In a world where every word and gesture is copyrighted, patented or trademarked, one girl elects to remain silent rather than pay to speak, and her defiant and unexpected silence threatens to unravel the very fabric of society.

Speth Jime is anxious to deliver her Last Day speech and celebrate her transition into adulthood. The moment she turns fifteen, Speth must pay for every word she speaks (“Sorry” is a flat ten dollars and a legal admission of guilt), for every nod ($0.99/sec), for every scream ($0.99/sec) and even every gesture of affection. She’s been raised to know the consequences of falling into debt, and can’t begin to imagine the pain of having her eyes shocked for speaking words that she’s unable to afford.

But when Speth’s friend Beecher commits suicide rather than work off his family’s crippling debt, she can’t express her shock and dismay without breaking her Last Day contract and sending her family into Collection. Backed into a corner, Speth finds a loophole: rather than read her speech—rather than say anything at all—she closes her mouth and vows never to speak again. Speth’s unexpected defiance of tradition sparks a media frenzy, inspiring others to follow in her footsteps, and threatens to destroy her, her family and the entire city around them.

All Rights Reserved

Gregory Scott Katsoulis

GREGORY SCOTT KATSOULIS is a writer, teacher, artist and goofball. He is in love with ideas and possibility When he is not writing, he composes incidental music, enjoys taking photographs of faces, debunking bunk and confounding children by teaching them about black holes, time-travel paradoxes and the hilarious fallibility of human memory. He lives in the lovely and stimulating Cambridge, Massachusetts.

You can visit his website at

www.gregorykatsoulis.com for occasional thought updates.

“A chilling, unnerving, and timely debut novel

about what it means to speak out, even in silence.”

—Katharine McGee, New York Times bestselling author

of The Thousandth Floor

The speech in my hand had no words of comfort or mention of Beecher. I couldn’t say how I felt about his death; I wasn’t allowed to speak other words.

Suddenly, a tide of rage coursed through me. My hands seemed to burn. I crumpled the speech into a ball and threw it as hard as I could toward the highway. It fell uselessly into the astonished crowd, not even a quarter as far as I’d imagined it would go. Gasps rose all around.

Everyone knew what came next. I would be one of those few pathetic kids you see on the news who squeak out a few words of protest before being carted off. Then, suddenly, another option blossomed in my mind. I seized it, because it was a choice—my choice—and one I’d never heard anyone suggest or seen anyone do.

I put a shaking thumb and finger to the corner of my mouth and drew my hand slowly across. I made the sign of the zippered lips—a rare gesture still in the public domain—and I silently vowed I would never speak again.

For Jenn & Evia and all our words.

TERMS OF SERVICE

Ownership: Hardcover Paper Book

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Title Page

About the Author

Introduction

Dedication

Map

Terms of Service

SPETH: 9¢

TWO SECONDS OF SCREAMING: $1.98

SILENCE: $2.99

TERMS: $3.99

DOLLS: $4.99

ZEBRAS: $5.99

PREY: $6.99

SCHOOL: $7.99

DESIST: $8.99

COUNSEL: $9.99

A CRESCENT: $10.98

FIND ME: $11.98

SILENTS: $12.99

IRIDESCENCE: $13.99

ASSAULT: $14.99

PLACERS: $15.99

SQUELCH: $16.99

ROOFTOPS AND PATIENCE: $17.97

OBDURATE: $18.99

INFLUENT™: $19.99

SILHOUETTES: $20.99

THE ONLY PRIVACY: $21.97

OIO™: $22.99

BREND’S: $23.99

MARGOT: $24.99

LUCRATIVE: $25.99

BRIDGETTE: $26.99

REPLEVIN: $27.99

THREE ROTATIONS: $28.99

BLISSBERRY DELIGHT: $29.98

DISREMEMBERED: $30.99

THE UPWARD CLIMB: $31.97

SIMULACRUM: $32.99

ESCAPE: $33.99

HENRI: $34.99

REMORSE: $35.99

SCORN: $36.99

SEASONS: $37.99

PILF: $38.99

CAROL AMANDA HARVING: $39.99

MURDEROUS: $40.99

SHATTERED ADS: $41.98

THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT: $42.95

RECLAMATION: $43.99

GEORGETOWN LAW®: $44.98

MISERABLE THINGS: $45.98

A CHANGE IN SCHEDULING: $46.96

BUTCHERS & ROG: $47.99

THE LIBRARY: $48.98

SILAS ROG: $49.99

ANIMUS NOCENDI: $50.99

THE STAIN OF A SENTENCE: $51.95

LICIT AUTHORITY: $52.98

NANOLION™: $53.99

MEIBOCH™: $540,000

DEBT: $55,000,000

FREE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Copyright

SPETH: 9¢

We had just started over the bridge, toward my party, when the famously cheerful “Don’t Jump” Ad clicked on. This had never happened to me before. The billboard’s advertising systems scanned me—analyzing my age, my style, even my pulse—and calculated I was in need of a friendly reminder not to kill myself. Colorful, hopping bunnies sang at my feet, on a waist-high screen that arced the full length of the bridge wall. Traffic roared along eighty feet below. Above, the city dome was lit a diffuse, fading gray by the evening sky beyond.

I felt a little queasy. Jumpers had been growing increasingly common, but I’m sure a higher railing would have been more effective than a glib cartoon. I wasn’t planning to kill myself. I had other things to concentrate on.

Mrs. Harris, my guardian, was still talking.

“You will get used to budgeting, Speth,” she chirped, but faltered slightly at my name, as if it wasn’t good enough for her mouth. My name was cheap and ugly. Speth. I hated it. It sounded like someone spitting. My parents chose it from a list of discounted girls’ names. When my brother was born, they vowed not to repeat that mistake and paid for a good premium name: Sam.

I wished Sam was nearby to distract me. Sam always made me laugh. But Mrs. Harris had shooed him off to help set up my party in the park, so she would have my complete attention.

Mrs. Harris was a little bird of a woman with restless hands and a tense, wrinkled little smile. She’d been lecturing me for the better part of an hour on what to expect on my big day.

I stopped walking and looked down at the shiny new Cuff she had clamped around my forearm that morning. It was a marvel of engineering—a cool processor, a rock-steady tether to WiFi and a smooth glossy surface impervious to scratches, dirt and smudges. It was rimmed in a burnished lightweight Altenium™ composite. The Cuff was nearly indestructible, unless the NanoLion™ battery went haywire and melted your Cuff and your arm off. The Cuff’s main purpose was to record everything I said and did, so I could pay the Rights Holders their fees.

“It’s beautiful,” my sister assured me. She patted my shoulder. The words she spoke scrolled up her Cuff as she was charged for each.

Saretha Jime—word: It’s: $1.99.

Saretha Jime—word: Beautiful: $8.99.

Then she was charged for patting me.

Saretha Jime—gesture: pat to shoulder—2 seconds: $1.98

Every word is Trademarked™, Restricted® or Copyrighted©. The companies and people who own these rights let people use them, but once you turn fifteen, you have to pay. Saretha had turned fifteen more than two years before. I was wearing the same bright orange dress she had, but not nearly as well. Everything else I owned was dull, gray and from a limited selection of public domain clothes Mrs. Harris allowed us to have printed at the UnderGap™.

At 6:36 p.m., it would be my turn; I would pay for every word I spoke for the rest of my life. Foolishly, I had believed it would be fun.

My Cuff felt tight. I tried to fit a finger between it and my flesh. There was no gap.

“In the unlikely event it needs to be removed,” Mrs. Harris said, “the proper authorities can do so. However, if your Cuff is removed for any reason, you will not be allowed to speak. Any utterance will result in a painful shock to the eyes.”

I closed my eyes. My lids slid down just a bit more slowly than before. As part of my transition, in addition to the Cuff, Mrs. Harris had roughly thumbed a corneal implant into each of my eyes. The implants were, at that moment, slowly fusing to my corneas. She said I would have terrible eyesight without them.

I’m almost certain this was a lie.

“You’ve read the Terms of Service?” she asked, but she knew I hadn’t. No one read the ToS. They were boring—hundreds of pages of intimidating, brain-melting Legalese. What did it matter? I had to agree. We couldn’t change them, and while technically I could “opt out,” I was required by Law to have the implants before I turned fifteen.

“Optic shocks may cause nausea,” Mrs. Harris said flatly, “dizziness, redness of the eyes, swelling, headaches, shortness of breath, seizures, confusion, heart palpitations, vision changes and, of course, blindness.”

“Rarely,” Saretha assured me. Her Cuff buzzed and charged her $1.75. I missed when we used to really talk. She was always so positive and joyful. I supposed she still was, inside, but I mostly talked with Sam after her transition. We didn’t have the kind of money that would let us talk freely once we were paying for our words.

“Traditionally, one arrives at one’s celebration at exactly the moment one turns fifteen.” Mrs. Harris’s thin smile pulled tight. I think she had timed our walk out to the park. Slowing down was not part of that plan.

I wished I didn’t have to have a Custodian. I wished my parents could have been here, but when I was little, our family was sued for an illegal music download traced back five generations to a great-great-aunt somewhere. We owed the Musical Rights Association of America® more than six million dollars in damages. Debt Services took our parents and placed them somewhere down in Carolina, pollinating crops with an eyedropper and brush until our debts were paid. My heart ached thinking of them so far away.

Mrs. Harris noted my sadness and moved on.

On the far side of the bridge, my celebration was crowded onto a small, manicured strip of green called Falxo Park. It sat at the very edge of the city, in the heart of the Onzième, where the dome curves down to the city wall. All the faux-Parisian-style shops crowded around the park, stretching off into the distance in a plastic approximation of Franco quaintness.

The outer shopping district and the park it flanked were beautiful if I squinted at it, awash and aglow in Moon Mints™ Ads. There was scarcely a surface in the city that couldn’t throw up an Ad. I liked the colors—sometimes. I just wished there was less going on all at once. It made my head feel fuzzy to try to take it all in—though Mrs. Harris said I had to try.

I could hear the party from across the bridge. All the younger kids were laughing and singing. I’ll bet there was dancing, too. The kids over fifteen would only join in after my speech, when the real celebration began.

I had really been looking forward to the party—seeing all my friends, what the Product Placers had brought and what my Branding would be. I was finally going to be a contributing member of society. Mrs. Harris said so. But suddenly, I didn’t want to cross the bridge. I didn’t want a party. I didn’t want a Brand. I didn’t care if I got lifelong discounts on Keene Inc. candies in return for unwavering loyalty to their family of products, or a small monthly allowance to speak encouragingly about Pamvax® Feminine Vaccines™. Now that I could really feel the change about to take place, I wanted to run. Why was this something to celebrate? How would I get used to measuring the cost of my words?

I had a strange urge to do or say something meaningful before the clock ticked over, but such behavior was frowned upon. I was supposed to wait until the moment after I turned. Then I would read the speech I had crafted with Mrs. Harris. I was contractually obligated to read it, from start to finish, as my first paid words.

The speech was in my hand, printed by Mrs. Harris on a thick sheet of real paper. My sponsors had approved it and subsidized my costs in return for peppering the speech with positive statements about their products. Keene Inc. even offered to have it framed afterward, so I could remember my Last Day, but I’d refused that offer; I didn’t want to be responsible for keeping a sheet of paper safe any longer than I had to.

I didn’t really care for the speech. I had thought it was funny to cram in as many endorsements as I could, giggling with my friend Nancee Mphinyane-Smil for weeks about how to work in something about Mrs. Harris’s favorite brand of industrial-strength suppositories.

I suddenly wished the speech said something more. More about me, my thoughts...my future.

“We should really get moving,” Mrs. Harris said.

I nodded, swallowing hard, and began to move. My eyes ached.

“I understand it can be difficult. Reducing your chat so precipitously, after fourteen years of free speech.” Mrs. Harris let the word precipitously slip out between her teeth with delight. The government paid for her words, and she relished them. There was a reason a woman like Mrs. Harris became a Custodian and took on guardianship of so many children.

It wasn’t compassion.

“Undoubtedly you have been speaking more than normal lately,” Mrs. Harris said, waving at me to hurry.

