day like this, not knowing if her ugly purgatory would ever end.
And she'd promised Peris she'd be with him as soon as possible.
'I'm sorry, Shay,' Tally said quietly.
Then she picked up her interface ring from where it had lain on the bedside table all night, and slipped it on. 'Message to Dr. Cable, or whomever,' she said to it. 'I'll do what you want. Just let me sleep for a while. Message over.'
Tally sighed, and let herself fall back onto the bed. She knew she should spray her scratches again before passing out, but the thought of moving made her whole body ache.
A few dozen scratches wouldn't keep her from sleeping today. Nothing would.
Seconds later, the room spoke. 'Reply from Dr. Cable: A car will be sent for you, arriving in twenty minutes.'
'No,' she mumbled, but realized that it would be useless to argue. Special Circumstances would come, they would wake her up, they would take her.
Tally decided to try for a few minutes of sleep. It would be better than nothing.
But for the next twenty minutes, she never once shut her eyes.
The cruel pretties seemed even more unearthly to exhausted eyes. Tally felt like a mouse in a cage full of hawks, just waiting for one to swoop down and take her. The trip in the hovercar 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 escort made their way down the hall, she tried to pull herself together, 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 hardly seemed as if they would ever close long enough to sleep.
'So, Tally. You've reconsidered.'
'Yes.'
'And you'll answer all our questions now? Honestly and of your own free will?'
Tally snorted. 'You're not giving me a choice.'
Dr. Cable smiled. 'We always have choices, Tally. You've made yours.'
'Great. Thanks. Look, just ask your questions.'
'Certainly. First of all, what on earth happened to your face?'
Tally sighed, one hand touching the scratches. 'Trees.'
'Trees?' Dr. Cable raised an eyebrow. 'Very well. On a more important subject, what did you and Shay talk about the last time you saw her?'
Tally closed her eyes. This was it, the moment when she would break her vow to Shay.
But a small voice in her exhausted brain reminded her that she was also keeping a promise.
Now she could finally join Peris.
'She talked about going away. Running away with someone called David.'
'Ah, yes, the mysterious David.' Dr. Cable leaned back. 'And did she say where she and David were going?'
'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 pulled Shay's crumpled note from her pocket. 'But she left me these directions.'
Dr. Cable didn't even look at the note. Instead, she pushed a piece of paper from her side of the desk over to Tally's. Through bleary eyes, Tally saw that it was a 3-D copy of the note, perfect down to the slight incisions of Shay's labored penmanship on the paper.
'We took the liberty of making a copy of that the first time you were here.'
Tally glared at Dr. Cable, realizing she'd been duped. 'Then why do you need me? I don't know anything more than 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… to be pretty!' A lump rose in her throat, but Tally decided that under no circumstances-special or not-was she going to cry in front of Dr. Cable.
'I'm afraid that we find the instructions on the note rather cryptic, Tally.'
'You and me both.'
Dr. Cable's hawk-eyes narrowed. 'They seem to be designed to be read by someone who knows Shay quite well. By you, perhaps.'
'Yeah, well, I get some of it. But after the first couple of lines, I'm lost.'
'I'm sure it's very difficult. Especially after a long night of…trees. I still think you can help us, however.'
Dr. Cable opened a small briefcase on the desk between them. Tally's tired brain struggled to make sense of the objects in the case. A firestarter, a crumpled sleeping bag…
'Hey, that's like the survival stuff that Shay had.'
'That's right, Tally. These ranger kits go missing every so often. Usually just about the same time that one of our uglies disappears.'
'Well, mystery solved. Shay was all ready to travel to the Smoke with a bunch of that stuff.'
'What else did she have?'
Tally shrugged. 'A hoverboard. A special one, with solar.'
'Of course a hoverboard. What is it about those things and miscreants? And what did Shay plan to eat, do you suppose?'
'She had food in packets. Dehydrated.'
'Like this?' Dr. Cable produced a silvery food pack.
'Yeah. She had enough for four weeks.' Tally took a deep breath. 'Two weeks, if I'd gone along.
More than enough, she said.'
'Two weeks? Not so very far.' Dr. Cable pulled a black knapsack from beside her desk and started to pack the various 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 if you're…properly motivated.'
'But I already told you everything you wanted to know. I gave you the note. You promised!'
Dr. Cable shook her head. 'My promise, Tally, was that you wouldn't be pretty until you helped us to the very best of your ability. I have every confidence that this is within your ability.'
'But why me?'
'Listen carefully, Tally. Do you really think that this is the 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 away from 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 I supposed 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 full of 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 her face. 'This isn't very complicated, Tally. You have had
