Corneal Overlays: $7.98
I hit the ground hard. We didn’t travel to street level like this as Placers, and the angle was steeper than I was used to. I stood and dusted myself off, then glanced over at Kel before I remembered her warning. Don’t look at her! My inner voice roared to the surface, and I hurriedly turned away.
Norflo was crawling a few yards between us, swaying like he’d been drugged. He felt his way blindly along the ground, axe in hand.
The cables buzzed with the hot sound of electricity. They writhed, pushed in from outside, twisting and snapping along to gain ground. The words Community Relations were embossed on the cables, as if they were merely there to help. At equal intervals, metal rings studded with ball bearings helped the cables glide better along the ground.
I was uncomfortably aware of Kel’s warning that whoever was on the other side might monitor what I was seeing. I was sure I’d crossed the threshold into the WiFi. The cables flopped farther forward and the slatted metal doors rattled angrily. So far, though, nothing seemed to be wrong, and I couldn’t understand why Norflo was behaving so oddly. I started toward him, ignoring Kel’s order to dip out of the WiFi—Norflo was my friend, and I couldn’t abandon him like this.
As I drew closer, a dot began to flutter in my left eye, and a bright white line drew itself in my right. Suddenly my vision filled with checkerboard test patterns. They were different sizes in each eye, flashing at different rates. It made me feel cross-eyed and desperate to look away. I closed my eyes, but the images persisted. My corneal overlays were under my eyelids, blasting the pictures directly into my retina. There was nothing I could do to shut them out.
I shook my head to try to orient myself, but the flashing just strobed faster. I staggered to the wall and felt for my grapple line. The flashing abruptly ceased. The checkerboards grew and shrunk until they matched in each eye to form a single image I could at least focus on. I felt a strange relief in my eyes, though I still couldn’t see anything but the patterns.
I had to concentrate on my mental map and think of what to do and where to go. Could I get Norflo out? Or should I just get myself out of the bubble as quick as I could and figure out what to do next?
I gripped my Placer bag and listened hard. I heard movement under the slap, roll and hum of the cables. I stepped toward the sound, hoping it was Norflo nearby. The patterns in my eyes began to spin wildly. The world seemed to upend, and a wave of nausea overtook me.
This was what was making Norflo look so dazed and unsteady. They were doing the same thing to him. The patterns rolled right, then left, drifting slowly with no connection to the actual world.
I wanted to call out to Norflo or Kel, but she’d warned me against just that. I had to focus on getting out of the WiFi bubble, but I couldn’t see or speak. This was far worse than I’d imagined. I listened for the sound of the group of kids to orient myself, but I couldn’t hear them over the buzz and rattle of the cables.
I reached out and, miraculously, found Norflo’s shoulder. I tugged, trying to get him to follow me.
“Dafuc?” He batted me away. He had no way of knowing it was me.
I backed off. The pain in my eyes was excruciating and relentless, and I didn’t know if I could save myself, much less Norflo. Dizzied, I stumbled to my knees, tried to stand and stumbled again.
“Speth Jime,” a woman’s lilting voice called out, amplified through a loudspeaker. “Surrender. Put your hands up, speak ‘agree,’ and this suppressive broadcast will cease.”
“Speth?” Norflo asked, trying to conceal the shakiness in his voice.
They knew I was here. Someone must have looked at me to give me away—maybe Norflo. Or maybe the cables had cameras.
The pattern in my vision started to grow erratic, punishing me for my disobedience. It flashed and spun, and the images split from each other, churning in opposite directions. My skull began throbbing. My eyeballs were being stabbed with a pain different and deeper than when they’d been shocked. The urge to retch boiled up from my gut, and I vomited.
“Speth?” The aggressively sweet, almost childlike female voice bounced and echoed through the streets. “You might still be saved. My city could still be salvaged. Speak ‘agree,’ and we can get everything fixed up, back to just like it was, in a jiffy.”
“Nah,” Norflo counseled.
