Tally looked away.
"Okay," he said. "For you, Tally."
"Meet us at midnight tomorrow, where the river splits," Shay said. "The Smokies are going to be suspicious of runaways, so bring enough supplies for a long wait. But they'll eventually come for you, Zane."
He nodded. "I know what to do."
"And bring as many friends as you want, the more the better. You might need some help out there."
He didn't argue with the insult, just nodded, trying to catch Tally's eyes. She looked away, but forced a weak smile onto her face. "You'll be happier when you're special, Zane-la. You don't understand how good it is." She flexed her hands, watching the tattoos spin. "Every second is so icy, so beautiful."
Shay stood, pulling Tally to her feet and striding to the window. She paused, one foot on the sill.
Zane just looked at Tally. "We'll be together soon." All Tally could do was nod.
The Cut
"You were right. That was horrible."
"Poor Tally-wa …" Shay swept her hoverboard closer. In the water below, the moon's reflection kept pace with them, warping madly with the ripples of the current. "I'm really sorry."
"Why does he look so different? It's like he's not the same person."
"You're not the same person, Tally. You're special now, and he's just average."
Tally shook her head, trying to remember Zane back in their pretty days. How bubbly he was, how his face glowed with excitement as he talked, and how that thrilled her, made her want to touch him…Even when he was being annoying, there'd never been anything average about Zane. But tonight he'd seemed emptied of something essential, like champagne with all the bubbles gone flat.
There was a split screen in her brain: the way she remembered Zane and the way she saw him now, two pictures crashing against each other. The endless minutes with him had left her feeling as if her head were about to break in half.
"I don't want this," she said softly. Her stomach was uneasy and the moonlight on the water was too bright, its lines too sharp in her perfect vision. "I don't want to be this way."
Shay angled her board sideways, sweeping directly into Tally's path and spinning to a sudden, dangerous stop. Tally leaned back, and both hoverboards shrieked like buzz saws as they halted, coming to rest only centimeters apart.
"What way? Annoying? Pathetic?" Shay shouted, her voice all razors and ground glass. "I tried to tell you not to come!"
Tally's heart was pounding from the near collision, and anger rushed through her in a torrent. "You knew that seeing him would do this to me!"
"You think I know everything?" Shay said coldly. "I'm not the one in love. Haven't been since you stole David from me. But maybe I thought love might make a difference. Well, Tally-wa, did it make Zane special for you?"
Tally flinched, something inside her flipping over. She looked down at the black water, feeling like she was going to throw up. She tried to stay icy, to remember how Zane had made her feel back in pretty days. "What did Dr. Cable do to us, Shay? Do we have some kind of special lesions in our brains? Something that makes everyone else look pathetic? Like we're better than them?"
"We are better than them, Tally-wa!" Shay's eyes shone like coins, reflecting the lights of New Pretty Town. "The operation gives us the clarity to see that. That's why everyone else looks confused and pitiful, because that's how most people are.'"
"Not Zane," Tally said. "He was never pitiful."
"He's changed too, Tally-wa."
"But it's not his fault…" Tally turned away. "I don't want to see this way! I don't want to be disgusted by everyone who's not part of our clique, Shay!"
Shay smiled. "You'd rather be all happy and loving, like a clueless bubblehead? Or live like a Smokey crapping in holes and eating dead rabbits and feeling all virtuous about it? What part of being special don't you like?"
Tally's fingers curled into fighting position. "I don't like the part where Zane looks wrong to me."
"Do you think he looks right to anyone, Tally? His brain's a mess!"
Tally felt tears burning inside, but the heat didn't spill into her eyes. She'd never seen a Special cry, and didn't even know if she could. "Just answer me: Is there something in my head that makes him look wrong? What did Cable do to us?"
Shay let out a frustrated sigh. "Tally, in every conflict both sides do things to people's heads. But at least our side gets it right. The city makes bubbleheads the way they are to keep them happy and the planet safe. They make us Specials see the world so clearly that its beauty almost hurts, so we won't let humanity try to destroy it again." Shay edged her board closer, reaching out to take Tally's shoulders. "But the Smokies are amateurs. They experiment on people, turn them into freaks like Zane."
