“I’m not prejudiced. They ended prejudice, so I can’t be,” Sera burst out.
“Who’s they?” I asked.
“History people,” Sera said, like that told us anything.
“I don’t really see how anyone can be prejudiced against Latinos if they don’t even know what it means,” Henri said, looking to Margot for confirmation. “I don’t know what it means, either.”
“Oh, Henri,” Margot said, shaking her head. Norflo laughed again.
“You don’t believe me?” Henri asked.
“I believe you believe you,” Norflo said.
“I believe Henri,” Mira said.
“We can bicker later,” I said. I turned off the car, realizing our only way out would involve backing up. That was less than ideal if we had to escape quickly. “We need to work out what we’re doing now. We’re not going to be able to talk outside the car,” I added, tapping my bare arm.
“I can,” Mira said.
“But you will not,” Margot said. Her sister frowned.
“The first thing we need to do is lower that banner. Obscure the alley, so the Meiboch™’s harder to spot.”
“No problem,” Henri said, neck craned back to look at how it was hung. “If I can borrow someone’s grapple.”
Margot let out a little breath, dug into her Placer bag and pulled hers out. When Henri went to reach for it, she pulled it away. “This is a two-person job.”
I handed Henri my grapple, pulling it from my belt. “On three,” I said, and made the sign of the zippered lips. Mira enthusiastically copied me. I held up one finger, then two, then three.
Margot and Henri rushed out of the car, closing the doors behind them, and shot up to where the banner was held in place.
“We should get out of here as soon as possible,” I said, watching Henri and Margot work. They lifted the bar and dropped down about twenty feet to set it back in place. “But we need to get supplies and a map first.”
“Where?” Sera asked. “You can’t just buy a map.”
“Of course you can,” Mira said. “You can buy anything.”
“Not me,” Norflo said, giving her a grin.
“We can’t buy a map,” I told Mira patiently, “but it’s good to keep thinking of ideas.”
Mira’s face scrunched in thought. She reminded me of Sam in some ways, but growing up in the Onzième meant he’d left childhood behind much sooner. My heart ached to think about it—and with the knowledge that she would get to grow up, while Sam never would.
Henri and Margot landed beside the car. I repeated my countdown and let them back in.
“We need a map,” Mira announced proudly as her sister and Henri settled into their seats.
“In school, they talked about geography being proprietary,” I went on, thinking aloud. I hadn’t done that in a long time. It felt good to give my thoughts a voice. “They said kids like us wouldn’t need to see maps, anyway—that we wouldn’t have any use for them.”
“They didn’t teach us anything useful,” Sera lamented.
“That’s not exactly true,” I said, though I understood the feeling. “They taught us more than they intended, like who is important enough to need maps. They told us who has access, like the government. Shipping companies. Demographic research firms...”
“What about Central Data?” Henri asked.
“Henri,” Margot said with an exasperated sigh, “there were only three, and we destroyed one. Even if they foolishly placed one so close, it would be too heavily guarded.”
“I still can’t believe they kept one in Portland,” I said, trying to hide the worry in my voice. I couldn’t have made us a bigger target.
“Speth?” Margot asked gently. The kindness in her voice only further unnerved me, but I realized I couldn’t let it show. I forced myself to smile and add strength to my voice.
“Okay,” I said. “We figure out how to get access to a map.”
“We could find a way to Téjico,” Norflo suggested.
“Why would we go there?” Sera asked. “Our parents are in Carolina.”
“What about Affluents?” Mira asked. “We cannot afford a map, but they could.”
Sera snorted, “So, what, are we going to find some rich tourist and ask him to buy us a map to our parents?”
“A real estate agency would be an easier target,” Margot suggested. She pulled her bag up from the floor and began to look through it.
“That’s a great idea,” I said enthusiastically. “It shouldn’t be too hard to find one, right? Margot, Henri and I will go.”
“What about us?” Sera asked.
