Pretties

by Scott Westerfeld

  He brightened. “Yes, it’s all about stress, Tally. But remember, she probably didn’t mean it.”

  “Well, I didn’t go all crazy on her.”

  Reassuring smile. “Everyone reacts differently to trauma, Tally. Not everyone’s as tough as you. Instead of getting angry, why don’t we think of this as an opportunity to show Shay your support. You’re old friends, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah. Since we were uglies. Same birthday.”

  “That’s wonderful. Old friends are best at times like these. What was the fight about?”

  Tally shrugged. “I don’t know. Nothing, really.”

  “Can you remember at all?”

  Tally wondered if this room was rigged to polygraph her, and if so, how big a lie she could get away with. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the calories moving through her half-starved body, letting a pretty haze settle over herself.

  “Tally?” he prompted.

  She decided to give Dr. Anders a little bit of the truth. “It was just . . . old stuff.”

  He nodded, folding his hands in satisfaction. Tally wondered if she’d said too much. “From ugly days?” he asked.

  She shook her head, not trusting her voice.

  “How have you and Shay been getting along since that night?”

  “Just fine.”

  He smiled happily, but Tally caught him glancing away into the middle distance—probably at an eyescreen that was invisible to her. Was he checking the city interface? It would know that she and Shay hadn’t pinged each other since the party, and three whole days without any mail between them was pretty unusual. Or was Dr. Anders looking to see if her voice was wavering?

  He gave his invisible data, or whatever it was, a small nod. “Has she seemed in better spirits to you since then?”

  “She’s okay, I guess.” Just a little self-mutilation, crazy chanting, and maybe wanting to start her own very disturbing clique. “I haven’t seen her since this bogus rain started coming down, actually. But me and her are best friends forever.”

  The last words came out wrong, Tally’s voice sounding rough. She coughed a little, which was marked by a deepening of Dr. Anders’s concerned smile. “I’m glad to hear that, Tally. And you’re feeling all right as well, aren’t you?”

  “Bubbly,” she said. “A little hungry, though.”

  “Yes, yes. You and Zane really must eat more. You’re looking a bit thin, and I’m told his blood sugar was terribly low when he came in.”

  “I’ll make sure he has some of those chocolate-chip cookies in the waiting room. They’re awesome.”

  “A wonderful idea. You’re a good friend, Tally.” He stood, offering his hand. “Well, I see that Zane’s all patched up, so I won’t keep you. Thanks for your time, and make sure you let me know if you or any of your friends ever need to talk.”

  “Oh, I will,” she said, giving the doctor her prettiest smile. “This has really been great.”

  • • •

  Outside, the cold rain embraced Tally like an old and unavoidable friend, the discomfort almost a relief after Dr. Anders’s radiant smiles. She told Zane about him on the way home. Although her cuff was bound up again, she spoke softly enough for the wind to tear her words away as they climbed into the gray sky.

  He sighed when she was done. “Sounds like they’re as worried about her as we are.”

  “Yeah. They must have heard our fight the other night. She was screaming at me in a very unpretty way.”

  “Perfect.” His teeth were bared against the cold. It didn’t look like the painkillers they’d given him for his hand were helping Zane’s headache much. His feet shuffled on the board, finding their balance clumsily.

  “I didn’t say anything much. Just that she was drunk and acting up.” Tally allowed herself a thin smile of self-congratulation. This one time, at least, she hadn’t betrayed Shay. She hoped.

  “Of course you didn’t, Tally. Shay might need help, but not from some middle-pretty headshrink. What we have to do is get her out into the wild and give her the real cure. As soon as possible.”

  “Yeah. The pills are a lot better than cutting yourself.” If they don’t wind up giving you brain damage, she didn’t add. Tally had decided not to tell Zane about her resolve to take him to the hospital the next time he had an attack; hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. “So how were your doctors?”

  “The usual. They spent the first hour lecturing me about eating more. When they finally got around to knitting my bones up, I was only unconscious about ten minutes. But other than being skinny, they didn’t seem to notice anything weird about me.”

  “Good.”

