Author's note: Although Lee's story is now finished, the idea that inspired it - namely, the question of why Dr Cable so consistenly underestimates Tally - did not actually make it into the eventual plot. Instead, it is included here as a bonus scene. Enjoy!

Dr Cable read the morning's report with increasing annoyance.

Prospective 2114 – commonly known as Shay – was missing.

This was not meant to have happened.

Of course, Shay had been a known flight risk. There had been a group of them – Prospectives the lot. Tricky to the last, just the kind of uglies that Special Circumstances kept an eye out for.

Just the kind who had a tendency to disappear. The kind who like to run off to Maddy and Az's crazy adventure in ruining the world all over again. But soon, they would be brought back, and they would discover the true stupidity of what they had done.

But more than half of those Prospectives had vanished simultaneously, and the security risk on the others had been reduced considerably. Uglies were fearful; they rarely ran away on their own. If a group of friends left together, it meant those who remained were the ones too afraid to face the wild.

The dregs. The people who barely deserved to be called Special, but who Dr Cable was forced to take in just to maintain numbers. She hated feeling second best to savages.

Shay was the last of the group left pre-Op, and she was meant to stay put and wait for her birthday like a good little cowardly ugly. But instead, she had disappeared.

She scanned down Shay's trick record for the last year. Several trips to the Rusty Ruins with her friends, continuing right up until they had left eight months ago. Then the usual pattern for a forlorn ugly – night time trips around the green belt with the shrinking remains of her clique, and ever more frequent excursions across the river to reassure herself she had done the right thing.

Dr Cable wondered, sometimes, how uglies could be so stupid. The Specials had left obvious holes in security to tempt through the trickiest uglies for potential recruitment. Did these uglies really think their 'tricked' hoverboards weren't trackable? But, to date, not one of them seemed to have considered that there was a reason sneaking out was so easy.

But Shay's tricks were nothing unusual.

… until three months ago.

Dr Cable was concerned. Three months ago, Shay had made a new friend. They had ridden around the green belt together dozens of times, although only one major trick – strangely, to the Ruins rather than the far more accessible island.

She called up the newcomers biometric data, and widened her eyes slightly – the most emotional reaction she would allow herself.

Youngblood.

Now that was a name from the past.

Young Tally had a clean record until three months ago – she hadn't even owned a hoverboard. There was nothing at all Potential about her, just the usual unimaginative ugly pranks. Without a hoverboard, she couldn't even have made it to New Pretty Town.

Dr Cable could sense how things had gone. Shay had been looking for a friend, but she had found a follower. She had tried to teach Tally her tricks, tried to convince her to run away – but Tally had been too afraid. Tally was nothing Special – she wouldn't ever be daring enough to face the wild.

But, if Shay had been stupid enough to believe otherwise, she might have left more information than she ought to have done.

Well, there was one way that was guaranteed to make a Youngblood co-operate. She had tried to abandon her friend to turn Pretty. Well, Dr Cable had something to say about that.

"Operation postponed," she updated Tally's file. In one week, Tally Youngblood would discover the consequences of letting her friend down.

And she might just bring the Smoke down for good.