Uglies (22 page)

Tally had never ridden a hoverboard barefoot before. Young Smokies had all kinds of competitions, carrying weights or riding double, but no one was ever that stupid.

She almost fell off on the first turn, zooming down a new path they’d spiked with scrap metal only a few days before. The moment the board banked, her dirty feet skidded across the surface, spinning her halfway around. Her arms flailed wildly, but somehow Tally kept her footing, shooting across the compound and over the rabbit pen.

A ragged cheer rose up below as the captives below saw her fly past and realized that someone was making an escape. Tally was too busy staying on board to glance down.

Regaining her balance, Tally realized she wasn’t wearing crash bracelets. Any fall would be for real. Her toes gripped the board, and she vowed to take the next turn more slowly. If the sky had been cloudy this morning, the sun wouldn’t have burned the dew off Croy’s board yet. She’d be lying in a crumpled heap in the pen, probably with a broken neck. It was lucky she, like most young Smokies, slept with her belly sensor on.

Already, the whine of hovercars taking off came from behind.

Tally knew only two ways out of the Smoke by hoverboard. Instinctively, she headed for the railroad tracks where she worked every day. The valley dropped behind her, and she managed to make the tight turn onto the white-water stream without falling off. With no knapsack and her heavy crash bracelets missing, Tally felt practically naked.

Croy’s board wasn’t as fast as hers, and it didn’t know her style. Riding it was like breaking in new shoes—while running for your life.

Over the water, spray struck her face, hands, and feet. Tally knelt, grasping the edge of the board with wet hands, flying as low as she dared. Down here, the spray might make it even harder to ride, but the barrier of the trees kept her invisible. She dared a glance backward. No hovercars had appeared yet.

As she shot down the winding stream, swerving through the familiar hard turns, Tally thought of all the times she and David and Shay had raced each other to the work site. She wondered where David was.

Back in camp, bound and ready to be taken to a city he’d never seen before? Would he have his face filed down and replaced by a pretty mask, his brain turned into whatever mush the authorities decided would be acceptable for a former renegade raised in the wild?

She shook her head, forcing the image from her mind. David hadn’t been among the captured resistors.

If he’d been caught, he definitely would have put up a fight. He must have escaped.

The roar of a hovercar passed overhead, the shock wave of its passage almost throwing Tally from the board. A few seconds later, she knew it had spotted her, its screaming turn echoing through the forest as it cut back to the river.

Shadows passed over Tally, and she glanced up to see two hovercars following her, their blades shimmering as bright as knives in the midmorning sun. The hovercars could go anywhere, but Tally was limited by her magnetic lifters. She was trapped on the route to the railroad.

Tally remembered her first ride out to Dr. Cable’s office, the violent agility of the hovercar with its cruel pretty driver. In a straight line, they were much faster than any board. Her only advantage was that she knew this path backward and forward.

Fortunately, it was hardly a straight line.

Tally gripped the board with both hands and jumped from the river to the ridge line. The cars disappeared into the distance, overshooting as she skimmed the iron vein. But Tally was out in the open now, the plains spreading out below her as huge as ever.

She noticed fleetingly that it was a perfect day, not a cloud in the sky.

Tally lay almost flat to cut down wind resistance, coaxing every ounce of speed from Croy’s board. It didn’t look like she’d make it to the next cover before the two cars had swung around.

She wondered how they planned to capture her. Use a stunner? Throw a net? Simply bowl her over with their shock waves? At this speed and without crash bracelets, anything that knocked Tally off the board would kill her.

Maybe that was just fine with them.

The scream of their blades came from her right, louder and louder.

Just before the sound reached her, Tally dragged herself into a full hover skid, her momentum crushing her down into the board. The two hovercars shot past ahead, missing by a mile, but the wind of their passage spun her around in circles. The board flipped over and then back upright, Tally hanging on with both arms as the world spun wildly around her.

She regained control and urged it forward again, bringing it back to full speed before the hovercars could turn back around. The Specials might be faster, but her hoverboard was more maneuverable.

As the next turn drew near, the hovercars were headed straight for her, moving slower now, their pilots realizing that at top speed they would overshoot her every time.