Before I could answer, Margot said, “I am not leaving Mira.”
“I can go?” Mira asked, her eyes wide with delight.
“No,” Margot answered. “I will stay.” She handed Henri her grapple, and Henri handed mine back to me.
“We got this,” Norflo said, shifting in his seat.
I shook my head. “You and Sera don’t have any experience. Henri and I will...”
I realized I was about to suggest that Henri and I go alone. I hadn’t talked to Margot about how I’d let him kiss me—how I had used him to steal his Cuff remover. She knew it had been a desperate act, but I’d betrayed her all the same. And Henri had definitely been interested at the time, which couldn’t have felt good. She didn’t glare, but her mouth was pursed tightly. I wanted to apologize and explain, but a car full of people wasn’t the right place.
“Speth, you cannot go, either,” Margot said finally, gesturing to me. “You will be recognized.”
“Should I go out alone?” Henri asked.
“Nah,” Norflo said.
My stomach sank. It hadn’t occurred to me I’d be trapped by my likeness. An ugly, familiar feeling followed. This wasn’t so different from what had happened to Saretha, except she hadn’t done anything to deserve it.
“Henri should not go alone,” Margot said. Her hands clung to her bag, its contents rattling.
“I gotcha,” Norflo said.
“That is not a good idea, either,” Margot replied.
“That leaves no one, genius,” Sera complained.
“Do you want me to stay with Mira?” I asked, my voice growing small. “And you can go?”
Margot bit her lip and shook her head. “I will not leave Mira.”
“This is ridiculous,” Sera commented. She wasn’t wrong. She reached for the door handle, but I stayed her hand with a glare.
“Give me a second,” I said. “When we were sued by Rog because Saretha looked like Carol Amanda Harving, she couldn’t go out, either. We couldn’t afford to change her appearance unless we mangled her face.”
Norflo groaned and shook his head.
“You want us to mangle your face?” Sera asked.
I wasn’t going to respond to that. “We never even considered makeup because it was so far beyond our means. Every style is Trademarked. But now, without Cuffs, we don’t have to pay.” I pointed to Margot’s bag. “Do you still have that lady’s makeup, from Nancee’s rescue? Can you make me look different?”
Her eyes lit up, then dimmed as she looked from me to Henri. She examined what she had in her bag and swallowed hard. “Yes,” she admitted.
Mira squealed with delight. “Are we doing makeup?”
“Apparently,” Margot said, hunting for brushes, not looking me in the eye.
“Margot,” I began, but how could I explain that nothing was going to happen between Henri and me? Everyone was listening. But she had to know, didn’t she? I wished she and I were going out to do this job so I could explain, but then I remembered we wouldn’t be able to speak—our eyes would be shocked for every word.
“What?” she prompted.
“If anything happens,” I said in a rush, “while we’re out there�
��if you’re found, or you even get a bad feeling, take the car and go.”
Margot looked at Henri. “Nothing’s going to happen,” he said. He was trying to be reassuring about our situation, but my guilt made me feel like he meant between us.
Margot nodded as she took out a few circles of foundation and contouring powder.
“I’ll do a Barbara Van Trine™,” she said, raising a brush with a look of mischief on her face.
Mira clapped. Sera smirked. I groaned inwardly. I knew the actress Barbara Van Trine. She always played the villain. I forced a smile and hoped this wasn’t how Margot secretly felt about me.
Keene: $10.99
By the time Margot finished my makeup, Keene’s dome was lit with the deepening cerulean colors of evening. Henri and I shot up to the rooftops to scan for a real estate agency. The buildings in this city were arranged differently than in Portland. They were tall and thin, with residences above stores and businesses below. It became apparent we would have to search at street level because we couldn’t see what many places were from up high.
Before we could find a discreet place to descend, something odd appeared in my vision. Just below my direct line of sight, a moving scrawl of words had appeared, like a stock ticker or a Word$ Market™ display, traveling from right to left. I couldn’t quite see the text—or ignore it. If I closed my eyes, the words remained. Henri had stopped moving, his neck craned forward. I pointed to my eyes. He nodded and did the same. We were both seeing the same thing.