  “Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m fine. They didn’t look at my head, after all, just my hand.”

  Tally took a deep breath. “Your headaches are getting worse, aren’t they?”

  “I think it was more hunger and cold than anything else.”

  She shook her head. “I haven’t eaten anything today either, Zane, and you didn’t see me—”

  “Forget about my head, Tally! I’m not any worse or any better. It’s Shay’s arms I’m worried about.” He angled his board closer and lowered his voice. “They’re going to be keeping an eye on her, too, now. If your Dr. Remmy gets a good look at what she’s been doing to herself, all hell will break loose.”

  “Yeah. I can’t argue with that.” Tally visualized the row of scars along Shay’s arms. From a distance, she’d thought they were tattoos, but from close up, anyone would know what they were. If Dr. Anders saw them, Tally doubted very much that he would have a smile appropriate to the occasion. Alarms would go off all over the city, and the wardens’ interest in everyone who’d been involved in the stadium disaster would go way off the scale.

  Tally reached out and brought them to a stop, lowering her voice to just above a whisper. “We don’t have much time, then. He could decide to talk to Shay any day now.”

  Zane took a deep breath. “You’ll have to talk to Shay first. Tell her to lay off the cutting.”

  “Oh. Fun. What if she doesn’t want to?”

  “Tell her we’re about to leave. Tell her we’ll get her the real cure.”

  “Leave? How?”

  “We just go—tonight, if we can. I’ll pack up everything we need, you get the other Crims ready.”

  “What about these?” She was too exhausted to raise her swaddled wrist, but he took her meaning.

  “We’ll get them off. Tonight. There’s a trick I’ve been saving.”

  “What trick, Zane?”

  “I can’t tell you yet. It’ll work, though—it’s just a little risky.”

  Tally frowned. She and Zane had tried every tool they could think of, and nothing had so much as scratched the cuffs. “What is it?”

  “I’ll show you tonight,” he said, his jaw tight.

  Tally swallowed. “Must be more than a little risky.”

  Zane stared at her, his face pale and half-starved, his eyes dull through the goggles. “Give the girl a hand.” He chuckled. “Might need one.”

  Tally had to turn her eyes away from his smile.

  CRUSHER

  The shop shed wasn’t far from the hospital, on the downstream end of New Pretty Town where the two arms of the river rejoined each other. This late at night, the lathes, imaging tables, and injection molds sat unused, the place almost empty. The only light came from the other end of the shed, where a middle pretty was blowing molten glass into shape.

  “It’s freezing in here,” Tally said. She could see the words coiling from her mouth in the soft red glow of work lights. The rain had finally stopped while they were getting the Crims ready to run, but the air was still damp and chill. Even inside the shed, Tally, Fausto, and Zane were huddled in their winter coats.

  “They’ve usually got smelting furnaces going,” Zane said. “And some of these machines put out a ton of heat.” He pointed at the two sides of the shed that were open to the night. “But the ventilation means no smart wa
lls, see?”

  “I see.” Tally pulled her coat tighter around her, reaching into one pocket to turn up its heater.

  Fausto pointed out a machine that looked like a huge press. “Hey, I remember playing with one of those back in ugly school, for industrial design class,” Fausto said. “We made these lunch trays with runners on the bottom, for sliding on the snow.”

  “That’s why I brought you along,” Zane said, leading Tally and Fausto across the concrete floor.

  The bottom part of the machine was a metal table, which seemed to be etched with a million tiny dots. Parallel with the table was suspended an identical expanse of metal.

  “What? You want to use a crusher?” Fausto raised his eyebrows. Zane still hadn’t told them what he was up to, but Tally didn’t like the look of the massive machine.

  Or its name, for that matter.

  Zane put down the champagne bucket he’d brought, sloshing ice water onto the floor. He pulled a memory card from one pocket and shoved it into the crusher’s reader slot. The machine booted up, lights winking around the edge and the floor rumbling powerfully under Tally’s feet.

  A ripple seemed to pass through the table, a wave traveling across the surface as if the metal had suddenly become liquid and alive.

