Uglies (5 page)

“I think you’re ready.”

Tally cruised to a stop—right foot down, left foot up, bend the knees.

“Ready for what?”

Shay drifted slowly past, letting the breeze tug her along. They were as high up and far out as hoverboards would go, just above treetop level, at the edge of town. It was amazing how quickly Tally had gotten used to being up high, with nothing but a board and bracelets between her and a long fall.

The view from up here was fantastic. Behind them the spires of New Pretty Town rose from the center of town, and around them was the greenbelt, a swath of forest that separated the middle and the late pretties from the youngsters. Older generations of pretties lived out in the suburbs, hidden by the hills, in rows of big houses separated by strips of private garden for their littlies to play in.

Shay smiled. “Ready for a night ride.”

“Oh. Look, I don’t know if I want to cross the river again,” Tally said, remembering her promise to Peris. She and Shay had shown each other a lot of tricks over the last three weeks, but they hadn’t been back into New Pretty Town since the night they’d met. “Until we get turned, of course. After last time, the wardens are probably all—”

“I wasn’t talking about New Pretty Town,” Shay interrupted. “That place is boring, anyway. We’d have to sneak around all night.”

“Okay. You mean just board around Uglyville.”

Shay shook her head, still coasting gradually away on the breeze.

Tally shifted her weight on the board uncomfortably. “Where else is there?”

Shay put her hands in her pockets and spread her arms, turning her dorm’s team jacket into a sail. The breeze pulled her farther away from Tally. By reflex, Tally tipped her toes forward so that her board would keep up.

“Well, there’s out there.” Shay nodded at the open land before them.

“The suburbs? That’s dullsville.”

“Not the burbs. Past them.” Shay slid her feet in opposite directions, to the very edges of the board. Her skirt caught the cool evening wind, which tugged her away even faster. She was drifting toward the outer edge of the greenbelt. Off-limits.

Tally planted her feet and dipped the board, and pulled up next to her friend. “What do you mean?

Outside the city completely?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s crazy. There’s nothing out there.”

“There’s plenty out there. Real trees, hundreds of years old. Mountains. And the ruins. Ever been there?”

Tally blinked. “Of course.”

“I don’t mean on a school trip, Tally. You ever been there at night?”

Tally brought her board to a sharp halt. The Rusty Ruins were the remains of an old city, a hulking reminder of back when there’d been way too many people, and everyone was incredibly stupid. And ugly.

“No way. Don’t tell me you have.”

Shay nodded.

Tally’s mouth dropped open. “That’s impossible.”

“You think you’re the only one who knows good tricks?”

“Well, maybe I believe you,” Tally said. Shay had that look on her face, the one Tally had learned to watch out for. “But what if we get busted?”

Shay laughed. “Tally, there’s nothing out there, like you just said. Nothing and no one to bust us.”

“Do hoverboards even work out there? Does anything?”

“Special ones do, if you know how to trick them, and where to ride. And getting past the burbs is easy. You take the river the whole way. Farther upstream it’s white water, too rough for skimmers.”

Tally’s mouth dropped open again. “You really have done this before.”

A gust of wind billowed in Shay’s jacket, and she slid farther away, still smiling. Tally had to lean her board into motion again to stay within earshot. A treetop brushed her ankles as the ground below them started to rise.

“It’ll be really fun,” Shay called.

“Sounds too risky.”

“Come on. I’ve been wanting to show you this since we met. Since you told me you crashed a pretty party—and pulled a fire alarm!”

Tally swallowed, wishing she’d told the whole truth about that night—about how it had all just sort of happened . Shay seemed to think she was the world’s biggest daredevil now. “Well, I mean, that alarm thing was partly an accident. Kind of.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I mean, maybe we should wait. It’s only a couple of months now.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Shay said. “A couple of months and we’ll be stuck inside the river. Pretty and boring.”

Tally snorted. “I don’t think it’s exactly boring, Shay.”

“Doing what you’re supposed to do is always boring. I can’t imagine anything worse than being required to have fun.”

“I can,” Tally said quietly. “Never having any.”

“Listen, Tally, these two months are our last chance to do anything really cool. To be ourselves. Once we turn, it’s new pretty, middle pretty, late pretty.” Shay dropped her arms, and her board stopped drifting. “Then dead pretty.”

“Better than dead ugly,” Tally said.

Shay shrugged and opened her jacket into a sail again. They weren’t far from the edge of the greenbelt now. Soon Shay would get a warning. Then her board would tattle.

“Besides,” Tally argued, “just because we get the operation doesn’t mean we can’t do stuff like this.”

“But pretties never do, Tally. Never.”

Tally sighed, tipping her feet again to follow. “Maybe that’s because they have better stuff to do than kid tricks. Maybe partying in town is better than hanging out in a bunch of old ruins.”

Shay’s eyes flashed. “Or maybe when they do the operation—when they grind and stretch your bones to the right shape, peel off your face and rub all your skin away, and stick in plastic cheekbones so you look like everybody else—maybe after going through all that you just aren’t very interesting anymore.”

