Access Restricted

by Gregory Scott Katsoulis

  “The batteries are in the back of the car,” Margot warned.

  Both bodyguards pounded at our trunk. I jolted us forward again, bouncing Grippe’s car back a few more feet into the gravel, where it began to slide slowly out of sight, then upended as it slipped off the edge of the overpass entirely.

  Finster and Grippe hesitated, then—apparently having the same idea at the same moment—broke for Finster’s car. My heart pounded in my ears under Mira’s now-hysterical crying. I eased the accelerator down and bumped us along the tracks.

  I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the bodyguards facing off and the Lawyers yelling, probably about who could enter the car first, or at all, or about who would get credit if they caught me or who would own the car now.

  “That’s right, argue,” I muttered.

  I eased into more speed and the ride quickly became uncomfortable. Where the metal was bent in the front of our car, the color fluttered from pink to red in rhythm with each bump and jostle. I had to grip the wheel hard to keep us from sliding. I planned to put as much space between us and them as I could before they finished their closing arguments.

  “Did you know?” Sera said. “Did you know they’d argue?”

  “Lawyers luv ’g’uments,” Norflo said. He reached forward and gripped my shoulder, like I had done well.

  Margot put her arms around her weeping sister and glared at me. “That was lucky,” she said. “You could have ruptured the battery array.”

  “What now?” Henri asked.

  “We keep going south,” I said, speeding up toward the spot where the tracks crossed over the dome-connecting tunnel. “Once we cross the tunnel, we can get off the tracks and find a normal road.”

  Behind us, the Lawyers seemed more ready to litigate than pursue us, caught by their natural predisposition for disagreement until they had receded so far back, we couldn’t see them. “We might just make it,” I said, feeling the pull now toward DC and Crab Creek and maybe even Téjico.

  A Small Kindness: $19.97

  Soon I found a road running parallel to us and dismounted the tracks. Once we reached the pavement, I was able to bring the car up to speed again. The sun was setting, though, and the light around us grew dim and gray. I worried about driving too fast in the dark, and the wheel kept pulling to my right, like something was wrong with the car.

  “Still no sign of them,” Henri said, peering back down the long road behind us. For all we knew, the two Lawyers were still arguing. Lucretia Rog was not going to be happy.

  “I wonder why she didn’t come with them,” I said.

  “Lucretia Rog would not be caught dead in the Out Lands,” Margot said.

  Sera sniffed. She acted like riding shotgun made her the queen of the car, staring haughtily out the window.

  “I suspect she is busy trying to retake Portland,” Margot went on.

  “Do you think she’ll succeed?” I asked, thinking of the cables she had already forced into the city.

  After a moment of deliberation, Margot said, “Yes.”

  My heart sank. The car pulled even harder to the right, and I had to fight to keep us going straight. “So it was all for nothing.”

  “No!” Henri cried. “Didn’t you see the Silents in Keene? This isn’t just about Portland.”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t believe it.

  “You showed them we could still fight,” Henri insisted.

  “But if she takes back Portland—”

  “Then we will take DC,” Margot said, as if it would be simple.

  “I do not want to go to DC,” Mira whispered. “I want to go home.”

  “We are not going home,” Margot said.

  I wondered why she didn’t want to return, but it didn’t feel like the best time to ask about it. Instead, I said, “We keep talking about DC like it’s our best option. Like we can do something—like Kiely Winston will save us. But isn’t DC where Lucretia Rog lives?”

  “Yes. So hitting DC will hurt her the most,” Margot said.

  Dirt whipped up into clouds in front of us, and the car veered hard to the right. It wasn’t the wheel pulling this time—it was the wind, and it was strong.

  “What about Saretha?” I asked, trying to keep us on course.

  “Kel said she was safe. If Portland is lost, she will get her out.”

  “But we can go home, right?” Mira asked.

  “Mira,” Margot snapped. “What did I just say?”

