Specials

by Scott Westerfeld

  Or perhaps they were too afraid of Special Circumstances to raise their voices at all.

  As she passed through the outer ring of Crumblyville, Tally’s skintenna connected with a drone patrolling the city limits. The machine gave her a quick electronic frisk before realizing that she was an agent of Special Circumstances.

  She wondered if anyone had figured out how to get past the new patrols yet, or whether all the tricky uglies were gone by now, either run away to Diego or drafted into Special Circumstances. Everything had changed so much in the few weeks she’d been gone. The closer she got to the city, the less it felt like she was home at all, especially now that Zane would never see this skyline again. . . .

  Tally took a deep breath. Time to get this over with. “Message to Dr. Cable.”

  The ping bounced back to announce that the city interface had put her in a holding queue. Apparently, the head of Special Circumstances was busy these days.

  But a moment later, another voice answered, “Agent Youngblood?”

  Tally frowned. It was Maxamilla Feaster, one of Cable’s subcommanders. The Cutters had always reported directly to Dr. Cable.

  “Let me talk to the doctor,” Tally said.

  “She’s not available, Youngblood. She’s meeting with the City Council.”

  “She’s downtown?”

  “No. At headquarters.”

  Tally slowed her board to a halt. “Special Circumstances headquarters? Since when does the City Council meet out there?”

  “Since we went to war, Youngblood. A lot’s happened while you and your miscreants have been wandering around in the wild. Where on earth have you Cutters been?”

  “That’s a long story, one I have to tell the doctor face-to-face. Tell her I’m coming, and that what I have to say is extremely important.”

  There was a brief pause, then the woman’s voice came back, annoyed. “Listen, Youngblood. We are at war, and Dr. Cable is currently acting chair of the Council. She’s got a whole city to run, and doesn’t have time to give you Cutters your usual special treatment. So tell me what this is all about, or you won’t be seeing ‘the doctor’ anytime soon. Understand?”

  Tally swallowed. Dr. Cable was running the whole city? Maybe confessing to her wasn’t going to be enough. What if she was enjoying being in charge too much to believe the truth?

  “Okay, Feaster. Just tell her that the Cutters have been in Diego the last week—fighting the war, okay?—and that I have some very important intelligence for the Council. It concerns the safety of the city. Is that good enough for you?”

  “You’ve been in Diego? How did you—” the subcommander started, but Tally gestured to cut the feed. She’d said enough to get the woman’s attention.

  She leaned forward and engaged the board’s lifting fans, heading for the factory belt at top speed, hoping to get there before the City Council meeting had ended.

  They were the perfect audience for her confession.

  • • •

  Special Circumstances headquarters stretched across the plain of the factory belt, low and flat and unimpressive. But it was bigger than it looked, descending twelve stories down into the earth. If the City Council was afraid of another attack, it was the logical place to hide. Tally was certain that Dr. Cable had welcomed the Council with open arms, happy to have the city government cowering in her basement.

  Tally stared down from the summit of the long, tilted hill that overlooked the headquarters. Back in ugly days, she and David had jumped on hoverboards from here down to the roof. Since then, motion sensors had been installed to keep another break-in like theirs from happening again. But no fortress was designed to keep one of its own out, especially when she had important news to deliver.

  Tally opened her skintenna feed again. “Message to Dr. Cable.”

  This time, Subcommander Feaster’s response was instantaneous. “Quit playing around, Youngblood.”

  “Let me talk to Cable.”

  “She’s still with the Council. You have to speak with me first.”

  “I don’t have time to explain everything twice, Maxamilla. My report concerns the entire Council.” She paused to take a long, slow breath. “There’s another attack coming.”

  “Another what?”

  “An attack, and very soon. Tell the doctor I’ll be there in two minutes. I’ll come straight to the Council meeting.”

  Tally cut her skintenna feed again, choking off more sputtering replies. She spun her hoverboard around and shot down the long, sloping side of the hill, then turned to face the summit once more, flexing her fingers.