Tally flinched. She’d never heard the operation described that way. Even in bio class, where they went into the details, it didn’t sound that bad. “Come on, we won’t even know it’s happening. You just have pretty dreams the whole time.”

“Yeah, sure.”

A voice came into Tally’s head:” Warning, restricted area.” The wind was turning cold as the sun dropped.

“Come on, Shay, let’s go back down. It’s almost dinner.”

Shay smiled and shook her head, and pulled off her interface ring. Now she wouldn’t hear the warnings.

“Let’s go tonight. You can ride almost as well as me now.”

“Shay.”

“Do this with me. I’ll show you a roller coaster.”

“What’s a—”

“Second warning. Restricted area.”

Tally stopped her board. “If you keep going, Shay, you’ll get busted and we won’t be doing anything tonight.”

Shay shrugged as the wind tugged her farther away.

“I just want to show you something that’s my idea of fun, Tally. Before we go all pretty and only get to have everybody else’s idea of fun.”

Tally shook her head, wanting to say that Shay had already taught her how to hoverboard, the coolest thing she’d ever learned. In less than a month she’d come to feel like they were best friends.

Almost like when she’d met Peris as a littlie, and they’d known instantly they’d be together forever. “Shay…”

“Please?”

Tally sighed. “Okay.”

Shay dropped her arms and dipped her toes to bring the board to a halt.

“Really? Tonight?”

“Sure. Rusty Ruins it is.”

Tally told herself to relax. It wasn’t that big a deal, really. She broke rules all the time, and everyone went to the ruins once a year on school trips. It couldn’t be dangerous or anything.

Shay zoomed back from the edge of the belt, swooping up beside Tally to put her arm around her.

“Wait until you see the river.”

“You said it’s got white water?”

“Yeah.”

“Which is what?”

Shay smiled. “It’s water. But much, much better.”

“Good night.”

“Sleep tight,” replied the room.

Tally pulled on a jacket, clipped her sensor to her belly ring, and opened the window. The air was still, the river so flat that she could make out every detail of the city skyline mirrored in it. It looked like the pretties were having some sort of event. She could hear the roar of a huge crowd across the water, a thousand cheers rising and falling together. The party towers were dark under the almost full moon, and the fireworks all shimmering hues of blue, climbing so high that they exploded in silence.

The city had never looked so far away.

“I’ll see you soon, Peris,” she said quietly.

The roof tiles were slick with a late evening rain. Tally climbed carefully to the corner of the dorm where it was brushed by an old sycamore tree. The handholds in its branches felt solid and familiar, and she descended quickly into the darkness behind a recycler.

When she’d cleared the dormitory grounds, Tally looked back. The pattern of shadows that led away from the dorm seemed so convenient, almost intentional. As if uglies were supposed to sneak out every once in a while.

Tally shook her head. She was starting to think like Shay.

They met at the dam, where the river split in two to encircle New Pretty Town. Tonight, there weren’t any river skimmers out to disturb the darkness, and Shay was practicing moves on her board when Tally walked up.

“Should you be doing that here in town?” Tally called over the roar of water rushing through the dam’s gates.

Shay danced, shifting her weight back and forth on the floating board, dodging imaginary obstacles. “I was just making sure it worked. In case you were worried.”

Tally looked at her own board. Shay had tricked the safety governor so it wouldn’t tattle when they flew at night, or crossed the boundary out of town. Tally wasn’t so much worried about it squealing on them as whether it would fly at all. Or let her fly into a tree. But Shay’s board seemed to be hovering just fine.

“I boarded all the way here, and nobody’s come to get me,” Shay said.

Tally dropped her board to the ground. “Thanks for making sure. I didn’t mean to be so wimpy about this.”

“You weren’t.”

“Yeah, I was. I should tell you something. That night, when you met me, I kind of promised my friend Peris I wouldn’t take any big risks. You know, in case I really got in trouble, and they got really mad.”

“Who cares if they get mad? You’re almost sixteen.”

“But what if they get mad enough that they won’t make me pretty?”

Shay stopped bouncing. “I’ve never heard of that happening.”

“I guess I haven’t either. But maybe they wouldn’t tell us if it had. Anyway, Peris made me promise to take it easy.”

“Tally, do you think maybe he just said that so you wouldn’t come around again?”

“Huh?”

“Maybe he made you promise to take it easy so you wouldn’t bother him anymore. To make you afraid to go to New Pretty Town again.”

Tally tried to answer, but her throat was dry.

“Listen, if you don’t want to come, that’s fine,” Shay said. “I mean it, Squint. But we’re not going to get caught. And if we do, I’ll take the blame.” She laughed. “I’ll tell them I kidnapped you.”

Tally stepped onto her board and snapped her fingers. When she reached Shay’s eye level she said, “I’m coming. I said I would.”

Shay smiled and took Tally’s hand for a second, squeezing. “Great. It’s going to be fun. Not new pretty fun—the real kind. Put these on.”

“What are they? Night vision?”

“Nope. Goggles. You’re going to love the white water.”

They hit the rapids ten minutes later.

