Tally shook her head. Maybe in this city Special Circumstances agents didn’t keep themselves hidden, and he’d seen cruel pretties before. But what was the point of looking terrifying if everyone had a chance to get used to it?
She played the conversation back in her mind, realizing how close the man’s accent was to how she remembered the rangers’—fast, clipped, and precise. This had to be their home city.
But if this whole city really was the New Smoke, where was Shay? Tally boosted her skintenna range, but got no answering ping. Of course, cities were big—she might simply be out of range. Or maybe she had switched off, still sulking over Tally’s latest betrayal.
Tally glanced back toward the landing pad. The helicopter’s engines were still idling. Perhaps this city wasn’t the New Smoke, and was only a refueling stop. Stepping over onto the opposite slidewalk, Tally headed back toward the pad.
A couple of new pretties glided by, and Tally noticed that they were wearing costume surge. One had skin much paler than any Pretty Committee would ever allow, with red hair and a smattering of freckles across her face, like one of those littlies who always had to worry about sunburn. The other’s skin was so dark it was almost black, and his muscles were way too obvious.
Maybe that explained the middle-pretty man’s reaction, or lack of it. There had to be some sort of costume bash happening tonight, one that all the new pretties were surging up for. The costume surgery was more extreme than would ever be allowed back in Tally’s city, but at least it meant she wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb while she tried to figure out what was going on.
Of course, the armored black of her sneak suit wasn’t exactly fashionable. With a little fiddling, she tuned it to resemble the clothing the two new pretties had been wearing: striped patterns in bold colors, like you’d dress a littlie in back at home. The garish hues made her feel even more conspicuous, but when a few more young pretties glided past—with translucently pale faces, oversize noses, and wildly colored clothes—Tally almost felt as if she was starting to fit in.
The buildings here didn’t look too different from those she’d grown up with. The two on either side of the landing pad looked like typical government monoliths. In fact, the closer of the two had stone letters cut into it spelling out TOWN HALL, and most of the slidewalk step-offs were labeled with the names of city agencies. Ahead of Tally were the hovering party towers and sprawling mansions of what had to be New Pretty Town, and she could see ugly-dorms and soccer fields in the distance.
It seemed strange, though, not having a river between New Pretty Town and Uglyville. It would be too easy to sneak across, hardly a challenge at all. How would you keep party-crashers out?
She hadn’t seen any wardens so far. Would anyone here know what her cruel beauty meant?
A young pretty stepped onto the slidewalk beside her, and Tally decided to see if she could pass for a local.
“Where’s the bash tonight?” she asked, trying to imitate the local accent and hoping she didn’t sound too random for not knowing.
“The bash? You mean a party?”
Tally shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”
The young woman laughed. “Take your pick. There’s mountains of them.”
“Right, mountains. But which one’s all the costume surge for?”
“Costume surge?” The woman looked at Tally like she’d said something totally random. “Did you just get off the chopper or something?”
Tally’s eyebrows rose. “Um, the helicopter? Yeah, sort of.”
“With a face like that?” The woman frowned. Her own skin was dark brown, her fingernails decorated with tiny video screens, each showing a different flickering image.
Tally could only shrug again.
“Oh, I see. Couldn’t wait to look like one of us?” She laughed again. “Listen, kid, you should really be hanging out with the other newbies, at least until you know what’s going on here.” She squinted her eyes, her fingers making an interface gesture. “Diego says they’re all up at the Overlook tonight.”
“Diego?”
“The city.” She laughed again, her fingernails flashing in tandem with the sound. “Wow, kid, you really are just off the chopper.”
“Yeah, I guess. Thanks,” Tally said, suddenly feeling very average and helpless, not special at all. Trying to navigate this new city, her strength and speed meant nothing, and even her cruel beauty didn’t seem to impress anyone. It was like being an ugly again, when things like knowing the best bashes and how to dress had been more important than being superhuman.
“Well, welcome to Diego,” the young pretty called, and stepped into a high-speed lane, waving good-bye with the vague embarrassment of ditching a loser at a party.
As she approached the landing pad, Tally kept a wary eye out for the runaway Crims. She stepped off the slidewalk where the hedge showed damage from her collision, and peeked through one of the gaps she’d left behind.
The runaways had unloaded from the helicopter, but they were still getting themselves sorted. Like typical bubbleheads, they were having trouble figuring out which hoverboard was whose. They clustered around the ranger who was trying to organize things, like littlies after ice cream.
Zane was waiting patiently, looking the happiest Tally had seen him since they’d escaped the city. A few of the other Crims crowded around him, slapping him on the back and congratulating one another.
One of the Crims brought Zane his board, and all eight of them set off toward the huge building across from Town Hall.
Tally saw that it was a hospital. That made sense. Anyone from outside would be checked for diseases, and for injuries and food poisoning from the trip. And since this city really was the New Smoke, newcomers would have their bubblehead lesions taken away as well.
Of course, Tally thought. Maddy’s pills didn’t have to work perfectly anymore. The runaways would all wind up here, where a city hospital staffed with real doctors could take care of their lesions.
