Pretties u-2 Read online

  Tally closed her eyes, and knew the woman was telling the truth. She remembered being an ugly, how easy it had always been to fool the dorm minders, how everyone always found ways around the rules. She took a deep breath. "But why?"

  "Because someone has to keep things under control, Tally."

  "That's not what I meant. What I want to know is, why do you do it to pretties? Why change their brains?"

  "Goodness, Tally, isn't that obvious?" Dr. Cable shook her head in disappointment. "What do they teach in school these days?"

  "That the Rusties almost destroyed the world," Tally recited.

  "There's your answer."

  "But we're better than them, we leave the wild alone, we don't strip-mine or burn oil. We don't have wars…" Tally's voice sputtered out as she began to see.

  Dr. Cable nodded. "We art under control, Tally, because of the operation. Left alone, human beings are a plague. They multiply relentlessly, consuming every resource, destroying everything they touch. Without the operation, human beings always become Rusties."

  "Not in the Smoke."

  "Think back, Tally. The Smokies clear-cut the land, they killed animals for food. When we landed, they were burning trees."

  "Not that many." Tally heard her voice break.

  "What if there had been millions of Smokies? Billions of them, soon enough? Outside of our self-contained cities, humanity is a disease, a cancer on the body of the world. But we …" She reached out and stroked Tally's cheek, her fingers strangely hot in the winter air. "Special Circumstances … we are the cure."

  Tally shook her head, stumbling back from Dr. Cable. "Forget it."

  "This is what you've always wanted."

  "You're wrong!" Tally shouted. "All I ever wanted was to be pretty. You're the one who keeps getting in my way!"

  Her cry left them both in surprised silence, the last words echoing through the park. A hush settled over the party below, everyone probably wondering who was screaming her head off up in the trees.

  Dr. Cable recovered first, sighing softly. "Goodness, Tally. Relax. There's no need to shout. If you don't want what I'm offering, I'll leave you to your party. Feel free to age into a smug middle pretty. Soon enough, being bubbly won't matter so much; you'll forget this little conversation."

  Tally held the doctor's cruel-pretty stare, almost wanting to tell her about the cure, to spit it back in her face. Tally's mind wasn't going to fade away, not tomorrow, not in fifty years; she wasn't going to forget who she was. And she didn't need Special Circumstances to feel alive.

  Her throat still stung from yelling, but Tally said hoarsely, "Never."

  "All I ask is that you think about it. Take your time deciding — it's all the same to me. Just remember the way it felt falling through that ice. You can have that feeling every second." Dr. Cable waved a hand casually. "And if it makes a difference, I may even find space for your friend Zane. I've had my eye on him for some time. He was once of help to me."

  A chill went through Tally and she shook her head. "No."

  Dr. Cable nodded. "Yes. Zane was very forthcoming about David and the Smoke, that time he didn't run away."

  She turned and disappeared into the trees.

  Breakup

  Tally stumbled back to the party.

  The bonfire had grown bigger, its heat pushing back the revelers into a wide circle. Someone had requisitioned industrial-size logs of peat, big enough to burn through the Crims' collective carbon allowance for a month. The fire was topped off with fallen branches gathered from the park, and the hiss of still-green wood reminded Tally of cook-fires in the Smoke, when the water inside fresh-cut trees would boil, steam spitting out as if giving voice to the angry spirits of the forest.

  She looked up at the column of smoke rising, ominously dark against the sky. That's how the Smoke had gotten its name. As Dr. Cable had said, the Smokies burned trees ripped alive from the ground. Human beings had been pulling that particular trick for thousands of years; a few centuries before, they'd almost put enough carbon in the air to screw up the climate for good. Only when someone had released an oil-transforming bacteria into the air had Rusty civilization been brought to a halt, and the planet saved.

  And now, at their bubbliest, the Crims were instinctively headed in the same direction. Suddenly, the warm, cheery fire just made Tally feel worse.

