they reached the edge of the desert the next night, onschedule, then followed a river for three days, all the way tothe sea. it took them still farther north, and the octoberchill turned as cold as any winter tally had ever felt. davidunpacked city-made arctic gear of shiny silver mylar, whichtally wore over her handmade sweater, her only possessionleft from the smoke. she was glad she’d dropped off tosleep in it the night before the specials had invaded, so ithadn’t been lost that day like everything else.
the nights spent on board seemed to pass quickly. onthis journey, there were none of shay’s cryptic clues topuzzle through, no brush fires to escape, and no antiquerusty machines descending to scare her to death. theworld seemed to be empty except for the occasional ruins,as if tally and david were the last people alive.
they augmented their diet with fish caught from theriver, and tally roasted a rabbit on a fire she’d built herself.
she watched david repair his leather clothes and decidedshe would never be able to manage a needle and threadwell. he taught her how to tell time and direction from thestars, and she showed him how to open the expert softwarein the boards to optimize them for night travel.
at the sea they turned south, heading down the northernreaches of the same coastal railway that tally had followedon her way to the smoke. david said it had oncestretched unbroken all the way back to tally’s home cityand beyond. but now there were large gaps in the track,and new cities built on the sea, so they had to travel inlandmore than once. but david knew the rivers, the spurs of therailroad, and the other metal paths the rusties had leftbehind, so they made good time toward their goal.
only the weather stopped them. after a few days’ traveldown the coast, a dark and threatening mountain of cloudsappeared over the ocean. at first, the storm seemed reluctantto come ashore, building up its nerve over a slowtwenty-four hours, the air pressure changing in a way thatmade the hoverboards jittery to ride. the storm gave plentyof warning, but when it finally arrived, it was much worsethan tally had imagined weather could be.
she’d never faced the full force of a hurricane, exceptfrom within the solid structures of her inland city. it wasanother lesson in nature’s savage power.
for three days tally and david huddled in a plastic tentin the shelter of a rock outcrop, burning chemical glowsticksfor heat and light, hoping the magnets in the hoverboardswouldn’t bring down a lightning strike. for the firstuglies 349hours, the drama of the storm kept them fascinated,amazed at its power, wondering when the next peal ofthunder would shake the cliffs. then the driving rainbecame simply monotonous, and they spent a whole daytalking to each other about anything and everything, butespecially their childhoods, until tally was sure that sheunderstood david better than anyone she’d ever known.
on their third day trapped in the tent they had a terriblefight—tally could never remember about what—thatended when david stormed out and stood alone in the icywind for a solid hour. when he finally returned, it took himhours to stop shivering, even wrapped in her arms. “we’retaking too long,” he finally said.
tally squeezed tighter. it took time to prepare subjectsfor the operation, especially if they were older than sixteen.
but dr. cable wouldn’t wait forever to turn david’s parents.
every day the storm delayed them, there was a greater chancethat maddy and az had already gone under the knife. forshay, the perfect age for turning, the odds were even worse.
“we’ll get there, don’t worry. they measured me everyweek for a year before i was supposed to turn. it takes timeto do it right.”
a shudder passed through his body.
“tally, what if they don’t bother to do it right?”
the storm ended the next morning, and they emerged tofind that the world’s colors had been transformed. the350 scott westerfeldclouds were bright pink, the grass an unearthly green, andthe ocean darker than tally had ever seen it, marked onlyby the foam crests of waves and a peppering of driftwooddriven into the sea by the wind. they rode all day to makeup for lost time, in a state of shock, amazed that the worldcould still exist after the storm.
then the railway turned inland, and a few nights laterthey reached the rusty ruins.
the ruins looked smaller, as if the spires had shrunk sincetally had left them behind more than a month before,headed to the smoke with nothing but shay’s note and aknapsack full of spagbol. as she and david passed throughthe dark streets, the ghosts of the rusties no longer seemedto threaten from the windows.
