Access Restricted

by Gregory Scott Katsoulis

  The dome disappeared as the tunnel curved. Lucretia Rog’s car was back there, a speck in the distance. I couldn’t tell if she was keeping pace or falling behind.

  “How is it possible they did not teach you this?” Margot asked. “How did you think our government works?”

  “We didn’t think about it,” Sera said. “They told us not to!”

  I tried to ignore them and searched for a way to lose this Lucretia Rog. The tunnel curved and continued on, with three lanes on our side and three lanes on the other. The divider between was filled with cables. There were panels open, and many trucks had hooked up to these in order to tap into the system that connected our dome to the rest of the country.

  “You do not know anything about our government?” Margot asked.

  I felt shame creeping into my cheeks. We were fed only crumbs about how it worked. “We were told clearly, in class, that it didn’t concern us,” I explained. “You can’t vote if you’re in our kind of debt. You have to have a certain amount of money or something.”

  In the rearview mirror, Sera’s expression looked as embarrassed as I felt. “Mrs. Oglehorn literally said it wasn’t worth explaining to us,” she muttered.

  “You asked her how much money it took,” I said, remembering.

  “And she said it wasn’t any of my business,” Sera said, seething in the back seat just like she had in the classroom.

  “They lock it in the Onzième, Jiménez,” Norflo said to me. Even when it cost him to do so, Norflo insisted on calling me and my sister Jiménez rather than Jime. He was certain that our original surname, like his, was Spanish in origin. “Don’t want you to know your history,” he said.

  “But she’s on the news!” Henri said.

  “On your newstream,” Norflo said.

  “We have different news?” Henri asked.

  “Of course,” I muttered, only realizing it then. “They blur her out. They only ever say ‘our representative.’ Like they always only say the ‘Commander-in-Chief Justice’ when he makes a new Law.”

  I checked the mirror again. I couldn’t see anyone following.

  “How worried should I be?” I asked, looking from Margot to the road in front of me and back to the road behind. I’d never been outside the dome—I’d been curious about what was out here my entire life, but I never had any reason to believe I would ever leave, unless I was sold into Indenture like my parents.

  Margot bit her lip, but didn’t answer. She was stroking Mira’s hair. She didn’t want to say how bad it was in front of her sister.

  “Is she worse than Rog?” I asked.

  “She is a Rog,” Margot replied. Unfortunately, that was answer enough.

  “What are we doing?” I asked, banging on the wheel with my palms.

  “Oh, my God,” Sera grumbled, kicking back in her seat as she realized I didn’t have a plan.

  I felt my throat tighten and my voice rise. “Kel told us to escape. That’s all she gave us. So now what?”

  “Keep on,” Norflo said.

  “We need to go back,” Margot said.

  “Just drive,” Sera said, and then to the others, “Just let her drive.”

  Then, after a moment’s silence, Sera whispered, “We should drive to Carolina.”

  “How?” I snapped. “Do you know where it is?” I gestured at the road curving out of sight ahead of us. A lump formed in my throat. I’d wanted to make this escape with Saretha. She would never forgive me for leaving without her.

  As we pressed on, the translucent yellow of the tunnel brightened, then darkened again, and I realized the outside world was just beyond. I knew clouds passed in front of the sun and shifted the light, though I’d never seen it with my own eyes. I longed to claw my way outside to have the chance. I’d seen pictures of what might lie beyond: sand, trees, ocean, sky, rolling hills. Sam had once insisted there must be ruins outside.

  “Think about it,” he’d said. “There was stuff out there before the domes.”

  Every mile I traveled from Saretha felt like a betrayal. Could Kel really keep her safe? If Lucretia Rog couldn’t get to me, would Saretha be her next target?

  “What if we tried to go back?” I asked out loud. I slowed, hoping to glimpse a door or a hatch that might lead outside. “Maybe we could sneak back in somehow. There are at least three holes in the dome.”

  “We are not equipped for a trip in the wild,” Margot said.

  “There are creatures out there,” Mira squeaked. We’d all heard this—that there were bears and all manner of other dangerous things outside the domes.

