Скотт Вестерфельд - Specials

A young pretty stepped onto the slidewalk beside her, and Tally decided to see if she could pass for a local.

"Where's the bash tonight?" she asked, trying to imitate the local accent and hoping she didn't sound too random for not knowing.

"The bash?. You mean a party?"

Tally shrugged. "Yeah, sure."

The young woman laughed. "Take your pick. There's mountains of them."

"Right, mountains. But which one's all the costume surge for?"

"Costume surge?" The woman looked at Tally like she'd said something totally random. "Did you just get off the chopper or something?"

Tally's eyebrows rose. "Um, the helicopter? Yeah, sort of."

"With a face like that?" The woman frowned. Her own skin was dark brown, her fingernails decorated with tiny video screens, each showing a different flickering image.

Tally could only shrug again.

"Oh, I see. Couldn't wait to look like one of us?" She laughed again. "Listen, kid, you should really be hanging out with the other newbies, at least until you know what's going on here." She squinted her eyes, her fingers making an interface gesture. "Diego says they're all up at the Overlook tonight."

"Diego?"

"The city." She laughed again, her fingernails flashing in tandem with the sound. "Wow, kid, you really are just off the chopper."

"Yeah, I guess. Thanks," Tally said, suddenly feeling very average and helpless, not special at all. Trying to navigate this new city her strength and speed meant nothing, and even her cruel beauty didn't seem to impress anyone. It was like being an ugly again, when things like knowing the best bashes and how to dress had been more important than being superhuman.

"Well, welcome to Diego," the young pretty called, and stepped into a high-speed lane, waving good-bye with the vague embarrassment of ditching a loser at a party.

As she approached the landing pad, Tally kept a wary eye out for the runaway Crims. She stepped off the slidewalk where the hedge showed damage from her collision, and peeked through one of the gaps she'd left behind.

The runaways had unloaded from the helicopter, but they were still getting themselves sorted. Like typical bubbleheads, they were having trouble figuring out which hoverboard was whose. They clustered around the ranger who was trying to organize things, like littlies after ice cream.

Zane was waiting patiently, looking the happiest Tally had seen him since they'd escaped the city. A few of the other Crims crowded around him, slapping him on the back and congratulating one another.

One of the Crims brought Zane his board, and all eight of them set off toward the huge building across from Town Hall.

Tally saw that it was a hospital. That made sense. Anyone from outside would be checked for diseases, and for injuries and food poisoning from the trip. And since this city really was the New Smoke, newcomers would have their bubblehead lesions taken away as well.

Of course, Tally thought. Maddy's pills didn't have to work perfectly anymore. The runaways would all wind up here, where a city hospital staffed with real doctors could take care of their lesions.

She took a step back, breathing out slowly, finally admitting it to herself: The New Smoke was a thousand times larger and more powerful than she and Shay had expected.

The authorities here were taking in other cities' runaways, curing them of bubbleheadness. Now that she thought about it, none of the people she'd met so far had the lesions. All of them had expressed their opinions openly, not like bubbleheads at all.

That would explain why this city—"Diego," the woman had called it—had thrown out the Pretty Committee's standards, letting everyone look the way they wanted. They'd even started to build new structures in the surrounding forests, expanding out into the wild.

If that was all true, it was no wonder that Shay was no longer here. She'd probably gone home to report all this to Dr. Cable and Special Circumstances.

But what could they do about it? Cities couldn't tell one another how to run their affairs, after all.

This New Smoke could last forever.

Tally spent the day walking around the city, marveling at how different it was from her own.

She saw new pretties and uglies hanging out together, friends that the operation hadn't separated. And littlies clinging to their ugly older brothers and sisters instead of being stuck in Crumblyville with their parents. Those small changes were almost as surprising as the wild facial structures, skin textures, and body mods she encountered. Almost. It might take a while to get used to coats of downy feathers, pinkie fingers replaced with tiny snakes, skin every shade between deep black and alabaster, and hair that writhed like some sinuous creature under the sea.

Whole cliques wore the same skin color, or shared similar faces, like families used to before the operation. It reminded Tally uncomfortably of how people grouped themselves back in pre-Rusty days, into tribes and clans and so-called races who all looked more or less alike, and made a big point of hating anyone who didn't look like them. But everyone seemed to be getting along so far—for every clique of people who looked alike, there was another of wild variations.

Diego's middle pretties seemed less crazy about the whole surgery thing. Most of them looked more or less like Tally's parents, and she heard more than a little grumbling about "new standards," how current fads were an eyesore and a disgrace. But they did so in such a forthright way that Tally had no doubt their own lesions were gone.

Disconcertingly the crumblies seemed to be further into surgery than anyone else. A few wore the wise, calm, trustworthy faces that the Pretty Committee enforced at home, but others looked weirdly young. Half the time Tally wasn't exactly sure what age people were supposed to be, as if the city's surgeons had decided to let all the stages of life blur together.

She even heard a few people who, from the sound of their conversation, were still bubbleheads. For some reason— whether it was a philosophical position or a fashion statement— they had elected to keep the lesions in their brains.

Apparently, you could do just about anything you wanted here. It was like she'd landed in Random Town. Everyone was so different that her own special face practically faded into…nothing.

How had this all happened?

It couldn't have been very long ago. The transformations seemed to be still rippling all around her, as if a stone had been hurled into a small pond.

Once she managed to tune her skintenna to the city newsfeeds, Tally found them full of arguments. There were discussions about the wisdom of taking in the runaways, about standards of beauty, and most of all about the new construction at the city's edge—and not everyone bothered with the pleasant, civil debating style of home. Tally had never heard squabbling among adults like this before, not even in private. It was as if a bunch of uglies had taken over the airwaves. Without the lesions making everyone agreeable, society was left roiling in a constant battle of words, images, and ideas.

It was overwhelming, almost like the way the Rusties had lived, debating every issue in public instead of letting the government do its job.

And the changes already in place here in Diego were just a beginning, Tally realized. All around her she felt the city seething, all those unfettered minds bouncing their opinions off each other, like something ready to explode.

That night, she went to the Overlook.

The city interface guided her to the highest point in town, a stretch of parkland atop a chalk-faced cliff that overlooked the city center. The first young pretty she'd met had been right: The park was crowded with runaways, about half uglies and half new pretties. Most wore the faces they'd brought with them, not yet ready to plunge into extremes of cosmetic fashion. Tally could understand why the newbies were hanging out together; after a day on the streets of Diego, the sight of old-fashioned, Pretty Committee-designed faces was a relief.