Dr. Cable is the head of Special Circumstances. She worries that one day, humanity will escape the bonds of the Pretty Operation and rise to threaten the world again.
Biography[]
As an Ugly, Dr. Cable was very much like Tally. She constantly pulled tricks, snuck out to the ruins, and even tried to run farther and had to be brought back. It can be presumed that she resisted the brain lesions as a Pretty and was soon offered a job at Special Circumstances.
Uglies[]
- Main article: Uglies (book)
After an Ugly clique called the Crims escaped to the Smoke, Dr. Cable interrogated one of the members who chose to stay behind. The boy, Zane, told her everything he knew about the Smoke as well as the one other Crim member who stayed behind, a girl named Shay. She watched Shay closely for any signs that she may try to escape again, but relaxed when Shay made a new friend named Tally, believing that Shay may settle down and turn Pretty along with her friend.
When Shay suddenly did run away, Dr. Cable swooped down on Tally, correctly deducing that Shay left her with coded clues to the Smoke. She gave Tally an ultimatum: follow Shay to the Smoke, leading the Specials right to it, or remain Ugly for the rest of her life.
After a few days to think it over, Tally consents to the blackmail and is given a pendant with a tracker inside that will respond only to Tally's eyeprint. She is told to activate it as soon as she gets to the Smoke. Special Circumstances provides her with food, a water purifier, and other things necessary to live in the wild before she's sent on her way.
It takes months for Tally to activate the pendant, but when she does accidentally, Special Circumstances arrives within hours and immediately burns down the buildings and captures or kills every single Smokie. Dr. Cable sets up a base of operations amidst the chaos where she calmly reads an old Rusty magazine as Tally is brought to her. She sends Tally and a Special to go retrieve the pendant, mentioning she doesn't like to leave around loose ends.
Tally takes the opportunity to escape and eventually stumbles across David hiding in a cave. Out of all the people in the Smoke, he and Tally are the only ones who remain free. They decide to break into Special Circumstances headquarters and rescue the Smokies, knowing that it will take some time to prepare them for the Operation.
When they make their way to the holding cells, they nearly run straight into Dr. Cable. Seeing Tally surprises Cable so much, she doesn't have time to react when David hits her over the head. As Tally and David rescue Maddy, she informs them that Dr. Cable experimented on her husband's memory in an attempt to make him forget all about the Smoke, but the experiment ended up killing him. Overwhelmed with guilt, Tally vows to make things right and turns herself in.
Pretties[]
- Main article: Pretties (book)
After new-Pretty Tally's taken the experimental cure and the Crims destroy the floating ice rink above Nefertiti Stadium, Tally is confronted by Dr. Cable herself. At first she believed Tally had become just another Pretty, but the collapse of the ice rink proved to her that Tally is just as tricky as she ever was.
Far from upset that Tally broke a building, Dr. Cable reminds Tally that maintenance is not what Special Circumstances is for; they are far more interested in what the stunt reveals about Tally. Dr. Cable explains that Uglies are allowed to be tricky in order to see who's cleverest, to see who is able to break out of the cage. If those Uglies become Pretties who are able to resist the mind effects of the Operation, they are offered jobs within Special Circumstances. She offers Tally a way to keep her mind as clear as it can be, permanently, by becoming Special. Tally refuses.
However, Shay, too, has proven her exceptional resistance by finding her own cure. Dr. Cable makes Shay and her "Cutters" the same offer to work for Special Circumstances in exchange for permanent clear-thinking, and they accept.
They are soon sent on their first mission to find and help bring down the New Smoke. Special Circumstances had implanted a tracker in one of Zane's teeth, but only activated it once Dr. Cable's friend, Dr. Valen, had been assaulted by Tally on the reservation.
The Smokies manage to clear out before the Specials can catch them, but they're forced to leave Zane and Tally behind. Signaling medically-trained Specials to take Zane, Dr. Cable reveals that she knew all about Zane being cured and even stopped the nanos from eating away more of his brain, but programmed the tracker in his tooth to cause migraines to keep him and Tally "motivated".
With Tally finally in her grasp, Dr. Cable makes her Special.
Specials[]
- Main article: Specials (book)
In Specials, Dr Cable has turned many of the Crims into specials and placed Shay in charge of the Cutters. She is interested in destroying the New Smoke.
After the Armory is destroyed, she takes control of the military and attacks Diego. Tally confesses to destroying the armory, but Dr. Cable reveals that she knew the whole time and only wanted to be in control of the city. Tally injects Cable with the cure and is thrown in a cell. When Tally is going to be despecialized, Cable frees her because she wants one of her creations to live on.
Appearance[]
As a Special, Dr. Cable possesses a terrifying "cruel beauty" that commands instant respect. She has dull, grey, wolfish eyes, sharp teeth, and is taller than Zane, who is the maximum Pretty height of two meters. Tally once described her as "a beautiful woman half-transformed into a werewolf".
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| David - Shay - Smoke - Scott Westerfeld - Tally - Uglies slang- Uglies (trilogy) |