“This was Tally’s first trick since turning special. She’d expected to be ready for anything now—all those operations had filled her with icy new muscles and reflexes tweaked to snakelike speed. And then she’d spent two months in the Cutters’ camp, living in the wild with little sleep and no provisions.”

Tally’s description of what it means to be Special reveals the extent to which the surgical transformation changes the body and mind. She has been trained like a soldier and her body honed like an animal. The camp situation is designed to create not only self-sufficiency but also suffering, contributing to the Cutters’ habit of self-harm. This desensitization is crucial to the Cutters’ ruthless delivery of Dr. Cable’s instructions.

“Regular Specials in their lame hovercars could only move fast in a straight line. But Cutters were special Specials: every bit as mobile as the Smokies, and every bit as crazy.”

Not only is Tally a Special, but she is an even more enhanced version of a Special, both in physical ability and mental manipulation. The Cutters are designed to be fearless, ferocious, and fast. This mindset contributes to Tally’s early belief that she is better than other people, a superiority complex that interferes with her existing relationships.

“Her mind was clear, Special-clear, untangled from wild, ugly emotions and bubbleheadedness, fully realizing the truth of what the Smokies were. They weren’t revolutionaries; they were nothing but egomaniacs, playing with lives, leaving broken people in their wake.”

Tally’s programming has convinced her that the Smokies, who oppose the city’s authoritarian rule and surgically enforced social stratification, are a threat to order and safety. Her views are also the result of what happened to Zane: taking an early version of the cure damaged Zane’s nervous system. The dramatic irony in Tally’s situation is that, while she no longer has the brain lesions of Pretties that result in “bubbleheadedness,” she is still subject to propaganda.