  “I doubt this road is any safer,” I said. Surely Lucretia or someone would eventually catch up with us.

  “We’ll burn up in the sun,” Sera protested.

  “The sun doesn’t burn you,” Henri said. “Not like that.”

  “What like?” Norflo asked him.

  Henri paused, not sure how to explain it.

  Sera pursed her lips. “The sun’s the main reason we have the domes.”

  “No,” Margot said. “There is a lot more to it than that. The chaotic weather—”

  “It doesn’t really matter,” I said, craning to see anything more than the arching roof that kept us inside. “I don’t see a way out, anyway.”

  “We will come to another dome eventually,” Margot replied.

  “How do you know?” I asked. “Have you seen a map?”

  She paused, then said, “My father travels. He takes this road to Keene.”

  “He never brings us with him,” Mira huffed.

  “Good,” Henri said, reaching for Margot’s hand from the back seat and bringing it to his lips for a kiss.

  “Henri!” Mira cried.

  Henri dropped Margot’s hand and sat back.

  “Our parents do not allow that!”

  “Your parents aren’t here,” Henri said. I saw him blushing in the rearview mirror and looking to Margot for support. She eyed him like he should know better.

  Mira’s face suddenly bloomed with wonder. “Does that mean I can sing?”

  Now Margot’s cheeks colored.

  “Your parents don’t let her sing?” I asked. Most kids are discouraged from singing, but Margot’s family had a Squelch. Margot played her violin in there. Why couldn’t Mira sing? Even if she was terrible, they wouldn’t have to hear it.

  “My parents’ rules are not yours to worry over,” Margot said, her face growing even redder. She stroked Mira’s hair and sighed. “Just sing if you are going to do it.”

  Mira began to hum, quietly at first. I knew the melody. It was a slow, romantic song from Eggs Eggs called “Your Word.” Then she started to sing:

  You know what I want to hear

  Your voice speaking loud and clear

  Every charge is worth the cost

  Without your speaks I will be lost

  I will pay for your word

  Will you let it be heard?

  Will you say it, in spite of the fee?

  Norflo burst out laughing.

  “What?” Mira asked, stopping midverse.

  “Song’s just a Ad,” Norflo said.

  “It is not an Ad. It is a popular song,” Mira said, crossing her arms.

  “’Sa Ad for the word love,” Norflo said. “Doesn’t make sense, either. Girl wantsa boy to say love?”

  “Because he will not do it,” Sera said. She obviously liked the song.

  “Pah,” Norflo said, like that was ridiculous.

  I must have heard the song a hundred times. I’d never thought of it as an Ad, but Norflo’s explanation made sense. Mira seemed deeply annoyed.

  “Why would I care what it means?” she said.

  “Matters,” Norflo said. “Meaning always matters.”

  “Except meaning is regulated by the
Word$ Market™,” I said.

  “Nonsense,” Norflo said. “Words can mean whatever you want.”

  “I don’t think so,” Sera said.

  “Hey, Mira,” I broke in, a smile blooming on my face.

  “What?” she asked.

  I sang:

  I will pay for your word

  Even if it is absurd,

  Will you speak it, and I’ll tap AGREE?

  “Ohemgee! So bad!” Norflo shook his head, but then he started to sing along. Mira and Sera joined in, too. For half a second, I forgot about how terrible things were.

  Then Henri yelled, “Look!” The singing trailed away.

  Ahead of us, the tunnel split. There were no signs. No labels. The tunnel continued on, curving slightly left on one side, and peeling off sharply to the right into an off-ramp. Farther ahead, nearly invisible from our angle, was an on-ramp joining the highway. This was what Henri was pointing at, because a large truck with Mandolin Inks™ emblazoned on its side had just come flying out of the exit.

  I hit the brakes, and we stuttered to a stop. Everyone yanked forward into their seat belts and then back into their seats.

  “Sorry,” I said to the group. I eyed the split. “How can there be no signs?” The tunnel was troublingly devoid of markers of any kind. “Why does this car not have some kind of navigation system? You’d think Rog would, if anyone does.”