She took a step back, breathing out slowly, finally admitting it to herself: The New Smoke was a thousand times larger and more powerful than she and Shay had expected.
The authorities here were taking in other cities’ runaways, curing them of bubbleheadness. Now that she thought about it, none of the people she’d met so far had the lesions. All of them had expressed their opinions openly, not like bubbleheads at all.
That would explain why this city—“Diego,” the woman had called it—had thrown out the Pretty Committee’s standards, letting everyone look the way they wanted. They’d even started to build new structures in the surrounding forests, expanding out into the wild.
If that was all true, it was no wonder that Shay was no longer here. She’d probably gone home to report all this to Dr. Cable and Special Circumstances.
But what could they do about it? Cities couldn’t tell one another how to run their affairs, after all.
This New Smoke could last forever.
RANDOM TOWN
Tally spent the day walking around the city, marveling at how different it was from her own.
She saw new pretties and uglies hanging out together, friends that the operation hadn’t separated. And littlies clinging to their ugly older brothers and sisters instead of being stuck in Crumblyville with their parents. Those small changes were almost as surprising as the wild facial structures, skin textures, and body mods she encountered. Almost. It might take a while to get used to coats of downy feathers, pinkie fingers replaced with tiny snakes, skin every shade between deep black and alabaster, and hair that writhed like some sinuous creature under the sea.
Whole cliques wore the same skin color, or shared similar faces, like families used to before the operation. It reminded Tally uncomfortably of how people grouped themselves back in pre-Rusty days, into tribes and clans and so-called races who all looked more or less alike, and made a big point of hating anyone who didn’t look like them. But everyone seemed to be getting along so far—for every clique of peo
ple who looked alike, there was another of wild variations.
Diego’s middle pretties seemed less crazy about the whole surgery thing. Most of them looked more or less like Tally’s parents, and she heard more than a little grumbling about “new standards,” how current fads were an eyesore and a disgrace. But they did so in such a forthright way that Tally had no doubt their own lesions were gone.
Disconcertingly, the crumblies seemed to be further into surgery than anyone else. A few wore the wise, calm, trustworthy faces that the Pretty Committee enforced at home, but others looked weirdly young. Half the time Tally wasn’t exactly sure what age people were supposed to be, as if the city’s surgeons had decided to let all the stages of life blur together.
She even heard a few people who, from the sound of their conversation, were still bubbleheads. For some reason—whether it was a philosophical position or a fashion statement—they had elected to keep the lesions in their brains.
Apparently, you could do just about anything you wanted here. It was like she’d landed in Random Town. Everyone was so different that her own special face practically faded into . . . nothing.
How had this all happened?
It couldn’t have been very long ago. The transformations seemed to be still rippling all around her, as if a stone had been hurled into a small pond.
Once she managed to tune her skintenna to the city newsfeeds, Tally found them full of arguments. There were discussions about the wisdom of taking in the runaways, about standards of beauty, and most of all about the new construction at the city’s edge—and not everyone bothered with the pleasant, civil debating style of home. Tally had never heard squabbling among adults like this before, not even in private. It was as if a bunch of uglies had taken over the airwaves. Without the lesions making everyone agreeable, society was left roiling in a constant battle of words, images, and ideas.
It was overwhelming, almost like the way the Rusties had lived, debating every issue in public instead of letting the government do its job.
And the changes already in place here in Diego were just a beginning, Tally realized. All around her she felt the city seething, all those unfettered minds bouncing their opinions off each other, like something ready to explode.
• • •
That night, she went to the Overlook.
The city interface guided her to the highest point in town, a stretch of parkland atop a chalk-faced cliff that overlooked the city center. The first young pretty she’d met had been right: The park was crowded with runaways, about half uglies and half new pretties. Most wore the faces they’d brought with them, not yet ready to plunge into extremes of cosmetic fashion. Tally could understand why the newbies were hanging out together; after a day on the streets of Diego, the sight of old-fashioned, Pretty Committee–designed faces was a relief.
Tally hoped that Zane would be here. Today had been the longest he’d spent out of her sight since his escape, and she wondered exactly what they’d done to him at the city hospital. Would removing Zane’s lesions make him any less shaky? How would he decide to remake himself, here where anyone could look like anything, where the very possibility of being average had disappeared?
Maybe they would be able to fix him better than her own city’s hospital. With all their practice in crazy surgery, Diego’s surgeons might be almost as good as Dr. Cable.
Maybe the next time they kissed, things would be different.
And even if Zane was exactly the same, at least Tally could show him how much she had changed. Her journey through the wild and what she’d seen in Diego had already made a difference. Maybe this time she could show him what was really inside her, deeper than any operation could reach.
Tally stalked the darkness outside the hoverglobes’ reach, listening to the newcomers. The music wasn’t loud—the bash was more about getting to know each other than drinking and dancing—and she heard all kinds of accents, even other languages from the deep south. All the runaways were telling the stories of how they’d gotten here—comic, arduous, or terrifying voyages through the wild to reach pickup spots all over the continent. Some had come by hoverboard, some had walked, and a few even claimed they’d stolen warden hovercars with lifting fans, flying in comfort across the wild.
