“Whoa,” Nancee gasped, backing into the car and pulling with her.
I positioned myself in a fighting stance, like I’d once seen in an action film, Truly, Lovely, Danger. I could pull off a lot of impressive moves from gymnastics and my training as a Placer, but I knew nothing about fighting. I hoped these four kids wouldn’t realize the difference.
They all slowly backed up two paces. Nancee gestured for me to get back in the car.
“The system I was fighting with my silence is gone,” I explained, pointing toward the center of the city. “It was destroyed with Rog’s tower.”
The taller boy peered toward the tower’s glow, struggling to understand.
“We need to let everyone know the city is free,” Itzel added calmly. I felt a flash of gratitude for her steady presence and wished I had gotten to know her better before all this.
The smaller boy still appeared angry. He was clearly assessing how best to get at me, but the taller boy mashed his lips together and spoke through a frown.
“Only here,” he said, spinning a finger to point to our dome. “Only now.”
One of the girls shoved him for daring to speak, and the smaller boy seized the opportunity to run at me. I reversed my earlier move and flipped myself into the driver’s seat. I imagined the maneuver looked impressive from the outside, but I overshot it and slammed my arm into the stick shift.
“Smooth,” Sera remarked.
“I’m so glad you’ve finished cowering long enough to comment,” I shot back.
Itzel ducked back in and we pulled the doors closed. I floored it. Sera’s head snapped back from the acceleration. Outside, the smaller boy picked up the Cuff again and hurled it at the rear of the car, but we were too far away for him to hit.
“So you were fighting,” Nancee said unsteadily. “The system. The paying. All that.”
Nancee had followed my lead, but because neither of us spoke, we hadn’t known each other’s reasons. “Weren’t you?” I asked, purposely not explaining I’d stumbled into the fight out of desperation.
“Well, yeah,” Nancee said.
Penepoli applauded her. Sera made a scoffing noise. Her scorn stung a bit, even though I shouldn’t have cared about her opinion. I reached over and squeezed Nancee’s hand with a smile.
“No one knew why you did it, Speth,” Sera said, maybe to excuse why she hadn’t done the same, or maybe to make me feel like garbage. I peeked back at her in the rearview mirror. Her arms were folded and her face looked hard. I couldn’t figure out why she was so angry—it was not as if I’d ever asked anyone to follow my lead. I’d never planned for any of this to happen. How could anyone expect me to have a plan?
Ahead of the car was another mob, gathered around a small grocery shop, trying to smash their way in. These weren’t teens from the Onzième, but kids I didn’t know and a few young parents. One woman clutched a baby to her chest and watched expectantly from the back of the crowd.
“Should we stop and explain?” Itzel asked.
“You’re insane,” Sera said. “They’ll tear you apart.”
“They just want food,” I said. “You were the one out for blood yesterday.”
“It can be like a mission!” Penepoli exclaimed.
“A mission?” Sera scoffed.
“I’m already on a mission to free anyone Indentured like I was,” Nancee said. “But people should definitely know we’ll be able to eat.”
“And that we’re free,” Penepoli said. “Free to say anything.”
“We can do this,” Itzel said.
“Yeah!” Penepoli seconded.
I slowed the car. “Is this really what you want to do?”
They all agreed. All except Sera.
Penepoli opened her door and called to the crowd. “I have good news!” she said, stepping out of the car. “We can get the food printers working!”
The crowd didn’t react with anger, like Sera had predicted. They turned and listened. The woman with the baby even smiled a little. Itzel and Penepoli moved closer to explain what we’d learned. Nancee turned to me and said, “We’ve got this. Go deliver your good news.”
She shut the door. Sera crawled into the front passenger seat. I couldn’t look at her—I just took the next corner hard and didn’t say a word.
Incursion: $6.99
Under normal circumstances, finding a Placer isn’t easy. Sam and I had tried to spot one for years with no luck. But I’d learned some of the signs by working as a Placer—knowing what handholds were best or where to shoot a line. That made it easier for me to find Kel, Margot and Henri. They also weren’t exactly trying to be hidden anymore. Everything was different now.
About a block from the southern exit, I noticed a building with a pried-open window, and knew instinctively they were there. I pulled the Meiboch™ as close as I could to the building’s rear entrance, opposite the outer ring exit so it wouldn’t draw attention. This car wouldn’t be safe anywhere for long.
We made our way inside and found my Placer team on the roof. It wasn’t just Kel, Henri and Margot, though. With them were a couple of frightened-looking Affluents, my friend Mandett and a girl of about nine who looked like a miniature version of Margot. Her eyes lit up when she saw me.
“The Silent Girl!” she exclaimed, pointing at me.
The Affluents’ expressions grew more distressed after hearing her announcement. Both had their hands behind their backs, and they shifted uneasily.
“That is Speth,” Margot corrected. The girl waved to me. Now I was certain she was Margot’s sister.
Margot’s face darkened. “I am so glad Sera could join you.”
Sera responded with a sarcastic wave. Margot’s sister waved back without mockery.
“Are you a Silent?” she asked Sera.
