Pretties

by Scott Westerfeld

  PRAISE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING UGLIES SERIES

  UGLIES

  “Teens will sink their teeth into the provocative questions about invasive technology, image-obsessed society, and the ethical quandaries of a mole-turned-ally. . . . Ingenious.”

  —Booklist, starred review

  PRETTIES

  “Westerfeld has built a masterfully complex and vivid civilization.”

  —School Library Journal

  SPECIALS

  “This is a thrilling, painful, and ultimately satisfying volume in the best YA SF in years.”

  —KLIATT, starred review

  EXTRAS

  “A superb piece of popular art.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  To the Australian SF community for all your acceptance and support

  CONTENTS

  Part I: Sleeping Beauty

  Criminal

  Bash

  Lurker

  Fall

  Zane

  Bubbly-Making

  Valentino 317

  The High Tower

  Note to Self

  Part II: The Cure

  Breakthrough

  Bounce

  Party Crash

  The Dragon

  Breakup

  Rain

  Cutters

  Ritual

  Hospital

  Crusher

  Hijacking

  Burner

  The City’s Edge

  Part III: Outside

  Descent

  Alone

  Hunt

  Young Blood

  Revenge

  Food of the Gods

  The Edge of the World

  Holy Day

  The Ruins

  Faces

  Damage Control

  Cold Water

  Tracker

  Specials

  Bogus Dreams

  Specials Excerpt

  Leviathan Excerpt

  About the Author

  Part I

  SLEEPING BEAUTY

  Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless.

  —John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, I

  CRIMINAL

  Getting dressed was always the hardest part of the afternoon.

  The invitation to Valentino Mansion said semiformal, but it was the semi part that was tricky. Like a night without a party, “semi” opened up too many possibilities. Bad enough for boys, for whom it could mean jacket and tie (skipping the tie with certain kinds of collars), or all white and shirtsleeves (but only on summer afternoons), or any number of longcoats, waistcoats, tailcoats, kilts, or really nice sweaters. For girls, though, the definition simply exploded, as definitions usually did here in New Pretty Town.

  Tally almost preferred formal white-tie or black-tie parties. The clothes were less comfortable and the parties no fun until everyone got drunk, but at least you didn’t have to think so hard about getting dressed.

  “Semiformal, semi formal,” she said, her eyes drifting over the expanse of her open closet, the carousel stuttering back and forth as it tried to keep up with Tally’s random eyemouse clicks, setting clothes swaying on their hangers. Yes, “semi” was definitely a bogus word.

  “Is it even a word?” Tally asked aloud. “‘Semi’?” It felt strange in her mouth, which was dry as cotton because of last night.

  “Only half of one,” the room said, probably thinking it was clever.

  “Figures,” Tally muttered.

  She collapsed back onto her bed and stared up at the ceiling, feeling the room threaten to spin a little. It didn’t seem fair, having to get worked up over half a word. “Make it go away,” she said.

  The room misunderstood, and slid shut the wall over her closet. Tally didn’t have the strength to explain that she’d really meant her hangover, which was sprawled in her head like an overweight cat, sullen and squishy and disinclined to budge.

  Last night, she and Peris had gone skating with a bunch of other Crims, trying out the new rink hovering over Nefertiti Stadium. The sheet of ice, held aloft by a grid of lifters, was thin enough to see through, and was kept transparent by a horde of little Zambonies darting among the skaters like nervous water bugs. The fireworks exploding in the stadium below made it glow like some kind of schizoid stained glass that changed colors every few seconds.

  They all had to wear bungee jackets in case anyone broke through. No one ever did, of course, but the thought that at any moment the world could fall away with a sudden crack kept Tally drinking plenty of champagne.

  Zane, who was pretty much the leader of the Crims, got bored and tipped a whole bottle onto the ice. He said that alcohol had a lower freezing point than water, so it might send someone tumbling down into the fireworks. But he hadn’t poured out enough to save Tally’s head this morning.

