“I have always wanted to see this,” Margot said a little sadly. “Does this not make you wonder what happened?” she asked, pulling her hand away and leaving a handprint behind.
My whole body felt like it was full of questions. “I wish I understood. I knew there would be ruins out here, but...” I ran a finger through the dust. “I don’t understand how it got to be like this. Did they sweep through the whole world and empty it of anything of value?”
“Sounds right,” Norflo said.
“Maybe they had reverse Placers,” Henri speculated.
“Is that a real thing?” Sera asked in a whisper.
“Aren’t they just called thieves?” I asked.
“A lot of books were burned,” Margot said, rubbing the dust between her fingers. “Father told me that.”
Mira looked up at her. “He did?”
“Yes,” Margot said.
Mira looked thoughtful until she saw me watching her. “He doesn’t really talk to me,” she muttered.
“It is too dark. I am going to adjust the lights,” Margot said quickly, like it would cover up what her sister had just said. “Mira, come with me.”
Mira followed Margot without looking back. The moment they were out the door, I turned to Henri.
“What was that all about?” I asked him.
Henri looked at the ground. “She’s only going to get crankier without her violin,” Henri said. “I told her to take it.”
I was confused. “Why would you tell her that? We didn’t know we were going to leave the dome.”
“No, but I figured sooner or later the looters would get to her house. I figured it was safer to keep it in her Placer bag.”
“What about her parents?” I asked.
The light from outside shifted. Pebbles crunched under the tires of the car as Margot moved it. Sera flinched and grabbed onto Norflo from behind.
“Can you...” I started. I closed my eyes. I tried again. “Sera, give people a little space, okay?”
Her head went up, on alert. “What am I doing?”
“You’re fine,” Norflo said to her.
“We’re safe here,” I tried to reassure Sera, though my jaw was tight.
“We aren’t safe anywhere,” she shot back.
Henri peeked out the window at Margot to gauge how long he had to talk. “Her parents... Her dad... He has a lot of rules. Like no contractions. And he isn’t so nice to Mira.”
“That’s awful,” Sera said, perching her chin on Norflo’s shoulder.
My hands went up to my cheeks. They were hot, and I couldn’t figure out why. I wasn’t feeling jealous. It was something more complicated. Why should she get to voice an opinion about Margot’s family?
The car door shut outside. I heard Mira giggle, oblivious to our conversation.
“Poor Mira. I’d rather have no father,” Sera whispered.
Her comment ignited some kind of rage in me. I thought of my dad and his haunted eyes. I thought of how all I wanted to do was reach my parents and put my family back together.
“That’s an awful thing to say,” I blurted out. “How can you betray your own father that way?”
“My father? I haven’t seen my dad since I was eight! They split my parents up, Speth.” Sera spit out my name like it was something foul in her mouth. “Yours got to stay together. You got to talk to them.”
Margot came back in slowly, bewildered at Sera and me shouting at each other. Mira clutched her hand like the bears were inside now. I ignored her and advanced on Sera.
“You always act like your life is so much worse than everyone else’s,” I snapped. “You can stop pretending. Until it got inconvenient for you, you thought the whole system that took your parents away and gave you Mrs. Harris was just a-okay!”
“What the hell, Speth?” Sera said, stepping away from Norflo. His eyes were filled with disappointment.
“You wanted to be one of them. A guardian,” I spit. “One of them,” I said to the group. “She wanted to be one of them!”
Norflo watched me sadly. Sera’s face crumpled into the most wretched expression of despair I’d ever seen.
“What else could I be?” she said with a violent sob. She held out her skinny arms like broken bird’s wings. “A Placer?”
I opened my mouth, but couldn’t find anything to say. I don’t think I’d truly appreciated how lucky I was to have been found by the Placers until that moment.
“Your sister,” Sera choked out. “She had that job with Mrs. Nince. She looked famous. She had everything, and you had her. And Sam.”
At the sound of Sam’s name, my heart blazed with fury again. I sputtered, but before I could form a full word, Norflo reached out and grabbed both our hands.
“Stop,” he said. “This is what they do.”
“Who?” Sera bawled.
“They split us apart,” Norflo went on. “Make us do what we don’t want. Take, give nothing and plan to keep on until they take us. Literally take us away,” he said, shaking our hands like he could pull some reason out of the two of us. His hand, I realized, was trembling. “They don’t want us to rely on each other, ’cause then we won’t have to rely on them.”
I heaved a great breath. What use was my anger? Sera hadn’t been the cause of anything. She was caught up like I was—like we all were.
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling the full extent of how exhausted I was.
Sera narrowed her eyes and then closed them. “Sorry for what?” she asked. The simple words weren’t enough for her.
“I’m so angry about what they did, and I’ve taken it out on you. It wasn’t right. They took both our families from us, Sera. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I turned to Henri. “And I wasn’t fair to you. I’ve wanted to tell you for so long. I’m sorry I used you that night. And, Margot...”
Margot shook her head, mutely begging me to stop.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, tears welling in my eyes. I was saying it to each of them, but also to Sam. I would never fully forgive myself for not doing everything I could to save him.
