The Skids Read online

  “How few-few Vies?” Torg said, spreading his eyes and scanning the street.

  “Intention of query: not few enough.” Suddenly, Wobble grinned. “Except We-You have We-Me. Wobble.”

  Johnny considered the hitch in the machine’s tread and the arms dangling at its side. “Right,” he said. Glancing at Torg, he added, “Let’s hope it’s fewer than a lot.” He clicked his com. “Bian, get them a little tighter. Albert, you see anything back there?”

  “I’d probably let you know,” replied a dry voice.

  “Crisp Betty, you’re a panzer,” Johnny muttered. “No wonder Bian dumped you.”

  “You turn off your com before you said that last bit?” Torg asked.

  Johnny returned the grin. “I don’t remem—”

  “Incoming!” Albert barked. “Ten-Eighty-Three!”

  In the next few seconds, several things happened at once. Snapping two eyes up and to his left, Johnny scanned the sky. He saw two black shadows peeling out from a building with severed profile lines. “Time—” he started to say, as a third black shape emerged from the broken building.

  It was as far as he got. He’d been going to say: Time to move.

  Wobble beat him to it.

  The machine might have been moving before Albert finished his warning. Johnny actually missed the moment when Wobble left the ground, his treads folding seamlessly into his body. What he did see was the end of Wobble’s transformation, as his entire body twisted and whirred without a single hitch until it returned to the shape they’d first seen—like a turbo-charged Anti—pointing straight up.

  . . . Sweet—

  Flat and lean except for a central bulge of power, Wobble exploded into the sky.

  —Betty—

  Two projectiles like circular saws on fire dropped from Wobble’s underside and screamed through the first two Vies. Wobble tore directly through the third.

  —Crisp.

  Almost as an after-thought, Wobble dropped back to earth, twisting and whirring as he went. He landed on his treads like a dancer.

  “Wow,” Torg said.

  “Affirmative,” Wobble whirred, grinning his metal grin. “Screw the cloak, I-We bring the end. Wobble.”

  Johnny couldn’t help but laugh as the machine’s broken arm jerked at his side.

  So much for damaged goods.

  Chapter Twelve

  For the next few minutes, all the skids could talk about was Wobble.

  “Did you see that?” Shabaz cried, her eyes waving like they were in a parade.

  “And you didn’t want to let the dude through the door,” Brolin laughed, listing a little as he rolled down the street, Bian hanging by his side.

  “Hey, I’m just cautious.”

  Ahead of them, Torg and Johnny tread behind the hero of the hour, holding a similar conversation.

  “I’d say we’re certainly safer,” Johnny mused. He couldn’t get over how fast Wobble had moved.

  “Sure,” Torg agreed. “But that was only three of them. Out in that white space we got hit by a few hundred. Those Antis are what saved us. And who knows how he’d match up against them.”

  “Do you think he could be one?” Johnny frowned under the golden light of the buildings they passed. “They kinda look the same.”

  “A little. Wobble’s thicker in the middle. More power. And none of the Antis did his transforming trick.” Torg grinned. “Plus, none of them seemed like they were of the mind to chat.”

  “Huh,” Johnny grunted. “Hey, was it just me or did his wobble disappear there for a moment?”

  “Noticed that too, did you? Yeah. That reminded me of the Antis.”

  Up ahead, Wobble hitched to the left. Johnny watched him correct his gait, then murmured, “Good thing he’s on our side, I guess.”

  They came to a new section. The buildings now contained row-upon-row, column-upon-column of hollas, stretching up into the gold-black sky. And now that the buildings were lit, it was obvious they did more than stretch up.

  They also stretched down.

  “Look at that,” someone whispered.

  Beneath their treads, they rolled across a semi-transparent floor, like heavily-tinted glass. Through that layer, the columns of hollas sank so far down Johnny couldn’t see where they ended. There were millions of them. Looking up, he wondered if the sky was actually just another tinted street. There could be layers upon layers . . .

  “Betty Crisp, this place is big,” he heard Shabaz breathe.

