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Alcina leaps the widening crack down Radia Street and leans to sprint in a circle through the big public archway, trailing a rope as thick as lightning. She ties it (ground-line hitch) and tugs twice; it goes instantly taut, and she catches another and sprints away.

Above, the great zeppelin trembles, tethered by a hundred more hawsers to the tired and lopsided structures of the city. The cracks are accelerating, but Alcina is too: an overpass, a plaza, and the last one tied around her wrist.

The island falls into the ocean. Atlantis rises, on lines as tight as hope.

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