Saint Dane's electric weapon swept right through me. I had willed myself to become smoke, and I did. I didn't feel any different. In fact, the moment his attack swept through me, I was back and ready to fight. Maybe I had only changed my midsection. Whatever. It had worked. I had used the power of Solara, the same way that Saint Dane had used it for so long. I'd like to say that I was invincible, but that was wrong. I couldn't keep on using that power. Solara couldn't handle that.

The effect it had on Saint Dane was instant. He was stupefied. He stood frozen, his weapon still at the end of its arc.

"So you do know the truth," he said in awe.

I answered by nailing him with both of my wands. I brought them together like cymbals, hitting both his shoulders at the same time. The reaction was instant. Saint Dane turned to ashes. Not smoke. Ashes. His remains fell to the ground just as the others had done. He had been so surprised by the demonstration of my newfound ability that he didn't use his own power to save himself.

The dados reacted instantly. They left their individual battles and ran to the pile of soot that was the remains of their leader. I wasn't sure why. What did they think they were going to do? Put Humpty Dumpty back together again? I didn't feel bad for Saint Dane. He was a spirit from Solara. I may have killed his body, but I knew it wouldn't be for long. As soon as he hit the cosmic reset b.u.t.ton, he'd be back. I didn't want to be around when that happened.

"Outta here!" I shouted to Mark and the others.

They immediately ran for the door. Before following them, I looked up to Nevva who hadn't moved from her spot near the throne. She didn't do anything to try and stop me. On the other hand, she didn't try to help Saint Dane, either. It seemed as if she was in shock.

"Is this the way you wanted things to be?" I asked.

"I'm afraid this is the way it must be" was her melancholy answer.

"Don't bet on it," I said, then turned and ran.

As I sprinted after the fleeing prisoners, my head was already spinning forward to our next move. We were going to get out of the Taj Mahal, but we would still be in the middle of Saint Dane's luxury theme park. How would we get out of there? Run all the way back to the wall? That was a long way, with lots of dados between here and there. Once we got there, would there be any hope of opening those big doors? There would certainly be more Ravinian dado guards there. What chance did the four of us have against them? We needed an advantage, and not the kind that came from being a spirit from Solara. That wouldn't help Mark and the others. Right now, it was all about those guys. I had to keep them safe, but the truth was, I didn't know how.

Fortunately, Mark did. He and the others. .h.i.t the door before me and blasted outside. We found ourselves in the wide-open garden that Patrick and I had crossed to get to the building. Mark knew exactly where to go. He sprinted straight for the helicopters that had brought them there. It seemed like the perfect means of escape, except for one thing. Mark wouldn't know how to fly a helicopter. He'd never even gotten his driver's license.

That was the old Mark. The new Mark had learned a few new tricks.

"Keep *em back!" he shouted to me and the others.

"Keep who back?" I called after him.

He didn't have to answer. From around both corners of the Taj Mahal, Ravinian guards were headed our way. The two helicopters were parked square in the middle of one side of the building, which meant the guards from both sides had about a seventy-yard sprint to get to us. Mark jumped into the pilot's seat of one chopper and started confidently flipping switches. With a tortured whine the overhead rotor began to turn, though painfully slowly. The other two guys stood on either side of the chopper, holding up their stolen electric prods, ready to repel an attack. I didn't think they'd do so well against a swarm of dados, but I wasn't going to point that out.

I jumped into the seat across from Mark. "You can fly this thing?" I shouted above the growing whine.

"We captured one a year go," he answered. "We taught ourselves."

"A year go?" I shouted. "How long have you been here?" "Been here? Or since we got dumped into the flume?" "Since the flume." "Five years. Give or take."

That news. .h.i.t me like a punch to the head. It had been five years since Mark and Courtney were herded into the flume on Second Earth. Five years. That meant Mark was twenty-three years old. The buddy I had grown up with was five years older than I was.

"We've got a lot to catch up on," Mark said with a smile, which was pretty amazing under the circ.u.mstances.

"We'd better get the chance," I shot back.

The rotor was picking up speed. So were the dados.

"Come on a come on a ," Mark coaxed the machine.

We didn't have much more time.

"Get in!" I shouted to the others.

They didn't listen. They were focused on the incoming dados.

"Uh, Mark," I said with fake calm. "It would be good to get airborne."

