Access Restricted

by Gregory Scott Katsoulis

  She halted the car before we exposed ourselves in the wide-open lanes, pausing on the very edge of the city.

  “Can’t stay here long,” Norflo said.

  “Pull back to that spot,” I said, pointing out a parking space a short way behind us.

  “Why?” Margot asked.

  “I know we want to get out of here quick, but we don’t know if we can get through. If we wait until someone else tries to leave, and we time it right, we should be able to sneak under the arm before it closes.”

  Margot looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “We do not even know if anyone may leave the city.”

  “It says Access Restricted,” I said. “Not Access Forbidden. I’d be willing to bet Affluents can come and go as they please.”

  Margot glared at the exit. “I do not see any Affluents here.”

  “Do you have a better idea?” I asked.

  “We could walk,” Henri said. “We could easily go over or under that arm.”

  “Yes, Henri, and then will we walk to our destination?” Margot asked drily.

  Henri shrank at her criticism.

  “Can we at least try to be nicer to each other?” I asked, exasperated.

  Sera looked at me like I had two heads.

  “Jiménez,” Norflo said, smiling.

  “How do you know that’s my real last name?” I asked.

  “It ain’t Jime. I know that. Jime’s fake.”

  “How do you know? A name could be anything.”

  “Nah. They took our names, priced ’em out. You ever look at the Spanish Word$ Market™? See what they charge? Don’t want us to have a history. It’s not just ’cause history is proprietary. They don’t want us to know each other and don’t want us to know ourselves.”

  Margot scoffed.

  “I don’t even know what that means,” Sera said.

  “You do,” Norflo said.

  “I don’t!” Sera said, her eyes going a little wild.

  “I don’t know, either, Norflo,” I said, stinging a little. “I mean, even if you’re right, what difference does it make if my family’s name used to be Jiménez? That doesn’t change anything.”

  “It matter they took your ’rents?” Norflo asked.

  “Of course it does,” I said, my heart aching.

  “Friends. Family. Words. Even our past. Cut us off from everything. Want us to have nothing, so we’ll feel like nothing. They don’t want your fight. S’why they hate you so bad. When they come to Indenture, they don’t want anything left but hands and strong backs.”

  I thought of all the gray domes on the map, likely filled with Indentureds. A wave of nausea hit me. How could I tell them how bad it was beyond Keene, out in the place we were trying to escape to?

  A gleaming violet car shot by us, headed straight to the toll.

  “Go!” I cried.

  Margot pulled us out and raced to the exit.

  “This is going to look suspicious as hell,” Margot said. It did look odd that we were ignoring all the other tolls to wait behind the one car out here.

  The driver didn’t show any outward signs of suspicion. The odd sheen of his car stirred a memory of the purplish iridescence I’d seen on Mrs. Stokes’s Cuff—evidence of its malfunction. A pang of regret stabbed at me, even though there was nothing I could do to help her now.

  The driver stuck his cuffed arm out the window. An Ad for 5 Places to visit in Ithaca, New York™, began to run on a screen that lowered into place before his windshield and the gate. Presumably, Ithaca was where he was headed. I had seen it on the map, but I couldn’t remember exactly where it was.

  The man tapped impatiently on the side of the car. At the bottom of his Ad, a message read: Your travel will resume in nine minutes, or pay $449.91 to skip these important Advertisements now.

  “This asshole can’t just pay to skip the Ads?” I asked.

  “We’re going to get caught,” Sera cried.

  “Honk at him,” Henri said.

  Margot turned. “Henri, that is your worst idea yet.”

  Sera shifted in her seat uncomfortably. “I should have stayed in Portland.”

  “I wish you had,” I retorted.

  “Let’s be nice to each other,” Sera said, mocking me.

  “Why is he waiting?” Mira asked. “Can he not afford $400?”

  The fee dropped to $399.92 as the timer ticked down to eight minutes.

  “’Fluents are cheap,” Norflo said.