Let them try to fly below tree level, though.

Now riding on her knees, gripping the board with both hands, Tally twisted into the next turn, dropping to skim just above the cracked dirt of the dry creek bed. She heard the whine of the hovercars steadily build.

They were tracking her too easily, probably using her body heat to pick her out among the trees, like the minders back home. Tally remembered the little portable heater she’d used to sneak out of the dorm so many times. If only she had it now.

Then Tally remembered the caves that David had shown her on her first day in the Smoke. Under the cold stones of the mountain, her body heat would disappear.

She ignored the sound of her pursuers, shooting down the creek bed and across a spur of ore, then onto the river that led to the railroad. She careened along above the water, and the hovercars stayed above tree height, patiently waiting for her to run out of cover.

As the turnoff to the railroad approached, Tally increased her speed, skimming the water as fast as she dared. She took the turn at full skid and hurtled down the track.

The cars swept away down the river. The Specials might have expected her to turn off on another river, but the sudden appearance of an old railroad track had surprised them. If she could make it to the mountain before the hovercars completed their slow turns, she would be safe.

Just in time, Tally remembered the spot where they had pulled up the track for scrap metal, and angled her board for a stomach-wrenching moment of freefall, soaring over the gap in a high arc.

The lifters found metal again, and thirty seconds later she came to a skidding halt at the end of the line.

Tally jumped from the hoverboard, turned it around, and gave it a shove back toward the river. Without her crash bracelets to pull it back, the board would drift along the straight line of the railroad until it reached the break, where it would drop to the ground.

Hopefully, the Specials would think she’d fallen off, and start their search back there.

Tally crawled up the boulders and into the cave, scrambling back into the darkness. She pulled herself as far as she could go, hoping that the tons of stone overhead would be enough to hide her from the Specials. When the tiny aperture of light at the mouth of the cave had shrunk to the size of an eye, Tally dropped to the stone, panting, her hands still shaking from the flight, telling herself again and again that she’d made it.

But what had she made it to? She had no shoes, no hoverboard, no friends, not even a water purifier or a packet of SpagBol. No home to go back to.

Tally was completely alone. “I’m so dead,” she said aloud.

A voice came out of the dark.

“Tally? Is that you ?”

Hands grasped Tally’s shoulders in the darkness.

“You made it!” It was David’s voice.

In her surprise, Tally couldn’t speak, but pulled him close, burying her face in his chest.

“Who else is with you?”

She shook her head.

“Oh,” David whispered. Then his grip tightened as the cave shuddered around them. The roar of a hovercar passed slowly overhead, and Tally imagined the Specials’ machines searching every crevice in the rock for signs of their prey.

Had she led them to David? That would be perfect, her final betrayal.

The low rumble of pursuit passed over them again, and David pulled her deeper into the blackness, down a long, twisting path that grew colder and darker. A stillness settled around her, damp and chill, and Tally imagined again the trainload of dead Rusties buried among the stones.

They waited in silence for what seemed like hours, holding each other, not daring to speak until long after the sounds of the cars had faded.

Finally David whispered, “What’s happening back at the Smoke?

“The Specials came this morning.”

“I know. I saw.” He held her tighter. “I couldn’t sleep, so I took my board up the mountain to watch the sunrise. They went right over me, twenty hovercars at once coming across the ridge. But what’s happening now?”

“They put everyone in the rabbit pen, separating us into groups. Croy said they’re going to take us all back to our cities.”

“Croy? Who else did you see?”

“Shay, a couple of her friends. The Boss might have made it out. He and I made a break together.”

“What about my parents?”

“I don’t know.” She was glad for the darkness. The fear in David’s voice was painful enough. His parents had founded the Smoke, and they knew the secret of the operation. Whatever punishment awaited the other Smokies, it would be a hundred times worse for them.

“I can’t believe it finally happened,” he said softly.

Tally tried to think of something comforting to say. All she could see in the darkness was Dr. Cable’s mocking smile.

“How did you get away?” he asked.

She pulled his hands to feel her wrists, where the plastic bracelets of the handcuffs remained. “I cut through these, got up onto the roof of the trading post, and stole Croy’s hoverboard.”

