"Miki!" Aya screamed, kneeling and sticking out a hand.
As she slid within Aya's reach, Miki slammed a crash bracelet down, spinning to a halt. She was laughing, the wind whipping her hair in a frenzy around her head.
"Hey, Aya-chan!" she shouted. "How's it going?"
Aya pulled her hand back. "You scared me!"
"Sorry." Miki shrugged. "The wind always carries you straight down the train. Enjoying yourself?"
Aya took a deep breath. "Sure. But it's kind of icicle-making."
"No kidding." Miki pulled her standard-requisition shirt up, revealing Rangers' silks. "These work, though."
Aya rubbed her hands together, wishing Jai had warned her about the cold.
"I came back because we're almost in the mountains," Miki shouted, rising to one knee. "That's where the train slows down again."
"And we jump off?"
"Yeah. But the tunnel comes first."
"Oh, right." Aya shivered. "The red-light warning. I almost missed that first yellow."
"Don't worry. It's hard for a mountain to sneak up on you." Miki put her arm around Aya. "And it's not as windy in there."
Aya shivered, huddling closer. "Can't wait."
The mountain range rose slowly from the horizon, black outlines against the starlit sky.
As they grew nearer, Aya realized how big the mountains were. The one straight ahead looked wider across than the city's soccer stadium, and much taller than the central tower in town. It ate the sky as they approached, like a wall of blackness rolling toward them.
By now Aya was getting used to the unexpected size of everything out here. She wondered how anyone had managed to cross the wild back in pre-Rusty days, before mag-levs or hoverboards or even groundcars. The scale was enough to drive anyone crazy.
No wonder the Rusties had tried to pave it over.
"Here we go," Miki said, pointing.
At the front of the train, a red light was flickering. Another appeared behind it, a string of seven more igniting like a chain of sparklers.
Miki pulled a flashlight from her pocket and flicked it on. She twisted it to red, then waved it toward the tail of the train.
Aya was already unlacing the bracelet from her ankle. She wanted both wrists magnetized by the time they reached the tunnel.
"You okay?" Miki asked. "You look funny."
"I'm fine." Aya shivered. Suddenly she felt small again, the way she had after the train had first plunged into the wild.
"It's okay if you're not sure yet," Miki said. "I don't just surf because it's fun, you know? It also changes me. And that part takes a while to settle in."
Aya shook her head. She hadn't meant to sound unenthusiastic. The Sly Girls had to believe she was one of them, that she'd embraced their insanity keenly enough to give up kicking for good.
But it was true - something had shifted inside Aya, something she didn't quite understand yet.
The ride had whipped her so quickly from terror to elation, then just as suddenly to insignificance...
She stared out across the dark landscape, trying to untangle her emotions. This feeling was nothing like the obscurity-panic that consumed her when she saw the lights of the city, the horrible certainty that she would never be famous, that all those people would never care about her at all.
Somehow, staring into the darkness, she felt contented that the world was so much bigger than her. Overwhelmed, but calm.
"I know what you mean...it's sort of brain-shifting, being out here."
"Good." Miki smiled. "Now get your head down."
"Oh, right. Tunnel."
They lay flat on the train, snapping their crash bracelets down hard. The mountain grew closer and closer, until it towered over them like a huge wave rolling out of a black sea.
Squinting ahead, Aya watched the red warning lights disappearing one by one, gobbled by the tunnel's maw along with the front half of the train.
Then, with a vast shudder of the air, darkness swallowed them. The roar of the train redoubled with echoes and reverberations. Aya's whole body felt the difference in the train's vibrations.
The tunnel's blackness was a hundred times heavier than the starlight outside, but Aya could feel the tunnel roof sliding past - close enough to reach up and touch, if she wanted to lose a hand.
She felt the megatons of rock overhead pressing down, an infinite mass, as if the sky had turned to stone. Seconds ago the mag-lev had seemed huge, but instantly the mountain had dwarfed it, squashing her into the narrow sliver of space between the two.
"Do you feel that?" Miki called.
Aya turned her head. "What?"
"I think we're slowing down."
"Already?" Aya frowned. "Isn't the bend on the other side of the tunnel?"
"It is. But listen."
Aya focused on the tumultuous roar around them. Gradually her ears began to tease apart the sounds. The rumble of the train had a rhythm inside it, the steady beat of some imperfection in the track.
And that beat was slowing down.
"You're right. Does the train ever stop in here?"
"Not that I ever heard. Whoa! Feel that?"
"Um, yeah." Aya's body was sliding forward; the train was braking faster now. Her feet spun in a half circle around the bracelets, carried by her own momentum.
The roar and rumble died slowly around them, the train gliding to a graceful, silent stop. The stillness sent tremors across Aya's wind-burned skin.
"Something must have gone wrong with the train," Miki said softly. "Hope they get it fixed fast."
"I thought cargo trains didn't have crews."
"Some do." Miki let out a slow breath. "I guess we wait and - "
A light glimmered across the tunnel roof. It came from the right side of the train, flickering unsteadily, like a carried flashlight. For the first time, Aya saw the inside of the tunnel, a smooth cylinder of stone wrapped around the train. The roof was perhaps twenty centimeters from her head. She reached up and touched the cold stone.
"Crap!" Miki hissed. "Our boards!"
Aya swallowed. The hoverboards were still clinging to the right side of the tram, a few meters above head height. If whoever was out there looked up and saw one, they'd definitely wonder what it was.