My Own Futeristic book inspired my Scott Westerfeild. I call it Uglies (and since I've given credit to S.C, I'm not stealing the name :)

Chapter One, Part 1
Rora sat in her windowsill, watching the lights of New Pretty Town come on, along with the fireworks. They made small lines of color against the dimming sky for only a minute, and then the firework itself exploded into an array of colors and shapes; lastly a sprinkle of lightly flashing dust fell, until even that disappeared into the darkness above New Pretty Town. Rora watched this almost every night, but it never bore her. There seemed to be an endless amount of colors and shapes completely different than the previous nights.

“Malls, one day I’ll be setting off those fireworks. Me.”

The room chimed, as if in agreement. With a flash the lights outside her windows came on, along with the two on either side of her door. These lights, of course, were on the outside of her door, the door side facing the hallway. The lights in her room dimmed till there was only a glow of light from the ceiling, barely illuminating the objects around her dorm. Her technology wall became less noisy, only a small whir came from it. During the day dings, buzzes and voices rang from it. Rora sighed. As always, one of the dorm commanders had told all the rooms to go to sleep. Signaling all the little uglies in the dorm tower to shut down and sleep too.

“Well, I guess this is good night Malls.”

She climbed in bed, removing her tracker bracelet after punching ‘sleeping’ into the location tracker. The authorities checked it every hour. She slept for about an hour or so, when suddenly a knock at her door woke her.

“Rora, its me.” Keira’s voice shot under the door crack in an urgent whisper. She knocked again.

Sleepily, Rora groaned ‘come in’, not even opening her eyes. She’s probably being chased by one of the dorm commanders. That’s what she gets for not coming back from one of her gazillion parties on time. She almost didn’t feel sorry. This happened once or twice every week. Keira would slip in, open Rora’s window, jump out with her hover shoes on quiet, close the pane of glass and shoot up to her room. Only a few dorm commanders would be outside, none thinking to look up.

“Rora, hide me.” It was a swift, urgent command. “I saw one outside. Looking up.”

Rora shot up straight in bed. Several dorm commanders, outside and in, must have spotted Keira.

“Under my bed. Now.” She fell back onto the pillows, hearing a soft sliding sound on the carpet. “Malls.” She commanded her room. “Bed skirt. Black. Now.”

One appeared, completely hiding Keira. She could hear Middle Pretties voices whispering outside her door.

“Uh, dispose of clothes from the past, um, month. Under bed. Two months ago clothes-around the room.”

The walls quickly spit the clothes out with hardly any noise. The door creaked open, a thin line of lights shining across Rora’s face. She sat up, looking as sleepy as she felt.

“Hi. Sorry for disturbing you. Did you see any other uglies slipping into your room tonight?”

“I heard one whispering nearby.”

“How near?”

“The door. Around.” She flopped her hand around like it was half broken.

“Any near your window?”

“No.”

“Any doors open?”

“Yes.”

“Whose?”

“Mine.”

“Why?”

“I knew one of the sneaking in uglies.”

“Did you let them out?”

“No.”

“So they’re still in here?”

“Do they look like they are?”

“No questions! Answer me. Now.”

“Maybe.”

“No maybes! Yes or no.”

Suddenly, the pane in her window opened, then shut, a pair of feet went up from her window, disappearing.

“They just left.” The dorm commander said, nearly blown away. Practically no one sneaked out of a room when a dorm commander was in sight. Then she turned and glared at Rora. “Young lady, if we catch you with another ugly that was seen sneaking in, you’ll be in trouble. Big trouble.” Then she whirled around and shut the door hard.

“Keira.” She whispered the name, hoping the dorm commander wouldn’t hear. “Keira, are you there?”

A shuffle of clothes was heard and suddenly Keira was standing beside her bed.

“What the heck happened?”

“That was one of our group members. They promised to come and act like someone sneaking out if we were stuck. Sorry, can’t release the name.” And with that, Keira was gone.

Exhausted, Rora fell back to sleep. When she woke up again in the morning, her tracker bracelet flashed the time. The windows had turned dark, not letting light in until she told the room she was awake. Her tech wall was still silent and everything was like the night before, rather than the outside lights. They had turned off.

