Uglies

Maddy and Az had worked for twenty years to no avail. But they couldn't leave Shay like this.

Of course, the moment she was cured, her hatred for Tally would return.

Which was worse: a friend with brain damage, or one who despised you?

They reached the edge of the ruins after midnight, and boarded down to the abandoned building where Tally and David had camped.

David was waiting outside.

He looked exhausted, the dark lines under his eyes visible even in starlight. But he embraced Tally the moment she stepped from the board, his arms tight around her, and she hugged him back hard.

"Are you okay?" she whispered, then felt idiotic.

What was he supposed to say to that? "Oh, David, of course you're not. I'm sorry, I-" "Shhh. I know." He pulled away and smiled.

Relief flowed through Tally, and she squeezed David's hands, confirming the realness of him. "I missed you," she said.

"Me too." He kissed her.

"You two are just so cute," Shay said, combing her hair with her fingers after the windy ride.

"Hi, Shay." David gave her a tired smile. "You guys look hungry."

"Only if you have any non-bogus food," Shay said.

"Afraid not. Three kinds of reconstituted curry."

Shay groaned and pushed past him into the crumbling building. His eyes followed her, but without any of the awe still in Ryde's and Astrix's faces. It was as if David didn't see her beauty.

He turned back. "We finally got some luck."

Tally looked into his lined, fatigued face. "Really?"

"We got that tablet working, the one Dr. Cable was carrying. Mom was yanking the phone part out so they couldn't track us through it, and she got it to display Cable's work data."

"About what?"

"All her notes on making pretties into Specials. Not just the physical part"-he pulled her closer-"but also how the brain lesions work. It's everything my parents weren't told when they were doctors!"

Tally swallowed. "Shay…"

He nodded. "Mom thinks she can find a cure."

Hippocratic Oath

They stayed at the edge of the Rusty Ruins.

Occasionally, hovercars would pass over the crumbling city, threading a slow search pattern across the sky. But the Smokies were old hands at hiding from satellites and aircraft. They placed red herrings across the ruins-chemical glowsticks that gave off human-size pockets of heat-and covered the windows of their building with sheets of black Mylar. And of course the ruins were very large; finding seven people in what had once been a city of millions was no simple matter.

Every night, Tally watched the influence of the "New Smoke" grow. A lot of uglies had seen the burning message on the night of the escape, or had heard about it, and the nightly pilgrimages out to the ruins slowly increased, until sparklers wavered atop high buildings from midnight until dawn.

Tally, Ryde, Croy, and Astrix made contact with the city uglies, starting new rumors, teaching new tricks, and offering glimpses of the ancient magazines the Boss had salvaged from the Smoke. If they doubted the existence of Special Circumstances, Tally showed them the plastic handcuff bracelets still encircling her wrists, and invited them to try to cut the cuffs off.

One new legend towered above all the rest. Maddy had decided that the brain lesions couldn't be kept a secret anymore; every ugly had the right to know what the operation really entailed. Tally and the others spread the rumor among their city friends: Not just your face was changed by the knife. Your personality-the real you inside-was the price of beauty.

Of course, not every ugly believed such an outrageous tale, but a few did. And some sneaked across to New Pretty Town in the dead of night to talk to their older friends face-to-face, and decided for themselves.

The Specials sometimes tried to crash the party, setting traps for the New Smokies, but someone always gave a warning, and no hovercar could ever catch a board among winding streets and rubble.

The New Smokies learned the nooks and cra

Maddy worked on the brain cure, using materials salvaged from the ruins or brought by city uglies willing to borrow from hospitals and chem classes. She withdrew from the rest of them, except for David. She seemed particularly cool to Tally, who felt guilty for every moment she spent with David, now that his mother was alone. None of them ever talked about Az's death.

Shay stayed with them, complaining about the food, the ruins, her hair and clothes, and having to look at all the ugly faces around her. But she never seemed bitter, only perpetually a

Tally sometimes wondered if Shay secretly enjoyed having the only pretty face in their little rebellion. Certainly, she didn't do any more work than she would have in the city; Ryde and Astrix obeyed her every command.

David helped his mother, searching the ruins for salvage, and taught wilderness survival tricks to any ugly who wanted to learn. But in the two weeks after his father's death, Tally found herself missing the days when it had been just the two of them.

Twenty days after the rescue, Maddy a

"Shay, I want to explain this to you carefully."

"Sure, Maddy."

"When you had the operation, they did something to your brain."

Shay smiled. "Yeah, right." She looked across at Tally, wearing a familiar expression.

"That's what Tally keeps telling me. But you guys don't understand."

Maddy folded her hands. "What do you mean?"

"I like the way I look," Shay insisted. "I'm happier in this body. You want to talk about brain damage?

Look at you all, ru

"And how do you feel, Shay?" Maddy asked calmly.

"I feel bubbly. It's nice not being all raging with hormones. Of course, it kind of sucks being out here instead of in the city."

"No one's keeping you here, Shay. Why haven't you left?"

Shay shrugged. "I don't know…. I'm worried about you guys, I guess. It's dangerous out here, and messing with Specials isn't a good idea. You should know that by now, Maddy."

Tally took a sharp breath, but Maddy's expression didn't change. "And you're going to protect us from them?" she asked calmly.

Shay shrugged. "I just feel bad about Tally. If I hadn't told her about the Smoke, she'd be pretty right now instead of living in this dump. And I figure eventually she'll decide to grow up. We'll go back together."

"You don't seem to want to decide for yourself."

"Decide what?" Shay rolled her eyes, looking at Tally to confirm what a bore this was.

The two of them had plowed through this conversation a dozen times before, until Tally had realized there was no convincing Shay that her personality had changed. To Shay, her new attitude was simply the result of growing up, moving on, leaving all the overheated emotions of ugliness behind.

"You weren't always this way, Shay," David said.