by Julia Keller
“Can you walk a little faster?” Rachel said.
“Trying,” Violet replied, although she was breathing so hard that it came out as a sort of squawk.
All the doors along the corridors were closed. The knobs were polished globes of brass that looked far too grim and important to be the medium for a simple function such as opening a door. The lettering on each frosted, wood-trimmed slab was done in an imposing gold with black trim, as if the occupants intended to grind visitors’ faces in the fact that crucial decisions were made therein and ordinary mortals should keep their distance.
“This way,” Rachel barked.
They turned a corner and found themselves facing another long corridor, just as immense and austere as the first ones they had traveled through. They passed courtrooms labeled one through seven. Then they turned another corner and passed courtrooms eight through thirteen.
At number fourteen, Rachel came to a sudden stop. Violet, who’d been admiring the fretwork on the coffered ceiling, almost smacked into her. Given the disparity in their heights, the results might have been dire.
I would’ve crushed her like a bug.
“Here,” Rachel stated.
A long wooden bench extended along the wall on either side of the door. Witnesses and lawyers for other trials—that was Violet’s guess—had arranged themselves uncomfortably on the benches, looking forlornly at shut-down consoles or staring at the same decorated ceiling that had snagged Violet’s attention a few seconds ago.
All at once, Violet saw her.
She pushed past Rachel and barreled toward an older woman who sat on the left-side bench. The woman wore a red bandana around her curly gray hair as if to shush its corkscrewing exuberance. Spotting Violet, she jumped to her feet, opening her arms like a flower suddenly aware of a soft rain. Violet let herself be embraced, but it was an awkward moment because Violet was a terrible hugger, even when she was doing it willingly.
“Delia!” Violet said. She extricated herself from the hug and stepped back. “Why are you here? What—”
“Your lawyer called me.” Delia Tolliver shrugged. One sleeve of her shabby gray tunic hung longer than the other, and she used the dangling fabric to rub her chin. “Said you needed a character witness so they won’t throw you in jail. Frankly, I don’t see how it’s going to help—who cares what an Old Earth troublemaker like me has to say?—but she claims it might do the trick. Being as how I’m old and mature and all, unlike your other friends.” Delia laughed. She scrunched up her face and looked around the corridor. “So where is that lawyer of yours, anyway? Rachel Somebody, right?”
“Here.” Rachel stepped forward.
“No way.” Delia snickered. “No way. You look like you should be at home eating a bowl of cereal and watching cartoons on your console.”
Delia had a habit of speaking her mind. That’s what Violet had liked about her when they met for the first time two years ago on Old Earth. With Ogden Crowley’s help, Violet had arranged for Delia and her son, Tin Man, to relocate to New Earth. Now that Ogden had moved into a retirement center, Violet spent her holidays with Delia and Tin Man in their cozy little house.
“Not only that,” Delia added, sensing with delight that she was getting under Rachel’s skin, “but you oughta be wearing feety PJs instead of that fancy suit.”
“I assure you,” Rachel said, steely umbrage turning her voice haughty and stilted, “that I was admitted to the New Earth bar four months ago and am fully authorized to represent any and all—”
“Lighten up, sweet cheeks.” Delia snickered again. Once she’d seen how sensitive Rachel was, she couldn’t resist digging in. She had nothing against the girl, Violet knew; this was purely for sport. In fact, the more Delia liked you, the more she teased you. “And take that stick out of your butt while you’re at it, Little Miss Lawyer,” Delia added. “You’re a kid, okay? You might have more brains than the rest of New Earth put together—and from what I’ve seen of the place, I wouldn’t be surprised—but you’re still a child. So act like one. Go run. Go play. Go build a fort.”
Rachel’s mouth opened and closed. She’d been ready to unleash a scathing retort, Violet speculated, but held back. She needed this strange, pugnacious woman who wore her Old Earth bluntness like a badge.
“I appreciate you coming here today,” Rachel said carefully.
