Access Restricted

by Gregory Scott Katsoulis

  “What is this supposed to be?” I asked.

  No one had an answer. Instead, Mira peeked back at the cars chasing us and said, “They are not slowing.”

  “Why does Lucretia Rog care?” Henri asked. “Why is she still coming after us?”

  “Not us. Me!” I grunted, jostling the car up onto the rail. I couldn’t manage any speed—the car stuttered over each thick wooden plank as I headed south.

  “Speth!” Sera cried, as if it would make me go faster. Below us, the other Meiboch™ turned off the road and headed left, into the grass and up the opposite side of the overpass. The second car headed for the embankment behind us—they were trying to cut us off. I tried to accelerate, but it was too late. The first car braked to a hard stop on the rails, blocking our path.

  I’d planned this wrong. We weren’t going to escape.

  “Back up,” Margot said calmly. “Quickly.” She was fishing in her bag, trying to find something in there that might help us. I was glad for her steady demeanor. It helped me shift into Reverse and start moving backward without too much panic.

  In front of us, the passenger door of the car opened. A Lawyer stepped out, unhurried. He wore a perfect slate-gray suit with a bloodred tie. His face was placid and familiar, even with his sharp eyes hidden behind matte sunglasses. This was the Lawyer who’d hauled my sister away after Sam died—Bennington Grippe. He held up a Cuffed arm, as if I would obey him and simply stop. He opened his mouth and began to talk, but his voice couldn’t reach us inside our car.

  “Maybe I can run him down,” I said, but my stomach revolted at the idea. Despite everything I’d been through, I couldn’t murder someone. Instead, I kept trying to speed up backward, but that just made the car slide on the gravel, wood and rails. As I scraped into the black metal of the bridge, the other car rammed into us from behind and shoved our car forward. We were trapped.

  “Margot!” Mira cried.

  “Let’s takem,” Norflo said, elbowing Henri as another Lawyer stepped out of the second car. “Lawerz can’t fight.”

  I knew this Lawyer, too. Derrick Finster. He’d shown up at my Last Day ceremony just minutes after my friend Beecher had killed himself, rather than live Indentured to Silas Rog. Finster had wanted me to sue Beecher’s family for “ruining” my Last Day party.

  My refusal to speak that day had started all of this. Seeing Finster again now made my blood boil. He was tall and square-faced, with a broad chest full of legal medals across his impeccably cut charcoal-gray jacket. His eyes were concealed behind gray-pebbled glasses. Lots of Lawyers favored these because they gave the same eyeless impression as a judicial visor. I’d heard they worked like a fly’s eyes and broadcasted some kind of enhanced image to the owner’s ocular overlays.

  Finster stood in our way confidently, like he knew he had us.

  “Should we?” Henri asked of the fight.

  “I doubt the Lawyers are alone,” I said.

  “They will shoot us,” Margot said, the calm draining from her voice as she grabbed hold of her sister.

  “Guns shouldn’t work without the WiFi,” I reminded her. Maybe we stood some chance.

  A brief predatory look flashed in Margot’s eyes before she shook it off. “Should not is a lot to pin our safety on,” she replied, biting her lip.

  “You guys are crazy,” Sera cried, looking around wildly. “Get us out of here!”

  “How?” I demanded. We had nowhere to go.

  “Margot,” Mira asked. “Can I fight, too?”

  “You stay here,” I said, “with your sister.” I looked at Margot. “She will keep you safe.” I pulled my Placer’s mask on, hoping it would conceal my fear more than my identity. I grabbed Margot’s mask out of her hands.

  “But you’re fighting with us, Sera Croate!” I growled, tossing it at her.

  “I don’t know how!” she protested.

  “You tried to break my arm,” I snarled. “You can fight.”

  “What are you even talking about?”

  “When you tried to make me talk that day at school.” I reached back and yanked on her arm to remind her.

  “Speth!” Henri cried, appalled at my behavior. He didn’t understand what Sera was like. I let go well before she had.

