Suddenly, she realized what was going on here. Recognizing what the costume meant, chasing him across the party, braving the alarmed door — all of it had been a test. Some kind of recruitment. He was sitting there wondering if she would dare pull off his mask.

Tally was sick of tests. "Just stay away from me," she said.

"Tally—" "I don't want to work for Special Circumstances. I just want to live here in New Pretty Town."

"I'm not—" "Leave me alone!" she shouted, clenching her fists. The cry echoed off the concrete walls, leaving a moment of silence, as if it had surprised them both. The music from the party drifted through the stairwell, muffled and timid.

Finally, a sigh came through the mask, and he held up a crude leather pouch. "I have something for you. If you're ready for it. Do you want it, Tally?"

"I don't want anything from …" Tally's voice trailed off. Soft shuffling sounds came from below them. Not the party. Someone was coming up the stairs.

The two of them moved at the same time, peering over the handrail down the narrow stairwell shaft. A long way down, Tally saw flashes of gray silk and hands grasping the rails, half a dozen people climbing the stairs incredibly fast, their footsteps barely audible over the muffled music.

"See you later," the figure said, standing.

Tally blinked. He pushed her aside, spooked by the sight of real Specials. So who was he? Before his fingers reached the doorknob, Tally snatched the mask from his face.

He was an ugly. A real ugly.

His face was nothing like the costumed fatties done up for the bash, with their big noses or squinty eyes. It wasn't just exaggerated features that made him different; it was everything, as if he were made of some utterly different substance. In those seconds, Tally's pretty-perfect eyesight caught every gaping pore, the random tangles in his hair, the crude imbalance of his disjointed face. Her skin crawled at his imperfections, the tufts of teenage beard, his unsurged teeth, the eruptions on his forehead screaming out disease. She wanted to pull away to put distance between herself and his unlucky unclean, unhealthy ugliness.