I assumed it was a message from Kel. If Lucretia Rog had access to our eyes, we’d have been blinded. There was a pattern to the words—it kept repeating, but I just couldn’t read it. I thought I saw the words Saretha and DC. Each time I tried to focus on the message, it moved with my eyes. I prodded Henri and gave him a shrug. He squinted, like that might help, then shrugged back. He couldn’t decipher it, either.
When we reached street level, we became aware fairly quickly that our black clothes stood out. Nearly everyone in Keene was dressed in the same indigo shade of the banners decorating the city. They didn’t seem poor—at least not like in the Onzième. There weren’t restricted to public domain grays and cheap haircuts. They looked healthy and efficient, but color-coded. I watched a family go into the shops and, if they weren’t exactly fawned over like a wealthy woman we saw in a bright marigold dress, they were at least treated with courtesy, like the staff expected they had money to spend.
I elbowed Henri and gestured for him to stand up straighter. If our matte-black Placer clothes and my contoured makeup wouldn’t let us blend in, then we should act as if we were Affluents. Confidence would help.
The woman in marigold burst flamboyantly out of the store behind us with two enormous, watery-eyed bodyguards. They were unwilling to stop or adjust course for anyone. The blue-clad people around us understood and quickly scurried out of her way.
The woman made eye contact with me and sneered. “Placer chic?” she asked, looking at our matte-black clothes with disdain. I was familiar with the harsh sneer of someone who thinks you’re worth less than the bottom of their designer shoes. Affluents walked by us all the time in the Onzième and delighted in looking down on us.
She turned away without waiting for an answer, which was fortunate, since we couldn’t respond, anyway. Henri and I let her pass, then I gestured to him that we should follow. I reasoned that if we kept a respectable distance from the woman, eyes would be on her and her bodyguards instead of us.
As we trailed behind her, I scanned the area. Both sides of the road were lined with every sort of shop and service you could imagine. I was certain we would find a real estate agency here somewhere. There were far more stores than what we had in Portland, and they were much higher quality. There were dozens of boutiques like Mrs. Nince’s, but with far better clothes. They had Transparenting™ mood coats that could microprint fur to match a person’s mood and dark men’s suits so matte that they seemed immune to shadow or light. When I spotted some corsets made from luminous chain mail that I suspected could squeeze and reshape your body however you liked, I shuddered, remembering the OiO™ corset Saretha had crammed herself into.
The clothes were displayed in windows by models who wore scrupulously bored expressions. I wondered if they were models like Saretha had been, or if they were Indentured. Were they well-off, but not affluent enough to enjoy a little extra income? I couldn’t know. I was certain, however, that Keene was a wealthier place than Portland.
They could afford to be families here. A hot coal of jealousy seared in my chest. I gritted my teeth and willed away the tears threatening to mount. I pushed away the thoughts of leaving Saretha behind and how far away my parents were, trying to focus on our surroundings. Once we found a real estate agency, I’d be one step closer to bringing my family together again.
The woman in marigold slowed in front of something that stunned me. It appeared to be a small grocery store with wide trays of fruits, angled for passersby to look at, hold and smell without any sign of Terms of Service. There were oranges, apples and pears just sitting where anyone could grab one and run off. You could never have done this in Portland. No matter the consequences, the temptation would have been too great for most of the people I knew.
At the next store, the woman came to a sudden halt, turned and held her Cuff out. The doors swept open for her, reading her data and sending the staff into a frenzy as she walked inside. A tall man in Keene blue was abandoned in the middle of a transaction, but appeared to completely understand as he moved back to wait.
