'It's okay,' she said. 'They'll help you.'
Zane swallowed, and Tally saw his hands trembling, the last of his brave front crumbling now that their captors had arrived.
'I'll make sure you're cured, one way or another,' she said.
'A medical team is coming,' the Special said, and Tally smiled prettily at him. The city doctors might mistake Zane's condition for some kind of brain disease, or maybe they would figure out that someone had attempted a cure for the lesions, but they would never recognize how Tally had transformed herself. She could pretend that she'd just come along for the ride, as Maddy had put it. Tally was safe from the operation now.
Maybe Zane could be cured again without more pills. Maybe everyone in the city could be changed. After their balloon escape and another 'rescue' by the Specials, Tally and Zane would be even more famous. They could start something huge, something the Specials couldn't stop.
A razor-edged voice came through the shadows, and Tally flinched.
'I thought I might find you here, Tally.' Dr. Cable came into the light, stretching her fingers toward the fire as though she'd stepped inside to get warm.
'Hi, Dr. Cable. Can you help my friend?'
The woman's wolflike smile gleamed in the dark. 'Toothache?'
'Something worse.' Tally shook her head. 'He can't move, can hardly talk. Something's wrong with him.'
More Specials streamed into the observatory, including three carrying a stretcher, wearing blue silk instead of gray. They pushed Tally out of the way and laid the litter down next to Zane. He closed his eyes.
'Don't worry,' Dr. Cable said. 'He'll be fine. We know all about his condition from your little trip to the hospital. It seems that someone slipped Zane some brain nanos. Very bad for his pretty head.'
'You knew he was sick?' Tally stood up. 'Why didn't you fix him?'
Dr. Cable patted her shoulder. 'We brought the nanos to a halt. But the little implant in his tooth was programmed to give him headaches — false symptoms to keep you motivated.'
'You were playing with us …,' Tally said, watching as the Specials took Zane away.
Dr. Cable was looking around the observatory. 'I wanted to see what you were up to and where you would go. I thought you might lead us to those responsible for young Zanes illness.' She frowned. 'I was going to wait a bit longer to activate the tracker, but after you were so rude to my good friend Dr. Valen this morning, I thought we should come out and bring you home. You certainly know how to cause trouble.'
Tally stayed silent, her mind racing. The tracker in Zane's tooth had been activated remotely, but not until the other scientists had discovered Dr. Valen. Once again, Tally had brought Specials along with her.
'We wanted a car to get away,' she said, trying to sound pretty. 'But we got lost.'
'Yes, we found it in the ruins. But I don't think you made it all the way here on foot. Who helped you, Tally?'
She shook her head. 'No one.'
A Special in gray silk appeared beside Cable and gave a quick report. His razored voice made Tally's flesh crawl, but she couldn't make out any of the muttered words.
'Send the youngsters after them,' Dr. Cable ordered, then turned to Tally. 'No one, you say? What about the cooking fires and hunting snares and latrines? Quite a few people were camped here, it seems, and they left not long ago.' She shook her head. 'Pity we didn't get here quicker.'
'You won't catch them,' Tally said with a pretty smile.
'Won't we?' Dr. Cable's teeth gleamed red in the firelight. 'We've got a few new tricks ourselves, Tally.'
The doctor turned and strode toward the entrance. When Tally tried to follow, a Special took her shoulder in a grip of iron and sat her down by the fire. Shouted orders and the sounds of more hovercars landing filtered into the dome, but Tally gave up trying to see what was going on through the entrance, and stared at the flames unhappily.
Now that Zane had been taken away, Tally only felt defeated. She'd been played perfectly by Dr. Cable again, tricked into finding the New Smoke, almost betraying everyone one more time. And after her last words, David probably hated her now.
But at least Fausto and the other Crims had escaped the city, hopefully for good. They and the New Smokies had the benefit of a few minutes' head start. They couldn't outrun the Specials' cars in a straight line, but their hoverboards were more nimble. Without Zane's tracker to give them away, they could simply disappear into the surrounding forest. Tally and Zane's rebellion had swelled the ranks of the New Smokies by a couple of dozen members. And now that the cure had been tested, they could bring it to the city, and to other cities, and eventually everyone would be free.
Maybe the city hadn't won, this time.
And being caught might be the best thing for Zane. The city doctors would be better able to treat him than a band of outlaws on the run. Tally focused her mind on how she would help him recover, making him bubbly all over again if she had to.
Maybe she would start with a kiss…
An hour or so after the Specials had first arrived, the fire had burned low, and Tally began to feel the cold again. As she turned up her jacket's heater, a shadow moved in the red shaft of sunset that slanted through the dome's opening.
Tally started. It was someone coming down on a hover-board. Was it David returning to save her? She shook her head. Maddy would never let him.
'We got a couple of them,' a harsh voice called from the board. The gray silk of Special uniforms fluttered in the gloom — two more figures descending through the crack in the dome. The hoverboards were longer than normal, with lifting fans built into their front and back ends. Their rotors stirred the embers of the fire.
So this was their new trick, Tally thought. Specials on hoverboards, perfect for tracking the New Smokies. She wondered who they'd caught.
'Uglies or pretties?' Dr. Cable called. Tally looked up and saw that the doctor had rejoined her by the fire.
'Just a couple of the Crims. The uglies all got away,' came the answer. Tally realized that beneath its razor sharpness, she recognized the sound of the Special's voice.
'Oh, no,' she said softly.
'Oh, yes, Tally-wa.' The figure hopped off her board and strode into the firelight. 'New surge! Do you like it?'
It was Shay. She was Special.
'Dr. C let me get more tattoos. Aren't they totally dizzying?'
Tally looked at her old friend, awestruck by the transformation. The spinning lines of flash tattoos covered her, as if Shay's skin were wrapped in a pulsing black net. Her face was lean and cruel, her upper teeth filed down to sharp, triangular points. She was taller, with hard new muscles in her bare arms. The line of the scars where she had cut herself stood out prominently, outlined with swirling tattoos. Shay's eyes flashed in the firelight like a predator's, shifting between red and violet as the flames danced.
She was still pretty, of course, but her cruel, inhuman grace sent shivers through Tally, like watching a colorful spider traverse its web.
Behind her, the other hoverboards descended. Ho and Tachs, Shay's fellow Cutters, each held a limp form. Tally grimaced when she saw that they'd caught Fausto, who'd never been on a hoverboard in his life before a few days ago. But most of the others had escaped, at least…and David had made it to safety.
The New Smoke still lived.
'Think my new surge is pretty-making, Tally-wa?' Shay said. 'Not too much for you?'
Tally shook her head tiredly. 'No. It's bubbly, Shay-la.'
A broad, cruel smile filled Shay's face. 'About a zillion milli-Helens, huh?'
'At least.' Tally turned from her old friend and stared into the fire.
Shay sat down beside her. 'Being Special is more bubbly than you can imagine, Tally-wa. Every second is totally spinning. Like, I can hear your heartbeat, can feel the electric buzz of that jacket trying to keep you warm. I