  “I’m never going back,” Norflo said. “I’ll help in DC, but then I’m heading to Téjico.”

  “What is so great about Téjico?” Sera asked.

  “It’s not here,” he replied. “And, Speth, don’t you wanna be with your people?”

  “My people? My family are my people,” I said.

  Norflo frowned a little. “And where’re you going to take your ’rents?” he asked. “Back to Portland?”

  “He makes a good point,” Henri said.

  “What about you, Henri?” Margot asked. “Where do you want to go?”

  “Wherever you are.”

  I didn’t even have to look to know Margot melted. She leaned over to give him a kiss.

  “What about your parents, Henri?” Mira asked, maybe to stop them from kissing. They did have to lean over her to reach each other.

  “Mira, do not be impolite,” Margot said.

  “How’s that impolite?” Sera asked. I wanted to ask the same thing. Silence struck the car.

  “Henri?” I asked, peeking back. “Is it because they’re Indentured, too?”

  “Actually, just my mom is,” Henri said nervously.

  “To his father,” Margot added darkly.

  “That’s awful!” Sera exclaimed.

  A weird, twisty feeling overcame me. I didn’t want it to be true.

  “It happens,” Henri said.

  “That is what you always say,” Margot muttered.

  I tried to wrap my head around the idea. Then I remembered that night in Henri’s small, cozy apartment. He lived alone. He owned a book. I hadn’t been able to consider that before when Finster mentioned that Henri was already owned. But Indentureds didn’t have their own homes. They didn’t own things.

  “Henri, how—” I tried to ask.

  “It’s better than my mom being sent off,” Henri interjected quickly, before I could finish my question. “Or being Indentured to someone who doesn’t care about her.”

  “Yes, Henri,” Margot agreed.

  “So who owns you, Henri?” Sera asked.

  For some reason, her nosiness infuriated me, even though I’d been about to ask the same thing. “Don’t you think he’d tell us if he wanted us to know?” I snapped more harshly than I should have.

  Sera squirmed uncomfortably, at a loss for allies. After a few minutes of silence, she said softly, “Just for the record, I wasn’t going to break your arm.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “At school. I wasn’t going to break it.”

  “Oh, were you just being friendly?” I sniped, annoyed at how she had suddenly shifted the subject to her.

  Sera breathed in and out to center herself and sat up straight. “I did what I thought—what we thought was best. There was a lot of money for anyone who got you to speak.”

  “Who’s we?” I asked.

  “Mrs. Harris and me,” Sera murmured.

  Norflo dropped his head in his hands. “Harris,” he muttered.

  “She told you to attack me?” I asked, incredulous.

  “She said I should get you to speak. Because we knew each other.”

  “And you listened to her?”

  “Who is Mrs. Harris?” Mira asked her sister. Margot shushed her. Henri’s mouth hung open, but I think he might have been secretly glad the subject wasn’t who owned
him.

  “She was my guardian, Speth!” Sera said defensively. “I know that never meant anything to you, but it meant something to me.”

  I was getting so angry, it was difficult to focus on driving. I slowed a little as I struggled to find the words to respond.

  “Mrs. Harris is a monster,” I said furiously.

  Norflo nodded. “She is.”

  “She is all I had!” Sera choked out, her body racked with a sudden sob. “They took my parents because of you!”

  My stomach churned and my body felt like it was on fire. I’d always assumed she felt this way, but she’d never said it to my face.

  “We were nine years old,” I explained with a quavering voice. “You tried to do the same thing—you reported Penepoli for those scraps of words.”

  I could still picture the slips of paper, before Sera slapped them out of Penepoli’s hand and they scattered into the air.

  “We just reported you back,” I went on.

  “But they were hers!” Sera squealed.

  “So what? Why did you have to say anything at all?”

  Sera glared at me. “So I was supposed to be silent like you?” There was real venom in her voice now.