I hated that she was right. I had been talking more. I had also been dancing and singing and practicing gymnastics. That was all finished. Every dance move, every gymnastic flourish and every note of every song was Trademarked and priced outside what my family could afford. None of this was Mrs. Harris’s fault, but I still wanted to blame her. I had always disliked her. I glared at her horrible, insincere face.

“What?” she asked, taken aback. I took a deep breath.

“Is it normal to be able to see through people’s clothes?” I asked, squinting through my new corneal overlays.

Mrs. Harris flinched and moved to cover herself, until I snorted out a laugh.

“Sorry,” Saretha said for me. Sorry was a fixed-price word at $10, and a legal admission of guilt. She should have let me say it. I still had a minute left. I just wanted to have a little fun.

Mrs. Harris shook her head, tapping at her own Cuff a few times until a micro-suit showed up. The first thing to appear on my Cuff’s screen was $30 worth of Mrs. Harris’s “pain and suffering.” She sued us all the time like this for petty grievances. Saretha just tapped PAY.

“I have helped thousands of boys and girls transition, and trust me, you aren’t any different,” Mrs. Harris sniffed.

The clock was ticking down. In a few seconds, I would officially turn fifteen. I wanted to think of something meaningful to say, but what? My heart was pounding. My tongue felt like a solid lump in my mouth. Mrs. Harris sighed.

“It is very easy to slip up and speak, or shrug or scream, before you read your speech. This would void your contract, which would be disastrous. I must remind you of your obligation to read it first.” She lifted the hand that held the speech and shook it around, like I was a puppet. “These need to be your first paid words, Speth.”

I pulled away from her. I knew what my responsibilities were.

Mrs. Harris watched the time tick over on her Cuff. “You are an adult now,” she said, her eyes fixed on the podium in a way that highlighted the fact that we had not yet reached it.

The bunnies sang more loudly at the apex of the bridge. “Don’t jump, puh-leeze.”

Saretha beamed at me. Smiling was still free. How bad could things be if she seemed so happy? Her smile was wide and bright and friendly. It made you feel warm. She looked like she belonged in movies. A step behind us, her Ads sang a different tune across the glossy LCDs.

Saretha’s Ads were full of romance, perfume, alcohol and shoes. She didn’t come close to a jumper’s algorithm: she was too pretty, too graceful and too well-dressed. When she chose her Branding, Saretha got to choose between twenty-three different corporate brands. I would be lucky to pick from three. Saretha was a Facer, which meant that when she drank a soda in public or ate some chips, she was expected to face the product label out so people could see it. The systems almost treated her like an Affluent, although they never digitized her into the Ads. Truly wealthy people often had their likeness scanned, recreated and enhanced to look a little more beautiful and happy in a commercial.

Mrs. Harris thought Saretha’s looks were our family’s best chance at a better life. She didn’t just look like a movie star—she looked a lot like a particular star named Carol Amanda Harving. Carol Amanda Harving’s smile was more perfect and white, but somehow Saretha’s was more comforting and real. As Mrs. Harris liked to point out, my sister and the actress looked more alike than Saretha and I did. My heart sunk every time she declared it, usually in a tone she reserved for crueler moments.

Saretha and I looked enough like sisters, but whatever people might have said about her, they said less enthusiastically about me. Saretha was beautiful with an almost golden complexion. With work, I could be pretty, but my skin never shone the way Saretha’s did. Saretha had dark, welcoming eyes, the color of chocolate. Mine were just dark and sharp. Saretha had long, amazing, black wavy hair that rode over her shoulders like a shampoo Ad. I kept mine short, fashioned in a pixie cut Mrs. Micharnd, my gymnastics teacher, found for me in the public domain. When she was my age, Saretha already had curves, and now she had more. I had next to none. I was small, sinewy and perfect for gymnastics.

Saretha went on dates with gorgeous boys who paid for her words and expected affection in return. I went walking with Beecher Stokes, a skinny boy with messy hair who lived with his grandmother. He wasn’t terribly cute, but he made me laugh—or at least he did, until his fifteenth birthday. Then his mood soured. His jokes vanished. He would just stare at me, wordless. To fill the awkward silences, I let him kiss me—as much as he could afford. He could not afford much.

I find it creepy that the system can tell how long or hard a kiss is. I don’t know exactly what the system monitors, but Beecher would pay something like 17¢ for each second. That’s supposed to feel normal. It’s been like this longer than I’ve been alive, but something still felt wrong about it.

Mrs. Harris didn’t think it was appropriate for me to be with him, given what she called his “circumstances.”

When Beecher was ten, his father tried circumventing the programming of a food printer. He wanted to make more nutritious meals. It was in blatant violation of Copyright, Patent and Terms of Service—the Three Major Fields of Intellectual Property. Mr. Stokes disconnected from the network, but he was caught anyway. Debt Services took Beecher’s parents into Collection immediately. They would have taken Beecher, too, but Collection must let you finish school.

Beecher could have had another two years, but he dropped out of school a few weeks after his fifteenth. I couldn’t believe it. I asked him why. He shrugged like it was no big deal—50¢ to act casual. I kind of loved that he did that, even though it seemed so foolish.

“Beecher...” Mrs. Harris said, shaking her head. It was like she knew I was thinking about him. She really didn’t like him, which was part of the reason I kept seeing him.

Mrs. Harris hadn’t read my mind, however. Beecher was at the foot of the bridge opposite us, waiting, like he wanted to catch me before the party. My heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t love or a crush. The way he looked at that moment worried me.

Bunnies surrounded him, too, but in darker colors like green and midnight blue, because these were supposed to be “boy” colors. His eyes were red. Had he been crying?

“Don’t jump, don’t jump,” the bunnies sang cheerfully to us both as Beecher drew up.

“Speth,” Beecher said. His face winced. Mrs. Harris grabbed my arm and pulled me away.

He closed the space between us, quick, and kissed me. I felt a sharp jolt. This wasn’t like his other kisses. My lips stung. My body tingled. I realized, with horror, that his eyes were being shocked for kissing with insufficient credit.

“Beecher Stokes!” Mrs. Harris warned.

My pastel bunnies and his dark ones mingled in the Ad, harmonizing, “Don’t jump, pleeeeezeey weeezeey.”

My cheek twitched. I put a hand there to feel the spasm. Warmth spread through my face. Somehow, my Cuff’s software knew I hadn’t kissed back. It really unnerved me to realize my Cuff had such weird access to my lips and intentions. How did it know? Suddenly this whole system seemed too, too real.

Beecher abruptly stalked off, head down, hands jammed in the pockets of his dumpy brown public domain longcoat. Black, gray and blood-red bunnies, glowing from the Ads at his feet, kept singing that he shouldn’t jump. But Beecher didn’t take advice from bunnies. That had been one of his jokes, back before he turned fifteen. I’d always thought it was really funny—until he mounted the rail and took a great leap into the traffic eighty feet below.

The bunnies stopped singing.

TWO SECONDS OF SCREAMING: $1.98

Once, I loved to talk. What did I say with all those words? It seems like nothing now. I honestly can’t remember much: a conversation with Nancee about how birds make it into the city, an argument with Sera Croate about my hair (she said I looked like a boy with it short, but the style was free), a discussion with Beecher about how I liked the feeling of certain words in my mouth.

Luscious, Effervescent, Surreptitious, Cruft. I wasn’t thinking about expressing myself. Beecher had warned me: “Expressive words cost more.” He’d said it as if I should already be careful. He looked down at his Cuff’s thin amber glow.

Beecher Stokes—sentence: Expressive words cost more: $31.96.

His face was all gloomy. He could have spent that money on kissing, or saying something nice. He could have told me how he felt—he could have asked me anything, or at least warned me about how it really felt to pay for every word. Maybe that’s what he was trying to do. That was our last conversation.

I raced to where he had jumped, then stopped myself short. I couldn’t look down. I shut my eyes tight. The leaden thump, screeching tires and clatter of twisted metal had spared me nothing. I reeled back and doubled over. What did he just do?

A shattering wail filled the air anyway—Beecher’s name as a question. My eyes stung with tears, burning the fresh overlays in my eyes. It took me a second to realize I wasn’t the one screaming. It was Saretha.

I let nothing escape, not a scream, not a gasp, not a breath of air. I had stopped breathing, like it wouldn’t be real until I drew breath.

The howling stopped. Saretha’s Cuff buzzed.

Her shriek was legally considered a primitive call for comfort, aid and/or sympathy. The charge was 99¢ per second. Mrs. Harris twisted a bony, aggrieved finger in her ear and shook her head. She picked up my left arm and looked at my Cuff in disgust, but then her sharp, disapproving face broke into a ghoulish smile.

“Speth,” she said, wide blue eyes piercing me, “there may be hope for you yet!”

There was no concern for Beecher in her. She exhibited no revulsion. She was simply pleased I had not made a sound.

I swallowed. I was breathing again. Long, panicked breaths passed in and out.

From below, an intense, white, molten light flickered. The NanoLion™ battery in Beecher’s Cuff had ruptured. And then I knew that he was truly gone.

Saretha looked at Mrs. Harris, wild-eyed. Mrs. Harris put on a look of concern and patted her shoulder three times, did the math on what it cost and calculated Saretha warranted two final pats. The government didn’t cover Mrs. Harris’s gestures. She had once quoted a statute to us about how gestures were an inexact means of communication.

“Personally, I find them coarse,” she had told us. “A poor use of funds.”

I could not look at the woman. I stared blankly up over the bridge’s rail, to the expanse where cars were slowing in the distance, backed up by the accident. Cars began to honk at the delay, a dollar per honk, even though the bright white glow of the ruptured battery told them there was nothing anyone could do.

They hated us, those wealthy people, driving the ring for pleasure. Beecher, whom I’d cared for—maybe not the way he’d wanted, and not as much as he’d cared for or needed me—he was dead, and all they felt was irritation at the inconvenience.

Around me, there were other noises. My party filled with gasps and cries, then trailed off into a timorous murmur.

Timorous, I wanted to say, but I did not speak it.

Cuffs buzzed like an insect swarm. Sam came running out of the crowd, his mouth open, his round, usually playful face squinting in confusion.

“Why?” he asked in a rasp, looking over the edge at a scene I could not bring myself to witness. How could I answer?

I pulled him back from the edge. I wanted to tell him what I knew, but it was too late. I looked at my Cuff. The clock had run out. I pinched my fingers closed and ran them across my mouth. The sign of the zippered lips was a rare gesture still in the public domain. It was meant to allow people without means a method to communicate their lowly state, so Affluents wouldn’t have to waste their time. I wasn’t really supposed to use it with people who weren’t wealthy.

Mrs. Harris winced. “This isn’t the proper circumstance.” Her tone was somewhere between compassionate and annoyed.

“What else is she supposed to do?” Sam asked, his face red with rising anger.

Mrs. Harris put a hand on Sam’s chest to settle him down. He batted it away.

“She is supposed to read her speech and have her party,” Mrs. Harris said, as if nothing else was possible.

“Mom doesn’t approve of that gesture,” Saretha said, a step behind, waving her hand vaguely in front of her lips.

Our mother felt like it was groveling. She used the word supplication, which cost $32 that day. Mom said the only reason the zippered lips gesture was free was so we could humiliate ourselves. I had never seen her do it, not even when we were broke, not even when she was supposed to. I suddenly felt like I had let her down.

I wanted to put a hand on Sam’s shoulder, but Mrs. Harris had warned me about comforting gestures. I bit the knuckle of my cuffed hand instead.

A low, strained chatter resounded from Falxo Park, first from the younger kids, then from everyone else, as they tried to work out who had jumped and why. I thought of Beecher, and I felt airless.

* * *

Mrs. Harris led me to the edge of the stage. Ads crawled blithely along the city wall behind, a blur to my wet eyes.

“The Placers did a fine job,” she said, gesturing to my product tables. Product Placers had slipped into the park and set up an array of snacks and product samples. I had truly been looking forward to seeing what they brought, but now I felt disgusted looking at it all.

Mrs. Harris took a Keene Squire-Lace™ Chip—an elegant, intricately printed, crisped potato disk with my name and the number 15 laser-etched into the center. The Placers had left bowlfuls of them.

Mrs. Harris popped the chip in her mouth. As she chewed, she pretended to be upset.

