Page 15 of Last Chance to Save the World (Chaotic Orbits #3)

15

T wo!

I open my eyes just in time.

One!

Holo-casts shoot up, glittering in a dazzling display of light visible even under the shining Mediterranean sun, swirling in patterns—waves, I think, artistically rendered in a rainbow of colors.

The actual launch of the nanobots is almost anticlimactic. A poof of a cloud, a wisp of barely visible smoke from a short pipe extending from the communication tower atop Fetor’s skyscraper. The white puff evaporates in seconds, although the sparkling holo-casts burst out even brighter.

“Ada,” Rian says. His hand is around my wrist. I quickly scan the crowd—the net is tightening. I thought I was moving randomly throughout the square, but I’m actually off to the side, close to the Central Gardens gate.

“Look!” someone nearby shouts.

And everyone does. That’s what happens when people in a crowd start pointing to the sky and shouting Look!

People look.

Even Rian.

A flock of messenger birds swoops over Triumph Square.

The exact same gray as the feather that came with the box I got this morning.

“Thanks, Mom,” I mutter as I raise my sun shield’s hood over my face.

And, all around me, hundreds—thousands—of people do the same.

Rian may have peppered his people throughout the crowd, and they may have been circling around us like vultures, waiting for the right time to claim me.

But he’s not the only one to spike the crowd with allies.

Mom’s pigeons are not just pets. They’re messengers. And they’ve just told every single person sympathetic to Earth’s salvation to help me disappear.

This isn’t official business. Mom is like me—she keeps her circle tight. But just like Bruna’s cousin gave Rian and me a ride to the city this morning, it’s not hard to whisper from friend to friend to wear sun shields with flare threads and raise them when the birds fly. I bet ninety percent of the people here consider this little more than a flash-mob stunt, but they’re willing to participate for their impassioned cousin, their idealistic best friend, the sheer chaos of it all.

Still, this many people? All coming to help me? This is the legacy my mother has given this planet. That when push comes to shove, when she lets it be known in secret codes and silent whispers that she needs help—the people rise to help. Every single person on this island—with the obvious exception of Strom Fucking Fetor—knows that the work my mother does helps others, even if they don’t know Mom personally.

Emotion clogs my throat. This? This is more powerful than the secrets I have in my earring.

Not more easily sold on the black market, though, and that’s the difference between my mother and me.

I’ve got my sun shield over my head, but Rian’s not yet let go of my wrist. He turns from the soaring birds to my face, immediately clocking the way I’ve pulled the hood up, how I’m reaching into my pocket for eye protectors.

“Now!” Rian shouts, his hand crushing my wrist in a vise-like grip. He doesn’t know what’s coming, but he can read the signs; he can tell I’m doing something. “ NOW!”

His net tightens. His people push through the crowd, ignoring the angry shouts of others.

Above, the messenger birds swirl in front of the crowd.

And then they explode.

I mean, not really. Mom would never let her precious pigeons just blow up. But they must have had a flash bomb attached to their legs or something, released remotely, I don’t know. That was Mom’s job. And it worked. Because as soon as I have the dark lenses over my eyes, the flash bomb goes off, a flare of brilliant, pure-white light.

It’s the middle of the day, so its effects are pretty limited, but if, say, you happened to be looking right at someone wearing a sun shield laced with flare threads, then yeah, you’re going to get blinded.

By instinct, Rian drops my wrist to cover his eyes.

At least half the crowd mimics the way he tosses an arm over his face. Because when the pigeons flew overhead, that was the first sign. All the people seeded into the crowd on my side—Mom’s side—raised their hoods and covered their faces, and anyone who happened to be looking at them got a blindingly bright flash straight into their retinas.

The result is chaos.

Exactly as planned.

Thousands of people are all dressed exactly like me—in clothing so bright, no one can look at us. And there’s no better time to disappear when the one you’re running from can’t even look at you.

I spin on my heel and push through the crowd. Rian immediately shouts my name, but I don’t pause. I spare him only one look back. He gropes blindly, blinking rapidly, trying to clear his vision.

“Move out!” Rian shouts, and the people in the crowd who work for him attempt to recover and chase me. But between the spots that no doubt still block their vision and the fact that huge swaths of the crowd are wearing the exact same sun shield as me, I’m able to slip through. I spot people being grabbed, hoods ripped off, but the disguise is enough for me to make it through the crowds.

I charge under a view ring. Before, the floating screens showed various different areas of Earth or cities from other planets. Now more than half of them display white—not because the screens were hacked, but because the people on the other side of the portal are holding white shirts, blank images, or empty pieces of paper up to the lenses. Mom must have been able to reach agents throughout the galactic system to come out and further add to the chaos. Sure enough, just when the woman with bushy red hair locks eyes with me, I dodge in front of a view-ring screen, and the white glow is enough to make her wince in pain and look away as the light catches the flare threads of my sun shield.

If I think too much about how Mom’s network has reached throughout the galaxy, how one person’s altruistic goal to just help others inspired people from multiple planets to show up and help, I’ll collapse under the weight of it all.

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.