Justice Rog turned his head toward me. “It is not the responsibility of this court to educate you on points of Law. Unless you have a legal point to make, please be seated.”
“I would argue that all words are names,” I insisted. “They are sounds assigned to ideas, things and actions. If you are angry, the word is not the feeling itself. It conveys the feeling.”
“We know what words are,” Lucretia Rog said coldly. “We own more of them than anyone in this nation.”
I went on, ignoring her, instead fixing my attention on Sera, “Rights Holders are not allowed to void, change or reassign meanings. For example, if I say I’m sorry, we all understand it is both an apology and a legal admission of guilt. If I did not see that someone had grown up in even worse circumstances than I had, or if I failed to help them when they needed me, I can speak ‘I’m sorry’ and convey how terrible I feel. I can let them know how I wanted to help. I can explain how hard it was to understand what they were going through. If I can afford the $10 fee.”
Sera squinted at me, unsure what I was doing. The Commander-in-Chief Justice banged his gavel, but I went on.
“But if I can’t say it, because the cost is too high, then we are forced to live in separate worlds. We are divided, even from the people closest to us. We cannot share our experiences. We cannot hold on to our culture. We go unheard.”
“But...” Sera trailed off, holding out her hands, unsure what she wanted to say.
Silas Rog shouted, “Objection! This is a mockery of the court!”
“Sustained,” the Commander-in-Chief Justice boomed. “You will cease speaking.”
“It leaves us all alone,” I continued, raising my voice and keeping my eyes on Sera.
“Two minutes,” Kel whispered in my ear. “The WiFi will need to go down first. We won’t be able to communicate until everything reboots.”
“Remove her from my courtroom!” Justice Rog called out, his visor glowing more intensely. The two brothers on either end—Uthondo and whoever was on the far side—moved to take me. Saretha clutched my arm as the Téjican delegation closed ranks around us.
“You don’t have to do that,” I told them.
“We pledged to protect you,” Arturo said firmly.
“You have one card to play while the WiFi is down,” Kel said. “Nancee and Penepoli have Victoria Rog.”
I shooed the Lawyers away and met Sera’s eyes again. She stared back at me, trembling.
“Victoria has one request,” Kel said, as her connection crackled out. “That her mother not be harmed...”
There was the faintest thud, and then, from outside the courtroom, a distant ticking. Along the dropter chain, starting at the door and moving inside, the drones fell one by one, wobbling, pitching and careening to the ground. The little ones scattered to the floor like sand and the news dropters fell like dominoes. The screen behind the Commander-in-Chief Justice’s head went dark, and so did his visor. The WiFi was down.
He immediately put his hands out, searching. Emotion finally registered on his face.
“Desist!” the younger Silas screamed at me.
“No,” I said, clucking my tongue at him. It was such a simple word. “You aren’t supposed to be speaking with the WiFi down.”
“Enough!” Lucretia cried out to her bodyguards. “No one’s watching now. End her!”
The bodyguards all blinked in confusion and wiped at their eyes. With the WiFi down, the low-level shocks that usually kept them obedient must have abated. A few, like Uthondo, took tentative steps toward me. Andromeda, wild-eyed, raced for the door. She wasn’t alone. It was chaos as Affluents and Silents both tried to work out what was about to happen.
Lucretia’s face turned a violent shade of red as she and Silas decided to take matters into their own hands.
“Without your bodyguards, do you really think you can take me hand to hand?” I asked. That gave Lucretia pause, but not her brother. “The only thing protecting you now is...”
I was about to speak Victoria’s name, but before the words could leave my mouth, the WiFi returned.
Restricted®: $1,000,000,000
“Desist!” the Commander-in-Chief Justice shouted, terrified, patting at his visor like he was worried it was gone. The dropters woke from the floor and hovered unsteadily.
“Uthondo!” Lucretia commanded, tapping frantically at her Cuff. Uthondo stepped closer to her, enraged.
“It’s all yours now,” Kel said.
“I’ve taken control of the database,” I warned.
“What database?” Silas Rog demanded.
“The only one left,” I said.
Uthondo paused. His eyes shot to me.
“Lies!” Silas Rog spat.
“Try me,” I taunted, wondering how much loyalty and devotion money and cruelty could buy as Uthondo tried to shake the Rogs from his head.
The Commander-in-Chief Justice began speaking. “Whereas Speth Jime, the party of the first part, has shown blatant and unrepentant contempt for this courtroom and its authority—”
“I do have a lot of contempt,” I said, a sense of giddiness bubbling up under my fear.
“Be careful out there,” Kel said.
“—and whereas the party of the first part has refused to comply with a lawful order to speak her legal name, and whereas the party of the first part has practiced Law without deference to her legal counsel—”
“Sorry, guys,” I said to my Téjican legal team as they began to pack up and work out an escape.
“What is happening?” Arturo asked.
“—I sentence the party of the first part, Speth Jime, aka Speth Jiménez—”
“You’re not even on trial!” Arturo said, outraged.
“They don’t care,” I said.
