INFILTRATOR

The cruel pretties seemed even more unearthly to exhaustedeyes. Tally felt like a mouse in a cage full of hawks, justwaiting for one to swoop down and take her. The trip in thehovercar had been even more sickening this time.
She focused on the nausea eating away at her stomach,trying to forget why she was here. As Tally and her escortmade their way down the hall, she tried to pull herselftogether, tucking in her shirt and tugging at her hair.
Dr. Cable certainly didn’t look like she’d just gotten up.
Tally tried without success to imagine what a tousled Dr.
Cable would look like. Her darting, metal-gray eyes hardlyseemed as if they would ever close long enough to sleep.
“So, Tally. You’ve reconsidered.”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll answer all our questions now? Honestlyand of your own free will?”
Tally snorted. “You’re not giving me a choice.”
Dr. Cable smiled. “We always have choices, Tally. You’vemade yours.”
“Great. Thanks. Look, just ask your questions.”
“Certainly. First of all, what on earth happened to yourface?”
Tally sighed, one hand touching the scratches. “Trees.”
“Trees?” Dr. Cable raised an eyebrow. “Very well. On amore important subject, what did you and Shay talk aboutthe last time you saw her?”
Tally closed her eyes. This was it, the moment whenshe would break her vow to Shay. But a small voice in herexhausted brain reminded her that she was also keeping apromise. Now she could finally join Peris.
“She talked about going away. Running away withsomeone called David.”
“Ah, yes, the mysterious David.” Dr. Cable leanedback. “And did she say where she and David weregoing?”
“A place called the Smoke. Like a city, only smaller.
And no one was in charge there, and no one was pretty.”
“And did she say where it was?”
“No, she didn’t, not really.” Tally sighed and pulledShay’s crumpled note from her pocket. “But she left methese directions.”
Dr. Cable didn’t even look at the note. Instead, shepushed a piece of paper from her side of the desk over toTally’s. Through bleary eyes, Tally saw that it was a 3-Dcopy of the note, perfect down to the slight incisions ofShay’s labored penmanship on the paper.
130 Scott Westerfeld“We took the liberty of making a copy of that the firsttime you were here.”
Tally glared at Dr. Cable, realizing she’d been duped.
“Then why do you need me? I don’t know anything morethan what I just said. I didn’t ask her to tell me any more.
And I didn’t go with her, because I just . . . wanted . . . tobe pretty!” A lump rose in her throat, but Tally decided thatunder no circumstances—special or not—was she going tocry in front of Dr. Cable.
“I’m afraid that we find the instructions on the noterather cryptic, Tally.”
“You and me both.”
Dr. Cable’s hawk-eyes narrowed. “They seem to bedesigned to be read by someone who knows Shay quitewell. By you, perhaps.”
“Yeah, well, I get some of it. But after the first couple oflines, I’m lost.”
“I’m sure it’s very difficult. Especially after a long nightof . . . trees. I still think you can help us, however.”
Dr. Cable opened a small briefcase on the deskbetween them. Tally’s tired brain struggled to makesense of the objects in the case. A firestarter, a crumpledsleeping bag . . .
“Hey, that’s like the survival stuff that Shay had.”
“That’s right, Tally. These ranger kits go missing everyso often. Usually just about the same time that one of ouruglies disappears.”
UGLIES 131“Well, mystery solved. Shay was all ready to travel tothe Smoke with a bunch of that stuff.”
“What else did she have?”
Tally shrugged. “A hoverboard. A special one, withsolar.”
“Of course a hoverboard. What is it about those thingsand miscreants? And what did Shay plan to eat, do yousuppose?”
“She had food in packets. Dehydrated.”
“Like this?” Dr. Cable produced a silvery food pack.
“Yeah. She had enough for four weeks.” Tally took adeep breath. “Two weeks, if I’d gone along. More thanenough, she said.”
“Two weeks? Not so very far.” Dr. Cable pulled a blackknapsack from beside her desk and started to pack thevarious objects into it. “You might just make it.”
