“Okay?” he asked her as they bounced off.

She laughed. That was answer enough. He spun her around in good conscience as Yuri shoved toward him, trying to rescue her. Tom kicked the ceiling to knock them out of the way and tossed Wyatt back to Vik. Yuri smashed Tom against the wall, then propelled away again. Vik tried to throw Wyatt, but he was too late, because Yuri was determined now.

“Not this time,” he declared, and caught her leg. Then pulled her into his arms. They spun like that, Wyatt’s long hair whirling around like a cloud about them, both of them floating past the window overlooking the curvature of the Earth.

Then as they drifted away, Yuri caught the ceiling to halt them. He dipped his head and kissed her. Wyatt’s hair floated like a mermaid’s, blocking their faces from view. Tom felt his shoulder bump Vik’s as they observed it all.

“I don’t think Yuri’s tossing her back,” Vik observed. “What do we do now?”

“Not that,” Tom told him.

“I need a girlfriend,” Vik complained. “Hey, what do you think of Lyla Martin?”

“She’s frightening,” Tom answered.

“And blond.” Vik sounded pleased about both things. “I’m not going to lie to you, Tom: while we were getting eaten by a shark together, I think we had a moment.”

Yuri drew back from Wyatt, and they both looked over at Tom and Vik where they were floating there, watching them.

“Go on,” Tom blurted.

“Yeah, we don’t mind.” Vik waved for them to carry on. “You only get one crack at this in zero-g.”

Wyatt sighed.

Yuri pointed between them, something faintly menacing on his face. “Turn around and look out that window. Both of you.”

“Oh. Right. Privacy.” Tom and Vik wouldn’t get to watch. They dutifully turned toward the other window.

Vik headed back to the box of military rations, and set about pulling out a tube of gelatinized soup. “Fake vomit, coming up. What do you think, Tom—tomato or cream of chicken?”

“Whichever.” Tom shoved himself toward the window for his last view of the planet from space, figuring he might never get to see it from the outside again with his own eyes. He stared at the curvature of the Earth against the darkness, and deep in his brain, the realization clicked into place that he wasn’t seeing a photograph or a virtual reality image: he was looking at the real thing.

With that, Tom’s mind grew strangely quiet, taking in the planet that seemed to beat with life against the vast, star-studded universe beyond it. His eyes moved over the swirling white clouds of a storm, the shadow another pale curtain cast over the intense blue of the ocean. He ran his gaze down the jagged, stark green line of the East Coast of the United States where it cut into the Atlantic.

“Guys,” Tom said, “we’re actually in outer space.”

He saw the faint reflections in the window as his friends floated over to see. Vik’s gelatinized soup floated around them in globs as they all gazed at the Earth together.

“Look at the skyboards.” Wyatt pressed her finger to the window.

It took Tom a moment to see them. The skyboards below were like tiny fireflies sparking across the planet, sunlight dancing across their solar-paneled backs. It was strange how large and inescapable those images seemed from the Earth, but up here, the boards shrank to such insignificance, he imagined he could flick them away with a finger.

“Man, those are tiny from up here,” Vik said.

There was awe in Yuri’s voice. “Everything.”

And he was right. Everything was. Everything Tom had ever feared seemed to shrink for this instant as the universe expanded for him.

His heart seemed to swell, and he wished every single person on the planet could have this chance, just once, to see the horizon from above the skyboards rather than from below them. Maybe they’d all see that the universe didn’t end at the boundaries of the Coalition of Multinationals but rather that this incredible, infinite stretch of possibilities existed beyond them.

No wonder the sky had to be blotted out by advertisements. The stars drowned with lights. If everyone could see beyond Coalition horizons, perhaps they’d begin to see the titans of humanity for what they were: tiny creatures, smaller than insects, and in the scale of things, every bit as insignificant.

Maybe more people would be willing to look a thief like Reuben Lloyd in the eye and laugh right in his face.

CHAPTER NINE

SHORTLY AFTER THE meet and greets, things began malfunctioning around the Spire. Tom and Vik experienced their first malfunction the day Snowden’s group faced off with Karl’s. Karl chose the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was playing Richard III of England, and his army was ravaging Snowden’s forces—or at least, the future king Henry VII’s forces. Snowden hadn’t bothered to animate the Henry Tudor avatar, so Tom and Vik were free to do as they wanted.

Tom killed one of Karl’s troops and donned his livery, pulling the helmet low over his face. He and Vik proceeded to mock fight their way across the field, always warning each other of incoming dangers, hoping enemy soldiers would see them battling and leave them to it. When Vik spotted Karl, he gave Tom the signal, then Tom whipped his horse around and charged toward Karl.

Several of Karl’s trainees seemed to recognize him—Tom was sure of it—but they didn’t shout out any warning to Karl as Tom galloped up behind him.

Karl was too busy bellowing at his trainees to notice, his crown crooked on his head. “Are you worms paying attention? I said hunt down Snowden’s trainees. Get moving! Oh, but don’t kill Raines! Get him alive and bring him here. He’s mine, got it? Raines lives until I kill him.”

Tom laughed from behind him. “You got one part of that right.”

Karl whipped his head around—and got a face full of pikestaff.

“The part about ‘Raines lives,’” Tom explained to Karl’s corpse, tugging his pikestaff back out. He wiped it on Karl’s tunic before Karl’s body slumped off the side of the horse. “That’s the part I meant.”

Vik rode up to him, and together they discovered Karl’s crown where it had tumbled into a hedge. “Grab that and put it on Snowden, Tom. This can be like how Richard III died at Bosworth Field.”

But Tom wasn’t interested in that. “Yoink.” He plopped the crown on his own head. “I declare myself King Thomas the First of England.”

“Fine. Forget history,” Vik said. Then the pommel of his sword crashed across the top of Tom’s skull. Tom’s legs buckled, and he found himself kneeling on the field, his brain whirling.

Vik placed the crown on his own head. “I declare myself King Vikram the . . .”

A loud roaring noise drowned out Vik’s words, shadows blotting out the sky. Tom threw back his head and saw a fleet of Nazi planes soaring overhead.

Tom rubbed his head. “Did that happen at the Battle of Bosworth Field?”

“No,” Vik said, “there were no Nazi blitzkriegs in medieval times.”

But even as the Nazi blitzkrieg attack began, Julius Caesar arrived with an army of Roman centurions, ready for battle. On the other side of the field, Napoleon Bonaparte’s army closed in to meet him. A loud splintering sound filled Tom’s ears. He and Vik dove for cover just before Captain Hook’s ship ran aground on Bosworth Field.