“No Huny®,” she commented, looking around with a wrinkled nose. Huny® was Saretha’s Brand. I didn’t expect they would be my Brand—usually it’s your sponsor—but it was a little unusual they hadn’t put out a few packets.

“Well,” Mrs. Harris said, “I guess you should go ahead and read your speech.” She wiped her hands clean of the chip’s Flavor Dust™.

My body shivered. I felt weak. Maybe she was right. I had my contract to think of. If I broke it, there was no telling what my sponsor might do. No one was paying attention. Maybe I could read it quick and get it over with.

Sirens wailed in the distance. A news dropter appeared out of nowhere and hovered over the highway, where Beecher and the mangled cars were splayed. Then another dropter appeared, then more. They jockeyed for position and, failing to find a good spot to film the body, they spread out to the crowd and then to me.

“She can’t make a statement,” Mrs. Harris said, shooing them away while smirking at the attention. She lifted my hand to show them. The beautiful paper of my speech was distressed—creased and wrinkled from the tension of my grip. Mrs. Harris clucked and moved my thumb. “Let them see the Keene logo,” she whispered, even though I wasn’t a Facer.

“You do know someone’s dead, right?” Sam muttered. Mrs. Harris’s face twisted into what she thought was an appropriate expression of concern.

Saretha gently pulled Sam back, and every lens turned to her.

On the highway, a dark line of cars threaded through the clot of traffic. The other vehicles parted to let the Lawyers through. They arced around us, taking the long curve up the exit to the green. News, police and cleanup crews trailed them, ready to deal with the wreckage Beecher had wrought.

A distinctive Ebony Meiboch™ Triumph snaked its way to the front. Everyone knew that car, and they all gave it a wide berth. The Law Firm of Butchers & Rog had arrived.

SILENCE: $2.99

Butchers & Rog was the city’s most prestigious firm. Silas Rog himself had drafted countless pieces of legislation for the city, and some, it was said, for the entire nation. It was hard to know how powerful he was, because one piece of his legislation barred what he designated “undesirable news and information from outside the city.” Other people said he ran the city, though Rog himself denied it.

I was nine years old when Butchers & Rog delivered a bright yellow envelope to our apartment door. My father peeled the thing open and dropped a thin, torn slip of yellow to the ground. Sam tried to keep it. He was too young then to know you need a license to keep paper. The Paralegal slid it out of his hand, then held out his Cuff for my father to plead. My parents never read the terms. There was little choice but to agree. No one could disprove an ancestral download. Fighting would only cost more money. Silas Rog never lost. My father tapped AGREE with a hard knuckle, my mother with a trembling thumb. We had seven days with my parents while they set affairs in order and packed the few possessions they were allowed. My father tried to give us what advice he could, with what words he could afford. My mother said nothing; she didn’t want the Rights Holders to make another cent.

I wanted to know what song was so important that our parents had to leave because of it, but Saretha said that was childish; we had to take responsibility for what our family had done.

Within just a few months, the same thing happened to Nancee. Her parents were plunged into debt by a similar discovery: her great-grandparents had once been in possession of a silvery, rainbow-colored disc that was said to contain twelve beautiful pieces of music sung by insects. They had smashed it to pieces long before Nancee’s parents were born, hoping to avoid trouble, but trouble found her family anyway.

There weren’t many kids at my party who hadn’t been affected by the National Inherited Debt Act, and its Historical Reparations Agency. Night and day, algorithms scoured every piece of data the Rights Holders could scrape up. Mrs. Harris was guardian to at least a half-dozen of my closest friends, Nancee included. We usually steered well clear of her, as best we could.

My Last Day celebration meant Mrs. Harris was all mine for the day. They would be spared.

Mrs. Harris took me by the shoulders with her strong little hands and made sure I was facing the glossy black Butchers & Rog Meiboch™ Triumph.

The Lawyer began to speak almost as soon as the driver had his door open. He knew he had everyone’s attention. Sam glared like he was the devil himself. The Lawyer kept talking until he reached me.

“On behalf of Butchers & Rog, and senior partner Silas Rog, Esquire, I, Attorney Derrick Finster, Esquire, advise the party hereforth provisionally referred to as the Provisionally Counseled Party, that you, Speth Jime, the Provisionally Counseled Party, may reasonably anticipate compensatory damages should you, Speth Jime, the Provisionally Counseled Party, choose to engage the services of Butchers & Rog and its Attorneys thereof against the actions of one Beecher Bartholomew Stokes, alleged Jumper.”

Finster jerked a thumb back to where the road was being cleared and smiled. My stomach turned. I knew enough Legalese to understand he was offering to sue Beecher Stokes and his family on my behalf, but the cold-blooded, litigious sound of his words made me recoil.

I didn’t see how it would work. Who was there to sue? Beecher’s grandmother? What would they do with her? She was so old, it wasn’t even worth it for Debt Services to take her.

“Silas Rog himself has taken an interest,” Finster added, polishing a legal medal with a pinky. He was tall and square-faced and wore a broad chest full of legal medals on his clean, perfectly cut charcoal-gray suit. His eyes were covered by matte sunglasses, gray and pebbled, which gave him a disturbingly eyeless appearance.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Harris groveled. It wasn’t her place to thank him, and I didn’t share her awe.

Finster stood before me politely, letting me think.

Traffic on the road began moving again. Beecher’s body had been cleared, and the road scrubbed of him. The thought of it made me sick. The speeding cars began to roar in the distance.

Finster tallied some costs on his Cuff and licked his lips. His Ebony Meiboch™ Triumph was parked askew on the sidewalk, its driver waiting expressionless for his return. Lined up behind him were other Lawyers, eyeing my guests, waiting to see what bones they might pick. Finster continued.

“Our preliminary, and by no means complete or binding, estimates suggest compensation should be sufficient to abrogate your existing family debt and thus relinquish all claims, public and private, against your assets, material and otherwise, including, but not limited to, time, labor and servitude imposed upon those members of your household in debt bondage.”

I worked out what he said, and my heart leapt with hope.

“Our parents could go free?” Saretha asked.

Finster’s face broke into an eager, gap-mouthed smile. He nodded reassuringly. “All you need to do is agree,” he said. He held out his Cuff for me to tap AGREE.

Was it really possible that my parents’ servitude could finally be over? Was a simple tap all it would take to bring them home?

Mrs. Harris blinked, and her brain tried to work out what this would mean for her.

“She hasn’t read her speech,” she said quickly. Her face was bright red. “She does have a contract.” She could not look Finster in the eyes. Finster cleared his throat and smiled, like we had passed some test. He lowered his Cuff and looked down at me.

“Butchers & Rog recognizes your preexisting obligation to read, as your first and primary paid words, the sanctioned a priori speech approved by the entities of Keene Inc. and its subsidiaries, including but not limited to those endorsements and declarations of intent to purchase products and services from your guarantor. I hereby defer communication concerning Lawsuits and damages levied against Beecher Stokes, his corpse, his family and/or his assigns until such time as the allegedly aggrieved Provisionally Counseled Party, Speth Jime, has fulfilled her preexisting obligation of allocution of said speech, and can freely affirm her intention to retain Butchers & Rog for legal representation pursuant to actions against Beecher Stokes, his corpse, his family and/or his assigns.”

“The hell you say?” Sam asked.

“He is agreeing,” Mrs. Harris explained calmly, “to allow Speth to read her speech before giving a response.” She smiled like this was a great favor.

How generous, I thought.

“How generous,” Sam said flatly. I loved Sam.

“You may read your speech,” Finster said to me, waving a magnanimous arm toward the microphone. He took a step back to give me space.

“Thank you,” Saretha mouthed to him. Her Cuff buzzed with the fee, plus a 15 percent surcharge for speaking without sound.

The crowd of partygoers watched, wide-eyed. Even the younger kids were silent. I stepped to the podium. The Ads behind my celebration muted. I lowered my head and covered my eyes. Nothing made sense. Why would Silas Rog care? If I could have our parents back, surely it meant a worse fate for someone else.

Cars roared nonstop on the road where Beecher had been. They had returned to full speed, as if nothing had happened. On the bridge, two police officers were pointing, marking the trajectory where Beecher had leapt. Between them was a small, bent woman in a rough long-sleeved public domain dress: Beecher’s grandmother. Her misery was apparent, even at a distance. What would become of her? Dropters buzzed around her like a cloud of flies, small, dark lenses flicking between Beecher’s grandmother, Finster, the traffic and me. We would surely make the news tonight.

The police pointed at me. Did they tell her he’d kissed me? She looked bereft. I suddenly felt embarrassed to be onstage. Did she think it would be wrong for me to continue?

“Read your speech,” Mrs. Harris said.

Saretha nodded. Her Cuff buzzed in the eerie quiet. Sam looked away, arms crossed, eyes blinking.

My breathing grew fast and labored, like I couldn’t get enough air. How could I read the speech? How could I accept Butchers & Rog’s terms?

How could I refuse?

Finster stood placidly by. He knew exactly how everything would play out. I didn’t have any real options. I had to read the speech. I had to tap AGREE. I had to do what everyone expected. Silas Rog would sue Beecher’s grandmother or Beecher’s mangled body, or whatever his vile plan was, and he would grow richer from it. In the bargain, I would get our parents back.

The small quaint buildings on either side of the park seemed to close me in. I saw worry on faces in the crowd. Norflo Juarze met my eyes and shouted, “Feliz Quinceañera!” $25.99 spent on Spanish words he couldn’t afford. Sera Croate smirked, her eyebrows raised. I was taking too long to speak. She wanted me to fail, of course. Your friends come to your Last Day, but so do your enemies.

I thought I might throw up, and then thought, if I did, at least something would come out of my mouth. Sam would have laughed if he heard that thought. He would have understood. I wanted to show him with my eyes that everything would be okay, but instead, I started crying.

Beecher’s grandmother was watching from the bridge, stunned and expressionless. I wish she had been angry, or sneered. I wish she had walked away. I wish she had told me it was okay. The speech in my hand had no words of comfort or mention of Beecher. It was nothing more than typical generic nonsense about consumer responsibility, Moon Mints™, Buonicon Tea™ and Keene’s Kelp Gum™ (all owned by Keene Inc.).

I held the speech up. I couldn’t say how I felt about it. I wasn’t allowed to speak other words. Suddenly, a tide of rage coursed through me. My hands seemed to burn. I crumpled the speech into a ball. I threw it as hard as I could toward the highway. It fell uselessly into the astonished crowd, not even a quarter as far as I’d imagined it would go. Gasps rose all around. Mrs. Harris actually started to cry. The news dropters raced to film it like a pack of dogs chasing a bone. They got their shot and turned back to me.

Everyone knew what came next. I would be one of those few pathetic kids you see on the news who squeak out a few words of protest before being carted off. Finster waited for it, smiling, as though he expected me to break contract. It would ruin me. It would ruin my family, and for what? Whatever I might say would change nothing. He eyed Saretha and smiled a little more.

On the bridge, Beecher’s grandmother didn’t move, or acknowledge that I had done anything. She stared blankly toward my stage, flanked by two gaping police officers.

Then, suddenly, another option blossomed in my mind. I seized it, because it was a choice—my choice—and one I’d never heard anyone suggest or seen anyone do. I put a shaking thumb and finger to the corner of my mouth and drew my hand slowly across. I made the sign of the zippered lips, and I silently vowed I would never speak again.

TERMS: $3.99

Moon Mints™ has defriended you, my Cuff warned me with a chime. Chills ran down my back.

“Speth,” Saretha pleaded with a single word.

My eyes ached. My left arm felt heavy from the Cuff. Mrs. Harris, red-faced, ran into the crowd and retrieved my ruined speech.

My Cuff chimed again:

Keene Inc. reminds you that you have agreed to Terms of Service requiring you to read the speech agreed upon by both parties. Failure to do so as your first adult communication will result in fines and levies of no less than $278,291.42.

I could feel my orange dress stained with sweat under my arms. A slick trickle dripped down my back. That was more than enough to destroy us.

Finster’s docile expression never changed. He looked from me to Saretha, pleased, if not satisfied, and turned to walk back to his Ebony Meiboch™ Triumph. Other, lesser Lawyers, who had been waiting in the wings for Butchers & Rog to proceed, broke for the crowd.

I swallowed hard. The world blurred from my tears. I turned away from the podium and dismounted the stage.

