Aya squeezed her fists tight, letting her board descend until she heard the light slap of its lifters against the water. Kneeling, she stretched out one hand in the darkness, lowering her palm and resting it gently on the surface. She could still feel the ripples spreading from where Moggle had splashed.

"I'm sorry," Aya whispered. "But I'll be back soon."

BIG BROTHER

Vast mansions zoomed past Aya, huge and brightly lit with torches. In the early morning light, bonfires burned everywhere: massive carbon allowances on display. Overhead drifted swimming pools, hovering bubbles of water shaped by invisible lines of force. As she flew beneath them, Aya glimpsed the outlines of people lounging on floaters, gazing at the dawn.

Hire's mansion rose three hundred meters into the air, a spindly tower of gleaming glass and steel.

To keep the gorgeous views from getting stale, the entire building rotated at the speed of an hour hand.

Its mass held up by hoverstruts, only a single elevator shaft touched the ground, like an enormous and glacial ballerina spinning on one toe.

In this neighborhood, all the buildings moved. They hovered and transformed and did other flabbergasting things, and everyone who lived here was legendarily bored by it all.

Hire lived in the famous part of town.

As Aya's hoverboard approached the mansion steps, she remembered what her brother had been like in those months during the Prettytime: beautiful, contented, respectful. Sure, he'd gone to all the bashes, but he'd come home for every holiday, always bringing Aya and the crumblies presents.

The mind-rain had changed all that—except for his pretty face.

For the first year after being cured, Hiro had jumped from clique to clique: Extreme Surge, the city hoverball team, even a tour in the wild as a Ranger trainee. He hadn't stuck with anything, shifting aimlessly, unable to make sense of freedom.