Uglies

 

Getaway

"Give me a knife." Maddy held out her hand, ignoring the shocked look on her son's face.

Tally scrambled through her knapsack. She passed her multiknife to Maddy, who pulled out a short blade and cut a piece from the arm of her jumpsuit. When the elevator reached roof level, its doors slid halfway open and groaned to a halt, revealing the uneven hole Tally had torn to gain entry. They slipped through one by one and ran for the edge of the roof.

A hundred meters away, Tally saw the hoverboards cruising across the compound, called by her crash bracelets. Alarms were ringing all around them now. If by some magic the Specials hadn't noticed the escape so far, the riderless boards had tripped the wire.

Tally spun around, looking for David. He was stumbling along at the back of the group, half in a daze.

She caught him by his shoulders. "I'm so sorry."

He shook his head. Not at her, not at anything in particular.

"I don't know what to do, Tally."

She took his hand. "We have to run. That's all we can do right now. Follow your mother."

He looked into her eyes, his face wild. "Okay." He started to say more, but the words were drowned out by a noise like huge fingernails scraping metal. The hovercar door was fighting against the nanotech glue, setting the whole roof shuddering.

Maddy, last out of the elevator, had jimmied its door open with a powerjack. Its voice kept repeating,

"Elevator requested."

But there were other ways onto the roof. Maddy turned to David. "Glue down those hatches so they can't get out."

His gaze cleared for a moment, and he nodded.

"I'll get the boards," Tally said, turning to dash for the edge of the roof. When she reached it, she jumped into space, hoping her bungee jacket still had some charge.

After one bounce, Tally was on the ground running. The boards sensed her crash bracelets and sped toward her.

"Tally! Look out!"

She looked over her shoulder at Croy's shout. A squad of Specials was headed toward her across the compound, an open door behind them at ground level. They ran inhumanly fast, covering the ground with long, loping strides.

The boards nudged her calves from behind, like dogs ready to play. Tally leaped up, teetering for a moment with one foot on each pair of sandwiched boards. She'd never heard of anyone riding four boards at once. But the closest cruel pretty was only a few strides away.

Tally snapped her fingers and rose swiftly into the air.

The Special jumped, amazingly high, the fingers of one outstretched hand just brushing the front edge of the boards. The contact set them wobbling beneath Tally. It was like standing on a trampoline while someone else jumped on it. The other Specials watched from the ground below, waiting for her to fall.

But Tally regained her balance and leaned forward, heading back toward the building. The boards picked up speed, and seconds later Tally leaped off onto the roof, kicking one pair of hoverboards to Croy. He pulled them apart while she separated the other two.

"Go now," Maddy said. "Take this."

She handed Tally a swatch of orange fabric, a small bit of circuitry visible on one side. Tally noticed that Maddy had cut pieces from the forearms of all the jumpsuits.

"There's a tracker in that cloth," Maddy said. "Drop it somewhere to throw them off."

Tally nodded, looking around for David. He was running toward them, his face set into a grim mask, the tube of glue crushed and empty in his hand. "David - ," she started.

"Go!" Maddy shouted, pushing Shay onto the board behind Tally.

"Um, no crash bracelets?" Shay said, her feet unsteady. "This is not my first party tonight, you know."

"I know. Hold on," Tally said, and shot away from the roof.

The two of them teetered for a moment, almost losing their balance. But Tally steadied herself, feeling Shay's arms wrap tightly around her waist.

"Whoa, Tally! Slow down!"

"Just hang on."

Tally leaned into a turn, sickened by the sluggishness of the board. Not only was it carrying two, but Shay's wobbly moves were freaking it out.

"Don't you remember how to ride?"

"Sure!" Shay said. "Just a little rusty, Squint. Plus a little too much to drink tonight."

"Just don't fall off. It'll hurt."

"Hey! I didn't ask to be rescued!"

"No, I guess you didn't." Tally looked down as they soared over Crumblyville, skipping the greenbelt to head straight back toward the river. If Shay hit the ground at this speed, she'd be worse than hurt. She'd be dead.

Like David's father. Tally wondered how he'd died. Had he tried to escape the Specials, like the Boss?

Or had Dr. Cable done something to him? One thought stuck in her mind: However it had happened, it was her fault.

"Shay, if you fall off, take me with you."

"What?"

"Just hold on to me and don't let go, no matter what. I'm wearing a bungee jacket and bracelets. We should bounce." Probably. Unless the jacket pulled her one way and the bracelets the other. Or Tally's and Shay's combined weight was too much for the lifters.

"So give me the bracelets, silly."

Tally shook her head. "No time to stop."

"Guess not. Our Special friends are going to be royally pissed." Shay clung tighter.

They were almost at the river, with no sign of pursuit behind them. The nanotech glue must have been putting up quite a fight. But Special Circumstances had other hovercars - the three they'd seen leave earlier, at least - and regular wardens had them too.

