Uglies (6 page)

A few blank windows stared down on them in silence from the husks of the giant buildings. Any glass had long since shattered, any wood had rotted, and nothing remained but metal frames, mortar, and stone crumbling in the grip of invading vegetation. Looking down at the black, empty doorways, Tally’s skin crawled with the thought of descending to peer into one.

The two friends slid between the ruined buildings, riding high and silent as if not to disturb the ghosts of the dead city. Below them the streets were full of burned-out cars squeezed together between the looming walls. Whatever had destroyed this city, the people had tried to escape it. Tally remembered from her last school trip to the ruins that their cars couldn’t hover. They just rolled along on rubber wheels. The Rusties had been stuck down in these streets like a horde of rats trapped in a burning maze.

“Uh, Shay, you’re pretty sure our boards aren’t suddenly going to conk out, right?” she called softly.

“Don’t worry. Whoever built this city loved to waste metal. They aren’t called the Rusty Ruins because some guy called Rusty discovered them.”

Tally had to agree. Every building sported jagged spurs of metal sticking from its broken walls, like bones jutting from a long-dead animal. She remembered that the Rusties didn’t use hoverstruts; every building was squat, crude, and massive, and needed a steel skeleton to keep it from falling down.

And some of them were so huge . The Rusties didn’t put their factories underground, and they all worked together like bees in a hive instead of at home. The smallest ruin here was bigger than the biggest dorm in Uglyville, bigger even than Garbo Mansion.

Seeing them now, at night, the ruins felt much more real to Tally. On school trips, the teachers always made the Rusties out to be so stupid. You almost couldn’t believe people lived like this, burning trees to clear land, burning oil for heat and power, setting the atmosphere on fire with their weapons. But in the moonlight she could imagine people scrambling over flaming cars to escape the crumbling city, panicking in their flight from this untenable pile of metal and stone.

Shay’s voice pulled Tally from her reverie. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

Shay cruised to the edge of the buildings, then out over the trees.

“Are you sure we can—”

“Look down.”

Below, Tally saw metal glinting through the trees.

“The ruins are much bigger than they let on,” Shay said. “They just keep that part of the city standing for school trips and museum stuff. But it goes on forever.”

“With lots of metal?”

“Yeah. Tons. Don’t worry, I’ve flown all over the place.”

Tally swallowed, keeping an eye out for signs of ruin below, glad that Shay was moving at a nice, slow speed.

A shape emerged from the forest, a long spine that rose and fell like a frozen wave. It led away from them, off into the darkness.

“Here it is.”

“Okay, but what is it?” Tally asked.

“It’s called a roller coaster. Remember, I told you I’d show you one.”

“It’s pretty. But what’s it for?”

“For having fun.”

“No way.”

“Yeah, way. Apparently, the Rusties did have some fun. It’s like a track. They would stick ground cars to it and go as fast as they could. Up, down, around in circles. Like hoverboarding, without hovering.

And they made it out of some really unrusty kind of steel—for safety, I guess.”

Tally frowned. She’d only imagined the Rusties working in the giant stone hives and struggling to escape on that last, horrible day. Not having fun.

“Let’s do it,” Shay said. “Let’s roller coaster.”

“How?”

“On your board.” Shay turned to Tally and said seriously, “But you’ve got to go fast. It’s dangerous unless you’re really moving.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see.”

Shay turned away and sped down the roller coaster, flying just above the track. Tally sighed and leaned hard after her. At least the thing was metal.

It also turned out to be a great ride. It was like a hoverboard course made solid, complete with tight, banked turns, sharp climbs followed by long drops, even loops that took Tally upside down, her crash bracelets activating to keep her on board. It was amazing what good shape it was in. The Rusties must have built it out of something special, just as Shay had said.

The track went much higher than a hoverboard could go on its own. On the roller coaster, hoverboarding really was like being a bird.

It wound around in a wide, slow arc, circling back toward where they’d started. The final approach began with a huge climb.

“Take this part fast!” Shay shouted over her shoulder as she zoomed ahead.

Tally followed at top speed, rocketing up the spindly track. She could see the ruins in the distance: broken, black spires against the trees. And behind them, a moonlit glimmer that might have been the sea.

This was really high!

She heard a scream of pleasure as she reached the top. Shay had disappeared. Tally leaned forward to speed up.

Suddenly, the board dropped out from under her. It simply fell away from her feet, leaving her flying through midair. The track below her had disappeared.

Tally clenched her fists, waiting for the crash bracelets to kick in and haul her up by her wrists. But they had become as useless as the board, just heavy strips of steel dragging her toward the ground. “Shay!”

she screamed as she fell into blackness.

Then Tally saw the framework of the roller coaster ahead. Only a short segment was missing.

Suddenly, the crash bracelets pulled her upward, and she felt the solid surface of the hoverboard coming up from under her feet. Her momentum had carried her to the other side of the gap! The board must have sailed along with her, just below her feet for those terrifying seconds of free fall.

