Pretties

Breakthrough

Overnight, the first freeze of winter had come. The trees shone like glass, bare branches alight with icicles. Glittering black fingers stretched across the window, cutting the sky into sharp little pieces.

Tally pressed one hand against the pane, letting the chill leak through the glass and into her palm. The bracing cold made the afternoon light sharper, as brittle as she imagined the icicles outside to be. It focused the part of her mind that still wanted to sink back into pretty dreams.

When she finally pulled her hand away from the window, a fuzzy outline showed its imprint on the glass, then slowly faded.

"Blurry Tally is no more," she said, then grinned, placing her icy palm against Zane's cheek.

"What the…," he muttered, stirring just enough to nudge her hand away.

"Wake up, pretty-head."

His eyes opened a slit. "Make it dark," he told his interface cuff.

The room obeyed, opaquing the window.

Tally frowned. "Another headache?" Zane still sometimes got crippling migraines that could put him out for hours, but they weren't as bad as the first weeks after he'd taken the pill.

"No," he murmured. "Sleepy."

She reached for the manual controls, setting the window back to transparent. "Then it's time to get up. We'll be late for ice skating."

He squinted at her through one eye. "Ice skating is bogus."

"Sleeping's bogus. Get up and be bubbly."

"Bubbly is bogus."

Tally raised one eyebrow, which didn't hurt anymore. She'd been a good pretty and had her forehead all fixed, though she'd memorialized the scar with a flash tattoo: black Celtic swirls just above her eye that spun in time with her heartbeat. For good measure, she'd gotten eye surge exactly like Shay's, backward-running clocks and everything.

"Bubbly is not bogus, lazy-face." Tally placed her hand against the window again to recharge its iciness. Her interface cuff sparkled in the sun like the frozen trees below, and for the millionth time she searched for any seam in its metal surface. But the cuff seemed to have been forged from one piece of steel, perfectly fitted to the oval of her wrist. She pulled at it softly, feeling the slightest give; she was growing skinnier every day. "Coffee, please," she said sweetly to the cuff.

Brewing smells began to percolate into the room, and Zane stirred again. When her hand had grown sufficiently cold, Tally placed it on his bare chest. He flinched but didn't fight back, just squeezed two fistfuls of sheet and took a shuddering breath. His eyes opened, their gold irises shining like the cold winter sun. "Now that was bubbly."

"I thought bubbly was bogus."

He smiled and shrugged drowsily.

Tally smiled back. Zane was extra beautiful when he first woke up. The edges of sleep softened his intense stare, leaving his severe features almost vulnerable-looking, like a lost and hungry boy. Tally never mentioned this fact, of course, or Zane would probably have gotten surge to fix it.

She made her way to the coffeemaker, stepping over the piles of unrecycled clothes and dirty dishes that occupied every square centimeter of floor. As always, Zane's room was a wreck. His closet lay half-open, too overflowing to shut properly. It was an easy room to hide things in.

Sipping her coffee, Tally told the hole in the wall to make their usual skating ensembles: heavy plastic jackets lined with fake rabbit fur; knee-padded pants for bad falls; black scarves; and, most important, thick gloves that reached halfway to their elbows. While the hole was spitting out clothes, she took Zane his coffee, which finally dragged him to consciousness.

Zane and Tally skipped breakfast — a meal they hadn't eaten for the last month — and layered up in the elevator down to the front door of Pulcher Mansion, speaking fluent pretty along the way.

"Did you see the frost, Zane-la? So icy-making."

"Winter is totally bubbly."

"Totally. Summer is just too … I don't know. Warming or something."

"Utterly."

They smiled pleasantly at the door minder and went out into the cold, pausing for a moment on the mansion's front steps. Tally handed Zane her coffee mug and pulled her gloves up inside her sleeves, covering the interface cuff on her left arm with two layers. Then she wrapped that arm with the black scarf to seal the cuff tightly She took both coffees from Zane, watching steam curl up from the trembling black pools while he did the same with his own gloves.

When he was done, Tally spoke, not too loudly. "I thought we were supposed to act normal today."

"I am acting normal."

"Come on. 'Bubbly is bogus'?"

"What? Too much?"

She shook her head, giggled, and pulled him toward the floating rink.

It had been one month since they'd taken the pills, and Tally and Zane weren't brain-dead yet. The first few hours, though, had been totally bogus. The Specials had searched them and Valentino 317 madly, putting everything they found in little plastic bags. They'd barked a million questions in their grating Special voices, trying to find out why a pair of new pretties would climb the transmission tower. Tally tried to tell them they'd just wanted privacy, but no explanation satisfied the Specials.

Finally, some wardens showed up with the abandoned interface rings, medspray for Tally's palms, and muffins. Tally ate her long-delayed breakfast like a hungry dog until all her bubbliness went away, then smiled prettily and asked to be taken to surge for the previous night's scar. After another really boring hour or so, the Specials let the wardens take her to the hospital with Zane in tow.

That was mostly it, except for the interface cuffs. The doctors slipped Tally's on during her eyebrow surge, and Zane awoke the next morning to find himself wearing one. They worked just like interface rings, except they could send voice-pings from anywhere, like a handphone. That meant the cuffs heard you talking even when you went outside and, unlike rings, they didn't come off. They were manacles with an invisible chain, and no tool Tally and Zane had yet tried could cut them open.

Unexpectedly, the cuffs also became the fashion item of the season. Once the other Crims saw them, it was all Zane could do to keep everyone from requisitioning their own. He got the hole in the wall to make a bunch of nonworking copies and passed them out. Over the next few weeks, word spread that the cuffs were some new marker of criminality, signifying that you had scaled the transmission tower on top of Valentino Mansion; it turned out that hundreds of new pretties had witnessed Tally's and Zane's climb, pinging one another to run to windows and check out the show. Within a few weeks, only the most fashion-missing went around without some kind of metal cuff locked onto their wrists, and minders had to be installed to keep new pretties off the tower.

People were starting to point out Tally and Zane when they were in public, and there were more Crim wannabees every day. It was like everybody wanted to be bubbly.

Tally was nervous about the breakthrough, but she and Zane didn't say much on the way to the skating rink. Although their cuffs couldn't hear anything while wrapped up in the heavy winter gear, silence was a habit that had begun to follow them everywhere. Tally had grown used to communicating in other ways: winks and rolled eyes and silently mouthed words. Living in an unspoken conspiracy filled every gesture with significance, charged every shared touch with unspoken meaning.

Inside the glass elevator that carried them up to the floating sheet of ice, looking down on the great bowl of Nefertiti Stadium, Zane took Tally's hand. His eyes flashed, as they did before a sudden, unexpected trick, like a snowball ambush from the roof of Pulcher Mansion. His playful glance was perfectly timed to settle Tally's nerves a little. It wouldn't do for the other Crims to see her anxious, after all.

Most of them were already there, trading in boots for ice skates, finding bungee jackets in the right size. A few newly voted-in Crims were warming up, looking wobbly ankled on the floating ice, the sound of their skates like a library minder telling you to shush.

Shay glided over to gather Tally in a hug, coming to a halt mostly by bumping into her. "Hey, Skinny-wa."

"Hey, Squint-la," Tally retorted, giggling. Ugly nicknames were back in fashion, but Shay and Tally had switched their old names now that Tally was losing weight. Going food-missing sucked, but sooner or later she hoped to be thin enough to slip the cuff from her wrist.

She saw that Shay had wrapped a black scarf around her forearm in solidarity. Shay also sported a version of Tally's flash tattoo, a nest of snakes coiling around one brow and down her cheek. A lot of the Crims had new facial tattoos with heart-rate triggers — you could see at a glance how bubbly they were. Self-heated coffee mugs sent clouds of steam into the air above the pack of Crims, and everyone's tattoos were spinning.

A chorus of hellos rose up as Tally and Zane were spotted, excitement rising in the pack. Peris glided over with a bungee jacket and Tally's usual skates in hand.

"Thanks, Nose," Tally said, kicking her boots off and sitting down on the ice. Here at the rink, hoverskates weren't allowed; real metal blades glittered in the wintry light like daggers. Tally drew her laces up tight. "Got your flask?" she asked Peris.

He pulled it out. "Double vodka."

"Very thawing." Tally and Zane had stopped drinking alcohol, which turned out to make you more pretty-minded than bubbly, but strong spirits had other uses here on the ice.

She held out her gloved hands, and Peris pulled her up, her momentum sending the two of them into a slippery little waltz. Giggling, they steadied themselves against each other.

"Don't forget your jacket, Skinny," he said.

She took it from him and tied the straps. "That would be bogus, wouldn't it?"

Peris nodded nervously.

"Any word from our friends across the river?" she asked, her voice dropping to just above a whisper.

"Not a ping. They're still totally missing."

Tally frowned. Cray's visit was a month ago now, and the New Smokies hadn't shown themselves since. The silence was ominous, unless this was another of their annoying tests. Either way, she was itching to go looking, once she got this stupid cuff off. "How's Fausto going on tricking that hoverboard?"

Peris only shrugged, looking distractedly at the other Crims, who were invading the rink, laughing and screaming, slashing through the little Zambonies that skittered about polishing the ice.

Tally checked the flash tattoo on Peris's forehead — a third eye that blinked with his heartbeat — and looked into his gorgeous eyes, brown and soft and depthless. Peris seemed bubblier than he had a month ago — all the Crims did — but Tally no longer saw improvement in him from day to day. It was so much harder for the rest of them who hadn't had the pills, who weren't half-cured like Tally and Zane. They could get excited in the short term, but it was hard to keep them focused.

Well, the breakthrough would give them a jolt.

"It's okay, Nose. Let's skate." Tally pushed off against the flat of one blade, building up speed as she swept around the rink's outer edge. She looked down through the mottled window of ice underfoot. The hoverlifters that held the floating rink up in the air were easy to see, spaced in a grid a few meters apart and sending out a sunburst of refrigeration tendrils. Much farther below, the broad oval of the sports stadium was visible, softly out of focus like the world through a pretty-minded haze. The stadium lights were coming on, warming up for the soccer game scheduled in forty-five minutes. As always, there would be fireworks before it started, once the crowd was in their seats. Very pretty-making.

The sky above was an uninterrupted expanse of blue, except for a few hot-air balloons tethered to the tallest party spires. When it was airborne, the skating rink was the highest thing in New Pretty Town. Tally could glimpse the entire city spread out below.

She skated after Zane, catching him as he rounded a turn. "Everybody seem bubbly to you?"

"Mostly nervous." He gracefully reversed, skating backward as easily as breathing. His operation-augmented muscles had been freed from pretty timidity and sloth. He could hold a handstand without trembling, climb up to his window in Pulcher Mansion in seconds, and outrun the monorail that brought crumblies from the burbs into the central hospital. He never broke a sweat and could hold his breath for two solid minutes.

Watching him perform these feats, Tally remembered the Rangers who'd rescued her from a brushfire on her journey to the Smoke. Zane was as physically confident as they had been — fast and strong, but without the twitching inhumanity of Special Circumstances agents. Tally was no slouch herself, but somehow the cure had taken Zane's strength and coordination to a new level. She loved gliding across the ice with him, skating circles around the others, being the graceful center of the Crims' motley vortex of flashing blades.

"Anything from the New Smoke?" he asked, barely audible over the swoosh of skates.

"Peris says nothing."

Zane swore and took a tight turn, spraying ice on a non-Crim struggling slowly along the side of the rink.

Tally caught up to him. "We have to be patient, Zane. We'll get these things off."

"I'm tired of being patient, Tally." He looked down through the ice. The stadium below was teeming, the growing audience awaiting the first game of the intercity playoffs. "How long?"

"Any minute now," she said.

As the words left her mouth the first fireworks exploded below, instantly transforming the rink into a mottled palette of reds and blues. A second later, a tardy boom shuddered up through the ice, followed by a long ahhh of appreciation from the crowd.

"Here we go," Zane said with a grin, his irritation erased.

Tally squeezed his hand and then let him skate away, gliding to a halt in the center of the rink, the farthest point from the supporting hoverstructure around the ice. She raised one hand and waited as the other Crims gathered in a tight pack around her.

"Flasks," she said softly, and heard the whisper spread through the pack.

Flashes of metal caught the sun, and Tally heard the rasp of tops being unscrewed. Her heart was beating fast, her senses sharpened by anticipation. Everyone's tattoos were totally spinning. She saw Zane gathering speed along the outside of the rink.

"Pour," she said softly.

A liquid sound spread through the pack of Crims, double vodka and straight ethyl alcohol gurgling out. Tally thought she heard a creak, the slightest of complaints from the ice as its freezing point was lowered by the spirits.

Even in the old days, Zane had always dreamed of pulling something like this, sometimes pouring champagne on the ice while the Crims skated. But the cure had made him serious; he'd even run a test in the small fridge in his room. He'd filled a tray of ice cubes, each one with a slightly different mix of vodka and water, and stuck it in the freezer. The all-water cube had frozen normally, but those with more alcohol in them got slushier and slushier, leaving the final all-vodka cube completely liquid.

Tally looked down at the layer of spirits slowly spreading across the ice through their skates, melting away the marks of blades and falls. The stadium came into heart-pounding focus, until Tally could see every detail of a rising plume of green and yellow fireworks. When the thunderous boom reached her ears, another ominous creak sounded. The fireworks display was building in intensity, ramping up for the finale.

Tally raised her hand for Zane.

He rounded the next turn, then headed toward them, skating hard. She felt a shimmer of panic in the pack around her, like a herd of gazelles spotting some big cat in the distance. A few Crims took last slugs from their flasks, then squirted boxes of orange juice into them to erase the evidence of what they'd done.

Tally grinned, imagining the pretty befuddlement she would put on for the wardens: We were all just standing there talking and minding our own business, not even skating, and suddenly…

"Watch out!" Zane cried, and the pack split in half, opening to create a path for him.

He skated into its center and jumped into the air inhumanly high, eyes and blades flashing, then brought his skates down hard onto the ice, all his weight behind them.

Zane instantly disappeared from view with a noise like breaking glass, and Tally heard the crack spreading with a sound that built like the shriek of a falling tree out in the Smoke. For a strange split second she was pushed up into the air as a large plate of ice teeter-tottered on the fulcrum of a lifter, but then it snapped in half and Tally was falling, her stomach lurching up into her throat. Gloved hands grabbed her coat from every direction in a moment of group panic, then a whoop rose up as the middle of the rink gave way altogether, icy shards and Crims and Zambonies all tumbling down toward the green grass of the soccer field, ten thousand faces staring up at them in shock.

Now this was bubbly.

Bounce

For a moment it was quiet.

All around her, shattered ice fell without a sound, catching the stadium lights as it spun. Wind tore the war cries from the Crims' mouths. The crowd below looked up in stunned silence. Tally spread her arms to slow her fall, clutching the precious seconds with cupped fingers. This part of a bungee jump was always like flying.

Then a burst of light and sound sent Tally spinning, ears pummeled and eyes forced shut by blinding streaks of brilliance. After a few stunned seconds, she shook her head and opened her eyes: Rainbow shards of fire traveled away in every direction, as if Tally were at the center of an exploding galaxy. More booms thundered above her, unleashing a steady rain of incandescence. She realized what had happened…

The grand finale of the fireworks show had detonated just as the pack of falling Crims had broken through the ice. The timing of the breakthrough had been a little too perfect.

One sizzling flare clung to her bungee jacket, burning with the cool insistence of safety fireworks, tickling her face with cast-off sparks. Tally flailed her arms to right herself, but the ground was already rushing up, only seconds away She was still out of control when the straps of the bungee jacket bit into her, bringing her headfirst plummet to a halt a few meters from the ground.