Tally wondered if Special Circumstances would call for help from the wardens, or whether they'd keep the whole situation a secret. What would the wardens think of the underground prison? Did the regular city government know what the Specials had done to the Smoke, or to Az?

Water flashed below her, and Tally dropped the swatch of orange cloth as they turned. It fluttered away, down toward the river. The current would take it back toward the city, in the opposite direction of their escape route.

Tally and David had agreed to rendezvous upriver, a long way past the ruins, where he had found a cave years before. Because its entrance was covered by a waterfall, it would shelter them from heat sensors.

From there, they could hike back to the ruins to retrieve the rest of their equipment, and then...

Rebuild the Smoke? Seven of them? With Shay as their honorary pretty? Tally realized that they hadn't made plans beyond tonight. The future hadn't seemed real until now.

Of course, they still might all be caught.

"You think it's true?" Shay shouted. "What Maddy said?"

Tally dared a glance back at Shay. Her pretty face looked worried.

"I mean, Az was fine when I visited a few days ago," Shay said. "I thought they were going to make him pretty. Notkill him."

"I don't know." It was hardly something Maddy would lie about. But maybe she was mistaken.

Tally leaned forward, skimming the river low and fast, trying to leave the cold feeling in her stomach behind. Spray struck their faces as they hit the white water. Shay had started to ride properly, leaning with the slow arcs of the river's bends. "Hey, I remember this!" she shouted.

"Do you remember anything else from before your operation?" Tally yelled over the roar of water.

Shay ducked behind Tally as they struck a wall of spray. "Of course, silly."

"You hated me. Because I stole David from you. Because I betrayed the Smoke. Remember?"

Shay was silent for a moment, only the roar of white water and the rushing wind around them. Finally, she leaned closer, her voice thoughtful in Tally's ear. "Yeah, I know what you mean. But that was all ugly stuff. Crazy love and jealousy and needing to rebel against the city. Every kid's like that. But you grow up, you know?"

"You grew up because of an operation? Doesn't that strike you as weird?"

"It wasn't because of the operation."

"Then why?"

"It was just good to come home, Tally. It made me realize how crazy the whole Smoke thing was."

"What happened to biting and kicking?"

"Well, it took a few days to sink in, you know."

"Before or after you became pretty?"

Shay went silent again. Tally wondered if you could talk somebody out of their brain damage.

She pulled a position-finder from her pocket. The coordinates for the cave were still half an hour away.

A glance over her shoulder didn't reveal any hovercars, not yet. If all four boards took different routes to the river, and all of them dropped their trackers in different places, the Specials were going to have a confusing night.

There were also Dex, Sussy, and An, who'd promised to tell every tricky ugly they knew to go for a ride tonight. The greenbelt would be crowded.

Tally wondered how many uglies had seen the burning letters in New Pretty Town, how many of them knew what the Smoke was, or were coming up with their own stories to explain the mysterious message.

What new legends had she and David created with their little diversion?

When they reached a calmer part of the river, Shay spoke up again. "So, Tally?"

"Yeah?"

"Why do you want me to hate you?"

"I don't want you to hate me, Shay." Tally sighed. "Or maybe I do. I betrayed you, and I feel horrible about it."

"The Smoke wasn't going to last forever, Tally. Whether you turned us in or not."

"I didn't turn you in!" Tally cried. "Not on purpose, anyway. And the whole thing with David was just an accident. I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Of course not. You're just confused."

"I'mconfused?" Tally groaned. "You're the one who..." She trailed off. How could Shay not understand that she'd been changed by the operation? Not just been given a pretty face, but also a...pretty mind.

Nothing else could explain how quickly she'd changed, abandoning the rest of them for parties and hot showers, leaving her friends behind, just as Peris had so many months ago.

"Do you love him?" Shay asked.

"David? I, uh...maybe."

"That's sweet."

"It's notsweet . It's real!"

"Then why are you ashamed of it?"

"I'm not...," Tally sputtered. She lost concentration for a moment, and the back of the board dipped low, sending a sheet of water up behind them. Shay whooped and held tighter. Tally gritted her teeth and took them a bit higher.

When Shay had stopped laughing, she said, "And you thinkI'm confused?"

"Listen, Shay, there's one thing I'm not confused about. I didn't want to betray the Smoke. I was blackmailed into going there as a spy, and when I sent for the Specials, it was an accident, really. But I'm sorry, Shay. I'm sorry I ruined your dream." Tally felt herself crying, the tears driven backward by the wind. The trees rushed past in the darkness for a while.

"I'm just glad you two made it back to civilization," Shay said softly, holding on tight. "And I'm not sorry about what happened. If that makes you feel any better."

Tally thought of the lesions on Shay's brain, the tiny cancers or wounds or whatever they were, that she didn't even know she had. They were in there somewhere, changing her friend's thoughts, warping her feelings, gnawing at the roots of who she was. Making her forgive Tally.

"Thanks, Shay. But no, it doesn't."