I wanted to call out to Kel, but thought better of it. Just because they’d found me didn’t mean they’d seen her.
“What are they doing?” another voice screeched. I heard footsteps behind me.
Someone else called my name. It was Henri. He was supposed to be getting Margot and Mira home.
Oh, God, I thought, don’t come in here. I didn’t even know if I’d be able to get out—there was no point in more of us getting trapped in here.
The footsteps quickened. Henri wasn’t good at listening.
“You have already broken your silence,” the woman’s voice mentioned almost sympathetically. “Just speak ‘agree’ to surrender.”
Through the bright, skull-cracking pain, I thought, no, and...was she insane? Did she think I didn’t know how to keep quiet? I felt like my eyes were going to detach from my head, but I knew I couldn’t give up now.
“Stop!” Margot yelled. Had Henri stepped inside? I kept crawling, but the waves of dizziness took me and I pitched to the left, falling on my shoulder.
“You smell terrible,” a small voice said in my ear. This one was childlike, too, but it didn’t sound so strange. This voice wasn’t wrong, either—the smell of my vomit made me want to retch again.
“Come back!” Margot pleaded.
A small pair of soft hands took my arm and pulled. “Follow me,” she whispered.
Something felt wrong about this. I could do it myself. I tried to wrench myself away, and the girl giggled.
“I am too young for corneal overlays,” she whispered, and tugged at me again. My heart nearly stopped as I realized it was Mira.
The patterns in my vision blinked out for a moment, returned and stuttered away again. I was exiting the WiFi. I could just make out the sight of Mira dragging me forward with incredible determination. Margot was standing at the WiFi’s edge, desperately trying to break free of Henri, who held her back.
“I saved the Silent Girl!” Mira said proudly, delivering me to her sister’s feet. Then she looked back, behind me, at Norflo, who was slick with sweat. Near him, Sera Croate writhed on the ground in agony, flailing her arms. She must have come out to help. I wished she hadn’t bothered—we didn’t need her help, and now she was trapped as well, even with the Cuff on her arm.
“Do you want me to save them, too?” Mira asked.
“No!” I said, getting to my feet. My eyes refused to focus. I closed them, and the darkness immediately brought incredible relief. But when I opened them again, everything was doubled.
Mira hesitated for a moment, then turned back toward the WiFi bubble with a determined look on her face.
“Speth said no, and so do I!” Margot yelled, seizing Mira by the arm.
Mira sighed. “Margot, please do not grab.”
I couldn’t see Kel anywhere. I asked Henri, “Where did Kel go?”
Henri shrugged. “I was watching Mira,” he said.
“A fine job of it, too, Henri,” Margot complained.
I shook myself. I tried to get my eyes to focus. Where was Mandett?
“Who is going to help your friends?” Mira asked, gesturing toward Norflo and Sera.
“I am,” I said. I took a step forward and immediately needed to grab Henri’s arm for balance. I hoped Margot would understand. “We need to get the car,” I said.
“The car?” Henri asked.
I kept moving as quickly as I could, and Henri began to walk faster, pulling me along as we rounded the building’s corner.
“Ho
w does a car help us?” Henri asked.
“It’s a Squelch,” I explained, still trying to gather my senses. “Rog’s car is a mobile Squelch.”
“I should take Mira home,” Margot said as she followed along, holding Mira by the hand. She appeared deeply conflicted.
I nodded. I hoped home was a safe place for them.
“We’ll drive into the bubble and pull Norflo out,” I said.
“What about your friend?” Henri asked, surprised.
“Sera? She shouldn’t even be down here. Kel told her to stay put,” I grumbled. An appalled look crossed Henri’s face. With a heavy sigh, I added, “Yes, we’ll get her, too.”
We lost sight of Norflo and Sera for a moment around the back of the building, where a crowd had gathered near Rog’s car. I pushed through them clumsily, making my way to the driver’s door.
As I reached out to open it, my vision swam. I moaned and pressed my hands to my forehead. “Henri, maybe you should drive,” I said.