  The room made the special sound that meant another Crim was calling.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey, Tally.”

  “Shay-la!” Tally struggled up onto one elbow. “I need help!”

  “The party? I know.”

  “What’s the deal with semi formal, anyway?”

  Shay laughed. “Tally-wa, you are so missing. Didn’t you get the ping?”

  “What ping?”

  “It went out hours ago.”

  Tally glanced at her interface ring, still on her bedside table. She never wore it at night, an old habit from when she’d been an ugly, sneaking out all the time. It sat there softly pulsing, still muted for sleeptime. “Oh. Just woke up.”

  “Well forget semi anything. They changed the bash to fancy dress. We have to come up with costumes!”

  Tally checked the time: just before five in the afternoon. “What, in three hours?”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m all over the place with mine. It’s so shaming. Can I come down?”

  “Please.”

  “In five?”

  “Sure. Bring breakfast. Bye.”

  Tally let her head fall back onto the pillow. The bed was spinning like a hoverboard now, the day just starting and already wiping out.

  She slipped on her interface ring and listened angrily as the ping played, saying that no one would be admitted tonight without a really bubbly costume. Three hours to come up with something decent, and everyone else had a huge head start.

  Sometimes, it felt like being a real criminal had been much, much simpler.

  • • •

  Shay had breakfast in tow: lobster omelettes, toast, hash browns, corn fritters, grapes, chocolate muffins, and Bloodies—more food than a whole packet of calorie purgers could erase. The over-burdened tray shivered in the air, its lifters trembling like a littlie arriving at school, first day ever.

  “Um, Shay? Are we going as blimps or something?”

  Shay giggled. “No, but you sounded bad. And you have to be bubbly tonight. All the Crims are coming to vote you in.”

  “Great, bubbly.” Tally sighed, relieving the tray of a Bloody Mary. She frowned at the first sip. “Not salty enough.”

  “No problem,” Shay said, scraping off the caviar decorating an omelette and stirring it in.

  “Ew, fishy!”

  “Caviar is good with anything.” Shay took another spoonful and put it straight into her mouth, closing her eyes to chew the little fish eggs. She twisted her ring to start some music.

  Tally swallowed and drank more Bloody, which at least stopped the room from spinning. The chocolate muffins were starting to smell good. Then she’d move on to the hash browns. Then the omelette; she might even try the caviar. Breakfast was the meal when Tally most felt like she had to make up for the time she’d lost out in the wild. A good breakfast binge made her feel in control, as if a storm of city-made tastes could erase the month
s of stews and SpagBol.

  The music was new and made her heart beat faster. “Thanks, Shay-la. You are totally life-saving.”

  “No problem, Tally-wa.”

  “So where were you last night, anyway?”

  Shay just smiled, like she’d done something bad.

  “What? New boy?”

  Shay shook her head. Batted her eyes.

  “You didn’t surge again, did you?” Tally asked, and Shay giggled. “You did. You’re not supposed to more than once a week. Could you be any more missing?”

  “It’s okay, Tally-wa. Just local.”

  “Where?” Shay’s face didn’t look any different. Was the surgery hidden under her pajamas?

  “Look closer.” Shay’s long lashes fluttered again.

  Tally leaned forward, staring into the perfect copper eyes, wide and speckled with jewel dust, and her heart beat still faster. A month after coming to New Pretty Town, Tally was still awestruck by other pretties’ eyes. They were so huge and welcoming, bright with interest. Shay’s lush pupils seemed to murmur, I’m listening to you. You fascinate me. They narrowed down the world to only Tally, all alone in the radiance of Shay’s attention.

  It was even weirder with Shay, because Tally had known her back in ugly days, before the operation had made her this way.

  “Closer.”

  Tally took a steadying breath, the room spinning again, but in a good way. She gestured for the windows to transpare a little more, and in the sunlight she saw the new additions. “Ooh, pretty-making.”