  “I do not like this,” Margot said, looking over the gate and the dropped Ad screen. “I do not think we can make it.”

  “Do you want me to drive?” I asked.

  “I can drive just fine,” she said, rolling her clenched hands on the wheel.

  “Fine isn’t inspiring right now,” Sera said.

  “I am very skilled at Dome Racer™ V,” Margot added, narrowing her eyes like a cat ready to pounce.

  “Oh! I love Dome Racer™,” Mira said.

  “Is that supposed to be a qualification?” Sera asked me, like we were suddenly friends again.

  “I was only trying to help,” I said to Margot.

  The man ahead of us gave in on the countdown as the fee dropped to $349.99. He tapped at his Cuff and the Ad vanished. The arm turned green and began to tilt up. The Ad screen angled and moved on an armature toward us with an Ad for Keene’s Fancy Taco Strips®.

  The car in front of us pulled forward—not cautious or quick, just a matter of routine. It didn’t look like he’d even noticed us. Taco Strips® crunched in furious sparkling orange “flavor explosions” at the camera.

  “We’re going to have to smash the screen,” I said.

  “With pleasure,” Margot replied, stomping on the gas. Our Meiboch™ lurched forward, right under the dropping gate, and nearly into the car in front of us. Margot jammed the wheel hard to the left and then to the right. In a flash, we were in front of the car and flying out the exit. Our rear end fishtailed left, right, then steadied as Margot brought the wheel back to center.

  I glanced behind us. The car we’d passed had stopped, like we’d stunned the driver to a halt. A pair of dropters emerged from the tollbooths, red and blue lights flashing. They tilted and raced toward us.

  “We’ve got company,” I said, which was what people in movies always said at moments like this.

  Margot looked back and drove the Meiboch™ faster, but not fast enough to lose them. The tunnel whizzed by, looking much like the one we traveled through from Portland. I hadn’t noticed before, because I’d been driving, but the printed barriers on either side of the highway had quite a few scuffs in them, like they had been hit or sideswiped in places over the years. A few faint skid marks streaked the pavement, too. Perhaps the barriers weren’t replaced very often. I wondered if the one I’d caused damage to would be fixed and set back in place.

  “How do we lose them?” I asked.

  Margot’s face turned grim.

  “What can they do?” Henri asked. “It’s not like they can stop us.”

  “No, but they can ID us,” I said. “Then Lucretia will know where to find us.”

  Suddenly, on both sides of the road, the translucent tunnel lit up. Despite being on the run, we’d triggered a tunnel Ad. Off into the distance, thousands of slight variations of the same image of Moon Mints™ glowed. They synched with our speed, so passing them was like looking at frames of an Ad that kept pace as we hurtled along.

  The Ad finished as the tunnel started to curve. The tollbooth had grown tiny in the distance, and now it faded from view completely. Unfortunately, the dropters still hung behind us, flashing their lights. I wondered how long it would take the authorities in Keene to scramble and follow.

  “Margot?” Mira asked, her voice small and scared as she glanced back at the red and blue flashes.
/>   “They will not be able to catch us,” Margot assured her.

  “If they can’t catch up with us, there’ll be more waiting for us on the other end,” Sera said.

  An uneasy feeling in my gut told me she was right, but there was no point in making Mira afraid. “Now you’re an expert on interdome Law?” I asked Sera. “How will they even know where we’re going?” I turned to Mira and patted her hand. “They won’t get us.”

  “Can we go home?” Mira asked in a whisper.

  “No,” Margot said.

  I closed my eyes and tried to remember the map. We were west of Keene, headed toward New York™.

  “We should turn left first chance we get,” I said.

  “Why?” Margot asked.

  “Whether we go to DC or Carolina, we need to head south. Maybe find a way out of these tunnels and domes. If we get away from the WiFi, those dropters will have to stop chasing us.”

  “There is no way out,” Margot said. “You have to go from dome to dome.”

  My chest felt tight.