  The trick was to make her entrance as dramatic as possible, blustering past everyone and straight into the City Council meeting. Dr. Cable would probably enjoy one of her pet Cutters dashing in to deliver vital intelligence, proof that Special Circumstances was on the job.

  Of course, the announcement wasn’t going to be what Dr. Cable expected.

  Tally urged her hoverboard forward, fans and magnetics fully engaged. She climbed the hill, building speed all the way.

  At the top, the horizon suddenly slipped away, the ground disappearing beneath her, and Tally soared into the sky.

  She cut the fans and bent her knees, grasping the board with her fingers.

  The silence stretched out, the roof of the headquarters growing as Tally fell. She felt a grin spreading on her face. This might be the last time she would do something this icy, with all her special senses sucking up the world; she might as well enjoy it.

  A hundred meters from impact, her lifting fans spun to life. They pressed the board up against her, struggling to bring Tally to a halt. Her crash bracelets pushed against her wrists, straining against the force of the fall.

  The hoverboard smacked hard and flat against the roof, and Tally rolled from its riding surface and straight into a run. Alarms were sounding all around her, but with a single gesture, her skintenna placated the security system. She shouted for emergency access through the hovercar doors ahead.

  There was a short pause, then Feaster’s anxious voice replied, “Youngblood?”

  “I need in, double-quick!”

  “I told Dr. Cable what you said. She wants you to head straight for the Council meeting. They’re in the Level J operating theater.”

  Tally let herself smile. Her plan was working. “Got you. Open this door up.”

  “Right.” With a lurching metal scrape, the landing pad beneath Tally began to part, as if the roof were splitting in two. She dropped through the widening seam, falling from bright sunlight into semidarkness and landing on top of a Special Circumstances hovercar. Ignoring the startled hangar workers around her, Tally rolled to the floor and kept running.

  The voice popped into her ear again. “I’ve got an elevator waiting. Right in front of you.”

  “Too slow,” Tally panted, coming to a halt before the elevator bank. “Just open an empty shaft.”

  “Are you kidding, Youngblood?”

  “No! Seconds count here. Do it!”

  A moment later, another door slid open, revealing darkness.

  Tally stepped into the shaft.

  Her grippy-soled shoes shrieked as she bounced from one side of the shaft to the other, her fall barely controlled, descending ten times faster than any elevator. On the headquarters’ skintenna channel, she heard Feaster’s voice warning everyone out of her way. Light spilled up into the shaft—the door to Sublevel J already open for her.

  Tally caught the ledge of the floor above and swung herself through the opening, landing at a dead run. She dashed down the hallway at top speed, Specials pressing themselves against the wall to make way for her, as if Tally were some pre-Rusty messenger bringing news to the king.

  At the entrance to the floor’s main operating theater, Maxamilla Feaster waited with two Specials in full battle gear. “This had better be important, Youngblood.”

  “Believe me, it is.”

  Feaster nodded, and the door slid open. Tally ran throug
h.

  She skidded to a halt. The theater was silent, a great ring of empty seats staring down at her from all directions—no Dr. Cable, no City Council.

  No one but Tally Youngblood, winded and alone.

  She spun around. “Feaster? What is this—?”

  The door slid closed, trapping her in the room.

  Through her skintenna, she could hear the amusement in Feaster’s voice. “Just wait in there, Youngblood. Dr. Cable will be with you once she’s done with the Council.”

  Tally shook her head. Her confession would be useless if Cable didn’t want to believe it. She needed witnesses. “But this is happening now! Why do you think I ran all this way?”

  “Why? Perhaps to tell the Council that Diego had nothing to do with the Armory attack? That it was really you?”

  Tally’s mouth dropped open, her next plea silenced on her lips. She replayed Feaster’s words in her mind slowly, unable to believe she’d really heard them.

  How could they have known?

  “What are you talking about?” she finally managed.

  The cruel sound of delight grew in Maxamilla Feaster’s voice. “Be patient, Tally. Dr. Cable will explain.”