The party grew as she watched, like Diego itself, more runaways arriving all the time. Soon Tally spotted Peris and a few of the other Crims near the cliff edge. Zane wasn’t with them.
She retreated farther into the shadows, eyes searching the crowd, wondering where he was. Maybe she should have stayed close; this city was so strange. Of course, he probably thought she’d lost the helicopter and was still behind in the wild. Was probably relieved to be rid of her. . . .
“Hey, I’m John,” came a voice from behind.
Tally spun around, finding herself face-to-face with a standard new pretty. His eyebrows rose at the sight of her cruel beauty and tattoos, but the reaction was slight. He had already gotten used to seeing crazy surge here in Diego.
“Tally,” she said.
“That’s a funny name.”
Tally frowned. She’d thought “John” sounded pretty random, herself, though his accent wasn’t too unfamiliar.
“You’re a runaway, right?” he asked. “I mean, that’s new surge you’re trying on?”
“This?” Her fingers brushed her face. Since she’d woken up at Special Circumstances headquarters, the cruel beauty had felt like something that defined her, made her what she was, and this average boy was asking if she was trying it on, like some new hairstyle?
But there was no point in giving herself away. “Yeah, I guess. Like it?”
He shrugged. “My friends say it’s better to wait until you know the fashions. Don’t want to look like a mountainous dork.”
Tally let out a slow breath, trying to remain calm. “You think I look like a dork?”
“What do I know? I just got here.” He laughed. “I’m not sure what look I’ll go for. But probably something less, I don’t know, scary.”
Scary? Tally thought, her anger building. She could show this arrogant little pretty what scary was.
“I wouldn’t keep those scars, if I were you,” he added. “Kind of grim.”
Tally’s hands lashed out to grab the boy by his new and brightly colored jacket. Her fingernails ripped into its fabric as she lifted him from the ground, her razor smile as fierce as she could make it.
“Listen, you bubblehead-until-five-minutes-ago, this is not a fashion statement! Those scars are something you’ll never even—”
A soft ping sounded in her head.
“Tally-wa,” a familiar voice came. “Put that kid down.”
She blinked, lowering the pretty to the ground.
Her skintenna had picked up another Cutter.
The boy was giggling. “Hey, neat trick! Didn’t see the teeth before.”
“Quiet!” Tally loosened her grip from the ruins of his jacket, spinning around to scan the crowd.
“Are you in a clique?” the pretty babbled on. “That guy over there looks just like you!”
She followed his gesture and saw the familiar face coming toward her through the crowd, tattoos spinning with pleasure.
It was Fausto, smiling and special.
REUNION
“Fausto!” she cried, then realized she didn’t have to shout. Their skintennas had already connected, creating a network of two.
“So you still remember me?” he joked, his voice whisper-close in her ears.
The intimacy she’d missed for the last weeks—the feeling of being a Cutter, of belonging to something—sent a shiver through her, and Tally ran toward Fausto, forgetting about the pretty who’d insulted her.
She gathered him into a hug. “You’re okay!”
“I’m better than okay,” he said.
Tally pulled away. She was so overwhelmed, her brain exhausted by everything it had absorbed that day—and now here was Fausto right in front of her, safe and sound.
&nb
sp; “What happened to you? How did you escape?”
“That’s a long story.”
She nodded, then shook her head and said, “I’m so confused, Fausto. This place is all so random. What’s going on?”
“Here in Diego?”
“Yeah. It doesn’t seem real.”
“It’s real.”
“But how did this all happen? Who let it happen?”
He looked out toward the cliff, gazing thoughtfully at the city lights. “As far as I can tell, it’s been happening for a long time. This city was never like ours. They didn’t have the same barriers between pretties and uglies.”
She nodded. “No river.”
He laughed. “Maybe that had something to do with it. But they’ve always had fewer bubbleheads than us.”
“Like the rangers I met last year. They didn’t have the lesions.”
“Even the teachers didn’t, Tally. Everyone here grew up being taught by non-bubbleheads.”
Tally blinked. No wonder the Diego government had been sympathetic to the Smoke. A little colony of freethinkers wouldn’t seem threatening to them at all.
Fausto leaned closer. “And you know what the weird thing is, Tally? They don’t have any kind of Special Circumstances here. So when the pills started coming in, Diego didn’t have a way to stop them. They couldn’t keep control.”
“You mean the Smokies took over?”
“They didn’t exactly take over.” Fausto laughed again. “The authorities are still in charge. But the change came a lot faster here than it will at home. It only took a month or so after the first pills came in before most people were waking up, the whole system falling apart. It’s still falling apart, I guess.”
Tally nodded, remembering all the things she’d seen in the last twelve hours. “You got that right. This whole place has gone crazy.”
“You’ll get used to it.” The smile grew on his face.
Tally narrowed her eyes. “And none of this bothers you? Didn’t you notice that they’re clear-cutting out on the edge of the city?”
“Of course, Tally-wa. They have to expand. The population’s going up fast.”