All Rights Reserved

by Gregory Scott Katsoulis

  When I got home, Saretha was on the couch watching Truly, Lovely, Danger!, a movie costarring Carol Amanda Harving as the best friend of the girl who accidentally falls in love with a muscular and inexplicably shirtless assassin. It was her last supporting role before she became a leading star. Near the end, Carol Amanda Harving turns out to be an assassin, too, and dies the ugly death of a traitor. Was that why Saretha was watching? I couldn’t blame her, though it seemed a little twisted. Carol Amanda Harving looked too much like Saretha for me to enjoy watching her characters die on-screen. Saretha paused the film and shook her head at me.

  “Tell me you didn’t just drop out,” she said, her eyes closed, as though she couldn’t bear to look at me. Then, angered, she spit out, “You have no idea what you’ve done!” The contempt in her voice was worse and more difficult to hear than I’d anticipated. Panic rose in my chest.

  “Have you seen this?” Saretha flicked away the cost of what she’d said and used her Cuff as a remote to pull up a news report on our screen.

  The wall filled with footage of a beautiful young girl named Bridgette Pell, on the Ninety-Second Radian. She was a thin, lovely, wealthy young woman with her whole life ahead of her. She stood in her posh rooftop garden, a tall, skeletal waif, big-eyed and blank, in front of her Affluent friends and family. Instead of reading her Last Day speech, which would have been little more than a formality for someone with her money, she zipped her lips, bounced on her toes and let herself fall backward over the building’s side.

  “Have the Silents gone too far?” the announcer asked with a dramatic glee.

  My stomach dropped away. The Silents? She had killed herself!

  “Is this what you wanted?” Saretha asked, as the commentators blamed me in the background.

  This wasn’t my fault. I was stunned it was even possible for her to do this. Why weren’t the rails higher? Why would an Affluent girl care at all about the Silents or her Last Day? What was the point of killing herself? My head was swimming, trying to understand.

  “Everyone’s going to copy you now,” Saretha said.

  She wasn’t copying me! I screamed in my head. And in case you hadn’t noticed, I didn’t kill myself!

  I sat on Sam’s bed, put my head back and closed my eyes. I listened to the voices discuss me on television. I was so tired. I had only a few hours before I had to go back out onto the rooftops and make Placements.

  “Jim, I don’t think we should assign blame here, but isn’t this clearly the Silent Girl’s fault?”

  “Ah, yes, Rebecca, given her petulant unwillingness to come forward and speak for herself, I hardly think it’s possible that any other conclusion can be drawn.”

  “And, Jim, don’t you think Bridgette Pell’s family has a duty to sue?”

  “Rebecca, I think every American® has a duty to sue, whenever opportunity permits.”

  Almost on cue, I felt a suit arrive simultaneously on our Cuffs. I didn’t look. Saretha made an irritated noise and confirmed its receipt.

  “Tylenola Ram was sent to the hospital. Zipped her lips and drank a food printer ink.” And with that, Saretha turned her movie back on. I couldn’t ask if Tylenola would be okay.

  My stomach churned. I tried not to think about Bridgette Pell, or Tylenola, or Penepoli or everything else that was happening. How many Silents were there now? What did they think they were doing? What did they think I was doing? Everyone acted like I was some kind of leader, but I hadn’t led anyone.

  Slowly, and in spite of myself, I fell asleep, hoping I could forget about Bridgette Pell and her suicide, all while I listened to Carol Amanda Harving scream in that film. A grim solution worked itself out in my head, in half thoughts and dreams. I tried to reason with the actress while she looked coldly away and sipped champagne at the edge of a cliff-side pool. I kept thinking, I could kill her. It was a sickening thought. I imagined her falling, then drowning, then laughing at me. Beneath the half dreams and fuzzy thoughts, I kept thinking that if the choice was her, or Sam, Saretha and me, then Carol Amanda Harving was going to die.

  REPLEVIN: $27.99

  “We’re doing a pickup,” Kel said. She bit her lower lip. Her posture seemed stiff and tense, and she kept a careful eye on me. I worried that she had discovered my search, but she had sworn that the Pad wasn’t traceable.