“I did it for Violet, honey, not for you,” Delia shot back. She turned to Violet. “Okay, so what kind of crazy nonsense did you pull this time? What sort of hot water have you gotten yourself into already? And why can’t Daddy get you off the hook? That’s the whole point of being the daughter of the former prez, right? Beating the rap?”
Delia knew perfectly well why Violet didn’t get her father involved. It was a point of pride—one of the few scraps of pride Violet had left, now that her detective agency was on the skids—to not allow herself to receive any special treatment. The only time she asked Ogden to pull strings was on behalf of others. Not herself.
There was an excellent chance, of course, that the judge would know who she was, anyway. But she didn’t have to draw attention to the fact.
And yet pride had its price. Because if Violet couldn’t squirm her way out of this current jam, she’d be facing a fine she couldn’t pay. Unless, that is, she stopped spending money on frivolous trifles like food and rent.
She gritted her teeth. Onward.
The heavy doors opened with a slow, ponderous creak. A blank-faced bailiff in a stiff red tunic motioned to them. They stepped inside. The courtroom was a blur of brash lights and blond wood. The ceiling was immensely high and dramatically distant. So high and so distant, in fact, that as Violet stood there and let her gaze climb up, up, up, she realized that pigeons could be roosting on those rafters and you wouldn’t know it until you felt something warm and goopy and gross plop on your shoulder.
Rachel poked her in the ribs, scattering all thoughts of pigeons from Violet’s head. She shuffled nervously toward the front of the room.
For the next hour, she was subjected to the humiliating ordeal of responding to a complaint that an anonymous witness had seen her in flagrant violation of New Earth Statute No. 293874-A-392876, Subsection 39887-HYV, Article 983746.
Translation: littering.
It sounded trivial. It was trivial.
Except that on New Earth, nothing that involved material objects could really be trivial. Not when the position of even a thousandth of an ounce had to be accounted for at ten-second intervals. New Earth was kept aloft by a precise calibration of weights and measures that were then juxtaposed with the wind pressure and gravitational parameters maintained in Farraday—and a thousandth of an ounce mattered.
The relative location of one one-thousandth of an ounce meant the difference between the ability of New Earth’s engineers to maintain a mirroring of the earth’s movement as it orbited the sun and not being able to maintain that mirroring. And that, according to the preponderance of computer models, would result in the swift disintegration of New Earth as it was ripped to shreds, bringing instant death to all inhabitants.
All because Violet had tossed an empty coffee cup into the wrong container.
On the day in question, she had had many things on her mind—“many things” being her handy shorthand for “unpaid bills”—and, as a consequence, had a temporary brain fade.
So she littered.
That was the sole extent of her transgression.
Next thing Violet knew, she’d been slapped with a ticket. And because she understood the rudiments of the crucial physics of New Earth as well as anybody but, say, Kendall and Shura, Violet also understood why it was a big deal. Which in turn made it difficult for her to resent the ticket or the ordeal she was presently undergoing.
“And so,” the judge intoned, “is it true? Did you fail to place a biodegradable cup into a recycling container in Mendeleev Crossing at approximately 8:47 P.M. last Thursday? And is it true that the aforesaid container was clearly
and specifically marked ‘Recyclables’? And is it furthermore true that, when confronted about said infraction, you said to the citizen who approached you”—the judge paused to adjust her gold-rimmed spectacles as she looked down at her notes—“and here I quote, ‘Mind your own business, you idiot’?”
“Objection,” Rachel said. “Prejudicial. My client was under stress at the time. The use of an epithet was atypical.”
The judge peered at her over the top of the glasses. “Stress from breaking the law, or stress from having been caught breaking the law?”
Delia sprang up from her seat. “Who’s the idiot now? Of course the stress came from getting caught! Geez.”
Before the judge could react, Rachel asked permission to approach the bench. She and the judge conferred in harsh whispers. When Rachel retuned to the defense table, she glared at Delia. The glare had an unmistakable meaning: Do you want your friend to be in even more trouble than she already is? No? Then shut up.
