Uglies. Part 27

He handed her the duffel bag. It was heavy, but Tally had grown stronger since she'd come to the Smoke. Magazines were nothing compared with sc.r.a.p metal.

She thought of the first day she had arrived there, seeing a magazine for the first time in the library, realizing with horror what humanity had once looked like. The pictures had made her sick that first day, and now here she was ready to save them.

"Here's the plan," the Boss said. "I'll go first, and when that Special grabs me, I'll give her a face full of pepper. You run straight and fast and don't look back. Got that?"

"Yeah."

"With any luck, we both might make it. Though I wouldn't mind a face-lift. Ready?"

Tally pulled the bag farther up on her shoulder. "Let's go."

"One...two..." The Boss paused. "Oh, dear. There's a problem, young lady."

"What?"

"You haven't got any shoes."

Tally looked down. In her confusion, she had stumbled barefoot out of the bunkhouse. The packed dirt of the Smoke compound was easy enough to walk on, but in the forest...

"You won't make it ten meters, kid."

The Boss pulled the duffel bag away from her and handed her the plastic container. "Now get going."

"But I...," Tally said. "I don't want to go back to the city."

"Yes, young lady, and I wouldn't mind getting some decent dental work. But we all have to make sacrifices. Startingnow !" On the last word, he shoved her out from behind the drum.

Tally stumbled forward, utterly exposed in the middle of the street. The roar of a hovercar seemed to pa.s.s right over her head, and she instinctively ducked, das.h.i.+ng toward the cover of the forest.

The Special c.o.c.ked her head toward Tally, calmly folded her arms, and frowned like a teacher spotting littlies playing where they shouldn't.

Tally wondered if the pepper would do anything to the woman. If it affected the Special like it had Tally, she might still make it into the forest. Even if she was supposed to be the bait. Even if she had no shoes.

Even if it turned out David had already been caught and she'd never see him again...

The thought unleashed a sudden torrent of anger inside her, and she ran straight at the woman, the container clenched in both hands.

A smile broke out on the Special's cruel features.

A split second before they collided, the Special seemed to disappear, slipping out of sight like a coin in a magician's hand. In her next stride Tally felt something hard connect with her s.h.i.+n, and pain shot up her leg. Her body tumbled forward, hands reaching out to break her fall, the container slipping from her grasp.

She hit the ground hard, skidding on her palms. As she rolled through the dirt, Tally glimpsed the Special crouching behind her. The woman had simply ducked, invisibly fast, and Tally had tripped over her like some awkward littlie in a brawl.

Shaking her head and spitting the dirt out of her mouth, Tally spotted the container just out of reach. She scrambled toward it, but a staggering weight crashed down on her, driving her face-first into the ground.

She felt her wrists pulled back and bound, hard plastic cuffs cutting into her flesh.

She struggled, but couldn't move.

Then the awful weight lifted, and a nudge from a boot flipped her over effortlessly. The Special stood over her, smiling coldly, holding the container. "Now, now, ugly," the cruel pretty said. "You just calm down. We don't want to hurt you. But we will if we have to."

Tally started to speak, but her jaw clenched with pain. It had plowed into the ground when she'd fallen.

"What's so important about this?" the Special asked, shaking the container and trying to peer through its translucent plastic.

Out of the corner of her eye, Tally saw the Boss making his way toward the forest. His run was slow and tortured, the duffel bag too heavy for him.

"Open it and see," Tally spat painfully.

"I will," she said, still smiling. "But first things first." She turned her attention toward the Boss, and her posture suddenly transformed into something animal, crouched and coiled like a cat ready to spring.

Tally rolled back onto her shoulders, thras.h.i.+ng out wildly with both feet. Her kick connected with the container, and it popped open, a puff of brownish-green dust spraying out over the Special.

For a second, a disbelieving expression spread over the woman's face. She made a gagging noise, her whole body shuddering. Then her eyes and fists clamped shut, and she screamed.

The sound wasn't human. It cut into Tally's ears like a vibrasaw striking metal, and every muscle in her body fought to get free of the handcuffs, her instincts demanding that she cover her ears. With another wild kick, she rolled herself over and stumbled to her feet, staggering in the direction of the forest.

A tickle grew in Tally's throat as the pepper dust dispersed on the wind. She coughed as she ran, eyes watering and stinging until she was half-blind. With her hands tied behind her, Tally lurched into the brush off-balance, tumbling to the ground as her bare feet caught on something in the dense vegetation.

She struggled forward, trying to drag herself out of sight.

Blinking away tears, she saw that the Special's inhuman scream had been some kind of alarm. Three more of the cruel pretties had responded. One led the pepper-covered Special away at arm's length, and the others approached the forest.

Tally froze, the brush barely concealing her.

Then she felt a tickle in her throat, a slowly growing irritation. Tally held her breath, closing her eyes. But her chest began to shudder, her body twitching, demanding to expel traces of the pepper from her lungs.

Shehad to cough.

Tally swallowed again and again, hoping spit could put out the fire in her throat. Her lungs demanded oxygen, but she didn't dare breathe. One of the Specials was only a stone's throw away, scanning the forest with slow back-and-forth sweeps of his head, his eyes searching the dense trees relentlessly.