  “Another one?” Henri asked. He had just walked in. His voice was full of surprise and disappointment.

  Kel held up her Pad. “Margot, will you run the Pad tonight?”

  Margot nodded and took it without comment. It was unlike Margot not to have a quip. She looked at me for just a second, then down to the Pad.

  “We’re taking the Elk Champagne™, the Tiffany™ rings, the Squire-Lace™ Chips, the ant kits and any associated fixtures.”

  “That isn’t our stuff,” Henri complained. “We didn’t place it.”

  “I know,” Kel said flatly.

  “But shouldn’t the Placement team who placed it—”

  “Henri, just do as you are told!” Kel cut him off and threw three large, empty bags at his feet. “I want to be in and out before 4:00 a.m.”

  It was already 2:00 a.m. Henri shook his head, picking up the bags and whispering to me, “I’ve never heard of anything like this.”

  “Henri.” Margot shushed him with a swift shake of her head. They all knew more than I did. Henri watched me carefully. It wasn’t just concern I saw in his expression.

  “Speth,” Kel said, taking me by the shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

  I started to feel deeply unsettled. Kel looked rattled. I didn’t understand. I felt that claustrophobic feeling of not being able to ask, and I was only vaguely aware of what I was supposed to do.

  “You can stay here if you want. We can come back for you.”

  I looked around. I did not want to seal myself in a stark white room, alone in utter silence. Something was terribly wrong, but I couldn’t comprehend what it was.

  “You know about the Pell girl?” Kel asked.

  The hairs on my neck stood on end. What did Bridgette Pell have to do with a pickup?

  My stomach sunk as Kel stated what I’d suddenly put together: “We are taking back Bridgette Pell’s Placements from her ceremony.”

  I felt suddenly disgusted. I closed my eyes. Three months in, I still was not used to the corneal implants. I hated the way they rubbed against my lids. Kel closed her arms around me. I know she wanted to comfort me, but I felt apprehensive. This wasn’t like her. This wasn’t her place. Her embrace was stiff, and she wasn’t my mother. She wasn’t even a friend. I pushed her away, though gently, and forced myself to smile. What did I care about Bridgette Pell? I was fine. I put my bag on my shoulder to show I was ready to go.

  * * *

  On the roof, Kel shot a line to the dome’s scaffold for what she called a long swing. I usually found these exhilarating, but inside I was dreading what was coming. I followed Kel’s lead, sticking close like she asked. I swung wide across four blocks, feeling the air press on me as I sliced through it. My biceps burned from the effort, and slacked in relief as I landed roughly on a rooftop corner. Kel crossed to the roof’s opposite side as lightly as a cat and gestured to a building across the way.

  Looming behind, in the distance, several rings away, Malvika Place rose up and out of the dome. For all I knew, above it, Carol Amanda Harving slept soundly, in real moonlight, unconcerned with the devastation her suit had brought on my family. I wondered if Silas Rog had asked her to do it. I thought of my dream about killing her and my hands felt weak and shaky. There had to be some other way.

  Kel, Margot and Henri watched me carefully, like I might explode. I focused closer and looked at the Pells’ building. It was like any other posh penthouse, tall and gleaming with a wide, lush rooftop garden.

  I stepped to
the edge and looked down, across the wide boulevard of the Ninety-Second Radian. At the foot of the building, far below, was an outline and yellow tape. There were candles lit on the edges to mark the spot where Bridgette Pell had died. In the middle a black scorch mark and a melted hollow marked where her NanoLion™ battery had ruptured. I shivered just looking at it. A pair of news dropters hovered on either side, like sentinels, keeping watch for any misery they could film. Kel hacked them from her Pad and locked them into sleep mode to keep them from noticing us.

  Beecher’s body had been unceremoniously cleared away, but Bridgette had the honor of a memorial. She would be remembered. We would be blamed. I felt revolted at how unjust it was. Everyone had forgotten Beecher, except his grandmother and me. That poor boy had no choices, and yet I could not completely forgive what he had done. My head churned with the knowledge that Bridgette Pell had options, and she just threw them away.