As the jacket yanked Tally upright and back into the air, she rolled into a ball in case anything big was still falling. The possibility of one of them catching a chunk of ice or a tumbling Zamboni had always been the nervous-making part of this plan. But Tally made the bounce unscathed, and as she reached its apex she heard the ahhh of the crowd's vast confusion. They knew something had gone wrong.

She and Zane had thought about hacking the Scoreboard to show a message at this moment, to penetrate the crowd's pretty haze while their heads were spinning. But then the wardens would know the breakthrough had been planned, which would lead to all sorts of bogus complications.

The New Smokies would hear about this trick one way or another, and they, at least, would know what it meant…

The cure had worked. The New Smoke had allies inside the city. The sky was falling.

Tally's hoverbouncing came to a stop about midfield, on grass littered with broken ice, shuddering Zambonies, giggling Crims, and the few innocent skaters who'd fallen through, no doubt suddenly glad that bungee jackets were required in the rink. She looked around for Zane, and saw that his momentum had carried him down the field and into one of the goals. She ran toward that end, checking on Crims along the way. Everyone's tattoos were pulsing madly; spinning with the anti-pretty magic of the breakthrough. But nobody was hurt beyond a few bruises or a little singed hair.

"It worked, Tally!" Fausto said softly as she passed, staring with amazement at a chunk of ice in his hand. She kept running.

Zane was laughing hysterically, tangled up in the net. When he saw Tally, he cried out a long, "Go-o-o-o-o-al!"

She thudded to a halt, relieved, and let herself enjoy the bubbliness of everything, the world transformed around her. It was as if she could take in the whole audience at a glance, every expression crystal clear in the unreal sharpness of the stadium lights. Ten thousand faces stared back at her, awestruck and amazed.

Tally imagined herself making a speech right now, telling them all about the operation, the lesions, the terrible price of being pretty — that lovely meant brainless, and that their easy lives were empty. The bedazzled crowd looked as if they would listen.

She and Zane had wanted to signal the New Smokies, but that hadn't been the only goal of the breakthrough. A trick on this scale would jazz up the Crims for a few days, they knew, but would a truly bubbly experience permanently change pretties who hadn't taken the pills? From the look in Fausto's eyes, Tally thought it might. And now, seeing the faces of the crowd — new and middle pretties and even crumblies all head-spinning together — she wondered if the falling sky had awakened something larger.

The city had definitely noticed. Wardens were streaming onto the field, first-aid kits in hand. Tally had never seen such panicked expressions on middle pretties. Like the crowd, they all looked stunned that anything could have gone so totally wrong here in the city. The hover-cameras that had been ready to record the play-off game were panning across the field, taking in the wreckage. By the end of the day, Tally realized, this trick would be broadcast in every city on the globe.

She took a deep breath. It felt like setting off her first firework as a littlie, amazed that one little press of a button could make so much noise, wondering if she was going to get in trouble. As her euphoria wore off, Tally couldn't shake the feeling that, no matter how carefully they had covered up the trick, someone was going to know the breakthrough had been planned.

Suddenly, Tally needed Zane's touch, his silent reassurance, and she ran the rest of the distance to the goal. He was being untangled from the torn net, a pair of wardens treating his face with medspray. Tally pushed them aside and took Zane into her arms.

There were wardens everywhere, so she spoke in pretty. "Bubbly-making, huh!"

"Utterly," he said. Zane didn't have any flash tattoos, but Tally could feel his heart pounding through the heavy winter coat.

"Are you broken anywhere?"

"No. Just ouching." He touched one side of his face gingerly; it bore red lines in the pattern of the net. "Looks like we scored."

She giggled and kissed his wounded cheek as softly as she could, then brought her lips to his ear. "It worked. It really worked. It's like we can do anything."

"We can."

"After this, the New Smokies have to know the cure works. They'll send us more pills, and we can change everything. "

He pulled away and nodded, then leaned closer to kiss her ear softly and murmur, "And if they don't notice this, we'll just have to go out looking for them."

Party Crash

That night was all about champagne. Although they'd sworn off drinking, Tally and Zane felt as if they had to toast the Crims' survival of the Great Collapse of Nefertiti Stadium.

They had all practiced for tonight, every reaction rehearsed, so there was no mention of spirits poured onto the ice, no gloating about a plan that had worked perfectly — just the excited chatter of new pretties recovering from a bubbly and unexpected departure from the norm.

Everyone told and retold the story of their own fall— the shudder of cracking ice, the dazzling interior of the fireworks display, the yank of bungee jackets, and, after it was all over, alarmed calls from crumbly parents who had seen the whole thing replayed again and again on every channel. Most of the Crims had been interviewed for the feeds, telling their stories with expressions of innocent surprise. The newsfeed story was spreading and mutating: calls for resignations from the city architecture board, a total rescheduling of the soccer play-offs, and the closure of the floating rink forever (a bogus side effect that Tally hadn't anticipated).

But it didn't take long for the feeds to get repetitious— even your own face on a wallscreen was boring after you'd seen it fifty times — so Zane led them outside to build a bonfire in Denzel Park.

The Crims stayed bubbly, their flash tattoos spinning in the firelight as they retold their stories. They all were speaking fluent pretty in case anyone was listening, but Tally heard more than vapid nonsense in their words. It was like the way she and Zane spoke to each other, always aware of the cuffs but loading their pretty-talk with meaning. The silent conspiracy that they had shared was growing beyond the two of them. As Tally stared into the flames, listening to the Crims around her, she began to believe that the bubbly-making excitement of the breakthrough really would stick. Maybe people could think their way out of being pretty-minded, no pills required.

"Better drink that champagne, Skinny" Zane said, his fingers drifting along the back of her neck to interrupt her thoughts. "I hear that alcohol evaporates totally quickly."

"Evaporates? That's terrible." Tally made a serious face, and held her champagne up to the firelight. The news was giving hourly updates on the breakthrough investigation. A bunch of engineers were trying to figure out how twenty centimeters of lifter-supported ice could have buckled under the weight of a few dozen people. Blame had been assigned to shock waves from the fireworks show, heat from the stadium lights, even sympathetic vibrations from skaters moving in tandem like marching soldiers. But none of the experts had guessed that the real reason for the breakthrough had evaporated into thin air.

She raised her glass, clinking it against Zane's. He drained his glass, then took hers, splashing some champagne into his. "Thanks, Skinny," he said.

"For what?"

"For sharing."

She gave him a pretty smile. He meant the pills they'd split, of course, not the champagne. "Anytime. I'm glad there was enough for two."

"Bubbly luck how it worked out."

She nodded. The cure hadn't been perfect, but considering they'd each only had half a dose, the test had been a success. The cure had affected Zane almost instantly, shattering his pretty-mindedness in a few days. Tally's pill had worked more slowly, and she still woke up fuzzy most mornings, needing Zane to remind her to think bubbly thoughts. The good part was, she never got Zane's awful headaches.

"It's better shared, I think," Tally said, clinking his glass again. She remembered the warning in the letter from herself, and shivered despite the fire. Maybe two pills was actually too much, and if Tally had taken both she would have been brain-dead by now.

Zane pulled her closer. "Like I said…thanks." He kissed her, his lips warm in the cold night air, eyes flickering with bonfire reflections, and held his mouth to hers for a long time. Between the oxygen-missing kiss and the champagne, Tally felt herself getting pretty-minded, the edges of the firelit party turning fuzzy. Which maybe wasn't always a bad thing…

Zane finally let her go and turned toward the bonfire, nuzzling her ear to whisper, "We have to get these things off."

"Shhh." Even with winter coats and gloves covering their cuffs, Tally felt a little too famous at the moment to make plans out loud. The Crims had already thrown rocks to drive away one hovercamera covering the party for some follow-up story on the rink collapse.

"It's driving me crazy, Tally."

"Don't worry. We'll figure it out." Just stop talking, she pleaded silently.

Zane kicked a fallen branch into the bonfire. As it burst into flame, he let out a pained sound.

"Zane?"

He shook his head, fingers at his temples. Tally swallowed. Another headache. Sometimes they ended after a few seconds, sometimes they lasted for hours.

"No. I'm okay." He sucked in a deep breath.

"You know, you could go to a doctor," she whispered.

"Forget that! They'll know I'm cured."

She pulled him closer to the crackle of the fire and pressed her lips to his ear. "I told you about Maddy and Az, David's parents? They were doctors — surgeons — and for a long time even they didn't know about the brain lesions. They just thought most people were stupid. A regular doctor won't think there's anything wrong with fixing you."

Zane shook his head furiously and turned to whisper in her ear. "It won't stop with a regular doctor, Tally. New pretties don't get sick."

She looked around the fire at the glowing faces. The Crims wound up at the hospital often enough, but only for injuries, not illness. The operation boosted your immune system, strengthened your organs, fixed your teeth forever. An unhealthy new pretty was such a rarity, there would probably be a ton of tests. And if Zane's headaches persisted, the test results would be passed on to experts.

"They're keeping an eye on us already," he whispered. "We can't afford anyone poking around inside my head." He flinched again, pain contorting his features.

"We should go home," she said softly.

"You stay. I can make it to Pulcher okay."

She groaned and pulled him away from the fire. "Come on."

He let her lead him into the darkness, circling around the other Crims. Shay called out to them, but Tally waved her away, saying, "Too much champagne." Shay smiled sympathetically and turned back to the fire.

They trudged home, the bare ground glistening with frost in the moonlight, the cold wind sharp after the lulling heat of the fire. The night was beautiful, but Tally could only wonder about what was happening inside Zane's head. Was it just a minor side effect of the cure? Or a sign of something gone terribly wrong?

"Don't worry, Zane," she said, just above a whisper. "We'll figure this out. Or we'll get out of here and get help from the Smokies. This is Maddy's cure — she'll know what's going on."

He didn't answer, just stumbled up the hill beside her.

When Pulcher Mansion came into view, Zane pulled her to a halt. "Go back to the party. I can make it home okay from here." His voice was too loud.

She looked around, but they were alone — no pretties or hovercams in sight. "I'm worried about you," she whispered.

He lowered his voice. "It's silly to worry, Skinny. It's just a headache. Same thing as always. Probably because I was pretty longer than you." He forced a smile. "It's just taking me longer to get used to having a brain again."

"Come on. Let's get you in bed."

"No, you go back. I don't want them to know about…this."

"I won't say anything," Tally whispered. They had told no one about the cure, not until they absolutely trusted that the other Crims were bubbly enough to keep their mouths shut. "I'll just say you drank too much."

"Fine, but go back to the party," he said firmly. "You have to keep them bubbly. Make sure they don't get drunk and start saying stupid things."

Tally looked back at the fire, just visible through the trees below. With enough champagne, someone might start bragging. She looked back at Zane. "You'll be okay?"

He nodded. "Better already."

She took a breath of the cold air. He didn't look any better. "Zane …"

"Listen, I'll be fine. And no matter what happens, I'm glad we took the pills."

Tally took a deep breath to steady herself. "What do you mean, 'no matter what happens?"

"I don't mean tonight. Just whenever. You know."

Tally looked into his gold-flecked eyes, and saw in them the pain he was silently carrying. Whatever was happening to Zane, staying bubbly wasn't worth losing him. She shook her head. "No, I don't know."

He sighed. "I guess that was a stupid way to put it. I'm fine."

"I'm worried about you."

"Just go back to the party."

Tally sighed softly. There was no point in arguing. She held up one arm, indicating the scarf wrapped around her wrist. "Okay. But if you feel worse, ping me."

He smiled bitterly. "At least those things are good for something."

She kissed him softly, then watched him trudge up to the door of the mansion and inside.

On the lonely trip back down to the party, the air seemed to grow colder. Tally almost wished she could be pretty-minded again, just for one night, instead of having to keep watch on the Crims. From the very first kiss, being with Zane had made things complicated.

She sighed. Maybe that was the way it always worked.

Zane would never go to a doctor, Tally knew. If his headaches turned into something worse, could she make him go? Of course, Zane was right: Any doctor who could fix his problem could probably figure out what had caused it, and that was someone who could make Zane pretty-minded again.

If only Croy hadn't disappeared. Tally wondered how long it would take for the New Smokies to get in touch with them now. After the breakthrough, they had to realize the cure had worked. Even if wherever they were hiding didn't have newsfeeds, every ugly in the world would be chattering about the rink collapse, talking about Tally Youngblood looking innocent on their wallscreens.

Of course, she and Zane still had to escape the city. Tally had no idea how to get the cuffs off. As they grew thinner, it seemed like the rings of steel were closer to coming off, but how long was it going to take? Tally didn't much like being in a race between her own starvation and Zane's brain melting.

And when they escaped, she didn't want to go without the other Crims. Peris and Shay, at least. The Crims were so bubbly tonight, they'd probably all jump on hoverboards and head out if she said the word. But how bubbly would they be tomorrow?

Suddenly, Tally felt exhausted. There were too many things to juggle. Too many worries all falling on her alone. All she'd wanted was to become a Crim, to feel safe inside a clique of friends, and now she'd found herself in charge of a rebellion.

"Your friend have too much champagne?"

Tally froze. The words had come out of the darkness, cutting her ears like fingernails scraping metal.

"Hello?"

A figure emerged from the shadows in a hooded winter coat, moving with total silence through the fallen leaves. The woman stood in a shaft of moonlight, ten centimeters taller than Tally, taller even than Zane. She had to be a Special.

Tally forced herself to relax, trying to conquer her nerves and make her face melt into the soft expression of a brand-new pretty. "Shay? Is that you being all scary-making?" she said angrily The figure took another step forward into the light of a walkway torch. "No, Tally. It's me." The woman pulled off her hood.

It was Dr. Cable.

The Dragon

"Do I know you?"

Dr. Cable smiled coldly. "I'm sure you remember me, Tally."

Tally took a step back, letting some of her fear show; even the most innocent new pretty would be frightened by the sight of Dr. Cable. Her cruel features, exaggerated by the moonlight, made her look like a beautiful woman half transformed into a werewolf.

Memories flooded into Tally's mind. Being trapped in Dr. Cable's office that awful first time they'd met, learning of the existence of Special Circumstances, and then again when she had agreed to find and betray Shay, the price for becoming pretty. Then, in the Smoke, after Cable had followed Tally with an army of Specials to burn her new home to the ground.

"Yeah," Tally said. "I think I remember. I used to know you, right?"

"Indeed, you did." Cable's sharp teeth glowed in the moonlight. "But what's more important, Tally, is that I know you."

Tally managed a vacant smile. Dr. Cable no doubt remembered their last meeting — Tally and David's rescue of the Smokies — when it had been necessary to crack her on the head.

Dr. Cable gestured at the black scarf that bound Tally's cuff tightly under her glove and winter coat. "Interesting way to wear a scarf."

"What, are you fashion-missing? Everybody does this."

"But I imagine you started the trend. You always were tricky."

Tally beamed prettily. "I guess. I used to play all kinds of tricks back when I was ugly."

"Nothing like today, though."

"Oh, you saw the feeds? Wasn't that totally bogus? The ice just falling out from under us like that!"

"Yes…just like that." Dr. Cable's eyes narrowed. "I must admit, at first you had me fooled. That floating rink was a typical architectural folly designed to amuse new pretties. An accident waiting to happen. But then 1 thought about the timing — the stadium full, a hundred cameras ready."

Tally blinked, shrugged. "I bet it was those fireworks. You could feel them right through the ice. Who's missing idea was that?"

Dr. Cable nodded slowly. "An almost believable accident. And then I saw your face on the newsfeeds, Tally. All wide-eyed and innocent and telling your bubbly little tale." Cable's upper lip curled into something that was not a smile. "And I realized that you were still playing tricks."

