Extras by Scott Westerfeld Page A

wanted to lose a hand. She felt the megatons of rock overhead pressing down, an infinite mass, as if the sky had turned to stone. Seconds ago the mag-lev had seemed huge, but instantly the mountain had dwarfed it, squashing her into the narrow sliver of space between the two.
    "Do you feel that?" Miki called.
    Aya turned her head. "What?"
    "I think we're slowing down."
    "Already?" Aya frowned. "Isn't the bend on the other side of the tunnel?"
    "It is. But listen."
    Aya focused on the tumultuous roar around them. Gradually her ears began to tease apart the sounds. The rumble of the train had a rhythm inside it, the steady beat of some imperfection in the track. And that beat was slowing down.
    "You're right. Does the train ever stop in here?"
    "Not that I ever heard. Whoa! Feel that?"
    "Um, yeah." Aya's body was sliding forward; the train was braking faster now. Her feet spun in a half circle around the bracelets, carried by her own momentum.
    The roar and rumble died slowly around them, the train gliding to a graceful, silent stop. The stillness sent tremors across Aya's wind-burned skin.
    "Something must have gone wrong with the train," Miki said softly. "Hope they get it fixed fast."
    "I thought cargo trains didn't have crews."
    "Some do." Miki let out a slow breath. "I guess we wait and—" A light glimmered across the tunnel roof. It came from the right side of the train, flickering unsteadily, like a carried flashlight. For the first time, Aya saw the inside of the tunnel, a smooth cylinder of stone wrapped around the train. The roof was perhaps twenty centimeters from her head. She reached up and touched the cold stone.
    "Crap!" Miki hissed. "Our boards!"
    Aya swallowed. The hoverboards were still clinging to the right side of the tram, a few meters above head height. If whoever was out there looked up and saw one, they'd definitely wonder what it was.
    "Let's see what's going on," Miki whispered. She unlocked her wrists and pulled herself toward the roof's edge.
    Aya released her bracelets and crawled after Miki. If the hoverboards had been spotted, they had to warn the others right away.
    At the edge of the roof, she and Miki peered over. A group of three figures had crowded into the narrow space between train and stone, flashlights lengthening their shadows into distorted shapes. Aya realized that they were floating, wearing hoverball rigs like Eden's.
    But they hadn't seen the boards. They weren't looking at the train at all. All of them stared at the tunnel wall…
    It was moving.
    The stone of the mountain was transforming, undulating softly and changing colors, like oil floating on top of rippling water. A sound like a humming wineglass filled the tunnel. The air suddenly tasted different in Aya's mouth, like in the wet season when a downpour was about to start. One by one, thin layers of the liquid stone peeled away, until a wide door had opened in the tunnel wall.
    The figures' flashlights lanced into its depths, but from atop the train Aya couldn't see inside. She heard echoes from a large space, and saw an orange glow from the doorway playing among the flashlight shadows.
    A panel in the train slid open, matching the gap in the tunnel wall. The tram settled slightly on its levitation magnets, descending until the two openings were aligned.
    One of the figures moved, and Aya jerked her head back into the shadows. When she peeked out again, all three of them had stepped aside to watch a massive object drift from the opening in the train.
    It looked like a cylinder of solid metal, taller than Aya and a meter across. It must have been heavy: The four lifter drones clamped to its base trembled unsteadily, carrying it across the gap with the measured pace of a funeral transport.
    Before the object had disappeared into the mountainside, another followed, exactly the same. Then a third emerged.
    "Do you see them?" came Miki's soft whisper.
    "Yeah. But what are they?"
    "Not human.''
    "Not… what?"
    Aya glanced at