Rachel was eloquent and forceful in Violet’s defense. She said very nice things about Violet. And then Delia said very nice things about Violet. And then Violet said very nice things about Violet.
In the end, the judge shook her head and scowled and pointed a finger at Violet and declared, “Have you learned your lesson, young lady?”
Yes, she had. Yes, yes, yes. Definitely, she had. She really, really, really had learned her lesson.
“Then it would behoove you to try,” the judge declared, “to act a little more responsibly.”
It wasn’t the first time in Violet’s life that somebody had suggested that. It wasn’t even the first time today that somebody had suggested that.
* * *
Outside the courthouse, Violet thanked Delia again and gave her another hug. This hug was—if such a thing were possible—even more cumbersome and awkward than the first one. Delia made Violet promise to get more sleep—You look like you’ve been up for about three weeks straight, honey—and to take better care of herself. And to come by and see her and Tin Man more often.
I don’t need another mom. Those were the words Violet was tempted to sling right back at Delia. But she kept quiet.
Because sometimes she did need a mom.
Delia left to catch a tram home. Violet switched on her console.
It promptly went bonkers.
That’s what it sounded like, anyway, as the console face leaped to life and the beeps overlapped and the chirps multiplied. Jewels of red and white and yellow and purple and green and orange spun and tumbled in a confusing aerial circus.
Violet touched the red jewel to activate the message marked URGENT.
“Oh, Vi—Vi—you won’t believe it. It’s awful. There’s been another one.” The holographic image of Jonetta’s face was streaked with tears, and her voice faltered. Violet had rarely seen her secretary so distraught. It was even worse than the last time she’d had to deliver bad news. “Another suicide,” Jonetta clarified. “His name was Wendell Prokop. It’s just like Amelia Bainbridge. And the twins. It’s just … just horrible. What can we do? There can’t be any more suicides. This has to be the end, right?”
Violet was totally absorbed in the shimmering dot and Jonetta’s grim message. Then she looked up. Rachel stood right next to her, reading the news on her own console, and when she looked up, too, their eyes met. Violet didn’t need an Intercept feed to read Rachel’s feelings, to know that her lawyer was just as shaken as she was.
Both of them were grappling with a terrible question.
What in the world was happening to New Earth?
12
At the Station
“I don’t know, Violet. I just don’t know.”
As he spoke, Kendall rubbed his hand over the top of his head. He did that frequently when he was thinking hard. His hair was cut murderously close to his scalp. Maybe, Violet thought, he needed contact with those little nubs and bristles to jump-start his brain. Or maybe it was just a nervous habit.
“You agree with me, though, right?” Violet said. “It’s getting weird.”
She sat across from him in what was surely the most uncomfortable chair that existed anywhere on New Earth, a mild monstrosity of misaligned metal and wobbly bolts and sagging plastic—designed, Violet surmised, to discourage long visits from pesky citizens. All around them, the police station was churning with activity and bubbling with noise. Consoles chirped, suspects yelled, coffee machines offered clicks and whirrs and adenoidal gurgles as they dumped gelatinous black goo into an endless succession of biodegradable cups. Cop coffee was always bad. Violet had refused Kendall’s initial offer to grab a cup for her. She always did.
“Huh?” he said. Worry distracted him.
“I said it’s getting weird,” she repeated. So weird that she had raced right over here from the courthouse.
“Unusual? Yes. Weird? I’m not sure.” Kendall rubbed his head again. “Suicide’s not unknown on New Earth. A certain percentage of any population is going to be afflicted with mental illness. Sometimes that’s going to manifest itself in self-destructive behavior.”
“Is that why you’re not making the cases a priority?”
She’d touched a nerve. He dropped his hand and glared at her, sitting up straighter in his chair.
“Every death,” he said curtly, “is investigated to the extent we believe is necessary. This might be nothing more than just an unfortunate coincidence.”
“You’ve got four young people committing suicide in two days,” Violet said. She could be curt, too. “Coincidence? Come on.”