Tally felt something punch into her stomach, something from ugly days: the old feeling of being caught. She tried to turn her fear into a look of surprise. "Me?"

"That's right, Tally: you. Somehow."

Under Dr. Cable's gaze, Tally imagined herself being hauled into the depths of Special Circumstances, the cure reversed, her memories erased again. Or maybe this time they wouldn't bother returning her to New Pretty Town at all. She tried to swallow, but her mouth felt full of cotton. "Yeah, right. Like everything's my fault," she managed.

Dr. Cable stepped closer, and Tally fought to hold her ground, though her whole body screamed run. The woman gazed at her coldly, as if peering at a specimen cut open on a table. "I certainly hope that it was your fault."

Tally frowned. "You hope what?"

"Let's speak frankly, Tally Youngblood. I've had enough of your pretty act. I'm not here to take you away to my dungeon."

"You're not?"

"Do you really think I care if you break things in New Pretty Town?"

"Um…kind of?"

Dr. Cable snorted. "Maintenance is not my department. Special Circumstances is only interested in outside threats. The city can take care of itself, Tally. There are so many safety backups, it's hardly worth worrying about. Why do you think skaters on that rink had to wear bungee jackets?"

Tally blinked. It hadn't crossed her mind to wonder about the jackets; everything was always ultra-safe in New Pretty Town, otherwise new pretties would kill themselves left and right. She shrugged. "In case the lifters failed? Like in a power blackout?"

Cable let out a razor-sharp laugh that lasted less than a second. "There hasn't been a blackout in a hundred and fifty years." She shook her head at the thought and continued. "Knock down anything you want, Tally. I don't care about your little tricks…except for what they reveal about you."

The woman's gaze focused on her once more, and Tally again had to fight the urge to run. She wondered if this was simply a way to get her to admit what the Crims had done. Probably she'd said too much already. But something about Dr. Cable's cold stare — her razor voice, her predatory movements, her very existence in the world — made it impossible for Tally to act pretty-minded. By now, any real new pretty would have fled screaming or dissolved into a puddle on the spot.

Besides, if Special Circumstances really wanted Tally to confess her tricks, they wouldn't have bothered with a conversation.

"So why are you here?" Tally said in her normal voice, trying hard to keep it steady "I've always admired your survival instinct, Tally. You were a good little traitor when you had to be."

"Uh, thanks … I guess."

Cable nodded. "And now it turns out you have more of a brain than I gave you credit for. You resist conditioning very well."

"Conditioning. That's what you call it?" Tally swore. "Like it's a hair treatment or something?"

"Amazing." Dr. Cable leaned close again, her eyes focusing on Tally's as if trying to bore through to her brain. "Somewhere in there, you're still a tricky little ugly, aren't you? Most impressive. I could use you, I think."

Tally felt a flush of anger, a fire inside her head. "Um, like, didn't you already use me?"

"So, you do remember. Superb." The woman's cruel-pretty eyes, flat and lusterless and cold, somehow showed pleasure. "I know that was an unpleasant experience, Tally. But it was necessary We needed to take our children back from the Smoke, and only you could help us. But I do apologize."

"Apologize?" Tally said. "For blackmailing me into betraying my friends, for destroying the Smoke, for killing David's father?" She felt an expression of disgust on her face. "I don't think you'll be using me, Dr. Cable. I've already" done you enough favors."

The woman only smiled again. "I agree. So it's time I did you a favor. What I am offering is something quite…bubbly."

The word on Cable's thin, cruel lips made Tally laugh dryly. "What would you know about being bubbly?"

"You'd be surprised. We at Special Circumstances know all about sensations, especially the ones you and your so-called Crims are always searching for. I can give it to you, Tally. All day, every day, bubblier than you can imagine. The real thing. Not just an escape from the haze of being pretty — something better."

"What are you talking about?"

"Remember flying on a hoverboard, Tally?" Cable said, her dull eyes igniting with cold fire. "That feeling of being alive? Yes, we can make people pretty inside — empty and lazy and vapid — but we can also make them bubbly, as you call it. More intense than you ever felt as an ugly, more alive than a wolf taking its prey even bubblier than ancient Rusty soldiers killing one another over some plot of oil-rich desert. Your senses sharper, your body faster than any athlete's in history, your muscles as strong as any human's in the world."

The woman's razor voice fell silent, and Tally could suddenly hear the night around them perfectly — icicles dripping against hard ground, trees creaking in the wind, the bonfire below spitting out random showers of sparks. She could hear the party perfectly: Crims shouting about the exploits of the day, arguing about who had bounced highest or landed hardest. Cable's words had left the world as sharp as broken crystal.

"You should see the world as I see it, Tally."

"You're offering me a … job? As a Special?"

"Not a job. A whole new being." Dr. Cable said each word with deliberate care. "You can be one of us."

Tally was breathing hard, her pulse pounding through her entire body, as if the very idea was already changing her. She bared her teeth at Dr. Cable. "You think I'd work for you?"

"Consider your other choice, Tally. Spending your life looking for cheap thrills, managing a few moments at a time truly awake. Never clearing your head completely. But you'd make a fine Special. Traveling to the Smoke on your own was impressive; I always had hopes for you. But now that I see you're still tricky even after the operation" — Dr. Cable shook her head—"I realize that you're a natural. Join us."

A ping went through Tally as she understood something at last. "Tell me something. What were you like as an ugly?"

"Outstanding, Tally." The woman barked her one-second laugh. "You already know the answer, don't you?"

"You were tricky."

Cable nodded. "I was just like you. All of us were. We went to the ruins, tried to run farther, had to be brought back. That's why we let uglies play their little tricks — to see who's cleverest. To see which of you fights your way out of the cage. That's what your rebellion is all about, Tally— graduating to Special Circumstances."

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 drank. 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.

Zane was already awake, sipping coffee and staring out the window, absently spinning his cuff with one finger. He glanced at her as she stirred, but didn't make a sound. The silence between them since they'd been cuffed had felt conspiratorial, their secret whispers intimate, but Tally wondered if talking so little was gradually shutting them off from each other. Shay had been right about one thing: Tally had hardly known Zane before that day they'd climbed the tower. What Dr. Cable had told her made Tally realize that she still didn't know him very well.

But once the cuffs were off and they were outside the city, their memories freed from the blur of pretty-headedness, there would be nothing to stop them from telling each other everything.

"Bogus weather, huh?" she said.

"Just a few degrees colder and it'd be snowing."

Tally brightened. "Yeah, snow would be totally pretty-making." She fished a dirty T-shirt from the floor, wadded it up, and threw it at his head. "Snowball fight!"

He let it bounce off him, smiling softly. Zane's headache from the night of the party had passed, but it had left him in a serious mood. Without having said a word, they both knew they would have to escape the city soon.

It all came down to the cuffs.

Tally gave hers an experimental pull. It slipped from her wrist onto her hand, catching only centimeters from coming off. She'd hardly eaten anything the day before, determined to fade away to nothing if that's what it took to get the thing off, but Tally wondered if she would ever be skinny enough. The cuff's circumference looked just smaller than the width of the bones in her hand, a measurement that no amount of starvation was going to alter.

She stared at the red marks left by the metal. The big bone that was the joint of her left thumb was most of the problem. Tally envisioned pulling the thumb back hard enough to snap the bone, leaving room for the cuff to slip off, and couldn't imagine anything more painful.

A ping came from the door, and Tally sighed. Someone had gotten sick of being ignored and had come around in person.

"We're not here, are we?" Zane said.

Tally shrugged. Not if it was Shay outside, or some wannabe trying to get into the Crims. Come to think of it, there was no one she was in the mood to see.

The ping came again.

"Who is it, anyway?" Tally asked the room, but the room didn't know. Which meant whoever it was wasn't wearing their interface ring.

"That's…interesting," Zane said. They looked at each other for a moment, and Tally felt the moment when curiosity got the better of them.

"Okay, open up," she told the room.

The door slid away to reveal Fausto, looking like a kitten pulled out of a river. His hair was plastered to his head, his clothing soaked, but his eyes were bright. Under his arms he carried two hoverboards, their knobbly surfaces dripping water on the floor.

He walked into the room without a word and dropped the boards. They came to a hovery stop at knee height, while Fausto unloaded four crash bracelets and two belly sensors from his pockets. He took one of the boards and turned it over, gesturing at the access panel on its bottom. Tally rolled out of bed to take a closer look. The nuts securing the panel were stripped, and two red wires snaked out, their ends twisted together and sealed with black tape.

Fausto mimed pulling the wires apart, then opened his hands in a gesture that meant, Where is it? He grinned.

Tally nodded slowly. Fausto was still bubbly from the breakthrough, his flash tattoo spinning. He, at least, hadn't wasted the last rainy days and nights. These boards were tricked up, ugly-style. When the wires were disconnected, their governors and trackers would crash, freeing the boards from the city interface.

Once they'd gotten rid of the cuffs, Zane and Tally could fly anywhere they wanted.

"Awesome," she said aloud, not caring if the walls heard it.

They didn't wait for sunshine.

Flying through the rain was like standing under a freezing shower. The hole in the wall had coughed up goggles and grippy shoes, so it was possible to stay on board, but just barely. The high winds plastered Tally's soaking winter coat against her skin, pulling her hood back from her head and threatening to spill her on every turn.

Her reflexes from ugly days hadn't disappeared, though. If anything, the operation had improved her balance, and the almost freezing rain kept Tally from slipping into a pretty haze, even with her coat's heating turned to maximum. With a pounding heart and chattering teeth, her mind stayed crystal clear.

She and Zane shot down to the river at treetop level, following the winding path of Denzel Park. The branches danced in the wind under them, like flailing hands trying to reach up and drag them down. As Tally leaned into turns, cutting the wind with her hands, the last traces of her morning pretty-mindedness disappeared. The weight of the sensor clipped to her belly ring — which told the board where her center of gravity was — brought back memories of expeditions to the Rusty Ruins with Shay, reminding her how easy it had been to sneak out of the city back in ugly days.

Only the inescapable presence of the interface cuff spoiled her mood. The crash bracelets were big enough to fit over the metal ring, their soft, smart plastics conforming to its shape. Still, Tally imagined the manacle cutting into her flesh.

They reached the river and turned onto it, skimming under bridges, her board slapping the churning whitecaps stirred up by the wind. Laughing maniacally, Zane pulled in front of Tally and dipped his board's tail into the water, sending up a wall of spray.

She crouched low on the board, ducking the worst of the water, and tipped it forward to shoot into the lead. Banking across Zane's path, she slapped the river with her board, raising up a wall of water in front of him. She heard him whoop as he zoomed straight through it.

Soaking and panting hard, Tally wondered if this is what it would be like to be a Special — her senses sharp, every moment intense, her body a perfectly tuned machine. She remembered Maddy and Az saying that Specials didn't have the lesions — they were cured.

Of course, there was a price for being Special — the small matter of a new face: wolflike teeth and cold, dull eyes that terrified everyone you met. And the horror-movie look was nothing compared with having to work for Special Circumstances — tracking down runaway uglies and crushing anyone the city felt threatened by.

And what if the Special operation changed your mind in some other way: making you obedient instead of empty-headed? With all that speed and strength, running away from the city would be easy, but what if the Special operation put something like the cuff inside you, something that would always tell them where you were?

A faceful of water reminded Tally to keep her mind on the game, and she shot high into the air, soaring over a footbridge. Below, Zane was looking back uncertainly, trying to figure out where she'd disappeared to.

Tally dropped down just ahead of him, hitting the river with a sound like a face being slapped, throwing up an explosion of water. But she knew instantly she'd hit too fast. At this speed, the water was as hard as concrete, and her feet slipped at the impact — Tally felt herself sliding off…

She was falling for a moment, then the crash bracelets kicked in, gripping her wrists cruelly and spinning her to a safe halt.

She wound up waist-deep in the freezing water, hanging from the bracelets, crying out as she discovered a whole new level of being soaked. She was glad to see that her attack had also dumped Zane.

"Really bubbly move, Skinny," he shouted, pulling himself back onto his hoverboard. Too out of breath to answer, she crawled onto hers and lay on her stomach, laughing. The two of them wordlessly coasted over to the ground to recover their breath.

On the muddy riverbank, they huddled close for warmth. Her heart still pounded, the expanse of rain-struck water stretched before them like a field of glittering flowers.

"So beautiful," Tally said, trying to imagine what it would be like in the wild with Zane, feeling this way every day, free from the mind-numbing restrictions of the city.

Her wrist was throbbing, and she pulled her crash bracelet off to take a look. In the wipeout, the metal cuff underneath had cut into her skin. Tally gave it a tug, but even with her soaking skin, it stopped at its usual spot.

"Still stuck," she said.

Zane took her hand and said softly, "Don't push it, Tally." He covered the cuff with her coat and whispered, "You'll only make your wrist swell up."

She swore, pulling on her hood. The rain beat on the plastic, impatient fingers drumming on her head. "I thought maybe with the water …"

"Nah. Cold makes metal contract, so they're probably tighter out here."

Tally looked at Zane, raising an eyebrow. "So," she whispered, "do they get bigger when they get hot?"

He was silent for a moment. Then, so softly that she could barely hear him above the rain, he whispered, "If they got really hot? I guess they'd get a little bigger."

"How much?"

He shrugged, the gesture almost invisible under his winter coat, but he was interested now. "How much heat can you stand?"

"You're not talking about a candle, are you?"

Zane shook his head. "Something much hotter than that. Something we could control, so it wouldn't roast our hands off. We'd still get burned, though."

She looked at the bulge in her sleeve and sighed. "Beats breaking your own thumb, I guess."

"Doing what?"

"Just something I was …" Her voice trailed off.

Zane's gaze followed hers across the river. On the opposite bank, two figures on hoverboards stood watching them, faceless in their hooded raincoats.

Tally fought to keep her voice down. "Smokies?"

Zane shook his head. "Those are dorm jackets."

"What would city uglies be doing out in this rain?"

He stood up. "Maybe we should ask."

Cutters

On the Uglyville side of the river, the four of them sheltered together under a tarp covering a paper recycler, hidden from view and out of the rain. The two uglies weren't wearing rings, Tally was glad to see; the four of them wouldn't be recorded by the city interface as having hung out together.

"Is that really you, Tally?" the girl whispered.

"Uh, yeah. Recognize me from the feeds?"

"No! It's me, Sussy. And this is Dex," she said. "Don't you remember us?"

"Remind me."

The girl just stared. She was wearing a crude leather strap around her neck, which looked like the sort of thing a Smokey might own — handmade and discolored by age. Where had she gotten it?

"We helped you with that 'New Smoke Lives' thing, remember?" the boy offered. "Back when you were…ugly."

An image came slowly into Tally's mind: huge burning letters lit as a diversion while she and David had broken into Special Circumstances. These were two of the uglies who had organized that trick, and then helped them hide out in the Rusty Ruins, bringing news and supplies from the city, playing more tricks to keep the wardens and Specials busy.

"You really forgot us," Dex said. "So it's true. They do something to your brains."

"Yeah, it's true," Zane said. "But a little softer, please." The rain was as loud as a jet engine on the plastic tarp, making it hard to hear. The two uglies needed reminding to keep their voices down.

Dex's stare dropped to Tally's wrist, covered by a crash bracelet and bound in a scarf, as if he didn't believe the cuff was really under there, listening. "Sorry."

When his eyes crept back up to stare at her face, Dex couldn't hide his amazement at her transformation. Sussy was silent — awestruck and hanging on every word. Under their gaze, Tally felt self-conscious and weirdly powerful. It was obvious the two would do anything she or Zane asked. Back when her brain had been prettified, she'd felt entitled to this sort of awe. But now, with her head clear, it was kind of embarrassing.