  She listened to the voices around her — bragging about how far they'd hoverbounced on the soccer field, debating who'd done the best interview for the feeds. Her unhappy conversation with Dr. Cable had left Tally's senses sharpened; she could separate every sound, tease apart every strand of conversation. Suddenly the Crims all sounded foolish, repeating the stories of their petty victories to one another again and again. Just like pretties.

  "Skinny?"

  She turned from the fire to find Shay next to her.

  "Is Zane okay?" Shay peered closer, and her eyes widened. "Tally-wa, you look…"

  Tally didn't need her to finish, she could see it in Shay's eyes: She looked terrible. Tally smiled tiredly at this news. That was part of the cure, of course. She might still be gorgeous— her bone structure perfect, her skin flawless — but Tally's face revealed the turmoil inside. Now that she could think unpretty thoughts, she would no longer be beautiful every minute of the day Anger, fear, and anxiety were not pretty-making.

  "Zane's all right. It's just me."

  Shay leaned her weight against Tally, putting an arm around her. "Why so sad, Skinny? Tell me."

  "It's just" — she glanced around at the boasting Crims— "it's everything, kind of."

  Shay lowered her voice. "I thought today went perfectly."

  "Sure. Perfect."

  "Until Zane went and drank too much, of course. That's all it was, right?"

  Tally made a noncommittal sound. She didn't want to lie to Shay. Eventually, she would tell her all about the cure, which would mean explaining Zane's headaches.

  Shay sighed, squeezing Tally harder. There was a moment of silence, and then she asked, "Skinny, what happened to you guys up there?"

  "Up where?"

  "You know — when you climbed the transmission tower. It changed you, somehow."

  Tally played with the scarf around her wrist, wishing she could tell her friend everything. But it was too risky to share news of the cure until they were safely outside the city. "I don't know what to say, Squint. It was really bubbly-making up there. You can see the whole island, and you can fall at any moment. Die, even. That makes a difference."

  "I know," Shay whispered.

  "You know what?"

  "How it feels. I climbed the tower. Fausto and I figured out how to hack the minders, and last night I decided to go for it. To make myself bubbly for the breakthrough."

  "Really?" Tally stared at her. Shay's face glowed with pride in the firelight, her implanted eye-jewels glittering. All the Crims were changing, but if Shay was hacking minders and scaling the Valentino tower, she was way ahead of the rest of them. "That's great. And you climbed up at night?"

  "Only way to get away with it, since you and Zane got so totally busted. Fausto said I should wear a bungee jacket, but I wanted to do it like you did. I could have fallen— died, like you said. I even cut myself on a cable." With a smile, she showed a red mark that stretched across her palm, but then paused a moment, unpretty lines appearing on her forehead. "But it was kind of disappointing."

  "How?"

  "It didn't change me as much as I thought it would."

  Tally shrugged. "Well, everyone's different…"

  "I suppose so," Shay said softly. "But it made me wonder … It wasn't just you guys climbing the tower, was it? There was something else that happened that day, Skinny. You'd never even hung out alone with Zane before, but since then you two have your own secret club, smiling at your own jokes and whispering all the time. You never go anywhere without each other."

  "Squint…," Tally said, and sighed. "Sorry if we've been all coupley But, you know,
it's my first crush as a pretty."

  Shay stared at the fire. "That's what I thought, at first. But it's gone way past that, Tally. You're so different from the rest of us — both of you." Her voice rose above a whisper. "Zane gets those weird headaches that he tries to hide, and that was you screaming a minute ago, wasn't it?"

  Tally swallowed.

  "What changed you guys that day?"

  Tally pointed at her wrist. "Shhh."

  "Don't shush me! Jell me."

  Tally looked around them nervously. The fire consumed more fallen branches, hissing loudly, and most of the Crims were singing drinking songs. No one had heard Shay's outburst, but Tally could feel the hard metal of the cuff around her wrist, always listening. "I can't tell you, Squint."

  "Yes, you can." Shay's face seemed to change in the firelight, the pretty softness burning away as her anger grew. "You see, Tally, I remembered some things when I was up in that tower, staring down at the ground and wondering if I was going to die. And then I remembered a few more while I was falling through the ice and bouncing on the soccer field. A lot of things came back from ugly days. Isn't that great?"