She found herself cruising down the track, to where Shay was waiting at the bottom. “You’re insane!” she shouted.

“Pretty cool, huh?”

“No!” Tally yelled. “Why didn’t you tell me it was broken ?”

Shay shrugged. “More fun that way?”

“More fun ?” Her heart was beating fast, her vision strangely clear. She was full of anger and relief and…joy. “Well, kind of. But you suck !”

Tally stepped from the board and walked across the grass on rubbery legs. She found a broken stone big enough to sit on, and lowered herself shakily onto it.

Shay jumped off her board. “Hey, sorry.”

“That was horrible, Shay. I was falling .”

“Not for long. Like, five seconds. I thought you said you’d bungee jumped off a building.”

Tally glared at Shay. “Yeah, I did, but Knew I wasn’t going to splat.”

“True. But, you see, the first time someone showed me the roller coaster, they didn’t tell me about the gap. And I thought it was pretty cool, finding out that way. Best time’s the first time. I wanted you to feel it too.”

“You thought falling was cool ?”

“Well, maybe at first I was pretty angry. Yeah, I definitely was.” Shay smiled broadly. “But I got over it.”

“Give me a second on that one, Skinny.”

“Take your time.”

Tally’s breathing slowed, and her heart gradually stopped trying to beat its way out of her chest. But her brain stayed as clear as it had for those seconds of free fall, and she found herself wondering who had found the roller coaster first, and how many other uglies had come here since. “Shay, who showed you all this?”

“Friends, older than me. Uglies like us, who try to figure out how stuff works. And how to trick it.”

Tally looked up at the ancient, serpentine shape of the roller coaster, the vines crawling up its framework. “I wonder how long uglies have been coming here.”

“Probably a long time. You pass along stuff. You know, one person figures out how to trick their board, the next finds the rapids, the next makes it to the ruins.”

“Then somebody gets brave enough to jump the gap in the roller coaster.” Tally swallowed. “Or jumps it accidentally.”

Shay nodded. “But they all get turned pretty in the end.”

“Happy ending,” Tally said.

Shay shrugged.

“How do you know it’s called a ‘roller coaster,’ anyway? Did you look it up somewhere?”

“No,” Shay said. “Someone told me.”

“But how’d they know?”

“This guy knows a lot of stuff. Tricks, stuff about the ruins. He’s really cool.”

Something about Shay’s voice made Tally turn and take her hand. “But he’s pretty now, I guess.”

Shay pulled away and bit a fingernail. “No. He’s not.”

“But I thought all your friends—”

“Tally, will you make me a promise? A real promise.”

“Sure, I guess. What kind of promise?”

“You can never tell anyone what I’m about to show you.”

“It doesn’t involve free fall, does it?”

“No.”

“Okay. I swear.” Tally held up her hand with the scar she and Peris had made. “I’ll never tell anyone.”

Shay looked into her eyes for a moment, searching hard, then nodded. “All right. There’s someone I want you to meet. Tonight.”

“Tonight? But we won’t get back into town until—”

“He’s not in town.” Shay smiled. “He’s out here.”

“This is a joke, right?”

Shay didn’t answer. They were back in the heart of the ruins, in the shadow of the tallest building around. She was staring up at it with a puzzled expression on her face. “I think I remember how to do this,” she said.

“Do what?”

“Get up there. Yeah, here it is.”

Shay eased her board forward, ducking to pass through a gap in the crumbling wall.

“Shay?”

“Don’t worry. I’ve done this before.”

“I think I already had my initiation for tonight, Shay.” Tally wasn’t in the mood for another one of Shay’s jokes. She was tired, and it was a long way back to town. And she had cleanup duty tomorrow at her dorm. Just because it was summer didn’t mean she could sleep all day.

But Tally followed Shay through the gap. Arguing would probably take longer.

They rose straight into the air, the boards using the metal skeleton of the building to climb. It was creepy being inside, looking out of the empty windows at the ragged shapes of other buildings. Like being a Rusty ghost watching as its city crumbled over the centuries.

The roof was missing, and they emerged to a spectacular view. The clouds had all disappeared, and moonlight brought the ruins into sharp relief, the buildings like rows of broken teeth. Tally saw that it really had been the ocean she’d glimpsed from the roller coaster. From up here, the water shone like a pale band of silver in the moonlight.

Shay pulled something from her shoulder pack and tore it in half.

The world burst into flame.

“Ow! Blind me, why don’t you!” Tally cried, covering her eyes.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” Shay held the safety sparkler at arm’s length. It crackled to full strength in the silence of the ruins, casting flickering shadows through the interior of the ruin. Shay’s face looked monstrous in the glare, and sparks floated downward to be lost in the depths of the wrecked building.

Finally, the sparkler ran out. Tally blinked, trying to clear the spots from before her eyes. Her night vision ruined, she could hardly see anything except the moon in the sky.

She swallowed, realizing that the sparkler would have been seen from anywhere in the valley. Maybe even out to sea. “Shay, was that a signal?”