But talking to the two uglies was less awkward than it might have been. Tally's unpretty thoughts over the last month had made it easier to look at their imperfect faces. They didn't horrify her as much as her first glance at Croy had. The tiny gap between Sussy's two front teeth seemed more charming than revolting, and even Dex's zits didn't make her skin crawl.

"But the damage wasn't permanent," Zane was saying. "We're starting to get smarter. Which, by the way, is not something you can spread around to everyone, okay?"

The two nodded dumbly, and Tally wondered if hinting about the cure to random uglies was worth the risk. Of course, enlisting Sussy and Dex might be the quickest way to get a message to the New Smoke.

"What's the news from the ruins?" she asked.

Sussy leaned closer, remembering to whisper. "That's why we came down here. As far as we could tell, the New Smokies had all disappeared. Until last night."

"What happened last night?" Tally asked.

"Well, since they went missing, we've been going to the ruins every few nights," Dex said. "To check out the old spots, light sparklers. But we haven't seen anything all month."

Tally and Zane shared a glance. A month ago was about the same time Croy had left the pills for Tally to find. The timing probably wasn't a coincidence.

"But last night we found some stuff in an old hideout," Sussy said. "Burned-out lightsticks and some old magazines."

"Old magazines?" Tally asked.

"Yeah," Sussy said. "From the Rusty era. Those ones that showed how ugly everyone used to be."

"I don't think the New Smokies would have left those lying around," Tally said. "Those are precious. I knew someone who died to save them. So they must be back."

"But they're lying low," Dex said. "Playing it safe."

"Why?" Zane said softly. "And for how long?"

"How would we know?" Dex said. "That's why we came down here today. We were going to sneak over in the rain and find you, Tally. We thought you guys might have a clue."

"After you were all over the news the other day, we figured something was up," Sussy added. "Like, that stadium thing was a trick, right?"

"Glad you noticed," Tally said. "The New Smokies were supposed to notice too. Apparently, they did."

"We figured you knew something about it," Sussy said. "Especially after we spotted some of your pretty friends out here in Uglyville."

Tally frowned. "Pretties? Out here?"

"Yeah, in Cleopatra Park. I recognized a couple of them from the feeds. I think they were Crims. That's your clique, right?"

"Yeah, but …"

Sussy frowned. "You didn't know?"

Tally shook her head. After the last couple of days, she had gotten a few pings from other Crims — mostly complaints about the rain. But no one had said anything about going to Uglyville.

"What were they up to?" Zane asked.

Dex and Sussy looked at each other, unhappy expressions on their faces.

"Um, we're not sure," Sussy said. "They wouldn't talk to us, just chased us off."

Tally let out a slow breath through her teeth. Pretties were allowed on this side of the river — they could go anywhere they wanted in the city — but they never came to Uglyville. Which meant that Cleopatra Park would be a great place for a pretty to find some privacy, especially in the driving rain. But privacy for what?

"Didn't you tell everyone to lie low for a while?" Zane asked her.

"Yeah, I did." Tally wondered which of the Crims was behind this. And what "this" was.

"Take us there," she said.

Sussy and Dex led them up toward the park, flying slowly in the steady rain. Figuring that someone was monitoring the cuffs' positions, Tally had asked them to take an indirect route. The journey wound through half-familiar sights of her childhood: ugly dorms and schools, sodden parks, and empty soccer fields.

Despite the downpour, there were a few uglies out. One bunch was taking turns skidding down a hill, screaming as they ran to throw themselves onto a mudslide. A few played tag in a dorm courtyard, slipping and falling and winding up just as muddy as the first group. They were all having too much fun to notice the four hoverboarders gliding silently past.

Tally wondered if she'd had that much fun as an ugly. All she could recall from those days was dying to turn pretty, to get across the river and leave all this behind. Floating above the earth, her perfect face hidden by a hood, she felt like some risen spirit, enviously watching the living and trying to remember what it was like to be one of them.

Cleopatra Park, high in the greenbelt on the outer edge of Uglyville, was empty. The walking paths had been transformed into small creeks carrying the rain down toward the swollen river. The wildlife seemed to be in hiding except for a few miserable-looking birds that clung to the branches of the great pines that drooped low under their loads of water.

Sussy and Dex brought them to a clearing marked with slalom flags, and Tally felt a flush of recognition. "This is one of Shay's favorite spots. She taught me to hoverboard here."

"Shay?" Zane said. "But she'd tell us if she was up to some kind of trick, wouldn't she?"

"Um, maybe not," Tally said softly. No pings had come from Shay since the fight. "I've been meaning to tell you, Zane: She's kind of pissed off at me right now."

"Wow," Sussy said. "I thought pretties all liked each other."

"Usually, they do." Tally sighed. "Welcome to the new world."

Zane narrowed his eyes. "I think Tally and I need to talk." He glanced at the two uglies.

It took them a moment to realize what he meant, but then Sussy said, "Oh, sure. We'll be going. But what if…?"

"If the New Smokies show up again, send me a ping," Tally said.

"Doesn't the city read your mail?"

"Probably. Don't say anything except that you saw us on the feeds and you want to join the Crims when you turn sixteen. Leave the real message hidden under that recycler, and I'll send someone to pick it up. Got that?"

"Got it," Sussy said with a gap-toothed smile. Tally figured the two would be headed out to the ruins every night now, rain or not, looking for the New Smokies, happy to have a mission.

She gave them a pretty smile. "Thanks for everything."

Tally and Zane sat in silence for a minute after the uglies had left, watching the clearing from a thick stand of trees. The plastic slalom flags drooped miserably in the rain, the wind barely lifting them. Rainwater gathered in spots, the shallow pools reflecting the gray sky like rippling mirrors. Tally remembered flying between the flags on her hover-board in ugly days, learning to bank and turn. Back when she and Shay were really friends…

It was impossible to guess why Shay would be visiting this spot. Maybe it was nothing but a few Crims practicing their hoverboarding, figuring it was a great way to stay bubbly. No big deal.

As they sat, Tally realized she was out of excuses for not telling Zane everything. It was time to admit what she'd done to the Smoke and how she'd told Shay about the cure, and past time to bring up what Dr. Cable had revealed about Zane. But Tally wasn't looking forward to the conversation, and being soaking wet and cold wasn't helping. Her coat's heating was already turned up to maximum. The bubbliness from hoverboarding had worn off, replaced by Tally's anger at herself for having waited this long. The always-listening cuffs made it too easy to avoid mentioning uncomfortable subjects.

"So what happened between you and Shay?" Zane said. His voice stayed soft, but carried an edge of frustration.

"Her memories are starting to come back." Tally stared into a mud puddle before her, watching drops that had made their way down through the soaked pine trees distort its surface. "On the night of the breakthrough, she got really mad at me. She blames me for the Specials finding the Smoke. Which, I guess, is pretty much what happened. I betrayed them."

He nodded. "I figured that. All the stories you two told — back before the cure — they had you rescuing her from the Smoke. That sounds like pretty-talk for betrayal."

Tally looked up at him. "So you knew?"

"That you'd gone undercover for Special Circumstances? I'd guessed it."

"Oh." Tally didn't know whether to feel relieved or ashamed. Of course, Zane had cooperated with Dr. Cable himself, so maybe he understood. "I didn't want to do it, Zane. I mean, at first I went out there to bring Shay back, so they'd make me pretty, but then I changed my mind. I wanted to stay in the Smoke. I tried to destroy the tracker they'd given me, but I wound up setting it off. Even when I tried to do the right thing, I betrayed everyone."

Zane faced her, his eyes intense under his hood. "Tally, we're all manipulated by the people who run this city. Shay should know that."

"I wish that was all," Tally said. "I also stole David from her. Back when we were in the Smoke."

"Oh, him again." Zane shook his head. "Well, I guess she's pretty pissed off at you right now. At least that'll keep her bubbly."

"Yeah, really bubbly." Tally swallowed. "And there's one more thing that's got her mad."

He waited silently, rain dripping from his hood.

"I told her about the cure."

"You what?" Zane's whisper cut through the rain like a hiss of steam.

"I had to." Tally spread her hands imploringly. "She had it halfway figured out already, Zane, and was thinking she could cure herself. She climbed the Valentino tower like we did, thinking that was what had changed us. But of course it didn't work, not like the pills. She kept asking me what happened to us. She said I owed her, after everything I did to her back in ugly days."

Zane swore under his breath. "So you told her about the pills? Great. That's one more thing that can go wrong."

"But she's totally bubbly, Zane. I don't think she'll give us away," Tally said, then shrugged. "If anything, finding out about the pills made her furious enough to stay bubbly for life."

"Furious? Because you're cured and she's not?"

"No." Tally sighed. "Because you are."

"What?"

"I owed her, and you got the other pill."

"But there wasn't time to—" "I know that, Zane. But she doesn't. To her, it looks like …" She shook her head, feeling hot tears in her eyes. The rest of her was so cold, her fingers were slowly going numb. She began to tremble.

"It's okay, Tally." Zane reached out and took her hand, squeezing hard through the thick glove.

"You should have heard her, Zane. She really hates me."

"Listen, I'm sorry about that. But I'm glad it was me."

She looked up, her vision blurring with tears. "Yeah. Thanks for all the headaches, you mean."

"Better than staying a pretty-brain," he said. "But that's not what I meant. That day was about more than just finding those pills. I'm glad about…you and me."

She looked up and found him smiling. His fingers, still interlaced with hers, also trembled in the cold. Tally managed to smile back. "Me too."

"Don't let Shay make you feel bad about us, Tally."

"Of course not." She shook her head, realizing how much she meant it. Whatever Shay thought, Zane had been the right person to share the cure with. He had kept her bubbly, pushing her to pass the Smokies' tests, pressing her to dare the unproven pills. Tally had found more than a cure for pretty-headedness that day — she'd found someone to move forward with, past everything that had gone wrong last summer. It had been littlie days when Peris had promised to stay her best friend forever — but the day he'd turned sixteen, Peris had left her behind in Uglyville. Then Tally had lost Shay's friendship, betraying her to Special Circumstances and stealing David from her. Now even David was gone, missing somewhere in the wild and half-erased from her memories. He hadn't even bothered to bring her the pills— he'd left that job to Croy. Tally could guess what that meant. But Zane…

Tally stared into his golden, perfect eyes. He was here with her right now, in the flesh, and she'd been stupid to let what was between them get tangled up in her messy past. "I should have told you about Shay earlier. But the smart walls …"

"It's okay. But you can trust me. Always."

She pressed his hand in both of hers. "I know."

He reached up to touch her face. "We didn't really know each other very well that day, did we?"

"We took a chance, I guess. Weird how that happened."

He laughed. "I think that's the way it always happens. Usually without mysterious pills or Special Circumstances pounding on the door. But it's always taking a risk, when you…kiss someone new."

Tally nodded, and leaned forward. Their lips met, the kiss slow and intense in the chill of the rain. She could feel him trembling, and the muddy ground beneath them was cold, but their two hoods joined to block out the world, making a space that became warm from their mingling breath.

Tally whispered, "I'm so glad it was you with me that day."

"Me too."

"I — Ah!" She pulled away, wiping at her face. A trickle of water had crawled inside Tally's hood and was running down her cheek like a cold, malevolent tear.

He laughed and stood up, pulling her to her feet. "Come on, we can't stay here forever. Let's go back to Pulcher and get breakfast, and some dry clothes."

"I wasn't uncomfortable."

He smiled, but indicated his wrist and lowered his voice. "If we sit in one place too long, someone might get curious about what the big deal is out here in Uglyville."

"Whatever it is," she whispered.

But Zane was right. They should go home. They hadn't eaten anything all day except for a few calorie-purgers and some coffee. Their winter coats were heated, but between the physical effort of hoverboarding and the shock of getting dumped into the freezing river, Tally was starting to feel exhaustion and cold down in her bones. Hunger, the cold, and the kiss were all dizzy-making.

Zane snapped his fingers, and his board rose into the air.

"Wait a second," she said softly. "There's one more thing I should tell you about the night of the breakthrough."

"Okay."

"After I took you home …" The thought of Dr. Cable's feral face made her shiver, but Tally took a calming breath. She'd been stupid not to drag Zane outside sooner, getting him away from Pulcher Mansion's smart walls to tell him about her encounter with the doctor. She didn't want any secrets between them.

"What's wrong, Tally?"

"She was waiting for me…," she said. "Dr. Cable."

The name made Zane's face go blank for a moment, then he nodded. "I remember her."

"You do?"

"She's kind of hard to forget," Zane said. He paused, staring out into the clearing. Tally wondered if he was going to say more.

Finally, she said, "She made me a weird sort of offer. She wanted to know if I—" "Shhh!" he hissed.

"What—," she began, but Zane silenced her with a gloved hand. He turned and crouched in the mud, pulling her down beside him. Through the trees, a group of figures were marching into the clearing. They moved slowly, huddled in almost identical winter gear, their left wrists wrapped in black scarves. But Tally recognized one of them instantly, copper eyes bright and flash tattoo spinning in the cold.

It was Shay.

Ritual

Tally counted ten of them, slogging with quiet determination across the muddy ground. They reached the middle of the clearing and arranged themselves in a wide circle around one of the slalom flags. Shay moved to stand in the center, turning slowly, peering at the others from under her hood. The others settled into place about an arm's length apart, facing Shay and waiting silently.

After a long moment motionless, she dropped her winter coat to the ground, pulling off her gloves and spreading her arms. She wore only trousers, a sleeveless white T-shirt, and the fake metal cuff on her left wrist. Tipping her head back, she let the rain pound against her face.

Tally shivered and gathered her own coat tighter around her. Was Shay trying to freeze herself to death?

The other figures did nothing for a moment. Then, slowly and with awkward glances at one another, they followed her example, pulling off coats and gloves and sweaters. As their hoods came down, Tally recognized two more Crims. Ho was there — one of Shay's old friends who had run away to the Smoke only to come back on his own. Tally also recognized Tachs, who'd joined the clique a few weeks before she had.

But the other seven pretties weren't Crims at all. They placed their coats on the ground gingerly, hugging themselves against the bitter cold. When Ho and Tachs spread their arms, the others followed reluctantly. Rain ran down their faces and plastered the white shirts to their skin.

"What are they doing?" Zane whispered.

Tally only shook her head. She noticed that Shay had gotten new surge, some sort of raised tattoo hash marks on her arms. They extended from elbow to wrist, and Ho and Tachs seemed to have copied the design.

Shay began to speak, facing upward, addressing the flag overhead like a crazy person talking to nobody in particular. Her voice didn't carry across the clearing except for a word here and there. Tally couldn't make sense of it — the cadence sounded like a chant, almost like the prayers that Rusties and pre-Rusties had once offered up to their invisible superheroes in the sky.

After a few minutes, Shay fell silent, and again the group stood without saying a word, all shivering in the cold except the apparently insane Shay. Tally realized that the non-Crims all had flash tattoos on their faces, fresh-looking surge that glistened in the rain. She guessed that since the stadium disaster, swirly face tattoos must be the rage, but it was an awfully big coincidence that all seven of the unknown pretties had them.

"Those pings from wannabees," she whispered. "Shay's been recruiting."

"But why?" Zane hissed. "We all agreed that newbies were the last thing we need right now."

"Maybe she needs them."

"For what?"

A shiver went through Tally. "For this."

Zane swore. "We'll just veto them."

Tally shook her head. "I don't think she cares about vetoes. I'm not sure if she's still a—" Shay's voice cut through the rain again. She reached into her back pocket and produced an object that glittered coldly in the gray light. It unfolded into a long knife.

Tally's eyes widened, but none of the pretties in the circle looked surprised; their expressions revealed a mix of queasy fear and excitement.

