Then the noise subsided. The last few scattered explosions died, and a fine mist fell reluctantly over the roiling surface of the waves.
A few of the dropters resurfaced from the water, but most of them had been sacrificed in order to detonate the mines. Those that emerged turned to face Portland, proceeding in front of the boat, like a shield as we moved toward the dome.
“You’re here early,” a voice said in my head.
It wasn’t Kel. I felt at my neck, seized with panic. It was Lucretia Rog.
“This is inconvenient,” Lucretia continued. Seeing the terrified expression on my face, the communications officer hit a button, and Lucretia’s voice was broadcast through the room. “Miss Harving is scarcely ready to greet you. She is still so upset with your sister for trading on her looks. I don’t know if she will be ready for the trial for a few more days.”
Everyone on the ship’s bridge heard her. I don’t know if they all understood what she was doing, but Arturo did. His face turned ugly for the first time since I’d met him, like he’d eaten something spoiled and sour.
“Your Commander-in-Chief Justice promised the trial could begin as soon as we arrived,” I said.
“Did he?” she countered. “Well, if Father said so.”
I didn’t fully understand at first, even though her words were clear. Ahead of us, several sections of the tunnel motored open, leaving a wide expanse of road exposed to the air, eighty feet or so above the ocean, right at the level of the high deck. Was that how we were meant to enter?
I tried to cover my neck so she couldn’t hear me, but I realized too late that the effort was futile as the word Father formed in my throat.
“Oh, of course,” Lucretia said in her exaggerated mimic of innocence. “I forgot that the family lineage of the Commander-in-Chief Justice is proprietary information. I should have had you agree to a nondisclosure. I didn’t mean for you to know that our father writes and administers the Laws of these United States™.”
“You are bound by international Law!” Arturo said, shouting a little nearer my face than I would have liked.
“Is this not a private conversation?” Lucretia said in mock surprise. “I didn’t agree to have the likeness of my voice reproduced. I’ll have to add that to the wealth of suits we’ll be prosecuting.”
“You’re not prosecuting,” I said. “You’re defending stealing my sister’s likeness and selling it across the border.”
“Yes, I saw that,” Lucretia said. “One of many cases the Commander-in-Chief Justice, my father, will adjudicate today.”
“Inter... International Law—” Arturo sputtered.
“Yes, yes, yes. Naturally we will abide by all international standards as agreed to by our countries, including statute C117-A, which requires the Laws of the nation of trial to be adhered to. For example, you need to immediately extradite any and all criminals, including Speth Jime and that mimic sister of hers.”
Arturo appeared ready to argue, but I made the sign of the zippered lips.
“You will all, of course, be required to remit payment for all the words you speak, as you are now within US jurisdiction.”
There was something in the tunnel. I couldn’t make it out at first. It looked like little more than a line of dots.
“We don’t have access to your Word$ Market™,” Arturo said. “How can we—”
“Don’t worry,” Lucretia said gleefully. “Access is coming.”
Whatever was in the tunnel was moving fast, like a black snake slithering through the air. It wasn’t until it got closer that I recognized it as a chain of tiny dropters leaving from the dome’s tunnel and whirring toward us over the water.
“What is that?” Saretha asked.
“It is our WiFi, made manifest,” Lucretia boasted, her voice gleeful. “A WiFi cloud. An actual cloud, made from thousands of tiny drones, each acting as an amplifier for the signal.”
The communications officer’s mouth hung open.
One of the Téjican Lawyers went gray. “It shouldn’t be possible,” he whispered. “They have disputed this Patent both domestically and internationally—”
“It has been fought over in Patent courts for years,” Lucretia interrupted, “but Father has declared a state of emergency. The representatives of the United States of America® East and the United States of America® West have agreed it is more important to unite at this time than to keep bickering over a small Patent. They have also been compensated handsomely for their cooperation.”
The swarm descended over the ship, resolving from a blackish, billowing fog to thousands of tiny gray drones, no bigger than flies, spaced inches apart. The ship was moved to within a few hundred feet of the tunnel, its base battered by waves. The fog of drones swelled and swayed, forming a bubble around the ship as it moved.
I made a slicing motion across my neck at the communications officer. He pointed to himself, like he wasn’t sure I meant him. Or maybe it intimidated him because it had two meanings for him, too. I pointed at the implants and made the gesture again. He looked to Arturo, who nodded. The officer cut the signal.
“Can you do that when we get inside?” I asked. “Keep her out of my head?”
“If you’re within half a kilometer,” the communications officer answered.
“Could you do it so Kel can still reach me?”
His eyes flickered over his screen. “I think so. I could block any signal coming from within the Portland dome, and allow others in. I’ll have to connect via the satellite. It might not be perfect.”
“We shouldn’t leave the signal out too long,” Arturo warned.
“Let her stew a minute,” I said. “We’ll tell her the signal dropped.”
After a moment, I gave the communications officer the thumbs-up. He reinstated the connection.
“You dropped out, Lucretia,” I said. Her name felt disgusting in my mouth.
“Did I?” she asked.
“I demand we begin the trial at once,” Arturo said. “That is what you have agreed to.”