  “I wasn’t trying to break your arm,” she said, cheeks burning. “I was—”

  I kicked the door open and frankly hoped she’d get a shock out of it, but there was no WiFi. I was prepared for this to be the end.

  Legalese: $18.99

  With the Meiboch’s seal broken, Grippe’s voice finally reached us. “...does not exclude or absolve the second party of the first part of her responsibility to heed all spoken licit and legal claims when sheltered from said communication,” he was saying. Someone loomed large inside the darkness of Grippe’s car. My whole body felt raw and uneasy as I tried to see who was still sitting in there. Whoever it was, they were too big to be Lucretia.

  “As such, any attempts to recover or—”

  I raced forward and swung at his face. He ducked me with surprising speed.

  “You are hereby—” he jumped to avoid a kick and held a finger up to ask me to wait “—enjoined to cease hostile and assaultive conduct until such time—” He sneered and blocked a punch by grabbing my arm. I twisted myself out of his grip. “As we have—” I connected, poorly, with his shoulder, almost like a joke punch. I may have been quick and strong, but I wasn’t exactly a fighter. This Lawyer, I feared, was.

  From my side, Norflo made a run at him, but Grippe sidestepped him, too. Inside Grippe’s car, the shadow moved, and an enormous man got out.

  He had a brutal, dim look I’d seen before, on each of the three brothers who had murdered Sam. They shared the same distorted proportions and watery eyes. But the men who’d killed Sam were lean and rough-looking, with oddly muscled necks. This man seemed far more dangerous—still muscled and rough, but far from lean. He looked like they’d stuffed him into a black suit to civilize him—or he’d grown since putting the suit on.

  “Desist!” Finster called out behind us. I couldn’t look back to see what Henri and Sera were doing.

  “You will cease at once!” Grippe yelled now, pushing me back.

  The black-suited thug moved into place behind him and waited for instruction, probably to crush us.

  I paused and chanced a look back. Henri had the other Lawyer in a headlock. Someone was emerging from his car as well—another large, overpumped bodyguard whose eyes lit on Henri. He was nearly identical to the one behind Grippe, with the same loutish expression and shock of blond hair. A sick feeling of wrongness hit me. Were they brothers, too, like the men who’d killed Sam? Was it just a coincidence, or was there something else at play here?

  “Desist!” Grippe barked. Finster’s driver also climbed out, pulling a long metal club from his car. With a nod, he and the brute advanced on Henri.

  “Henri!” I called out.

  Grippe’s driver and his bodyguard were now closing in on Norflo and me. We were bottled up, and the only good news was that, for some reason, Lucretia Rog was not here.

  Henri released Finster and backed away. Finster brushed himself off and raised a calming hand. The advance on us paused. Grippe addressed his Cuff.

  “Please note for the record: it has been witnessed that Speth Jime spoke willfully and without consideration to either the Law or her binding Agreements with Keene Inc. Speth Jime, you are hereby notified that you are officially in breach of your preexisting obligation to read, as your first and primary paid words, the sanctioned a priori speech mutually agreed upon by you and 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. In obeisance of article VI of statute Y9, you, Speth Jime, henceforth referred to as the Property, are required to s
ubmit yourself to Indenture to the entities assigned by Keene Inc., in specificity, to the assign of Lucretia Hale Rog.”

  I laughed out loud. “Obeisance.” This was so awful. Margot emerged from the car, shooing Mira back inside despite the girl’s desire to follow. She tossed a grapple to Henri. The driver with the metal club twisted his fingers around the weapon and stepped forward, silently daring Henri to shoot the thing at him.

  “You are legally required to surrender yourself to Lucretia Hale Rog,” Grippe continued, “for the permanent Indentured servitude of yourself and any and all progeny issued by you for the duration of your Indenture.”

  “Dafuc?” Norflo grunted.

  Finster started reading now. “‘Whereas you have fallen into Collection, and whereas you have committed acts of grievous harm against—’”

  “What about them?” I asked, gesturing to my friends.

  Finster’s brow furrowed. He looked across to his fellow Attorney. Grippe smiled.