  Again, Mira asked, “Please can we go back to Portland?”

  “Mira, you do not want to go back,” Margot said, sounding a bit impatient. Mira reluctantly nodded.

  The tunnel suddenly flashed another Ad—this one for Keene’s Fruit Juice Poppers™, small sheets of BlisterPacked™ juice that you could squirt or pop in your mouth. A beautiful woman talked on the screen, but the audio didn’t reach into the car. Behind her was a golden field of grapevines, lit by an amber sun.

  “The farms,” I said, realization dawning. “There must be a way out. Our parents’ farm isn’t inside a dome. There have to be roads out there.” I looked out the window hopefully, as if some doorway would suddenly appear.

  “There may not be any farms up here,” Margot said, extending a palm at the road, where no exit could be seen.

  “Why not?” Mira asked.

  “I do not know enough about farms to know why they are put in some areas and not others.”

  I tried to picture the map again. I hadn’t memorized everything, but there had been labels outside the lines between domes.

  “Even if there aren’t farms out here, there has to be something. There has to be a way out.”

  “Then find it,” Margot snapped.

  That was easier said than done. I redoubled my search efforts as we passed through the tunnel. I had no sense of how thick or strong that translucent covering was, and I was tempted to have Margot pull the car over so I could test it. I wished we had some way to blast our way out of the tunnel, but Placers didn’t carry explosives.

  “Keep your eyes open,” I told everyone. “Look for anything that seems different.”

  Opposite us, in the far lane in the other direction, a car suddenly passed us with incredible speed—or at least it seemed that way from our vantage point. I whipped my head back and watched it disappear in the distance.

  Ahead, the tunnel widened to four lanes on our side, then narrowed back down to three about a hundred yards later. Two metal arcs marked the same point in widening and narrowing. It didn’t look like much more than bracing for the tunnel.

  “Margot, stop,” I said.

  “The dropters—” she began.

  “Please!” I cried.

  Margot hit the brakes hard enough that we all pitched forward, straining against our seat belts as the car stuttered to a crawl.

  “What are we looking at?” Sera asked, twisting around in her seat. The dropters split up, one keeping behind us and the other hovering into place right in front of our hood.

  “Something tells me we can get out of the tunnel.”

  “Oh, so now you have special powers?” Sera sniffed.

  “No,” I said slowly, beginning to recognize what I was looking at. “See how the road is a little worn and darker in two lines, where the tires ride?”

  The outer ring was like this in Portland. Two worn grooves followed the road, just like everywhere else, but a second set of lighter tracks split off and led to the spot in the wall where it curved.

  “It’s a hidden exit,” Henri said, his eyes widening.

  “Can we go?” Mira begged, grabbing Margot’s arm.

  “How?” Margot asked. “I cannot drive through the wall.”

  Sera frowned. “I don’t see it.”

  I held up a finger to let them know I planned to get out. Margot glanced in the rearview mirror nervously.

  “Those dropters are going to come for you.”

  I hesitated. She was right.

  “We cannot stay here like this,” Margot warned.

  “Can I borrow your grapple again?” Henri asked.

  “Henri, this isn’t the time,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. He frowned at me and my lack of faith in him.

  “To shoot down the dropters,” he said. “I can do it.”

  “Henri!” Mira cheered.

  Margot took her grapple out, turned around and leaned way back to give Henri a big, inappropriately long kiss. “Henri the hero,” she said, and opened the door.

  Dirt: $15.99

  Henri was a better shot than I was with a grapple. He took out the dropter in front of us with his first shot, harpooning it to the far wall in a shower of sparks. I missed as the one behind us blared a deafening alarm. My grapple hit the ceiling and I zipped up with it—almost out of habit. Henri reeled his grapple back, leaving the dropter to fall to the road, flaring brilliant white from a ruptured NanoLion™ battery.

  “Desist!” The remaining dropter broadcast. The sound echoed through the tunnel. The dropter faced Henri, hissing like an animal...or a canister of sleep gas, I realized with horror.