“Everyone reads their speech!” Mrs. Harris screamed. Her tightly coiled blond updo, a Vivian Metro™ original, had sprung undone. I think she had to pay a fine for that.

Sam ran after me. I wanted to hug him or take his hand, but I could not. My silence—my lack of communication—had to be complete.

Sera Croate is no longer following you, my Cuff informed me.

Sera tapped at her wrist, a Lawyer standing at her side, bouncing on his heels. A moment later, I had an InstaSuit™.

Failure to provide reasonable value for time. $1,250.

I don’t know why it surprised me. Sera always was a pathetic, petty opportunist.

Phlip and Vitgo, two ill-named boys from my class, elbowed each other and then did the same. They were saving up to buy a nude data-scan speculation of Litsa Dox, a girl Saretha worked with. I hadn’t even invited them to the party.

Franklin Tea™ has defriended you, my Cuff buzzed. Keene’s Kelp Gum™ is no longer following you.

Nancee stared at me, frozen, wide-eyed, from the middle of the fleeing crowd, holding an ice-cold bottle of Rock™ Cola limp in her hand. Tears streamed down her face, like I’d betrayed her. Mrs. Harris stomped over to her, burning with frustration, and made her turn the label inward because Nancee was no Facer.

“What are you doing?” Penepoli Graethe begged me from the crowd, her long face contorted in horror, like what I had done was worse than Beecher’s leap. “What are you doing?” she repeated. She stepped closer. She was taller than me, but younger and hunched, like her height embarrassed her. She still had almost a year before it would be her up on stage. I had promised her we wouldn’t stop talking. Now that promise made my heart ache.

News dropters spiraled in a frenzy, looking for interviews with my friends, dramatic angles from the bridge or shots of me up close. I covered my face with my hands and blindly made a run for it.

Sam called after me. My heart sank further. He’d never understand.

Penepoli called, too, running a little—she was an awkward runner—then stopped, as if it was too much.

In their excitement to follow me, the dropters banged against each other, ruining the smooth and steady shots each network desired.

Norflo Juarze called after me, “Smatta, Jimenez?” Even after his fifteenth, when he worked hard to shorten everything he had to say, he insisted on lengthening our last name from Jime to Jimenez. He said, “What it was, ’fore ’twas shorted, like all Latino names ’round here.” He’d spent $138.85 that day.

What was the matter? Everything, I wanted to scream, but I said nothing, because I had to keep silent. If I never spoke, I wouldn’t have to read the speech. I wouldn’t have to worry about being economical with words or who was making money when I spoke. I would not have to AGREE to Butchers & Rog, and they couldn’t claim I had refused them. This was my only way out.

My throat felt so tight, I was amazed I could breathe. I pushed through the crowd and raced up the bridge, past Mrs. Stokes, who watched me go, wordless and unblinking. I wanted to tell her I did this for her, but that wasn’t really the reason. I didn’t fully understand what I had done, or why I was doing it—except I finally had control over something. The whole system of paying for words seemed so normal—until it was on me, like a wave crashing over me.

Beecher hadn’t seen a way out, but I had to take another path.

“Speth,” Sam called out a second time. I hated the worry in his voice. I had never done something like this to him before. I felt like I was abandoning him.

“We had plan,” he said, despairing. My heart sunk. I looked at him. He tried to smile.

“I was going to do all the talking,” he said. I remembered. “You were going to answer with a cheap word. Termite, maybe, if you agreed.”

We had tried this with Saretha two years before, but she said it went against the spirit of the Law. Then she added, “And it would be cheaper to say Speth than termite, anyway,” which was a little cruel, and cost her $12.73 to point out.

“A termite can still read the speech,” Sam said sadly. His face scrunched up, like he couldn’t comprehend what I was doing.

I paused, straining to keep my sobs silent, keeping an eye on my Cuff for any sign I had slipped up. Crying was free unless you made a sound. I wished I could explain to him. Behind him, Saretha looked bewildered as a small, punchy man in a chartreuse Lawyer’s suit raced up to her, talking fast.

I ran on, full speed, followed by the bunnies over the bridge’s screens, hopping quickly to keep up, singing more vigorously than before. They stopped short when I made it to the bridge’s other side.

Small voices began calling to me from the dropters.

“Crane Mathers from the Murdox Posts™—will you grant an interview?”

“Will you make a statement for Kingstan Press™?”

“CNC™. Can we get you to stare in silence at our camera for just one minute?”

The Kingstan Press™ dropter made a sudden dip, colliding with the one below it. The CNC™ dropter wobbled, then came back, tilted a hard right and slammed the one from Kingstan Press™ into the Ad wall, smashing its surface so the screen sputtered to gray.

I put my arms over my head to protect myself. A media frenzy like this could easily end with a dropter knocking you out cold, or catching its small heli blades in your hair and scalping you. If that happened, dozens more would appear on scene to cover that story.

An Ad for Dropter Gyroscopics™ flashed on the next panel, then more Ads clicked on across the walls in front of me, suggesting Law Firms, running shoes and Media Image Consulting™.

I made it inside our building, slamming the glass door quickly behind me. The dropters tapped at the glass, but were unable, physically or legally, to open the door. I took the elevator upstairs to our apartment on the twelfth floor.

Suddenly everything was quiet.

Our Ad-subsidized home had just one cheaply printed room. The walls were made of slightly rough, striated layers of polymer melt. Our building had been 3-D printed, millimeter by millimeter, from a set of economy plans, and warped to the curve of the ring just inside the outer highway. There were dozens of nearly identical buildings out here, printed from the same template, with all the same sorts of rooms inside.

Our rent was kept affordable as long as we watched thirty hours of Ads each month. There was no place cheaper to live in the city. If you couldn’t afford to live here, you were sent into servitude, like my parents had been.

For years, our home had a slight scent of scalded plastic. One wall had been printed in and smoothed over when my parents were taken. Our apartment was reconfigured to the “proper” allocation for three. It was infuriating to know my parents’ space was still there, empty, a useless void withheld because the Rights Holders couldn’t stand for us to have more than the legal minimum. Mrs. Harris tried to claim it was so we wouldn’t feel sad remembering our parents.

I could still smell the burnt plastic. I could still remember when that room was there—what it looked like. I could still remember them.

Sensing my warmth, the wall-screen clicked on and began a mandated rotation of Ads. I dropped myself on our couch and buried my head in my hands. The Ads increased in volume to remind me that if I did not see them, they would not count toward our monthly required viewing total for our subsidy.

My ears were ringing. My stomach churned, both hungry and upset. If everything had gone as planned, I would have been choosing my Brand like everyone else did on their Last Day, looking over my Placements with my friends and eating pizza—real pizza, not the printed kind. Instead, I had to face what I had done alone.

In silence.

DOLLS: $4.99

I had the chance to bring my parents back, and I ruined it. Why? So what if Silas Rog was involved? So what if Beecher’s grandmother would be jailed or indentured, or whatever it was they were planning to do? I didn’t know Mrs. Stokes. Did she even understand what I had done, or how much it had cost me?

The door slid open behind me.

“I’m glad,” Sam yelled, stomping in. He didn’t seem glad. “I hope Silas Rog’s brain explodes. I hope the whole city crumbles to bits because one girl didn’t read her stupid speech! I hope everything falls apart.”

He was pacing, talking fast, because he could afford to say whatever he liked. He didn’t have to think about his words. He could let them fly. He stopped to hug me and then went on.

“Your friends are a bunch of turd muffins, by the way.”

I wanted to say, not all of them, but he knew.

An incoming request showed up on our screen from Dayline Exclusives™. Sam flicked at the screen to refuse the call.

“How is this even a big deal? No one ever did this before? Really? Like tons of people don’t read their stupid speech and then stop talking? The Juarze brothers probably say ten words each a year!”

This was an exaggeration, but only a mild one. I hugged him back in my mind.

Our door slid open again. Saretha came through, followed quickly by the Lawyer in the chartreuse suit.

“Speth,” Saretha said, breathless. “Not too late.”

“Who is that?” Sam asked, pointing at the Lawyer.

The Lawyer waved and bent his head, hands on his knees, as he caught his breath. “Arkansas Holt,” he panted. “Attorney at Law.”

An Ad for a competing Lawyer, Dirk Fronfeld, clicked on our screen, promising better returns. A call came in from his Law Firm. Sam canceled it.

Saretha’s brows pinched upward as she looked at me for some sign I hadn’t lost all my marbles.

Arkansas Holt moved to my side of the room, still breathing hard. Arkansas was the name of a state, I think. He had only a single medal on his chest, proudly proclaiming he had won at least one case, but sadly implying it was his only win.

Sam’s head suddenly snapped toward our room’s only window. “Son of a—” He stormed over. Our window was a milky, flickering mess that was supposed to be something we could adjust, clear to opaque, at our convenience. Instead it was stuck in an ugly, jittery state in between the two. Outside the window, a pair of dropters bobbed up and down, calculating how best to film me.

“Vultures,” Sam grumbled. He pulled open his pullout couch (Saretha and I shared the other) and yanked a blanket off to block their view. We didn’t have curtains. The Patent for the concept of curtains required a $90 monthly payment and we had never thought it was worth it. It usually didn’t matter on the twelfth floor. Now it meant Sam had to hold the fabric up; clipping fabric over a window was Intellectual Property we had no right to use.

“I can help with this!” Attorney Holt raised a finger in the air like he had practiced being dramatic, but hadn’t entirely mastered it. “I can make them vanish.”

He sounded like a cut-rate magician, or an Ad for cleanser, not a Lawyer.

“He can help us,” Saretha said weakly. She held herself tight and rubbed her shoulders like she was cold.

Holt cleared his throat and stood up a little taller, bolstered by Saretha’s apparent confidence in him.

“If you would like to be rid of the media, I can place an injunction against reproduction of your likeness,” he said. “It won’t prevent them broadcasting anything newsworthy such as this morning’s unfortunate events, but it will prohibit them from following you around and hoping for more.”

“Yeah? And how does this help you?” Sam asked Arkansas Holt.

Holt paused. “Pursuant to legal action, I would require a vested interest—control over commercial rights to your sister’s likeness.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “For what?”

Holt began itching at his nose. “I would profit from anything like posters or dolls or such if it were to ever come to that.”

Our buzzer rang. A small inset window on the wall-screen showed the feed from our door. Mrs. Harris was standing outside, fishing through her purse.

I didn’t need this. I needed time to think. There was too much noise and chatter. Too much was happening at once.

“Dolls?” Sam squinted at Holt, disbelieving.

Holt shrugged. “Theoretically, I would be able to sell virtual approximations. She isn’t old enough for anything more revealing than a bikini.”

We knew, from time to time, that Advertisers sold scan data so boys like Phlip and Vitgo could buy a peek at the system’s best approximation of what some girl looked like naked. It had happened to Saretha half a dozen times. I thought it was gross, but Mrs. Harris said she should be flattered. Saretha forced herself not to mind, because she was legally entitled to 10 percent of the profits.

Arkansas went on, “You can’t possibly have a reasonable expectation of privacy at your income level. Anyway, this isn’t likely to be a lucrative trade.” Holt gestured a hand to my apparently uninteresting body. My face went warm and pink.

Outside, Mrs. Harris found what she was looking for and ran her keycard across the door lock. The door opened, and she swept in.

“What in the world were you thinking?” she screeched. Then she caught sight of Holt, drew herself up to impress him, saw his lonely medal and drew herself right down again.

“Speth,” she said, making my name sound like she’d spit it up.

I drew my knees to my mouth. I wanted to put my hands to my ears, but that gesture cost $7.99 per minute.

“Tell them what you told me,” Saretha begged Holt. Mrs. Harris folded her arms. Holt stood tall again and fixed his eyes on me.

“Whereas the terms of your contract with Keene Inc. stipulate you will read what was agreed upon before any other paid speech, and whereas that agreement does not specify a time, date or location, you have not yet broken the terms of said agreement, as you have not yet spoken, and are therefore presently indemnified against suit for breach of said contract, including, but not limited to, trailing and ancillary suits derived thereof.”

Even when it was spoken in my defense, Legalese seemed to cut at me. I tried to focus on what he was saying and not the sound, but it was right up there with face-slapping as a means of communication.

“She’s not in trouble?” Sam asked, stretching his arms high to cover the full window.

