Page 41 of Last Chance to Save the World

Instead, I focus on running. This disguise won’t work forever—I have only chaos and confusion on my side right now.

“That way!” a man with dark skin, his sun-shield hood raised, points for me, gesturing for me to skirt the edge of Central Gardens as I leave Triumph Square. His friends have cheap flashlights, and they shine them at each other, brilliant flashes of light from their reflective clothing enough to distract my pursuers from the way I race around the corner.

My feet thunder over the moving walkway. There are fewer people here, but most of them are moving in the opposite direction, toward the square.

I risk a glance behind me.

As soon as I cut through the foot traffic, the people fill in the holes I made. Sun shield hoods are raised again. More flashlights.

My heart makes a funny thump as I leap off the walkway and veer to the right, to the edge of the city. A high wall keeps people from leaping off the side of the bridge New Venice is built upon, but a bank of lifts and an emergency stairwell go back down to the water. If I can just get there—

A person in a sun shield motions me to go to the elevator door on the corner; they’re holding it for me. I throw myself inside, lungs gasping for air from my frantic race through the crowd.

Moments before the doors slide shut, I see Rian and a group of his agents pushing through the crowd, knocking people off the moving walkway. His razor-sharp eyes pause, taking it all in: all the people wearing sun shields, all the bodies conveniently clustering around him, slowing him down, the flashlights that flare brightly and blind him and his team.

It’s as if all the world were here today not to watch the release of the nanobots but to help me escape.

16

Bruna meets me on the platform. “Did they see you?” she asks, already leading me around to the back, away from the public, tourist-facing area to where the workers gather.

“I don’t think so,” I gasp.

Above us, all the lift lights illuminate. Whether Rian saw me get in the elevator or not, he sent people down here.

“Quick.” Bruna shoves a helmet at me. The front is clear, and it seals around my face. The back is a breather unit. As soon as I’ve got the helmet on, a digital display in the top of my vision informs me that I have an hour of oxygen.

“And this,” Bruna adds.

“How did you get my jetpack?” Because this ismyjetpack—the jaxon jet that burns cold and never fails me, except when I design it to fail.

Bruna gives me a look I recognize from our college days, a look that tells me to shut the fuck up and just accept the help I’m given. She’s the port boss, and she got me the jets. “Thanks,” I tell her, and she grunts in a way I know means,You’re welcome but also hurry the fuck up.

I shrug my jetpack onto my shoulders and strap the stabilizer around my waist. The unit is designed to work with my LifePack; it’s designed to work in space. But as soon as I secure the gear, Bruna shoves me into the Mediterranean Sea.

Blue darkness washes over me as my body sinks underwater. Panic sweeps into my lungs, but the helmet Bruna gave me keeps placidly pumping air. I gulp at it, my heart hammering, and I am able to refocus enough to kick down, not up. Down and out. Away from the boats and the platforms under the city.

Away from Rian.

“Ada?” a voice says in my helmet.

“Mom?”

“Hey, honey.” Relief threads through my mother’s voice. “You have the coordinates?”

Even before she has the sentence out, I notice a dial at the top of the helmet’s screen, a little radial that blinks when I veer too far off course.

“It’ll take you to the landing strip, but try not to surface before then,” Mom says. “And don’t use the jets until you’re at least half a kilometer from the island.”

If I surface now, there’s a chance Rian will have scouters watching the water. I’ll be caught. Using my jetpack to propel through the ocean might also be spotted; I’m notthatdeep underwater, and Rian isn’t going to exactly give up easily.

That thought—of him scanning the waves, of him searching for me—shouldn’t excite me quite the way it does.

I focus on swimming, avoiding the bits of trash and trying not to think about how gross the water is. Even now, some of the nanobots have to be here, replicating themselves, isolating the pollutants to form globules that can easily be removed and recycled into cleaner components.

“Hey, Mom,” I say. “Thanks.”

“Always.” Her word is a whisper, and I can barely hear it as I continue swimming, my breath increasingly ragged from effort. But it still fills me with warmth. Maybe the only reason I am willing to take the risks I do is because Mom’s always been there to catch me when I fall. It’s easier to walk a tightrope when you know there’s a safety net beneath your wobbly feet.

---