  Henri ducked and rolled back from the spray, slamming the Meiboch™’s door shut to protect the others.

  He shot out a line and missed. I dropped to the ground and took a second shot. I hit the dropter with a glancing blow and it spun wildly.

  “Remit p-p-payment...” the dropter sputtered.

  I retracted my line to fire off another shot, but Henri beat me to it, striking the dropter dead center. It exploded with a flash, tiny shards of plastic scattering everywhere.

  In the quiet that followed, I could hear the high-pitched whine of cars driving toward us.

  The Meiboch™’s door popped open. Mira rushed out to Henri’s side and threw her arms around him. Margot yelled her name from inside the car, then winced at the shock she received for it. Mira looked back at her, scared.

  Margot honked the horn and waved us all back, but my first priority had to be getting us outside. We were so close. I raced over to the metal bracing that seemed to mark the hidden exit. Mira scrambled back to the car. Henri joined me, and Margot honked the horn again.

  I put my hands on the bracing. There was nothing that seemed like a handle or locking mechanism—no panels, screens or buttons. Now that I was close, I could see that the tunnel’s wall and arch fit snugly into a groove in the metal. I was certain that meant the whole thing could slide up. But how?

  The two flaring drones lit the scene with a harsh bright light that forced me to squint. Henri examined the base of the wall, which showed a small gap with a thin rubber edge. I got down and tried to wedge my fingers through the opening, but it wasn’t large enough.

  The distant engine whine grew louder. I pulled out my magnetic lock pick and started to run it over the metal support. Margot hit the horn a third time, her face twisting with fury, and Henri’s head lifted in alarm as a car came into view on the other side of the median.

  The engine noise pitched down in tone as the car slowed and then came to a stop. Whether the driver was after us or not, the scene was not exactly discreet. Anyone could see what we were attempting to do.

  Margot honked again, holding the horn down this time. Sera waved for me to come back, and then the ca
r’s glass turned back to black. Margot must have hit the TINT button to try to mask their identities. But what did she think we were going to do? Drive on? We’d be caught that way for sure. We needed to get outside right now.

  On the other side of the road, a portly and dour-faced man emerged from his vehicle with two other Affluents. These weren’t people chasing us—just Affluents who saw an opportunity.

  “I can’t InstaSue™ them!” one of the men said.

  “Scofflaws!” the dour man cried, holding his Cuff up to record us.

  I didn’t know what that word meant, but I wanted to shout an insult in return. It wasn’t worth the shock or having Margot chastise me.

  My lock pick buzzed as it caught something. A great cracking noise vibrated against my feet and the wall began to slide up. A thrill ran through me as a line of yellow light expanded on the ground, creeping in from the outside. An alarm voice called out, “Warning: Unauthorized breach.”

  “Halt!” the dour man shouted, tracking me with his Cuff and probably imagining all the ways he could profit from what he was capturing. But they couldn’t stop us now.

  “This is treason!” one of the men exclaimed.

  “Treason’s the wrong word,” the dour one commented. “Waste of $39.99. But these delinquents must be stopped!”

  I raced back to the car with Henri right in front of me. The dour man changed his position and held his fist out to us. Silas Rog had done this once, during his last attempt to kill me.

  Henri slowed to see what the man was about to do and I had to tackle him into the car. The man fired off two shots from his Cuff. One whizzed out into the sunlight beyond the tunnel and the other pinged against the Meiboch™’s side. I yanked the door shut, thankful for the protection of Rog’s black glass, which appeared to be bulletproof. Margot blasted us forward. We shot out the opening doorway, more shots cracking against the back of the Meiboch™.

  Tires crunched over dirt and debris. Stars swam in my vision as I realized how close of a call we’d just experienced. I put a hand on Henri’s shoulder and looked him over to be sure he was all right. He stared back at the men, who were done shooting at us and were getting back into their car, as though they’d just stopped off for a sandwich and were now on their way again.