“Malls. I’m awake.”

As everything returned to life, Rora dressed and slipped her tracker bracelet on, taking ‘sleeping’ out of the location box. Now that a word was out, it monitored the location of wherever she was. It couldn’t be turned off, so if you took it off and left it somewhere, it would register that you were wherever the bracelet was. She rang for breakfast and went over to her technology wall. The whole wall was a huge screen. The world mat was displayed on it with thin, sketch-like lines behind everything. Her pop up took up one big corner and right below hers was Keira’s, finishing off one half of the screen. The other half had messages and letter conversations with several people, all of it thrown together messily. On a low table against the wall her eye screen contacts lay. There was a small box for right side eye screens and an identical one for the left side. A small letter holder was also on the table, its small screen still holding the last message it had sent onto the world mat. Pieces of clothing lay around and on it, half covering her spare tracker bracelet.

“Walls, take all the clothes back.”

They obeyed immediately. A tray of food came out of her receiving box and she took it, eating the chopped fruits, bagel and yogurt. Rora flopped back onto her bed again, the covers having already made themselves. With her tracker bracelet she scanned through all the pings she’d gotten during the night. In her ‘notes’ section there was a note from her crumblies, asking how everything was and dropping news on the newest edition to the family. Eli, her week old sister, was fine and there was even a scanned picture. Quickly she responded ‘cute, nice to here from you’ and deleted it. According to her crumblies, family bonds just weren’t how they used to be before the Rusty crash. They’d apparently learned about the amazing family bondage. Boring was what she thought about it. Not understandable and pointless too. At least now it seemed that way. She barely knew about life before the Rusty crash. Really, it was weird. Not interesting. Not different. Weird. She didn’t have that many pings, so soon she was just lying on her bed, scanning through other peoples pop ups, watching lazy, pointless conversations take place. A few uglies had posted news of how an ugly party had gone or about a sneak out they did (both failed and victorious) and still a very slim few posted stories. Stuff they’d written themselves, made up and real, for everyone on the ugly world mat to read. Really, they were crazy. But since most uglies were just like her, mainly friendless and bored, these stories were something different to read. So that’s what she did. The ones looked at the most she read, putting in her own comments at the end. A few more chat conversations were taking place, about wanting to become pretty and rumors of life in New Pretty Town. She partook in some of these; eventually becoming bored and leaving that pop up. She updated her own and told her readers about the stories she read, suggesting one of the few ways to escape boredom was to read them. Her friend Keira told all about Rora’s part in her ‘hide from commanders’ update and Rora commented. She looked at the general news, looking for something to entertain her in the smallest way. A few world mat games she played, mostly dull and using pretty features to update yourself. She logged into a site where you posted several lies and a few truths about you, then let other uglies guess the lies. Whoever got the most right posted their truths and lies to you; eventually you would run out of interesting stuff and look at each others pop ups, become friends and have somebody new to talk to.

‘I have a pet. I snuck over to New Pretty Town last night. Tomorrow I’ll be turned pretty; I have few friends in Uglyville; my best friends name starts with a K.’

A few moments later, a girl named Lexy responded.

‘Lies: Tomorrow I’ll turn pretty, I have a pet, my best friends name starts with a K.’

Five minutes later, a boy named Jasper posted possible answers too.
‘Truths: I have few friends in Uglyville, my best friends name starts with a K.’

Rora smiled and put in the right answers, letting Jasper post next. Almost immediately Lexy got all the right answers.

‘You two know each other?’

‘Yeah. Lex lives in the dorm next to me. Dorm tower ten.’

‘Jas is my boyfriend. We’ve been dating for a few months now. You can’t define him as purely ugly.’

‘Really? Why?’

‘Cause he’s pretty darn nice looking. Sweet attitude too.’

‘Lex! You’re ruining my guy image. I AM NOT sweet.’

‘Fine. You’re nice.’

‘Not to everyone.’

‘Oh please, yeah you are.’

‘You wanna bet our next date that I’m sweet all the time? To everyone?’

‘Sure. I win, we do. You win, we don’t.’

