So Yesterday

Chapter 32

MWADI WICKERSHAM WAS CHUCKLING.

"Damn, look at those heads. That stuff worked too good."

"Run?" Futura asked.

Her broad shoulders shrugged. "Looks like it. You take Mandy, I'll grab these two. See you at the factory. Lights!"

Seconds later the long banks of movie lights all switched off, and once again I couldn't see a thing.

"Come with me, kids." A strong hand grabbed my arm, lifting me to my feet. Then I was running, following the sound of roller skates on concrete, in the wake of an unstoppable force that brushed aside invisible obstacles. From behind us came shouts and crashes as our pursuers stumbled through the hodgepodge of movie sets and lighting. The Jammers were barely visible—a swift, silent horde marked by bobbing flashlights in the dark.

I heard Jen's breath next to me, reached out to feel for her hand. We steadied ourselves against each other as we were led around a sharp turn, then pushed up a ladder, Wickersham's skates clanking on metal rungs behind us. We stormed along the catwalk, then through a door high in the wall. A long hallway opened up before us, dimly lit by a row of dirty skylights, leading to a window red with sunset.

Mwadi zoomed around us, shot ahead on her wheels, and had the security gate open before we caught up. She pulled herself out onto the fire escape, and Jen and I followed. Our combined weight tipped the ancient metal stairs into motion, Mwadi clunking down them as they swung to ground level on a wailing, rusty hinge.

Hitting asphalt, she skated furiously around the corner. Jen and I looked at each other.

"Maybe we should escape now," I said.

"We are escaping."

"No, I mean escape the anti-client."

"They're called Jammers, Hunter. Weren't you listening? And we don't have to escape; they want us to work for them."

"What if we don't want to?"

"As if."

Jen turned and dashed after Wickersham. I couldn't do much but follow.

Around the corner Mwadi was zooming up a handicapped ramp to the sliding door—we had circled back around to the sound-stage entrance. She rolled it shut, closed the massive padlock hasp, and jammed her flashlight into it, leaving the hoi aristoi trapped in darkness.

"Lucky all that stuff's rented," she said, rumbling back down the ramp. She looked at an empty limo waiting by the door. The driver must have been inside the building with his employer. "Either of you know how to drive?"

"No."

"No."

She shook her head. "Damn city kids. I can hot-wire, but I hate driving with skates on."

But Jen was already opening the driver's-side door. "It's okay, I've played tons of…" She mentioned a certain video-game franchise with the same name as the crime we were about to commit.

"Good enough for me," Wickersham said.

Already outvoted, I got in.

In 2003 a University of Rochester study revealed that kids who play mega-hours of video games have superior hand-to-eye coordination and faster reflex time. Parents and educators were shocked, appalled, disbelieving.

Every teenager I know was like, "Duh."

Jen took us through the empty streets of the Brooklyn Navy Yard fast and furious, leaving streaks of rubber on the hot summer asphalt. She slowed down only when we passed through the open gates and turned onto Flushing, keeping it legal.

I turned to look out the back window. There were no signs of pursuit.

"We're cool."

"What about everyone else?" Jen asked.

"They'll be fine," Wickersham said. "Practice makes perfect."

I had to ask. "You practice running away?"

"We knew we'd make enemies. Other organizations have fire drills; we have oh-shit-someone-found-our-ass drills. Now, a question for you two: why did someone find us?"

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"Well, you see, when we were tracking you down, we enlisted some help from an acquaintance of mine" — I cleared my throat—"of the purple-headed persuasion. And it appears that she called all her friends, and they called their friends, and someone had us followed."

"That's what I figured." Mwadi shook her head. "And I thought you kids were so damn clever.

"It's my fault," Jen said.

"Not any more than mine," I protested.

Jen's knuckles turned white on the wheel as she grimly followed Flushing Avenue. "I was the one who told Hillary what we were doing."

"That was just to get her to help," I said. "You didn't plan on telling her what we found out, did you?"

"Of course not. But it was me who spilled the beans. It didn't even occur to me that Hillary might be playing us."

"Take this left," Wickersham said. "And shut up a second."I

She made a call, speaking quickly and softly into a cell phone, guiding Jen with gestures. I wondered what was being arranged for us at the other end of this trip now that we were in disgrace.

But part of me felt at peace: finally we had answers. Things had fallen into place, not far from our theories and paka-paka revelations: renegade cool hunters, a charismatic Innovator, a movement that wanted to rock the world. Maybe Jen and I really did know the territory.

It was nice to discover that sometimes the useless facts in my brain had some relevance, that my fantasy world matched up, at least occasionally, with the real one. That all my time spent reading the signals around me hadn't been completely wasted.

Maybe the signs had been around even before Mandy disappeared, as obvious as the stones in the street. People pushing back from being force-fed, ready to rebel; maybe Innovators only channel something that's already there. Maybe the Jammers had to happen.

And whatever else went down, at least Mandy was okay.

I leaned back and closed my eyes, exhausted. There was nothing more to do but wait for the car to get where it was going.

"That way. ' Mwadi Wickersham flicked her phone closed.

Jen turned, easing us down an alley, the sides of the car scraping stacks of garbage bags. We pulled into a bare courtyard, surrounded on every side by derelict buildings, their black windows watching us like empty eyes. A rental truck was already there, the one we'd spotted on Lispenard Street the day before.

Two figures were tossing shoe boxes from it into an unruly pile. My eyes caught the flicker of reflective panels as shoes tumbled out onto the dirt.

A third person stood next to the growing pile.

She was pouring gasoline onto it.

"No," I whispered.

The limo came to a crunching halt, a bottle popping under one tire. Mwadi leapt out, her wheels gliding across the rubbish-strewn courtyard like it was a hardwood rink.

Jen and I ran to the edge of the pile.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting rid of these, as per our agreement with the client," Wickersham said. "They'll get the prototypes and the specs. The last thing they want is the originals showing up on the street."

"You're burning them?" I cried. "They should be in a museum!"

She nodded sadly. "You got that right. But thanks to you two, our security's been compromised. We got to do this quick and dirty."

A match went down onto the pile, and the smell of burning gasoline rushed at us.

"No!" I cried.

Then a wave of heat forced us back, fire spreading across the pile like the sweep of a hand. Shoe-box lids popped off, carried up by the superheated air, revealing beautiful forms inside. The elegant lines warped and twisted, reflective panels glittering for a few seconds in the blaze before they blackened. The smell of burning plastic and canvas followed, forcing acid tears from my eyes.

Jen tried to shout something but only managed to cough into a clenched fist.

The pyre turned greedy, sucking the air around us into itself. Bits of paper rolled past my feet, drawn toward the blaze by the column of smoke climbing out of the courtyard. Sickeningly, I realized that the thick, black cloud overhead was the shoes, transmuted from something beautiful and original into shapeless smoke. I was breathing the dream shoes into my lungs, choking on them.

Mwadi Wickersham shouted orders into her cell phone as the last few boxes were thrown onto the fire before my eyes. I was forced back farther by the heat, helpless to prevent the conflagration. The shoes were going, going… gone.