“the first time i came here at night, this place reallyscared me,” she said.
david nodded. “it’s kind of creepy how well preservedit is. of all the ruins i’ve seen, it looks the most recent.”
“they sprayed it with something to keep it up forschool trips.” and that was her city in a nutshell, tally realized.
nothing left to itself. everything turned into a bribe,a warning, or a lesson.
they stowed most of their gear in a collapsed buildingfar from the center, a crumbling place that even truantuglies would probably avoid, packing only water purifiers,a flashlight, and a few food packets. david had never beenuglies 351any closer to the city than the ruins, so tally took the leadfor once, following the vein of iron that shay had shownher months before.
“do you think we’ll ever be friends again?” she asked asthey hiked toward the river, lugging their boards for thefirst time the entire trip.
“you and shay? of course.”
“even after . . . you and me?”
“once we’ve rescued her from the specials, i figureshe’ll forgive you for just about anything.”
tally was silent. shay had already guessed that tallyhad betrayed the smoke. she doubted anything would evermake up for that.
once they reached the river, they shot down the whitewater at top speed, glad to be finally free of the heavysaddlebags. with the spray hitting her face, the roar ofwater all around her, tally could almost imagine this wasone of her expeditions, back when she was a carefree citykid and not a . . .
what was she now? no longer a spy, and she couldn’tcall herself a smokey anymore. hardly a pretty, but shedidn’t feel like an ugly, either. she was nothing in particular.
but at least she had a purpose.
the city came into view.
“there it is,” she called to david over the churningwater. “but you’ve seen cities before, right?”
“i’ve been this close to a few. but not much closer.”
352 scott westerfeldtally gazed down at the familiar skyline, the slendertrails of fireworks silhouetting the party towers and mansions.
she felt a pang of something like homesickness, butmuch worse. the sight of new pretty town had once filledher with longing. now the skyline was like a vacant shell,all its promises gone. like david, she had lost her home.
but unlike the smoke, her city still existed, right in front ofher eyes—but emptied of everything it had once meant.
“we’ve got a few hours before sunrise,” she said. “wantto take a look at special circumstances?”
“the sooner the better,” david said.
tally nodded, her eyes tracing the familiar patterns oflight and darkness surrounding the city. there was time tomake it there and back before daybreak.
“let’s go.”
they followed the river as far as the ring of trees and brushthat separated uglyville from the suburbs. the greenbeltwas the best place to travel without being seen, and a goodride as well.
“don’t go so fast!” david hissed from behind as shewhipped through the trees.
she slowed down. “you don’t have to whisper. no onecomes here at night. it’s ugly territory, and they’re all in bed,unless they’re tricking.”
“okay,” he said. “but shouldn’t we be more carefulabout hoverpaths?”
uglies 353“hoverpaths? david, hoverboards work everywhere inthe city. there’s a metal grid under the whole thing.”
“oh, right.”
tally smiled. she had been so used to living in david’sworld, it was good to be explaining things to him for once.
“what’s the matter,” she taunted, “can’t keep up?”
david grinned. “try me.”
tally turned and shot ahead, cutting a zigzag pathbetween the tall poplars, letting her reflexes guide her.
she remembered her two hovercar rides to specialcircumstances. they’d flown across the greenbelt on the farside of town, then out to the transport ring, the industrialzone between the middle-pretty suburbs and outercrumblyville. the hard part would be getting across theburbs, a risky place to have an ugly face. luckily, middlepretties went to bed early. most of them, anyway.
she raced david halfway around the greenbelt, until thelights of the big hospital sat directly across the river fromthem. tally remembered that first terrible morning, yankedaway from the promised operation, flown out to be interrogated,her future pulled out from under her. she made agrim face, realizing that this time she was actually going outlooking for special circumstances.
a tingle passed through her as they left the greenbelt. aminuscule part of tally still expected her interface ring towarn her that she was leaving uglyville. how had she wornthat stupid thing for sixteen years? it had seemed such a354 scott westerfeldpart of her back then, but now the idea of being trackedand monitored and advised every minute of the dayrepelled tally.