“I demand that you turn the Silent Girl and her sister over to the court at once,” Lucretia shot back, her sickly sweet voice dropping to a menacing growl.
“There is no one here by that name,” I said.
The Lawyer who had turned ashen looked up at me, impressed.
“Speth Jime,” Lucretia insisted with a disgusted sigh. “And her sister, Saretha. We demand the Jime sisters at once. They are our legal property.”
“We have no one here by those names, either,” I said. Saretha stared at me in shock. “We are the Jiménez sisters.”
Norflo wasn’t there to beam at me, but Arturo was. He was so proud, it rendered him momentarily speechless.
“Perjury is a serious offense,” Lucretia warned.
“Perjury only takes place in a courtroom,” the ashen Lawyer said, regaining a bit of his color.
“I’m sitting in a courtroom,” Lucretia hissed.
“But we are not,” I said. “You can’t prove you own us without proving we are who you claim we are. To do that, you will need to see us in the courtroom and, for avoidance of doubt—” I grinned a little at myself for throwing in some Legalese “—you will need to match our DNA.”
My words were met with silence, which I took as a very good thing. After a moment, a long platform extended from the tunnel onto the deck of the ship. It rose and fell with the slow swells. The cloud of drones inched away to clear more space.
“I will send a driver for you,” Lucretia said, returning to her falsely polite tones.
“No need,” Arturo said, snapping his fingers. Something roared below us, and a massive car appeared on the deck, skidding into place. “We have our own.”
Obsequious Applause: $62.98
The courthouse was as imposing inside as it was from the outside. My
stomach twisted with nerves. The massive stone bricks and pillars were not just a facade; they made up the interior of the main courtroom. The drone cloud snaked its way inside ahead of us, powering the WiFi and silencing the waiting crowd.
Only the Affluents had kept their Cuffs on, and they glared at Mrs. Croate, Saretha and me as we passed. Everyone else in the crowd must have removed theirs in the days following the WiFi’s fall. Sadly, they all still had implants in their eyes, ready to shock them if they spoke, shrugged or screamed. All of them were silent and rounded up into one corner of the room, probably to watch Lucretia make an example of me. My skin began to crawl.
A row of open Cuffs was lined up for us on a table at the front of the courtroom. We would all be required to wear them to give testimony. That was the Law. Once the trial began, they would go into Lie Detector™ mode and notify the court if we knowingly failed to answer truthfully. We would also be fined double the cost of our words.
Mrs. Croate began to massage her left forearm, where she’d worn a Cuff for years. You could see where her arm was smaller and misshapen—something Mrs. Harris claimed would never happen, though we’d all suspected it could. I scanned the room for Mrs. Harris, but didn’t see her. I wondered which side she would choose now.
We could, and would, refuse corneal implants. The very thought of them made me nauseated. The originals were still in my eyes but dead. We would have no ocular shocks to worry about, at least, but that didn’t help the majority of the crowd. The silence of so many people was unnerving in contrast to what I had seen and heard in Téjico, or even to the spray and churn of the sea. My heart longed for music and the ocean. What it got was the thin sound of a thousand drones and shuffling people making the maximum amount of noise legally allowed.
News dropters pushed through the cloud of drones, leaving eddies behind as their lenses found Saretha. She walked up the center aisle with hard, proud steps and me at her side. Her limp was almost gone.
I felt surrounded and unsafe. There were Modifieds everywhere. I had a dozen Lawyers with me, but I knew what little difference they would make in a fight.
Silas Rog entered right after us. The last time I’d seen him, he had been hauled away by the police. It was no surprise he was free now, though I didn’t know the circumstances of his release. Either he’d been bailed out or, more likely, the charges against him dropped—or removed.
I saw no police now, which I took as a bad sign. They didn’t want the Law here. I also remembered Rog had tried to murder me and failed, but only because without the WiFi, his gun wouldn’t fire. There was WiFi now. I wouldn’t be so lucky this time if he tried again.
Silas Rog moved heavily to his seat, radiating anger. Just behind him was Lucretia, though I didn’t recognize her at first. Her face was not what I had seen in DC; she could no longer make me see her illusions. Her real face suited her much better. It was made of cruel angles, beady eyes and a thin, miserable mouth. She wore an elegant yet intimidating legal gown that appeared custom-printed, probably just for this trial, and likely more flattering to everyone who still had working ocular overlays.
Grippe and Finster flanked her, and Andromeda trailed behind. Victoria was nowhere to be seen. I would have expected her to bring Victoria, so her daughter would finally get to see me speak.
I looked around to see who else was here.
I recognized Bhardina Frezt and Itzel Gonz. Mandett was beside her, looking stone-faced. Nearby, I was devastated to see Sam’s friend Nep. He’d grown since I’d last seen him, but he was still a child, his round face nervous and terrified. There were scores of others from the Onzième—I almost couldn’t look. Even if we won this case, it would do nothing for them. Sera and Saretha and Mrs. Croate could go home. Those who’d made it to Téjico would be safe. But I realized I wasn’t the only one who would suffer during the aftermath. The fate of everyone they’d corralled into the side gallery would be terrible. I was sure the Rogs had gathered them there to intimidate me.