“No, sweetie, I’m not,” Sera said, Huny®-sweet, kneeling to meet the girl eye to eye. Sera didn’t have any siblings, nor had she ever shown any interest in the younger kids in the Onzième, so I didn’t know who she was trying to fool.
“Kel,” I said, turning my attention to her. “We cracked the DRM!”
Henri pumped his fist into the air, but no one else seemed to appreciate what it meant. Kel, at the very least, should have smiled, but she was frowning and looking over the building’s edge, opposite the side we’d parked on.
“They’re coming,” one of the Affluents warned.
Kel ignored him, motioned to me and held out her binoculars. I dropped my Placer bag next to Margot’s and rushed over.
Below us, several of the shuttered tollgate doors of the southern exit were buckled and the metal slats split apart. Through them, thick anaconda-sized cables were snaking their way in, bending and piling up like soft-serve Ice-Kreem™.
“They’re making a bubble,” Kel explained. “The WiFi will be pressing out from those silver caps at the end of each cable. Inside the broadcast zone, it will be just like the city’s WiFi is back.”
“That’s right,” the other Affluent said with a sickly grin. He was dressed in a fine suit, like he was ready to close a deal.
My heart sank. I closed my eyes and felt the thickness of my ocular implants. They had cruelly fused to my eyes soon after they were placed over my corneas. They had become part of me, and I hated them. The threat of harsh shocks rekindled in my mind.
I handed the binoculars to Mandett, and Margot’s little sister followed them, her eyes wide with wonder.
“Margot, may I see?” she asked, bouncing on her toes. Mandett took a quick peek and handed them off to the girl. I noticed he didn’t have his Cuff anymore. None of us did, except Kel, Sera and the Affluents. I assumed Kel’s reasons were practical and Sera’s were cowardly.
“Sera,” I whispered, nudging her. She was staring at the exit with horror. “Do you want that thing off now?”
Sera lo
oked down at her arm. “I thought you said they couldn’t rebuild,” Sera said, cradling the Cuff, probably calculating if she should keep it on in case the WiFi returned.
“I didn’t think they could,” I snapped.
“I’ve never seen this before.” Kel shook her head. “There are serious legal impediments. The area around the dome is part of the city jurisdiction. It’s like they’ve rewritten the Law.”
“Who?” I asked.
Kel bit her lip. “I’m not sure who, but I think I know why. My guess is you destroyed more than the WiFi when you took out Rog’s hub—you must have taken out a Central Data node with it. I think that’s why they’re coming at us so hard.”
“One of the Central Data nodes was here?” I gasped. “But Portland isn’t an important dome. Not like DC.”
“Rog was very powerful,” Kel said, shaking her head. “I should have seen this coming.”
“What do we do?” I asked.
“We cut them off,” Mandett said. “We chop them to pieces.”
Kel nodded thoughtfully, but her expression suggested she didn’t agree. “You slice into that cable, and you’ll be electrocuted,” she said, glancing at Henri, who’d had a similar idea in Rog’s WiFi hub.
“It doesn’t look like they’re making much progress,” Henri said. He leaned down to Margot’s sister. “Mira, can I have a look?”
Mira smiled at him. She handed him the binoculars gladly.
“Maybe we just let them have that area,” Henri said as he adjusted the focus. “We could put up signs.”
“Oh, Henri,” Margot said with a sigh.
“Oh, Henri,” Mira copied.
“They won’t be content to leave those cables sitting,” I said. “They aren’t stupid.”
Henri wilted a little under my comment.
“Stupid is not a polite word,” Mira said.
I had the freedom, finally, to speak, and I needed to remember that words matter. Even a nine-year-old knew that. I should have known better.
“Sorry,” I murmured, unable to look him in the eye.
“They plan to press in,” Kel said. “They’ll work their way to the city center and rebuild the system.”
A lump formed in my throat. “What about all of us?”
“See,” the smaller Affluent said, nudging the one in the suit. “She’s nothing. They made a big deal of nothing.”
“They’ll round us up,” Mandett said quietly. “Sell us off.”
“As they should!” the Affluent in the suit said.
Margot eyed him nervously. She reached for her sister and put her arms around the girl, hugging Mira close.
On the street below, a small crowd had gathered. A boy in a white T-shirt hopped the barrier into the road to walk up to the exit. I couldn’t make out much in the way of details, but something about him seemed familiar. He paused a little way out, like he was confused. He shook his head, then moved forward again. He got as far as the abandoned tollbooths and stopped, leaning against a blue tollbooth door.
“What is he doing?” I wondered.
With the binoculars raised to his eyes, Henri shook his head. “He’s just standing there.” He handed them to me to have a look.
A chill ran down my spine. “That’s Norflo!”
“Who?” Henri asked.
“Norflo Juarze. My neighbor. He—” I turned to Kel. “Can they hurt him?”
“Not if he doesn’t talk,” Kel said calmly, but then her jaw trembled. I turned back just in time to see Norflo tilt and pitch forward. He dropped to his knees. At first I thought they were shocking his eyes, but he didn’t seem to be in pain. Not exactly. He looked drunk. Panic flashed across Kel’s face, but she quelled it with a calming breath and took the binoculars back.
