Extras

by Scott Westerfeld

Aya Fuse is a 15-year-old girl living in the futuristic city of Yokohama. One night, accompanied by her hovercam Moggle, she crashes a party in New Pretty Town hoping to track down a group she saw surfing a mag-lev train, a story which she believes will make her famous. She follows one of the group's members, Eden Maru, out of the party, but they nearly get away when she is distracted by Frizz Mizuno, a more beautiful and far more famous person who compliments Aya. Aya leaves without telling Frizz her full name, because she is embarrassed by her comparatively low face rank. She then follows Eden into a cave, where she is ambushed by the mag-lev riders, who call themselves the Sly Girls. The group's leader Lai gives Aya a chance to join them, but to do so she is forced to drop Moggle into an underground lake.

The next day, she visits her famous brother Hiro in New Pretty Town, another kicker who is celebrating reaching the "top thousand" - a list of the thousand most famous people in the city. Hiro and his friend Ren Machino refuse to believe Aya's tale of the Sly Girls, who are an urban legend in the city, but Ren, who designed Moggle, agrees to help Aya retrieve him. Aya also happens upon a story about Frizz, discovering that he started a clique based around a brain surgery called Radical Honesty, which enforces honesty and makes a person unable to lie. That evening, Aya goes mag-lev surfing with the Sly Girls, enjoying the experience in spite of not having a camera to film it with. During the journey, the girls are surprised when the train stops, and they see inhuman figures loading the train up with a variety of items hidden within a secret underground room.

Aya retrieves Moggle, and uses him to film her next excursion with the Sly Girls, a mag-lev surfing trip which ends in exploration of the underground room they had discovered. Inside are many large cylinders of metal, and a large chute leading to the top of the mountain, neither of which are understood by the Sly Girls. They plan to return to explore further, but Aya's credibility is ruined by the kicking of a news story about Frizz Mizuno coming to talk to her by her dorm. Aya is forced to break off contact with Frizz in order to lose fame, which the Sly Girls despise, and the story leaves her disillusioned by the hateful comments of the kickers. However, she does have the chance to tell Hiro and Ren about the Sly Girls story, and from her description Ren guesses that the chute inside the mountain is a mass driver which, combined with the steel projectiles, could be used to launch an attack on the city.

When Aya next meets the Sly Girls, they reveal that they knew she was a kicker, and have decided to allow her to kick the story of the mass driver in spite of their hatred of fame. They launch themselves and Aya out of the mass driver with homemade parachutes, giving her one last thrill before they part ways, and also giving themselves time to move on to a different city. Aya kicks her story and becomes instantly famous, but is concerned when she receives a message from Tally Youngblood telling her to "run and hide", and is nearly captured by the inhumans while trying to do so. Eventually, Aya uses her fame to take control of a high-security apartment, and waits there until Tally arrives, accompanied by Shay and Fausto.

After talking, the Cutters (Tally, Shay, and Fausto) go hoverboarding with Aya, Hiro, Frizz and Ren. Aya has a signal up for her hovercam, and the Cutters boost it so the inhumans could find them. They are soon captured, and on the inhumans' ship headed for a camp outside of the rusty ruins of Singapore. Frizz ruins their plan due to his Radical Honesty, so the Cutters knock out the inhumans and put the hovercar on autopilot, where more inhumans wait. The Cutters, Aya, Frizz, Hiro, and Ren jump out of the hovercar, not wanting to meet more inhumans. Soon, they have to travel through a jungle to meet David.

After deciding Aya, Ren, Hiro, and Frizz would get in the way, Tally, Shay, and Fausto plan to leave them where they were. Meanwhile, they, the Cutters, would go to destroy the ships of the inhumans. After they have left, Aya says that she is going as well. Ren, Hiro, and Frizz come with her. Soon, they are caught by the inhumans, and meet Andrew Simpson Smith, who mistakes Aya for Tally. The inhumans (calling themselves Extras) explain they are using the metal for two things; the first is to stop the human expansion, the second to build space-stations and rockets so that humans can start living in space as an answer to environmental problems. Soon, everyone is working together to stop the fire Shay and Tally started.

Mystery solved, Aya, Frizz, Hiro, and Ren all become global celebrities. Aya especially benefits and becomes the 3rd most famous person in Yokohama after kicking a story about the Extras, appropriately called "Leaving Home". Aya, her friends, and the Cutters go to a party for only the most famous people in Yokohama, The Thousand Faces Party. There, Aya met Lai, the Sly Girls' leader. Lai tells Aya that the cake will explode (non-lethally) when it is cut, and makes Aya promise not to tell anyone. After, Frizz tells Aya that he might leave Radical Honesty, deciding he didn't need the group to tell the truth. Aya and Frizz watch Tally and David escape from the party on a balcony before going to watch (and possibly film) the cutting of the cake.