FACING THE FUTURE

“Here’s option two.” Tally touched her interface ring, andthe wallscreen changed.
This Tally was sleek, with ultrahigh cheekbones, deepgreen catlike eyes, and a wide mouth that curled into aknowing smile.
“That’s, uh, pretty different.”
“Yeah. I doubt it’s even legal.” Tally tweaked the eyeshapeparameters, pulling the arch of the eyebrows downalmost to normal. Some cities allowed exotic operations—for new pretties only—but the authorities here were notoriouslyconservative. She doubted a doctor would give thismorpho a second glance, but it was fun to push the softwareto its limits. “You think I look too scary?”
“No. You look like a real pussycat.” Shay giggled.
“Unfortunately, I mean that in the literal, dead-mouse-eatingsense.”
“Okay, moving right along.”
The next Tally was a much more standard morphologicalmodel, with almond-shaped brown eyes, straightblack hair with long bangs, the dark lips set to maximumfullness.
“Pretty generic, Tally.”
“Oh, come on! I worked on this one for a long time. Ithink I’d look great this way. There’s a whole Cleopatrathing going on.”
“You know,” Shay said, “I read that the real Cleopatrawasn’t even that great-looking. She seduced everyone withhow clever she was.”
“Yeah, right. And you’ve seen a picture of her?”
“They didn’t have cameras back then, Squint.”
“Duh. So how do you know she was ugly?”
“Because that’s what historians wrote at the time.”
Tally shrugged. “She was probably a classic pretty andthey didn’t even know it. Back then, they had weird ideasabout beauty. They didn’t know about biology.”
“Lucky them.” Shay stared out the window.
“So, if you think all my faces are so crappy, why don’tyou show me some of yours?” Tally cleared the wallscreenand leaned back on the bed.
“I can’t.”
“You can dish it out, but you can’t take it, huh?”
“No, I mean I just can’t. I never made one.”
Tally’s jaw dropped. Everyone made morphos, even littlies,too young for their facial structure to have set. It wasa great waste of a day, figuring out all the different ways youcould look when you finally became pretty.
40 Scott Westerfeld“Not even one?”
“Maybe when I was little. But my friends and I stoppeddoing that kind of stuff a long time ago.”
“Well.” Tally sat up. “We should fix that right now.”
“I’d rather go hoverboarding.” Shay tugged anxiouslyunder her shirt. Tally figured that Shay slept with her bellysensor on, hoverboarding in her dreams.
“Later, Shay. I can’t believe you don’t have a singlemorph. Please.”
“It’s stupid. The doctors pretty much do what theywant, no matter what you tell them.”
“I know, but it’s fun.”
Shay made a big point of rolling her eyes, but finallynodded. She dragged herself off the bed and plopped downin front of the wallscreen, pulling her hair back from her face.
Tally snorted. “So you have done this before.”
“Like I said, when I was a littlie.”
“Sure.” Tally turned her interface ring to bring up amenu on the wallscreen, and blinked her way through a setof eyemouse choices. The screen’s camera flickered withlaser light, and a green grid sprang up on Shay’s face, a fieldof tiny squares imposed across the shape of her cheekbones,nose, lips, and forehead.
Seconds later, two faces appeared on the screen. Both ofthem were Shay, but there were obvious differences: Onelooked wild, slightly angry; the other had a slightly distantexpression, like someone having a daydream.
UGLIES 41“It’s weird how that works, isn’t it?” Tally said. “Liketwo different people.”
Shay nodded. “Creepy.”
Ugly faces were always asymmetrical; neither halflooked exactly like the other. So the first thing the morphosoftware did was take each side of your face and double it,like holding a mirror right down the middle, creating twoexamples of perfect symmetry. Already, both of the symmetricalShays looked better than the original.
“So, Shay, which do you think is your good side?”
“Why do I have to be symmetrical? I’d rather have aface with two different sides.”
Tally groaned. “That’s a sign of childhood stress. No onewants to look at that.”
