Access Restricted

by Gregory Scott Katsoulis

I tapped AGREE. I don’t know why. I wanted to resist, but it was as if my will had been sapped from me. My arms felt like they were a puppet’s, not my own. Or was someone still holding them up?

  Thick hands pressed down on my shoulders. I closed my eyes. If I slept, none of this would be real.

  A hard slap woke me.

  Grippe looked deeply pleased with himself. He had a new black medal on his chest, above the compact arrangement I had seen before. He snapped his fingers, and his bodyguard cracked a walnut open for him from the bowl.

  “You agree and understand that payment for any and all words you speak is your responsibility, irrespective of your service to the Owner, that additional debt incurred by speaking will be held in escrow by the Owner and that as an Indentured Servant to the Owner, you are entitled to no compensation or remuneration of any kind, at any time, here, elsewhere, now and in perpetuity. Tap AGREE.”

  The Owner. That meant something bad. Grippe took the walnut and ate it without pleasure. I wondered where it came from. One of the gray domes, most likely.

  A bony ParaLegal took notes on a Pad to my left. Off to my right, in front of a bright window, was a girl about my age who stood mutely, staring at me. In the distance beyond her, out the window, were buildings made from real stone and a towering white obelisk with Ads crawling up and down the sides.

  The Washington Monument. I was in the Dome of DC.

  Lucretia’s voice demanded, “Speak it.”

  “Speak ‘agree,’” Grippe echoed as a warning.

  No, I thought. Everyone stared at me. I couldn’t see Lucretia anywhere—there was just the girl, Grippe, a couple of bodyguards, the ParaLegal and an older, stocky woman, who was watching everything with concern. Grippe cocked back his arm to slap me again, but Lucretia called his name.

  “No one asked you to beat her.” Lucretia wasn’t in the room. Her voice was being piped in. Maybe she was still in Portland. “Speak ‘agree.’ There isn’t any point in being silent now. You’ve already spoken, Speth,” she pointed out. “We know.”

  If she wanted me to speak, I would refuse. Whatever she wanted, I wouldn’t give it to her.

  I tried to recall what had happened. They’d come for us. They’d used sleep gas. My heart seized, remembering Henri. There had been blood. Had I really seen that? What had they done with him? They couldn’t kill him. I had to remember that. His owner would sue. It upset me that he was owned, but at least his Indentured status protected him. I prayed his father’s sick plan would protect him now.

  My breathing went shallow and scared as a small voice called out to me. There was something at the window—someone. Someone was out there, calling for my help. Mira? No. I couldn’t look. This wasn’t possible. My head was foggy; I couldn’t be hearing correctly.

  It sounded like Sam’s voice.

  Silas Rog had done this to me before—he’d created a fake digital projection right through my ocular implants to make it look like my brother was still alive. But he wasn’t. Sam was dead. Murdered. These people thought of his death as nothing more than an instrument to torment me.

  I turned my head slowly toward the window. My little brother stood there, a terrified expression on his face. “Help me!” Sam cried. Then he fell, slipping away from the window...falling backward over the rail in Falxo Park. I didn’t know how high up we were. My heart broke all over again, even though I knew this Sam wasn’t real.

  Sam’s body hit the table in front of me with a hard slam. His eyes were open and unseeing, lifeless in his blank cherubic face.

  “Is this what you want to live with?” Lucretia’s disturbingly pleasant voice asked. It felt like it was in my head this time, but that was impossible. Wasn’t it?

  My ears ached with the echo of her voice. I put a hand up and felt an odd, sore bump just below each ear.

  “We’ve provided auditory implants for your convenience,” Grippe said, pleased. “So Mrs. Rog can provide instruction at any time.”

  What had they done to me?

  Grippe clicked his tongue impatiently. The girl put a hand up under each of her ears like she’d had the same thing done—or at least sympathized with me. I couldn’t see any bumps on her neck from where I sat.

  “Auditory implants brought to you by KochEar™. KochEar™, for the best in hands-free internal messaging systems,” the ParaLegal recited, placing a small branded box in front of me so I could see it.

  “Their cost has been added to your debt,” Grippe remarked with a smile.