Holding the knife aloft, Shay spoke more words in the same slow, deliberate cadence, and Tally heard one repeated enough to make it out.

It sounded like "Cutters."

"Let's get out of here," she said so softly that Zane must not have heard. She wanted to climb on her hoverboard and flee, but Tally found she couldn't move, or look away, or close her eyes.

Shay took the knife with her left hand and placed its edge against her right forearm, the wet metal gleaming. She raised both arms, turning slowly, fixing each of the others with her burning gaze. Then she looked up into the rain.

The movement was so slight that Tally hardly saw it from their hiding place, but she knew what had happened from the reactions of the others. Their bodies shuddered, eyes widening with horrified fascination — like Tally, they couldn't look away.

Then she saw the blood begin to trickle from the wound. It ran thinly in the rain, spreading down Shay's upraised arm and onto her shoulder, reaching her shirt, spreading a color that was more pink than red.

She turned around once to give them all a good look, her slow, deliberate movements as disturbing as the blood running down her arm. The others were shivering visibly now, shooting furtive glances at one another.

Shay finally lowered her arm, swaying a little on her feet, and held out the knife. Ho stepped forward to take it from her, and she took his place in the circle.

"What is this?" Zane whispered.

Tally shook her head and closed her eyes. The rain became suddenly deafening around her, but she heard her own words through the torrent. "This is Shay's new cure."

The others followed one by one.

Tally kept on expecting them to run, thinking that if only one of them would make a break for it, the rest would scatter into the forest like scared rabbits. But something— the bleak setting, the spirit-sapping rain, or maybe the crazed expression on Shay's face — bound them to their spots. They all watched, and then, one by one, they cut themselves. And as each did so, their faces transformed to become more like Shay's: ecstatic and insane.

With every cut, Tally felt something hollowing out inside her. She couldn't forget that there was more to this ritual than madness. She remembered the night of the costume party. Her fear and panic had made her bubbly enough to pursue Croy but had left her still pretty-minded. It wasn't until after Peris's knee had struck her as he hoverbounced — opening up her eyebrow — that Tally's head had really become clear.

Shay had admired that scar; she'd been the one to suggest getting a tattoo to commemorate it. Apparently she'd also understood how that injury had changed Tally, leading her to Zane, to the top of the transmission tower, and finally to the cure.

And now Shay was sharing her knowledge.

"This is our fault," Tally whispered.

"What?"

Tally opened her gloved hands toward the tableaux before them. She and Zane had given Shay what she needed to spread this cure: citywide fame, hundreds of pretties all dying to become Crims — bleeding to become Crims.

Or whatever they were becoming. "Cutters," Shay had said.

"She's not one of us anymore."

"Why are we just sitting here?" Zane hissed. His fists were clenched, his face reddening in the shadow of his hood.

"Zane, calm down." Tally took his hand.

"We should make her …" His voice trailed off with a choked-sounding cough, his eyes wide.

"Zane?" she whispered.

He was struggling for breath, hands clutching at empty air.

"Zane!" Tally cried aloud. She grabbed his other hand, staring into his bulging eyes. He wasn't breathing.

Tally glanced into the clearing, desperate for help from someone, anyone — even the Cutters. A few of the distant figures had heard her cry, but they only stared wide-eyed at her, blood flowing and flash tattoos spinning, too zoned out to be of any help.

She reached for her cuff, tearing off the black scarf to send a distress ping. But Zane's hand reached out to grab her. He shook his head painfully. "No."

"Zane, you need help!"

"I'm okay. …" The words tore from his throat.

She paused a moment, imagining him dying here in her arms. But if she called the wardens, they might both wind up under the surgeon's knife, pretty-minded for good— leaving Shay's cure as the only one in town. "All right," she said. "But I'm taking you to the hospital."

"No!"

"Not inside. Just as close as we can get. We'll wait there and see what happens."

Tally rolled Zane onto her hoverboard and snapped her fingers, watching as it rose into the air. She lay on top of him, feeling the board settle uneasily under their combined weight. The lifters held, and she pushed forward carefully.

As the board began to move, she glanced back at the clearing. All ten of them were staring at Tally and Zane now. Shay was walking toward them, her glare as cold as the rain.

Suddenly, Tally was overwhelmed with fear, the same terror she felt at the sight of Specials. She pushed off hard with her feet, leaning forward and climbing into the trees, leaving the place behind.

The ride down to the river was terrifying. Zane's limbs sprawled out in all directions, his shifting weight threatening to tip the board over with every turn. Tally wrapped her arms around him, fingernails scraping across the board's knobbly underside. She steered with her flailing legs, her turns as wide as a stumbling drunk's. The cold rain spat into her face, and Tally remembered the goggles in her coat pocket, but there was no way of getting at them without stopping.

And there wasn't time to stop.

They hurtled among the trees, the board picking up speed as they descended toward the river. Pine branches, heavy and glistening with captured raindrops, reared up out of the rain to slash her face. When they finally burst out of Cleopatra Park, Tally cut across a belt of muddy sports fields at top speed, angling toward the far end of the central island.

At this distance, the hospital was invisible in the driving rain, but Tally spotted the running lights of a hovercar headed in that direction. It was moving fast and high, probably an ambulance taking someone in. Squinting against the barrage of freezing rain, she managed to keep her eyes on it, following its course. As the hovercar pulled out of sight, they reached the river, and the overweighted board began to lose lift over the open water.

Tally realized too late what was happening: The buried metal grid that magnetic lifters used to push against was lower here — in the ground under ten meters of water. As they neared the middle of the river, the board descended closer and closer to the cold and choppy surface.

Halfway across, the board struck water with a slap, Zane's hands bouncing off the river as if it was solid. But the hoverboard rebounded into the air, and as the far shore grew closer, the lifters gained purchase and carried them higher.

"Tally…," a croaking voice came from beneath her.

"It'll be okay, Zane. I've got you."

"Yeah. Feels very under control."

Tally dared a glance down at him. His eyes were open, his face no longer red. She realized that his chest rose and fell beneath her, his breathing normal. "Just relax, Zane. I'll stop when we're close to the hospital."

"Don't take me there."

"I'm just taking you closer. In case."

"In case what?" he said raggedly.

"In case you stop breathing again! Now shut up!"

He fell obediently silent, his eyes closing.

As the river's rain-spattered surface shot by underneath them, the lights of the hospital rose up, its dark bulk reassuringly close. Tally spotted the flashing yellow lights of the emergency bay, but pulled off the river before they reached it, climbing the bank slowly. She brought the board to rest in the shelter of a rack of empty ambulances, the hovercars stacked three high in their giant metal frame, apparently awaiting some major disaster.

When the board settled, Zane rolled off onto the wet ground with a groan.

She kneeled next to him. "Talk to me."

"I'm fine," he said. "Except my back."

"Your back? What …"

"I think it has to do with riding a hoverboard on it." He snorted. "And under you."

She took his face in her hands, staring into his pupils. He looked exhausted and bedraggled, but he smiled and winked at her tiredly.

"Zane …" She felt herself starting to cry again, tears running hot among the cold raindrops. "What's happening to you?"

"Like I said: I think we need some breakfast."

Sobs wracked her body. "But…"

"I know." He put his hands on her shoulders. "We have to get out of here."

"But what about the New Smo—" His hand shot up to cover her mouth, muffling her next words. She pulled away in surprise. Zane pushed himself up on one elbow, staring at her cuff, which was uncovered in the rain. She'd taken her glove off to make a call when his attack had started.

"Oh … I'm sorry."

He shook his head, pulling her closer and whispering, "It's okay."

Tally closed her eyes, trying to remember what they had said on the mad trip here. "We argued about taking you to the hospital," she whispered.

He nodded and stood shakily, saying aloud, "Well, since we're here." He turned and punched his fist against the metal of the ambulance rack. It rebounded with a dull ring.

"Zane!"

He doubled over with pain, then shook his head, waving his wounded hand in the air for a moment. He regarded the blood on the knuckles. "As I said, since we came all this way, I might as well get this looked at. But next time ask me, okay?"

She stared at him, finally understanding. For a moment, she'd thought Shay's insanity was contagious. But a wounded hand was a plausible reason for their wild ride here, and would square with most of what the cuff had heard. Tally could also tell the wardens that they hadn't eaten in a couple of days. Maybe a vitamin- and blood-sugar drip in Zane's arm would help his headache.

He still looked like crap, muddy and soaking wet, but he walked without any stagger. In fact, Zane seemed pretty bubbly after cracking his hand. Maybe Shay wasn't as insane as she looked — at least she knew what worked.

"Come on," he said.

"Want a ride?" Tally asked, pointing. The second hover-board was coasting toward them across the grass, having followed the signal in Zane's crash bracelets.

"I think I'll walk," he said, trudging toward the flashing lights of the emergency bay. Tally saw then that his hands shook, and how pale he was. And she resolved that the next time he had an attack, she was calling the wardens.

Even the cure wasn't worth dying for.

Hospital

It turned out that Zane's punch had broken three bones in his hand, which were going to take half an hour to fix.

Tally shared the waiting room with two brand-new pretties waiting for a friend with a broken leg — something about running down wet stairs outside Lillian Russell Mansion. She ignored the details of the story, scarfing down cookies and coffee with lots of milk and sugar, luxuriating in the hospital's warmth and total absence of pounding rain. The rare sensation of calories entering her body softened the world a little, but Tally was glad for a few moments of pretty haze. Her memories of what Shay and company were up to in Cleopatra Park were all too clear.

"So what happened to you?" one of the pretties finally asked, the emphasis on the last word indicating her soaked and muddy clothes, exhausted expression, and generally shaming appearance.

Tally shoved a chocolate-chip cookie into her mouth and shrugged. "Hoverboarding."

The other pretty elbowed her friend, widening her eyes and angling one nervous thumb at Tally.

"What?" he said.

"Shhh!"

"What?"

The second pretty sighed. "Sorry," she said to Tally. "My friend is brand new. And totally brain-missing." She explained to him in a whisper, "That's Tally Youngblood. "

The first one opened his mouth wide, then shut it.

Tally just smiled and stuffed another cookie into her face. Of course you'd run into Tally Youngblood in the emergency bay, they were thinking. Where else? They were probably wondering what piece of major architecture had crumbled under her this time.

Though her celebrity kept the two mercifully quiet, their furtive glances were unsettling. These two pretties weren't the type to become Cutters, Tally was fairly certain. But she couldn't escape the realization that her criminal notoriety was feeding Shay's little project, creating pretties hungry to explore a certain kind of bubbliness. Even full of coffee, milk, and cookies, Tally's stomach began to feel sour as she wondered if trips to the emergency bay were going to be the rage this winter.

"Tally?" An orderly stood by the waiting room door, beckoning her in. Finally. Tally was ready to get out of this place.

"Take care, kids," she said to the pretties, and followed the orderly down the hall.

When the door closed behind her, Tally realized that she hadn't been taken to the outpatient center. The orderly had brought her to a small room dominated by a huge, cluttered desk. A wallscreen showed a grassy field on a sunny day— the sort of visuals they showed in littlie school right before nap time.

"Been out in the rain?" the orderly said brightly, pulling off his powder blue paper robe. He was wearing a suit underneath — semiformal, her brain informed her — and Tally realized that he wasn't an orderly at all. He had the beaming smile favored by politicians, nursery teachers, and headshrinks.

She sat in the chair across from him, her damp clothes squelching. "You totally guessed it."

He smiled. "Well, accidents happen. You were wise to bring your friend in. And lucky me, being here when you did. The thing is, I've been trying to get in touch with you, Tally."

"You have?"

"Indeed." He smiled again. There was a species of middle pretty who smiled at everything: happy smile, disappointed smile, you're-in-trouble smile. His was welcoming and enthusiastic, trustworthy and calm, and it set Tally's teeth on edge. He was the sort of middle pretty Dr. Cable had promised Tally she would become: smug and self-assured, his handsome face marked with just the right lines of laughter, age, and wisdom.

"You haven't been opening your mail the last couple of days, have you?" he said.

She shook her head. "Too many bogus pings. From being on the feeds, you know? Totally famous-making."

The words earned Tally a proud smile. "I suppose it's all been very exciting for you and your friends."

She shrugged, going for false modesty. "It was bubbly at first, but now it's getting bogus. So, who are you again?"

"Dr. Remmy Anders. I'm a trauma counselor here on the hospital staff."

"Trauma? Is this about the stadium thing? Because I'm totally—" "I'm sure you're fine, Tally. It's a friend of yours I've been wanting to ask you about. Frankly, we're a little worried."

"About who?"

"Shay."

Behind her pretty expression, a serious ping went through Tally. She tried to keep her voice steady. "Why Shay?"

Slowly, as if controlled by a remote, Dr. Anders's concerned smile bent into a frown. "There was a disturbance the other night at your little bonfire party. An argument between you and Shay. Quite troubling."

Tally blinked, stalling as she recalled Shay screaming at her by the fire. Even under all those layers, the cuff must have heard how upset Shay had been — way beyond the usual soft-spoken tiff between new pretties. Tally tried to recall exactly what Shay had shouted, but the combination of champagne and horrible guilt wasn't very memory-improving. She shrugged. "Yeah. She was pretty drunk. Me too."

"It didn't sound very happy-making."

"Dr. Remmy are you, like, spying on us? That's bogus."

The counselor shook his head and went back to the concerned smile. "We have had a particular interest in all of you who suffered that unfortunate accident. It can sometimes be difficult to recover from frightening and unexpected events. That's why I've been assigned as your post-stress counselor."

Tally pretended not to notice that he'd totally dodged the spying question — she already knew the answer, anyway. Special Circumstances might not care if the Crims knocked down New Pretty Town, but the wardens were always on the job. Given that the city was designed to keep people pretty-minded, it made sense that they would assign a counselor to anyone who'd had any serious bubbly-making experience. Dr. Anders was here to make sure that the breakthrough hadn't given the Crims any new and exciting ideas.

She summoned up a pretty smile. "In case we go crazy?"

Dr. Anders laughed. "Oh, we don't think you'll go crazy. I'm just here to make sure there aren't any long-term effects. Friendships can be negatively impacted by stress, you know."

She decided to throw Remmy a bone, and let her eyes widen. "So that's why she was being such a pain that night?"

He brightened. "Yes, it's all about stress, Tally. But remember, she probably didn't mean it."

"Well, I didn't go all crazy on her."

Reassuring smile. "Everyone reacts differently to trauma, Tally. Not everyone's as tough as you. Instead of getting angry, why don't we think of this as an opportunity to show Shay your support. You're old friends, aren't you?"

"Yeah. Since we were uglies. Same birthday."

"That's wonderful. Old friends are best at times like these. What was the fight about?"

Tally shrugged. "I don't know. Nothing, really."

"Can you remember at all?"

Tally wondered if this room was rigged to polygraph her, and if so, how big a lie she could get away with. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the calories moving through her half-starved body, letting a pretty haze settle over herself.

"Tally?" he prompted.

She decided to give Dr. Anders a little bit of the truth. "It was just…old stuff."

He nodded, folding his hands in satisfaction. Tally wondered if she'd said too much. "From ugly days?" he asked.

She shook her head, not trusting her voice.

"How have you and Shay been getting along since that night?"

"Just fine."

He smiled happily, but Tally caught him glancing away into the middle distance — probably at an eyescreen that was invisible to her. Was he checking the city interface? It would know that she and Shay hadn't pinged each other since the party and three whole days without any mail between them was pretty unusual. Or was Dr. Anders looking to see if her voice was wavering?

He gave his invisible data, or whatever it was, a small nod. "Has she seemed in better spirits to you since then?"

