Tally turned from the window and saw nothing but emptybeds. She was alone in the bunkhouse.
She shook her head, foggy from sleep and disbelief. Theground rumbled beneath her bare feet, and the bunkhouseshuddered around her. Suddenly, the plastic in one of thewindows shattered, and the muffled cacophony from outsiderushed in to batter her ears. The entire building shookas if it would collapse.
Where was everyone? Had they already fled the Smoke,leaving her there to face this invasion alone?
Tally ran for the door and threw it open. Before her, ahovercar was landing, blinding her for a moment with aface full of dust. She recognized the machine’s cruel linesfrom the Special Circumstances car that had first taken herto see Dr. Cable. But this one was equipped with four shimmeringblades—one each where the wheels of a groundcarwould be—a cross between a normal hovercar and therangers’ helicopter.
It could travel anywhere, Tally realized, inside a city orout in the wild. She remembered Dr. Cable’s words: We’ll bethere in a few hours. Tally forced the thought from her head.
This attack couldn’t have anything to do with her.
The hovercar struck the dusty ground with a thud.
This was no time to stand there wondering. She turnedand ran.
The camp was a chaos of smoke and running figures.
Cooking fires had been blown from their pits, and scatteredembers burned everywhere. Two of the encampment’s bigbuildings were ablaze. Chickens and rabbits scamperedunderfoot, dust and ashes coiled in rampant whirlwinds.
Dozens of Smokies ran about, some trying to put out thefires, some trying to escape, some simply panicking.
Through everything else, the forms of cruel prettiesmoved. Their gray uniforms passed like fleeting shadowsthrough the confusion. Graceful and unhurried, as ifunaware of the chaos around them, they set about subduingthe panicking Smokies. They moved in a blur, withoutany weapons that Tally could see, leaving everyone in theirwake lying on the ground, bound and dazed.
They were superhumanly fast and strong. The Specialoperation had given them more than just terrible faces.
Near the mess hall, about two dozen Smokies weremaking a stand, holding off a handful of Specials with axesand makeshift clubs. Tally made her way toward the fight,and the incongruous smells of breakfast reached herthrough the choking haze of smoke. Her stomach growled.
288 Scott WesterfeldTally realized that she had slept through the breakfastcall, too exhausted to wake up with everyone else. TheSpecials must have waited until most of the Smokies weregathered in the mess hall before launching their invasion.
Of course. They wanted to capture as many Smokies aspossible in a single stroke.
The Specials weren’t attacking the large group at themess hall. They waited patiently in a ring around thebuilding while their numbers increased, more hovercarslanding every minute. If anyone tried to get past the cordon,they reacted swiftly, disarming and incapacitatingwhoever dared to run. But most of the Smokies were tooshocked to resist, paralyzed by the terrible faces of theiropponents. Even here, most people had never seen a cruelpretty.
Tally pinned herself against a building, trying to disappearnext to a stack of firewood. She shielded her eyesfrom the dust storm, searching for an escape route. Therewas no way to get into the center of the Smoke, where herhoverboard lay on the broad roof of the trading post, chargingin the sun. The forest was the only way out.
A stretch of uncleared trees lay at the closest edge oftown, only a twenty-second dash away. But a Special stoodbetween her and the border of dense trees and brush, waitingto intercept any stray Smokies. The woman’s eyesscanned the approach to the forest, her head moving fromside to side in a weirdly regular motion, like someoneUGLIES 289watching a slow-motion tennis match without muchinterest.
Tally crept closer, staying pressed against the building.
A hovercar passed overhead, blowing a maelstrom of dustand loose wood chips into her eyes.
When she could see again, Tally found an aging uglycrouching next to her, against the wall.
“Hey!” he hissed.
She recognized the sagging features, the bitter expression.
It was the Boss.
“Young lady, we have a problem.” His harsh voice cutthrough the cacophony of the attack.
She glanced in the direction of the waiting Special.
“Yeah, I know.”
Another hovercar roared over them, and he pulled heraround the corner of the building and down behind a drumthat collected rainwater from the gutters.
“You noticed her too?” He grinned, showing a missingtooth. “Maybe if we both run at once, one of us might makeit. If the other puts up a fight.”
Tally swallowed. “I guess.” She peered out at the Special,who stood as calmly as a crumbly waiting for a pleasureferry. “But they’re pretty fast.”
“That depends.” He dropped the duffel bag from hisshoulder. “There’re two things I keep ready for emergencies.”
The Boss unzipped the bag and pulled out a plasticcontainer big enough for a sandwich. “This is one.” He290 Scott Westerfeldpopped open one corner of the top, and a puff of dust roseup. A second later, a wave of fire rushed into Tally’s head.
She covered her face, eyes watering, and tried to cough upthe finger of flame that had crawled down her throat.
“Not bad, eh?” the Boss chuckled. “That’s pure habaneropepper, dried and ground down to dust. Not too badin beans, but hell in your eyes.”
Tally blinked away her tears and managed to speak.
“Are you nuts?”
“The other thing is this bag, which contains a representativesample of two hundred years of Rusty-era visualculture. Priceless and irreplaceable artifacts. So which doyou want?”
“Huh?”
“Do you want the habanero pepper or the bag of magazines?
Do you want to get caught while taking out ourSpecial friend? Or save a precious piece of human heritagefrom these barbarians?”
Tally coughed once more. “I guess . . . I want toescape.”
The Boss smiled. “Good. I’m sick of running. Sick oflosing my hair too, and being short-sighted. I’ve done mybit, and you look pretty fast.”
He handed her the duffel bag. It was heavy, but Tallyhad grown stronger since she’d come to the Smoke. Magazineswere nothing compared with scrap metal.
She thought of the first day she had arrived there,UGLIES 291seeing a magazine for the first time in the library, realizingwith horror ............