"He's not a…," Tally began, but couldn't finish. The part of her that despised his weakness was too strong—she couldn't deny the way Zane sickened her, like something that shouldn't be allowed to live.
But it wasn't his fault. It was Dr. Cable's, for not making him special. For following her stupid rules.
"Stay icy," Shay said softly.
Tally took a deep breath, trying to get her anger and frustration under control. She let her senses expand, until she could hear the wind playing in the pine needles. Scents rose up from the water—the algae on its surface, the ancient minerals down below. Her heartbeat slowed a little.
"Tell me, Tally: Are you certain you really love Zane, and not just some leftover memory of him?"
Tally winced, closing her eyes. Inside her, the images of Zane still warred with each other. She was trapped between them, and clarity wouldn't come.
"It makes me sick to look at him," she whispered. "But I know that's not right. I want to go back … to how I felt before."
Shay's voice lowered. "Then listen, Tally. I have a plan— a way to get that necklace off."
Tally opened her eyes again, gritting her teeth at the thought of the collar around his throat. "I'll do anything, Shay."
"But it has to look like Zane escaped on his own— otherwise Cable won't want him. Which means tricking Special Circumstances."
Tally swallowed. "And we can really do that?"
"You mean will our brains let us?" Shay snorted. "Of course. We're not bubbleheads. But we're risking everything we have. Understand?"
"And you'd do that for Zane?"
"For you, Tally-wa." Shay grinned, her eyes flashing. "And for the fun of it. But I need you absolutely icy."
Shay drew her knife.
Tally closed her eyes again, nodding. She wanted clarity so badly. She reached out to grasp Shay's knife by the blade.
"Hang on, not your hand…"
But Tally squeezed down hard, driving the razor edge into her flesh. The delicate and fine-tuned nerves woven into her palm, a hundred times more sensitive than any random's, split apart, screaming. She heard herself cry out.
The special moment came with its wild clarity, and Tally could finally see through her own tangled thoughts: Deep inside herself were threads of permanence, the things that had remained unchanged whether she was ugly or pretty or special—and love was one of them. She longed to be with Zane again, feeling everything she'd felt with him before, but amplified a thousandfold by her new senses. She wanted Zane to know what it was like to be a Special, to see the world in all its icy clarity.
"Okay." Her breath was ragged. She opened her eyes. "I'm with you."
Shay's face was radiant. "Good girl. But it's traditional to use the arms."
Tally opened her hand, the skin of her palm tugging free from the knife, setting off a fresh wave of pain. She sucked in breath.
"I know it hurts, Tally-wa." Shay was whispering now, staring in fascination at the blood-slicked blade. "It made me sick too, seeing Zane like that. I didn't know he'd be so messed up, honest." Her board slid a little closer, and she placed her hand softly over Tally's wounded palm. "But I'm not going to let this break you, Tally-wa. I don't want you turning all mushy and average. We'll make him one of us an
d save the city too; we'll fix everything." She pulled her medical kit from a sneak-suit pouch. "Just like I'm going to fix you now."
"But he won't give the Smokies up."
"He doesn't have to." Shay sprayed the wound, and the pain quickly faded to a faraway tingling. "He only has to prove he's bubbly, and we'll do the rest—get him and Fausto back, then capture David and the rest of them. It's the only way to stop what's happening. Like Zane said, arresting a bunch of pretties won't help. We have to cut this off at the source: We have to find the New Smoke."
"I know." Tally nodded, her mind still icy. "But Zane's so crippled, the Smokies will know that we let him escape. They'll pull apart everything he's carrying, scan every bone in his body."
Shay smiled. "Of course they will. But he'll be clean."
"Then how will we track him?" Tally asked.
"The old-fashioned way." Shay turned her board around, reaching out to take Tally by her unbloodied hand. They climbed, lifting fans thrumming to life underfoot as Shay pulled her higher and higher, until the city was spread out around them, a great bowl of light surrounded by darkness.