  “These look like highlights,” Torg said, running his gaze up and down, his body awash with their flickering light. He tapped an eye towards one. “That looks like some kind of race.”

  The hollas showed hundreds of different types of creatures. Many were upright like Wobble—like Wobble they had four Hasty-Arms, although they seemed to tread on two of them.

  Some of the displays were definitely competitions. In some, creatures fought. In some, creatures looked out, as if they were trying to speak directly to Johnny. In some, there were no creatures, just images.

  “They’re not all highlights,” he murmured.

  “Look at that one,” Aaliyah whispered. “It’s just like the Slope.”

  “No, it’s not,” Shabaz said, although her voice was also hushed. “It’s too flat.”

  Johnny found the one they were talking about. Shabaz was right—the environment was flat and empty. Plus, the dust didn’t cover the whole area.

  In one, a creature stood and pointed at another holla within the holla. In another, some kind of construction. In another, two creatures seemed to fight in close quarters, although both appeared to be enjoying it at times.

  “Well, at least some of them are,” Torg said.

  “What?”

  “Highlights.”

  “Why?” Johnny said, tearing an eye away from a holla where two creatures appeared to be making out. Why would you show highlights of that?

  Torg pointed. “From me: eleven up, six left.”

  Johnny found the image. He’d seen it before: The Rainbow Road.

  “I don’t think it’s current,” Torg said. “Don’t recognize anyone.”

  “Think it’s a ‘Best Of?’”

  “Maybe.”

  A queasy feeling began to churn in Johnny’s gut. With an eye in each direction and one fixed on the Rainbow Road, he looked up and down the street.

  Highlight shows weren’t made for skids. Oh sure, they showed them in the sugarbars and skids got a snort out of seeing themselves play. But even the most vain skid knew that the ’lights weren’t for them. The highlights were made for . . .

  “Torg,” Johnny said slowly. “You don’t think this could be the Out There, do you?”

  “I was wondering when you were going to mention that.” Torg followed his gaze. “Not a lot of company, is there?”

  If anything, the flickering from the hollas made the streets feel even more forlorn. With the exception of the Vies, they hadn’t seen another living thing since the house in the storm.

  Where they also hadn’t seen another living thing.

  The sick feeling rose as Johnny peered down the street. Millions of hollas and no one watching them run. A cold shiver shot through his stripes. No one is watching. Wobble had said that. Somewhere in the twisted mess of his speech, Wobble had whispered: No one is watching. He’d been speaking nonsense; the words had slipped by without Johnny really thinking about them. Now . . .

  What if Wobble was right? What if GameCorps didn’t exist? What if no one was in the Out There?

  What if no one was watching?

  Because if that was true, then just what the hole had Johnny been striving for all these years?

  “This can’t be the Out There,” he muttered. “It can’t be,” he insisted again as he caught Torg staring at him. “Someb
ody gave me a second name. I didn’t do that.” He ran his eyes over the hollas. Someone had to be watching all this somewhere. They had to be . . .

  He stopped, staring at a wall.

  “What are you doing?” Torg said. “What do you—oh. Well . . . damn.”

  On the opposite side of the street, dozens of hollas up, another highlight from the Skidsphere. This time of the Skates, a game that was closer to the artistic qualities of the Pipe than the raw-power of the Slope or Tilt. Although it wasn’t without violence.

  For all intents and purposes, skids skated a routine meant to display strength and beauty and grace. It would have been purely artistic except for one thing: each skid skated their routine along with fifty other skids. Who, in addition to doing their own routine, were trying to pummel you off yours.

  Dozens of skids streamed around a massive ice-surface like a parade of kaleidoscopes. Some completed their intricate series of flips, loops, and spins. Some were knocked off trick. Some were plowed into the boards, where moves were awarded extra points due to the risk of collision. If you popped someone hard enough into the boards you could vape them. It wasn’t common, but it happened often enough and was highly rewarded.

