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Facing the Future

"Here’s option two" Tally touched her interface ring, and the wallscreen changed

This Tally was sleek, with ultrahigh cheekbones, deep green catlike eyes, and a widesmile

"That’s, uh, pretty different"

"Yeah I doubt it’s even legal" Tally tweaked the eye-shape para the arch of the eyebron almost to normal Some cities allowed exotic operations - for new pretties only - but the authorities here were notoriously conservative She doubted a doctor would give this lance, but it was fun to push the software to its limits "You think I look too scary?"

"No You look like a real pussycat" Shay giggled "Unfortunately, Isense"

"Okay, "

The next Tally was a ical ht black hair with long bangs, the dark lips set to eneric, Tally"

"Oh, co tireat this way There’s a whole Cleopatra thing going on"

"You know," Shay said, "I read that the real Cleopatra wasn’t even that great-looking She seduced everyone with how clever she was"

"Yeah, right And you’ve seen a picture of her?"

"They didn’t have cameras back then, Squint"

"Duh So how do you know she was ugly?"

"Because that’s what historians wrote at the tied "She was probably a classic pretty and they didn’t even know it Back then, they had weird ideas about beauty They didn’t know about biology"

"Lucky them" Shay stared out the

"So, if you think all my faces are so crappy, why don’t you show me some of yours?" Tally cleared the wallscreen and leaned back on the bed

"I can’t"

"You can dish it out, but you can’t take it, huh?"

"No, I mean I just can’t I never made one"

Tally’s jaw dropped Everyonefor their facial structure to have set It was a great waste of a day, figuring out all the different ways you could look when you finally became pretty

"Not even one?"

"Maybe when I was little Buttio"

"Well" Tally sat up "We should fix that right now"

"I’d rather go hoverboarding" Shay tugged anxiously under her shirt Tally figured that Shay slept with her belly sensor on, hoverboarding in her dreams

"Later, Shay I can’t believe you don’t have a single morphPlease "

"It’s stupid The doctors pretty much do what they want, no matter what you tell them"

"I know, but it’sfun "

Shayher eyes, but finally nodded She dragged herself off the bed and plopped down in front of the wallscreen, pulling her hair back from her face

Tally snorted "So youhave done this before"

"Like I said, when I was a littlie"

"Sure" Tally turned her interface ring to bring up a h a set of eyemouse choices The screen’s ca up on Shay’s face, a field of tiny squares imposed across the shape of her cheekbones, nose, lips, and forehead

Seconds later, two faces appeared on the screen Both of them were Shay, but there were obvious differences: One looked wild, slightly angry; the other had a slightly distant expression, like so a daydream

"It’s weird how that works, isn’t it?" Tally said "Like two different people"

Shay nodded "Creepy"

Ugly faces were always asymmetrical; neither half looked exactly like the other So the first thing the morpho software did was take each side of your face and double it, like holding atwo examples of perfect symmetry Already, both of the syinal