  Bolder than all the other implanted glitter, twelve tiny rubies ringed each of Shay’s pupils, glowing softly red against emerald irises.

  “Bubbly, huh?”

  “Yeah. But hang on . . . are the bottom-left ones different?” Tally squinted harder. One jewel in each eye seemed to be flickering, a tiny white candle in the coppery depths.

  “It’s five o’clock!” Shay said. “Get it?”

  It took Tally a second to remember how to read the big clock tower in the center of town. “Um, but that’s seven. Wouldn’t bottom-right be five o’clock?”

  Shay snorted. “They run counterclockwise, silly. I mean, so boring otherwise.”

  A laugh bubbled up in Tally. “So wait. You have jewels in your eyes? And they tell time? And they go backward? Isn’t that maybe one thing too many, Shay?”

  Tally immediately regretted what she’d said. The expression that clouded Shay’s face was tragic, sucking away the radiance of a moment before. She looked about to cry, except without puffy eyes or a red nose. New surge was always a delicate topic, like a new hairstyle, almost.

  “You hate them,” Shay softly accused.

  “Of course I don’t. Like I said: totally pretty-making.”

  “Really?”

  “Very. And it’s good they go backward.”

  Shay’s smile returned, and Tally breathed a sigh of relief, still not believing herself. It was the kind of mistake only brand-new pretties made, and she’d had the operation over a month ago. Why was she still saying bogus things? If she made a comment like that tonight, one of the Crims might vote against her. It only took one veto to shut you out.

  And then she’d be alone, almost like running away again.

  Shay said, “Maybe we should go as clock towers tonight, in honor of my new eyeballs.”

  Tally laughed, knowing the lame joke meant she was forgiven. She and Shay had been through a lot together, after all. “Have you talked to Peris and Fausto?”

  Shay nodded. “They said we’re all supposed to dress criminal. They’ve got an idea already, but it’s secret.”

  “That’s so bogus. Like they were such bad boys. All they ever did in the ugly days was sneak out and maybe cross the river a few times. They never even made it to the Smoke.”

  The song ended just then, and Tally’s last word fell into sudden silence. She tried to think of what to say, but the conversation just faded out, like fireworks in a dark sky. The next song seemed to take a long time to start.

  When it did, she was relieved and said, “Crim costumes should be easy, Shay-la. We’re the two biggest criminals in town.”

  • • •

  Shay and Tally tried for two hours, making the hole in the wall spit out costumes and trying them on. They thought of bandits, but didn’t really know what one looked like—in all the old bandit movies in the wallscreen, the bad guys didn’t look Crim, just retarded. Pirates were much better dressing, but Shay didn’t want to wear a patch over one of her new eyeballs. Going as hunters was another idea, but the hole in the wall had this thing about guns, even fake ones. Tally thought of famous dictators from history, but most of them turned out to be men and fashion-missing.

  “Maybe we should be Rusties!” Shay said. “In school, they were always the bad guys.”

  “But they mostly looked like us, I thought. Except ugly.”

  “I don’t know, we could cut down trees or burn oil or something.”

  Tally laughed. “This is a costume, Shay-la, not a lifestyle.”

  Shay spread her arms and said more things, trying to be bubbly. “We could smoke tobacco? Or drive cars?”

  But the hole in the wall wouldn’t give them cigarettes or cars.

  It was fun, though, hanging out with Shay and trying things on, then snorting and giggling and tossing the costumes back into the recycler. Tally loved seeing how she looked in new clothes, even silly ones. Part of her could still remember back before, when looking in the mirror had been painful, her eyes too close together and nose too small, hair frizzy all the time. Now it was like someone gorgeous stood across from Tally, following her every move—someone whose face was in perfect balance, whose skin glowed even with a total hangover, whose body was beautifully proportioned and muscled. Someone whose silvery eyes matched anything she wore.

  But someone with bogus taste in costumes.

  After two hours they were lying on the bed, which was spinning again.