Tally glanced down at her hand. The pain had faded to a dull pounding that throbbed in time with her heartbeat, and the medspray was congealing her spilled blood, turning it to a dust that blew away as they rose. The wound had already sealed, leaving nothing but a ridge of raised skin. The scar cut straight across her flash tattoos, breaking the dermal circuitry that made them dance. Her palm was a jittering mess of lines, like a computer screen after a hard crash.
But Tally's thoughts were still clear. She flexed her fingers, sending little pings of pain up her arm.
"See that blackness out there, Tally-wa?" Shay pointed toward the city's nearest edge. "That's our space, not the randoms'. We were designed for the wild, and we're going to be tracking Zane-la and his pals every step of the way."
"But I thought you said—"
"Not with electronics, Tally-wa. We'll use sight and smell, and all the other old ways of the forest." Her eyes flashed. "Like the pre-Rusties used to do."
Tally looked across the orange glow of factories, out to where darkness marked the Outside. "Pre-Rusties? You mean, look for bent branches or something? People on hoverboards don't leave a lot of footprints behind, Shay-la."
"True. Which is why they'll never suspect someone's following them, because no one's done that kind of tracking for at least three hundred years." Shay's eyes flashed. "But you and I can smell an unwashed human from a kilometer away, a burnt-out campfire from ten. We can see in the dark and hear better than bats." Her sneak suit flickered to night black. "We can make ourselves invisible and move without a sound. Think about it, Tally-wa."
Tally nodded slowly. The Smokies would never imagine anyone watching from the darkness, listening for every step, sniffing out every campfire and chemically cooked meal.
"And with us along," Tally said, "Zane will be okay even if he gets lost or hurt."
"Exactly. And after we find the New Smoke, you two can be together."
"Are you sure Dr. Cable will make him special?"
Shay pushed off from Tally, laughing as her board dropped. "After what I've got planned, she'll probably give him my job."
Tally looked down at her still-tingling hand. Then she reached out with it and touched Shay's cheek. "Thank you."
Shay shook her head. "No thanks necessary, Tally-wa. Not after the way you looked back in Zane's room. I hate seeing you all miserable like that. It's just not special."
"Sorry, Boss."
Shay laughed and tugged her into motion again, off the river and toward the factory belt, descending to normal flying height. "Like you said, you didn't leave me behind last night, Tally-wa. So we're not leaving Zane behind either."
"And we'll get Fausto back, too."
Shay turned back toward her and half-grinned. "Oh right, let's not forget about poor Fausto. And that other little bonus…what was that again?"
Tally took a deep breath. "The end of the New Smoke."
"Good girl. Any more questions?"
"Yeah, one: Where are we going to find something that can cut orbital alloy?"
Shay spun in one complete circle on her board, holding a finger in front of her lips.
"Somewhere very special, Tally-wa," she whispered. "Follow me, and all will be revealed."
The Armory
"You weren't kidding about dangerous, were you, Boss?" Shay chuckled. "Backing out already, Tally-wa?"
"Not a chance," Tally whispered. The cutting had left her restless, full of energy demanding to be expended.
"Good girl." Shay grinned at her through the tall grass. Their skintennas were shut down so that the city records wouldn't reveal they'd been here tonight, and Shay's voice sounded tinny and far away. "Zane will get mega-bubbly points if they think he organized a trick like this."
"That's for sure," Tally whispered, staring up at the formidable building before them.
Back when she was little, older uglies had sometimes joked about sneaking into the Armory. But no one had ever been stupid enough to actually try.
She remembered all the rumors. The Armory held every registered piece of hardware the city possessed: handguns and armored vehicles, spy-tech, ancient tools and technologies, even strategic, city-killing weapons. Only a select few people had ever been allowed inside; the defenses were mostly automatic.
The dark, windowless building was surrounded by a wide-open field marked with the flashing red lights of a no-fly zone. The grounds were ringed with sensors, and four auto-cannon guarded the Armory's corners, serious defenses in case some unthinkable war ever broke out between the cities.