  Then the lights flicked off, leaving her in total darkness. Tally started to speak again, then realized that her skintenna had gone dead.

  CONFESSION

  The absolute darkness lasted what seemed like hours. A white-hot rage built inside Tally, a forest fire gaining strength with every passing second. She fought an urge to run blindly through the blackness, destroying everything she could lay her hands on, tearing her way through the ceiling and then the next floor, upward until she reached the open sky.

  But Tally forced herself to sit down on the floor, breathing deep and trying to stay calm. The thought kept spinning in her mind that she was going to lose to Dr. Cable once again. Just like she had lost when the Smoke had been invaded, when she had given herself up to be made pretty, and when she and Zane had escaped together, only to be recaptured.

  Again and again, Tally pushed the rage down, clenching her fists so hard it felt like her fingers would break. She felt powerless, just like when Zane had lain before her, dying. . . .

  But she couldn’t afford to lose again. Not this time, when the future was at stake.

  So she waited in the darkness, struggling.

  • • •

  Finally, the door opened, framing Dr. Cable’s familiar silhouette. From the ceiling, four spotlights popped on, shining directly into Tally’s eyes. Blinded for a moment, she heard more Specials slip through before the door slid closed behind them.

  Tally jumped to her feet. “Where’s the City Council? It’s urgent that I speak to them.”

  “I’m afraid that what you have to say might upset them, and we can’t have that. Very jumpy these days, the Council.” A chuckle came from Dr. Cable’s silhouette. “They’re up on Level H, still droning to each other.”

  Two floors above . . . She’d gotten so close, only to fail again.

  “Welcome home, Tally,” Dr. Cable said softly.

  Tally looked around the empty auditorium. “Thanks for the surprise party.”

  “You were the one planning to surprise us, I believe.”

  “What, by telling the truth?”

  “The truth? From you?” Dr. Cable laughed. “What could be more surprising?”

  A flash of anger went through Tally, but she took a long, slow breath. “How did you know?”

  Dr. Cable stepped into the light, drawing a small knife from her pocket. “I believe this is yours.” She threw the knife into the air. It spun, glittering in the spotlights, and sunk deep into the floor between Tally’s feet. “The skin cells we found on it certainly were.”

  Tally stared down at the knife.

  It was the one Shay had thrown to set off the Armory’s alarm, the same one Tally had used to cut herself that night. Tally opened her clenched fist and stared at her palm; the flash tattoos still spun in their halting rhythm, broken by the scar. She had seen Shay wipe it for fingerprints, but some tiny trace of her flesh must have lingered. . . .

  They must have found it and run her DNA soon after the attack, and known all along that Tally Youngblood had been there at the Armory.

  “I knew that nasty habit would eventually get you Cutters into trouble,” Dr. Cable murmured. “Does it really feel so wonderful, cutting yourself? I must look into that, next time I make Specials so young.”

  Tally knelt and pulled the knife out of the floor, weighing it in her hand, wondering if a well-aimed throw could find its way into Dr. Cable’s throat. But the woman was just as fast as Tally, just as special.

  She couldn’t afford to be a Special-head any longer. Tally had to think her way out of this.

  She threw the knife aside.

  “Just answer me one question,” Dr. Cable said. “Why did you do it?”

  Tally shook her head. Telling the whole truth would mean bringing Zane into it, which would only make it harder to keep control.

  “It was an accident.”

  “An accident?” Dr. Cable laughed. “That’s quite some accident, destroying half the city’s military.”

  “We weren’t planning to let loose those nanos.”

  “We? The Cutters?”

  Tally shook her head—no point in mentioning Shay either. “One thing just sort of led to another. . . .”

  “Indeed. That’s how it always works with you, isn’t it, Tally?”

  “But why did you lie to everyone?”

  Dr. Cable sighed. “That should be obvious, Tally. I couldn’t very well tell them that you had almost dismantled the city’s defenses. The Cutters were my pride and joy, my special Specials.” Her razor smile spread across her face. “Besides, you’d given me a splendid opportunity to get rid of an old opponent.”

