a good foot of clearance between the roof at its highest skip and the planks. Can’t keep this up though—it’s not made for so long on the water. I weave through two pylons, and check to see if the air is clear. Tonight, though, everything is bright. Two flashlights shine on the Ward: the moon, and that heli’s spotlight flooding the canal with light.
My Rimbo’s bounces begin to fall short, each one closer than the next. It slows even as I steer, rallying the bullet blood in my veins. I need to