  My Cuff buzzed as proof—$13,999 to invade and mutilate my body. I hated the way it vibrated, like it was breaking down the veins in my arm.

  “You could have said anything to save me,” Sam whispered, suddenly inches from my face. He didn’t look quite right. They couldn’t create Sam. They could reproduce the contours of his face, but the thing pretending to be him was empty.

  “Agree, Speth,” Lucretia said softly in my head.

  She didn’t understand what she was revealing. My friends had to be okay. If they weren’t, she’d be using them instead of this sad, fake Sam to torture me. They must have gotten away, I told myself, though I couldn’t imagine how. Where could they go? I wanted to believe they’d escaped, but the uncertainty nagged at me.

  Sam’s image vanished. In his place, patterns exploded in my vision. Thousands of close-set zigzagging lines spun and wove themselves into impossible patterns, diverging in each eye until I felt like my skull would split. At the same time, both my ears filled with blaring, high-pitched tones. I wheeled forward, scarcely aware I was doing it, and smashed face-first into the table. I fell back onto the floor, nauseated. The bodyguard lifted me like a rag doll and dropped me back in the chair.

  Then it all stopped. Even Grippe’s placid, cruel smile and sharp, disdainful eyes were a welcome sight.

  “Punishment III of Article VII B,” he said. He straightened his legal Pad, scrolled to where he wanted to be and turned it back to me.

  “You agree and understand that payment for any and all words you speak is your responsibility, etcetera, etcetera,” he said, waving his hand over the document. “Speak ‘agree.’”

  For half a second, the pattern flashed and the tone rang my ears again. A warning.

  “Speak ‘agree,’” Lucretia said with a sigh. The girl watched me intently. She seemed out of place here. I didn’t understand her role. Was she a servant? Another ParaLegal? She wasn’t dressed like one.

  I leaned forward, dizzy and sick. The pattern flashed again and held this time. The sound blared like a thunderous horn. The waving patterns crushed at my skull, unrelenting, cutting me off from any sign of the outside world. Minutes passed—maybe hours. My brain seemed to pull apart. My thoughts shattered. I felt my eyes roll back and my spine arch to its limits. My body shook and banged into some hard surface I couldn’t see. Then the agony ceased.

  “Oh, you poor creature, there will be nothing left of you if you don’t speak,” Lucretia warned. “I should very much like to make some use of you, but if I must go on like this, you will be driven quite mad.”

  I was on the floor. A bodyguard and the bony ParaLegal stood over me. Grippe stayed in his seat and had another walnut cracked for him from the bowl. It was too showy. They were trying to demonstrate their power. They wanted to break me. That was the message. Stars swam in my vision—ugly green, sputtering stars, nothing like the ones I’d seen in the sky. I hated them all, and yet my body was grateful to see them because it meant I could see.

  Grippe bent down to me and held the Pad out like a waiter. The girl by the window walked away rapidly, like she couldn’t watch anymore.

  I tried to think of something devastating to say to all of them. I tried to find a single word, but my body convulsed instead. Don’t give in, my inner voice whispered, deeper, beyond Lucretia’s own. I needed to remember the difference. I needed to keep myself whole. />
  The sharp pain slowly receded, like an echo through my bones. I blinked and cleared my eyes as phantoms of the patterns twirled through my vision. The dazzling pain in my skull ripped into the places where thoughts formed.

  “Speth.” Lucretia’s soothing voice sounded inside my head. My mind took comfort from it and clung to the lilting sound in spite of myself. My shoulders slumped. My hands unfurled. “Agree,” she said again, like it would help me.

  I didn’t know if I could withstand another assault, and my brain could only focus on the one word I knew would keep it at bay. I wouldn’t speak it, but I had to do something.

  I raised my Cuff up. With a shuddering, clumsy finger, I gave in and tapped AGREE.

  Victoria: $27.99

  I was finally allowed to sleep, and the relief was acute. I pushed everyone and everything from my mind, letting my body fall into the bed, pulled and flattened by gravity. My bones sank into muscle. My muscles twitched in the places I was most sore. My eyes and ears ached. My skull felt like it had come apart at the seams inside me.