"Couple of seconds . . ," he said, concentrating on the RPM reading on the controls.

I heard a scream. We had less time than I thought. The dados from inside the Taj Mahal had regrouped and descended on the two guys outside the helicopter. Mark's friends both jumped away from the chopper, flailing their weapons at the dados.

"Get in!" I shouted to them.

"They won't," Mark said, with a calm that I'd never heard from him. Especially given the circ.u.mstances.

The helicopter shuddered, the rotor whined. I felt a lurch. We were starting to lift off. I turned to call the others again. It was too late. They fought valiantly, but were quickly overwhelmed. I saw one hit by a silver wand and turned to ash. The other went down seconds later. They had sacrificed themselves so Mark could get away. That is, if Mark could get away.

The swarm of dados arrived from both sides. They jumped at the landing skids of the helicopter. A few caught on and were lifted into the sky along with us.

"We've got hitchhikers," I announced.

"Not for long."

Mark lifted the chopper straight up, then quickly shifted the joystick. The helicopter made a sudden counterclockwise turn, flinging off the dangling guards. They fell to the ground, landing on their pals.

"Outta here," Mark said, and accelerated our ascent.

My stomach hit the seat, not only because of the sudden acceleration, but because of something I saw. Standing on the first level of the Taj Mahal, watching us, was Nevva Winter. Standing next to her was Saint Dane. He was already back, no worse for wear. It didn't surprise me, though it made me wonder again where he was drawing his own power from.

What really made me sick was something else I saw on the ground.

The rotor of the second helicopter was starting to turn. We weren't going to be the only chopper in the sky.

Chapter 13.

We accelerated quickly and flew high over Saint Dane's mini-kingdom. Seeing it from the sky gave me an even better idea of how huge the place was. It was a sprawling green oasis surrounded by that gigantic wall a in the middle of a dead, gray city.

"They're coming after us," I said to Mark.

"I hope they do. Maybe we'll snag another one of these babies," he answered while staying focused on flying.

Unbelievable. It was Mark, but it wasn't. I was thrilled to see him, though totally thrown by how much he had changed. Up until that moment, Mark and I had been aging at the same rate. It didn't matter that we were on different territories. For whatever reason, our time lines had been the same. Not anymore. Did that mean I had spent five years on Solara? Or floating in s.p.a.ce? Or was that the wrong way to look at it? Maybe when I left for Third Earth, the spirits of Solara put me here, five years past the time when Patrick was killed. If that was the case, did that mean that the turning point of Third Earth had shifted? I was always sent where I needed to be, when I needed to be there. Thinking this way actually gave me hope. Third Earth was definitely still in play.

All my confused questioning ended abruptly when our helicopter was rocked by an explosion.

"Whoa," I exclaimed. "What was that?"

"They're shooting from the ground," Mark said calmly. "It won't last. As soon as we get past the wall, we'll be out of range."

I looked down out of the window to see that we were about to cross out of the green and into the gray. Two more explosions rocked us. The helicopter shuddered but we weren't hit. A moment later I looked down to see the wall pa.s.sing underneath us. We were back over the dead city of New York.

Whoosh! Something flew by to my right, barely missing us. It left a smoke trail in its wake.

"I thought you said we'd be out of range?"

"Yeah, of their ground guns," Mark replied. "That came from the chopper that's chasing us."

Oh. Swell.

"I saw what those rockets can do," I said nervously. "I was at the zoo when you helped those people out." Mark gave me a quick glance. "Where have you been for five years?" he asked. "That is a very long story."

Whoosh. Whoosh. Two more rockets pa.s.sed by, one on each side.

"I gotta concentrate," Mark said, and pushed the joystick forward. We immediately went nose down, headed for the ground. I put my foot out to brace myself. It wasn't that I didn't trust Mark's flying, it was just that, well, okay, I didn't trust Mark's flying. But then again, I trusted the guys behind us even less, so whatever Mark did was okay with me.

"We'll lose them in the haze," Mark announced.

The air was once again filled with the same brown, dusty clouds that swirled through the zoo, which meant that the visibility quickly dropped back to near zero. Mark pushed the helicopter down toward the river. After a nauseating plunge, he leveled us out and sped southward. We couldn't have been more than ten feet above the water, skimming the surface.

