“You fiddle lucker!' she cried.”

“Fifteen!" Dess's distant cry reached him. "Where the hell are you, Rex? Ten. You're-an-idiot-nine, get-back-here-eight, you-dimwit-seven...”

“Tally turned away. Five minutes was suddenly too long to stand here, eyes burning, unable to cry.”

“I can pick up the city feeds on my antenna. It said they were going to change you all. Turn you into something less dangerous. Are you still...?"She gazed at him. "What do you think, David?"He peered into her eyes for a long moment, then sighed and shook his head. "You just look like Tally to me."She looked down, her vision blurring.What's the matter?"Nothing, David." She shook her head. "You just took on five million years of evolution again."I what? Did I say something wrong?"No." She smiled. "You said something right.”

“She smiled, turning toward Alek. "You don't know what a friend you have in Dylan.”

“And here's what I realized: You Sly Girls don't cry when you watch the big-face parties on the feeds, just because you weren't invited. You don't stay friends with people you hate, just to bump your face rank. And even though nobody knows what you're doing out here, you don't feel invisible at all. Do you?No one answered, but they were listening.Fame is radically stupid, that's all. So I want to try something else.”

“Becoming pretty doesn't just change the way you look," she said. "No," David said. "It changes the way you think.”