Even with my disjointed vision, I could see his broad face turn crimson.
“Henri does not know how to drive,” Margot said from a few steps away. She stopped short and sighed, looking from the Meiboch™ to Mira and back again. “Fine,” she added reluctantly. “We will rescue your friends first, and then we—” Margot pointed to herself and Mira “—will go back home.”
Margot didn’t seem very happy with her own choice. She handed Mira off to Henri and ushered them to the back seat as she moved to the driver’s.
“I can do it,” I protested. “We don’t need to expose Mira to—”
“I want to help!” Mira said.
“Mira will sit with Henri. We will drive Mira home right after,” Margot said, looking back and pretending it would be fun. “There is plenty of room.”
I shook my head and dropped into the driver’s seat. “You guys go home,” I insisted. Margot ignored me and took the passenger’s seat.
“Oh, Speth, you are so dramatic.”
Was I? I thought the situation was dramatic all on its own. I worked hard to focus my eyes and found a little more success, though my skull still pounded. I drove the car around the building, across the ring and out onto the exit. The car’s dashboard lit up—the interior was a Squelch, but the exterior pulled in the WiFi signal.
I pulled up between Sera and Norflo as best I could. “On three, you reach out and grab him,” I said to Margot, pointing at Norflo. “I’ll get Sera.”
“I should do it,” Mira countered. “I will be able to see.”
“No,” Margot replied.
“One...” I looked back at Mira, who watched her big sister proudly. “Two...” Was that why Margot was doing this? “Three!”
I yanked open the door. The dot appeared in my vision, expanding rapidly. I reached out, fumbling for Sera, and briefly caught her arm. She squirmed away, which was just like her.
The checkerboards exploded into my visual field. The patterns spun and began to flash.
“Oh, Miss Jime, please,” the soothing, innocent voice said, as if spoken by the most compassionate person who ever lived. “That vehicle is the property of Butchers & Rog.”
“Ugh!” Norflo moaned.
“Silas Rog, Esquire, will almost certainly want custody of his legal posessions.”
I stumbled out of the car, searching blindly. “Sera!” I called out, suffering a shock for it.
“Help me!” she screamed, no doubt suffering, too.
I couldn’t put my hands on her. Why had she wandered so deep into the bubble? As the patterns tore apart differently in each eye, my eye sockets began to throb again. A dark spot appeared in front of the flickering, changing pattern. My brain tried to fix on the dark shape because it was the only stable thing it could find.
My hand finally hit a bony shoulder. I had Sera. Or she had me. Suddenly she was clutching me ferociously. I pulled her along with me, hoping we were heading back toward the car.
“Thenx,” I heard Norflo say, still using a cheaper pronunciation, like that mattered now. I moved in the direction of his voice and found the side of the Meiboch™.
I yanked Sera forward and pushed her ahead of me. Her arm flailed and whacked me in the head as she found her way inside the car.
The dark shape in my eyes expanded into a black field, which was then replaced with a different feed laid over the one torturing me. I now saw someone’s view from well above us, from the top edge of the dome, looking down. Margot and Norflo had reached the passenger door. Mira’s small hand reached out. The view was dizzying, like looking down at a video game version of myself, but I could see that I was standing between the driver’s door and the door to the back seat.
“I’m gonna be sick,” Sera moaned. She wasn’t the only one. I reached out and found the driver’s seat in front of me. I grabbed the steering wheel and pulled myself in, trying to steady my nerves.
Not Safe. The message appeared abruptly in my vision—like on the night Kel rescued me from jail. The feed in my eyes looked from the scene to a Pad held in Kel’s hands. She was feeding us her view. I could just make out Mandett beside her.
“Speth Jime, please surrender,” the woman’s voice called out, like I was being just a little disobedient. “I need your assistance to speak with someone, so I would very much prefer not to kill you.”
Go, Kel tapped out. I didn’t understand. Where could we go?
“I have an offer for you,” the cold woman’s voice called out.
