Hi!  This is my very first fanfic, made after my favorite book series, The Uglies!  This story is a total work of fiction, with Tally belonging to Scott Westerfeld (the books author) and all other characters belonging to me.  Written after Extras.  Review if you like, or if you don't.

Chapter 1 Memory Lane

As I sat at my desk, looking over the crimes, arrests, complaints, and agent reports of the day, a small thought occurred to me. Why did the mind rain have to happen just 3 years ago? Why couldn't it happen tomorrow? THEN I wouldn't be sitting here, looking over papers about criminals, because there wouldn't BE any. But then again, I countered myself, you wouldn't be where you are right now. [I know,] I told myself. [I just wish it was a little easier.] Tally never said being Special would be easy, especially being TNC's. Sometimes its scary how I can make a conversation with myself. I could do that even before Necro came up and told me about TNC. TNC stood for The New Cutters, and was a new breed of Specials. It was founded by Tally Youngblood, the only original uncured Cutter there was left. All the others were, as I liked to call them, the halfas. Anyway, as I was saying before, I had the ability to talk with myself. I could make entire conversations, and actually think there was someone else in the room with me. And it wasn't just that, it was also my right-and-wrong voice, telling me the wisest choice to handle ANY situation. And somehow, no matter HOW bad I felt about ANYTHING, my second self could always say the right thing to make me feel better. Tell me Josh, how would you feel to be a bubblehead, cured or uncured, after all that you've bee through as a NC? [That's an unfair question,] I told myself. [If I had never turned NC in the first place, I would never know how NCs felt. I might even be afraid to know, seeing how they put themselves in death defying peril every SINGLE DAY.] True, but you always had an informer. [Who?] Even though I already knew. As if on cue, a knock on the door, followed by three sharp, one fingered taps, came. I recognized the code for who it was. "Josh," a razor bladed, yet very feminine, voice called through the door. "I got your call, you wanted to see me?" Her, my brain voice answered.

Her, was referring to Lindsay. One of my few female friends before I turned NC, it was Lindsay who suggested that Necro keep an eye on me. Necro was our best shadow, and he proved it constantly. He could tell if someone was trying to sneak up on him, even if they were several yards away. He could also tell WHO they were when they were a full football field away. You only went to Necrowhen you thought you had spotted someone who could take the pain of three shock zaps, fifty fighters, and still manage to win in a fight. It was also Lindsay who made me want to be NC. Not just because she was ticking me off with her stories of what she did on a daily basis, but also because she really did everything she said, stuff like catching a arrow with her index and middle fingers, or catching a bullet with her teeth, and that was the easy stuff. Being NC was like belonging to the most exclusive club in the Galaxy, and you couldn't just walk up to one and ask to become part. You had to provethat you were worth the trouble of going to the training camp. You did this by somehow catching your shadow before he/she gaveyou the pink, meaning he/she gave you a small pink mark on whatever you were wearing. This would then spread to your hands, and coat itself over whatever you touched, including yourself. It was invisible to regular humans, but to a Special, it stood out like a campfire on a lake. I managed to find Necro (I found him when I went on a nature walk, and noticed, with some help from my voice, that a tree had something weird about it). After Necro introduced himself, he asked if I knew about the NC. I told him "I believe they exist, but everyone around me calls me an idiot, and that specials are gone. But I don't think so." Necro smiled, and I caught a glimpse of his teeth. They would make a werewolf and a vampire go mad with envy. "You're right, we do exist. And if you can really do what Lindsay says you can do, you are cutter material, not just lucky." For the next two months, under the watch of Tally and Necro, and with the help of my voice and a temp. cutter surge, I managed not only to survive training camp, but somehow beat both Tally and Necroin hand-to-hand. After that, they made me into a real cutter (without the special lesions, instead an overly sensitive icy trigger). For the old cutters, hurting yourself to the extreme was the only way to activate your icy trigger. Nowadays, all you had to do was think you needed the clarity. However, getting hurt non-intentionally (like when Tally fell off a cliff with nothing but crash bracelets) and doing some major body harm, the icy trigger would kick in, making it bearable. It no longer reacts to intentional body damage, but I still got a little ping of energy when I bite my nails (we all havesome habit that helps us still feel connected to regular humans). Even without special-head lesions, it was hard to not think you were above everyone else, which led to many complications to the original special program. Bad habits like nail biting were one way to keep us connected with non specials.

Chapter 2 New Clique

Well, aren't you going to tell her why you called? Its rare to even hear from you these days, let alone see you. [I was getting to it. You know how I sometimes get caught up in thought.] I do, considering I'm you.I had almost forgotten Lindsay was standing in my office, until she said "having another self argument?" How does she do that? I asked myself. Just like me and my second self, all NCs had a special skill, although we never admitted it to one another. Lindsay's was apparently the ability to read minds. "And I do NOT read minds!" I just smiled at her, and she put 2 and 2 together. "You know, there is one thing that will never change, and it is that smug little smile. Now, why did you call me?" My smile died. She was NOT going to like this next bit. "I've been scheduled for a kick out in two weeks." "WHAT!?!?!?!?!?" [I knew that was coming] You could have warned me she would be so LOUD. "What do you mean, their kicking you out?" "You just answered yourself." "I know what it means, bubblehead, just, WHY?" "Tally thinks she made a mistake in making me special."