Uglies

 

Over the Edge

The two waited all day in the Rusty Ruins, patches of sunlight crawling across the floor through the crumbling roof, like slow searchlights marking the hours. It took Tally ages to get to sleep, imagining the leap from the hilltop down into uncertainty. Finally she passed out, too tired to dream.

Awakening at dusk, she found that David had already packed two knapsacks with everything they might need during the rescue. They hoverboarded to the edge of the ruins, riding two sandwiched hoverboards each. Hopefully, they would need the extra boards when they emerged from Special Circumstances, escapees in tow.

Eating breakfast by the river, Tally took time to appreciate her SwedeBalls. If they got caught tonight, at least she would never have dehydrated food again. Sometimes Tally felt she could almost accept brain damage if it meant a life without reconstituted noodles.

As darkness fell, Tally and David reached the white water, and they passed through the greenbelt at the very moment the lights winked off in Uglyville. By midnight, they were atop the hill overlooking Special Circumstances.

Tally pulled out her binoculars and trained them inward, toward New Pretty Town, where the party towers were just coming alight.

David blew into his hands, his breath visible in the October chill. "You really think they'll do it?"

"Why not?" she said, watching the dark spaces of the city's largest pleasure garden. "They seemed into it."

"Yeah, but aren't they taking a big risk? I mean, they just met us."

She shrugged. "An ugly lives for tricks. Haven't you ever done something just because a mysterious stranger intrigued you?"

"I gave my gloves to one once. But it got me into all kinds of trouble."

She lowered the binoculars and saw that David was smiling. "You don't look as nervous tonight," she said.

"I'm glad we're finally here, finally ready todo something. And after those three kids agreed to help us, I feel like..."

"Like this might actually work?"

"No, something better." He looked down at the Special Circumstances compound. "They were so ready to help, just to make trouble, just to play a trick. At first, it killed me to hear you act like the Smoke still existed. But if there are enough uglies like them, maybe it will again."

"Of course it will," she said softly.

David shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. But even if we blow it tonight, and both wind up under the knife, at least someone will still keep fighting. Making trouble, you know?"

"I hope it's us, making trouble," Tally said.

"Me too." He drew Tally closer, and kissed her. When he released her, Tally took a deep breath and closed her eyes. It felt better to kiss him, more real, now that she was about to begin undoing the damage she had done.

"Look," David said.

In the dark spaces of New Pretty Town, something was happening.

She raised her binoculars.

A shimmering line cut its way across the black expanse of the pleasure garden, like a bright fissure opening in the earth. Then more lines appeared, one by one, tremulous arcs and circles sweeping through the darkness. The various segments seemed to sparkle into existence in random order, but they eventually formed letters, and words.

Finally, the whole glittering thing was finished, some parts of it newly sprung to life, the first few lines already starting to fade as the sparklers exhausted themselves. But for a few moments, Tally could read the whole thing, even without her binoculars. From Uglyville, it must have been huge, visible to anyone staring longingly out their window. It said:THE SMOKE LIVES .

As Tally watched it fade, breaking down into random lines and arcs again as the sparklers extinguished, she wondered if the words were really true.

"There they go," David said.

Below them, a large circular opening had appeared in the largest building's roof, and three hovercars rose up through the gap in quick succession, screaming toward the city. Tally hoped that An, Dex, and Sussy had followed her advice and were long gone from New Pretty Town. "Ready?" she said.

In answer, David tightened the straps of his bungee jacket and jumped onto his boards.

They rode down the hill, turned around, and started back up.

For the tenth time, Tally checked the light on the collar of her jacket. It was still green, and she could see David's light bobbing along beside her. No excuses now.

They gained speed as they climbed toward the dark sky, the entire hill like a giant ramp before them.

The wind pushed Tally's hair back, and she blinked as bugspinged against her face. She slid carefully toward the front of the paired boards, the toes of one grippy shoe sticking out past the riding surface.

Then the horizon seemed to slip away in front of her, and Tally crouched, ready to jump.

The ground disappeared.

Tally pushed off with all her strength, forcing her hoverboards down the steep side of the hill, where they would bring themselves to a halt. She and David had switched off their crash bracelets - they didn't want the boards following them over the wire. Not yet.

Tally soared into midair, still climbing for a few more seconds. The outer city lay below her, a vast patchwork of light and dark. She spread her arms and legs.

At the peak of her arc, the silence seemed to overwhelm everything - her stomach-churning weightlessness, the mix of excitement and fear rushing through her, the wind against her face. Tally tore her eyes from the silently waiting earth and dared a glance at David. Hardly an arm's length away, he was looking back at her, his face alight.

She grinned at him and turned back to see that the ground was approaching now, the speed of her fall building slowly. As she'd calculated, they were coming down right in the middle of the wire. Tally began to anticipate the sickening jolt of her bungee jacket pulling her up.

For long moments nothing happened, except the ground getting closer, and Tally wondered again if bungee jackets could handle a fall from this distance. A hundred versions of what a hard landing would feel like managed to squeeze into her head. Of course, it probably wouldn't feel like anything.

Ever again.

The ground grew closer and closer, until Tally was certain something had gone wrong. Then, with sudden violence, the straps of the jacket came alive, cutting cruelly into her thighs and shoulders, crushing the air from her lungs, the pressure building as if a huge rubber band were wrapped around her, trying to bring her to a halt. The bare dirt of the compound rushed up toward her, looking flat and packed and hard, the jacket fighting her momentum desperately now, crushing her like a fist in its grasp.

Finally, the invisible rubber band stretching toward its breaking point, she slowed to a shuddering halt within reach of the ground, pulling her hands back to keep from touching it, her eyeballs straining forward as if they wanted to pop out of her skull.

Then her fall reversed, and she pulled back upward, hover-bouncing head over heels, sky and horizon spinning around her like a playground ride. Tally had no idea where David was - or where up and down were, for that matter. This jump was ten times her plunge off Garbo Mansion. How many bounces would it take to come to a stop?

Now she was falling again, the dirt of the compound replaced by a building below her. One foot almost touched down onto the roof, but Tally was pulled up again, still barreling forward with the momentum of her leap off the hill.

She managed to orient herself, sorting out up and down just in time to see the edge of the roof coming toward her. She was overshooting the building....

Flailing in the grasp of the jacket, flying helplessly upward and then down again, she passed the roof's edge. But her outstretched hand caught a rain gutter, bringing Tally to a sudden halt. "Phew," she said, looking down.

The building wasn't very tall, and Tally would bounce in her jacket if she fell, but the moment her feet touched the ground, the wire would sound an alarm. She gripped the rain gutter with both hands.

But the bungee jacket, satisfied that her fall had stopped, was shutting itself down, gradually returning her to normal weight. She struggled to pull herself up onto the roof, but the heavy knapsack full of rescue equipment dragged her downward. It was like trying to do a pull-up wearing lead shoes.

She hung there, out of ideas, waiting to fall.

Footsteps came toward her along the roof, and a face appeared. David.

"Having trouble?"

She grunted an answer, and he reached over, grabbing a strap of the knapsack. The weight mercifully lifted from her shoulders, and Tally pulled herself over the edge.

David sat back onto the roof, shaking his head. "So, Tally, you used to do that forfun ?"

"Not every day."

"Didn't think so. Can we rest for a minute?"

She scanned the rooftop. No one coming, no alarms ringing. Apparently, the wire wasn't built to sense them up there. Tally smiled.

"Sure. Take two minutes, if you want. It looks like the Specials weren't expecting anyone to jump out of the sky."