“With Specials guarding you?”

She bit her lip, saying nothing.

“That’s amazing. My mother says they’re superhuman. Their second operation augments all their muscles and rewires their nervous system. And they’re so scary-looking, a lot of people just panic the first time they see one.” He held her tighter. “But I should have known you would escape.”

Tally closed her eyes, which made no difference in the utter darkness. She wished they could stay in there forever, never having to face what was outside. “It was just good luck.”

Tally was amazed that she was lying again, already. If she had only told the truth about herself in the first place, the Smokies would have known what to do with the pendant. They could have attached it to some migratory bird, and Dr. Cable would be on her way to South America instead of in the library overseeing the destruction of the Smoke.

But Tally knew she couldn’t tell the truth, not now. David would never trust her again, not after she’d destroyed his home, his family. She’d already lost Peris, Shay, and her new home. She couldn’t bear to lose David as well.

And what good would a confession do now? David would be left alone, and so would she, when they most needed each other.

His hands ran across her face. “You still amaze me, Tally.”

She felt herself shudder, the words twisting in her like a knife.

In that moment, Tally made a deal with herself. Eventually she would have to tell David what she had unwittingly done. Not now, but someday. When she’d made things better, fixed part of what she had destroyed, maybe then he would understand. “We’ll go after them,” she said. “Rescue them.”

“Who? My parents?”

“They came from my city, right? So that’s where they’ll take them. And Shay and Croy, too. We’ll rescue them all.”

David laughed bitterly. “Us two? Against a bunch of Specials?”

“They won’t expect us.”

“But how will we find them? I’ve never been inside a city, but I hear they’re pretty big. More than a million people.”

Tally took a slow breath, once again remembering her first trip out to Dr. Cable’s office. The low, dirt-colored buildings at the edge of the city, past the greenbelt and among the factories. The huge, misshapen hill nearby. “I know where they’ll be.”

“You what?” David pulled away from their embrace.

“I’ve been there. Special Circumstances headquarters.”

There was a moment of silence. “I thought they were secret. Most of the kids who come out here don’t even believe in them.”

She went on, quietly horrified that another lie was coming into her head with such ease.

“A while ago I pulled a really bad trick, the kind that gets you special attention.” She rested her head against David again, glad that she couldn’t see his trusting expression. “I snuck into New Pretty Town. That’s where you live right after the operation, having fun all the time.”

“I’ve heard of it. And uglies aren’t allowed in, right?”

“Yeah. It’s a pretty serious trick. Anyway, I wore this mask and crashed a party. They almost caught me, so I grabbed a bungee jacket.”

“Which is?”

“Like a hoverboard, but you wear it. It was invented for escaping tall buildings in a fire, but new pretties use it mostly for goofing around. So I grabbed one, pulled a fire alarm, and jumped off the roof. It freaked a lot of people out.”

“Right. Shay told me the whole story on our way to the Smoke, saying you were the coolest ugly in the world,” he said. “But all I was thinking was that things must be really boring in the city.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“But you got caught? Shay didn’t mention that.”

The lie took form as she spoke, pulling on as many strands of truth as it could reach. “Yeah, I thought I’d gotten away, but they found my DNA or something. A few days later they took me to Special Circumstances, introduced me to this scary woman. I think she was in charge there. It was the first time I’d ever seen Specials.”

“Are they really that bad up close?”

She nodded in the dark. “They’re beautiful, absolutely. But in a cruel, horrible way. The first time’s the worst. They only wanted to scare me, though. They warned me I’d be in big trouble if I ever got caught again. Or if I ever told anyone. That’s why I never mentioned it to Shay.”

“That explains a lot.”

“About what?”

“About you. You always seemed to know how dangerous it was here in the Smoke. Somehow, you understood what the cities were really like, even before my parents told you the truth about the operation. You were the only runaway I ever met who really got it.”

Tally nodded. That much was true. “I get it.”

“And you still want to go back there for my parents and Shay? To risk getting caught? To risk your mind?”

A sob broke in her voice. “I have to.” To make it up to you.

David held her tighter, tried to kiss her. She had to turn her face away, tears finally coming.

“Tally, you are amazing.”