Tally had lived her whole life within sight of the river. Slow-moving and dignified, it defined the city, marking the boundary between worlds. But she’d never realized that a few kilometers upstream from the dam, the stately band of silver became a snarling monster.

The churning water really was white. It crashed over rocks and through narrow channels, catapulted up into moonlit sprays, split apart, rejoined, and dropped down into boiling cauldrons at the bottom of steep falls.

Shay was skimming just above the torrent, so low that she lifted a wake every time she banked.

Tally followed at what she guessed was a safe distance, hoping her tricked-up board was still reluctant to crash into the darkness-cloaked rocks and tree branches. The forest to either side was a black void full of wild and ancient trees, nothing like the generic carbon-dioxide suckers that decorated the city. The moonlit clouds above glowed through their branches like a ceiling of pearl.

Every time Shay screamed, Tally knew she was about to follow her friend through a wall of sprayleaping up from the maelstrom. Some shone like white lace curtains in the moonlight, but others struck unexpectedly from the darkness. Tally also found herself crashing through the arcs of cold water rising from Shay’s board when it dipped or banked, but at least she knew when a turn was coming.

The first few minutes were sheer terror, her teeth clenched so hard that her jaw ached, her toes curled up inside her special new grippy shoes, her arms and even fingers spread wide for balance. But gradually Tally grew accustomed to the darkness, the roar of water below, the unexpected slap of cold spray against her face. It was wilder, and faster, and farther than she’d ever flown before. The river wound into the dark forest, cutting its serpentine route into the unknown.

Finally, Shay waved her hands and pulled up, the back of her board dipping low into the water. Tally climbed to avoid the wake, spinning her board in a tight circle to bring it to a smooth halt.

“Are we there?”

“Not quite. But look.” Shay pointed back the way they’d come.

Tally gasped as she took in the view. The distant city was a bright coin nestled in darkness, the fireworks of New Pretty Town the barest cold-blue shimmer. They must have climbed a long way up; Tally could see patches of moonlight rolling slowly across the low hills around the city, pushed along by the light wind that barely tugged at the clouds.

She’d never been beyond the city limits at night, had never seen it lit up like this from afar.

Tally pulled off her spattered goggles and took a deep breath. The air was full of sharp smells, evergreen sap and wildflowers, the electric smell of churning water.

“Nice, huh?”

“Yeah,” Tally panted. “Much better than sneaking around New Pretty Town.”

Shay grinned happily. “I’m really glad you think so. I’ve been wanting to come out here so bad, but not alone. You know?”

Tally looked at the surrounding forest, trying to peer into the black spaces between the trees. This was really the wild, where anything could be hidden, not a place for human beings. She shivered at the thought of being there alone. “Where to now?”

“Now we walk.”

“Walk?”

Shay eased her board to the shore and stepped off. “Yeah, there’s a vein of iron about half a kilometer that way. But nothing between here and there.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Tally, hoverboards work on magnetic levitation, right? So there’s got to be some kind of metal around or they don’t hover.”

“I guess so. But in town—”

“In town, there’s a steel grid built into the ground, no matter where you go. Out here, you have to be careful.”

“What happens if your board can’t hover anymore?”

“It falls down. And your crash bracelets don’t work either.”

“Oh.” Tally stepped from her board and held it under one arm. All her muscles were sore from the wild ride here. It was good to be on solid ground. The rocks felt reassuringly the-opposite-of-hovery under her shakey legs.

After a few minutes’ walking, though, the board started to grow heavy. By the time the noise of the river had faded to a dull roar behind them, it felt like a plank of oak under her arm.

“I didn’t know these things weighed so much.”

“Yeah, this is what a board weighs when it’s not hovering. Out here, you find out that the city fools you about how things really work.”

The sky was getting cloudier, and in the darkness the cold seemed more intense. Tally hoisted the board up to get a better grip, wondering if it was going to rain. She was already wet enough from the rapids. “I kind of like being fooled about some things.”

After a long scramble through the rocks, Shay broke the silence. “This way. There’s a natural vein of iron underground. You can feel it in your crash bracelets. ”

Tally held out one hand and frowned, unconvinced. But after another minute she felt a faint tugging in her bracelet, like a ghost pulling her forward. Her board started to lighten, and soon she and Shay had hopped on again, coasting over a ridge and down into a dark valley.

Onboard, Tally found the breath to ask a question that had been bugging her. “So if hoverboards need metal, how do they work on the river?”

“Panning for gold.”

“What?”

“Rivers come from springs, which come from inside mountains. The water brings up minerals from inside the earth. So there’s always metals at the bottom of rivers.”

“Right. Like when people used to pan for gold?”

“Yeah, exactly. But, actually, boards prefer iron. All that glitters is not hovery.”

Tally frowned. Shay sometimes talked in a mysterious way, like she was quoting the lyrics of some band no one else listened to.

She almost asked, but Shay came to a sudden halt and pointed downward.

The clouds were breaking, and moonlight shot through them to fall across the floor of the valley. Hulking towers rose up, casting jagged shadows, their human-made shapes obvious against the plain of treetops rippling in the wind.

The Rusty Ruins.