  When the movement subsided, Tally took a closer look at the crusher’s surface. The tiny etched-looking dots were in fact the tips of thin rods, which could be raised up and down to make shapes. She ran her fingers across the table, but the rods were so thin and perfectly aligned, it felt like smooth metal. “What’s it for?”

  “Stamping out stuff,” Zane said. He pushed a button, and the table sprang to life again, a tiny, symmetrical collection of mountains rising up in its center. Tally noticed that identically shaped cavities had appeared in the upper surface of the crusher.

  “Hey, that’s my lunch tray,” Fausto said.

  “Of course. You thought I forgot? Those things were awesome for sledding,” Zane said happily. He pulled a sheet of metal from under the machine and carefully aligned its edges to the table’s.

  “Yeah. I always wondered why they never mass-produced them,” Fausto said.

  “Too bubbly-making,” Zane said. “But I bet some ugly reinvents them every few years. Heads up. I’m going to shoot it.”

  The other two each took a healthy step back.

  Zane grasped two handles at the edge of the table, squeezing both at the same moment. The machine made a rumbling noise for a fraction of a second, then leaped suddenly into motion, the top half slamming down onto the lower with an earsplitting clang. The sound echoed through the shed, and Tally’s ears were still ringing as the crusher’s jaws slowly parted to reveal the sheet of metal.

  “Sweet, isn’t it?” Zane said. He picked up the sheet, whose contours had been reshaped by the impact. It looked like a lunch tray now, with little sections to divide a meal into salad, main, and dessert. Turning it over in his hands, Zane ran a finger down the grooves that marked the back side of the tray. “On good, powdery snow you could go a thousand klicks an hour on these babies.”

  Fausto’s face had turned pale. “It won’t work, Zane.”

  “Why not?”

  “Too many safeties. Even if you could get one of us to—”

  “Are you kidding, Zane?” Tally cried. “You are not sticking your hand in there. That thing’ll take it off!”

  Zane just smiled. “No, it won’t. Like Fausto said: too many safeties.” He pulled the memory card out of the crusher’s reader slot and stuck another in. The table rippled again, leaving a set of sharp ridges at its edge, like a row of teeth. He placed his left wrist alongside the metal jaws. “It’s hard to tell with the glove on, but see where it’ll snip the cuff?”

  “But what if it misses, Zane?” Tally said. She had to fight to keep her voice down. Their cuffs were bound as usual, but she didn’t want the middle pretty at the other end of the shed to hear them.

  “It doesn’t miss. You can stamp out parts for a stopwatch with these things.”

  “It won’t work at all,” Fausto proclaimed. He stuck his own hand under the crusher. “Shoot it.”

  “I know, I know,” Zane said, grasping the handles and squeezing.

  “What?” Tally cried in horror, but the machine didn’t move. A row of yellow lights flashed around its edge, and a tinny industrial voice said, “Clear, please.”

  “It detects humans,” Fausto said. “Body heat.”

  Tally swallowed, her heart pounding in her chest as Fausto took his hand out from under the crusher. “Don’t do that!”

  “And even if you trick it, what’s the point?” Fausto continued. “It’ll only crush the cuff, which will squish your hand.”

  “Not at fifty meters per second. Look here.” Zane leaned over the table, running one finger along the formation of teeth he had programmed. “That edge will cut it, or at least smack it hard enough to kill whatever’s inside. Our cuffs will just be hunks of dead metal after this thing hits them.”

  Fausto leaned in to look closer, and Tally turned away from the sight of them with their heads between the metal jaws. Dead metal. She stared at the glassblower at the other end of the shed. Unaware of their insane conversation, the woman was calmly holding a chunk of glass inside a small, radiant furnace, turning it slowly over the flame.

  Tally walked toward the woman until she was out of earshot of Zane and Fausto, then unwrapped her cuff. “Ping Shay.”

  “Not available. Message?”

  Tally scowled, but said, “Yes. Listen, Shay, I know this is my eighteenth message today, but you’ve got to answer. I’m sorry we were spying on you, but . . .” Tally didn’t know what to add, assuming that the wardens—maybe even Specials—might be listening. She could hardly explain that they were escaping tonight. “But we’re worried about you. Get back to me as soon as you can. We need to talk . . . face-to-face.”

