False Future Read Online Free Page B

at the top of my lungs.
    With the lever pushed all the way forward, the train picks up so much speed I have to brace myself against the door. Another spider jumps onto the front of the train and wiggles its claw through the hole in the window left by Rhys’s bullet. It thrashes, widening the hole, bits of glass jabbing into flesh. It doesn’t seem to feel pain. I shove my sword through the hole as we barrel into the next station. The lighted platform is crowded with people and we fly by them, back into the tunnel. Sorry, you’re going to want the next train.
    I lock the accelerator in place, then join Rhys in the middle of the car. We stand back-to-back. A spider crawls along the ceiling; another crouches on a nearby bench. Suddenly they turn away and move toward the other end of the car. The ones working on the side door are gone. Why?
    I turn around as we burst into the next station—there’s a train stopped ahead. I slip back into the booth and yank the lever all the way toward me. The wheels kick up two trails of sparks, and I smack my head against the half-broken windshield. We’re a hundred feet from the train, then fifty, not slowing fast enough.
    “We need to jump!” Rhys says, and I’m already prying open the side doors, finishing the work the spiders started. I push one halfway open, people rushing past the opening just feet away.
    “You first!” I scream, shoving Rhys at the door. He jumps through, tucking himself into a roll. I do the same as the two trains collide hard enough to feel through the air. Like the first two, the platform is crowded with dozens of startled people.
    “Up up up!” Rhys shouts at them. “Up the stairs!”
    Maybe it’s our swords, or the spider blood on us, but the people do as they’re told. We follow them up a few flights, watching for spiders behind us, and emerge in Columbus Circle, right at the southwest corner of Central Park.
    Aboveground it’s chaos, like before. More of those strange armored cars are zooming around, crashing into the regular cars and shoving them aside like toys. People are fleeing out of the park, kicking up snow with their boots. Through the leafless trees I can see a dozen fires glowing and bodies and vehicles moving with purpose, the steady onward march of an invasion. It’s not the temperature that makes me cold.
    A taxi is idling on the sidewalk next to me, all four doors open. Someone tries to get behind the wheel, but I dart past them, slip into the driver’s seat, ram it into gear, then floor it up and over the curb, wheels breaking loose on the snow.
    “Miranda!” Rhys calls after me. But I’m not going far. I swing the car around and drive it straight down the subway stairs. The walls slam all four doors shut. The wheels bounce down the steps as a spider is rounding the bend, ready to come up and claw whatever it can. The front of the taxi hits it, and the whole car jams on the first landing of the stairwell at a sideways angle, pinning the spider and leaving no room for any others to squeeze through. Two of the pinned spider’s arms poke up from behind the bumper and slam down, gouging wide gashes in the hood of the taxi. They scrape and dig and twitch and then stop.
    Rhys is already on the trunk of the cab, breaking the back window with his boot. It comes out in one fractured piece, and he grabs my hand and pulls me out. The spiders scream ( how? ) down in the station before moving away, looking for another exit. They’ll find one soon, but maybe I’ve bought some time.
    We climb the stairs and head toward the twin skyscrapers of the Time Warner Center. Idiots are running out the front door with expensive-looking clothes and—I swear to God—copper pots and pans.
    Suddenly a voice booms out, only it’s inside my head somehow, like telepathy. I know everyone around me can hear it too, because they all stop dead . Frozen in time.
    “Greetings, people of New York. I am the leader of the army currently invading your city. Do