“I accept your apology,” Sera said with a deep, proud breath. Then she wandered quickly away, like that had been her plan all along.
Archaeology: $25.99
Henri sprawled himself awkwardly across the front seat of the Meiboch™. Mira and Margot curled up in back. We moved the car right up to the front door and covered it with a ragged blue tarp we’d found to keep out the sun—and any bears, we told Mira.
Norflo swept out some space in a bedroom near an old bed too collapsed and gross to sleep on. Sera and I slept downstairs curled up on top of Placer bags and spare clothes. It was not a comfortable night. Whatever else you could say about modern times, the Swailert™ foam mattress I’d grown up sleeping on was very comfortable.
During the night, Sera rolled close and curled up against me. I let her be. It was cold, and her body was warm. It was a comforting reminder of how Saretha and I had often slept—at least before everything went wrong.
I wasn’t awake when morning dawned. Somehow I managed to sleep until a bright, filtered light filled the room. I’d never seen such intensity, and my eyes could barely accept it.
Henri, Norflo and Margot were already up, sitting in the other room, carefully picking through a box Norflo had found in a room under the ground. The box itself was stained and barely holding together. It was filled with thin, water-damaged books full of pictures. They were warped, flaking and faded. A black smudgy mold made many of them hard to read.
A lot of the books had the same title with different dates and pictures. The one Margot said to pay attention to was a book called TIME, which mostly had people’s faces looking out. One had a black cover—not from mold, but because it was printed that way. It was rimmed in a faded red ink. The word TIME was written on the top and beneath it, in the sa
me red against the black, were the words Is Truth Dead?
“What are these books about?” I asked.
“Lots,” Norflo said. His eyes were glued to the page he was reading.
“It’s hard to follow,” Henri said, flashing me a smile before returning to his own reading. Sadness welled up in me. My argument with Sera had left me feeling emotional and full of regret. But Henri still believed in me, even after what I’d done. I think he’d accepted my apology long before I made it—maybe even before we spoke in the Squelch back in Keene.
“I do not think they are books,” Margot said. “They all have the word magazine on them. I think it is a different thing.” She turned and picked up one she had saved. “Look at this.” She opened to a specific page. Large black letters read: Bikram Choudhury Can’t Copyright His Yoga Poses.
“That was in 2015?” I asked, glancing at the cover.
“Yes. I do not think words were Copyrighted then, either,” Margot said, looking at the picture of Bikram sitting cross-legged and shirtless.
“No, they were,” Henri said, pointing to a notice on an inside page that said All Rights Reserved. “But look at this.”
He held up a map similar to the one I had tried to memorize back at the real estate agency, but the borders were completely different.
“There’s no Vermaine,” I remarked absently. In the same general area were three states: Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. It was like they merged Vermont and Maine and got rid of New Hampshire entirely.
“Check this,” Norflo said, handing a magazine over to me. It was called Cos-something-tan. I couldn’t fully read it because there was a thin, busty woman on the cover whose gorgeous wavy hair covered most of the title. Her skin was the same shade as mine—the same shade as most of us in the Onzième—but flawless and with a sheen that was obviously fake, like the computer-generated version of Saretha. Just under the blocked title was a red banner with the words for Latinas, like it was part of some marketing campaign.
My heart began pounding a little.
“See?” Norflo said as I began flipping through the pages. The magazine was full of Ads. The only real difference I saw was models with dark hair, dark eyes and skin like mine.
One Ad really struck me. A family held hands at the rim of a hill, smiling for the camera. It looked a little like our family, with two parents and three kids. It was trying to make me feel something about retirement savings, but that wasn’t the effect. It made me think about how we were going to free my parents and then escape all of this. Soon, I hoped, we would all be together somewhere.
An odd warmth flooded my chest looking up from my magazine to the others. Wasn’t this a family, too? Norflo seemed pleased with my reaction. Behind him, Henri flashed me another smile. When I had pretended I wanted Henri to kiss me, I didn’t have time to consider how I actually felt about him. But now I knew: I loved him like a brother. I wanted him to be happy. I wanted him and Margot to be happy together, even if their relationship was a little strange. I didn’t know if I would ever be able to explain it out loud, but I longed for the day I could try.
No wonder words cost so much. They were so precious.
Sera put her chin on my shoulder and looked at the Ad with me. I felt the urge to remind her she’d insisted she wasn’t Latino, but there was a power in knowing when to be silent and when to speak.
“They marketed to us,” Norflo said. “Thought we were important enough that they made one of these magazines just for us. Whoever lived in this house was probably Latino.” Norflo gestured around in wonder. “That has to matter. What came before has to matter. They tried to hide our history, Jiménez, but it isn’t gone. We can’t let it be gone.”
I felt myself stirring at his words. I was suddenly so grateful he could speak to me, unrestricted, without having to limit himself to what he could eke out on a Word$ Market™ screen.
“How do we get it back?” I asked.
Norflo held up a few of the magazines. “These have history. They just wrote it as history happened.”
“They assume the reader knows what came before—which we do not,” Margot sighed. “And the poor fools had no idea what was coming.”