"She's okay, I guess." Just a little self-mutilation, crazy chanting, and maybe wanting to start her own very disturbing clique. "I haven't seen her since this bogus rain started coming down, actually. But me and her are best friends forever."

The last words came out wrong, Tally's voice sounding rough. She coughed a little, which was marked by a deepening of Dr. Anders's concerned smile. "I'm glad to hear that, Tally. And you're feeling all right as well, aren't you?"

"Bubbly," she said. "A little hungry, though."

"Yes, yes. You and Zane really must eat more. You're looking a bit thin, and I'm told his blood sugar was terribly low when he came in."

"I'll make sure he has some of those chocolate-chip cookies in the waiting room. They're awesome."

"A wonderful idea. You're a good friend, Tally." He stood, offering his hand. "Well, I see that Zane's all patched up, so I won't keep you. Thanks for your time, and make sure you let me know if you or any of your friends ever need to talk."

"Oh, I will," she said, giving the doctor her prettiest smile. "This has really been great."

Outside, the cold rain embraced Tally like an old and unavoidable friend, the discomfort almost a relief after Dr. Anders's radiant smiles. She told Zane about him on the way home. Although her cuff was bound up again, she spoke softly enough for the wind to tear her words away as they climbed into the gray sky.

He sighed when she was done. "Sounds like they're as worried about her as we are."

"Yeah. They must have heard our fight the other night. She was screaming at me in a very unpretty way."

"Perfect." His teeth were bared against the cold. It didn't look like the painkillers they'd given him for his hand were helping Zane's headache much. His feet shuffled on the board, finding their balance clumsily.

"I didn't say anything much. Just that she was drunk and acting up." Tally allowed herself a thin smile of self-congratulation. This one time, at least, she hadn't betrayed Shay. She hoped.

"Of course you didn't, Tally. Shay might need help, but not from some middle-pretty headshrink. What we have to do is get her out into the wild and give her the real cure. As soon as possible."

"Yeah. The pills are a lot better than cutting yourself." If they don't wind up giving you brain damage, she didn't add. Tally had decided not to tell Zane about her resolve to take him to the hospital the next time he had an attack; hopefully it wouldn't come to that. "So how were your doctors?"

"The usual. They spent the first hour lecturing me about eating more. When they finally got around to knitting my bones up, I was only unconscious about ten minutes. But other than being skinny, they didn't seem to notice anything weird about me."

"Good."

"Of course, that doesn't mean I'm fine. They didn't look at my head, after all, just my hand."

Tally took a deep breath. "Your headaches are getting worse, aren't they?"

"I think it was more hunger and cold than anything else."

She shook her head. "I haven't eaten anything today either, Zane, and you didn't see me—" "Forget about my head, Tally! I'm not any worse or any better. It's Shay's arms I'm worried about." He angled his board closer and lowered his voice. "They're going to be keeping an eye on her, too, now. If your Dr. Remmy gets a good look at what she's been doing to herself, all hell will break loose."

"Yeah. I can't argue with that." Tally visualized the row of scars along Shay's arms. From a distance, she'd thought they were tattoos, but from close up, anyone would know what they were. If Dr. Anders saw them, Tally doubted very much that he would have a smile appropriate to the occasion. Alarms would go off all over the city, and the wardens' interest in everyone who'd been involved in the stadium disaster would go way off the scale.

Tally reached out and brought them to a stop, lowering her voice to just above a whisper. "We don't have much time, then. He could decide to talk to Shay any day now."

Zane took a deep breath. "You'll have to talk to Shay first. Tell her to lay off the cutting."

"Oh. Fun. What if she doesn't want to?"

"Tell her we're about to leave. Tell her well get her the real cure."

"Leave? How?"

"We just go — tonight, if we can. I'll pack up everything we need, you get the other Crims ready."

"What about these?" She was too exhausted to raise her swaddled wrist, but he took her meaning.

"We'll get them off. Tonight. There's a trick I've been saving."

"What trick, Zane?"

"I can't tell you yet. It'll work, though — it's just a little risky" Tally frowned. She and Zane had tried every tool they could think of, and nothing had so much as scratched the cuffs. "What is it?"

"I'll show you tonight," he said, his jaw tight.

Tally swallowed. "Must be more than a little risky." Zane stared at her, his face pale and half-starved, his eyes dull through the goggles. "Give the girl a hand." He chuckled. "Might need one."

Tally had to turn her eyes away from his smile.

Crusher

The shop shed wasn't far from the hospital, on the downstream end of New Pretty Town where the two arms of the river rejoined each other. This late at night, the lathes, imaging tables, and injection molds sat unused, the place almost empty. The only light came from the other end of the shed, where a middle pretty was blowing molten glass into shape.

"It's freezing in here," Tally said. She could see the words coiling from her mouth in the soft red glow of work lights. The rain had finally stopped while they were getting the Crims ready to run, but the air was still damp and chill. Even inside the shed, Tally, Fausto, and Zane were huddled in their winter coats.

"They've usually got smelting furnaces going," Zane said. "And some of these machines put out a ton of heat." He pointed at the two sides of the shed that were open to the night. "But the ventilation means no smart walls, see?"

"I see." Tally pulled her coat tighter around her, reaching into one pocket to turn up its heater.

Fausto pointed out a machine that looked like a huge press. "Hey, I remember playing with one of those back in ugly school, for industrial design class," Fausto said. "We made these lunch trays with runners on the bottom, for sliding on the snow."

"That's why I brought you along," Zane said, leading Tally and Fausto across the concrete floor.

The bottom part of the machine was a metal table, which seemed to be etched with a million tiny dots. Parallel with the table was suspended an identical expanse of metal.

"What? You want to use a crusher?" Fausto raised his eyebrows. Zane still hadn't told them what he was up to, but Tally didn't like the look of the massive machine.

Or its name, for that matter.

Zane put down the champagne bucket he'd brought, sloshing ice water onto the floor. He pulled a memory card from one pocket and shoved it into the crusher's reader slot. The machine booted up, lights winking around the edge and the floor rumbling powerfully under Tally's feet.

A ripple seemed to pass through the table, a wave traveling across the surface as if the metal had suddenly become liquid and alive.

When the movement subsided, Tally took a closer look at the crusher's surface. The tiny etched-looking dots were in fact the tips of thin rods, which could be raised up and down to make shapes. She ran her fingers across the table, but the rods were so thin and perfectly aligned, it felt like smooth metal. "What's it for?"

"Stamping out stuff," Zane said. He pushed a button, and the table sprang to life again, a tiny, symmetrical collection of mountains rising up in its center. Tally noticed that identically shaped cavities had appeared in the upper surface of the crusher.

"Hey, that's my lunch tray," Fausto said.

"Of course. You thought I forgot? Those things were awesome for sledding," Zane said happily. He pulled a sheet of metal from under the machine and carefully aligned its edges to the table's.

"Yeah. I always wondered why they never mass-produced them," Fausto said.

"Too bubbly-making," Zane said. "But I bet some ugly reinvents them every few years. Heads up. I'm going to shoot it."

The other two each took a healthy step back.

Zane grasped two handles at the edge of the table, squeezing both at the same moment. The machine made a rumbling noise for a fraction of a second, then leaped suddenly into motion, the top half slamming down onto the lower with an earsplitting clang. The sound echoed through the shed, and Tally's ears were still ringing as the crusher's jaws slowly parted to reveal the sheet of metal.

"Sweet, isn't it?" Zane said. He picked up the sheet, whose contours had been reshaped by the impact. It looked like a lunch tray now, with little sections to divide a meal into salad, main, and dessert. Turning it over in his hands, Zane ran a finger down the grooves that marked the back side of the tray. "On good, powdery snow you could go a thousand klicks an hour on these babies."

Fausto's face had turned pale. "It won't work, Zane."

"Why not?"

"Too many safeties. Even if you could get one of us to—" "Are you kidding, Zane?" Tally cried. "You are not sticking your hand in there. That thing’ll take it off!"

Zane just smiled. "No, it won't. Like Fausto said: too many safeties." He pulled the memory card out of the crushers reader slot and stuck another in. The table rippled again, leaving a set of sharp ridges at its edge, like a row of teeth. He placed his left wrist alongside the metal jaws. "It's hard to tell with the glove on, but see where it'll snip the cuff?"

"But what if it misses, Zane?" Tally said. She had to fight to keep her voice down. Their cuffs were bound as usual, but she didn't want the middle pretty at the other end of the shed to hear them.

"It doesn't miss. You can stamp out parts for a stopwatch with these things."

"It won't work at all," Fausto proclaimed. He stuck his own hand under the crusher. "Shoot it."

"I know, I know," Zane said, grasping the handles and squeezing.

"What?" Tally cried in horror, but the machine didn't move. A row of yellow lights flashed around its edge, and a tinny industrial voice said, "Clear, please."

"It detects humans," Fausto said. "Body heat."

Tally swallowed, her heart pounding in her chest as Fausto took his hand out from under the crusher. "Don't do that!"

"And even if you trick it, what's the point?" Fausto continued. "It'll only crush the cuff, which will squish your hand."

"Not at fifty meters per second. Look here." Zane leaned over the table, running one finger along the formation of teeth he had programmed. "That edge will cut it, or at least smack it hard enough to kill whatever's inside. Our cuffs will just be hunks of dead metal after this thing hits them."

Fausto leaned in to look closer, and Tally turned away from the sight of them with their heads between the metal jaws. Dead metal. She stared at the glassblower at the other end of the shed. Unaware of their insane conversation, the woman was calmly holding a chunk of glass inside a small, radiant furnace, turning it slowly over the flame.

Tally walked toward the woman until she was out of earshot of Zane and Fausto, then unwrapped her cuff. "Ping Shay."

"Not available. Message?"

Tally scowled, but said, "Yes. Listen, Shay, I know this is my eighteenth message today, but you've got to answer. I'm sorry we were spying on you, but…" Tally didn't know what to add, assuming that the wardens — maybe even Specials — might be listening. She could hardly explain that they were escaping tonight. "But we're worried about you. Get back to me as soon as you can. We need to talk…face-to-face."

Tally signed off and rewrapped the scarf around her wrist. Shay, Ho, and Tachs — the Cutters — had pulled a big disappearing act, refusing to answer any pings. Probably Shay was sulking about having her secret ceremony spied on. But hopefully one of the Crims would find them and tell them about tonight's escape.

Tally and Zane had spent the afternoon getting everyone ready. The Crims were packed up and positioned around the island, ready to start moving once the signal came from the shop shed that Tally and Zane were free.

The woman blowing glass had finished heating it up. She pulled the glowing mass from the furnace and began to blow into it through a long tube, making the molten material bubble up into sinuous shapes. Tally reluctantly turned away from the sight and returned to the crusher.

"But what about the safeties?" Fausto was arguing.

"I can get rid of my body heat."

"How?"

Zane kicked the champagne bucket. "Thirty seconds in ice water and my hand will be as cold as a chunk of metal."

"Yeah, but your hand is not a chunk of metal," Tally cried. "And neither is mine. That's the problem."

"Look, Tally, I'm not asking you to go first."

She shook her head. "I'm not going at all, Zane. Neither are you."

"She's right." Fausto was staring at the metal teeth rising up from the table, comparing them with their twins jutting down from the top half. "High marks for good design, but sticking your hand in there is crazy. If you've miscalculated by one centimeter, the crusher will hit bone. They told us about that in shop class. The shock wave will travel all the way up your arm, shattering everything along the way."

"Hey, if it misses, they'll put me back together. And it won't miss. I even made a different cast for your hand, Tally," Zane said, waving another memory card. "Since your cuff's smaller."

"If this goes wrong, they'll never fix you," she said quietly. "Not even the city hospital can rebuild a flattened hand."

"Not flattened," Fausto said. "Your bones will be liquifacted, Zane. That means the shock will melt them."

"Listen, Tally," Zane said, reaching down to fish the bottle out of the champagne bucket. "I didn't want to do this either. But I had an attack this morning, remember?" He popped the cork.

"You had a what?" Fausto said.

Tally shook her head. "We have to find some other way."

"There's no time," Zane said, taking a swig from the bottle. "So, Fausto, will you help?"

"Help?" Tally asked.

Fausto nodded slowly. "It takes two hands to shoot the crusher — another safety feature, so you can't leave one in there by accident. He needs one of us to pull the triggers." Fausto crossed his arms. "Forget it."

"And I'm not helping you either!" Tally said.

"Tally." Zane sighed. "If we don't leave the city tonight, I might as well stick my head in there. These headaches have been coming every three days or so, and now they're getting worse. We have to leave."

Fausto frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Zane turned to him. "Something's wrong with me, Fausto. That's why we have to go tonight. We think the New Smokies can help me."

"Why would you need them? What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me is, I'm cured."

"Come again?"

Zane took a deep breath. "You see, we took these pills…"

Tally groaned and turned away, realizing that another line was being crossed. First Shay, and now Fausto. Tally wondered how long it would be before all the Crims knew about the cure. Which would only make it more urgent for her and Zane to escape the city, no matter what they had to risk.

Tally watched the glassblower with growing unhappiness. She could sense Fausto's disbelief fading as Zane explained what had happened to the two of them over the last month: the pills, the growing bubbliness of the cure, and Zane's crippling headaches.

"So Shay was right about you guys!" he said. "That's why you're so different now. …"

Shay had been the only one to call Tally on it, but all the Crims must have seen the changes and wondered what had happened. They all wanted the strange new bubbliness that Tally and Zane had. Now that Fausto knew the cure existed, that it was as simple as swallowing a pill, maybe risking a couple of hands in the crusher wouldn't seem so crazy to him.

Tally sighed. Maybe it wasn't crazy. That very morning she had delayed taking Zane to the hospital, waiting outside in the rain for what might have been precious minutes— risking his life, not just a hand.

She swallowed. What was the word Fausto had used? Liquifacted?

The glass object was growing in the woman's grasp, bubbling into overlapping spheres that looked supremely delicate, impossible to repair if shattered. The woman held the glowing shape carefully; some things couldn't be put back together if you broke them.

TaLly thought about David's father, Az. When Dr. Cable had tried to erase Az's memories, the process had killed him. The mind was even more fragile than the human hand — and none of them had a clue what was going on inside Zane's head.

She looked down at her own left glove, flexing the fingers slowly. Was she brave enough to put it in the crusher's metal jaws? Maybe.

"Are you sure we can find the New Smokies out there?" Fausto was saying to Zane. "I thought no one had seen them for a while."

"The uglies we met this morning said there were signs they'd come back."

"And they can cure you?"

Tally heard it then in Faustos voice — he was justifying it to himself aloud, slowly but surely, and would eventually agree to shoot the crusher. It even made perfect sense, in a horrible way. There was a cure for Zane's condition somewhere out in the wild, and if they didn't get him to it, he was as good as dead, anyway.

What was risking a hand?

Tally turned and said, "I'll do it. I'll pull the triggers."

They looked at her in shocked silence for a moment, then Zane smiled. "Good. I'd rather it was you."

She swallowed. "Why?"

"Because I trust you. Don't want to be shaking."

Tally took a deep breath, fighting to keep tears from her eyes. "Thanks, I guess."

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence.

"Are you sure, Tally?" Fausto finally said. "I could do it."

"No. It should be me."

'Well, no sense waiting around." Zane dropped his winter coat to the floor. He unwrapped his scarf from his wrist and pulled off the glove that had covered his cuff. His bare left hand looked small and fragile next to the crusher's dark mass. Zane made a fist and thrust it into the ice bucket, wincing as the freezing water began to leech his body heat away. "Get ready, Tally."

She glanced at their backpacks on the floor, felt to make sure she was wearing her belly sensor, checked the hoverboards at the edge of the shed one more time; the wires under the boards were yanked apart, disconnected from the city grid. They were ready to go.

