Crystal Keepers by Brandon Mull Page A

happened to the others?” Cole asked.
    â€œA little,” Jace said. “What do you know?”
    â€œNot much,” Cole said. “After Joe ran, I realized the patrol guys were distracted, so I hopped back on the train. As we pulled out of the station, I’m pretty sure I saw Joe glued to the ground by giant webs.”
    They reached the bottom of the stairs and walked out into a spacious lobby. The black tile floor darkly reflected the people walking on it.
    â€œWhen Joe ran, I saw you get back on the monorail,” Jace said. “Mira took off toward the nearest stairway. Dalton went diagonally to a different stairway. I headed along the platform in the opposite direction Joe had run. As I moved toward the back of the monorail, I decided youhad a good idea, so I climbed aboard. The doors closed before long.”
    â€œDid you see what happened to the others?” Cole asked.
    â€œLooked like they got away down the stairs,” Jace said. “I was stupid. I should have found some other stairs and stayed with Mira to help her. I watched as best I could, and didn’t see any patrolmen tailing them. They all went after Joe.”
    â€œDid you see him go down?” Cole asked.
    â€œHe was too far away and the station was too crowded,” Jace said. “Since I went to the back of the train, I was farther from him than you were. When the monorail pulled out, I saw a couple of guys stuck to the floor. The way the patrolmen had gathered around them, it must have been Joe.”
    Cole and Jace exited the station through a pair of double doors. Outside, a wide sidewalk gave way to a glossy, black street composed of tightly fitted panels. Heavy traffic zipped up and down the street, the cars hovering roughly a foot above the ground. They were all rounded like Volkswagens, but a little longer and sleeker. The windows were tinted almost as much as the monorail’s, keeping the drivers and passengers mostly hidden from view.
    Watching the hover cars zoom along, Cole flinched as they swerved aggressively, weaving in and out of close gaps. Time after time, right when a crash seemed inevitable, the vehicles corrected enough to avoid the collision. Cole had thought driving on the Arizona freeways looked intimidating, but that was nothing compared to this!
    Along the edge of the street, at intervals, dark gray boxes sat atop metal poles. They looked kind of like parkingmeters, except nobody was parked. A woman approached a pole box and held up her ID card. A green light flared to life atop the box. Seconds later one of the hover vehicles glided to a stop near the woman. The door facing the sidewalk opened. Peering inside, Cole saw that the vehicle was vacant. No driver.
    â€œCheck it out,” Cole said, nodding toward the lady getting into the car. Without a driver, there was room for six passengers—three in the front, three in back.
    â€œI am,” Jace replied.
    The woman held up her ID card to a sensor inside the car. The door closed, and the vehicle darted away, deftly blending in with the rest of the traffic. As Cole and Jace continued to watch, more cars were summoned to pole boxes, while others stopped to drop off passengers. The hover vehicles accelerated briskly and braked abruptly, all without touching the ground or causing a wreck. They were almost totally silent except for the air whooshing around them.
    â€œI think it’s completely automated,” Cole said.
    â€œFancy word,” Jace said.
    â€œThere aren’t any drivers,” Cole rephrased.
    â€œI noticed,” Jace said. “How could that work?”
    â€œIt must be computers,” Cole said. “Machines. Like the robots we saw.”
    They stood watching the frenetic parade of near misses. Even when an accident looked certain, it didn’t happen.
    â€œThis many cars should be causing a traffic jam,” Cole said. “It’s a cool system. I’ve never seen anything like