1269_UgliesFreeBook

SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES
This hovercar was larger, but not as comfortable.
The trip was much less pleasant than Tally’s first ride
that day. The strange-looking man flew with an aggressive
impatience, dropping like a rock to cut between flight
lanes, banking as steeply as a hoverboard with every turn.
Tally had never been airsick before, but now she clutched
the seat restraints, her knuckles white and eyes fixed on the
solid ground below. She caught one last glimpse of New
Pretty Town receding behind them.
They headed downriver, across Uglyville, over the
greenbelt and farther out to the transport ring, where the
factories stuck their heads aboveground. Beside a huge,
misshapen hill, the car descended into a complex of rectangular
buildings, as squat as ugly dorms and painted the
color of dried grass.
They landed with a painful bump, and the man led her
into one of the buildings, and down into a murk of yellowbrown
hallways. Tally had never seen so much space
painted in such putrid colors, as if the building were