Immediately, I was a flag flapping in the breeze, only one hand still on the train. I turned around, trying to figure out what had a hold of me, and saw my jelly rope stretching off into the distance.
It had snagged a tree.
I breathed a sigh of relief for my misaligned dipole—had I put the tape on correctly, I’d be wrapped around the tree right now.
My relief was short-lived. Van der Waals’s forces would rip my arm from my body before the gecko tape detached from the train. Since it had already pulled taut enough to yank my other three limbs away, I figured I had less than two seconds before I lost the arm.
I frantically reached for my Nife with my bad right hand, missed the sheath, and my palm stuck to my side.
The jelly rope pulled so tight I no longer worried about losing my arm.
That was because I realized it would crush my chest first.
TWENTY-NINE
It was hard enough to breathe with the wind slapping me in the face and blowing my cheeks wide-open, turning my tongue into a dried-out piece of beef jerky. But with the jelly rope constricting my chest like an anaconda, breathing was impossible. Not that I’d be short of breath for long. In just a few nanoseconds my rib cage would be only slightly wider than my spine.
Seeing red, I yanked my stuck hand, hard as I could. The gecko tape stayed attached to my shirt, but the shirt ripped away, allowing me to unsheathe the Nife.
I slashed blindly behind me, hoping I’d nick the rope. Then, suddenly, I was free, my lungs greedily sucking in air, the terrible stretching/crushing feeling replaced by wonderful freedom.
Elation became fear as the slingshot effect once again threw me into the air, my hand peeling off the roof of the train as I sailed several feet over the top.
I bent into a pike, trying to grab the speeding train below me, knowing the last car was coming up fast and soon there wouldn’t be anything to grab. My Nife trailed across the roof, digging a trench in the aluminum, and then I’d flown too far, staring down at the ground rushing past, realizing that would be the last thing I ever saw.
I jerked to a sudden stop, the gecko tape on my knee catching on the train, slapping me against the side, facing upside down. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or sob, so I laughed.
My laughter died abruptly when I saw the viaduct coming up. There was very little space between the concrete support pillars and the moving train. When we reached it, it would scrape me off like a bug on a windshield.
I had ten seconds, tops.
I put the Nife handle in my teeth and placed my palms on the side of the train, pushing myself sideways, heading for the car ahead of me a few feet away. If I could crawl in between the cars before hitting the viaduct, I’d be safe. But it was easier said than done. The wind was insane, whipping by so fast it caught my goggles and yanked them off. My muscles had nothing left to give. I inched forward, hand…knee…hand…knee…not daring to see how much time I had left.
Incredibly, I reached the link between the cars with a few seconds to spare. But, like the rest of this train ride, my happiness was short-lived. To cut down on wind resistance, the cars had a rubber screen between them, shielding the link.
I removed the Nife from my aching jaws and slashed the divider—
The viaduct almost on me—
Slipping through the slit in the rubber—
No time left—
The tip of my shoe whacked against the stone support column as we rocketed past.
I took a deep breath and waited for the tornado to hit, pick up the train, and hurl it into the sun.
There was no tornado. For the moment, I was safe.
The space between the cars was dark and quiet compared to the outside. I stood on the coupling, sheathed the Nife, and then pressed my earlobe. “Call Vicki. Adjust sound filter for clarity.” When she picked up, we both said, “Are you okay?” at the same time. “You first,” I told her. “I’m at Sata’s. I just got here.”
“Problems with the cops?”
“They questioned me for a while. I told the truth.”
“Good. There’s nothing to lie about. Nothing to hide. Was Teague there?”
“For a little bit. He left when he caught your trail. But there’s something else. The cops…they found something.”
“What?”
“Bugs.”
“You mean listening devices? Could they track them?”
“I assume they’re trying to.” I wondered who would bug my house, and why. It might not have been related to me at all. For all I knew, one of Vicki’s clients liked to eavesdrop on her.
“Where were they? Your bedroom?” “There were four. One was in my bedroom. One was in our bedroom. One in the kitchen, and one on the roof.”