  Tally turned away from the harsh expression on Shay's face. "Yeah, sure it is."

  "Glad you agree. So here's what I remembered: It's because of you that I'm here in the city, Tally. All those stories I used to tell? They were bogus. What really happened is that you followed me out to the Smoke to betray me, right?"

  Tally felt it again, the same gut-punch as when she'd seen Dr. Cable in the trees: caught. From the moment she'd felt the pills working on her, Tally had known somewhere inside her that this moment would come, that Shay would eventually remember what had really happened back when they were uglies. But Tally hadn't expected it so soon. "Yeah, I followed you to bring you back here. It's my fault, what happened to the Smoke. The Specials tracked me there."

  "Right, you betrayed us. After you stole David from me, of course." Shay laughed bitterly. "I hate to bring the whole David thing up, but who knows if I'll remember it tomorrow, you know? So I thought I'd mention it while I'm bubbly."

  Tally turned to her. "You'll remember it."

  Shay only shrugged. "Maybe. But tricks like today's don't come around that often. So you might be off the hook again by tomorrow."

  Tally took a deep breath, inhaling the smell of wood smoke, burning peat, pine needles, and spilled champagne. The firelight revealed everything as bright as day, even the whorls of her fingerprints. She didn't know what to say.

  "Look at me," Shay said. Her flash tattoo was spinning hard, its halo of snakes blurring together like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. "Tell me what happened to you that day. Keep me bubbly. You owe me."

  Tally swallowed. She and Zane had promised each other not to tell anyone — not yet. But neither of them had realized how far Shay had come — bubbly enough to climb the tower on her own, to finally remember what had really happened back in ugly days. Probably she could keep a secret, and telling her about the cure would give her hope, at least. It was the only way Tally could begin to make up for what she'd done.

  And Shay was right: Tally owed her.

  "Okay. Something else happened that day."

  Shay nodded slowly. "I thought so. What was it?"

  Tally pointed at Shay's scarf, and together they pulled it off and wrapped it tightly around Tally's wrist, another layer over the cuff. After another breath, she said in the softest whisper she could manage, "We found a cure."

  Shay's eyes narrowed. "It's about starving yourself, isn't it?"

  "No. Well, that helps. Hunger, coffee, playing tricks— all that stuff Zane's been doing for months. But the real cure is … simpler than that."

  "What is it? I'll do it."

  "You can't."

  "The hell with you, Tally!" Shay's eyes flashed. "If you can do it, I can!"

  Tally shook her head. "It's a pill."

  "A pill? Like vitamins?"

  "No, a special pill. Croy brought it to me, the night of the Valentino bash. Try to remember, Shay. Before you and I came back to the city, Maddy had figured out how to reverse the operation. You helped me write a letter, remember?"

  Shay's face went blank for a moment, then she frowned. "That's when I was pretty."

  "Right. After we rescued you, when we were hiding out in the ruins."

  "Funny, those days are harder to remember than back when I was ugly." Shay shook her head.

  "Well, Maddy figured out a cure. But it was untested, dangerous. She wouldn't give it to you because you refused. You wanted to stay pretty. So I had to give myself up to test it. That's why I'm here."

  "And Croy brought it to you a month ago?"

  Tally nodded, taking Shays hand. "And it works. You've seen how it changed me and Zane. It makes us bubbly all the time. So once we get out of here, you can—" Shay's expression brought Tally to a halt. "What's the matter?"

  "You and Zane both took some?"

  "Yeah," Tally said. "There were two pills, and we split them. I was afraid to do it on my own."

  Shay turned to the fire, pulling her hand away. "I can't believe you, Tally."

  "What?"

  Shay whirled to face her. "Why him? Why didn't you ask me?"

  "But I—" "You're supposed to be my friend, Tally. I've done everything for you. I was the one who first told you about the Smoke. I was the one who introduced you to David. And when you came to New Pretty Town, I helped you become one of the Crims. Did it even occur to you to share the cure with me? It's your fault I'm like this, after all!"

