“We know a little,” Margot said.
“Ever heard of the North American no-fly zone?” he asked. He tapped a button, and the map changed. The coastlines eroded a little, and a huge circle encompassed the whole map with a label: No-Fly Zone.
“Like the little insect?” Mira asked, buzzing for emphasis.
“No,” Advik said slowly. “It’s for planes. Do y’all know what planes are?”
Mira took a sip of her water and made a face. Margot shifted. None of us knew, but she did. “They were little more than flying bombs people once used to travel around the world,” she said.
“Not exactly,” Advik replied. “A few planes were used that way—a few out of literally millions. A couple of attacks—terrible attacks—changed everything.”
He showed us an image of a huge gleaming bus with wide metal wings like a bird’s, frozen midglide. It flew low over an undomed skyline, like the biggest dropter I’d ever seen.
“The US reckoned it was safer to ground all air travel to protect everyone. Anything larger than a goose caught flying over North America is blasted out of the sky now.”
There were limits on dropter size—they couldn’t be large enough to carry a man. I’d never questioned why. I’d always assumed it was because of Patent fights—or maybe I’d never really thought about it at all.
“The middle states in particular were against that shutdown, but that wasn’t what made us leave. That happened when they mandated we must pay to speak. That you know all about. But Texans—¡Dios mío! We couldn’t put up with that. We revolted, and seceded from the US.”
“Texans?” I asked. “Is that the same as Téjicans?”
“Not exactly,” he said. The map reappeared, and suddenly Téjico expanded, taking over a state called Texas and a few others around it. Canada expanded, too, but downward, so that the eastern and western states of the US were separated. The Texas name changed to Téjico as it merged with Mexico below. “Texas far preferred to be part of a free Mexico than a United States™ that charged even for the word freedom.”
“But I don’t understand,” I said. “How would the US go along with this? Why did our states agree?”
“They didn’t exactly agree,” Advik hedged.
“That is what caused the Civil War,” Margot said. She seemed confident, but it turned out she wasn’t right.
“No, the Civil War was different. Much older. There wasn’t a war this time—only punishment,” he said grimly.
“What punishment?” Norflo asked.
Advik typed a little more and pulled up a gorgeous landscape image dotted by thousands of fat brown-and-black animals.
“They didn’t call it punishment. Maybe a consequence? They said they were protecting intellectual property Law. MonSantos™ claimed the genetic pattern of the cow. Y’all know what a cow is?”
We all did. Affluents could get BeefMilk™—you’d sometimes see Ads for it in wealthy neighborhoods. It was a rare delicacy we were told came from cows. I realized the animals in the image must be cows, though they didn’t resemble the grinning, long-lashed cartoon versions I’d seen once in an Ad.
“Our farmers had to pay a million-dollar fee for each cow inside our nation’s borders, or turn their cattle over to MonSantos™.”
He brought up another picture showing even more cows. The sheer number of them was mind-boggling. I thought they were rare.
I leaned over to Margot. “Did you know about this?”
She shook her head, looking a little stunned.
“Obviously they couldn’t pay,” Advik continued. “There were a hundred million cows, spread out on cattle ranches across thousands of miles. If we were inclined to turn them over, it wouldn’t have been physically possible to move that many cows—though a few ranchers put together a massive protest and tried to drive a hundred thousand cattle through here, just to show ’em.”
“So what did they do?”
“MonSantos™ let them die. All of them.”
“Why?” Mira asked sadly.
“How?” was the question I asked. How could they make the cows die?
“That company had been altering the genetic code of cows for years to increase yields of milk and meat. Most farmers liked it and paid a subscription fee to have these better cows. Even the ones who didn’t eventually ended up with the Patented genes in their cows, so they had to pay, too. But that meant all the cattle were dependent on a specially modified grain stock. Without that specific grain, the cows couldn’t eat; they couldn’t digest anything else. Most didn’t survive more than a month. You can’t imagine what came next.”
“You said they died,” Margot pointed out.
Advik nodded. He held his fingers over the keyboard for a moment, but decided against showing us the next part. “That much death is a catastrophe. There were more carcasses than could be managed. It caused massive outbreaks of disease. We didn’t just lose a vital source of food; tens of thousands of people died from necrotic bovine infections. Infections which MonSantos™, by the way, owns the cures to. They raised the prices on the cures and made sure very few infected people survived.”
“Awful,” Norflo murmured.
“But it was all legal,” Advik said, his voice hitting a high, troubled pitch. “That was very important to them. It had to be exactly legal according to the Terms of Service between our nations. They won’t ever go to war, but they still have the ability to wipe out our corn, chickens and pigs that same way. They could kill us all.” He turned toward the screen, avoiding our eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” I asked. “For what?”
He looked sadly at the device in his hand. “For turning you in.”
Betrayed: $45.99
“Your Commander-in-Chief Justice issued a lawful extradition demand for you, Miss Jiménez, long before you arrived,” Advik said regretfully.
