They stayed at the edge of the Rusty Ruins.
Occasionally, hovercars would pass over the crumblingcity, threading a slow search pattern across the sky. But theSmokies were old hands at hiding from satellites and aircraft.
They placed red herrings across the ruins—chemicalglowsticks that gave off human-size pockets of heat—andcovered the windows of their building with sheets of blackMylar. And of course the ruins were very large; findingseven people in what had once been a city of millions wasno simple matter.
Every night, Tally watched the influence of the “NewSmoke” grow. A lot of uglies had seen the burning messageon the night of the escape, or had heard about it, and thenightly pilgrimages out to the ruins slowly increased, untilsparklers wavered atop high buildings from midnight untildawn. Tally, Ryde, Croy, and Astrix made contact with thecity uglies, starting new rumors, teaching new tricks, andoffering glimpses of the ancient magazines the Boss had salvagedfrom the Smoke. If they doubted the existence of406 Scott WesterfeldSpecial Circumstances, Tally showed them the plastic handcuffbracelets still encircling her wrists, and invited them totry to cut the cuffs off.
One new legend towered above all the rest. Maddy haddecided that the brain lesions couldn’t be kept a secret anymore;every ugly had the right to know what the operationreally entailed. Tally and the others spread the rumoramong their city friends: Not just your face was changed bythe knife. Your personality—the real you inside—was theprice of beauty.
Of course, not every ugly believed such an outrageoustale, but a few did. And some sneaked across to New PrettyTown in the dead of night to talk to their older friends faceto-face, and decided for themselves.
The Specials sometimes tried to crash the party, settingtraps for the New Smokies, but someone always gave awarning, and no hovercar could ever catch a board amongwinding streets and rubble. The New Smokies learned thenooks and crannies of the ruins as if they’d been born there,until they could disappear in a heartbeat.
Maddy worked on the brain cure, using materials salvagedfrom the ruins or brought by city uglies willing toborrow from hospitals and chem classes. She withdrewfrom the rest of them, except for David. She seemedparticularly cool to Tally, who felt guilty for every momentshe spent with David, now that his mother was alone. Noneof them ever talked about Az’s death.
UGLIES 407Shay stayed with them, complaining about the food,the ruins, her hair and clothes, and having to look at all theugly faces around her. But she never seemed bitter, onlyperpetually annoyed. After the first few days she didn’t eventalk about leaving. Perhaps the brain damage made her pliant,or the fact that she hadn’t lived in New Pretty Town forlong. She still remembered them all as friends. Tally sometimeswondered if Shay secretly enjoyed having the onlypretty face in their little rebellion. Certainly, she didn’t doany more work than she would have in the city; Ryde andAstrix obeyed her every command.
David helped his mother, searching the ruins for salvage,and taught wilderness survival tricks to any ugly whowanted to learn. But in the two weeks after his father’sdeath, Tally found herself missing the days when it hadbeen just the two of them.
Twenty days after the rescue, Maddy announced thatshe had found a cure.
“Shay, I want to explain this to you carefully.”
“Sure, Maddy.”
“When you had the operation, they did something toyour brain.”
Shay smiled. “Yeah, right.” She looked across at Tally,wearing a familiar expression. “That’s what Tally keeps tellingme. But you guys don’t understand.”
Maddy folded her hands. “What do you mean?”
“I like the way I look,” Shay insisted. “I’m happier inthis body. You want to talk about brain damage? Look atyou all, running around these ruins playing commando.
You’re all full of schemes and rebellions, crazy with fearand paranoia, even jealousy.” Her eyes skipped back andforth between Tally and Maddy. “That’s what being uglydoes.”
“And how do you feel, Shay?” Maddy asked calmly.
“I feel bubbly. It’s nice not being all raging with hormones.
Of course, it kind of sucks being out here instead ofin the city.”
“No one’s keeping you here, Shay. Why haven’t you left?”
Shay shrugged. “I don’t know. . . . I’m worried aboutyou guys, I guess. It’s dangerous out here, and messing withSpecials isn’t a good idea. You should know that by now,Maddy.”
Tally took a sharp breath, but Maddy’s expression didn’tchange. “And you’re going to protect us from them?” sheasked calmly.
Shay shrugged. “I just feel bad about Tally. If I hadn’ttold her about the Smoke, she’d be pretty right now insteadof living in this dump. And I figure eventually she’ll decideto grow up. We’ll go back together.”
“You don’t seem to want to decide for yourself.”
“Decide what?” Shay rolled her eyes, looking at Tally toconfirm what a bore this was. The two of them had plowedthrough this conversation a dozen times before, until Tally408 Scott Westerfeldhad realized there was no convincing Shay that her personalityhad changed. To Shay, her new attitude was simply theresult of growing up, moving on, leaving all the overheatedemotions of ugliness behind.
“You weren’t always this way, Shay,” David said.
“No, I used to be ugly.”
Maddy smiled gently. “These pills won’t change the wayyou look. They’ll only affect your brain, undoing what Dr.
Cable did to the way your mind works. Then you candecide for yourself how you want to look.”
“Decide? After you’ve messed with my brain?”
“Shay!” Tally said, forgetting her promise to remainsilent. “We’re not the ones messing with your brain!”
“Tally,” David said softly.
“That’s right, I’m the one who’s crazy.” Shay’s voice tookon the tone of her daily round of complaining. “Not youguys, who live in a broken-down building on the edge of adead city, slowly turning into freaks when you could bebeautiful. Yeah, I’m crazy all right . . . for trying to help you!”
Tally sat back and crossed her arms, silenced by Shay’swords. Whenever they had this conversation, realitybecame a little unhinged, as if she and the other NewSmokies might really be the insane ones. It felt like Tally’shorrible first days in the Smoke, when she hadn’t kn............