“She is in a great deal of trouble,” Mrs. Harris assured him.

“Perhaps,” Holt said, “but that depends on her intention. If her silence were a demonstrable act of protest or antagonism, that could be problematic. But since she has not spoken, how can we know?”

I looked up from my knees.

Mrs. Harris bit her lip.

“All you have to do is read the speech,” Saretha said. She quickly thumbed through her Cuff until she was able to pull up a copy. She flicked it so it would show up on my Cuff. “You can read it and then explain you were traumatized by what happened to Beecher.”

By what happened to him? Beecher killed himself; it didn’t happen to him. I couldn’t let myself think about it. I was confused. I was sad. I was angry. Did that mean I was traumatized?

“She made the sign of the zippered lips,” Mrs. Harris said. “Twice. That is not something a traumatized person does.”

Holt narrowed his eyes at her. “You must beg my forgiveness. I was unaware you are a psychologist qualified to diagnose trauma.”

Mrs. Harris backed away a little.

“Mrs. Hairball falls silent,” Sam said, like he was narrating a Baseball™ game.

Mrs. Harris calmly began tapping out a Lawsuit for being called a hairball. Sam threw down the blanket and grabbed her wrist. “You want to sue us? How about we sue you? Weren’t you in charge of her transition?” He turned to Holt. “Can we sue her?”

Holt made a face that said, maybe?

“Sam,” Saretha said, as if suing Mrs. Harris was a ridiculous thing to suggest. I didn’t think it was ridiculous. I was tired of her. I would have loved to see her sued by us instead of the other way around.

Sam let her go. Mrs. Harris backed up, scowling.

Outside, seven or eight dropters drew in close to the window. Holt moved to that side of the room and turned his back to them.

“Whatever happens,” Holt said, “and I cannot stress this enough.” He waved a hand at me to make sure I was listening and dropped his voice low. “If you choose to speak, or when you are able to speak, now, later or ten years from today, the first words out of your mouth must be these.” He pointed to my Cuff and the speech that sat there, glowing.

I don’t know why this made me cry again. I couldn’t even see the speech. I pushed his hand away. I could do that. I could push people out of my space without charge. I just couldn’t hold them.

Holt moved back, and out of the corner of his mouth, he whispered to Saretha.

“Now, how about my fee?”

ZEBRAS: $5.99

I can still hear my father’s voice. Even though we were poor, he was a talker. When the WiFi would fail, his face would light up. This was his chance. He could say anything, untethered from the system.

I remember one time, he said to us, “I can make you think of zebras.” Sam laughed his playful, cherubic laugh. I listened, delighted.

“All I have to do is say the word: Zebras. The idea goes from me to you. Zebras. See? It’s unavoidable! You’re picturing one now!”

He smiled, knowing he was right. I saw the zebra, with stripes and a bristly mane—a wide-open plain behind it. Words were like magic.

I don’t remember all of it, in part because I was so young, and also because it was hard to concentrate. My mother would go wild during the outages, hugging us without the $2.99 fee, kissing our heads and saying, “I love you,” a hundred times. It was like an animal attack, but a loving one.

I remember my father claimed there used to be places called “liberties” that would let you read any book, and all you’d have to do is show them a card.

“How much did the card cost?” I asked. He smirked. He said it was free. You just had to promise to return the book when you were done.

I loved his stories, even ones that ridiculous. I knew what he described was impossible. How could people who wrote books, or published books, ever make any money if “liberties” just gave them away? It made no sense.

He also said words had once been free. I believed him about that. Laws were made of words, so the words had to come first, right? My father said it took thousands of years for humans to figure out they could control the rights to words. They started by controlling how certain words were used, so that you couldn’t just write a word like Coke™ or Disney™ or Candy™ without fear of getting sued, especially if you had something negative to say. It only got worse from there. He didn’t know when it all started.

“I only wish I knew how to make it all end,” he said.

My mother got upset when he said things like this. She worried about getting flagged, sued or even Indentured.

“Everyone around here gets Indentured eventually,” my father said darkly.

“What if the WiFi came back tethered?” my mother pressed him, like the WiFi was knocking at our door.

My father looked abashed and zipped his lips, as a joke. My mother didn’t find the gesture funny, even in jest, with the WiFi down.

“I hate that,” she said. “They want us remembering how low we are. I don’t want any of you to make that sign, understand?” She looked at the three of us, then at her Cuff, worried the WiFi might have kicked back on when she wasn’t looking.

* * *

Now I had made that very gesture, the one she despised, in front of the entire city—maybe the whole nation. Why had I done it? What was I thinking?

We had to call our parents. We didn’t know if they had seen me on the news. Their company controlled what access they were allowed, and most of their time was spent in the fields. Saretha managed to contact them through the Internment Bureau, and we were able to set up a call. Mrs. Harris insisted on being present. She was still Sam’s Custodian, and she stood behind us, arms crossed, with a disapproving scowl.

“Speth,” my father said, amplified, but distant. “It’s okay.”

His voice was low and calm. He looked tired. His skin was like dusty leather. My mother’s was, too. She sat beside him, her eyes downcast. The room was dark behind them, insufficiently lit by a dirty fluorescent coil. From the worry on their faces, it was clear they had heard plenty.

“Sam,” my father said with a slow nod, meaning Sam should tell them everything.

Mrs. Harris clicked her tongue. She had explained many times that it was bad etiquette to make the youngest do all the talking, just because they did not have to pay. “It’s perverse,” she said in a low aside to Saretha. Saretha pretended Mrs. Harris was not there while Sam explained about Beecher, the speech and what I had done. My body tensed as I waited for a reaction. Sam described the sign of the zippered lips. My mother’s mouth twitched. She closed her eyes.

When Sam was finished, my father nodded again. He looked older than he should have. They both did. They had to drink a liter of Metlatonic™ twice a day just to survive under the brutal sun. I didn’t know if this was because the work made them thirsty, or if the sun burned their skin. I didn’t know if the Metlatonic™ was helping or harming them. The hefty cost of it was deducted against the Indenture.

It still looked like the sun was killing them.

My father took my mother’s hand. She barely moved. The fee for their affection scrolled up the screen. $6.

“I know this must be hard,” my father said. I tried not to cry. I failed. I wiped away the tears, desperate for something in his words to guide me. Below him, on-screen, scrolled the cost of his handful of words, the WiFi tax, the fee from Agropollination™ Inc. for use of their room and equipment and time off from the fields.

I ached to ask them what to do. The silence was killing me. I needed their help, and I hated that everything about this world seemed to conspire to keep their guidance from me. I didn’t even know how far away they were. I’d asked, but my parents, Mrs. Harris and even the teachers at the school couldn’t say how far it was from Vermaine to Carolina. Geography is proprietary information.

Please, I begged them silently in my head, tell me what to do!

“Did you have anything to add?” my father asked my mother slowly.

That was it? I blinked back more tears. Couldn’t they see my face? Couldn’t they read it, even if their eyes were bleary? I had no idea how far they were from me.

My mother looked up, first at him, then at the camera, the screen and me. She looked so beaten. Her eyes were rimmed red. I wanted to say I was sorry. I wanted to take everything back, but then my mother did something I never thought I’d see. She raised her fingers to her mouth and slowly, deliberately, made the sign of the zippered lips, twisting at the end, like a lock. She stared at the camera, straight and clear, and she smiled. Pins and needles shot up my spine. No one seemed to breathe. Mrs. Harris’s mouth hung open. My father nodded, pressed a button and the image of my parents flickered away.

PREY: $6.99

I was an agitator. I was a fool. I was brilliantly devious. I was a mental deficient. I was an unpatriotic threat to the nation. I was a pathetic symptom of a generation with no soul. “Kids never used to be like this,” interviewees said.

But my mother approved.

I was seditious, a word I’d never heard before. It meant I wanted to destroy the government. They said I’d driven the price of the word up to $29.99 this month, but I had nothing to do with it. Rights Holders changed prices each day as much as they could, depending on what the market would tolerate.

One news report claimed I had tricked Beecher into killing himself to cover my tracks. (What tracks? I wondered.) Another report, the most flattering of the bunch, claimed I had a brain tumor that rendered me mute. I was a sad, worthless little girl.

Three networks offered bounties to the first person who made me speak. I wasn’t sure, but I thought that might mean word had gotten out of the city. What did they think of me out there? I knew, at least, what my parents thought, and that made things a little easier to bear.

On my first day back to school, I was on Fuller Street, just away from the roar of the outer ring, when two skinny rich girls in gold corsets and Transparenting Mood™ coats approached me. They wanted me to talk—to talk, goddammit, and they were going to make it happen.

“I’ll pay for your speaks,” the taller one shouted, as though I were half-deaf. She seemed to think I had only been waiting for someone as clever as her to ask. She tottered alongside me and shoved her crystal-rimmed Cuff under my nose. Her long coat turned a translucent acid yellow. Half a dozen bracelets clinked and rattled as she shook her arm for me to speak.

“I’ll record her voice,” she said in an aside to her friend, like I was a dog who couldn’t understand. “We can play it for everyone.”

The shorter one nodded excitedly. “You could get on the news!” Her coat flashed orange, then clear.

There were no dropters nearby. Attorney Holt had been able to put a partial lockdown on that. I don’t know if he planned to sell dolls or what.

“Meh,” the tall one said, fluffing at her hair. $6.99. The yellow of her coat mellowed. She didn’t seem to care about the news or the money. She just wanted me to obey.

“If you’re not gonna talk, do the zippered lip thing, sluk.”

That word, sluk, put my teeth on edge. $49.99. It was ugly, hateful and pricey—meant to imply I was scarcely more than filth. I’d never spoken it, even if plenty of other kids did before they had to pay. Nancee and Penepoli once went back and forth with it, as a joke, seeing who could say it the meanest. I always told them that if we could say whatever we wanted, it was better to try beautiful words.

Neither Nancee nor Penepoli could hit that k in the hateful, glottal way the girls in the alley could.

“Come on!” The tall one shoved at me half-heartedly. I almost laughed at her. A small push would have done either of those girls in. That’s the way it was with rich people; they were either grotesquely enormous, from gluttony or steroids, or they were distressingly thin. I felt a little sorry for those girls, though I don’t know why I had any sympathy. They had none for me. They chose to starve, while some kids barely survived on printed sheets of Wheatlock™. Despite all their advantage, these girls still looked miserable. I had to remember that it made them vicious.

I peeled off from the main sidewalk, ducking down a narrow alley. I assumed they’d avoid anywhere so dirty, but my disobedience sent them into fits.

“You want to get sued, little girl?” the taller one asked, stamping her heel. Her coat flickered and reddened, and her nose wrinkled as she eyed the tight, shadowy space where I’d fled.

My speech popped up on my Cuff, glowing, as if Keene Inc. had some algorithm guessing the worst possible moment to get me to reconsider reading it. Or maybe Keene considered these girls a good audience.

“Her dad’s a Lawyer,” the other one warned me. She strode fearlessly into the alleyway on her six-inch heels, her coat flashing to black. I picked up my pace, and they started to run after me. Well, maybe not run—their posh high-heeled shoes and unyielding corsets made their progress difficult. They clattered along awkwardly, and after a few seconds they had to stop.

“Oh my God, Mandy, I can’t barely breathe,” the shorter one cried out.

“Sluk!” Mandy shouted. She pulled her heels off and threw them at me, one after the other—insubstantial, spiky heels that wobbled through the air. It occurred to me these girls could have been customers at the shop where Saretha worked. Saretha sold impractical garbage like this, corsets and heels and ornate Leatherette™ boots.

I took off, slipping away into a branching alley and up a fire escape. I was glad for the thinness of the rich girls’ arms and the weakness of their needlessly starved bodies. Even if they saw me, they could never pull themselves up to follow. My heart pounded, but I felt a little thrill in escaping them.

“Advil™, Advil™!” I heard them cry out as their voices receded into the distance behind me.

I climbed a little higher and mounted the roof. I could walk across an arc of six buildings and then return to street level right before the crossing for my school. None of the rooftop gaps would be hard to jump and, truth be told, I enjoyed the little thrill of leaping. I just had to be careful with my landings and not give them any gymnastic style. I couldn’t afford that now. My Cuff was watching.