“He has an axe,” she said.
“What are they doing to him?” I asked her.
Kel frowned. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“I thought your Kel knew stuff,” Sera complained.
Kel watched more closely. “As I said, if he tries to chop that cable, he’s going to get electrocuted.”
I gulped in a breath and ran to grab my Placer bag. I pulled out my grapple and secured one end to the roof we were on. I had to get down there to help him.
One of the boys from the crowd below hopped the fence.
“Stop!” I yelled. He did, looking around for my voice. “We need to do something,” I said to my friends.
Henri unzipped his bag to join me, peeked inside and frowned. “Kel, I need a new grapple,” he said.
Kel glared at him for one brief second.
“She will order one for you, Henri, right away,” Margot said. “That is the top priority.” Mira nodded seriously, missing her sister’s sarcasm.
I got out my runner and held it tight in my hand. My heart started to slam against my ribs.
“Not yet,” Kel said, staying my hand. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with.”
The boy at the fence shifted restlessly.
“What are they doing?” Sera asked.
“Bad things,” Margot said.
Mira squirmed a little. “May we go home?” she begged, all the brightness gone from her voice. Margot appeared to consider it.
The second boy lost his patience and ran in after Norflo. After a moment, he put his hands to his eyes and began to lose his balance.
“Kel,” I said, bouncing on my feet. “I think they’re trapped.”
“Give me one second,” Kel replied irritably.
I opened my mouth to protest—we needed to act now—but I gave her a moment, because she’d earned my trust a hundred times over.
“We coordinate. We’re still Placers,” Kel said, more to herself than to me.
Kel paused and quickly checked over her gear, then fired her line out, clear of Norflo and his friend, so it hit the farthest toll and held fast. I followed her lead and shot mine opposite hers, so we wouldn’t collide. This was standard practice. My line stuck to a maintenance shack and held fast.
“Don’t speak,” she said to me. “They’ll use it to identify you. When you hit the WiFi signal, don’t look at anything reflective. Don’t look at me. I suspect they’re going to try to tap into your ocular feed to see what’s going on in here.”
“That’s illegal!” Mandett protested.
“They do not care about legality anymore,” Margot said with a frown. “They only care about wielding the Law.”
“The emergency code of—” the suited Affluent started.
“No one cares!” Henri snapped.
“They’ve tapped into people’s vision before,” I said quietly. “Rog made me watch the feed from Beecher’s grandmother’s eyes. He wanted me to see that she was suffering.”
I realized too late that I should have asked Mrs. Harris where Mrs. Stokes had been sent—though it was unlikely Mrs. Harris knew. Anger boiled up in me, thinking about all the terrible things Silas Rog had done. The police had him now, but if the WiFi came back on, he would Legalese his way out of custody in a heartbeat.
“I’ve done it to each of you,” Kel said without looking at me, Margot or Henri.
“Creepy much?” Sera asked.
Kel ignored her. “I’m sorry,” she said to us.
I tried to take in what she was saying. She’d tapped into our feeds? What had she seen? Did she know the whole time about what was happening with my family?
“Margot, take Mira home,” Kel ordered.
Margot didn’t argue, which was unusual. She got to her feet, looking at Kel like she’d been betrayed.
Kel bent down to Mira and flashed a bright, warm smile. “It was a pleasure to meet you,” she said.
I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around the way Kel had violated our privacy. “You watched us?” I asked her.<
br />
“Every candidate is watched,” Henri said.
“You knew?” I asked him.
“Henri,” Kel said, directing her gaze to the rooftop door. “Take Margot and Mira home.”
Henri zipped up his bag and took Mira’s hand. In that moment, they looked a little like a family to me.
“Kel,” I said, growing impatient.
“Speth,” she replied, a hint of temper in her voice. “I’m sorry you didn’t know, but we don’t have time to sort out your feelings about it right now. We need to get down there and figure out what they’re doing. We’ll dip into the edge of that WiFi and then get right out.” Kel stretched her arms and got ready to zip-line down.
I kept looking at her, still hoping for an answer. Finally, her shoulders fell, and she turned back to me.
“Once, on your first night as a Placer,” Kel explained loudly, so Margot and Henri could hear. “The second time when you were arrested, and I had to get you out of jail. In order to access your ocular overlays, I had to access your feed. I only did this when I needed to.”
“Okay,” I said after a long pause. But I didn’t really know if it was okay.
“Grab your bag,” Kel said, either because she hoped the matter was settled or because we didn’t have time to settle it now. I looped the bag across my shoulder.
“What about us?” the suited Affluent said loudly.
“You want to go down there?” Kel asked. By the way they shifted uncomfortably, they obviously didn’t. Kel turned to Mandett and Sera. “Keep an eye on them.” She nodded at the two Affluents.
“You want Sera to watch them?” I whispered to Kel in disbelief.
“I don’t really care about these Affluents,” Kel muttered back. “And I’d just as soon keep her out of the way.”
Sera’s brow knit. It was clear to me she did not like being whispered about.
“Are you ready?” Kel asked. Before I could answer, she hopped over the edge and zipped across to the exit. All I could do was follow.
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