  Without the WiFi, the dashboard was essentially blank, save for a small amber light that showed a battery icon with two bars.

  “Rog does not drive. He has a chauffeur who would be trained to handle navigation,” Margot explained. “The proprietary maps would be in the driver’s Cuff, or his overlays.”

  “Or one of those brain-wired visors like Judges use,” Henri said.

  “Those are only for Judges, Henri,” Margot said.

  “That truck’s fulla inks,” Norflo said, edging forward.

  “I don’t think we should stop,” Sera said, nervously looking back. Around the long curve behind us, I saw the car. Lucretia Rog’s Meiboch™ with the silver edging was following us.

  “Crap,” I said.

  A second truck came barreling out of the exit, followed by a third. I put the car in gear, shooting past the last truck in the line. These trucks went fast and kept close together, with only a car’s length or two between them. I could feel the air pressure whip into our car as they sped down the tube. The road had three wide lanes and a thick divider, but they all hung to the right, probably to give Affluent vehicles a wide berth. I pulled us in ahead of the second truck, into a space we barely fit.

  “What are you doing?” Margot asked.

  The truck behind us fell back a little. I tapped the brakes. He fell back more. Far behind us, a fourth truck entered the highway just ahead of Lucretia’s car. I sped up so my bumper nearly touched the truck ahead of us.

  Margot’s brow wrinkled under her perfect black bangs. “Why are you irritating him?”

  I pressed on the horn. The giant truck ahead of us signaled and shifted into the next lane. I rocketed past him, got into his lane and slowed in front of him.

  “Speth?” Henri asked.

  “Give me a minute,” I said. I sped up again and let the truck fall in behind me.

  “They’re just going to roll over us!” Sera cried.

  “They won’t so much as honk,” I said. “They think we’re Rog—or Lawyers, at least—or else they’d have hit us by now.” I looked in the mirror and took a deep breath. “Brace yourselves.”

  I slammed on the brakes and prayed I was right. I’d only ever heard the word jackknife used that one time, and I hoped that $6.99 word meant what I thought it did.

  The truck behind us seemed to rise up, turn and twist. I jammed the accelerator and rocketed us forward again. The truck swerved and pitched, then finally rocked to a stop, blocking two of the three lanes. It wasn’t quite what I’d hoped for—until a wet explosion shook the tunnel. The truck behind the first had slammed into the trailer, shattering the printed plastic shell and sending Mandolin Inks™ flying everywhere. Some skittered to the ground. Others burst, peppering the road and tunnel with a splatter of thick, viscous greens, blacks, yellows and browns. A section of wall knocked at an angle and, if we’d had time to go back and really look, we might have seen a thin sliver of the world outside.

  I jammed down on the gas and spoke the word viscous aloud, because I could.

  “That was spectacular!” Henri exclaimed, watching the scene recede behind us.

  “That should give us a little lead,” I replied, in case anyone—like Sera—didn’t understand what I’d just done.

  Into the Fire: $9.97

  The number of highway lanes gradually began to increase, from three to four and then to nine. There were no signs to indicate we should slow, but the line of tollbooths with red flashing lights was a strong clue that we needed to stop or crash. We’d arrived at another city.

  I slowed us to a crawl. “You think it’s Keene?” I asked Margot.

  Margot narrowed her eyes and peered through the windshield. “Most likely. It is the nearest city.”

  “How are we going to get in?” Henri asked.

  I assessed our options. The lanes were all open, with screen gates that popped to life with Ads as we neared. The dashboard screen lit with an EZ-Pass logo.

  “Maybe we can just drive through,” I said. I slowed the car down to a less suspicious speed and chose a lane.

  “But you’ll have to agree to Terms of Service!” Sera cried.

  “I don’t know,” I said slowly. “Think about it. Rog isn’t going to lean out of a car with his Cuff out to pay a toll.”

  “Probably not,” Margot agreed. “But that will not absolve us of the need to follow whatever rules this dome has once we are inside.”