“Gee, I wouldn’t want to look stressed,” Shay snorted,and pointed at the wilder-looking face. “Okay, whatever.
The right one’s better, don’t you think?”
“I hate my right side. I always start with the left.”
“Yeah, well, I happen to like my right side. Lookstougher.”
“Okay. You’re the boss.”
Tally blinked, and the right-side face filled the screen.
“First, the basics.” The software took over: The eyesgradually grew, reducing the size of the nose between them,Shay’s cheekbones moved upward, and her lips became atiny bit fuller (they were already almost pretty-sized). Everyblemish disappeared, her skin turning flawlessly smooth.
42 Scott WesterfeldThe skull moved subtly under the features, the angle of herforehead tilting back, her chin becoming more defined, herjaw stronger.
When it was done, Tally whistled. “Wow, that’s prettygood already.”
“Great,” Shay groaned. “I totally look like every othernew pretty in the world.”
“Well, sure, we just got started. How about some hairon you?” Tally blinked through menus quickly, picking astyle at random.
When the wallscreen changed, Shay fell over on thefloor in a fit of giggles. The high hairdo towered over herthin face like dunce cap, the white-blond hair utterly incongruouswith her olive skin.
Tally could hardly manage to speak through her ownlaughter. “Okay, maybe not that.” She flipped through morestyles, settling on basic hair, dark and short. “Let’s get theface right first.”
She tweaked the eyebrows, making their arch moredramatic, and added roundness to the cheeks. Shay wasstill too skinny, even after the morpho software had pulledher toward the average.
“And maybe a bit lighter?” Tally took the shade of theskin closer to baseline.
“Hey, Squint,” Shay said. “Whose face is this, anyway?”
“Just playing,” Tally said. “You want to take a shot?”
“No, I want to go hoverboarding.”
UGLIES 43“Sure, great. But first let’s get this right.”
“What do you mean ‘get it right,’ Tally? Maybe I thinkmy face is already right!”
“Yeah, it’s great.” Tally rolled her eyes. “For an ugly.”
Shay scowled. “What, can’t you stand me? Do you needto get some picture into your head so you can imagine itinstead of my face?”
“Shay! Come on. It’s just for fun.”
“Making ourselves feel ugly is not fun.”
“We are ugly!”
“This whole game is just designed to make us hateourselves.”
Tally groaned and flopped back onto her bed, glaringup at the ceiling. Shay could be so weird sometimes. Shealways had a chip on her shoulder about the operation, likesomeone was making her turn sixteen. “Right, and thingswere so great back when everyone was ugly. Or did youmiss that day in school?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Shay recited. “Everyone judgedeveryone else based on their appearance. People who weretaller got better jobs, and people even voted for some politiciansjust because they weren’t quite as ugly as everybodyelse. Blah, blah, blah.”
“Yeah, and people killed one another over stuff likehaving different skin color.” Tally shook her head. Nomatter how many times they repeated it at school, she’dnever really quite believed that one. “So what if people look44 Scott Westerfeldmore alike now? It’s the only way to make people equal.”
“How about making them smarter?”
Tally laughed. “Fat chance. Anyway, it’s just to see whatyou and I will look like in only . . . two months and fifteendays.”
“Can’t we just wait until then?”
Tally closed her eyes, sighing. “Sometimes I don’t thinkI can.”
“Well, tough luck.” She felt Shay’s weight on the bedand a light punch on her arm. “Hey, might as well make thebest of it. Can we go hoverboarding now? Please?”
Tally opened her eyes and saw that her friend was smiling.
“Okay: hoverboard.” She sat up and glanced at thescreen. Even without much work, Shay’s face was alreadywelcoming, vulnerable, healthy . . . pretty. “Don’t you thinkyou’re beautiful?”
Shay didn’t look, just shrugged. “That’s not me. It’ssome committee’s idea of me.”
Tally smiled and hugged her.
“It will be you, though. Really you. Soon.”