Uglies (post #4)

"He smiled grimly. 'Maybe it's not so complicatied. Maybe the reason war and all that other stuff went away is that there are no more controversies, no disagreements, no people demanding change. Just masses of smiling pretties, and a few people left to run things.'
Tally remembered crossing the river to New Pretty Town, watching them have their endless fun. She and Peris used to boast tthey'd never wind up so idiotic, so shallow. But when she'd seen him... 'Becoming pretty doesn't just change the way you look,' she said.
'No,' David said. 'It changes the way you think.'"(267).

Just as I suspected! I knew something like this would happen! She’d go to the Smoke, but not activate the device that would bring about the destruction of the little community. As time went on, she would realize that normal people who don’t get the surgery to become pretty really aren’t ugly. Now, of course, Tally has fallen in love with this guy named David who has grown up in the Smoke, and who Tally would normally consider ugly. Ironically, David really likes Tally because he feels like he can trust her. Tally feels horrible for 2 main reasons: by completing her role as a spy, she would be destroying David’s whole life when he trusts her the most, and because her best friend still likes David. So now because David trusts Tally so much, he has decided to take her to meet his parents who started the whole Smoke thing. He says that there is a secret that they have to tell her. When she gets to the parent’s house, they tell her about how they used to be the kind of doctors that would perform the surgery to transform uglies into pretties. One day, one of David’s parents discovered that all people who had the surgery have a legion in their brain. All except those who later decide to have a job that requires quick thinking. As they investigated further, someone from Special Circumstances comes to tell them to stop studying this area. They don’t really know what this brain legion does, but they know that it was specifically put there by the surgeons, and their theory is that it takes away the personality of an individual and transforms them into someone who will basically be satisfied with what they have. When Tally learns this, she decides right there that she will never give up the Smoke to Dr. Cable, and she throws her little pendant into a fire. Well, the next day all these “Specials” come and it’s all Tally’s fault. The pendant sends a signal when it’s destroyed too. Well, that sucks.