who wanted to learn. But in the two weeks after his father's death, Tally found herself missing the days when it had been just the two of them.
Twenty days after the rescue, Maddy announced that she had found a cure.
'Shay, I want to explain this to you carefully.'
'Sure, Maddy.'
'When you had the operation, they did something to your brain.'
Shay smiled. 'Yeah, right.' She looked across at Tally, wearing a familiar expression.
'That's what Tally keeps telling me. But you guys don't understand.'
Maddy folded her hands. 'What do you mean?'
'I like the way I look,' Shay insisted. 'I'm happier in this body. You want to talk about brain damage?
Look at you all, running around these ruins playing commando. You're all full of schemes and rebellions, crazy with fear and paranoia, even jealousy.' Her eyes skipped back and forth between Tally and Maddy. 'That's what being ugly does.'
'And how do you feel, Shay?' Maddy asked calmly.
'I feel bubbly. It's nice not being all raging with hormones. Of course, it kind of sucks being out here instead of in the city.'
'No one's keeping you here, Shay. Why haven't you left?'
Shay shrugged. 'I don't know…. I'm worried about you guys, I guess. It's dangerous out here, and messing with Specials isn't a good idea. You should know that by now, Maddy.'
Tally took a sharp breath, but Maddy's expression didn't change. 'And you're going to protect us from them?' she asked calmly.
Shay shrugged. 'I just feel bad about Tally. If I hadn't told her about the Smoke, she'd be pretty right now instead of living in this dump. And I figure eventually she'll decide to grow up. We'll go back together.'
'You don't seem to want to decide for yourself.'
'Decide what?' Shay rolled her eyes, looking at Tally to confirm what a bore this was.
The two of them had plowed through this conversation a dozen times before, until Tally had realized there was no convincing Shay that her personality had changed. To Shay, her new attitude was simply the result of growing up, moving on, leaving all the overheated emotions of ugliness behind.
'You weren't always this way, Shay,' David said.
'No, I used to be ugly.'
Maddy smiled gently. 'These pills won't change the way you look. They'll only affect your brain, undoing what Dr. Cable did to the way your mind works. Then you can decide for yourself how you want to look.'
'Decide? After you've messed with my brain?'
'Shay!' Tally said, forgetting her promise to remain silent. 'We're not the ones messing with your brain!'
'Tally,' David said softly.
'That's right, I'm the one who's crazy.' Shay's voice took on the tone of her daily round of complaining.
'Not you guys, who live in a broken-down building on the edge of a dead city, slowly turning into freaks when you could be beautiful. Yeah, I'm crazy all right…for trying to help you!'
Tally sat back and crossed her arms, silenced by Shay's words. Whenever they had this conversation, reality became a little unhinged, as if she and the other New Smokies might really be the insane ones. It felt like Tally's horrible first days in the Smoke, when she hadn't known whose side she was on.
'How are you helping us, Shay?' Maddy asked calmly.
'I'm trying to get you to understand.'
'Just like you did when Dr. Cable used to bring you by my cell?'
Shay's eyes narrowed, confusion clouding her face, as if her memories of the underground prison didn't fit in with the rest of her pretty worldview.
'I know Dr. C was horrible to you,' she said. 'The Specials are psychos-just look at them. But that doesn't mean you have to spend your whole lives running away. That's what I'm saying. Once you turn, Specials won't mess with you.'
'Why not?'
'Because you won't make trouble anymore.'
'Why not?'
'Because you'll be happy!' Shay took a couple of deep breaths, and her usual calm returned. She smiled, beautiful again. 'Like me.'
Maddy picked up the pills on the table in front of her. 'You won't take these willingly?'
'No way. You said they're not even safe.'
'I said there was a small chance something could go wrong.'
Shay laughed. 'You must think I'm nuts. And even if those pills work, look what they're supposed to do.
From what I can tell, 'cured' means being a jealous, self-important, whiny little ugly-brain.
It means thinking you've got all the answers.' She crossed her arms. 'In a lot of ways, you and Dr. Cable are alike. You're both convinced you've personally got to change the world. Well, I don't need that. And I don't need those.'
'Okay, then.' Maddy picked up the pills and put them in her pocket. 'That's all I have to say.'
'What do you mean?' Tally asked.
David squeezed her hand. 'That's all we can do, Tally.'
'What? You said we could cure her.'
Maddy shook her head. 'Only if she wants to be cured. These are experimental, Tally. We can't give them to someone against her will. Not when we don't know if they'll work.'
'But her mind…she's got the lesions!'
'Hello,' Shay called. 'She is sitting right here.'
'Sorry, Shay,' Maddy said mildly. 'Tally?'
Maddy pulled aside the Mylar barrier, stepping out onto what the New Smokies called the balcony. It was really just part of the top floor of the building, where the roof had entirely collapsed, leaving sweeping views of the ruins.
Tally followed. Behind her, Shay was already talking about what was for dinner. David came out a moment later.
'So, we give her the pills secretly, right?' Tally whispered.
'No,' Maddy said firmly. 'We can't. I'm not going to do medical experiments on unwilling subjects.'
'Medical experiments?' Tally swallowed.
David took her hand. 'You can't know for sure how something like this will work. It's only a one-percent chance, but it could screw up her brain forever.'
'It's already screwed up.'
'But she's happy, Tally.' David shook his head. 'And she can make decisions for herself.'
Tally pulled her hand away, staring out over the city. A sparkler was already showing on the tall spire, uglies come to gossip and trade. 'Why did we even have to ask? They didn't get her permission when they did this to her!'
'That's the difference between us and them,' Maddy said. 'After Az and I found out what the operation really meant, we realized we'd been party to something horrible. People had had their minds changed without their knowledge. As doctors, we took an ancient oath never to do anything like that.'
Tally looked into Maddy's face. 'But if you weren't going to help Shay, why did you bother finding a cure?'
'If we knew the treatment would work safely, then we could give it to Shay and see how she felt about it later. But to test it, we need a willing subject.'
'Where are we ever going to find one? Anyone who's pretty is going to say no.'
'Maybe for right now, Tally. But if we keep making inroads into the city, we might find a pretty who wants