Gradually, painfully, the flames seemed to expire in Tally's chest, the cough dying a quiet death inside her. She relaxed, finally letting out her breath.

Over the thunder of hovercars and crackle of burning buildings and sounds of battle, the Special somehow heard her soft exhalation. His head turned swiftly, eyes narrowing, and in what seemed like a single motion he was by her side, a hand on the back of her neck. "You're a tricky one," he said.

She tried to answer, but wound up coughing savagely instead, and he forced her face down in the dirt before she could manage another breath.

The Rabbit Pen

They marched her to the rabbit pen, where about forty handcuffed Smokies sat inside the wire fence. A dozen or so Specials stood in a cordon around them, watching their captives with empty expressions. By the entrance to the compound a few rabbits hopped aimlessly, too addled by their sudden freedom to make a break for it.

The Special who had captured Tally took her to the end farthest from the gate, where a handful of Smokies with b.l.o.o.d.y noses and black eyes were cl.u.s.tered.

"Armed resistor," he said to the two cruel pretties who guarded this end of the pen, and shoved her down to the ground among the others.

She stumbled and fell onto her back, where her weight stretched the cuffs painfully across her wrists.

When she struggled to turn over, a foot planted itself into her back and pushed her up. For a moment, she thought the shoe belonged to a Special, but it was one of the other Smokies, helping her up the only way he could. She managed to sit up cross-legged.

The wounded Smokies around her smiled grimly, nodding encouragement.

"Tally," someone hissed.

She struggled to turn toward the voice. It was Croy, a cut over his eye bleeding down onto his cheek, one side of his face covered with dirt. He scooted himself a bit closer. "You resisted?" he said. "Huh.

Guess I was wrong about you."

Tally could only cough. Traces of the burning pepper seemed stuck in her lungs, like the embers of a fire that wouldn't go out. Tears still streamed from her eyes.

"I noticed you slept through breakfast call this morning," he said. "Then when the Specials came, I figured you'd picked an awfully convenient time to disappear."

She shook her head, forced words through the cinders in her throat. "I was out late with David. That's all." Speaking made her sore jaw ache.

Croy frowned. "I haven't seen him all morning."

"Really?" She blinked away tears. "Maybe he got away."

"I doubt anyone did." Croy jutted his chin toward the gate of the pen. A large group of Smokies was on its way, guarded by a squad of Specials. Among them, Tally recognized faces from those who'd made a stand at the mess hall.

"They're just mopping up now," he said.

"Have you seen Shay?"

Croy shrugged. "She was at breakfast when they attacked, but I lost track of her."

"What about the Boss?"

Croy looked around. "No."

"I think he got away. He and I made a run together."

A dark smile crossed Croy's face. "That's funny. He always said he wouldn't mind getting captured.

Something about a face-lift."

Tally managed to smile. But then she thought about the brain lesions that went along with becoming pretty, and a s.h.i.+ver pa.s.sed through her body. She wondered how many of these captives knew what was really going to happen to them.

"Yeah, the Boss was going to give himself up, to help me get away, but I couldn't have made it through the forest."

"Why not?"

She wriggled her toes. "No shoes."

Croy raised an eyebrow. "You picked the wrong day to sleep late."

"I guess so."

Outside the overcrowded rabbit pen, the new arrivals were being organized into groups. A pair of Specials moved through the pen, flas.h.i.+ng a reader into the bound Smokies' eyes, taking them outside one by one.

"They must be separating everyone by city," Croy said.

"Why?"

"To take us home," he said coldly.

"Home," she repeated. Just last night, that word had changed its meaning in her mind. And nowhome was destroyed. It lay around her in ruins, burning and captured.

She scanned the captives, looking for Shay and David. The familiar faces in the crowd were haggard, dirty, crumpled by shock and defeat, but Tally realized that she no longer thought of them as ugly. It was the cold expressions of the Specials, beautiful though they were, that seemed horrific to her now.

A disturbance caught her eye. Three of the invaders were carrying a struggling figure, bound hand and foot, through the pen. They marched straight to the resistors' corner and dumped her onto the ground.

It was Shay.

"Watch this one."

The two Specials guarding them glanced at the still writhing figure. "Armed resistor?" one asked.

There was a pause. Tally saw that one of the Specials had a bruise marring his pretty face.

"Unarmed. But dangerous."

The three left their captive behind, their cruel grace marked with a touch of hurry.

"Shay!" Croy hissed.

Shay rolled herself over. Her face was red, her lips puffy and bleeding. She spat, saliva trailing from her mouth to a bloodred glob on the dusty ground.

"Croy," she managed with a thick tongue.

Then her eyes fell on Tally.

"You!"

"Uh, Shay...," Croy began.

"You did this!" Her whole body writhed like a snake in its death throes. "Stealing my boyfriend wasn't enough? You had to betray the whole Smoke!"

Tally closed her eyes and shook her head. It couldn't be true. She had destroyed the pendant. The fire had consumed it.

"Shay!" Croy said. "Calm down. Look at her. She fought them."

"Are you blind, Croy? Look around you!She did this!"

Tally took a deep breath and forced herself to look at Shay. Her friend's eyes burned with hatred.