1269_UgliesFreeBook

UGLIES 291
popped open one corner of the top, and a puff of dust rose
up. A second later, a wave of fire rushed into Tally’s head.
She covered her face, eyes watering, and tried to cough up
the finger of flame that had crawled down her throat.
“Not bad, eh?” the Boss chuckled. “That’s pure habanero
pepper, dried and ground down to dust. Not too bad
in beans, but hell in your eyes.”
Tally blinked away her tears and managed to speak.
“Are you nuts?”
“The other thing is this bag, which contains a representative
sample of two hundred years of Rusty-era visual
culture. Priceless and irreplaceable artifacts. So which do
you want?”
“Huh?”
“Do you want the habanero pepper or the bag of magazines?
Do you want to get caught while taking out our
Special friend? Or save a precious piece of human heritage
from these barbarians?”
Tally coughed once more. “I guess . . . I want to
escape.”
The Boss smiled. “Good. I’m sick of running. Sick of
losing my hair too, and being short-sighted. I’ve done my
bit, and you look pretty fast.”
He handed her the duffel bag. It was heavy, but Tally
had grown stronger since she’d come to the Smoke. Magazines
were nothing compared with scrap metal.
She thought of the first day she had arrived there,