"Scott Westerfeld - Uglies 03 - Specials" - читать интересную книгу автора (Westerfeld Scott)

even through her ugly disguise. They glittered like a predator's in the strobe lights as she pulled the boy
closer, brushing against him, a flex of muscles gliding down her body like a flick through a rope.
After that, he didn't look away again, even as he handed off his beer to the random girl, who
looked on open-mouthed. The ugly boy placed his hands on Shay's shoulders, his body starting to follow
her movements.
People were watching them now.
"I don't remember this part of the plan," Tally said softly.
Fausto laughed. "Specials don't need plans. Not sticky ones, anyway." He stood close behind
Tally, his arms around her waist. She felt his breath on the back of her neck, and a tingle started moving
through her body.
Tally pulled away Cutters touched one another all the time, but she wasn't used to that part of
being a Special. It made her feel even stranger that Zane hadn't joined them yet.
Through the skintenna network, Tally could hear Shay whispering to the boy. Her breathing
deepened, though Shay could run a klick in two minutes without breaking a sweat. A sharp, unshaven
sound sliced through the network when she brushed her cheek against the boy's, and Fausto chuckled
when Tally flinched.
"Relax, Tally-wa," he said, rubbing her shoulders. "She knows what she's doing."
That much was obvious: Shay's dance was spreading, sucking in the people around her. Until
now, the party had been a nervous bubble hovering in the air, and she'd popped its surface tension,
releasing something icy inside. The crowd started to pair off, arms wrapping around each other, moving
faster. Whoever was crewing the music must have noticed— the volume went higher, the bass deeper,
the hoverglobes overhead pulsing from blackness to blinding radiance. The crowd had started jumping up
and down with the beat.
Tally felt her heart accelerate, amazed at how effortlessly Shay had brought them all along. The
bash was changing, flipping inside out, and all because of Shay. This wasn't like their stupid tricks in ugly
days—sneaking across the river or stealing bungee jackets—this was magic.
Special magic.
So what if she was wearing an ugly face? Like Shay always said in training, the bubbleheads had
it all wrong: It didn't matter what you looked like. It was how you carried yourself, how you saw
yourself. Strength and reflexes were only part of it—Shay simply knew that she was special, and so she
was. Everyone else was just wallpaper, a blurred background of listless chatter, until Shay lit them up
with her own private spotlight.
"Come on," Fausto whispered, pulling Tally away from the thickening crowd. They retreated
toward the party's edge, sliding unseen past the eyes locked on Shay and her random boy. "You go that
way. Stay sharp."
Tally nodded, hearing the other Cutters whisper as they spread out across the party. Suddenly,
this all made sense…
The bash had been too dead, too flat to cover the Specials or their prey. But now the crowd's
arms were up, waving back and forth with the beat. Plastic cups flew through the air, everything a storm
of movement. If the Smokies were planning to crash the party, this moment was what they'd been waiting
for.
Moving was tricky now. Tally made her way through a swarm of young girls—practically
littlies—all dancing together with eyes closed. The glitter sprayed across their uneven skin flashed in the
hoverglobes' pulsing light, and they didn't shiver as Tally pushed through them; her special aura had been
drowned out by the party's new energy, by Shay's dance-magic.
The ugly little bodies bouncing against hers reminded Tally how much she had changed inside.
Her new bones were made from aircraft ceramics, light as bamboo and hard as diamonds. Her muscles
were sheathed whips of self-repairing monofilament. The uglies felt soft and unsubstantial against her, like
stuffed toys come to life, boisterous but unthreatening.
A ping sounded inside her head as Fausto boosted the skintenna network's range, and snatches