  Tally shook her head. "There wasn't time … I didn't even—" "No, of course you didn't," Shay spat. "You barely even knew Zane, but he was the leader of the Crims, so hooking up with him was the next trick on your list. Just like David out in the Smoke. That's why you split the cure with him."

  "It wasn't like that!" Tally cried.

  "You are like that, Tally. You have always been like that! No cure is going to make you any different — you were busy betraying people a long time ago. You didn't need any operation to make you selfish and shallow and full of yourself. You already were."

  Tally tried to answer, but something horrible rose up in her throat, choking off her words. Then she noticed the quiet around them, and realized that Shay had been yelling. The other Crims looked on in puzzlement, only the hiss of the fire filling the silence. Pretties didn't fight. They hardly ever argued, and they certainly never shouted at one another in the middle of a party. That sort of obnoxious behavior was strictly for uglies.

  She looked down at her wrist, wondering if Shay's raised voice had gotten through the layers of cloth and plastic. If so, it would all end tonight.

  Shay pulled away and whispered fiercely, "I may be my pretty self again tomorrow, Tally. But I'll remember this, I swear. No matter what sweet things I say to you, trust me, I am not your friend." She turned and walked into the trees, thrashing through frozen branches.

  Tally looked around at the other Crims, the champagne glasses in their hands glittering sharply in the moonlight, reflecting the wasteful fire. She felt alone and exposed with all of them staring at her. But after a few more horrible moments of silence, they turned away and started telling breakthrough stories again.

  Tally's head spun. The change in Shay had been so shocking, so complete, and she hadn't even taken a pill. A few minutes of real anger had transformed her from a placid pretty to a wild beast. … It didn't make sense.

  Suddenly, Tally remembered Dr. Cable's last words, about Zane helping Special Circumstances. After his friends had run away, he must have been taken to see her, confessing everything he knew about the Smoke and the mysterious David who took uglies there. Maybe that was what had kept him bubbly all these months — his shame about not running away, his guilt over having betrayed his friends to Dr. Cable.

  Of course, Tally had her own guilty secrets. So she'd stayed bubbly too, never quite fitting in, never quite sure of what she wanted, no matter how much champagne she dran
k. Old and ugly emotions were always waiting, hidden inside, ready to change her.

  And Shay had been transformed as well — not by guilt, but by buried anger. Concealed behind her pretty smiles were suppressed memories of the betrayals that had cost her David, the Smoke, and finally her freedom. All it had taken was climbing up the tower and falling through the ice— enough stimulation to break the logjam in her memories— to bring that anger to the surface. And now she hated Tally. Maybe Shay wouldn't need the pills at all — maybe old memories from ugly days were enough. Perhaps, thanks to every terrible thing that Tally Youngblood had ever done to her, Shay would find her own way to a cure.

  Rain

  Tally woke up with an ugly mind.

  It was what she used to call bubbly — the gray morning light somehow bright and glittery sharp enough to cut flesh. The rain beat against Zane's window in malicious, half-frozen drops, tapping like impatient fingernails.

  But Tally didn't mind the rain. It blurred the city's spires and gardens, reducing the view to gray and green blotches, the lights of other mansions casting halos on the wet glass.

  The downpour had started late the night of the party, finally extinguishing the Crims' bonfire, as if Dr. Cable had called the heavens down to drown their celebration. For the two days since, Tally and Zane had been trapped inside, unable to speak freely within the smart walls of Pulcher Mansion. She hadn't even had a chance to tell him about Shay's outburst of old memories, or about meeting Dr. Cable in the woods. Not that she was looking forward to revealing what she'd confessed to Shay, or bringing up what Cable had told her about Zane's past.

  This morning had brought another mountain of pings, but Tally couldn't face any more requests to join the Crims. The stadium collapse and the last two days of feed coverage had made them the hottest clique in New Pretty Town, but a bunch of new members was exactly what the Crims didn't need. "What they needed was to stay bubbly. Tally worried, though, that a third day stuck inside by the rain would bore everyone back into being pretty-heads.