  Kel shot a line over the street, and Henri and Margot did the same. I hesitated. I needed a second to collect my thoughts. My hands were shaking. I felt sick and furious. The assignment to take back Bridgette Pell’s Placements was a petty, needless cruelty. But the companies would not allow themselves the tarnish of a negative association. They had to make a show of taking back what they had given.

  Was it a coincidence that my team had been assigned this pickup, or was it a punishment, too? Whoever contracted Kel and the team—the Agency I knew nothing about—had to know who I was. My cheeks felt hot. Had Kel fought against this job? Or had she just quietly followed their orders?

  The others swept across the distance to the other rooftop. I followed, zipping over the road forty stories below. This was the height that had killed Bridgette.

  Across the garden was a series of floor-to-ceiling windows, black and glossy in the darkness. Were Bridgette’s parents inside? Did they hate me? Had the family been happy before, free of work camps and worry? I couldn’t imagine it. I could never understand anything about Bridgette Pell’s life. What possible reason could she have for zipping her lips? How could an Affulent be unhappy? She had everything.

  Margot and Henri were on the far side of the courtyard, already packing up. Kel took the personalized Squire-Lace™ Chips, laser etched with 15s and Bridgette Pell’s face, and crushed them into a powder. I’d thought I hated Bridgette, but watching her special chips reduced to dust made me realize the feeling was something else—a feeling I didn’t have a word for. Somewhere, if it existed, someone owned that word. I wondered what it cost to say. An uneasy spark of pity sizzled in its wake.

  However twisted her logic, Bridgette Pell felt sorry for us. I had so often thought of Affluents as heartless and cruel that I never took time to consider some of them might be different—sympathetic, even.

  Only hours before, I had been dreaming of murdering Carol Amanda Harving. What if she wasn’t to blame? For all I knew, she was a pawn or a puppet, controlled by the movie studios, or Silas Rog or some corporate sponsor. For all I knew, the Lawyers hadn’t even told her what they were doing. She might not even know we existed.

  Henri had two bags packed. Margot was watching the Pad for signs of movement from inside.

  The garden itself was covered in pictures of Bridgette. I couldn’t tell if this was meant to memorialize her after her suicide, or if these pictures had been part of her celebration. She was pretty and pale and too thin for her own good. Did she think her death would be romantic? If she really had wanted to do something, she could have used her words to speak out. She had a voice. She would have been heard.

  Her suicide was selfish and meaningless. The flicker of pity I’d felt for her resolved into disgust. How dare she? How dare she waste all this? All over the city, the Silents had zipped their lips and made the protest mean something by going on, even though it meant suffering. Bridgette had chosen not to suffer. She wasn’t a Silent. She was only silent on the way down.

  I laughed coldly inside, then felt horrible for it. I pressed my lips hard—shut my mouth tight. What was I doing?

  Kel caught my eye and gently guided me to a series of light fixtures, which I dutifully removed with a thin magnetic screwdriver. She acted as if I might crack open at any moment, and I hated it.

  On the table beside me was a fanned array of iChits™, tiny music players the size of a fingernail that held a playlist of popular songs, interspersed with Ads. These were good for ten plays. I had wanted some at my celebration, but Mrs. Harris explained that iChit™ never sponsored kids in the Onzième. They didn’t want to be associated with us. The thought irritated me.

  The iChits™ weren’t on our list to take. I didn’t know if that meant they were left for the family, or if another team of Placers would come to claim what we did not. I didn’t care. None of them deserved it. None of them needed it. None of them cared that Bridgette Pell’s idiotic decision had made my life more miserable, and yet it was legal and right for her family and others to sue me.

  I put my finger on the closest iChit™ and slid it quickly across the table. The thin metal was cool under my finger. Why couldn’t they have sponsored a few for my party? Would it have been such a big deal to give us that? Sam and Saretha loved music. Not that it would have mattered—Placers swept down after my celebration, too. They took back all my Placements and crushed my Squire-Lace™ Chips to dust, just like Kel. For all I knew, it might have been Kel and Henri and Margot who did it. If iChit™ had sponsored me, they would have gotten their players back, anyway.