I was feeling pretty good up there, having thwarted the Affluent girls, when a realization dawned on me.

Would I be facing worse at school?

SCHOOL: $7.99

The Westbrook School was set on the inside edge of the Onzième, a collection of large, connected buildings printed from mottled surplus plastics in uneven, translucent shades of gray. The front of the main building faced a wall meant to discourage—though not completely bar—teenage access to the businesses of the Quatrième. Most of us enter through the back of the Parker™ building.

The moment I stepped inside, Shari Gark blocked my path, while other kids streamed in around me. Despite what it cost her, she demanded, “You guna talk if therza FiDo?”

Shari followed the Word$ Market™ carefully, looking for words that dropped in price. Slang words—sometimes called gutter words—like therza would fluctuate wildly, but could often be spoken for pennies. Her use of FiDo surprised me. FiDo was the code word everyone used for when the WiFi went down, but was pricey. Kids would run up and down the ring, shouting it in an outage; it didn’t cost anything then. Adults would break into wordy conversations, asking each other saved-up questions and savoring the answers. When I was younger, it happened a lot. The rooftop transmission nodes would get damaged or vandalized. Then it stopped happening. Silas Rog spearheaded the effort to centralize the WiFi system, offering to house it in an impenetrable bunker beneath his well-guarded offices.

I didn’t think the WiFi was likely to go out, but if it did, would I speak? Shari stared at me, red rising in her cheeks.

“You think ur better den me?” she demanded.

I was stunned she had spoken so much. Since she had turned fifteen, she had said maybe five words. Now she was willing to spend $57.94 to express her rage, or to show she was different from me. Maybe she just wanted to make me speak.

Her face contorted into a furious sneer. Younger kids chattered and whispered about me as they passed. Older students shuffled through the hallway, staring at me quietly. Shari drifted into the stream, fuming, headed toward our word economics class.

I turned to open my locker, but I couldn’t because it wouldn’t play the Ad before the combination screen. I wasn’t allowed into word economics, either, because Mrs. Oglehorn said I could not be expected to contribute meaningfully to the class. Technically, she was right. But I knew for a fact Shari hadn’t spoken a single word in class since her fifteenth. Neither had half a dozen other kids. Nobody was going to waste money speaking in word economics. Mostly they just sat and waited to learn how to hunt for word bargains.

In communication ethics, Mr. Valk pretended nothing had happened, at least at first. “Shrugs are considered communication, and are Trademarked by the Rand® corporation, unless the movement of said shrug is less than two centimeters, in which case it is exempt from charge, as the ruling Merrill v. Dakin laid out.”

My ears perked up. It was critical that I remember what I could do with my body and what I could not. I could shrug, but only slightly.

“As with any free gesture,” Mr. Valk went on, “repetition will be flagged and charged if a pattern of communication is discerned.”

He must have said this a hundred times. The Rights Holders couldn’t allow a person to subvert the system by microshrugging a love poem in Morse code.

“All modes of affection are charged to the initiating party of said affection and, subsequently, to the reciprocator at a lower rate, with the exception of hand-holding, which is charged equally to both parties, or not at all, if the hand-hold is not an act of affection, as determined by the parties’ mutual serotonin levels. A 0.35 threshold has been defined as that limit as read by a standard Cuff.

“This can allow two clinically depressed parties to hold hands free of charge, which, while technically legal, is considered immoral and disrespectful to the Law.”

Behind him, the room’s screen lit up with the outline of a sad boy and girl holding hands, but seeming to get no joy out of it. I couldn’t help but think of Beecher and wish that I had felt something more for him.

Mr. Valk then looked at me. His eyes narrowed. “What is charged for communication can and does change over time, as different suits and cases come before the court refining the Law. One day, even silence could be charged a fee if it is determined that such an action is an intentional act of protest.” His voice grew harsher, but then he closed his eyes, relaxed and resumed our normal class.

I didn’t get to go out for driving class because Mr. Skrip, the driving teacher, asked me if I wanted to go out on the ring, and I couldn’t answer. He looked at me for a long moment, deeply disappointed.

“Waste of aptitude,” he said. I was one of his favorites, partly because he’d liked Saretha before me, but mostly because he felt I had very good control.

I liked driving, but I was relieved not to go out. Driving on the ring around the city is stressful, with all those expensive cars passing and cutting you off. In an accident, there is zero chance that someone from our school would not be found culpable, regardless of what actually happened, and that suit would be ugly.

“Fault is decided by the courts, not the facts,” Mr. Skrip liked to remind us.

We all knew we were only there so we could learn to chauffer Affluents and run their errands. Why would I want to do that?

* * *

In the hall, Phlip and Vitgo made a game of blocking my path and pretending they would move only if I would tell them which way to go. I tried not to let them irritate me too much, which was hard because Phlip and Vitgo were always irritating.

Sera Croate came up behind me and twisted my arm behind my back. “She won’t even scream,” she said, like I was an experiment. $7.96. I yanked away from her, fury scorching through me, radiating from the ache in my shoulder. Sera Croate had hated me for years, but now she was acting like I wasn’t even human. I rubbed my arm, every muscle in my body suddenly tense. Was this what it was going to be like from now on?

I should have been having a great week. If I had just done what was expected, everyone would be congratulating me. They would have been impressed I had carried on, even after what Beecher did. I would have had coupons for food and speaks. I would have had a Brand, probably Moon Mints™, and I would have been able to buy them at a great discount for the rest of my life for my loyalty. I could have kept my head down, just like everyone else. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.

Sera eyed me, like a snake about to unhinge its jaw and devour its prey. My hands clenched to hard fists. Punching was still in the public domain. But could I really do it? I could never even look at Sera without thinking about how her parents were taken. They were beaten mercilessly for refusing to AGREE, and Sera came into school the next day pretending she was glad they were gone.

“I like Mrs. Harris better,” she’d said. She was only eight years old.

How could I hit her, remembering that?

Sera opened her mouth—no doubt to say something vile—but stopped cold as a senior girl named Itzel Gonz approached us. Without breaking her stride, Itzel met my gaze and drew a pinched thumb and finger across her lips as she passed silently by.

A tingling crept up the back of my neck. My hands slackened as I watched Itzel in awe. Frowning, Sera and her little posse stalked off to our next class. I lagged behind, savoring the one brief, bright moment of my day.

In consumer ethics & etiquette, Mr. Julianiis would not let me take my seat. Instead, he had me stand up in front of everyone. He lit the room’s wall-screen with a survey of different well-regarded brand logos. “How will she buy products and services if she does not speak?” he asked, pointing to me like a specimen. Everyone stared. I backed up until I hit the screen. The logos scattered away from me. All those eyes felt like they were drilling into me, trying to understand me, but they couldn’t. I looked down at my Cuff, which should have been recording my words. I was exposed and alone, but in my gut, I felt glad that at least my silence meant that I also had privacy. They would never know what I was thinking.

“She could sign for stuff,” Bhardina Frezt offered.

“She cannot sign for stuff,” Mr. Julianiis said coldly. “She has chosen not to communicate. Signing counts as a form of communication. If she does elect to communicate, she has a legal obligation to read her speech. Until then, she cannot agree to Terms of Service or make purchases of any kind because, as you all know, the idea of exchanging money for goods is Patented. It requires payment of a fee. A small fee, kept reasonable by your good friends at Prolix Patents™, who remind you to Pay Well™.”

Mr. Julianiis clicked a picture of the Prolix Patents Inc. logo onto the room’s front screen and smiled beside it, like he was posing for a photo. Prolix Patents™ was probably his Brand.

“No, Miss Jime will lean on the good graces of her family and friends to feed and clothe her until she comes to her senses. Does anyone believe she has done the right thing by turning her back on society with her silence?”

I scanned the faces of my classmates for a sign that someone agreed with me. I secretly wished someone would show the sign of the zippered lips, or at least say something in my defense, but how could I expect that? I had never stirred up that kind of trouble for anyone else. I tried to remind myself that my mother approved of what I had done. I held on to that idea like fuel.

At lunchtime, a nine-year-old kid I’d never seen before asked me if I would talk to his dad so his family could collect the bounty. I couldn’t say no, and he tried to make that into a yes. Sam found me and told the boy to shove off.

Near the end of the day, Nancee hurried over to me.

“Don’t say anything,” she said. I didn’t, of course. She looked left and right to see who might be listening, then whispered, “I’m next.”

I knew she was next in my class to turn fifteen, but she clearly meant something more. She zipped her lips nervously and waited for my reaction.

“I just wish...” she said, trying not to look upset, “I wish you’d let me know.”

Regret swelled in my stomach. I had no way to tell her how much I cared about her. We’d been friends since we were little. It had never occurred to me to use my words to tell her that she was important—that she mattered to me. I’d always assumed she just knew how much her friendship meant to me.

“If you come, I’ll—” She glanced around again, then leaned right in to my ear and whispered, “I’ll know why you did it, and you won’t have to say a word.”

I was overcome with an urge to hug her, but I had to squelch it. I had to be strong. I gritted my teeth and looked down enviously at her bare forearm. I wondered how she would feel when they put the Cuff on her thin, pale arm.

Behind her, Mandett Kresh was milling around. He was a little younger than us both. The moment our eyes met, he also pulled his fingers across his lips.

“Please come,” Nancee said, squeezing my hand before she turned and left with him.

An uneasy feeling welled up in me. Would I be blamed? But I couldn’t let myself think that way: just about myself. It was selfish. If Nancee went silent like me, she wouldn’t be protected like I had been. There would be no ambiguity in her motive. I couldn’t let her do it, but how could I stop her?

I walked home in a fog. The dome was dark above me. The sky was heavy with clouds beyond—I could tell from the deep gray. I tried to think of what I could do to stop Nancee, but I’d made that impossible. My head went in circles trying to work it out, but when I arrived in our apartment, something was waiting that made me forget all about Nancee and the trouble she was headed toward.

DESIST: $8.99

A bright yellow letter had been slipped into our apartment. It was a physical, paper letter in a thick envelope, delivered right into our home by Placers. The word DESIST was stamped on the front in thick black ink. The return address was in the form of a logo: a black, yet rainbowlike holographic foil, like oil in three dimensions. It came from Butchers & Rog.

A chill ran down my spine.

The yellow letter was exactly like the one that had taken my father away. As soon as I picked it up, my Cuff fired a small vibration, and I was startled. I wasn’t used to the vibration yet. Somewhere at Butchers & Rog, they’d just received confirmation of delivery. There was no charge: just verification.

I didn’t open the letter. It wasn’t for me. It was addressed to Saretha.

A gnawing pit grew in my stomach. This was no coincidence. Whatever they were trying to do was meant to punish me—why had they dragged her into it?

DESIST. I ran my fingers over the raised ink.

This was a message so important, they put paper in our hands. Did they dig up another download from the RIA® Agency? No. This was different. It said DESIST. They wanted her to stop doing something, but what? Protecting me? Being my sister? Letting me be silent?

I dropped the letter on our table. It seemed to glow like a patch of sunlight. I had once seen sunlight, years ago, when a hexagon in the dome came loose. The thick Aeroluminum® panel fell softly into the road, too light to be more than a nuisance on the ground. Sun streaked down in a long, shimmering shaft. The public was warned away, not from the panel, but from the light. They said direct sunlight did strange things to your skin, but the way it lit the buildings was beautiful.

The Ad screen on our wall suddenly screamed to life.

“Looking to change legal counsel? Look no further than Bates & Bruthers! We will defend you with vigor, with gusto, with the maximum litigiousness allowed by Law!”

Three oily men in perfect Crumpfry, Banyard & Liepshin™ suits stood with arms folded, looking somewhere offscreen—toward their next case, I suppose. The words Bates & Bruthers flew off the screen in 3-D, except our screen wasn’t 3-D, so the effect was diminished. I crossed the room and hit CANCEL.

More effective than Arkansas Holt scrolled across the bottom of our screen as the Ad faded away. Who wasn’t? I wondered to myself. Was he really doing us any good?

I paced the room. I looked out the murky window, agonizing that I couldn’t tell anyone what had arrived. If I had completed the ceremony, I could have just used my Cuff to call or text Saretha at work. But I couldn’t warn Saretha. I couldn’t warn Sam. I had to wait and see the horror on their faces when they saw the letter in person.

