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After that rush of speed, carrying the knapsack and board felt like being turned into a slug

But soon enough the Rusty Ruins appeared below, and the board’s uided Tally to the natural vein of iron She rode it doard the cru jumpy as the ruins rose up to blot out the half-s surrounded her, the scorched and silent cars passing below Peering through the empty s made her feel how alone she was, a solitary wanderer in an eap," she said aloud, an incantation to keep away any Rusty ghosts

At least that much of the note was crystal clear: The "coaster" had to be the roller coaster

When the towering ruins gave way to flatter ground, Tally opened up the hoverboard Reaching the roller coaster, she took the entire circuit at full speed Maybe "straight past the gap" was the only important part of the clue, but Tally had decided to treat the note like aood to ride fast and hard again, leaving the ghosts of the Rusty Ruins behind As she whipped around tight turns and down steep descents, the world whirling around her, Tally felt like so which direction the journey would ultimately take her

A few seconds before she took the juhts winked out The board dropped away, and her sto inside Her suspicion had proved right - at top speed, there hadn’t been h the air in the silent darkness, the rush of her passage the only sound She rery she’d been A few days later it had turned into a joke between theain, disappearing like the track below, leaving Tally in free fall

A count of five later, the lights flickered on, and the crash bracelets steadied her as the board reactivated, rising s solidness At the botto into a steep corkscrew of turns But Tally slowed and kept going ahead, ap"

The ruins continued under her feet Out here they were al through the grasp of vegetation But the Rusties had built solidly, in love with their wasteful skeletons of ht

"Until you find one that’s long and flat," Tally said to herself She hadthe words hadn’tany clearer

"Onewhat ?" was the question A roller coaster? A gap? The first would be silly Where would be the point of a long, flat roller coaster? A long, flat gap? Maybe that would describe a canyon, complete with a handy river at the bottom But how could a canyon be flat?

Maybe "one"for so that looked like a one?

But a one was just a straight line, anyway, kind of long and flat already So wasI, the Roman numeral for one, except for the crossbars on top and bottom Or the dot on the top if it was a sreat clue, Shay," Tally said aloud Talking to herself didn’t seem like such a bad idea there in the outer ruins, where the relics of the Rusties struggled against the grip of creeping plants

Anything was better than ghostly silence She passed concrete plains, vast expanses cracked by thrusting grasses The s of fallen walls stared up at her, sprouting weeds as if the earth had grown eyes

She scanned the horizon, looking for clues There was nothing long and flat that she could see Peering down at the ground passing below, Tally could hardlyin the weed-choked darkness

She ht past whatever the clue referred to and not even know it, and have to retrace her path in daylight But hoould she knohen she’d gone too far? "Thanks, Shay," she repeated

Then she spotted soh the shroud of weeds and rubble, geoles in a line She lowered the board and saw that below her was a track with metal rails and wooden crossbars - like the roller coaster, but ht line, as far as she could see

"Take the coaster straight past the gap, until you find one that’s long and flat"

This thing was a roller coaster, but long and flat

"But what’s itfor ?" she wondered aloud What fun was a roller coaster without any turns or cliot their kicks, this was perfect for a hoverboard The track stretched off in two directions, but it was easy enough to tell which one to take One led back the way she’d come, toward the center of the ruins The other headed outward, northward and angling toward the sea

"Cold is the sea," she quoted from the next line of Shay’s note, and wondered how far north she was going

Tally brought the hoverboard up to speed, pleased that she’d found the answer If all of Shay’s little riddles were this easy to solve, this whole trip was going to a breeze