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belonged.
    "Sounds like you've got it down," Jai said.
    Eden snorted. "Yeah, she's practically an expert."
    "Relax, face-queen," Jai said. "Not all of us are hoverball stars."
    "Not all of us are fifteen, either. Or kickers."
    "She doesn't even have a cam anymore."
    Aya listened to them argue, wondering how high Jai's face rank was. Lots of people who avoided the feeds were famous, of course. In fact, the most famous person in the city—in the whole world—didn't have a feed of her own. But people talked about her every time they mentioned the mind-rain.
    "You don't have to worry about me," Aya said. "Just because I'm an ugly doesn't mean I'm stupid."
    "Of course not," Jai said. "In fact, I find your ugliness enchanting."
    "I've been getting a lot of that lately," Aya said, thinking of Frizz Mizuno.
    "One minute to go!" Eden called, and jumped from the tower. Her hoverball rig caught her fall, and she pirouetted in midair to face them. "Just be careful, Aya."
    "She will be." Jai pushed off, stepping onto her waiting board. "They're always careful the first time!"
    She laughed and spun away, the two of them sweeping down toward the tracks together. Aya stepped gingerly onto the high-speed board they'd given her. It gave a little under her weight, like a diving board, but she could feel the power surging beneath her feet. The approaching train was visible now, just crawling out from the yards, loaded with trade bound for other cities. She couldn't hear its rumble yet, but Aya knew that three hundred tons of speeding metal would shake the earth like a suborbital launch as it passed.
    She followed Jai and Eden across the factory belt, down to the hiding place where the others waited—the rooftop of a low industrial building next to the tracks. A few driverless trucks rumbled along the streets below, tending the factories and building sites. No people anywhere. As Aya swept in for a landing, loose gravel crunched under her hoverboard. She slid to a hiding spot behind a ventilation tower spitting exhaust from the underground depths of the factory. A smell like sulfur and hot glue tinged the air.
    Crouching there, listening to the train rumbling in the distance, Aya found herself thinking of Frizz Mizuno again. He seemed to cross her mind every few minutes—how had one random conversation been so brain-rattling?
    The teachers always warned about getting too involved with pretties. Since the mind-rain, they weren't as innocent as they looked. They could mess with your head so easily, just by gazing at you with those huge, gorgeous eyes.
    Of course, Frizz wasn't like that. She'd checked the city interface after classes, and Ren had been right about Radical Honesty: They couldn't lie, or even imply a falsehood. The whole truth-slanting part of their brain had been switched off, just like bubbleheads were missing willpower, creativity, and despair.
    But the fact that Frizz had been truthful just made him more nerve-jangling. As did the fact that his face rank was going up every hour. He'd only been pretty a few months, and he was headed for the top thousand.
    "Nervous?" a voice came from the darkness.
    It was one of the other Sly Girls, crouching beside the next air vent. She looked younger than Jai and Eden—with the same Plain Jane surge and hole-in-the-wall rejects they all wore.
    "No, I'm okay."
    "But surfing's more fun if you're scared."
    Aya laughed. With her mousy brown hair, the girl looked almost like an ugly. Her eyes were so lusterless and dull that Aya wondered if she'd surged them that way.
    "This should be plenty of fun, then."
    "Good." The girl grinned. "It's supposed to be!"
    She certainly looked like she was having fun. As the rumble of the train built, her smile gleamed like a pretty's in the darkness. Aya wondered what made her so thrilled to be risking her life like this. How many people even knew that she was a Sly Girl?
    "Hey aren't you in my dorm?" Aya asked. "What's your name?" The girl laughed. "You going to