“Then just take me,” I said. I wasn’t going to put the others in danger any longer.
“No, Speth!” Saretha cried out.
“The order is clear,” Advik said, looking uncomfortable. “We have to turn over everyone and everything found with you.”
I looked Advik over. Margot, Norflo and I could probably overpower him and get his gun. I wasn’t afraid to try, either, but once we got out the door, where could we go? The guards were still out there, and armed.
“I don’t have any choice,” Advik said.
Norflo shook his head in disappointment.
“You should be so very proud,” Margot said, holding on to her sister. Mira gave a little head nod to punctuate.
“I haven’t even done anything,” I protested, still trying to think of a plan.
Advik tapped a few times and posted the order on the screen.
“The list of crimes is extensive,” he said.
“It’s mostly lies,” I replied.
“I don’t doubt you, but I have no way to adjudicate,” he said.
The Legalese grated at me. “Can’t you help us? Isn’t there some way...”
Advik was shaking his head before I finished. “If they were breaking the Law—if there were some way we could prove that, we might stand a chance to fight them, but we can’t. We have no grounds.” Advik’s face darkened. He stood, signaling that we were done here. He gestured to the door. “You have to go.”
“We’ll end up tortured and worked to death!” I screamed at him. “They’ve promised not only to take me, but generations to come. Think about that. Think about what it means!”
He winced. “We can’t harbor La Muda. I...” He ducked his head down low and whispered, eyes on the door. “Three weeks ago, we let through a few dozen refugees from the Archipelago of Disney™,” he admitted. “A few days later, nearly a hundred more turned up from a factory dome that had turned to riots. Do you know why?” I shook my head. “They were following y
our lead.”
“I never told anyone to riot.”
“But they have taken inspiration from you. A mass of people from a farm in Carolina even named you when they came through. There aren’t many places they—”
“What farm?” I interrupted. These had to be the Indentureds who escaped from Crab Creek. Had my parents made it?
“I don’t know what farm,” Advik said, as if he didn’t see the significance. “Please don’t make this difficult.”
I watched the pistol on his hip in case he went for it, or in case I changed my mind and did it myself. Then the door to his office opened. There were more guards, in military black this time, and a man in a suit—a Lawyer, from the look of him, but he had a tag that marked him as a Téjican government official.
“Our parents escaped from a farm,” I said desperately. “In Carolina.”
Advik regarded me with pity. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have told you anything.”
The official in the suit gave Advik an admonishing look. “We must ask everyone to stop talking.”
“If we get caught, we’ll have to turn them all out,” Advik whispered. “All the refugees will have to go back, not just you and your friends. This is awful, but it is the Law.”
As the official took my arm, something clicked in my brain. “What about Carol Amanda Harving?” I asked.
“It is too dangerous to keep her as well. She is too famous.” His eyes drifted toward Mira and softened. “I might be able to keep the little girl—maybe we can do something for her.”
Mira looked horrified and clung to her sister. The official didn’t seem hopeful, even about this.
“You don’t understand.” I shook him off. “I’m talking about Carol Amanda Harving.”
“What about her?” the official asked. His eyes darted to Saretha.
“You said she isn’t even real,” Advik said.
“We said she was stolen,” I explained. This was a fight I had never finished, and suddenly, the injustice of it was boiling back up inside me. “They copied what Saretha looks like, made a digital re-creation, then filed a lawsuit against my sister in the name of that re-creation. They sued her for looking like the digital image they stole!”
Saretha pushed herself forward between the guards.
“They murdered our brother to cover it up,” Saretha said. I blinked. Had she finally stopped blaming me for what had happened?
“None of it was legal,” I went on, desperate to make them see. There was a way forward, and it was all bound up in Carol Amanda Harving’s stupid movies.
“Ma’am,” the official said, unconvinced. He nodded for his men to take me.
“None of it was legal,” I repeated, like I was driving a nail into a coffin.
Advik backed away, bumping into his desk. “I’m sorry,” he said, brushing at his face. “Real sorry about your brother. But we aren’t able to get involved in that. That happened inside your borders, not across ours.”
“There must be something you can do!” I pleaded, but he wasn’t getting it.
“He just told you, we can only do something if they break the Law across our border,” the official said. “We’re going to have to report the words you’ve spoken to your Rights Holders. US Law requires it.”
The new guards in black had Norflo and Margot and were pulling them out the door. Another went straight for Saretha, then paused, as if trying to figure out whether she really was Carol Amanda Harving.
“Let her go!” Mira said, aiming a sharp kick at the guard who had her sister.
Words had failed me before, but I couldn’t let them fail me this time. “They sold my sister’s stolen image across your border.”
“Stolen?” Advik asked, brow furrowed.
Two guards came up on either side of me and took my hands. Saretha tried to stop them, but they pulled us apart.
“My sister’s image. They used her likeness without her consent,” I said as they clamped my wrists into cold metal handcuffs behind my back. “Or my parents’ permission. They broke the Law.”
