Power Play Read Free

sick. He tried to focus on the screen the way his father had told him to focus on the horizon when seasick. The nausea passed. He was okay.
    They fell hundreds of feet, facedown.
    Finn squeezed back into his seat, unable to free himself.
    “We…have…to…do…something!” he said.
    “I’m up for suggestions,” she answered. Oddly, Amanda sounded suddenly collected and unaffected by the flips and twirls and drops. She could actually string a sentence together.
    Then it struck him: Amanda had a unique power.
    “Push…it…open,” Finn shouted over the roar of the simulator’s disintegrating parts. Amanda flashed him a look, her dark hair hanging fully upside down, her cheeks vibrating like Jell-O. Her eyes strained to find the hatch door that Megan had closed electronically. Neither of them knew exactly what was up or down any longer.
    “It’s too strong! I heard it lock,” she said.
    So had he, but what choice did they have? “You…have…to…try!”
    If the seal broke, maybe it would initiate an automatic shutdown.
    “Could be dangerous!” she said. For me, Amanda was thinking. How would they explain the damage to the simulator? Damage that would come from the inside? So far in her life her “gift”—as some called it—had only gotten her in trouble or made her the object of teasing. Subjugated at the age of eight to a foster home for freaks in Baltimore—the Fairlies—she’d been studied by scientists, doctors, and soldiers until she’d had no choice but to run away with Jess. She had no urgent desire to make a scene with her gift and bring all that down on herself again.
    They jerked violently left, right, front, back, and left again. Finn’s head felt as if it was going to come off his neck. Dangerous? he wanted to say. Really?
    Amanda couldn’t risk Finn’s getting hurt. She released her bloodless grip on the chest restraint, reaching toward the screen with outstretched arms. Finn watched her close her eyes, bend her elbows, and flatten her hands, palms facing out like a traffic cop’s. She pushed up over her head—all at once, and with every ounce of strength she possessed.
    The metal bulged like it had been hit with a battering ram. Red paint flakes rained down. Sparks flew.
    “Again!” he hollered.
    “Too strong!” she complained.
    “You’re all we’ve got.” The vibrations climbed toward a climax. The push had made the simulator lean even farther to the left; the grinding of metal was now louder than the sound effects.
    He smelled electrical smoke. They were going to suffocate.
    “EVERYTHING YOU’VE GOT!” he shouted.
    The act of pushing drained Amanda. At low levels she could briefly levitate a person or object—cause them to float for a few seconds. Using up more of herself, she could shove a car a few feet in a parking space, or knock a group of people—or Overtakers—off their feet. Or bend a simulator hatch door. Finn needed her to give it her all.
    “O…M…G!” she screamed.
    On the screen, the track ahead of them rose, fell, and tilted to the right before…disappearing. It looked as if someone had simply erased the track—it broke off in space. Below the break was a rock canyon so deep that Finn couldn’t see the bottom.
    The simulator shuddered. The smell of an electrical short—like the air before a storm—continued to flood the cabin. Their screams were lost amid the groan and complaint of the failing mechanics.
    The car reached the end of the track and flew off into space.
    Amanda thrust her arms toward the overhead door, but this time like she was lifting an incredibly heavy set of gym weights. Going for an Olympic record.
    “STEADY!” Finn shouted, as the car tilted down, now plummeting into the depths of the rock canyon.
    The hatch door rumbled and bent, bulged and shuddered, the seal cracking open, first a fraction of an inch, then wider.
    “MORE!!!!” Finn said, as the ground—a rock bottom, like a dry riverbed—rushed toward them at over