Tally looked at her cuff. Once Zane's was shattered, the tracking signal would be interrupted. They'd have to do hers right away and get moving. They would have a long run just to reach the edge of the city.

Two dozen Crims waited all over the island, ready to scatter into the wild and draw pursuit in every direction. Each carried a Roman candle with a special mix of colors— purple and green — to spread the signal once Zane and Tally were free.

Free.

Tally looked down at the crusher's controls and swallowed. The two handles were cast in cheery bright yellow plastic and shaped like thumbgame joysticks, each with a fat trigger. When she took hold of them, the power of the idling machine shuddered in her hands, like the rumble of a suborbital plane passing overhead.

She tried to imagine herself pulling the triggers, and couldn't. Tally was out of arguments, though, and the time for discussion was past.

After thirty long seconds in the ice water, Zane pulled his hand out.

"Close your eyes in case the metal shatters. The cold will make it brittle," Zane said in a normal voice. It didn't matter what the cuff heard now, Tally realized. By the time anyone figured out what they were talking about, they'd be flying at top speed toward the Rusty Ruins.

Zane placed his wrist on the edge of the table, closing his eyes tightly. "Okay. Do it."

Tally took a deep breath, her hands trembling on the controls. She closed her eyes and thought, Okay, do it now…

But her fingers didn't obey.

Her mind started to spin, thinking of everything that could go wrong. She imagined flying Zane to the hospital again, his left arm a mass of jelly. She imagined Specials bursting in at that moment and stopping them, having figured out what they were up to. She wondered if Zane had made all the right measurements, and if he'd remembered that the cuff would have shrunk a bit from the ice water.

Tally paused at that thought, thinking maybe she should ask him. She opened her eyes. The wet cuff glimmered like a piece of gold in the crusher's yellow work lights.

"Tally … do it!"

Cold would make the metal contract, but heat…Tally glanced at the glassblower on the other side of the shed, blissfully unaware of the violent, horrible thing that was about to happen.

"Tally!" Fausto said softly.

Heat would make the cuff expand…

The woman held the red-hot glass in her hands, turning it over to inspect it from every side. How was she holding molten glass?

"Tally," Fausto said. "If you want, I'll do—" "Hang on," she said, taking her hands from the crusher's controls.

"What?" Zane cried.

"Stay here." She pulled the memory card from the crusher's slot, ignoring the sounds of protest behind her, and ran past hulking lathes and furnaces to the other side of the shed. At her approach, the woman looked up placidly, smiling with middle-pretty calm.

"Hello, dear."

"Hi. That's beautiful," Tally said.

The pleasant smile grew warmer. "Thank you."

Tally could see the woman's hands now, how they shimmered silver in the glowing red light. "You're wearing gloves, aren't you."

The woman laughed. "Of course! It's rather hot in that furnace, you know."

"But you can't feel it?"

"Not through these gloves. I think the material was invented for shuttles coming back through the atmosphere. It can reflect a couple of thousand degrees."

Tally nodded. "And they're really thin, aren't they? From across the room, I couldn't even tell you had them on."

"That's right." The woman nodded happily. "You can feel the texture of the glass right through them."

"Wow." Tally smiled prettily. The gloves would fit on under the cuffs, she could see now. "Where can I get a pair?"

The woman nodded at a cupboard. Tally opened it and found dozens of gloves crammed inside, their reflective material glittering like fresh snow. She pulled two out. "They're all the same size?"

"Yeah. They stretch to fit, all the way up past the elbows," the woman said. "Just make sure you throw them away after one use. They don't work very well the second time."

"No problem." Tally turned away with the gloves in a tight grip, relief flooding through her as she realized she wouldn't have to pull the triggers, wouldn't have to watch the crusher snap down on Zane's hand. A new and better plan unfolded in her mind like clockwork — she knew exactly where to find a powerful furnace, one they could take right to the edge of the city.

"Wait a second, Tally," the woman said, a troubled note entering her voice.

Tally froze, realizing that the woman had recognized her. Of course, everyone who watched the feeds knew Tally Youngblood's face now. She wracked her brain for an innocent reason for needing the gloves, but everything she thought of sounded totally bogus. "Um, yeah?"

"You've got two left gloves there." The woman laughed. "Not very useful, whatever trick you're planning."

Tally smiled, letting a slow chuckle escape her lips. That's what you think. But she turned back to the cupboard and fished out two right gloves. It wouldn't hurt to protect both hands. "Thanks for all your help," she said.

"No problem." The woman smiled beautifully, turning away, staring again into the curves of her piece of glass. "Just be careful."

"Don't worry," Tally said. "I always am."

Hijacking

"Are you kidding? How do we requisition one in the middle of the night?" Fausto asked.

"We can't. We'll have to hijack it." Tally put a backpack over her shoulder, and snapped for her board to follow. "In fact, we should get a few. The more of us who go out that way, the better."

"Hijack?" Zane said, checking the rewrapped scarf around his forearm. "You mean steal them?"

"No, we'll ask nicely." She grinned. "Don't forget, Zane, we're the Crims. We're famous. Follow me."

Outside the shop shed, she jumped on board and headed up toward the center of the island, where the tops of the party spires were always surrounded by parasails, hot-air balloons, and fireworks. The other two scrambled to follow. "You pass the word to the rest of the Crims," she shouted to Fausto. "Tell them about the change in plans."

He glanced at Zane for approval, then nodded, relieved that the crusher concept had been replaced by something less violent. "How many of us do you want to go up with?"

"Nine or ten," she said. "Anyone who's not afraid of heights — the rest can go by hoverboard, as planned. We'll be ready in twenty minutes. Meet us in the center of town."

"I'll be there," Fausto said, and angled away into the night sky.

Tally turned to Zane. "You okay?"

He nodded, slowly flexing the fingers of his gloved hand. "I'll be fine. It's just taking me a second to switch gears."

She brought her board closer to Zane's, taking his bare hand. "It was brave, what you wanted to do."

He shook his head. "I guess it was stupid."

"Yeah, maybe. But if we hadn't gone to the shop, I wouldn't have thought of this."

He smiled. "I'm pretty glad you did, to tell you the truth." His hand flexed nervously again. Then he pointed ahead of them. "There's a couple."

She followed his gaze to the center of the island, where a pair of hot-air balloons floated like big bald heads above a party spire, the tethers that kept them in place catching the trembling light of safety fireworks.

"Perfect," she said.

"One problem," Zane said. "How do we get that high on hoverboards?"

She thought for a moment. "Very carefully."

They climbed higher than she ever had, rising slowly alongside the party spire, close enough to reach out and touch its concrete wall. The metal inside the building provided barely enough push for the boards' lifters, and Tally felt a nervous-making tremble under her feet, like standing at the end of the highest diving board as a littlie. After a slow minute, they reached the spot where one of the balloons was tethered to the tower. Tally touched the tether with her bare hand, feeling its rain-slick links. "No problem. It's metal."

"Yeah, but is it enough metal?" Zane asked.

Tally shrugged.

He rolled his eyes. "And you thought my plan was risky. Okay, I'll take the stupid-looking one." He slid around the tower's girth to where the other balloon bobbed in the breeze. Tally grinned, seeing that it was shaped like a giant pig's head, with protruding ears and two big eyes painted on the pink nylon of its envelope.

At least her own balloon was a normal color: silvery and reflective, with a blue stripe around its equator. From up in the gondola she heard the unmistakable sound of a champagne cork popping, then laughter. It wasn't far away, but getting up was going to be tricky.

Her eyes followed the length of the tether, which drooped down before curving up to where it was attached to the gondola's bottom. The sinuous line reminded her of the roller coaster out in the Rusty Ruins. Of course, the roller coaster had a lot more metal in it, almost as if it had been designed for hoverboarding. This slender length of chain would provide slim pickings for her boards magnetic lifters.

And, unlike the roller coaster, the tether was in constant motion; the balloon was drifting slowly downward as the air in its envelope cooled, but Tally knew it would suddenly jump up and pull the tether taut if the burner was ignited. Worse, the Hot-airs might get bored of hovering around and decide to go for a night ride, releasing the tether and leaving nothing between Tally and the ground.

Zane was right: This wasn't the easiest way to get hold of a balloon, but there was no time to requisition one properly, or wait for the Hot-airs in the gondola to get bored and decide to land. If they were going to make it to the Rusty Ruins before dawn, the escape had to start soon. Maybe someone would find Shay while this new plan was unfolding.

Tally crept farther up the spire wall, rising until the tether ring was just under the center of her board. She nudged herself away from the party spire, drifting out over open space, balancing her hoverboard across the tether like a tightrope walker on a plank of wood.

She moved slowly forward, the lifters straining and trembling, their invisible magnetic fingers pushing down the chain. Once or twice, the board actually scraped the links, sending a shudder through Tally. She saw the balloon dip a little as her weight disrupted the delicate balance between hot air and gravity.

Tally descended until she reached the halfway point, then began to climb toward the balloon. Her board trembled harder as it left the party spire behind, until she was certain the lifters were about to fail, dumping her into a fifty-meter fall. From this height, crash bracelets were much worse than a bungee jacket — being jerked to a halt by her wrists would probably dislocate a shoulder.

Of course, that was nothing compared to what the crusher might have done.

But the lifters didn't fail; the board continued to rise, climbing up toward the gondola of the balloon. She heard a few shouts from the party spire's balcony behind her, and knew she and Zane had been spotted. What sort of bubbly new game was this?

A face appeared over the edge of the gondola, looking down with a surprised expression.

"Hey, look! Someone's coming!"

"What? How?"

The other three pretties in the balloon crowded onto the near side to peer down at her, their shifting weight making the tether wobble. Tally swore as her board swayed perilously under her feet.

"Stay still up there!" she shouted. "And don't pull the burn chain!" Her barked commands were met by surprised silence, but at least they stopped moving around.

A minute later, Tally's shuddering board had pulled almost to within reach of the gondola. She bent her knees and jumped, in free fall for a sickening moment before her hands grasped the wicker rail. Hands reached down to help pull her up, and soon Tally was inside, facing four wide-eyed Hot-airs. Relieved of her weight, her board followed her up, and she pulled it in.

"Whoa! How'd you do that?"

"I didn't know hoverboards could come this high!"

"Hey, you're Tally Youngblood!"

"Who else?" She grinned and leaned over the side. The ground was coming closer, her weight and the board's tugging the balloon earthward. "Now, I hope you don't mind landing this thing. Me and my friends need to go for a little ride."

By the time the balloon was settling on the lawn in front of Garbo Mansion, a pack of Crims on hoverboards had arrived, Fausto at their head. Tally saw the pink-eared shape of Zane's balloon coming to rest nearby, bouncing slowly to a halt.

"Don't get out yet!" she told the hijacked Hot-airs. "We don't want this thing to shoot up into the air empty." They waited while Peris and Fausto cruised over and climbed into the gondola.

"How many will it hold, Tally?" Fausto said.

The gondola was made of wicker. She ran her hand across the woven cane, which was still the perfect substance if you wanted something strong, light, and flexible. "Let's take four in each."

"So what are you guys doing?" one of the Hot-airs got up enough nerve to ask.

"Wait and see," Tally said. "And when they interview you for the feeds, feel free to tell them all about it."

The four of them stared at her with widened eyes, realizing that they were going to be famous.

"But keep quiet for the next hour or so. Otherwise, our little trick won't work, and it won't be as bubbly a story."

They nodded obediently.

"How do you release the tether?" Tally asked, realizing that for all her plans to do so, she'd never been up in a balloon.

"Pull this cord to cut loose," one of the Hot-airs answered. "And push this button when you want a hover-car to come get you."

Tally smiled. That was one feature they wouldn't be needing.

Seeing her expression, one of the Hot-airs said, "Hey, you guys are going somewhere really far, aren't you?"

Tally paused for a moment, knowing that what she said would wind up on the feeds, and then be repeated down through generations of uglies and new pretties. It was worth the risk to tell the truth, she decided. These four wouldn't want to short-circuit their brush with criminal fame, so they wouldn't be talking to the authorities until it was way too late.

"We're going to the New Smoke," she said in a slow, clear voice. They stared at her with disbelief.

Chew on that, Dr. Cable! she thought happily.

The gondola shook, and Tally turned to find that Zane had jumped in. "Mind if I join you? There's four in my balloon," he said. "And we've got another bunch taking over one more."

"The rest are set to go out on our signal," Fausto said.

Tally nodded. As long as she and Zane escaped by balloon, it didn't matter how the others went. She looked up at the burner hanging over their heads, purring like an idling jet engine, waiting to heat the air in the envelope again. Tally just hoped it was powerful enough to expand the cuffs wider than their wrists, or at least destroy the transmitters in them.

She pulled the fire-resistant gloves from her pocket and handed a pair to Zane.

"Much better plan, Tally," he said, looking at the idling burner. "A furnace that can fly. We'll be at the edge of the city by the time we're free."

She smiled at him, then said to the Hot-airs, "Okay, guys. You can get out now. Thanks for all your help, and remember not to mention this to anyone for at least an hour."

They nodded and jumped out of the gondola one by one, retreating a few meters to give it room as it gained buoyancy, bobbing impatiently in the breeze.

"Ready?" she called to the pig-faced balloon. The Crims inside gave the thumbs-up. A third balloon was coming down not far away; they would be headed up soon. The more rogue balloons, the better. If they all left their interface rings in the gondolas when they jumped, the wardens would have a busy night.

"We're all set," Zane said softly. "Let's go."

Tally's eyes swept the horizon — taking in Garbo Mansion, the party spires, the lights of New Pretty Town— the world she had looked forward to her whole ugly life. She wondered if she would ever see the city again.

Of course, Tally had to return, if Shay still hadn't gotten the word. Her cutting was really just a struggle to be cured. There was no way Tally could leave her behind for good, whether Shay hated her or not.

"Okay, let's go," she said, then whispered, "Sorry, Shay. I'll come back for you."

She reached up and pulled the ascent chain. The burner burst into a full-throated roar, blistering heat washing over them, the envelope beginning to swell overhead. The balloon began to rise.

"Whoa!" Peris cried. "We are out of here!"

Fausto let out a whoop and pulled the release cord, the gondola bucking as the tether's weight fell away.

Tally locked eyes with Zane. They were rising fast now, passing the top of the party spire, a dozen pretties on its balcony drunkenly hailing them.

"I'm really leaving," Zane said softly. "Finally."

She grinned. There would be no backing out for Zane this time. She wouldn't let him.

The balloon quickly left the party spire below, rising higher than any building in New Pretty Town. Tally could see the silver band of river all around them, the darkness of Uglyville, and the dull lights of the burbs in every direction. Soon they would be high enough to glimpse the sea.

She released the ascent chain, silencing the burner. They didn't want to get too high. The balloons weren't fast enough to escape the wardens' hovercars; they would need their boards for that. Soon, they would have to jump, free-falling until their hoverboards could pick up the city's magnetic grid and catch them.

Not as simple as falling with a bungee jacket, but not too dangerous, she hoped. Looking down, Tally shook her head and sighed. Sometimes it felt like her life was a series of falls from ever-greater heights.

Tally could see that the wind was carrying them quickly now, pushing the balloon away from the sea, though, strangely, the air felt motionless around them. Of course, Tally realized, the balloon was moving along with the air currents, as if she were perfectly still, and the world sliding along beneath her.

The Rusty Ruins were slipping away behind them, but there were lots of rivers around the city, their beds filled with mineral deposits that could support a hoverboard. The Crims had planned on heading out in lots of directions— everyone knew how to get back to the ruins no matter where the wind took them.