  There were other girls crammed in this small room with me. Three or four—but not the one who had watched me with Grippe. Someone snored, and I followed the sound as she sputtered air in and smoothly breathed it out. I began to breathe along with her, and then I was gone again.

  I woke later with a start to find someone hovering over me. The old woman I’d seen in Grippe’s office earlier hissed at me in three angry, short bursts without using any words. The Cuff on her arm buzzed at her for it. I looked to see what the sound was called. She tapped, pointed and flicked the charge from her Cuff to mine to make it easier.

  Mrs. Andromeda Milnsk transfers the following charge:

  Andromeda Milnsk—communication (Wake Hiss x 3): $8.97

  I’d never heard of a “Wake Hiss.” Below this, I had the choice to tap AGREE or DECLINE. My mouth drew tight. My head throbbed from the base of my neck. I fell back and closed my eyes. Andromeda hissed at me again.

  I opened my eyes reluctantly and stared at her. She gnashed her teeth and flicked at the Cuff for show. I sat back up, but I didn’t tap AGREE. Her ruddy face turned ruddier.

  She pulled the charge back and bit her lip. She looked down at her Cuff and then back at me. Under her arm, she had a bundle of clothes. She threw them at me and stared. I stared back, my mind half-blank, suppressing the panic brewing as I wondered what might have happened to my friends.

  “How much do you want to cost me?” Andromeda whispered at last. Her Cuff buzzed with each word.

  “You’re to obey,” a voice from the next bed said, half-asleep and devoid of emotion. I heard the soft buzz of her Cuff, too.

  I gathered the clothes up into my arms. Where was I meant to change? Andromeda’s face turned back to what might have been its normal pink. She strode across the room and opened a door to reveal a cramped toilet. It was clear what to do.

  I changed into the outfit—a thick woolen charcoal-gray dress with bleached white sleeves. When I emerged, Andromeda waited for me, her eyes blazing. She wasn’t the friendliest person I’d ever met, but I felt sorry for her. I was certain that she and the other girls in the room were all Indentured. A few stray spots swam in my eyes, reminding me what awaited my disobedience. They must have suffered the same.

  Andromeda turned for the door and gestured briskly for me to follow. Her Cuff buzzed with that charge, too. I moved slowly, thinking of my friends. What had happened to Henri? Did the others escape? Then I thought of Saretha, and more guilt constricted my chest. I should have thought of her first. She was family. And my parents. It wasn’t likely I would ever see any of them again.

  My only hope, in the very back of my mind, was that I was in DC and that somewhere out there Kiely Winston was waiting. But what could she do?

  Andromeda halted in the door and looked back. I was taking too long. It was making her nervous and angry.

  “Do what Mrs. Rog says and maybe things won’t get worse,” she whispered, swallowing hard. Things were obviously very bad. Her face was still angry, but I thought I saw kindness in her eyes. I studied her and tried to return that kindness without speaking. She wasn’t an enemy. We were trapped together.

  Maybe I needed to obey, but I wouldn’t. I would fight, even in silence, until the end.

  * * *

  I followed Andromeda straight to a bright wood-paneled office where Lucretia sat behind a humble desk, sipping tea from a bone china cup. She smirked, as if I amused her. Servants scrambled out of the way and fled the room as I entered. Two troublingly large men with monstrous jaws stood on either side of her, utterly still in slightly iridescent indigo suits. The girl I’d seen before was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, head down at first, but she raised it to watch me when I entered. Beside her was a large bowl of fruit on a side table, more showy than practical. Oranges, grapes, plums and apples all came from different farms and orchards, reminding me of the multitudes of people Indentured like my parents so the very wealthy could enjoy eating real, fresh food. I was surprised the girl was allowed so close to them.

  “Please do sit,” Lucretia said, like I was a special guest. Her eyes flicked from Andromeda to me. “She made you speak, Andromeda?”

  Andromeda said nothing. I did not sit.

  “You can tell me. I will pay for the answer.” Lucretia’s fingers danced elegantly over her Cuff.

