Uglies

Tally spends her days hiding and her nights sneaking out of the dorms. Her loneliness grows intense as she flies alone on her hoverboard at night. At dawn on the fourth day, she returns to her room to find Peris waiting for her. She cries and he comforts her before saying his friends are all interested in her “trick” about not turning pretty. He says people are dying to meet her, especially after the bungee jacket incident. When Tally insists she must uphold her promises to Shay, Peris reminds her of the promise she made him about being best friends forever. Tally agrees to tell the Specials what she knows. After Peris leaves, she sends a message to Dr. Cable, who sends a hover car for her.

Tally is taken back to Special headquarters, where Dr. Cable resumes her interrogation. Tally talks about David, the Smoke, and Shay’s cryptic directions. Dr. Cable reveals Special Circumstances has a copy of the note and then shows Tally survival gear. She instructs Tally to follow Shay’s directions to the Smoke, giving her a locket that will respond to her eye print and activate a tracker. When Tally expresses conflicted feelings, Dr. Cable forces her to look at an enlarged image of herself, threatening her with ugliness forever. Tally agrees to the trip.

The Specials provide Tally with a long-range hoverboard for her mission. She leaves at midnight, unable to tell anyone about the plan. Tally is impressed with the board’s performance as she flies up the whitewater rapids. In the Rusty Ruins, she hoverboards the roller coaster again, continuing straight past the break in the tracks. She discovers the remnants of train tracks but does not recognize what they are. She follows Shay’s directions away from the ruins and toward the ocean.

Tally flies through smaller ruined towns, speculating that the tracks were used to carry tradable goods from place to place. She reaches a broken bridge that spans across a ravine and almost falls into the water below, but her board picks up enough metal deposits to lift her to safety. She decides to eat a dehydrated meal of spaghetti bolognese while watching the sunrise. She hikes to a place where the chasm closes and crosses, then walking back to the tracks. She takes her time as she flies, keeping an eye out for more broken places. She reaches a second broken bridge but is too confused by Shay’s clue to make any other progress. She unfolds her hoverboard so it can recharge with solar energy and then falls asleep.

Tally has a nightmare that she falls from her hoverboard. When she wakes, it’s sunset. She prepares the hoverboard and eats more spaghetti bolognese. As daylight wanes, she struggles to decipher Shay’s clue. She decides that flying off the edge of the cliff must be the mistake the directions refer to. She guides the hoverboard off the cliff and over the water, but it loses all magnetism and drops. Right before she hits the water, her crash bracelets activate and guide her back to her board, which has activated above the metal deposits in the river. She follows the river. On her third day, Tally decides to take a bath. While initially uncomfortable washing in the cold water, she has an abrupt connection with nature, feeling more alive in the wild than she ever has in the city. As she finishes washing, something loud approaches.

Tally hides in the water while watching a large, loud flying machine hover over her camp. It blows her belongings around before continuing its passage toward the sea. Upon returning to camp, Tally finds that her sleeping bag is destroyed but everything else is unharmed. She continues her journey until she reaches a fork in the river. She follows Shay’s next clue, taking the right side of the river. By morning, she encounters fields covered in white flowers interspersed with patches of sandy ground. Tired, she lies down in the flowers to sleep. When she wakes, she is surrounded by fire.

Tally runs through smoke and fire, using occasional glimpses of the sun to guide her retreat. She reaches the river and finds her hoverboard. The fire ruined her riding shoes, slowing her progress. She catches sight of another flying machine like the one that ruined her camp and realizes it is intentionally spreading the fire. The wind from the machine knocks her off her hoverboard and into the water. She swims to the surface, clinging to her hoverboard to keep from being dragged underwater. Figures jump out of the machine and rush toward her. Tally tries to fight them, but they drag her closer. She sees that they have bug-like eyes, which matches Shay’s next clue.

The figures pull Tally away from the river’s edge and into a space they have cleared in the fire using white foam. One of them removes his mask to reveal he is pretty; he puts a mask over Tally’s mouth to give her oxygen. They retrieve her board and carry her to the flying machine. After taking off, the others remove their masks, revealing that they are also pretties. As they fly, the man who gave Tally oxygen introduces himself as Tonks. He is a ranger, and they fly helicopters based on Rusty technology because these don’t require a magnetic grid to operate. He tells her that the white orchids are a genetically engineered species created from greed that has since become invasive. They overwhelm ecosystems if the rangers don’t burn them. The rangers work with the Smokies because of their intense knowledge of nature, and so they fly Tally to a rendezvous point. Once there, she hikes to an empty hill and waits for dawn. As she does, she is torn between hoping the tracker was damaged, so she does not have to betray Shay and being terrified it is broken and she is destined to remain ugly.

Early in the morning, a group of four approaches Tally. She recognizes Shay and runs down the hill. The group scans her belongings and finds a tracker on her board, but they console Tally with the fact that they found one on Shay’s board too. Their scanner does not activate for her locket. She meets David, who she notes is very confident. Shay teaches her about the necessity of trading for items when Tally casually offers a boy named Croy her dehydrated food. As they walk, Tally observes David and Shay, speculating that Shay has romantic feelings for David. They reach an old growth forest and hike to a stream, which activates their hoverboards. Tally lies that she left Uglyville the night before her surgery, and Shay is ecstatic. They fly the rest of the way to the Smoke.