  “Why is everyone so angry?” Mira whispered to Margot.

  “At least you had Sam and Saretha,” Sera continued, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

  She had no right to bring Sam up, but the flames of my anger were nothing compared to the dark, lonely image that hit me. I’d never once thought of Sera going home alone each night after her parents were taken. She’d only been nine. Mira was nine. I knew what they must have done—they would have printed over her parents’ bedroom and thickened her apartment walls until it was one-third the size of the room Sam, Saretha and I had shared. It would have been nothing more than a cell. That was what she would have been allocated. Those were the rules if you lived in Ad-subsidized housing.

  “I’m not sorry,” Sera said, stewing. “About twisting your arm. It was worth a try.”

  I half laughed at this. “It probably was,” I replied. How could I blame her for wanting to get out, even if it was at my expense?

  “I’m serious,” Sera said, not realizing that my anger had flown.

  Ahead of us, the road curved again, and I fought to keep my sense of which way was south in the dark. The wind was relenting a little. Metal posts jutted up from the side of the road. Something had once been attached to them. I wondered if they were for Ads, or if there had once been signs on these roads.

  I peeked at Sera. She still fumed. What did she want me to do? Apologize for having siblings? Forgive her for what she’d done? I could forgive her for attacking me—for trying to make me speak—but not for her part in getting Sam killed. I didn’t care how sad and lonely her childhood had been. That didn’t excuse her—not fully.

  “My dad is nice to her,” Henri said into the silence.

  Sera relaxed a little as the glare of attention moved away from her. I think that was Henri’s intent. His compassion was boundless. I wondered if I could take a lesson from him. My anger at Sera wasn’t going to bring Sam back. Just like I hadn’t known her parents would be taken, she couldn’t have known those men would murder Sam.

  “He always remembers her birthday,” Henri added.

  “Remembering things is a small kindness.” Margot paused and looked at Mira, who was listening closely. “But it does not make up for bigger cruelties. It does not make him a good person.”

  “But they’re my parents,” Henri said. My heart broke for him. He caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “You understand.”

  “Henri, are they okay?” I asked. I didn’t specifically want to ask if they were Affluents, but if his father owned his mother, he must have been—and she could not have been. “In Portland, I mean. Are they safe?”

  Margot crossed her arms. She obviously didn’t think much of the situation.

  “I think so?” Henri said.

  He didn’t know? I thought I’d gotten to know Henri pretty well for someone I was near, but didn’t speak to, for so long. I didn’t understand this answer. It told me nothing, and that frustrated me.

  “Henri, how can you be a Placer and Indentured at the same time?” I asked.

  “Same as anyone else,” Henri answered, which again told me nothing.

  Norflo started laughing. “Know what’s funny? Alla us can speak all we want, and still we’re apart. Split up. Keepin’ secrets.”

  “This world offers little enough privacy,” Margot said. “At least we still have the right not to say anything.”

  “Beecher’s grandmother told me silence is the only privacy,” I said.

  “Can’t help but think it keeps us separate,” Norflo said with a sigh. “They divide and conquer. S’lonely.”

  Sera shifted uncomfortably.

  Something low and distant lit the night sky. The clouds looked impossibly heavy, like they pressed down lower than a dome’s top. The dead trees swayed and shook in a way that I found unnerving.

  “Are you scared?” Mira asked Norflo, a little shy.

  “Nah,” he said. “Wherefore?”

  “Wherefore?” Mira asked.

  “It means why,” Margot explained, her brow knitting. “Norflo uses an unusual selection of words.”

  “Sez that girl who doesn’t use contractions.”

  “Contractions are cheating,” Mira squeaked, turning to Norflo with great seriousness.

  “Sez who?” Norflo asked with a bright smile.

  “That is what we are taught,” Margot answered. “But I notice that, in spite of how very important you feel communication is, you insist on using shortened words that make you difficult to comprehend.”

  “Chuneed me to talk elsewise?”