Saretha’s face was too calm for her to have pieced this together. I’d come to it too slowly myself. I needed Kel to contact me, but we were already here, and so far, I’d heard nothing. I worried that the communications officer hadn’t been able to keep her access to me open—or, worse, was blocking her.
We had a team of Lawyers three deep, tapping away at screens and trying to compile more evidence even now. They had DNA Samplers at the ready. A quick test of Sera posing as Carol Amanda Harving would link her to her mother. Some of the Lawyers thought that could be grounds to demand an early judgment, and they had the fees ready to make the request. Mrs. Croate sat quietly by, scarcely daring to move, her eyes on the Cuff meant for her arm.
“Even their Commander-in-Chief Justice has to accept DNA evidence, doesn’t he?” Arturo whispered, leaning over to me and gripping my hand. I shrugged.
“What do you think will become of them?” I asked, gesturing to where Bhardina, Itzel, Nep and Mandett stood in the crowd. He didn’t have time to answer. The silence of the court was rippled suddenly by music. It was loud and bombastic—an announcement by horns. They lacked the crisp sound of real horns, and the joy of the players I’d heard in Téjico. They were used instead to intimidate and bash us with harsh sound as the Commander-in-Chief Justice arrived. He walked slowly out of the shadows from a door beyond the Judge’s bench, pushing through a line of nine monstrously proportioned men who looked just like Uthondo and Bertrand.
“All rise!” a court official barked. The Judge mounted the stair, his expression blank behind his glowing judicial visor. He took his place and looked up, expressionless.
“The honorable Commander-in-Chief Justice of our United States Supreme Court®,” the court official called out, his voice echoing through the stone chamber.
For most in the room, and for anyone watching on screens, the Judge’s face, like Silas Rog’s, would be blurred away, but I could see him. I knew who he was. He was elderly, but I couldn’t tell just how old. The very wealthy had ways to extend their lives. His white hair was trimmed to perfection, just like Silas Rog’s. Unlike Silas, his demeanor was calm and precise. Once he sat, he didn’t move. The nine brothers lined up behind, towering over him.
I’d never seen a Judge in person before, but in movies and on shows, they were always neutral and impartial—heroically so, right down to their emotionless expressions. Without being able to see the Commander-in-Chief Justice’s eyes, it was hard to know what he might be thinking or feeling. His mouth and face looked characteristically detached, but also pitiless and unyielding.
The nine brothers stared ahead with watery eyes. On the end, I was certain, was Uthondo, who stared at me with an expression I could not unravel, because his face had been bred to menace and scowl.
Saretha’s posture changed. Her eyes scanned the room, like she was looking for ways to escape.
“You okay?” I whispered.
“Mmm,” Mrs. Croate answered instead.
“Before these proceedings begin,” the Commander-in-Chief Justice announced, “I must say a few words.”
His voice, amplified by some unseen microphone, echoed through the room. I steeled myself. We knew they would never let the trial proceed without trickery. I waited for an update from Kel, but heard no sound from the implants beneath my ear.
“While I am within my legal right to recuse myself from this judgment, I have decided not to avail myself of that right. As the Commander-in-Chief Justice of the Supreme Court®, I have the latitude to preside over any case with objectivity and impartiality. Regardless of the facts of this case, I will discharge my duties impartially and without bias.”
I assumed everything he said meant the opposite, and would be bad for us in the end. But even with that terrible knowledge, I could feel something worse was coming. My heart thudded against my ribs, waiting for it.
“For avoidance of doubt, and in compliance with Internationa
l Code Section 5B, I hereby disclose that my legal name is Silas Weston Rog, father to Silas Charles Rog and Lucretia Hale Rog.”
His impartial, neutral expression twitched to a half smirk as he banged his gavel and told the court to come to order. He was met with stunned silence from all sides until, after a moment of confusion, the Affluents began their applause.
$1.99 per second.
The Persistence of Moonlight: $63.97
“And now,” the Commander-in-Chief Justice said in a booming voice, “a word from our sponsors.”
A large screen over the elder Rog’s head popped to life. Moon Mints™ appeared, sparkling in a cascade over a full, golden moon.
The line of news dropters reconfigured their swarm to ensure everyone had a good view. Nothing in America® was so important that it couldn’t be interrupted by Advertising.
I’d seen the real moon now. The one on-screen paled in comparison. Whatever the moon was, they didn’t own it. They could force people to live in the shade of domes, but they could not stop the moon from casting its light.
I was acutely aware of who wasn’t in the room with us. Sam, Henri and Sera. There was a hole in my heart that I realized was never going to be filled. But for Sera, at least, there was still hope. Beside me, Mrs. Croate watched the Ad as the Keene name on-screen faded to black.
“You will call the first witness,” Justice Rog said to the Lawyers.
A bailiff picked up a Cuff from the table and held it out, waiting.
I felt at my neck. Still not a sound. I told myself it was possible Kel was still breaking into Delphi™. She needed time. I was the distraction. That was my job.
“Will there be no opening statement?” I asked.
“You will call the first witness,” the Commander-in-Chief Justice Rog repeated.
Access Restricted Page 36