He looked around the station. She realized that he wanted her to do the same thing, and so she did. Her gaze hopped from chaos-spot to chaos-spot across the hot, crowded, humming space. It reminded her a bit of TAP, but with humans, not ConRobs, in constant motion, packed in so tightly that you almost expected to see sparks when they bumped each other, which happened every few seconds.
“We’re not exactly slacking off here, Violet,” Kendall said. “Nobody even takes vacations anymore. We can’t.”
He didn’t have to tell her why. She knew why. Until two years ago, the Intercept had kept tight control over New Earth, like a way-too-strict parent.
But things were different now. And the cops were falling behind. They had too many cases and too few officers.
It wasn’t that New Earth was filled with especially bad people. It was filled with people, period. And some people did bad things. Cops had gotten rusty during the Intercept years; force levels were allowed to dwindle. Now they were playing catch-up.
“I get that,” Violet said. “But what if these deaths are related? Why are so many people suddenly deciding that life’s not worth living? Or what if they’re not suicides? What if somebody’s trying to make them look like suicides?”
“So they were murdered? Is that what you mean?”
“I know you’ve considered that, too.”
“Sure.”
“Well?”
“What’s the motive? The victims were kids. If you’re going to kill somebody, why go to all the trouble to make it look like a suicide? And anyway—what do these people have in common?”
“I’ve been trying to figure that out.”
“And?”
“I’ve gone through a checklist of all the ordinary motives,” Violet replied. “Money? The victims didn’t have any. Not enough for anybody to care about, anyway. Maybe some kind of romantic deal—revenge or jealousy or whatever? No. Their consoles don’t show any evidence of that kind of thing. And the interviews with their friends also came up empty. Family dispute? They all had loving families.”
“We checked all of that, too. No family troubles. No police reports have ever been filed from their addresses,” Kendall said. He started to rub his head again, but Violet grabbed his hand.
“You’re making me nervous,” she said. “Can’t you get another bad habit?”
She was teasing him, but she wished she hadn’t done it. Because she saw the effect of he
r touch on Kendall: Instead of shaking off her hand and uttering a wisecrack about how it sure beat smoking, he remained perfectly still. He looked down at her hand, where it lay atop his.
And Violet saw, with a pang in her heart, that he was blushing.
After a few more awkward seconds had passed, she gently slipped her hand out from under his.
“Okay,” he said, his voice brusque and businesslike as if he’d just remembered that he was in the middle of a workplace, “so you’ve got to face the fact that these might be random.”
“Fine. But if they are—what then?”
“Then we’re screwed. Because random crimes are absolutely the hardest to solve,” he said. “If there’s no pattern, there’s no way to solve them unless we get lucky. Really, really luck—”
A fierce clatter arose from a far corner of the room. Kendall and Violet flinched in unison, their heads jerking in the direction of the noise. An unruly suspect had kicked and thrashed his way loose from a cop’s grasp; his writhing lurch knocked six computer monitors from a shelf. They hit the ground in heavy succession, like six separate clumps of thunder: Ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk. Before Violet and Kendall could jump up and offer help, two other officers arrived and pitched in, grabbing the suspect’s arms and setting him firmly back down in his chair. A ReadyRob scuttled in and began cleaning up the mess.
“Geez,” Violet said. “Hard to concentrate around here. Always a crisis. Always some bad guy acting up.” She let a second pass. “Do you ever think—” She stopped.
“Think what?”
Well, why not? Why not talk about it? This was Kendall. He’d been through everything she’d been through two years ago.
And he knew as much as she did about feelings and the deep, scary hold they had over human beings.
“Do you ever think that maybe—just maybe—we were better off when we had the Intercept?” Violet said. “I mean, we didn’t have to worry about things like that.” She tilted her head toward the corner where the altercation had occurred. “People didn’t get out of control. The Intercept stopped them before they could get out of control. All we had to do was send a feeling back into their brains and boom. Total safety.”