  “She did, ma’am,” Andromeda said quietly, looking at the ground.

  “She’s made you speak.” Lucretia looked at the girl sitting by the fruit, then crossed to the front of her desk and leaned against it, casually crossing her arms.

  “Eyes front,” she commanded me. When I hesitated, she tapped her Cuff, and a quick jolt shook me.

  I obeyed. I stared straight ahead, which put a picture on the wall directly in my view. In it, Lucretia Rog was standing in front of the United States Supreme Court® with two men. She was on the right, and I assumed Silas Rog was on the left. His face was blocked in my vision, as it had always been, save for the night I destroyed the WiFi.

  The one comfort I had in this situation was that Silas Rog must still be in police custody—otherwise he would surely be the one torturing me.

  In between them was a robed Judge, his eyes obscured by an elegant judicial visor, the kind they say is linked directly to the brain so Judges can instantly access Central Data. Lucretia was smiling, but the Judge’s mouth was placid—perhaps he didn’t want to be there? Or maybe being a Judge stripped away your emotions, leaving only the Law behind.

  A small American® flag was pinned to his lapel. Other robed Justices stood behind the trio, lining either side of the stairs, all visored and blank-faced, too. The portrait was obviously meant to demonstrate Lucretia had power and connections. She wanted people to see it, to be intimidated by it.

  “Do you like being silent?” Lucretia asked abruptly, pushing away from her desk and leaning close to stare into my eyes. There was a subtle menace to the question—it was like something Mrs. Harris would ask, but her voice was as light and airy as if she were asking whether I liked Ice-Kreem™.

  Her two bodyguards had stiffened as she approached me. They both had watery eyes, as if staring menacingly off into space itched them. The two men had the same slightly off look as the brothers who’d murdered Sam and the bodyguards Grippe and Finster employed. It was like the muscles of their bodies—and even their faces—weren’t natural. They were much harder and larger than normal.

  There was something very strange about Lucretia Rog, too—something deeply, troublingly appealing. I was finding it hard to hate her. She seemed so innocent and open. For a moment, I felt like I was the problem—a troublemaking friend she was about to set right. But her face moved in a rubbery way, as if it had been shaped and filled with things that weren’t quite human. It wasn’t real, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of some kind of
surgery she’d had, or if she was feeding me an enhanced visual of herself.

  The only thing I knew for sure was that I couldn’t trust her.

  “I suppose you know what you’ve done. Such terrible damage. And I can’t even help because you’ve shut everything down. Even the Healthspital™.”

  She paused and clucked her tongue. The girl by the fruit bowl jumped slightly at the sound. I noticed she wasn’t wearing a gray outfit like mine or Andromeda’s. Instead, she wore a skirt and a public domain T-shirt.

  “Where will people go with broken limbs?” Lucretia wondered aloud, leaning her chin on her hand in mock consternation. I tried to keep myself from reacting. How much of the city had she claimed back? Had she gotten to Saretha?

  As if reading my mind, Lucretia said slyly, “If you’d like to ask me about your sister, I will be happy to tell you how she’s doing.”

  I didn’t want to believe that she knew anything about Saretha. Even if she did, it was doubtful she would tell me the truth. I had to believe Kel had protected Saretha—she’d promised me that.

  I suddenly realized that Kel’s message was gone from my eyes. It was no longer running just out of my vision. We were in the WiFi, so it should have been there, but Lucretia must have detected it and blocked it. Or maybe Kel had knocked the WiFi out wherever she was.

  Or maybe she had stopped sending it. Maybe she had been captured, just like me.

  “You can ask me about any of your friends,” Lucretia offered. She glanced at the seated girl and crooked a finger. The girl stood and shuffled over to us, her mouth pulled to the side. She rolled a grape between her fingers nervously, with no apparent intention of eating it.

  “Don’t do that,” Lucretia chastised. Then she turned back to me. “You can stop looking around,” she said, noticing my eyes scanning the room. “There is no way for you to escape.”

  I suspected that she misunderstood why I was calculating. Apparently she shared Silas Rog’s arrogance. I filed that away as a weakness to exploit. That was what I was looking for—weaknesses.