Tally dropped her winter coat, crash bracelets, and gloves to the gondola's floor. Warmth still radiated from the glowing burner, so she didn't feel too cold. She pulled on her heat-resistant gloves, sliding the left one underneath the interface cuff, pulling it up past her elbow and almost to her armpit. Across from her, Zane was also getting ready.

Now to bring their cuffs within reach of the flame.

She looked up. The burner was held to the gondola by a frame with eight arms, stretching over them like a giant metal spider. She put one foot on the railing and held tightly to the burner frame, pulling herself up. From this precarious perch, Tally glanced down at the city passing below, hoping the balloon wasn't going to start rocking in some sudden wind.

She took a deep breath. "Fausto, the signal."

He nodded and lit his Roman candle, which began to hiss and to spit out green and purple flares. Tally watched the signal repeated by nearby Crims, and then spread across the island in a series of colored plumes. They were committed now.

"Okay, Zane," she said. "Let's get these things off."

Burner

The four nozzles of the burner were barely a meter from her face, still glowing, radiating heat into the cold night air. Tally reached out and tapped one gingerly. The woman in the shop had been telling the truth. Tally could feel the burner's ridges through the heat-resistant fabric, her fingertips sensing a few stray bumps where it had been welded together. But she had no sense of temperature at all; the burner wasn't hot, or cold…nothing. The feeling was uncanny, as if her hand were immersed in body-temperature water.

She looked across at Zane, who had pulled himself up on the other side of the burner. "These things really work, Zane. I can't feel a thing."

He looked at his own gloved left hand, unconvinced. "Two thousand degrees, you said?"

"That's right." As long as you believed every statistic tossed off by a middle-pretty artist blowing glass in the middle of the night. "I'll go first," she offered.

"No way. We'll do it together."

"Don't be dramatic." Tally looked down at Fausto, whose face was as pale as when Zane's hand had been in the crusher. "Give the burner cord a little tug, as short as you can, on my signal."

"Hang on!" Peris said. "What are you guys doing?"

Tally realized that no one had brought Peris up to speed on the plan. He stared at her with a look of total confusion. Well, there wasn't time for explanations now. "Don't worry, we have gloves on," she said, and placed her left hand on the burner.

"Gloves?" Peris said.

"Yeah…special gloves. Hit it, Fausto!" Tally cried.

A wave of heat struck, the pure blue flame of the burner blindingly bright. Tally slammed her eyes shut, the inferno like a desert wind on the skin of her face. She ducked her head below the burner frame, and heard the cry of horrified surprise that escaped from Peris's lips.

A half-second later, the burner stopped.

Tally opened her eyes, yellow afterimages of the flame crowding her vision. But she saw her fingers flexing in front of her, still whole.

"My hand didn't feel a thing!" she shouted. She blinked away the dancing yellow spots, and saw that the metal of her cuff was glowing a bit. It didn't look any bigger, though.

"What are you doing?" Peris shouted. Fausto shushed him.

"All right," Zane said, thrusting his hand out over the burner. "Let's do it fast. They must know we're up to something by now."

Tally nodded — the cuff had to have felt the scorching burst of flame. Like the locket Dr. Cable had given Tally before her trip to the Smoke, it probably was designed to send some kind of signal if damaged. She took a deep breath of the cold night air, placing her hand over the burner again and ducking her head. "Okay, Fausto. Burn it until I say stop!"

Another wash of blistering heat poured over Tally. Peris stared up at her, his terrified expression turned demonic by the intense fire, and she had to look away from him. Above them, the envelope began to swell, and the balloon was tugged upward by its load of superheated air. The gondola swayed, testing Tally's grip on the burner frame.

Her left shoulder, covered only by her T-shirt, was taking the worst of the inferno. Past the glove's protection, her skin itched like a bad sunburn. Sweat trickled down her back in the relentless heat.

Weirdly, the parts of Tally that felt the furnace the least were her gloved hands, even her left, sitting in the inferno's very center. She imagined the cuff hidden within that blaze, turning red, then white…gradually expanding.

After what seemed like a solid minute, she yelled, "Okay, hold it!"

The burner stopped, and the air was instantly cool around her, the night suddenly black. Tally stood up from her crouch, feet still on the gondola's railing, and blinked, amazed at how still and silent it was with the raging flame extinguished.

She pulled her hand from the burner, expecting it to be a blackened stump, no matter what her nerve endings told her. But all five fingers wiggled in front of her. The cuff glowed blazing white, mesmerizing blue flickers traveling around its edge. The smell of molten metal struck her nose.

"Quick, Tally!" Zane yelled, jumping down into the gondola. He started tugging at his cuff. "Before they cool off."

She leaped down from the rail and started pulling— glad that she had brought two gloves for each of them. The cuff slid down her arm, but came to a halt as it always did, catching at the usual spot. She squinted at the glowing band, trying to see if it had grown. It seemed bigger, but maybe the heat-resistant glove was thicker than she'd thought, making up the difference.

Tally squeezed the fingers of her left hand together and tugged again; the cuff crept another centimeter along. Heat still radiated from the ring of metal, but it was gradually turning a dull red, its light fading. … As it cooled, would it shrink around her hand now, crushing her wrist?

She gritted her teeth and pulled once more, as hard as she could…and the cuff slipped off, dropping onto the floor of the gondola like a glowing coal.

"Yes!" Finally, she was free.

Tally looked up at the others. Zane was still struggling; Fausto and Peris were scrambling to avoid her glowing cuff as it rolled, steaming and hissing, across the gondola floor. "I did it," she said softly. "It's off."

"Well, mine's not," Zane grunted. His cuff was wedged around the thick of his wrist, its glow faded to a dull red. He swore and stepped back up onto the gondolas railing. "Hit it again."

Fausto nodded, and gave another long blast on the burner.

Tally turned away from the heat, looking down at the city, trying to clear the spots from her eyes. They were past the greenbelt now, over the burbs. She could see the factory belt coming up, dotted with industrial orange work lights, and past that the absolute blackness that marked the edge of the city.

They had to jump soon. In a few more minutes they would pass beyond the metal grid that underlay the city. Without the grid, their hoverboards wouldn't fly or even stop a fall, and they'd be forced to crash-land the balloon instead of bailing out.

She looked up at the swollen envelope, wondering how long it would take the still rising balloon to settle back to earth. Maybe if they could rip the envelope open somehow to get themselves down faster…but how hard would a torn balloon crash-land? And without working hover-boards, the four of them would have to hike until they reached a river, giving the wardens plenty of time to find the crumpled balloon and track them down. "Come on, Zane!" Tally said. "We've got to hurry!"

"I'm hurrying! Okay?"

"What's that smell?" Fausto said. "What?" Tally pulled back into the gondola, sniffing at the still, hot air.

Something was burning.

The City's Edge

"It's us!" Fausto shouted. He jumped back, releasing the burner chain, staring down at the gondola floor.

Tally smelled it then: burning cane, like the smell of brush thrown onto a camp fire. Somewhere under their feet, her red-hot cuff had ignited the wicker gondola.

She glanced up at Zane still perched on the railing — he ignored the others' panicked cries, tugging fiercely at his glowing cuff. Peris and Fausto were hopping around, trying to find the source of the smell.

"Relax!" she said. "We can always jump!"

"I can't! Not yet," Zane shouted, still struggling with the cuff. Peris looked as if he was about to leap out of the balloon without bothering to take his hoverboard.

Her vision was finally clearing from burner's glare, and Tally looked down at her feet. A bottle lay there, left behind by the Hot-airs. She reached for it with her gloved hands; it was full.

"Hold on, you guys," she said, and with a practiced motion twisted off the foil and placed both thumbs beneath the cork. She popped it, watching the cork soar into the dark void. "Everything's under control."

Froth bubbled out, and Tally put one thumb over the bottle's mouth. Shaking the bottle, she sprayed champagne across the floor of the gondola. An angry sizzle came from the smoldering flames.

"Got it!" Zane cried at that moment. His cuff fell off and rolled under her feet, and Tally calmly emptied the rest of the bottle onto it. The smell of molten metal rose up around her, tinged with an oddly sweet smell: boiled champagne.

Zane was staring with amazement at his freed left hand. He pulled off the heat-resistant gloves and tossed them overboard. "It worked!" he said, and swept Tally into a hug.

She laughed, letting the bottle drop to the floor and pulling off her own gloves. "Time for that later. Let's get out of here."

"Okay." He balanced his board on the gondola's railing, looking down. "Damn, that's a long fall."

Fausto tugged at a dangling cord. "I'll vent some hot air — maybe we can get a little lower."

"No time," Tally cried. "We're almost at the end of town. If we get separated, meet at the tallest building in the ruins. And remember: Don't let go of your board on the way down!"

They all scrambled to put on their backpacks, bumping into one another in the small space, Zane and Tally struggling back into their winter coats and crash bracelets. Fausto pulled off his interface ring and threw it to the gondola floor, grabbed his board, and jumped out with a whoop. The balloon pitched upward as his weight left it behind.

When Zane was ready, he turned and kissed her. "We did it, Tally. We're free!"

She looked into his eyes, dizzy with the thought that they were finally here, at the edge of the city, at the beginning of freedom. "Yeah. We made it."

"See you down there." He looked over his shoulder at the distant earth, then turned back to her. "I love you."

"I'll see you down…," she began, but the words sputtered out. It took a moment to replay in her mind what Zane had said. Finally she managed, "Oh. Me too."

He laughed, then let out a wordless cry as he tumbled over the rail, the gondola bucking again under its two remaining passengers.

Tally blinked, dazzled for a moment by Zane's unexpected words. But she shook her head to clear it. This was no time to get pretty-headed; she had to jump now.

She pulled the straps of her backpack tight, wrestling her hoverboard up onto the rail. "Hurry up!" she shouted at Peris.

He was just standing there, staring over the side.

"What are you waiting for?" she cried.

He shook his head. "I can't."

"You can do it. Your board will stop your fall — all you have to do is hang on!" she shouted. "Just jump! Gravity does the rest!"

"It's not the fall, Tally," Peris said. He turned to face her. "I don't want to leave."

"What?"

"I don't want to leave the city."

"But this is what we've been waiting for!"

"Not me." He shrugged. "I liked being a Crim, and being bubbly. But I never thought we'd get this far. I mean, like, leaving home forever?"

"Peris…"

"I know you've been out there before, you and Shay. And Zane and Fausto always talked about escaping. But I'm not like you guys."

"But you and me, we're…" Tally's voice caught. She was about to say "best friends forever," but the old words wouldn't come anymore. Peris had never been to the Smoke, had never tangled with Special Circumstances, had never even been in trouble. Everything had always gone smoothly for him. Their lives had been so different for so long.

"You're sure you want to stay?"

He nodded slowly. "I'm sure. But I can still help. I'll keep them busy for you. I'll stay airborne as long as I can, then push the pickup button. They'll have to come out and get me."

Tally started to argue, but she couldn't help remembering sneaking across the river right after Peris's operation, visiting him in Garbo Mansion. He had adjusted so quickly, loving New Pretty Town right from the beginning. Maybe the whole Crim thing had just been a joke to him…

But she couldn't leave him here in the city alone. "Peris, think. Without us around, you won't be bubbly anymore. You'll go back to being a pretty-head."

He smiled sadly. "I don't mind, Tally. I don't need to be bubbly."

"You don't? But don't you feel how much…better it is?"

He shrugged. "It's exciting. But you can't keep fighting the way things are forever. At some point, you have to …"

"Give up?"

Peris nodded, the smile still on his face, as if giving up wasn't really that bad, as if fighting was only worthwhile as long as it was amusing.

"Okay. Stay, then." She turned away, not trusting herself to say anything more. But when Tally looked down, all she saw was darkness. "Oh, crap," she said softly.

The city had run out. It was too late to jump.

Side by side, they stared into the darkness, the wind carrying them farther and farther away.

Peris finally broke the silence. "We'll come down eventually, right?"

"Not soon enough." She sighed. "The wardens probably already know that our cuffs are fried. They'll come looking for us soon. We're sitting ducks up here."

"Oh. I really didn't mean to screw things up for you."

"It's not your fault. I waited too long." Tally swallowed, wondering if Zane would ever find out what happened. Would he think she'd fallen to her death? Or would he guess that she'd chickened out, like Peris?

Whatever he thought, Tally saw their future fading out, disappearing like the distant lights of the city behind them. Who knew what Special Circumstances would do to her brain when they caught her again?

She looked at Peris. "I really thought you wanted to come."

"Listen, Tally. I just got caught up in everything. Being a Crim was exciting and you were my friends, my clique. What was I supposed to do? Argue against running away? Arguing's bogus."

She shook her head. "I thought you were bubbly, Peris."

"I am, Tally. But tonight is about as bubbly as I want to get. I like breaking the rules, but living out there!" He waved his hand at the wild below them, a cold, unfriendly sea of darkness.

"Why didn't you tell me before now?"

"I don't know. I guess it wasn't until we got up here that I realized you guys were so serious about…never coming back."

Tally closed her eyes, remembering what having a pretty mind was like — everything vague and fuzzy, the world nothing but a source of entertainment, the future nothing but a blur. A few tricks weren't enough to make everyone bubbly, she supposed; you had to want your mind to change. Maybe some people had always been pretty-heads, even back before the operation had been invented.

Maybe some people were happier being that way.

"But now you can stay with me," he said, putting his arm around her. "It'll be like it was supposed to be. You and me pretty — best friends forever."

Tally shook her head, a sickening feeling sweeping over her. "I am not staying, Peris. Even if they take me back tonight, I'll find a way to escape."

"Why are you so unhappy there?"

She sighed, looking out over the darkness. Zane and Fausto would already be headed toward the ruins, thinking she wasn't far behind. How had she let this opportunity slip away? The city always seemed to claim her in the end. Was she really like Peris, somewhere deep inside?

"Why am I unhappy?" Tally repeated softly. "Because the city makes you the way they want you to be, Peris. And I want to be myself. That's why."

He squeezed her shoulder and gave her a sad look. "But people are better now than they used to be. Maybe they have good reasons for changing us, Tally."

"Their reasons don't mean anything unless I have a choice, Peris. And they don't give anyone a choice." Tally shook his hand from her shoulder, staring back at the distant city. A set of winking lights was rising into the air, a fleet of hovercars gathering. She remembered that the Specials' cars were held aloft by spinning blades, like the Rusties' ancient helicopters, so they could fly beyond the grid. They must be headed this way, pursuing the final signals of the cuffs.

She had to get out of this balloon now.

Before he'd jumped, Fausto had tied off the descent cord, and hot air was spilling from the envelope every moment. But the balloon, superheated as they'd burned off the cuffs, was losing altitude so slowly…the ground hardly looked any closer.

Then Tally saw the river.

It stretched out below them, catching moonlight like a silver snake, winding out of the ore-rich mountains to make its way toward the sea. On its bed would be centuries' worth of metal deposits, enough to make her hoverboard fly. Maybe enough to catch her fall.

Maybe she could get her future back.

She pulled her board back up onto the rail. "I'm going."

"But, Tally. You can't—" "The river."

Peris looked down, his eyes wide. "It looks so small. What if you miss?"

"I won't." She gritted her teeth. "You've seen those formation bungee jumpers, haven't you? They've only got their arms and legs to guide themselves down. I've got a whole hoverboard. It'll be like having wings!"

"You're crazy!"

"I'm leaving." She kissed Peris quickly, then threw one leg over the rail.

"Tally!" He grabbed her hand. "You could die! I don't want to lose you. …"

She shook him off violently, and Peris took a fearful step back. Pretties didn't like conflict. Pretties didn't take risks. Pretties didn't say no.

Tally was no longer pretty. "You already have," she said.

And, clutching her hoverboard, she threw herself into the void.