  “Rules?” Norflo laughed. “Think we’re here to break rules.”

  Margot let out an exasperated sigh. “If we know the Terms of Service, it will be easier to blend in.”

  The light in the lane directly ahead of us turned to a steady green.

  “Ha!” Norflo exclaimed, like he’d been proved right. Margot rolled her eyes and Henri patted her shoulder.

  We eased through the toll without even seeing a border guard. As we entered the new dome, everyone in the Meiboch™ pressed up against the windows, looking out. My mouth dropped open, and I heard several gasps from the back seat. None of us had been prepared for our first sight of Keene.

  Everything was different. Ads still covered every surface, just like Portland, but Keene had no faux French buildings or outer ring. The toll lane gave way to an entrance with an ornate gateway and two beautiful metal sculptures of robed women. Beyond was a broad avenue, stretching majestically to the city’s center. The buildings were printed in a style I’d never seen, with strong, flat lines of ornamentation that angled and seemed to hold each other in place. Between them were tall, narrow windows.

  The dome around us shot almost straight up, curved and then formed a pillared roof. The pillars themselves rose up from a series of tall, impressive buildings that mushroomed outward at the top. The dome may not have actually been larger than ours, but the scale felt enormous.

  “Whoa,” Henri muttered.

  Large indigo banners with an animated Keene Inc. logo hung between the buildings, rippling gently. Screens below blasted Ads for Keene Squire-Lace™ Chips, Keene’s Kelp Gum™, Moon Mints™, Buonicon Tea™ and Keene Soursop Freshlings™.

  “Clearly we are in Keene,” Margot said.

  “Thanks,” Sera shot back sarcastically.

  A chill ran down my spine. Keene Inc. would have been my brand if I had just read my speech and got on with the miserable life Mrs. Harris had plotted out for me. Instead, I went silent. Until this moment, I hadn’t thought about the fact that I had finally, offic
ially broken my silence and, therefore, my contract with Keene Inc. This might be the very worst place for me to be.

  “What now?” Sera asked.

  I didn’t have an answer for her. We’d left before we were ready. We had no food, no map and no idea where to go. I had hoped to ask Kel’s advice on how Saretha and I could rescue my parents, but that wasn’t possible now.

  Now the others were looking to me to lead them. I had to live up to that. I gripped the wheel and forced myself to think.

  “Kel wouldn’t have told us to flee if she didn’t think we could survive,” I said. I made my voice as calm as I could, like I believed everything was going to be okay.

  I drove the car deeper into the city. It would only be a matter of time before Rog’s Meiboch™ was noticed and traced to us. Keene’s main avenue wasn’t an ideal place to hide.

  “Look for a service street,” I said to the others. “Something the Affluents would want to avoid. We need to find a safe place to stop so we can figure out what to do.”

  “Jiménez,” Norflo said slowly, like he approved of my thinking.

  “How do you know my last name should be Jiménez?” I asked him, the name feeling odd on my tongue.

  Norflo leaned forward from the back seat. “Latinos all over the Onzième. Jime’s obvio. Most got shorted names.”

  “Not Croate,” Sera huffed.

  We came to a less ornate cross street and I turned us right, glancing at Sera’s disgusted face in the rearview mirror.

  “You sure?” Norflo asked.

  “I know I’m not Latino,” she scoffed. “Mrs. Harris said so.”

  “Something wrong with Latinos?” I asked her.

  “I don’t even know what it is,” she said, purposely staring ahead.

  “Know enough to give that little sneer,” Norflo said, laughing and pointing to where her lip had curled. Sera slapped his hand away, which only amused Norflo more. “Try to rip the culture outta us, but if they keep one thing, it’s the prejudice.”

  I spotted an alley ahead of us, a narrow opening between two buildings under a massive Keene Inc. banner. I maneuvered the car in and drove slowly to the alley’s dead end. Unlike the faces of the buildings, this space had no ornamentation. While the quality was better than in the Onzième, I could still see the layers of polymer melt from the building’s 3-D print.