  I slipped the one under my finger into my pocket. Who would know? Who would care? I told myself Sam and Saretha would love it, though I didn’t do it completely for them. I wanted iChit™, or the Pells, or someone to suffer, just a little. I wanted to put another crack in the shapeless system that seemed to be crushing me. It was stupid and childish, and the little player seemed to burn in my pocket, but part of me was satisfied that I had done something, and part of me was exhilarated when I got away with it.

  THREE ROTATIONS: $28.99

  “What is this?” Sam asked. He knew what an iChit™ was; that wasn’t why he was asking. I placed it in his hand as soon as he got home from school. I was excited to make him and Saretha happy. They so rarely got to enjoy music outside of commercials and what drifted out of stores. Sam turned the smooth rectangle over in his hand and surprised me with a frown.

  “I don’t want it,” he said. He tossed it onto our kitchen counter. My heart sank. Why? I looked for some sign he was joking, but his face was uncharacteristically sullen.

  Saretha got up from the couch and walked over.

  “Where did it come from?” she asked, pushing her long black hair behind her ears and sniffing at it like it was a botched print of Wheatlock™. Her Cuff vibrated at the charge.

  Sam looked at me like he knew what I’d done, but how could he know? Did he somehow sense that I’d stolen it? Or maybe he thought I’d spent good family money on it, which might have been worse. I realized at once I’d made a stupid mistake. My tiny act of rebellion had accomplished nothing.

  Saretha nudged the player with a finger, then clicked it. It started playing a song by Birdo & Neckfat called “Drops.” She picked up the iChit™ and brought it back to where she had been sitting and placed it on the couch’s arm, so when she leaned back, it would be by her ears. The amount and quality of sound put out by the small disposable player was astonishing. Saretha closed her eyes and let it play.

  Then I was struck with a horrible thought. What if the player had been somehow customized for Bridgette Pell’s Last Day? What if there was a message after the song? It was a sponsored product. Companies did stuff like that all the time. Sam was already unhappy; if he knew where the player really came from, what would he think of me? I was instantly filled with the worst kind of regret. How had I let myself do something so stupid?

  Saretha’s eyes were closed. She looked peaceful. I thought to
take it back and click it off, but I couldn’t bear the thought of taking something else away from her. The song ended, and the next one began. Eggs Eggs sang “Your Word.” Saretha let it play. After each song, my body went rigid. Finally, after all six played through, my fear was realized. Bridgette Pell spoke:

  “Nine more playbacks. To purchase more plays, double-click now. $28.99 for three rotations,” she said without emotion.

  Birdo & Neckfat came on again. Saretha and Sam didn’t react. They had no idea whose voice spoke through the tiny device. I breathed out, believing the worst of it was over. It wasn’t like Bridgette Pell would wish herself a happy birthday. Yet my stomach stayed in knots. The sound of her voice in our room seemed so wrong.

  Saretha let it play through the evening until all the rotations were done. Bridgette Pell’s voice came on one last time: “No more playbacks. To purchase more plays, double-click now. $28.99 for three rotations.” I felt sick to my stomach. Her flat tone sounded utterly defeated. Her final message repeated, again and again.

  Saretha said, “That’s not such a bad deal,” which cost her $18.95.

  Sam got up and threw the player in the trash. Saretha didn’t react at all.

  The voice stopped. The player was programmed to sense it had been thrown away. It fizzled in the trash, destroying itself. Sam sat back on his bed and looked out the window. I’d never felt further from him. I craved words to explain myself. This wasn’t what I had wanted at all.

  I should have gone to sleep. I could have fit a few hours in, but Bridgette Pell’s voice haunted me, and I found it hard to maintain my hatred for her. She’d had options, unlike Beecher, but they were options she couldn’t see.

  My body felt keyed up. I tried not to look angry or upset as I got up, got dressed. Sam didn’t ask where I was going, which was worse than if he had. I slowly and quietly left the apartment and went outside, feeling sure nobody cared where I went or what I did.