'That's a good question. But whatever it is, it's wrong with all of us.'
'Who? The Crims?'
He shook his head, glancing up at the party spires that loomed over them. 'Not just us. Everyone. At least, everyone here in New Pretty Town. Most people won't even talk about when they were uglies. They say they don't want to discuss boring kid stuff.'
Tally nodded. She had figured that out pretty quickly about New Pretty Town — outside the Crims, talking about ugly days was totally fashion-missing.
'But when you push them,' Zane continued, 'it turns out most of them can't remember.'
Tally frowned. 'But us Crims always talk about the old days.'
'We were all troublemakers,' Zane said. 'So we have exciting stuff stored in our heads. But you have to keep telling those stories, listening to one another, and breaking the rules. You have to stay bubbly, or you'll gradually forget everything from back then. Permanently.'
Returning his powerful gaze, she suddenly realized something. 'That's what the Crims are for, isn't it?'
He nodded. 'That's right, Tally — to keep from forgetting, and to help me figure out what's wrong with us.'
'How did you…what makes you so different?'
'Another good question. Maybe I was just born this way, or maybe it's because I made myself a promise after I chickened out that night last spring: One day I'm going to leave the city, pretty or not.' Zane's voice faded on the last words, and he breathed out through his teeth. 'It just turned out to be a lot harder than I thought. Things were getting seriously boring there for a while, and I was starting to forget.' He brightened. 'But then you showed up, with your screwy stories that don't make sense. Things are definitely bubbly now.'
'I guess they are.' Tally looked down at her hand in his. 'One more question, Zane-la?'
'Sure.' He smiled. 'I like your questions.'
Tally looked away, a little embarrassed. 'When you kissed me just then, was that to help you stay bubbly and to make me remember better? Or was it…' She trailed off, looking nervously into his eyes.
Zane grinned. 'What do you think?' But he didn't give her a chance to answer. He took her shoulders and pulled her close again, and kissed her deeper this time, the warmth of his lips mixing with the strength of his hands on her, the taste of coffee and the smell of his hair.
When it was done, Tally leaned back, breathing hard because the kiss had been totally oxygen-missing. But it had made her bubbly, more than the calorie-purging pills or even jumping off the party spire the night before. And she remembered another thing that should have been totally obvious to mention before now, but somehow hadn't been.
And it was going to make Zane totally happy.
'Last night,' Tally said, 'Croy told me they had something for me, but he didn't say what. He was going to leave it here in New Pretty Town, hidden so the wardens wouldn't find it.'
'Something from the New Smoke?' His eyes grew wide. 'Where?'
'Valentino 317.'
'Wait a second,' Zane said. He pulled off her interface ring and then his own, and led her deeper into the pleasure garden. 'Better lose these,' he said. 'Don't want them following.'
'Oh, right.' Tally remembered ugly days, how easy it was to trick the dorm minders. 'The wardens last night— they said they were going to keep an eye on me.'
Zane chuckled. 'They're always keeping an eye on me.'
He threaded the rings onto two tall reeds, which bowed under the weight of the metal bands. 'The wind will move them every now and then,' he explained. 'That way, it won't look like we took them off.'
'But won't it look weird? Us staying in one place for so long?'
'It is a pleasure garden.' Zane laughed. 'I've spent my share of time in here.'
A nasty ping went through Tally, but she didn't let it show. 'What about finding them again?'
'I know this place. Quit worrying.'
'Oh. Sorry.'
He turned to her and laughed. 'Nothing to be sorry for. This is the best breakfast I've had in ages.'
They left the rings and headed down toward the river and Valentino Mansion, Tally wondering what they would discover in Room 317. In most mansions, each room had its own name — Tally's room in Komachi was called Etcetera; Shay's was Bluesky — but Valentino was so old that the rooms had numbers. Valentinos always made a big deal out of stuff like that, sticking to the ancient traditions of their crumbling home.
'Tricky place to hide it,' Zane said as they approached the sprawling mansion. 'Easier to keep secrets where the walls don't talk.'
'That's probably why they hacked a Valentino bash and not one in some other mansion,' Tally said.
'Except I had to go and screw everything up,' Zane said.
Tally looked at him. 'You?'
'We started off down in the stone mansion, but when we couldn't find you guys anywhere, I said we should go up into the new party spire so the smart walls would find you.'
'We had the same idea,' Tally said.
Zane shook his head. 'Yeah, well, if we'd all stayed down in Valentino, the Specials wouldn't have spotted Croy so fast. He would have had time to talk to you.'
'So they can listen through the walls?'
'Yeah.' Zane grinned. 'Why do you think I suggested a picnic on this bogusly cold day.'
Tally nodded, thinking it through. The city interface brought you pings, answered your questions, reminded you of appointments, even turned the lights on and off in your room. If Special Circumstances wanted to watch you, they'd know everything you did and half of what you were thinking. She remembered talking to Croy up in the spire, her interface ring on her finger, the walls catching every word…'Do they watch everybody?'
'No, they couldn't, and most people aren't worth watching. But some of us get special treatment. As in Special Circumstances.'
Tally swore. The Specials had shown up so quickly last night. She'd only had a few minutes with Croy, as if they'd been waiting close by. Maybe they'd already spotted that the party had been hacked. Or maybe they were never very far away from Tally Youngblood…
She looked into the trees. Shadows shifted in the wind, and she imagined gray shapes flitting among them. 'I don't think last night was because of you, Zane. It was my fault.'
'How do you mean?'
'It's always my fault.'
'That's bogus, Tally,' Zane said softly. 'There's nothing wrong with being special.'
His voice trailed off as they passed through the main arch of Valentino Mansion. Within the cool stone walls, it was as silent as a tomb.
'The party was still going when we left,' Zane whispered. 'They probably all just went to bed.'
Tally nodded. There weren't even any maintenance robots at work yet. Bits of torn costumes littered the hallways. Spilled drinks filled the air with a sickly sweet perfume, and the floor was sticky underfoot. The glamour of the party had been stripped away like bubbliness turned into a hangover.
Her finger felt naked without an interface ring, bringing back memories of sneaking across the river as an ugly, the terror of being caught. But fear kept her bubbly her senses sharp enough to hear stray party rubbish shifting in the drafty corridors, to separate the raisiny scent of spilled champagne from the stale funk of beer. Besides their own footsteps, the mansion was silent.
'Whoever lives in 317 is going to be asleep,' Tally whispered.
'Then we'll wake them up,' Zane said softly, eyes flashing in the semidarkness.
The ground-floor rooms were all numbered in the one hundreds, so they looked for a way up. New elevators had been added to the mansion at some point, but without interface rings, the doors wouldn't open for them. A set of stone stairs brought Tally and Zane to the third floor, across from 301. The numbers counted up as they walked down the hall, odds on one side and evens on the other. Zane squeezed her hand when they reached 315.
But the next room was numbered 319.