  “What did Diego ever do to you?”

  “They supported the Old Smoke. They’ve taken in our runaways for years. Then Shay reported that someone was supplying the Smokies with sneak suits and huge quantities of those appalling pills. Who else could it have been?” Her voice grew stronger. “The other cities were just waiting for someone to take Diego down, with their New System and their flouting of morphological standards. You simply provided me with the ammunition. You’ve always been so useful, Tally.”

  Tally squeezed her eyes shut, willing Dr. Cable’s words to somehow be heard up in the Council meeting. If only they knew how they’d been lied to. . . .

  But this whole city was too scared to think clearly, too thrilled by their own counterattack, too ready to accept the rule of this twisted woman.

  Tally shook her head. She’d spent the last few days focused on rewiring herself, but she needed to rewire everyone.

  Or maybe just the right someone . . .

  “When does it all end?” she asked quietly. “How long does this war go on?”

  “It never ends, Tally. I’m getting too much done that I could never do before, and believe me, the bubbleheads are having such fun watching it on the newsfeeds. And all it took was a war, Tally. I should have thought of this years ago!” The woman stepped closer, her cruelly beautiful face aglow at the edge of the spotlights. “Don’t you see, we’ve entered a new era. From now on, every day is a Special Circumstance!”

  Tally nodded slowly, then let a smile creep onto her face. “Nice of you to explain that to me. And to everyone else.”

  Dr. Cable raised an eyebrow. “Pardon me?”

  “Cable, I didn’t come here to tell the City Council what happened. They’re a bunch of wimps, if they put you in charge. I came to make sure that everyone knows about your lies.”

  The woman let out a low, rumbling laugh. “Don’t tell me you made some sort of video of yourself, Tally, explaining that you started the war? Who’ll believe it? You may have been famous once among the bubbleheads and uglies, but no one over the age of twenty even knows you exist.”

  “No, but they know you, now that you’ve put yourself
in charge.” Tally reached into her sneak suit’s carrying pouch and pulled out the injector. “And now that they’ve watched you explain that this entire war was bogus, they’ll remember you forever.”

  Dr. Cable frowned. “What is that thing?”

  “A satellite transmitter, one that can’t be jammed.” Tally pulled the cap from the injector’s top, exposing the needle. “See that little antenna? Amazing, isn’t it?”

  “You couldn’t . . . not from down here.” Dr. Cable’s eyes closed, her lids fluttering as she checked the feeds.

  Tally kept talking, her own bare-toothed smile growing. “They do the craziest surgery in Diego. They replaced my eyes with stereo cameras, and my fingernails with microphones. The whole city has been watching you explain what you’ve done.”

  Cable’s eyes opened. She snorted. “There’s nothing on the feeds, Tally. Your little toy doesn’t work.”

  Tally raised her eyebrows, glancing at the bottom of the injector in puzzlement. “Oops. Forgot to press send.” She shifted her fingers. . . .

  Dr. Cable leaped forward, one hand darting for the injector, and in the same split second Tally turned the needle to exactly the right angle. . . .

  The blow smacked the injector from her hand, and Tally heard it clatter in the corner, broken into pieces.

  “Really, Tally,” Dr. Cable said, smiling. “For someone so clever, you’re such a little fool sometimes.”

  Tally lowered her head and closed her eyes. But she was breathing in slowly through her nose, searching the air. . . .

  Then she smelled it—the barest scent of blood.

  She opened her eyes, and saw Dr. Cable glance down at her hand, mildly annoyed by the needle’s prick. Shay had said she’d hardly noticed the cure at first, that it took days to manifest.

  In the meantime, Tally didn’t want Cable wondering how she’d stabbed herself on the “antenna,” or taking a closer look at the shattered injector. Perhaps a distraction was in order.

  Tally set a look of rage on her face. “You’re calling me a fool?”