“Close. The. Door!” Sera screamed, then cried out in pain as her eyes were shocked. Either her Cuff wasn’t able to charge her with whatever this WiFi was, or she’d run out of money.
I fumbled clumsily for the door handle. Where was it?
They are coming. Far more than expected. Keene Placers. Portland isn’t safe, Kel messaged. My body went cold. Escape!
I finally found the handle. I could shut it, but the second I closed the door, we’d lose touch with Kel.
“Not without Saretha,” I yelled, paying for it with three hard shocks. The DRM was cracked. She’d be better in a few days, and I’d promised we’d go together.
Kel tapped a control on her Pad—from the logo, it appeared she was hacking into the Toll™ database. She glanced up, and I saw through her feed that two of the shuttered doors were beginning to slide upward.
Go. Kel tapped again. Now. I’ll keep Saretha safe.
She’d heard me.
Ahead, at the rising exit doors, something was coming through. It was another Ebony Meiboch™ Triumph, nearly identical to the one we were in, but instead of flame-orange highlights down the side, the other car had silver lines that shone so brightly, they almost seemed to glow.
I’ll keep Saretha safe, Kel repeated. I knew she wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true, but I couldn’t imagine leaving the city without my sister.
I watched through Kel’s eyes as an enormous hexagon tumbled to the ground from the dome. A dozen Placers dropped down behind it, with thinner versions of the WiFi cables trailing behind. The other Meiboch™ stopped, and a rear door opened. A tall pale woman in an inky black dress stepped onto the pavement, shadowed by two hulking bodyguards. She shook her head and put her hands on her hips, staring at us like we were disobedient children.
The door behind her shuddered to a stop, then reversed direction to close. This is your only chance! Kel warned.
I yanked on the handle and slammed the car door shut. Kel’s message disappeared, and my vision cleared to reveal the steering wheel in front of me. I sucked in a breath of relief as my point of view returned to normal.
“Go!” Henri cried.
My heart broke, but what choice did I have? We had to get out of there.
I had to leave Saretha behind.
Out of the Dome: $8.96
I slammed my foot down on the accelerator.
We shot past the woman, who watched without surprise. One of her bodyguards reached out for the car, as if he was planning to stop it with his bare hands. In my rearview mirror, I saw Kel shoot a line over the center of the invading Placers and zip away. They scrambled to follow, not realizing Kel was trying to draw them off, out of the bubble of WiFi.
We squeaked under the closing metal door just in time and raced past the bands of thick cable unspooling from enormous trucks.
“Don’t we get a say in this?” Sera complained viciously.
“I will open the door if you would like to jump out,” Margot said, deadpan.
Sera gave her a withering stare.
It was hard to concentrate on the road ahead. My eyes still ached, and my heart was pounding from our narrow escape. I peeked at the rearview again and saw the metal reopening to let the other Meiboch™ through.
“Who the hell is she?” I muttered, speeding up a bit more.
“Lucretia Rog,” Margot said carefully, like the name might send me flying off the road.
It almost did. I’d never heard of another Rog, but Silas Rog had taken everything from us. He controlled our city. He was a monster who had sent those brothers out to kill Sam. Was this his wife?
“Who?” I asked, swerving the car to avoid slamming into a worker who was managing what I think was a power supply for a truck. My entire life, Butchers & Rog had loomed over us, and now that we had overthrown Silas, there was suddenly another Rog?
The Meiboch™’s dashboard WiFi stuttered off, returned briefly, then died.
“She is the representative of our dome,” Margot said, a little incredulous. “In DC?”
“No one ever taught me that in school,” I said, realizing Lucretia Rog was almost certainly going to set Silas free.
“Me, either,” Sera said. She sounded skeptical, like she thought Margot was lying.
I kept my eyes on the road ahead of us, my mind reeling. A line of trucks sat idling, waiting to deliver inks and goods into the city when the WiFi returned. They looked like they had been there awhile. Drivers milled around in boredom, then hastily scrambled up into their cabs when they spotted us, alarmed by the speed of our approach.
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