  The highlight took turns centring on different competitors. But it kept returning to one skid in particular: a bright pink skid with cherry red stripes.

  “Peg,” Johnny whispered, a space in his heart seeming to empty and fill all at once.

  Johnny had never been particularly good at the Skates. Grace wasn’t really his thing: he was all about power. That was true for most skids; the ratio of games that rewarded power over grace was significant. Johnny almost never thought of his kind as graceful.

  Except when he’d watched Peg.

  “This looks like the one—” Torg started to say.

  “I know which one it is.”

  With all three of his eyes, he watched her launch spinning into the air. Watched two skids zero in on her in mid-flight—Was that Boti? Crisp Betty, I forgot about that old panzer. Watched as Peg spun, almost as if she’d created a hole within herself, out from in-between the attack—the two skids colliding almost comically in the space she’d vacated—to continue her pattern as if the attack had been part of the pattern all along.

  He heard Bian roll up. “Why did we . . . oh. Oh, snakes.”

  “What did we stop for?” Shabaz said. “What are we—?”

  “Shabaz,” Albert said. “Shut up.”

  Far above them, Peg floated across the ice for a few more seconds, then the holla cut away. Johnny watched for a moment more, praying it would cut back. But it didn’t.

  “Crisp Betty,” he whispered.

  Skids didn’t hold on to other skids. They went through relationships like they went through life: brief, hard, and fast. Johnny remembered thinking it made good drama for the Out There.

  But Johnny had held onto Peg.

  Turning his eyes away from the holla, his trail-eye fell on Albert, who was watching him. An old rage flared in his gut.

  He might have done something then, for his hatred of Albert was one of the core parts of his life. And Peg was at the core of that hate. But as one eye fell on Albert, the other two found Wobble looking at him, the machine’s face twisted.

  “All-all is not lost. She is waiting. Wobble.”

  Hope flared inside Johnny’s skin. Dead was dead, that had to be true. But days after Peg had disappeared, a stone had appeared with a name etched in its surface. And six months later, a group of skids had fallen into a black darkness, eviscerating everything it touched, and yet eight of them were still here.

  Albert had always claimed that Peg had fallen through a crack that had just opened up . . .

  Glancing a final time at the holla, Johnny looked at Wobble. He took a long, shaky breath. “Fine,” he said. “Let’s not make her wait any longer.”

  That’s when the ground collapsed beneath their feet.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The entire world bucked to the left—hard—and then to the right. Corpsquake, Johnny had time to think before the street beneath them cracked like a sheet of ice.

  “Negatory, Negatory,” Wobble cried, his body already twisting and transforming. “Betelgeuse is stable, sir. She won’t nova-nova for a million years.”

  Well, she’s going nova now, Johnny thought as the ice shattered and skids began to fall. “Go thin, people,” he yelled. “Control it as much as you can.”

  “Crisp, I’m tired of falling,” Torg sighed, spreading thin.

  Remarkably, Johnny remained calm, even as hollas above and below exploded out from buildings in fireworks of incandescent light. Whatever this was, he was pretty sure it wasn’t an attack, which made it more like a game.

  Except that some skids were better at the games than others.

  “Aaliyah!” Bian cried.

  “Help!” the cream-green skid screamed, plunging into the abyss below.

  Snakes, Johnny thought, eyes scoping. Of course Aaliyah couldn’t go flat yet, most skids didn’t think in any shape other than round until Five or higher. Nearby, Albert clutched onto Torres with a Hasty-Arm, giving her instructions.

  That’s what I should have done. Hole, that’s what we all should be doing.

  “Everybody grab somebody!” he yelled, well aware it was a little late. Angling his body, he dived after Aaliyah. Instinctively, he popped off a chunk of falling street, stealing its energy. Gaining speed, he popped back and forth, accelerating faster than Aaliyah could fall.

  Drop Johnny Drop, he grinned. “Hold on, sugar, I’m coming!” Of course, once he caught her, how were they going to get back up to the others?