“—to death,” the Commander-in-Chief Justice roared.
“Objection!” one of my Lawyers called out. “That is not legal procedure! You—”
“I will amend the legal procedure,” the elder Rog shot back.
“I think you’ll find that you can’t,” I said quietly.
The Commander-in-Chief Justice’s brow furrowed under his visor.
“And even if you could sentence me to death, how would you determine the sentence has been carried out?” I asked.
Uthondo stood worryingly near, unsure what he should do. His brother followed his lead, waiting.
“Death is just an assigned value according to the Law,” I explained. “Like my name. Every word has a meaning, an owner and a price. With a simple tap, I can wipe them all out.”
“If she erases the database, words won’t have any meaning,” one of the Affluents in the crowd cried out.
“No one will be able to understand anything!” Silas protested.
I held up my arm and the Cuff they’d given me.
“If the word death ceases to mean anything, will it bring my brother back?” I growled.
“Erase that database, and you’ll destroy the entire economy,” the younger Silas bellowed.
“Do you think that worries me?” I asked.
Lucretia put a hand on her brother’s arm to calm him. “Do it,” she said. “Erase the entire system and see.” She rubbed a thumb over the Pad in her hand. If we wiped everything out, I’d be willing to bet it would give her control. She’d allowed the other data centers to be destroyed.
Silas Rog Junior gripped his Cuff with his right hand and searched for a clear line to me.
“We’ve shut out the Patent for projectiles,” I warned. “I know how much you’d love to shoot me, here, in front of the whole world.”
“I would have expected you to blow everything up, like a terrorist,” Lucretia sneered. “But this is no different in the end. Erasing everything is just the long way around to the same thing. Chaos and death are exactly what you
want. That is what the world will see.” She cocked an eyebrow at me, and it was clear she didn’t share the fear that hung in the room. She wanted the last center destroyed, one way or the other.
“I could erase it all,” I said to tempt her. I hovered my finger over the Cuff. No one dared step near me now. “Or...”
“Or what?” Lucretia asked, her calm chipping a little.
“I could just assign all the words to me.”
Kel had helpfully shunted a list of options to my Cuff, leaving the choices in my hands. With a simple tap, I became the only Rights Holder in America®. It felt powerful and good and a little scary.
“Kiely has my back,” Kel said. “Spider’s hard at work. We’re still inside if you need anything else.”
“She can’t do any of this, Silas,” Lucretia reassured her brother. “Meaning is protected by the Second Act of Connotation, and Verbal Code 371 prohibits transfers exceeding—”
“Verbal Code 371 has been revised to require you to shut up,” I said.
This wasn’t one of the options, but Kel laughed in my ear and said, “Got it.”
“The Second Act of Connotation had been repealed,” I confirmed, feeling Cocky™.
“You cannot rewrite the Law to suit your purposes!” the Commander-in-Chief Justice snarled.
“Why not?” I asked cheerfully. “You do! It’s all you’ve ever done!”
“I am the elected leader of these United States of America®!”
“Elected?” I snorted. “By who?”
“I won 100 percent of the eligible vote.”
“And who decides who is eligible?”
“Father, don’t answer her!” Lucretia called out.
I persisted. “How many people in the United States™ are eligible to vote?”
The Commander-in-Chief Justice fell silent.
“The answer is sixteen, by the way,” Kel whispered in my ear. “I’m looking at the rolls now.”
“Every word you speak makes me money now. Do you know how rich I’ll be? What if I took the price of every word and—”
“And made them free?” Lucretia finished my sentence for me with a scowl. “Typical liberal fantasy. You don’t understand anything about how the world—”
“Don’t interrupt me,” I snapped. “I’m not going to make words free. No, I have a different idea.”
The Silents and my friends in the gallery now looked shocked. I tapped and put the Word$ Market™ up on the large screen behind the Commander-in-Chief Justice’s seat, where everyone could see. Words and their values crisscrossed on the florid green background.
“She’s bluffing,” Silas Rog protested.
Lucretia’s eyes went wild when she realized, too late, what I was about to do.
I tapped my Cuff again, and each word’s value skyrocketed into the billions.
A hush fell over the room. A single word from anyone now would mean more debt than anyone had ever known.
“I’m the only person in the country who can speak now,” I said, pacing to the front of the courtroom. All eyes were on me. No one could believe it. Saretha looked hurt that she couldn’t speak, too. Sera glared from her place on the stand. All three Rogs were rendered mute.
“That makes all of you Silents,” I announced with a laugh.
Null
I could have kept the nation silent like this indefinitely, with everything in my control. But what kind of monster would that make me?
A few actual Silents who were in the room appeared thrilled. Was this what they had wanted all this time? Did they even know anymore? I would have to disappoint them, but first I let the silence sit a minute. I had a point to make.
Silas and Lucretia stewed furiously. Their father sat paralyzed, which wasn’t so different from his usual stony, eyeless expression. I wanted them to know, just for a minute, what it felt like for most of us, to know the fear of speaking more than you could afford.