“Which we do,” Henri said, elbowing her.
“Yes, Henri.”
“There’s nothing after 2026,” Henri said, showing me a cover with an image made up of hundreds of other covers. The words Our Final Print Issue were emblazoned across the top in bold letters.
Being together like this, looking over forbidden material, was comforting to me, yet just feeling that comfort made me uneasy. It couldn’t last. We had a long way to go, and I wanted to get there. The warm feeling in my chest had cooled, and I could feel myself buzzing with an urge to move.
“Could we pack these in the car and go?” I asked. “You could read them while I drive.”
I also wasn’t sure we should be breathing the air this house provided, and the sunlight unnerved me, even if it wasn’t direct. The car seemed safer. Silas Rog would have been sure it was secure against daylight, or anything else that might harm him. If I knew anything about the Rogs, it was that they always took care of themselves.
Margot frowned at me. “We could,” she said, sniffing a mold-covered magazine before tossing it aside. She neatened up her save pile and put the good ones in the box.
I rolled up our things and packed our bags back up. There was a cheeping sound outside: birds. I’d heard birds in Portland before the dropters got them, but never in a group. They never lived long enough to gather, but there were dozens of them outside this house. The noise of them grew louder.
Margot froze in the doorway, box in hand. She backed up.
“Run,” she said to Mira, and then to all of us. “Run!”
She dropped the box and took off, grabbing Mira’s hand. Henri straightened up, perplexed. His fingers slipped from his box as he stood. Margot shooed Mira out an open window in the back and jumped out after her, calling, “Henri!”
My brain tried to catch up. What was out there? Why was Margot running?
“Speth Jime, you are hereby commanded to surrender,” a man’s voice called out, amplified by a bullhorn.
My blood ran cold at the sound of that voice. Norflo pulled at my arm, but I felt frozen in place. Sera watched us, looking furious.
“Speth,” Henri said. He and Norflo started to drag me toward the back window.
“They just want me,” I said, struggling against them. “You need to go! They won’t kill me.”
“You don’t know that!” Norflo exclaimed.
“They’re coming,” Henri said. I couldn’t see what was happening.
“They don’t care about you,” I said, pushing Norflo away.
“Go,” Henri said to him. “Help Mira and Margot. They can’t kill me, either. I’m Indentured. I’m worth too much.”
Norflo took off. Sera followed, then paused in the window.
I shooed her off and raced to the door. There were police cars and men advancing. Lawyers. And they were wearing masks, which meant there would be sleep gas, too.
“Don’t kill the girl,” a voice instructed. Lucretia Rog. It came from a dropter. How did they get a dropter out here without the WiFi? My heartbeat pounded in my ears as the police officers held out their Cuffs. There was a loud popping sound.
“Oh,” Henri gasped from beside me. He fell to the ground, red spreading around him. My eyes went misty as I reached out for him. There was a gurgling breath, and I couldn’t tell if it was mine or his. Suits and armor and dropters all blurred and dimmed. Far off in the distance, I heard Sera screaming.
Someone yanked on my arm, but I just wanted to sleep. I wanted to dream this wasn’t real.
Then there was nothing.
Agree
I half woke to a dim and shapeless world. I couldn’t raise my arm, but I knew I was
supposed to. Why was I supposed to?
Someone lifted my arm for me.
“Tap AGREE,” a voice demanded, like it wasn’t the first request.
I tried. I pushed my finger through the fog toward the little word. AGREE. It blurred in my vision. Each breath I took was shallow.
I closed my eyes. Every fiber of my being just wanted to sleep more.
Someone prodded my face—one cheek, then the other.
“She is real, dear, I promise,” a woman’s hollow voice said. “Let the Lawyers do their work.”
Another voice sounded.
“Article VII B: You further agree to use your weekly allotment of words solely in response to questions from the Owner or in service to the Owner for the good faith administration of her bidding, orders, whims, suggestions and requests. Failure to do so will result in penalty or punishments as laid out in Article VII B, Section I-XXI at the sole discretion and pleasure of the Owner.”
I struggled to comprehend. Had I already agreed to something?
The Lawyer scrolled through a long list in tiny print and showed it to me—as if I could read it. Of course I couldn’t. I could barely focus my eyes.
Then the room pitched over and the floor slammed into the side of my skull.
“Pick her up,” the woman’s voice said. Pain roused me, replacing grogginess with a growing panic. I didn’t know where I was or what had happened, but I knew the voice: Lucretia Rog.
“Tap AGREE,” the Lawyer insisted, lifting me up roughly. I recognized him, too. Grippe. His face was placid, but a muscle twitched in his jaw. Had he beaten Finster when I left them on that overpass? I noted vaguely that there was a bowl of walnuts in front of him. An Affluent’s snack.
Where did he want me to tap? Someone behind me lifted one of my arms to the other. With horror, I saw a new Cuff had been secured around my forearm. I’d been tapping at a new Cuff. This one felt tighter than the one Mrs. Harris had clamped onto my arm on my fifteenth birthday. I could feel the pressure in my tendons, and my skin was red around the edges. I pried at it weakly, but it didn’t budge.
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