  Tally signed off and rewrapped the scarf around her wrist. Shay, Ho, and Tachs—the Cutters—had pulled a big disappearing act, refusing to answer any pings. Probably Shay was sulking about having her secret ceremony spied on. But hopefully one of the Crims would find them and tell them about tonight’s escape.

  Tally and Zane had spent the afternoon getting everyone ready. The Crims were packed up and positioned around the island, ready to start moving once the signal came from the shop shed that Tally and Zane were free.

  The woman blowing glass had finished heating it up. She pulled the glowing mass from the furnace and began to blow into it through a long tube, making the molten material bubble up into sinuous shapes. Tally reluctantly turned away from the sight and returned to the crusher.

  “But what about the safeties?” Fausto was arguing.

  “I can get rid of my body heat.”

  “How?”

  Zane kicked the champagne bucket. “Thirty seconds in ice water and my hand will be as cold as a chunk of metal.”

  “Yeah, but your hand is not a chunk of metal,” Tally cried. “And neither is mine. That’s the problem.”

  “Look, Tally, I’m not asking you to go first.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not going at all, Zane. Neither are you.”

  “She’s right.” Fausto was staring at the metal teeth rising up from the table, comparing them with their twins jutting down from the top half. “High marks for good design, but sticking your hand in there is crazy. If you’ve miscalculated by one centimeter, the crusher will hit bone. They told us about that in shop class. The shock wave will travel all the way up your arm, shattering everything along the way.”

  “Hey, if it misses, they’ll put me back together. And it won’t miss. I even made a different cast for your hand, Tally,” Zane said, waving another memory card. “Since your cuff’s smaller.”

  “If this goes wrong, they’ll never fix you,” she said quietly. “Not even the city hospital can rebuild a flattened hand.”

  “Not flattened,” Fausto said. “Your bones will be liquifacted, Zane.
That means the shock will melt them.”

  “Listen, Tally,” Zane said, reaching down to fish the bottle out of the champagne bucket. “I didn’t want to do this either. But I had an attack this morning, remember?” He popped the cork.

  “You had a what?” Fausto said.

  Tally shook her head. “We have to find some other way.”

  “There’s no time,” Zane said, taking a swig from the bottle. “So, Fausto, will you help?”

  “Help?” Tally asked.

  Fausto nodded slowly. “It takes two hands to shoot the crusher—another safety feature, so you can’t leave one in there by accident. He needs one of us to pull the triggers.” Fausto crossed his arms. “Forget it.”

  “And I’m not helping you either!” Tally said.

  “Tally.” Zane sighed. “If we don’t leave the city tonight, I might as well stick my head in there. These headaches have been coming every three days or so, and now they’re getting worse. We have to leave.”

  Fausto frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  Zane turned to him. “Something’s wrong with me, Fausto. That’s why we have to go tonight. We think the New Smokies can help me.”

  “Why would you need them? What’s wrong with you?”

  “What’s wrong with me is, I’m cured.”

  “Come again?”

  Zane took a deep breath. “You see, we took these pills. . . .”

  Tally groaned and turned away, realizing that another line was being crossed. First Shay, and now Fausto. Tally wondered how long it would be before all the Crims knew about the cure. Which would only make it more urgent for her and Zane to escape the city, no matter what they had to risk.

  Tally watched the glassblower with growing unhappiness. She could sense Fausto’s disbelief fading as Zane explained what had happened to the two of them over the last month: the pills, the growing bubbliness of the cure, and Zane’s crippling headaches.

  “So Shay was right about you guys!” he said. “That’s why you’re so different now. . . .”

  Shay had been the only one to call Tally on it, but all the Crims must have seen the changes and wondered what had happened. They all wanted the strange new bubbliness that Tally and Zane had. Now that Fausto knew the cure existed, that it was as simple as swallowing a pill, maybe risking a couple of hands in the crusher wouldn’t seem so crazy to him.