Henri kept walking and beckoned me to follow, inclining his head with a worried look. On the sidewalk far ahead, five people stood in line near an alley. At first, I thought they might be survey-takers doing market research. But five seemed like too large of a group, and they didn’t display the usual aggressive friendliness of Surveyors. They stood silent, dressed in blue, save for one boy, a little older than me, who wore a crimson tunic.
My eyes went wide. Were these Silents? Henri pulled at my arm and forced me to cross the street. He was right to do it. Even with Margot’s makeup, it wouldn’t do to risk being recognized as the Silent Girl.
I wondered what these Silents were doing. I couldn’t ask, and they couldn’t answer. But they must have found some way to communicate—the five of them had coordinated enough to stand together on the street, though I didn’t understand what they hoped to accomplish. Was it like this in other domes, too?
Not much farther along, I finally spotted what we were looking for. A building a short way up the street opposite us bore a sign in polished gold letters: Bullion® Real Estate. It followed the same general aesthetic as most of the architecture we’d seen in Keene. Tall, solid lines gave the building an almost muscular feel. Thin windows made it look secure, yet appealing. In the upper floors, only a scattering of windows glowed amber in the deepening night. The lower floors, where we needed to go, were brightly lit, and a convex section of glass curved out into the sidewalk.
I couldn’t see anyone inside, but it was too much to hope that we could just walk through the door. We didn’t have a Cuff like our marigold friend, who could sweep in with a wave of her arm. I looked behind us and saw she was on the move again. Her arm was up, and she was laughing into her Cuff. A Cuff that could give us the access we needed.
An idea began to take shape in my mind. Henri had his tools, and this part of the street seemed a bit quieter. We would definitely be noticed by those five Silents, but I hoped that we could count on their silence.
I began to calculate our odds. If I put a stolen Cuff on my arm, would I be able to use it? Mrs. Harris had told us no, but that was a long time ago, and she often lied. Still, it was a lot of risk to take.
The woman in the marigold dress squealed with glee at her Cuff. “Oh, Irene!” she exclaimed, throwing her head back with a massive laugh. My thoughts clouded with envy for everything she had
. I slowly moved closer, feeling like a stalking animal I’d once seen on a nature special. Henri followed, his brow knit. I at least had to see what would happen when she and her bodyguards reached the Silents.
The two bodyguards shoved them aside, taking delight in making extra room for the woman who paid or owned them. I expected some kind of fight, but none came. The woman kept chattering with “Irene” while the Silents, no longer in a line, glared as she passed.
“The city is lousy with them,” she said, turning her Cuff toward them so Irene, wherever she was, could see. She paused in front of the one in red. “Even this one!” she cried. I realized the one in red must be wealthy, like her, but the Silent movement clearly mattered to him.
“Degenerates,” a small voice crackled through the Cuff.
The boy dressed in crimson made the sign of the zippered lips. One of the bodyguards shoved him into the street. He fell back between two parked cars and hit the ground hard. The other four Silents moved in and all offered hands to their fallen friend. He could have sued, but that probably would have broken whatever rules he thought he needed to follow.
The bodyguard’s blithe lack of concern enraged me. He could have just as easily shoved that boy into traffic. As he and the woman and her other bodyguard began to walk away, thoughts of Sam filled my mind.
I reached into my bag, rage nearly blinding me, and pulled out a pony bottle of sleep gas.
The flare of my anger obscured any logic or strategy. I crossed the street without looking, which was foolish. I wanted to pound the bodyguard in the head with my bottle, but I managed to control myself enough to get up right behind him and turn the gas on.
Thank goodness Henri followed my lead. He had the other guard down and had turned the spray on the woman in marigold before my bodyguard slumped to the ground.
The Silents all stared.
I knocked on the woman’s Cuff with a knuckle, and Henri understood I wanted it off. He grabbed his small device and ran it down the seam until the Cuff popped open. I unhooked it from the woman’s forearm and looked down at it. An Affluent woman stared back at me from the Cuff’s screen, her eyes wide with shock. I quickly flicked the chat screen away, realizing we now had very little time.
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