Saretha let them cuff her and spoke with surprising calm.
“‘International Copyright Law, Section 17A, prohibits the use of a person’s likeness without legal consent,’” she quoted. When she saw my astonishment, she explained, “I read that damn DESIST letter a hundred times.”
Advik went a little pale. The official held up a hand.
“You sound like a Lawyer,” Mira said to Saretha. “Except you said the D swear.”
“They knowingly sent illegal material here?” Advik whispered. He pressed his palms to his forehead.
“Yes,” I said, excitement mounting in me. They were getting it.
The official faced me. “You can prove this?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, nodding my head at Saretha. “She is all the proof you need.”
None Should Suffer: $46.97
Saretha beamed beside me as we were escorted deeper into Téjico. They were letting us in. For now. The same guard who had manhandled us now kept telling Saretha how important she was. She was incontrovertible proof the US had engaged in illegal activity across the international border with Téjico. He kept pulling up Carol Amanda Harving’s movies on his personal device and marveling at the resemblance.
“They didn’t get your eyes right,” he said.
The funny thing was that I’d seen their country in movies and shows before, with low adobe buildings and dirty slums that made the Onzième look like paradise. They didn’t get that right, either. The reality of Téjico was very different. Each building we passed had been carefully and beautifully printed in terra-cotta and sand, with ornate designs accented in gold. I felt like we were driving through a utopia.
“How can you afford all this?” Saretha asked. “It looks like everyone here is an Affluent.”
“Printing doesn’t cost anything,” the official, named Arturo, explained kindly. He had big brown eyes with long lashes, and he spoke in a soothing, deeply earnest voice.
“For you, señorita,” he continued, “they make printing an expense, and that is both needless and very sad. No person need ever feel hunger. No building need ever be ugly. We have the technology and the aspiration to provide everyone with what they require, at the very least.”
I’d wondered for a long time what the world would have been like if everything wasn’t tied to demanding profit from every little idea. Now I had a chance to see. People walked along the sidewalks in gorgeous, perfectly fitted clothes. They had lovely hair and shoes and could walk in peace without Ads chasing them, telling them they were too fat or thin or ugly. The few screens I did see were decorative or informational.
“We have a saying,” Arturo went on. “Ninguno debe sufrir necesidad o querer, todos tienen que sufrir sueños. It means None should suffer need or want, all must suffer dreams.”
“Why does anyone have to suffer?” Saretha asked.
“There is always an ache when you long for something better,” I said, looking around, wishing we’d grown up in a better place.
“I like that,” Norflo said.
Arturo went on, “We strive to let everyone live beyond need and want, so our work can be on dreams.” He cleared his throat, suddenly looking serious. “Whereas those like your Commander-in-Chief Justice work to keep most toiling under need, leaving them unfulfilled. Our biggest impediments are what your nation has done to us and the constant threat of what they will do. Our hands are tied in many needless ways.”
“I thought everywhere was like America®,” I said, half choking on the words. I suddenly felt ashamed to have lived my whole life in a small dome, never really knowing about anything beyond it.
“When you build walls between nations and people, you make every life smaller,” Arturo said.
“But...” Norflo trailed off, a shadow of doubt cr
ossing his face. He so clearly wanted everything to be perfect here. “You are a wall. We just saw it.” He jerked his thumb back toward where we’d come from. “Téjico and Canada make a barrier ’tween East and West.”
Arturo nodded. “We do,” he said, though without pride. “An ugly necessity—our greatest bargaining chip is separating East from West.”
* * *
As we traveled, we tried to fill Arturo in on as many facts as we could remember. There was so much to say about what the Rogs had done that it all came pouring out of me. Thinking about how they’d so completely inverted the truth made my blood boil.
“They are so used to manipulating facts they forgot—they can never produce Carol Amanda Harving,” I said feverishly. “That is their greatest flaw!”
When I stopped to take a breath, Arturo asked me to slow down.
“You are in a state of anxiety,” he said calmly, like he was practiced at reassuring people. “You should rest, and tomorrow we can go over everything more carefully, with a team to support you.”
“Okay,” I said, letting out a deep breath. “I just feel so desperate to get it all out.”
“I understand,” Arturo said, looking at Saretha. “We have proof now that they cannot refute.”
Saretha smiled at him, grateful that she’d found a role to fill.
“We have been looking for something like this for a very long time,” he said. “I share your impatience, but we must be thoughtful and plan well. The Rog family is formidable, and the consequences of a misstep would be terrible.”
“S’ben a very upsetting trip,” Norflo commented.
“Of course,” Arturo said. “That is why I suggest a pause.”
“And our parents?” I asked.
“If they are here, we will find them.”
“They have to be here,” I said quietly, trying to ignore the fact that they hadn’t come looking for us. They took off without any reason to think we would be able to follow them. Though I hadn’t voiced it like Saretha, I couldn’t understand why.
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