  “Norflo the elocutionist,” Margot sighed.

  Norflo scrutinized her. “Showa hands. Who knows what elocutionist means?” He didn’t wait for an answer because it was obviously only Margot. Even Mira was tugging at her sister’s sleeve for a definition. “So who’s difficult to comprehend?”

  I had to laugh.

  Margot eyed him coolly. “Chuneed, is that how you want to sound?”

  “S’pose I do.” Norflo thought for a second, then put a hand to his chest and spoke more slowly and deliberately. “My locution need not be peppered with cheap slang.”

  “That sounds more normal,” Mira said, delighted.

  “No, it doesn’t,” I said, listening carefully but looking ahead. “It doesn’t sound like Norflo.”

  A hazy gray band began to obscure the horizon. I didn’t know what I was looking at, but it was moving toward us.

  “’Spect this thing with cheap words is another way to keep us apart,” Norflo added. “Make some folks seem low.”

  The road ahead grew harder to see. A heavy gust of wind buffeted the car and I had to right us as we were pressed toward the edge of the empty highway.

  I wanted to say more, but the grayness suddenly overtook us, and a turbulent flurry of white flecks swirled around the car.

  “What is it?” I asked, slowing us to a crawl in the tumult.

  “It’s snow,” Henri said.

  Coldwet™: $20.99

  I knew what snow was. Sort of. Sometimes the dome would go dark above us, and they said it was snow piled up there. I’d also seen it in movies, falling gently as a romantic backdrop. Sometimes the ground in films was white with snow that sparkled. There was a whole world of things movies showed that came from a time before the domes. There was even a candy called SnowTops™ that was just a mint with some kind of hard marshmallow fused on it.

  The stuff spattering our car was nothing like that. It seemed angry and vicious. The Meiboch™’s wipers kicked in and cleared the sludge back and forth.

  Henri had once showed me you could feel the
cold of snow through the roof of the dome. I wondered what it felt like out here. I opened my window. Cold wind roared into the car. I put out my hand tentatively into a shockingly frigid stream of air. It stung, and I yanked my hand back.

  “Hey!” Sera shouted as the flurry pelted through the car.

  “Look, it makes drops!” Mira said, holding up her hand, then licking it.

  “Do not!” Margot said.

  I put the window up. The storm thickened around us, and I had to pull the car to the side. Swirls of snow whipped across the highway.

  “How long will it last?” I asked. No one answered.

  “It is just water,” Mira said to Margot, holding her hand out to her sister for inspection. Margot looked at it seriously, like a palm reader.

  “We do not know what is in it,” Margot said, wiping the drops away with her sleeve.

  “Aw!” Mira stared at her hand, disappointed.

  “Is anyone the least bit concerned that we’re trapped?” I asked. I couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of us. We weren’t going anywhere.

  “It’ll stop,” Norflo promised.

  The car shook, rocked by a gust of wind.

  “What if it’s days?” I asked. I didn’t have any sense of how long a storm might last. When the dome went dark because of snow, it sometimes lasted weeks.

  “I kinda want to go out,” Norflo said.

  “No!” Sera said, stamping her foot.

  “What for?” I asked.

  Norflo shrugged. “When’m I gonna be out in snow again?”

  “I’m not getting coldwet again,” Sera sniffed, and then she hurriedly added, “Trademark!”

  “You think coldwet hasn’t been Trademarked?” Henri asked.

  “Without WiFi, there’s no way to know,” Sera said.

  “What do you think is going to happen?” I asked. “You think we’ll roll into the next dome and you’ll get a Lawyer to grant you a Trademark because you ‘called it’ in a car full of fugitives in the middle of a storm without any WiFi?”

  “You’re all witnesses,” Sera said.

  Norflo nodded. “’K, Sera. We’ll all witness if the day comes.”

  Sera’s mouth drew tight. His sarcasm wasn’t lost on her.