  “Everything sucks, Shay-la. Why does everything suck? They’ll never vote me in if I can’t even come up with a non-bogus costume.”

  Shay took her hand. “Don’t worry, Tally-wa. You’re already famous. There’s no reason to be nervous.”

  “That’s easy for you to say.” Even though they’d been born on the same day, Shay had become pretty weeks and weeks before Tally. She’d been a full-fledged Crim for almost a month now.

  “It’s not going to be a problem,” Shay said. “Anyone who used to hang out with Special Circumstances is a natural Crim.”

  A feeling went through Tally when Shay said that, like a ping, but hurting. “Still. I hate not being bubbly.”

  “It’s Peris’s and Fausto’s fault for not telling us what they’re wearing.”

  “Let’s just wait till they get here. And copy them.”

  “They deserve it,” Shay agreed. “Want a drink?”

  “I think so.”

  Tally was too spinning to go anywhere, so Shay told the breakfast tray to go and get some champagne.

  • • •

  When Peris and Fausto came in, they were on fire.

  It was really just sparklers wound into their hair and stuck onto their clothes, making safety flames flicker all over them. Fausto kept laughing because it tickled. They were both wearing bungee jackets—their costume was that they’d just jumped from the roof of a burning building.

  “Fantastic!” Shay said.

  “Hysterical,” Tally agreed, but then asked, “but how is that Crim?”

  “Don’t you remember?” Peris said. “When you crashed a party last summer, and got away by stealing a bungee jacket and jumping off the roof? Best ugly trick in history!”

  “Sure . . . but why are you on fire?” Tally asked. “I mean, it’s not Crim if the building’s really on fire.”

  Shay was giving Tally a look like she was saying something bogus again.

  “We couldn’t just wear bungee jackets,” Fausto said. “Being on fire is much bubbli
er.”

  “Yeah,” Peris said, but Tally could tell he saw what she meant, and was sad now. She wished she hadn’t mentioned it. Stupid Tally. The costumes really were bubbly.

  They put the sparklers out to save them for the party, and Shay told the hole in the wall to make two more jackets.

  “Hey, that’s copying!” Fausto complained, but it turned out not to matter. The hole wouldn’t do costume bungee jackets, in case someone forgot and jumped off something and splatted. It couldn’t make a real jacket; you had to ask Requisition for anything complicated or permanent. And Requisition wouldn’t send any up because there wasn’t a fire.

  Shay snorted. “The mansion is being totally bogus today.”

  “So where’d you get those?” Tally asked.

  “They’re real.” Peris smiled, fingering his jacket. “We stole them from the roof.”

  “So they are Crim,” Tally said, and jumped off the bed to hug him.

  With Peris in her arms, it didn’t feel like the party was going to suck, or that anyone was going to vote against her. His big brown eyes beamed down into hers, and he lifted her up and squeezed her hard. She’d always felt this close to Peris back in ugly days, playing tricks and growing up together. It was bubbly to feel this way right now.

  All those weeks that Tally had been lost in the wild, all she’d ever wanted was to be back here with Peris, pretty in New Pretty Town. It was totally stupid being unhappy today, or any day. Probably just too much champagne. “Best friends forever,” she whispered to him, as he set her down.

  “Hey, what’s this thing?” Shay said. She was deep in Tally’s closet, poking around for ideas. She held up a shapeless mass of wool.

  “Oh, that.” Tally let her arms fall from around Peris. “That’s my sweater from the Smoke, remember?” The sweater looked strange, not like she remembered. It was messy, and you could see where human hands had knitted the different pieces together. People in the Smoke didn’t have holes in the wall—they had to make their own things, and people, it turned out, weren’t very good at making things.

  “You didn’t recycle it?”

  “No. I think it’s made of weird stuff. Like, the hole can’t use it.”

  Shay held the sweater to her nose and inhaled. “Wow. It still smells like the Smoke. Campfires and that stew we always ate. Remember?”