"This is, uh, dangerous," I said, trying not to show how terrified I was. At the speed we were going, we wouldn't see anything solid in front of us until a second before the crunch.

"Yeah, it is," he said with no trace of fear. Or stutter. That was good. If Mark didn't stutter, it meant he wasn't nervous. That made one of us.

"You, uh, you've done this before?" I asked, hoping that my skepticism didn't bleed through.

"Couple times," he answered. "The bad visibility will make us tough to hit."

He seemed confident at the controls. I mean, he wasn't like a fighter-jock or anything, but on the other hand, he wasn't looking around with a "What's this b.u.t.ton do?" att.i.tude. I figured that as long as we didn't hit anything, we'd have a chance at getting away. The helicopter behind us stopped shooting. I guessed it couldn't see us anymore. Mark knew what he was doing. I watched him for a few seconds, amazed at the transformation that had happened over the past five years. It kind of made me sad, because the time had been rough on him. You don't become toughened like that by hanging around reading books and eating carrots. Mark had definitely been through some stuff.

A huge shadow pa.s.sed overhead. Or should I say, we pa.s.sed under something huge. I ducked. I know, dumb. It was an involuntary reaction. I saw through the bubble roof that it was one of the wrecked bridges that had connected Manhattan to the rest of the world.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Home" was his answer. "But not until we shake this guy. We don't need to show him the way."

Another shadow flew overhead. I ducked again. This time it wasn't a bridge. It was the other helicopter.

"Did he see us?" I asked.

"Let's find out."

Mark pulled back the joystick. We immediately shot skyward. I was pressed back into my seat, fighting nausea all the way. It was like being on a ride at Play land. A really sickening ride that could end in certain death at any second. Knowing that didn't help the nausea. It was a reminder that as much as I was a spirit from Solara, I was still very much a human being. At the moment I was kind of wishing that I was a little less human. The wrecked tower of another bridge appeared out of the haze. Mark veered us to the left. We would pa.s.s by safely, but too close for my taste.

"So? Did we losea""

Two rockets. .h.i.t the top of the bridge's tower. It exploded, sending off a cloud of smoke and a shower of metal shrapnel. Mark banked hard to the left and flew down. Chunks of metal hit the chopper, pinging the surface, rocking us.

"No," Mark said.

"*No' what?"

"No, we didn't lose him."

Mark dropped us down to the river again. We leveled off and flew over the choppy, dark water.

"Why don't we go over land?" I asked. "Because I don't want anything falling on anybody." Good answer. I hoped we wouldn't be the ones doing the falling.

"So we just try to lose him in the haze?" I asked. "That. Or I'll drop him in the harbor." Mark said that so matter-of-factly I actually believed he could do it.

"You have a plan for this or are you just winging it?"

He didn't answer. Not good. We were approaching another bridge. The roadway loomed overhead. No sooner did we pa.s.s under it, than the roadbed exploded. The chasing helicopter was above us. Still shooting.

"You ever play chicken as a kid?" he asked.

"No, and neither did you."

Mark laughed, as if remembering the geeky kid he used to be. That kid was long gone. "He's not giving up. We're going to have to play."

There was a reason I never played chicken. It was dumb. It was a test of wills. There was no point to it other than to prove who was the bigger idiot. But this was Mark's show. I wasn't going to argue. We flew under another bridge. It could have been the Brooklyn Bridge. It was hard to tell. We were going too fast and I didn't care anyway. Mark accelerated and drove us skyward again.

"We've got to get far enough ahead of him to make this work," he explained.

The haze cleared a bit once we were over New York Harbor. It was still pretty thick, but visibility had increased slightly.

"He can see us now," I cautioned. "Good. I want him to."

Up ahead I saw the last bridge before open ocean. It was the long Verrazano Narrows Bridge that connected Brooklyn and Staten Island. Its two towers still stood tall.

Mark explained, "For whatever reason, this bridge is still pretty much intact."

I twisted and looked back to see that the chasing helicopter had fallen far behind us. I caught glimpses of it through the haze to see it was just clearing the Brooklyn Bridge.

"Maybe we can lose it now," I offered hopefully.

"No way. We're in the open now. It's going to have to end here. One way or the other."

We flashed over the bridge, directly between the two towers. Mark pressed the chopper on, headed for open ocean.

"Now what?" I asked.

"Now we play."