  “Our charge specifies the Property as you,” Grippe said, his voice sounding oily and pleased with himself. “Though Finster should take someone.” His head tilted thoughtfully as he appraised Henri. “Him, I think.”

  “No!” I cried out.

  Finster frowned at Henri. “You know I can’t take that one,” he scoffed. “He’s already owned.”

  In the middle of everything, my heart dropped into my stomach. Henri was Indentured? How was that possible?

  Grippe turned to Sera instead. “She’s inconsequential enough.”

  Sera gasped and jumped back into the car. I glanced from one side to the other. It was clear that Grippe was the senior Lawyer of the two. He wore fewer medals, but only because he had less to prove. Finster’s brute was a little smaller, too, now that I analyzed it, like Finster had to be put a peg below Grippe. That gave me an idea.

  “I’ll surrender to Finster,” I said carefully, remembering how much Sam had disliked him. “If you let the rest of them leave,” I added.

  Sera’s mouth dropped open in shock as Henri cried out, “No!”

  Finster’s eyebrows rose from under his sunglasses. This must have been a prime opportunity for him. He stood a little taller.

  “I can agree—” he started.

  Grippe sneered as he spoke over him. “I see no reason to negotiate.”

  “That doesn’t make you much of a Lawyer,” I said. Grippe’s placid face broke into a phony smile, but his neck turned red, betraying anger under his perfect, unwrinkled suit.

  “Our fees continue to accrue, and they will all be added to your debt,” he replied with a sniff.

  I don’t know why he thought that would frighten me. I suspect it was habit. I was far beyond the point of worrying about my debt.

  I carefully motioned for the others to get in the car. Sera took Margot by the hand and pulled her back in, startling her. Norflo backed away. Henri stood firmly behind the car, the grapple sliding in his hand, like his palms were sweaty. Could he shoot a line and get off the overpass and then—what? Run for it? Even if they could all flee from Lucretia’s men on this overpass, where could they go on foot? I had to get them safely in that car.

  “Henri,” I called out. “Go!”

  He was too loyal to listen. He wouldn’t get into the car without me.

  “Why Finster?” Grippe asked me. “Perhaps you’d prefer Arkansas Holt?”

  I laughed at this, then laughed louder when I saw how unamused Finster was by the suggestion he was on par with our pitiful family Lawyer.

  “Slander will not be tolerated, Attorney Grippe.”

  “You don’t have any jurisdiction here,” Henri yelled.

  “Get in the car, Henri,” I shouted back.

  “If that were true,” Grippe said, “that would mean there is no Law of any sort out here.” He motioned for his driver and his bodyguard to move closer. “We could do whatever we like. Is that what the Property would like? A world without Law? Is that why the Silent Girl went silent? If you would like to explain, I will personally pay for your speaks on that subject.”

  He held up his Cuff, eager for me to agree. How was it functioning without WiFi?

  Beyond Grippe’s car, the railed path stretched south into the distance. I was outside. I was outside in the world. I stood on ground beyond the dome. I’d made it out here, and they had failed to stop me. I couldn’t give up now, but I had nothing to bargain with but myself. I turned and faced Finster.

  “Just because he doesn’t want to negotiate...” I jerked a thumb back at Grippe.

  “We are not going to negotiate,” Grippe retorted behind me.

  “I am addressing my inquiry to Attorney Finster,” I said, adopting as much of a legal tone as I could muster. It made me feel itchy, but Finster seemed to respond, at least in posture. “Whereas I, the uncounseled party, only agree to surrender exclusively to you forthwith—conferring upon you whatever benefits you get from that—”

  “Your Legalese is lacking, my dear,” Grippe commented.

  Finster, in front of me, didn’t move. Without being able to see his eyes, I had no clue what he was thinking. I let the silence sit. I knew there was a power in silence as well as words. The air was filled with that low, breathy sound of being outside. A soft breeze blew across us, but with no sound of cars passing like on Falxo Bridge.