“Yeah, it was.”

Tally looked down. The dark buildings below were filled with phantom flickers of light, echoes of the sparkler burned into her eyes. Suddenly very aware of how blind she was, Tally felt a drop of cold sweat creep down her spine. “Who are we meeting, anyway?”

“His name’s David.”

“David? That’s a weird name.” It sounded made up, to Tally. She decided again that this was all a joke.

“So he’s just going to show up here? This guy doesn’t really live in the ruins, does he?”

“No. He lives pretty far away. But he might be close by. He comes here sometimes.”

“You mean, he’s from another city?”

Shay looked at her, but Tally couldn’t read her expression in the darkness. “Something like that.”

Shay returned her gaze to the horizon, as if looking for a signal in answer to her own. Tally wrapped herself in her jacket. Standing still, she began to realize how cold it had become. She wondered how late it was. Without her interface ring, she couldn’t just ask.

The almost full moon was descending in the sky, so it had to be past midnight, Tally remembered from astronomy. That was one thing about being outside the city: It made all that nature stuff they taught in school seem a lot more useful.

She remembered now how rainwater fell on the mountains, and soaked into the ground before bubbling up full of minerals. Then it made its way back to the sea, cutting rivers and canyons into the earth over the centuries. If you lived out here, you could ride your hoverboard along the rivers, like in the really old days before the Rusties, when the not-as-crazy pre-Rusties traveled around in small boats made from trees.

Her night vision gradually returned, and she scanned the horizon. Would there really be another flare out there, answering Shay’s? Tally hoped not. She’d never met anyone from another city.

She knew from school that in some cities they spoke other languages, or didn’t turn pretty until they were eighteen, and other weird stuff like that. “Shay, maybe we should head home.”

“Let’s wait a while longer.”

Tally bit her lip. “Look, maybe this David isn’t around tonight.”

“Yeah, maybe. Probably. But I was hoping he’d be here.” She turned to face Tally. “It would be really cool if you met him. He’s…different.”

“Sounds like it.”

“I’m not making this up, you know.”

“Hey, I believe you,” Tally said, although with Shay, she was never totally sure.

Shay turned back to the horizon, chewing on a fingernail. “Okay, I guess he’s not around. We can go, if you want.”

“It’s just that it’s really late, and a long way back. And I’ve got cleanup tomorrow.”

Shay nodded. “Me too.”

“Thanks for showing me all this, Shay. It was all really incredible. But I think one more cool thing would kill me.”

Shay laughed. “The roller coaster didn’t kill you.”

“Just about.”

“Forgive me for that yet?”

“I’ll let you know, Skinny.”

Shay laughed. “Okay. But remember not to tell anyone about David.”

“Hey, I promised. You can trust me, Shay. Really.”

“All right. I do trust you, Tally.” She bent her knees, and her board started to descend.

Tally took one last look around, taking in the ruins splayed out below them, the dark woods, the pearly strip of river stretching toward the glowing sea. She wondered if there was anyone out there, really, or if David was just some story that uglies made up to scare one another.

But Shay didn’t seem scared. She seemed genuinely disappointed that no one had answered her signal, as if meeting David would have been even better than showing off the rapids, the ruins, and the roller coaster.

Whether he was real or not, Tally thought, David was very real to Shay.

They left through the gap in the wall and flew to the outskirts of the ruins, then followed the vein of iron up out of the valley. At the ridge, the boards started to stutter, and they stepped off.

Tired as Tally was, carrying the board didn’t seem so impossible this time. She had stopped thinking of it as a toy, like a littlie’s balloon.

The hoverboard had become something more solid, something that obeyed its own rules, and that could be dangerous, too.

Tally figured that Shay was right about one thing: Being in the city all the time made everything fake, in a way. Like the buildings and bridges held up by hoverstruts, or jumping off a rooftop with a bungee jacket on, nothing was quite real there.

She was glad Shay had taken her out to the ruins. If nothing else, the mess left by the Rusties proved that things could go terribly wrong if you weren’t careful.

Close to the river the boards lightened up, and the two of them jumped on gratefully.

Shay groaned as they got their footing. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not taking another step tonight.”

“That’s for sure.”

Shay leaned forward and eased her board out onto the river, wrapping her dorm jacket around her shoulders against the spray of the rapids. Tally turned to take one last look back. With the clouds gone, she could just see the ruins from here.

She blinked. There seemed to be the barest flicker coming from over where the roller coaster had been.

Maybe it was just a trick of the light, a reflection of moonlight from some exposed piece of unrusted metal. “Shay?” she said softly.

“You coming or what?” Shay shouted over the roar of the river.

Tally blinked again, but couldn’t make out the flicker anymore. In any case, they were too far away.

Mentioning it to Shay would only make her anxious to go back. There was no way Tally was making the hike again.

And it probably was nothing.

Tally took a deep breath and shouted, “Come on, Skinny. Race you!” She urged her board onto the river, cutting into the cold spray and for a moment leaving a laughing Shay behind.