When Sam arrived, he dropped his backpack on the floor and went straight to it. Behind him, his friend Nep stopped cold in the hall.

“What did you guys do?” Nep clenched the sides of the doorway, his thin body dwarfed by oversized clothes. His wide, dark-ringed eyes darted around, looking for some evidence of our heinousness. Or maybe he was looking for Saretha.

“DESIST?” Sam looked at me. I could see the wheels turning in his head. He wanted to say something funny, but even his mischievous mind couldn’t think of anything amusing to say.

“You got a Placement,” Nep said in a weak voice, pointing from the doorway to our counter. His oversized shirt slipped to one side, and he adjusted it, embarrassed.

I hadn’t noticed the Placement. I had been too preoccupied. A beautiful, glistening bottle of Rock™ Cola was sweating on a cooling pad under a bright, crisp light. It was a Product Placement, all right. These were rare for us. Law Firms often contracted with Placers when they wanted a quick, efficient delivery. The Placers must have slipped the soda in with the envelope delivery. Sometimes they took pity on you. They once set up our whole building with double protein inks for our food printers. Some people said it was a marketing ploy. Others thought it was an off-contract act of kindness. They had managed it all without a single sighting.

“Whelp,” Nep said, bravely clutching himself in the doorway a second longer. Pushing backward, his oversized clothes flapped around him like a bird taking off as he disappeared down the hall.

“What are we going to do?” Sam dropped the letter back onto the table. “What do they want?” He began pacing around the room, scratching at his arm. “Can we open it?”

He knew we couldn’t. It was a federal crime to open someone else’s mail, even your sister’s, unless she was demonstrably incapacitated or dead. My stomach was in knots. Sam turned on the screen to distract us, and we sat, catching up on viewing our Ad quota, until Saretha finally came home.

The door slid open, and Saretha spotted the letter at once. The yellow stood out in the dreary light of our room. Her smile pulled back into a weird contortion. I don’t know what you’d call it. It wasn’t a frown. It was like her lips and teeth were used to smiling, but they didn’t know what to do with bad news. Sam ran up and gave her a hug. She stroked his hair unconsciously as she stared at the envelope. Her Cuff buzzed, startling her into stillness. I stood behind him, paralyzed by fear and my inability to communicate anything. Saretha remembered better than either of us what the last letter like this had meant.

She sighed and recomposed herself. I could see her pretending this wouldn’t be bad. Maybe she thought to herself, Be positive. She picked the envelope up and opened it, careful not to let any paper fall. It read:

To Miss Saretha Jime:

Unauthorized use of a person’s likeness constitutes violation of International Copyright Law Section 17A, and Federal restrictions prohibiting the use of a person’s likeness without legal consent. Effective immediately, you are hereby ordered to cease and desist using the likeness of our client, Miss Carol Amanda Harving, or risk being found responsible for civil, criminal and financial penalties.

Sincerely, on behalf of Miss Carol Amanda Harving,

Silas Rog, Esq.,

Butchers & Rog Attorneys at Law, PPD, SSC, AINNA

1 Centre St.

Portland, VM

This letter, its contents and all paper thereof must be properly registered as disposed within twenty-four hours of receipt.

I didn’t understand at first. How had Saretha used an unauthorized likeness? Yes, Saretha and Carol Amanda Harving looked alike, but Saretha couldn’t do anything about that.

Could she?

Sam swallowed hard. I don’t know if I’d ever seen him truly afraid before.

Saretha’s brow was still knit, unable to comprehend, just like me. She had tears in her eyes, though, and the room seemed colder. She put a hand to her cheek and felt at her face. Did Butchers & Rog really want Saretha to stop looking like herself? How was that even possible?

I would have laughed, but it wasn’t a joke. It was absurd, but Lawyers don’t care if what they do is absurd. Lawyers make plenty of money doing the absurd and the unthinkable. They will not stop. They will sue you into the ground, and then they sue the ground for taking you in.

They would not stop until they had finished us all.

COUNSEL: $9.99

“First, the good news,” Arkansas Holt said, faking a smile. He was standing behind his desk with a Pad in his hand, as the camera in his office tracked him around the room. Saretha, Sam and I sat on our couch, watching him on our wall-screen. His bill—$3,652.81 and rising—accumulated in a clearly displayed overlay at the bottom right corner of the screen. All of his words were added to our bill, so he could enjoy a good preamble like First, the good news. $17.50. It was a drop in the bucket compared to what was to come. Even a terrible Lawyer like Arkansas Holt knew enough about the Law to be able to speak more or less freely—plus Lawyers spoke at discount rates for anything they couldn’t bill.

Saretha had wiped all evidence of sadness from her face. She looked bright and eager, like she did whenever she was on her way to work, though there was something less ready in her posture. She fixated intently on the screen, and it felt like she was purposely avoiding my gaze. She had not looked at me since the letter came. She had not spoken to me. Out of the corner of my eye earlier, I saw she had pulled up my speech for a moment, but then said to herself, “It doesn’t matter now,” and flicked it away. She was right. Even if I read it now, Butchers & Rog would not back down on Saretha.

“Despite what may be implied by the letter, you can use Miss Harving’s likeness within the private comfort of your home without concern for civil, criminal or financial penalties, provided, of course, that you do not charge a fee or offer promotion in conjunction with the viewing of said likeness.” He smiled.

“And I was going to sell tickets,” Sam said, snapping his fingers.

It took Attorney Holt a moment to realize Sam was being sarcastic. Saretha did not admonish him, and that worried me. She waited for more of the good news.

“However.” Attorney Holt cleared his throat again. No more good news, apparently. “Any transmissions from your home, such as ScreenChat™, constitute a breach of Copyright Law and, as such, you will need to make provisions to have your likeness altered, obscured or blocked through electronic pixelation or other means.”

My Cuff popped an Ad for ScreenChat™ Enhanced, which promised to make you look better. I knew how this worked—they installed more flattering lighting and squeezed the image to make you look thinner. I had long ago adjusted the lighting in our unit to make it as pleasant as the space would allow.

“Technically, I should have you stand outside of frame, but, as this is privileged communication, I think we can make an exception.” Attorney Holt smiled in the hope Saretha would smile back. She obliged weakly.

“You can easily purchase facial recognition software that will pixelate or block your image on any digitized transmission, but, of course, this does not solve the larger problem of what might happen outside the home.”

Another Ad popped up, this one for PixelMate™ PixelBlock® software. We were all familiar with Blocking. It was becoming increasingly common for companies to Block certain imagery in-eye using the overlays on your corneal membranes. An expensive perfume bottle, for example, might appear as a blocky mess of color if you fell too far out of the company’s target demographic. People who were too poor, or fell too far in debt, could end up with a full-blown case of The Blocks. Famous faces, clothes, architecture—anything valued over $500 all became blurred. Silas Rog kept his face blocked at all times to show just how important he was; no one could afford to see him.

It could be debilitating to navigate through the world with The Blocks on—which is why, when the police arrested people, they instituted The Blocks as a way of subduing criminals.

“Outside of the home,” Holt said, “in public, you will need to alter your likeness by physical means.”

Saretha mouthed the word physical and was charged for it.

“What does that mean, physical?” Sam asked. Saretha shushed him. Arkansas was getting to that. Our bill ticked higher—$4,328.19.

Holt glanced down uncomfortably at his Pad. “I know this is distressing. If you don’t like the idea, I could try to broker a deal to use Miss Harving’s likeness, but in the hands of Butchers & Rog, I suspect such a deal would be unpalatable.” He paused to see how this would go down with us. No one said a word, so he went on.

“You could have your face altered through plastic surgery. I could arrange for a consultation. I know a few people who will consult for a minimal fee and offer payment plans on your baseline debt. I recommend breast enhancements as well, if you are going that direction. They are generally beneficial in a courtroom setting. Actually, they are a fine investment for any young girl looking to improve her financial opportunities and sponsorship potential.” He paused again. I couldn’t look at him.

“No,” Saretha said. A small vibration rang out as her Cuff charged her.

“To the breasts?” he asked.

“To all of it,” Saretha said clearly, tucking her hair behind one ear.

I looked at her. I had envied how she looked, but now I just felt shame blooming in my gut. I had brought this on her. Butchers & Rog had shot the arrow, but I had drawn the target. I swallowed hard. How could I even begin to apologize? How could I make this right? I ducked my head, tilting into Saretha’s field of vision, but she showed no sign of noticing.

“Maybe this is an opportunity,” Saretha said, sitting up taller.

Holt’s mouth hung open in confusion. Saretha flashed her incredible smile.

“Maybe I could meet her. We could talk. We could work something out.”

My heart sank. I prayed she did not still think she would get to be in a movie with Miss Harving. It was a childish fantasy years ago, even when she was newly fifteen and we first saw Carol Amanda Harving in her debut film. Saretha thought she could play her sister.

“Can’t we talk to her?” Saretha continued.

“What do you think she would say?” Arkansas Holt seemed a little taken aback, but then he sighed. “It’s irrelevant. Silas Rog would never allow it. I don’t think it is any secret that Butchers & Rog have it in for you. I can’t beat them in court. I’m probably the only Lawyer stupid enough to even provide counsel. The best we can hope for now is to roll over and pray it isn’t made worse for you. For some reason, Butchers & Rog haven’t just taken everything, which is a small miracle.”

“Okay,” Saretha said. Her voice quavered a little.

“You could consider deconstructive surgery,” he suggested, circling his own face with a finger through the air. Saretha’s brow knit. She did not understand.

“They could reconfigure your face, like plastic surgery, but without the goal of improving your features. It is significantly cheaper, as they need not be so careful.”

“Why don’t we just do it ourselves?” Sam burst out.

“You could do that,” Holt plowed forward. “Though I am legally bound to inform you this would not be safe or sanitary.”

Another Ad popped up. Zockroft™: When things aren’t going your way, it read. A row of happy little pills appeared beneath it.

Holt put the Pad down. “Please understand that if you don’t make a choice, they will. They have the legal right to prevent your face from potentially entering the public sphere if you fail to desist.”

I felt a little sick. Was it their plan to disfigure her? Or take her away? Or worse?

“Let’s not let it come to that,” he said, picking up his Pad again.

“Couldn’t she wear a mask?” Sam asked. “Like a Product Placer or something?”

“No!” Holt said, scrolling through more legal documents. “Product Placers have a special exemption. Maybe. Who even knows what they wear?”

They wore masks. Everyone knew that. They weren’t supposed to be seen, but it did happen. Ninety-nine out of one hundred times, if a Placer was spotted, no one said a word. Why cause trouble? Why upset them? It was an unspoken rule that if you happened upon Placers, you watched quietly and did not follow or draw attention to them. Everyone liked a good Product Placement, and often people were rewarded for their silence with a surprise Placement. Norflo Juarze thought this was how our building got inks that one time.

For Saretha, though, wearing a mask would be a breach of the Patriots Act©. How would she be identified? How would advertisers know who to market to?

Our bill was blinking now—$7,328.55. We were approaching our debt ceiling for the month. Holt could see this, too. He sighed again, like it pained him to feel anything.

“Stay home,” he instructed briskly. “They can’t issue a complaint if you stay in your private residence.”

“My job?” Saretha groaned.

“Oh.” Holt laughed sadly. “You can’t work in public. They could accuse you of tacitly using Miss Harving’s likeness in the promotion of a product or business. Miss Harving would be entitled to those earnings and then whatever damages Butchers & Rog could dream up. It is utterly out of the question.”

The blinking grew faster. My heart rate went with it.

“Mrs. Nince,” Saretha muttered, imagining the wrath of her boss.

I hated Mrs. Nince, though I’d never met her. During Saretha’s first week of work, the woman had “accidentally” jabbed Saretha in the arm with a leather punch, leaving a small crescent-shaped scar in the flesh above Saretha’s right elbow. She’d sued Saretha $90 for causing a workplace accident.

“Speth can work. She’s past Last Day, and she doesn’t look like anyone,” Holt suggested.

I almost snorted. What kind of job did he think I could get?

Attorney Holt’s face contorted as he remembered one more thing. He looked conflicted, then tapped at his Cuff a few times and looked to the left and the right, as if he were afraid to be observed.