“This is the endgame,” I said. “What every Affluent dreams of—getting as rich as possible. I own everything now—every single word, gesture and Copyrighted move.”
I did a quick little salsa move, like I’d seen in the courtyard in Téjico, and felt Sam’s mischievousness in my heart.
“Idiot!” Silas Rog called out, throwing a few billion dollars away in his anger.
“Oh,” I said innocently. “You don’t like it? Jealous you didn’t think of it yourself? Angry you laid the groundwork and I got here first?”
He glared at his Cuff. He was rich enough to survive another transgression or two, but greedy enough not to dare.
“I own,” I said, shaking my head and showing them my Cuff. “Go ahead and look. I’ll waive the fees. I’ve put my name on everything. Your homes, your cars and your Indentureds.” I paused, glaring at the Rogs. “Or should I say your slaves?”
Some of the Affluents looked taken aback as I continued, “Think of how imbalanced that is—one person owning everything. But the Law says it’s all legal. If I can figure out how to manipulate the Laws, whatever I decide will be legal. It doesn’t matter what anyone else actually wants or needs. That is all we care about—how things are defined by Laws, regardless of what is logical, fair or right.”
My voiced echoed through the courthouse, bouncing from stone to stone.
“Is it really so different when it’s a few dozen people that own almost everything? Or a few hundred? When millions have so little, and most own less than nothing, can you count on the wealthy to be generous when their pitiless greed is what brought them their wealth and power in the first place?
“Did you know you can own children?” I asked, looking around at the crowd. “They didn’t teach us that in school. I was taught you can only be taken into Collection after you finish school. But they don’t tell you about what happens to the kids born to parents who are already Indentured. They’re owned from birth, with no more rights than a Trademarked logo. They take them and put them out to work in the fields almost as soon as they can stand.”
I paused to let that sink in. Even some of the Affluents seemed troubled by the idea.
“Now I own them, too.” It was a sick thought. “I own every Indentured logged in the system.”
I took a breath. I had to use this moment to make something right.
“That includes you, Sera,” I said.
Sera’s brow creased. She hadn’t understood my attempt to apologize earlier. She was raw, still, with hatred.
I pointed at Lucretia. “She doesn’t own you anymore,” I explained. Sera opened her mouth before I could stop her.
“But you do?” she snapped. She shouldn’t have spoken. Each word cost her billions of dollars. It was a laughable amount, or it would have been if her Cuff hadn’t started buzzing wildly. A high-pitched whine sounded. She looked down at it, alarmed.
“It’s warm,” she said, her eyes blazing with fear. People began to shuffle back, away from her. A warm Cuff was a prelude to a total meltdown of the NanoLion™ battery inside. “What do you want from me?” she screamed, not understanding this wasn’t what I was trying to do. I wasn’t trying to punish her. I hadn’t made myself clear.
“Kel, wipe out every debt.”
Cheers rose from the Onzième crowd at this. The whine of Sera’s Cuff stuttered and then dropped away. Lucretia’s nostrils flared.
“What do you want?” Sera begged me.
“Charge her speaks to me,” I said quickly. Billions were charged to me and then forgiven, because I was the only Rights Holder in America®.
“I want your forgiveness,” I said, relieved her Cuff had stopped buzzing.
Sera looked like she’d swallowed a lemon. “Why?” she asked. Everyone else was frozen and held hostage to the silence, save for the two of us. I would have preferred to work this out in private, but I had no choice now.
“Because we were kept apart by a cruel system that left us to raise ourselves and wouldn’t let us speak.”
Sera sniffed, “You act like you didn’t have fifteen years of talking. You could have apologized anytime you wanted before that. You could have said it after, too. It’s only $10. You’re the one who went silent. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I didn’t,” I admitted. “We had words, but we didn’t have any guidance on how to use them.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“They took our parents, Sera. They took our families away. I’m not just talking about the system of words, but everything that made us scrap over every little morsel. We were pitted against each other from the start for everything—how much Wheatlock™ we could print, or how much space we could have. We even had to compete for Mrs. Harris’s time. They kept us working against each other so we would never work with each other.”
“So I’m supposed to be your friend now?” she asked, a little bewildered. Sera wasn’t the type to get all sappy.
“No,” I said. “There is a difference between friend and family. I want you to be my sister.”
Sera’s eyes streamed with misery and her mouth opened in shock. She gestured across the courtroom. “But you have Saretha!” she sobbed.
“Family is more than just blood,” I insisted, stepping closer. “I can have more than one sister.”
Just like I could have more than one brother. Sadness washed over me as I thought of Sam and Santos359™.
Sera stood there, uneasy in her skin, looking almost like a Jiménez now because of what they’d done to her. I walked over and put my arms around her. They had charged us for this. They had made that seem normal.
Lucretia Rog watched us, disgust written across her face. Silas Junior kept looking at his Cuff, waiting for his status to change. I broke away from Sera.
“Speaking of blood,” I said, turning around and addressing the nine brothers held in place by my billion-dollar threat. “If I release the words and make them free, I’d like you not to spill any,” I requested.
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