Скотт Вестерфельд - Pretties

"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.

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."