“You can’t get sick,” he said. His bill had stopped creeping up. He was paying for this bit of advice himself. I don’t know why he did it. Compassion is trained out of Lawyers, but Arkansas Holt wasn’t a very good Lawyer. Had some small bit of kindness survived? “You can’t go to a hospital, because that would put your face in public. You can’t get arrested or taken into Collection, either.”

Saretha’s eyes seemed to go blank. Sam’s lips formed a question, but he didn’t need to ask. We all realized the same thing.

While we’d never had any significant hope of paying off our debt in our lifetimes, we had to keep making progress. Our parents’ income and our income had to be at a high enough level to chip away at our debt. We lived in constant fear of losing ground, because if the algorithms foresaw us earning under our minimum payments, they would take Saretha into Collection. Until Holt’s visit, we were afraid of her being sent to Indenture like my parents, stuck working a farm or much, much worse. But now, if that happened, they would disfigure her first.

“Just stay safe and healthy and home,” Holt counseled.

The Zockroft™ Ad popped up again, this time with a name. Saretha Jime: Be Positive! it read. The pills danced.

“We can talk again at the start of your next billing cycle,” Arkansas said, his attention falling away. “Perhaps I’ll think of something,” he mumbled quickly. Before we could agree, the call winked out and an Ad screamed at us to buy new, fluffier toilet tissue. I sat numbly by Saretha, the screeching noise from the Ad blasting over us like an unforgiving wind. I stood and shut the whole wall panel off.

Saretha buried her head in her hands. What were we going to do?

A CRESCENT: $10.98

Mrs. Nince was the kind of woman who wore a cinched half-corset and tight black jeans, even though she was sixty years old and weighed about eighty pounds. She had jet-black hair interwoven with delicate, sharp, printed shapes. Her face had been rebuilt at least a dozen times, and it looked like something from a creepy wax museum. She thought her look was stylish, though that wasn’t the word she used to describe it. She called it modish, because she owned that word. She bragged about how she’d watched auctions for years for a word this good to be sold. I think she just took what she could find. Modish wasn’t exactly a common word.

Mrs. Nince wanted people to say it so she could make money. Words, she knew, were good investments.

Saretha had worked under her for two years and never said a bad word about her. She never described Mrs. Nince’s face as pinched and cruel. She never mentioned how painful the clothes must have been to model. In fact, she never mentioned Mrs. Nince at all, if she could help it, because Saretha never liked to say anything bad.

Her boutique was north, part of the shops above Falxo Park, but far enough along the outer ring that it was in the next section, the Duodecimo. I’d never understood why that section had a Latin name. The buildings were still printed to look French. That was baffling, too. The obsession with French style supposedly came from the period when the French let all their Intellectual Property rights lapse, but I’d only heard that from kids passing it on. It didn’t seem like the full story. My history classes were weirdly devoid of information about the world outside our nation’s borders.

At the shop, Sam asked for Mrs. Nince, and a pretty girl in a painfully tight silver corset and tight white jeans scurried awkwardly into the back to fetch her. I don’t think she could bend at the knees.

We waited.

“Litsa, pour l’amour de Dieu!” a voice croaked. The girl backed out the door and nearly fell over.

Mrs. Nince stepped out of her office, locked the door behind her conspicuously, then turned to us expectantly as she pocketed the key.

“We were hoping,” Sam said, trying to sound both humble and professional, “you might consider letting my sister Speth take over Saretha’s job?”

I tried my best to smile Saretha’s smile. I caught sight of myself in the mirror. My short hair stuck out at odd angles to keep the style in the public domain. I had to be careful not to let it get too neat, or it would drift over into a Patented Pixie 9®. My eyes were red and puffy and opened too wide.

I looked ridiculous. I dialed my expression down to a more appropriate level.

“Her?” Mrs. Nince asked, drawing a long finger up and down in the air to indicate what an inferior specimen I was. Then she drew herself up and held a hand to the silver rim of her Cuff, indicating she would like us to pay for her speaks. The Cuff vibrated—99¢. The gesture was not free. Sam tapped in our family code, and Mrs. Nince relaxed just a hair.

“Litsa, get back to work,” she growled at the girl who was hovering nearby. The girl scurried off, the top and bottom halves of her body seeming to twist without coordination, the corset, perhaps, hampering communication from top to bottom. Phlip and Vitgo wanted to see her nude? Why was this supposed to be attractive? It looked warped and creepy to me.

“What is it that you wanted?”

“We know Saretha can’t work here anymore...” Sam began.

Mrs. Nince rolled her eyes. “Saretha’s unapproved departure from my employ was extraordinarily inconvenient.”

“But Speth...”

“Speth,” Mrs. Nince spit the word out with even more distaste than Mrs. Harris. She shuddered. “At least it isn’t one of those tedious French names like Claudette or Mathilde. Those are rather passé, and so costly.”

She looked me over again—probably jamming me into a corset in her mind—and grimaced. “Why would I want to hire her? She’s flat as a board.”

My face heated up. Sam took a breath. He didn’t want to be part of this conversation. Neither did I. I hated this woman, and it set my jaw tight to think about working for her. I pictured the crescent-shaped scar she’d punched into Saretha’s arm and had to work hard to clear the image from my mind.

“People might be curious...” Sam began. “Affluents...they might like to see if they can get her to talk.”

“How would that be good for business?” Mrs. Nince asked. “Why should I want people distracted by some carnival game of trying to make a Silent Freak talk when they should be buying my modish clothes?”

Sam tried to answer this, but she talked right over him.

“My modish customers don’t want some oddball Silent Freak hovering over them. Can you imagine? You ask the Silent Freak how you look in these modish jeans, or you ask the Silent Freak how many ribs should be removed for a modish Frid-Tube™ Halter, or you ask the Silent Freak if we’re having a sale, and the Silent Freak would just stare and stare like a farm animal.”

“Don’t call her that,” Sam growled.

“Farm animal, or Silent Freak?” Mrs. Nince asked innocently. “Isn’t her silence unusual and freakish? She can’t control it. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to believe? It’s a malformation; the poor Silent Freak can’t speak because her idiot boyfriend killed himself.”

I said nothing, but I thought so many things. She was a noxious, sour, self-important excuse for a human being. I struggled to keep my loathing from showing. How had Saretha been able to stand working for her?

She stepped to within an inch of my face. “Silent Freak,” she said, calmly, as if I should nod so we could all agree.

There was something odd about how pleased she was with herself. Was she trying to goad me into talking? It didn’t seem like it. Despite her overall hatefulness, she seemed more than happy to keep talking to us—at least until Sam spoke.

“You waxy old prune,” Sam burst out. His brow was furrowed, and his cheeks were flushed red. “Everyone can see you slathered on your makeup and had some doctor pull your face folds back. It doesn’t fool anyone into thinking you’re younger.”

I wished I could have said those things. Once, I would have. Sam and I were a lot alike that way.

Mrs. Nince stepped away and pretended to pick at something under a long curling black nail. “Silent Freak,” she said. “So much better and more descriptive than Silent Girl.”

Sam reached for her Cuff, to stop paying for her words, but she held her arm up and away.

“I made a lovely purchase after the incident at your party. I bought the Trademark to the phrase Silent Freak™.” Sam feinted left and quickly moved right. She whipped her Cuff arm back behind her, but teetered a little on her heels.

“I do hope you will stay in the news.” She grinned, her thin, translucent teeth glistening. She must have really hated me to go to the trouble of obtaining the phrase, coordinating with the owners of the words silent and freak, offering a cut of the profits and paying all the Lawyers’ fees.

“I’d love for everyone to keep talking about the Silent Freak™,” she hissed.

I reached out suddenly, and my movement surprised her. I grabbed her arm and held it fast. I wanted to pull it back, like Sera had done to me, but I’m sure I would have broken something on this horrible twig of a woman. Sam leapt up and jammed his thumb to her Cuff, and I let go. The conversation ended abruptly.

She sued us, of course—$1,700 worth. The bill showed up at home. Mrs. Nince also managed to make $3,108.88 off the words modish and Silent Freak, pushing us to within $80 of Collection.

FIND ME: $11.98

I sat in Falxo Park alone, at the spot where my stage had been. Sam offered to stay with me and sit in silence while I thought, but I knew he was in no mood for staying put. I sent him off with a flick of my eyes, secretly hoping he could think up some better plan than the one I’d gotten myself into.

When he was gone, my speech popped up on my Cuff. Keene Inc. wanted it read now? Was it just appearing randomly? What if I read it in the park, to an audience of no one? Would Butchers & Rog back down?

Unlikely. It was too late for that. I ran my finger on the glossy surface of my Cuff, thinking about how few objects in my world were smooth.

To my right, one of the faux Parisian shops was being reprinted, layer by layer. All these plastic buildings were rough to the touch, built upon each other, with strata that flared and splayed in thin, coarse lines. It was possible to smooth these walls out with a little skill and a hot, iron-like device from EvenMelt™, but that process was Patented and expensive—and looking closely at details was considered bad form.

The speech glowed on my arm. I flipped it away, embarrassed by my weakness. An Ad popped up in its place with a trill. Steadler’s™ Inks. More flavor-nutrition in every cartridge. I could flip it away, but it would only come right back, like a boomerang, with a message asking if I wanted to opt out. The tap was 10¢, but the amount made no difference. I wasn’t going to break my silence for it.

I felt weird, keeping my voice still, like I was playacting or lying. I hadn’t thought about what would happen after I went silent. Before, I would talk to myself when I was alone. I would work out my thoughts, or just mutter pretty words to myself. Regret crept up the back of my throat, and I had to remind myself that even if I hadn’t gone silent, I didn’t have the money to talk to myself anymore. Even if I hadn’t gone totally silent, I still would not be free to say much more.

I let the Ad sit, glowing, insistent, using me as a mini-billboard for as long as Steadler’s™ wanted to pay. Around me, the Ad screens had quietly filled with the same message, but lit dimly, like they were at half power. The park was awash in a sad blue glow, which suited my mood.

My Cuff felt warm. I pressed a finger to the edge near my wrist, realizing that I might never again feel the skin underneath. The Cuff’s warmth troubled me. It was not unheard of for NanoLion™ batteries to malfunction and go white-hot in a Cuff. If that happened, I’d lose my arm—and probably my life. Would I scream? Would it matter?

Perhaps sensing my blackening temper, the Ad on my arm finally winked away. The screens around me shut down, and the park darkened.

A short time later, a thick group of golden-haired teenage boys ambled by. They were enormous, fat-legged specimens of wealth and privilege. They glanced at me and walked on like they had stepped in dog feces. I lowered my head and hid my face. I didn’t want another confrontation.

Screens burst to life around them, flooding the path before them in bright, sunny colors. Ads addressed them loudly by name. Parker. Madroy. Thad. The Ads scrambled after them, like dogs desperate for a master’s attention, moving from screen to screen. Moon Mints™ invited them to sit in the park, showing them fatter, more pleasant-looking versions of themselves sitting in the park in golden light, laughing and surrounded by skinny, big-breasted girls far prettier than me.

Please no, I thought.

They heaved themselves down the street, waving off the Ads like flies. They couldn’t be bothered. One of them cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled back at me. “Sluk!” That was all the effort he could expend.

My Cuff popped to life again. Are you a Sluk? Take the Cosmo™ Quiz!

I kept my head down. The Ad faded quickly. Then I heard a different voice, this one quiet and gentle.

“I have things to tell you,” the voice whispered.

I looked up. Beecher’s grandmother was standing right in front of me. She was smaller and more stooped than I remembered. She wore a stiff black dress with sleeves so long they covered her hands. It looked ancient. She looked so sad, and I had the urge to tell her how sorry I was.

“Find me,” she said in a low, quavering voice. Her lips barely moved. Her head was low.

She shuffled away, back out of the park, and stepped onto the bridge with a heavy sigh. Find her? Did she want me to follow now? Why didn’t she just say what she wanted to say? Was she on the edge of Collection, too?

She moved to the side of the bridge opposite where Beecher had jumped, and then made her way over the curve. Anger suddenly twisted through me. Was she toying with me? Hadn’t I done enough for her? If Beecher hadn’t jumped, I don’t think any of this would have happened.

I wasn’t going to follow her. I wasn’t going to find her, either. If what she wanted to say was so important, she could find me.

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