Tally let her hoverboard drop to the ground, the lifting blades splintering twigs and dry leaves as they spun to a halt. She stepped from the riding surface as it stilled, and the late winter cold leeched up through her grippy shoes.

She wriggled her toes and listened to the forest, watching her breath curl out in front of her face, waiting for the whine of the other boards to peter out. As the silence deepened, her ears caught a soft sound pattering all around her—the wind rattling pine needles in their tiny sheaths of ice. A few birds disturbed the air, and hungry squirrels who'd woken up from a long winter's sleep scrabbled for buried nuts. The breathing of the other Cutters came through on the skintennas' ghostly channel, separate from the rest of the world.

But nothing that sounded like a human moved on the forest floor.

Tally smiled. At least David was making this interesting, standing perfectly still like this. But even with sneak suits hiding their body heat, the Smokies couldn't remain motionless forever.

Besides, she could feel him out there. He was close.

Tally silenced her skintenna feed, switching off the noise of the other Cutters, leaving herself in a hushed, infrared world. Kneeling, she closed her eyes, placing one bare palm on the hard, frozen ground. Her special hands had chips in them that caught the slightest vibration, and Tally let her whole body listen for stray sounds.

There was something in the air … a hum at the edge of hearing, more an itch in her ears than a real noise. It was one of those ghostly presences she could hear now, like the buzz of her own nervous system or the sizzle of fluorescent lights. So many sounds that were inaudible to uglies and bubbleheads reached a Special's ears, as strange and unexpected as the whorls and ridges of human skin under a microscope.

But what exactly was it? The sound ebbed and flowed with the breeze, like the notes that sang out from the high tension lines stretching from the city's solar arrays. Maybe it was some kind of trap, a wire strung between two trees. Or was it a razor-sharp knife angled so that it caught the wind?