“Make it? Make what?”
“The trip. To the Smoke.”
“Me?”
“Tally, only you can understand these directions.”
“I told you: I don’t know what they mean!”
“But you will, once you’re on the journey. And ifyou’re . . . properly motivated.”
“But I already told you everything you wanted toknow. I gave you the note. You promised!”
Dr. Cable shook her head. “My promise, Tally, was thatyou wouldn’t be pretty until you helped us to the very best132 Scott Westerfeldof your ability. I have every confidence that this is withinyour ability.”
“But why me?”
“Listen carefully, Tally. Do you really think that this isthe first time we’ve been told about David? Or the Smoke?
Or found some scrawled directions about how to get there?”
Tally flinched at the razor-blade voice, turning awayfrom the anger on the woman’s cruel face. “I don’t know.”
“We’ve seen all this before. But whenever we go ourselves,we find nothing. Smoke, indeed.”
The lump had return to Tally’s throat. “So how am Isupposed to find anything?”
Dr. Cable pulled the copy of Shay’s note toward herself.
“This last line, where it says to ‘wait on the bald head,’
clearly refers to a rendezvous point. You go there, you wait.
Sooner or later, they’ll pick you up. If I send a hovercar fullof Specials, your friends will probably be a bit suspicious.”
“You mean, you want me to go alone?”
Dr. Cable took a deep breath, a disgusted look on herface. “This isn’t very complicated, Tally. You have had achange of heart. You have decided to run away, followingyour friend Shay. Just another ugly escaping the tyranny ofbeauty.”
Tally looked up at the cruel face through a prism ofgathering tears. “And then what?”
Dr. Cable pulled another object from the briefcase, anecklace with a little heart pendant. She pressed on itsUGLIES 133sides, and the heart clicked open. “Look inside.”
Tally held the tiny heart up to her eye. “I can’t see anything. . . ow!”
The pendant had flashed, blinding her for a moment.
The heart made a little beep.
“The finder will only respond to your eye-print, Tally.
Once it’s activated, we’ll be there within a few hours. Wecan travel very quickly.” Cable dropped the necklace ontothe desk. “But don’t activate it until you’re in the Smoke.
This has taken us some time to set up. I want the real thing,Tally.”
Tally blinked away the afterimage of the flash, trying toforce her exhausted brain to think. She realized now thatthis had never been simply a matter of answering questions.
They had always wanted her as a spy, an infiltrator. Shewondered just how long this had been planned. How manytimes had Special Circumstances tried to get an ugly towork for them before? “I can’t do this.”
“You can, Tally. You must. Think of it as an adventure.”
“Please. I’ve never even spent the whole night outsidethe city. Not alone.”
Dr. Cable ignored the sob that had cut through Tally’swords. “If you don’t agree right now, I’ll find someone else.
And you’ll be ugly forever.”
Tally looked up, trying to see through the tears thatwere flowing freely now, to peer past Dr. Cable’s cruel maskand find the truth. It was there in her dull, metal-gray eyes,134 Scott Westerfelda cold, terrible surety unlike anything a normal pretty couldever convey. Tally realized that the woman meant what shesaid.
Either Tally infiltrated the Smoke and betrayed Shay, orshe’d be an ugly for life.
“I have to think.”
“Your story will be that you ran away the night beforeyour birthday,” Dr. Cable said. “That means you’ve alreadygot to make up for four lost days. Any more delays, andthey won’t believe you. They’ll guess what happened. Sodecide now.”
“I can’t. I’m too tired.”
Dr. Cable pointed at the wallscreen, and an imageappeared. Like a mirror, but in close-up, it showed Tally asshe looked right now: puffy-eyed and disheveled, exhaustionand red scratches marking her face, her hair stickingout in all directions, and her expression turning horrified asshe beheld her own appearance.
“That’s you, Tally. Forever.”
“Turn it off . . .”
“Decide.”
“Okay, I’ll do it. Turn it off.”
The wallscreen went dark.