  Fortunately, Wobble solved that problem. “Salutations,” the machine said as it tore past Johnny at twice his speed, his body narrowed down to a spike, his arms stretched forward. He caught Aaliyah and turned. “Stay here,” he said as they passed Johnny on the way up. “We-I will return.”

  “Sure thing,” Johnny laughed as he flattened out to slow his fall. “Glad I could help.”

  He watched Wobble fly back to the pack of falling skids—wow, we dropped a long way fast. The machine handed Aaliyah off to Bian then returned to Johnny.

  “Of all the gin joints,” Wobble said as he grabbed Johnny’s Hasty-Arm. “Very brave. Useless but brave.”

  “I’ll make that my slogan,” Johnny laughed. “Hey, if we all grab hold of each other, can you carry us?”

  “Affirmative,” Wobble said. “Must find solid ground. Flee. This should not transpire.” The hitch had disappeared from his speech.

  Wobble levelled out with the other skids and Johnny grabbed onto Torg. “Has everybody got hold of everybody else? Support the low-level skids. Torg . . .” He calced the weight and swallowed his pride. “Albert?”

  Albert passed Torres off to Brolin. Together with Torg, he and Johnny each grabbed onto Wobble with one hand and the pile with the other, distributing the weight as much as they could.

  “All good, Wobble, hit it!” Johnny cried, and the machine soared up, cutting through the wreckage. Somehow, Johnny found himself pressed up against Albert. Staring into the Eight’s damaged eye, he fought the urge to ask how things were going between him and Bian.

  Wobble cleared the falling debris and sailed back over a solid street, flying another hundred metres before touching down. The hollas around them were lit but flickering, strobing the street like a dance pit. It seemed as if every third line of golden light had splintered.

  “We must move quickly. Nothing stable remains.” The ground bucked even as Wobble spoke. “Must find exit. This should not transpire.”

  “Gear up, squids,” Torg barked. They increased their speed.

  “Can’t you just grab us if we fall again?” Bian asked.

  “Falling not danger. Region unstable. Systems fail. Where the stars fall, there b
e dragons.”

  “What kind of . . .” Johnny started to say. The flickering hollas made it difficult to focus. “Oh . . . great.”

  Behind them, Vies peeled out from the broken street. Without a word, Wobble twisted and released three of his fiery sawblades. They tore through the Vies, but not before more emerged even closer to the pack.

  There were far more than three.

  “Negatory-negatory! Red Alert.” Wobble yelled, beginning to spin so fast it was hard to follow.

  “You seem to have it under control,” Torg murmured. It wasn’t too often you saw awe on the Nine’s face.

  “Too many Vies. Anti alert. They come for the Vies, then We-Us.”

  He wasn’t kidding. Johnny blinked and suddenly there were white shapes falling from the sky, hollas mirrored on each surface as they streaked towards the Vies.

  “Street’s end,” Wobble announced. A laser shot from his body, cutting a path down the vibrating corridor. “There will be a door. Safety.” The Antis fell on the Vies, slicing through them like the knives they resembled. “We-I will hold them off. Screw the Spartans, they’ll remember the Gor-Vien. Run-run-run, little games.”

  “You heard him,” Johnny said, bumping Aaliyah to give her some more speed. “Gun it, skids. Bump your neighbour, boost it up!” Skids began popping off walls, accelerating beyond their normal speed. We should have done this the first time the Vies attacked.

  Behind them, carnage. The Antis ripped through the Vies, but occasionally a dozen Vies converged on a single Anti, soaking into it until the knife went dark and died. Still, the Antis were clearly stronger.

  And Wobble was something else entirely. The machine annihilated the Vies and did almost as much damage to the Antis. A giant pinwheel of destruction, projectiles shot out of his body in every direction.

  But even he couldn’t get everything.

  “Heads up,” Torg yelled.

  A black shape fell from above. The Vie landed in the middle of the pack, clipping Shabaz, who screamed before darting ahead. Before Johnny could act, a white Anti appeared from nowhere and sliced into the Vie. The black spore turned pale white, then evaporated.