  Grippe cleared his throat. “Attorney Finster,” he said, like he was trying to wake the man up. Finster held up a finger. He was considering my offer. Grippe’s neck went red again.

  “Ignore her!” Grippe ordered. “She is playing us off each other.”

  Finster’s finger remained high. “Irrespective of her legal phraseology or motive, the Property’s point is not without merit of consideration.”

  His hand went to the legal medals on his chest and stroked them. He was thinking of the shiny bar I might add to his collection. I held back my desire to grin. I had him.

  Grippe’s redness traveled from his neck to his face in blotches. He’d had enough. He turned to the monstrosity of a man beside him in the black suit and barked, “Take her!”

  “Desist!” I yelled, hoping it might confound the thug. His cruel face wrinkled in confusion at the command, but it didn’t stop him long. Finster snapped his fingers, and his own thug moved to meet him.

  “Attorney Finster,” Grippe warned. He beckoned his bodyguard to do as he’d instructed, but the man froze in confusion.

  Finster smirked. “Due to the exceptional expenditures of time and effort beyond the standard claim on the Property, including, but not limited to, the required travel to these Outer Lands and service roads, I must formally request a hearing pertaining to pending credit of collection of the Property,” he announced. “At this time, I, Derrick Finster, officially lay claim to the idea of collecting Speth Jime, the Property, from these Outer Lands, and invoke my rights for the purpose of recompense, credit, Patent and legal advancement.”

  “A hearing?” Grippe asked Finster. He was trying to project calm, but I could see a tremor in his thumb as he used it to polish one of his medals.

  Finster took a deep breath and then addressed me, ignoring his colleague. “You may surrender to me now,” he said, looking quite pleased.

  “Norflo, Henri, get in the car,” I said. They still didn’t obey.

  “I will let the others leave,” Grippe said to me, keeping his eyes on Finster. “Cede to me, now, and we will go.”

  He snapped his fingers, expecting obedience from me, or perhaps his bodyguard. Probably both.

  “Norflo,” I said again, raising my eyebrows and giving him a look. Norflo took a step inside the vehicle and pulled at Henri to do the same, but Henri resisted.

  “She cannot cede herself, as she does not legally own herself, nor can she surrender when primary authority has been cast into doubt,” Finster complained.

 
Grippe stalked past me and up to Finster with a slow, forced gait. The bodyguard in the black suit went with him. Finster held his ground, his own thug backing him up.

  “She has no counsel, Finster,” Grippe hissed. “So if she cannot cede herself and there is no counsel to cede her, she must be taken.”

  He snapped his fingers again. No one obeyed. Finster mashed his lips together.

  “Get in the car, Henri,” I whispered at him.

  Henri finally ducked inside the car, his eyes pleading with me. Grippe’s driver moved past us, too, leaving only Grippe’s car in the path of our Meiboch™.

  “Legal doubt has been raised,” Finster insisted, “as to who will take custody during this interim—”

  “Finster, you are not the claimant,” Grippe whined.

  “Attorney Grippe! It is a serious and condemnable violation of terms and conditions to interrupt during the citation of Law, claims or other legal matters.”

  “Your claims violate the unspoken, but nevertheless legally enforceable terms of a tacit agreement between Attorneys when—”

  I dashed toward the car, scrambling into the driver’s seat and slamming the door behind me. Henri gasped in relief and yanked the back door shut, wedging himself between Margot and Norflo. Behind the car, Grippe’s brutish bodyguard turned and his meaty hands hit our trunk, threatening to lift the car and smash it like a monster from a movie. Sera screamed beside me.

  Grippe was pointing and yelling now, but we couldn’t hear him. Shaking, I started the engine. Grippe, Finster, the bodyguards and both drivers all stopped and turned to us.

  “Hold tight!” I yelled, aiming for Grippe’s car ahead of us and hitting the gas. There was a rumbling second of acceleration and then a hard thud as we slammed into Grippe’s car and it spun. One of its wheels locked on a rail. Metal bent on both cars, oddly soundless from inside. Mira wailed from the back seat. There wasn’t quite enough space to escape, so I began to back up.