This place wasn't designed to warn trespassers off. It was designed to kill them.
"Ready for some fun, Tally-wa? "
Tally looked at Shay's intense expression, and felt her own heart beating faster. She flexed her wounded hand. "Always, Boss."
They crept back through the grass to their hoverboards, which waited behind a giant, automated factory. As they ascended toward its roof, Tally zipped up the front of her sneak suit and felt its scales do a little boot-up dance. Her arms turned black and blurry-looking, the scales angling themselves to deflect radar waves.
She frowned. "They'll know that whoever did this had sneak suits, won't they?"
"I already told Dr. Cable about the Smokies going invisible on us. So maybe they loaned the Crims some toys." Shay flashed a razor smile, then pulled her hood over her head, turning herself into a faceless silhouette. Tally did the same.
"Ready to go ballistic?" Shay asked, pulling on gloves. Her voice was altered by the mask, and she looked like a person-shaped smudge against the horizon, her outline blurred by the random angles of the scales.
Tally swallowed. The hood over her mouth made her breath hot against her face, like she was suffocating. "Ready when you are, Boss."
Shay snapped her fingers, and Tally crouched, counting off ten long seconds in her head. The boards began to buzz as they slowly built magnetic charge, the fan blades spinning up to just below take-off speed…
On ten, Tally's board leaped into the air, pushing her down into a squat. The fans screamed all the way up to maximum, angling her toward the Armory like an arcing firework. A few seconds later, they shut down, and Tally found herself soaring through the dark sky in silence, excitement rushing through her once again.
She knew this plan was crazy, but the danger filled her mind with iciness. And soon Zane would be able to feel this way too…Halfway across, Tally grabbed the board and pulled it to her body, hiding its surface behind her radar-deflecting suit. Tally glanced over her shoulder—she and Shay were soaring over the no-fly barrier, high enough to escape the motion sensors on the ground. No alarms sounded as they passed the perimeter, falling silently toward the Armory's roof. Maybe this was going to be easy. It had been two centuries since there had been any serious conflict among the cities—no one really believed that humanity would ever go to wa
r again. Besides, the Armory's automatic defenses were designed to repel a major attack, not a couple of burglars looking to borrow a handheld tool.
She felt another smile grow on her face. This was the first time the Cutters had dared to trick the city itself. It was almost like ugly days again.
The roof rushed toward her, and Tally held her board over her head, hanging from it like a parachute. A few seconds before she hit, the lifting fans burst to life, bringing her to a sudden halt. Tally landed softly, as easy as stepping from a slidewalk.
The board cut off and settled into her hands. She lowered it gently to the roof. They could make no sound from now on, communicating only with sign language and through their suits' contacts.
A few meters away, Shay held both thumbs up.
With soft, careful steps, the two made their way to the doors in the center of the roof, where hovercars entered and exited. Tally saw a seam down the middle where they would open up.
She touched her fingertips to Shay's, letting the suits carry her whisper. "Can we cut through this?"
Shay shook her head. "This whole building's made of orbital alloy, Tally. If we could cut through it, we could free Zane ourselves."
Tally scanned the roof, seeing no signs of access doors. "I guess we go with your plan then."
Shay drew her knife. "Get down."
Tally flattened herself against the roof, feeling her suit's scales shift to match its texture.
Shay threw the knife hard, then hit the ground herself. It arced beyond the building's edge, spinning out into the darkness and toward the sensor-strewn grass.
Seconds later, earsplitting alarms shrieked from all directions. The metal surface beneath them jolted, the doors parting with a rusty groan. A tornado of dust and dirt leaped from the gap, a monstrous machine rising in its midst.
It was barely bigger than a pair of hoverboards lashed together, but it looked heavy—four lifting fans screamed with the effort of hauling it through the air. As it emerged, the machine seemed to grow, unfolding wings and claws with shuddering alien movements, like a giant metal insect being born. Its bulbous body bristled with weaponry and sensors.
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