"Okay," Tally said, and as her fingers gestured, the voice in her head went quiet. The other voice was still shouting, still complaining in its worried way. It was starting to give Tally a headache.
"Doctor! She just said something! Even after that last dose! What the hell is she?"
"Whatever she is, this should keep her down," someone else said, and sleepiness swept over her again.
So Tally went back to not thinking at all.
Consciousness returned in a burst of light.
Adrenaline shot through Tally, like waking up from a nightmare screaming. The world was suddenly diamond clear, as sharp as the teeth in her mouth, as bright as a spotlight in her eyes.
She sat bolt upright, breathing hard and clenching her fists tight. Shay stood at the end of the hospital bed, fiddling with the straps around her ankles.
"Shay!" she shouted. Tally felt everything so brilliantly she had to shout.
"That woke you up, didn't it?"
"Shay!" Her left arm stung; someone had just given her a shot. Energy was boiling through her, all her fury and strength returned. She jerked one foot against an ankle strap, but the metal restraint held.
"Calm down, Tally-wa," Shay said. "I'll get it."
"Calm down?" Tally muttered, her eyes scanning the room. The walls were lined with machines, all of them flickering with activity. In the room's center was an operating tank, life-support liquid slowly gurgling into it, a breathing tube hanging loosely, waiting to be put to use. Scalpels and vibrasaws waited on a nearby table.
Lying on the floor were a pair of unconscious men in hospital scrubs—one a middle pretty, the other young enough to sport leopard spots all over his downy fur. At the sight of them, the past twenty-four hours came rushing back to Tally: Random Town, being captured, the threatened operation to make her average again.
She twitched against the ankle restraints, needing to escape this room now.
"Almost got it," Shay said soothingly.
Tally's right arm itched, and she found a braid of wires and tubes stuck into it, life support for major surgery. She hissed and ripped them out. Blood spattered across the spotless white floor, but it didn't hurt—the collision between anesthetic and whatever Shay had used to awaken her had filled Tally with a pain-numbing fury.
When Shay finally got the second ankle strap unlocked, Tally leaped up, her fingers curled.
"Um, maybe you better put this on," Shay said, tossing her a sneak suit. Tally looked down at herself. She was wearing another disposable nightgown: pink with blue dinosaurs.
"What is it with hospitals?" she shouted, ripping the gown off and sticking one foot into the suit.
"Quiet down already, Tally-wa," Shay hissed…"I've plugged the sensors, but even randoms can hear you shouting like that, you know. And don't turn on your skintenna yet. It'll give us away."
"Sorry, Boss." A sudden wave of dizziness came over Tally; she'd stood up too fast. But she managed to slide her legs into the sneak suit and pull it up around her shoulders. Detecting her wild heart rate, it booted up straight into armored mode, scales rippling, then lying flat and hard.
"No, tune it this way," Shay whispered, one hand on the door. Her own suit was set to a pale blue, the color of hospital scrubs.
As Tally tuned her suit, trying to match the color of Shay's, her head still spun with wild energy. "You came for me," she said, trying to keep her voice low.
"I couldn't let them do this to you."
"But I thought you hated me."
"I hate you sometimes, Tally. Like I've never hated anybody else before." Shay snorted. "Maybe that's why I keep coming back for you."
Tally swallowed, looking around once more at the operating tank, the table full of cutting instruments, all the tools that would have turned her average again—despecialized her, as Shay had put it. "Thanks, Shay-la."
"No problem. Ready to get out of here?"
"Wait, Boss." Tally swallowed. "I saw Fausto."
"So did I." There was no anger in Shay's voice, simply a statement of fact.
"But he's …"
"I know."
"You know …" Tally took a step forward, her mind still spinning from waking up, from everything that was happening. "But what are we going to do about him, Shay?"
"We have to go, Tally. The rest of the Cutters are waiting for us on the roof. Something big is coming. A lot bigger than the Smokies."
Tally frowned. "But what—?"
The shriek of an alarm split the air.
"They must be getting close!" Shay cried. "We have to go!" She grabbed Tally's hand and pulled her through the door.
Tally followed, her mind reeling, her feet still unsteady beneath her. Outside the room, a long, straight hallway stretched in both directions, the alarm echoing down its length. People in hospital scrubs were spilling out of doors on either side, filling the hallway with confused babble.
Shay sprinted away, slipping among the stunned doctors and orderlies like they were statues. She was so light-footed and quick, the milling crowd hardly noticed the matching pale blue streak hurtling through them.
Tally thrust aside her questions and followed, but her just-woken-up dizziness was fading very slowly. She dodged people as best she could, plowing straight through any who got in her way. She caromed off bodies and the walls, but managed to keep moving, letting her wild energy carry her.
"Stop!" a voice shouted. "Both of you!"
In front of Shay, a cluster of wardens stood in their yellow-and-black uniforms, shock-sticks glowing in the soft, pastel light.
Shay didn't hesitate, her suit turning black as she plunged into them, hands and feet flashing. The air filled with the smell of fresh lightning as shock-sticks struck her armored scales, sizzling like mosquitoes frying on a bug light. She spun wildly amid the fracas, sending yellow figures staggering in all directions.
By the time Tally reached the struggle, only two wardens were left standing, backing down the hall and trying to ward off Shay, their shock-sticks flailing through the air. Tally stepped up behind one and grabbed her by the wrist, twisting it with a snap and pushing her into the other, sending them both sprawling to the floor.
"No need to break them, Tally-wa."
Tally looked down at the woman, who was clutching her wrist, a pained cry spilling from her lips. "Oh, sorry, Boss."
"It's not your fault, Tally. Come on." Shay pushed through the stairwell door and headed upward, taking each flight in two long bounds. Tally trailed behind, her dizziness almost under control, the manic energy from the wake-up shot fading a little as she ran. The stairwell doors closed behind them, dampening the earsplitting shriek of the alarm.
She wondered what had happened to Shay, where she had been all this time. How long had the other Cutters been here in Diego?
But the questions could wait. Tally was simply glad to be free again, fighting alongside Shay and being special. Nothing could stop the two of them together.