‘It’s a bet.’

‘Um, Lex, Jas, I’m still here. And uh, you two are gonna bet a date over niceness? Doesn’t that seem kinda stupid?’

‘No.’

‘No.’

‘Well, OK. Get me on my pop up, k?’

‘Sure.’

‘Sometime.’

She logged out. Did ugly boyfriend girlfriend pairs always fight over stupid stuff? One thing was for sure, Lex and Jas did. She got off the world mat and lay in bed, bored stiff. What else was there to do when you were an ugly? Hover shoes weren’t really that fun unless you had someone to race against, do tricks with and share tricks with. Keira was visiting her crumblies (her grandma had just died and it was a ‘family’ funeral) and basically there was no one else.

“Malls, contact my crumblies. Put a note in their note box that says ‘I met some new people on the world mat, how are you. Can you respond soon?’ Thanks.”

A few hours more and it was lunchtime. She rang up a meal and posted what she was eating, where her best friend was and whom she’d met on her pop up. Two girls responded with stuff like ‘I’m eating a sandwich’ or ‘I’m at my friends house using her pop up. My real name is . . . ’. Really, it was rather boring. She’d ordered the furniture around already, changed the walls and recycled all unwanted items. Soon she was off the world mat again.

“Malls, find someone I would never talk to on the world mat. Tell them to ping me.”

It was the most interesting thing to do on really boring days. Most of the time nothing happened. You’d talked, find your few likenesses, then leave and never talk again.

“Um, hi, this is Soaris. I was told to ping you. Find me on my pop up I guess.” This was a verbal ping, one of three choices. You could type in pings, do verbal pings, or have a mix of both. Most uglies just used reading ones, but some got in ping conversations that was better if you actually talked.

“Thanks Malls. Put ‘my name’s Rora. I’m really bored. What do you like to do?’ On her pop up.”

The room obeyed immediately. Blankly Rora went over to her window and sat, leaning against the cool glass. The sky was white with grayish clouds. A drizzle was falling and New Pretty Town seemed asleep. Any awake pretties probably lived in the same mansion as their friends, so nobody was outside. The pleasure gardens looked wet and boring, so there was no reason for a pretty to be in one. Pretties seemed to like alive, poppy, pretty things, not wet, boring, dull stuff. Their hovercars, mansions and pleasure gardens were mainly alive and nice, while Uglyville was mostly grayish silver metal with some green from plants. In spring stuff bloomed, but not everywhere and still most plants were in the greenbelt. Ten dorm towers filled Uglyville, most five-eight levels high. Mansions in New Pretty Town were only up to four levels, but still most were only three. You couldn’t count all of them and pleasure gardens were in the back of most. The island was covered with color, even in the rain.

“Your pop up has a message.” Malls said, sounding bored and blank.
Quickly Rora checked it.

‘Hi, as you know, I’m Soaris. I like doing sneak outs, throwing parties and have lots of friends. Out of my dorm tower, I’m number one. You?’

“Holy crude. How am I supposed to respond to that?”

‘Uh, hi. Well, I’m Rora, which you know. I, uh, I’m pretty boring. I hide my best friend Keira when dorm commanders are chasing her. I don’t get invited to a lot of parties and sneak outs, well; I just don’t see a point in them. Yeah, you probably won’t be friends with me.’

Sulking, she turned back to her window. A few hovercars were out and the greenbelt could barely be seen. It was green with nice, small, square houses. Most had one or two levels. None has underground levels and plants were everywhere. The park was in between Uglyville and the greenbelt, a forest of trees on the greenbelt side. There were some fountains, benches, ponds and walkways. Trails went through another woodsy area and one light green tent was near the edge of the trees.

“Rora, you have a verbal ping. Starting now.” Malls suddenly said.

“Hi Rora, it’s Soaris. I’m having a party tonight, so you can come if you want. I met a girl named Lexy who’s coming too. Her name was in your contact box, so I thought I’d meet her. Ping me!”

She just sat there, leaning her head on the glass, not soaking up the message.

“Tell Soaris that . . . I might come.”

Thanks for reading this so far. It's ten pages and will be growing