“stick close,” she said to david. “this is the part whereyou should whisper.”
as a littlie, tally had lived in the middle-pretty burbswith sol and ellie. but back then her world had beenpathetically tiny: a few parks, the path to littlie school, onecorner of the greenbelt where she would sneak in to spy onuglies. like the rusty ruins, the neat row houses and gardensseemed much smaller to her now, an endless village ofdollhouses.
they skimmed the rooftops, crouching low. if anybodywas awake, going for a late-night run or walking a dog, theywouldn’t be looking up, hopefully. their boards barely ahand’s breadth above the housetops, the patterns of shinglespassed underneath hypnotically. all they encountered werenesting birds and a few cats, who flew or scrambled out oftheir way in surprise.
the burbs ended suddenly, a last band of parks fadinginto the transport ring, where underground factories stucktheir heads aboveground and cargo trucks drove concreteroads all day and night. tally lofted her board and gainedspeed.
“tally!” david hissed. “they’ll see us!”
“relax. those trucks are automatic. nobody comes outhere, especially at night.”
uglies 355he stared down at the lumbering vehicles nervously.
“look, they don’t even have headlights.” she pointeddown at a giant road-train passing below, the only lightcoming from it a dim red flicker from underneath, the navigationlaser reading the bar codes painted onto the road.
they rode on, david still anxious at the sight of movingvehicles below.
soon, a familiar landmark rose above the industrialwasteland.
“see that hill? special circumstances is just below it.
we’ll climb up top and take a look.”
the hill was too steep to put a factory on, and apparentlytoo big and solid to flatten with explosives andbulldozers, so it stood out on the flat plain like a lopsidedpyramid, steep on one side and sloping on the other,covered with scrub and brown grass. they skimmed up thesloping side, dodging a few boulders and hardscrabbletrees, until they reached the top.
from this height, tally could see all the way back tonew pretty town, the glowing disk of the island about asbig as a dinner plate. the outer city was in darkness, andbelow her, the low, brown buildings of special circumstanceswere lit only with the harsh glare of security lights.
“down there,” she said, her voice falling to a whisper.
“doesn’t look like much.”
“most of it’s underground. i don’t know how far downit goes.”
356 scott westerfeldthey stared at the cluster of buildings in silence. fromup here, tally could see the perimeter wire clearly, stretchingaround the buildings in an almost perfect square. thatmeant serious security. there weren’t many barriers in thecity—not that you could see, anyway. if you weren’t supposedto be someplace, your interface ring just politelywarned you to move along.
“that fence looks low enough to fly over.”
tally shook her head. “it’s not a fence, it’s a sensor wire.
you get within twenty meters of it and the specials willknow you’re there. same goes if you touch the groundinside it.”
“twenty meters? too high to clear on boards. so whatdo we do, knock on the gate?”
“there’s no gate that i can see. i went in and out by hovercar.”
david drummed his fingers on his board. “what aboutstealing one?”
“a hovercar?” tally whistled. “that’d be a pretty goodtrick. i knew uglies who used to go joyriding, but not inspecial circumstances hovercars.”
“it’s too bad we can’t just jump down.”
tally narrowed her eyes. “jump?”
“from here. get on our hoverboards back at the bottomof the hill, zoom up at maximum speed, then jump off fromabout this spot. we’d probably hit that big building deadcenter.”
uglies 357“dead is right. we’d splat.”
“yeah, i guess. even with crash bracelets, our armswould probably yank out of their sockets after a fall likethat. we’d need parachutes.”
tally looked down, plotting trajectories from the hilltop,shushing david when he started to speak again, thewheels of her brain spinning. she remembered the party atgarbo mansion, which seemed like years ago.
finally, she allowed herself to smile.
“not parachutes, david. bungee jackets.”
