The loose leaves had settled in the wake of the train's passing before either dared to move again. "It's not a maglev," Silver Valor announced, "so we're still okay. The track will be cement, with an embedded dual third rail on either side that'll carry enough charge to fry us if we trip and fall on it, unless they're sticking purely to a diesel engine. Which you'd smell, I figure."

"You're technobabbling."

He grinned, albeit weakly. "Hey, I really like Star Trek. It was doing about eighty-five, maybe ninety, when it passed over us, but it decelerated the whole way across the river. Couldn't have been traveling more than forty-eight by the time it reached the tunnel entrance. No problem."

Rissa's whiskers flattened further back against her face. "I don't know about you, but I can't run forty-anything miles an hour."

He returned her frank, not-quite-appalled stare. "What, you can't? Not even under adrenaline? What are all those spots for, then?"

Jarissa glared sourly, then turned away to watch for the next train. "Those aren't spots, they're rosettes. I'm mostly leopard, no cheetah in me at all. They tried cheetah DNA in the project before me, and it didn't work out."

"Heh. Got you." One silvery hand brushed through the fur on her upper arm and shoulder, deliberately ruffling it against the grain. "No, we can't outrun it, of course not. But logically, it'll continue to slow as it travels through the tunnel; it's probably down to speeds where it's really quiet by the time it's actually inside the city. We'll swing up to cross the canal just after a train passes, when the sun's a lot lower in the sky. By the time we work our way to the start of the train tunnel, it'll be nearly sunset; we make sure the track's clear to the western horizon, and that way we'll know we have enough time to run pretty far. If a train approaches, it'll have its headlight on. We'll see it in plenty of time to find a maintenance alcove. If that other guy could do it with an incoming train so close, then it's got to be beatable."

Rissa studied him thoughtfully. "You sound very sure of this."

He gave an embarrassed half-shrug. "Not too different from an obstacle course they made me run. Only it wasn't a monorail, didn't go over a body of water, and something kept launching mortars toward my feet."

The vertical climb wound up being the most arduous, time-consuming segment of their cross-river trip. By the time Silver Valor stopped to rest near the support strut's apex, five more trains had barreled past. Vibrations from the lattermost almost shook him loose from the steel latticework. Jarissa's physical structure clearly was more suited to rapid ascents -- her grinning suggestion that he "think of it as a tree, monkeyboy" didn't really help, either -- but she was just as out-of-breath when she tightened her grip, pushed outward and upward, then braced herself part-way onto the cement track for a good look to the west. "None yet. When we do this, try to make it to the second strut after the shoreline before climbing back down off the track. I think there's a little platform around the joint between the track and that support column."

"That'd be nice," Silver gasped. "I'm not looking forward to doing this again at the wall. You think we could just travel on the track?"

Rissa's tailtip made the sideways flick that meant "maybe". She looked him over in concern, then suddenly pivoted to stare below the descending sun again. "Here comes one. Hold on tight." Dropping back down next to him, she wound her arms through the steel lattice, away from the tight corners so she wouldn't get pinched, and pressed slightly against his side.

He tucked his head against his forearms, not quite resting his head against the metal, and tried to breathe normally. "They design these things so trespassers can't do exactly this, you know." Whatever she said in response was lost in the rush of the passing monorail.

Then it was past, and they were scrambling up onto the track, settling into a ground-eating jog on a cement track less than a foot wide, hoping to travel a mile without getting knocked over by the canal winds, and before the next train popped up.