SEASONS: $37.99
Outside the dome, they say there are seasons. We never see them from inside. Some parts of the year, the dome is gray more often, and every once in a while, the dome goes dark with snow. Until I became a Placer, I never knew you could feel the cold of it through the metal bracing between the honeycombs.
Henri demonstrated when we were out on a high-profile Placement near the center of the city. Hanging from a clip like an acrobat, Henri ungloved his hand and pressed it to the metal. When he took his hand away, a perfect handprint remained, melted in the thin frost. I followed his lead, pressing my palm to the cold.
The handprints only lasted a few seconds before the frost replaced them. Margot hurried over and put one of her hands in the spot where Henri’s had been. She could not keep from giggling. Kel allowed us a few minutes of this diversion, then waved and herded us away.
Watching Henri’s backpack made me feel like a traitor. Letting Saretha languish at home made me feel like a traitor. Every day that passed pulled at me in a hundred directions.
I looked out across the city from the top of the dome. Nancee was here somewhere, lost to servitude. Mrs. Stokes was gone, lost to hard labor. I feared the work would kill her. I longed to help them, but how could I? Even if I could find them, how could I help them? I had to focus on the one small piece of knowledge I had that might be of use.
I laughed bitterly to myself, thinking about how the information I had was almost like owning a word. It had value. I wished I could see Silas Rog’s face when he realized he would lose his first case. Could Arkansas Holt handle taking him down? I knew he could use the medal, but we hadn’t heard from him in some time, which was actually kind of him. He was trying not to deplete our resources if he didn’t have anything positive to pass on.
Butchers & Rog’s building was so close when we arrived at our destination that I could just make out our shapes on the rooftop, reflected in the fat pillar of Rog’s mirrored glass. We had been given strict instructions to work on the side facing away from Rog’s building. We were not allowed to blemish his view.
Tico™ Entertainment wanted to promote their new series Simple Ones, about a group of bumbling debtors who worked for a warmhearted, wealthy and handsome genius. The well-meaning simpletons constantly bungled his plans and lapsed further into debt. It was an exclusive show that used an advanced version of Ad technology to replace one of the actors with a computerized version of the viewer. It would only screen to Affluents, putting them in the role of warmhearted genius.
Our job was to unfurl Ad sheets over selected windows, which would replace the view with a loop of the half-hour pilot. I wondered if the Affluents inside would ever question the scans, or feel odd about them. Probably not. The media campaign made it clear that only very special people would find themselves in the action. Kel said flattery like this was an intoxicant.
The Ad sheets were designed to adhere for no more than twenty-four hours, at which point they would peel away and fall gently to the street below. The problem was that when I pressed my first one in place, it immediately slipped away.
It wasn’t my fault. I did exactly what Kel described, thumbing the top corners in place and then running an electrostatic squeegee over the Ad. But it didn’t stick at all. The sheet curled up and tumbled away. In a blink, Kel dropped on her line until she was in freefall and caught the Ad with an irritated huffing sound.
Her eyes locked on me, flashing exasperation. She blamed me for letting it slip. She zipped back up, shoulders tight. She flattened the roll out in front of me sarcastically, doing all the same things I had done. It didn’t work for her either. She tried again. It failed.
She pulled another sheet out, while Henri and Margot tried the same, but the Ads simply would not stick. A tense silence followed. I’d never seen a Placement fail.
Kel snapped her line up the building, and we all knew to follow.
In a Squelch a few minutes later, the first word out of her mouth was a terse “Sorry.”
I didn’t often think about the money that was saved when Kel and the team talked while cut from the tether, but I knew sorry was always $10—and a legal admission of guilt. She didn’t say more. She didn’t need to. I felt like a weight had been lifted from me, despite the anger radiating from Kel. She turned her attention to the useless Ad sheets.
“Do you know why this happened?” she asked, shaking and crushing a sheet in her hands.
“Gravity?” Margot guessed.
I almost laughed, and Margot peeked at me, eyes twinkling.
“Because the Patent Lawyers keep suing each other so that nothing new can ever be designed.” She tossed the sheets across the room. “We’re stuck—forever trapped in exactly this.” She gestured to the room, but she meant the world that held us all back.
Henri kicked at one of the Ads at his feet in solidarity.
“I’ll have to file a report, and a defense, and they will sue me for defamation because they can’t make a product that sticks, and I’m the one pointing it out.”
She blew out a giant breath.
“You can all go home,” she said, bending down to gather up the sheets. We all joined her.
“Thank you,” she muttered. She took the ones from my hand. “Thank you,” she said more clearly. It felt like she meant more, but why?
We all left and spilled out onto the roof to go our separate ways. I wasn’t being escorted anymore. Henri went off ahead of me. I watched him go, his pack on his back, zipping away.
I racked my brain for other options—ones that didn’t require me to trick or steal from Henri. Was there any way I could get Saretha to take Carol Amanda Harving’s place without removing her Cuff? If there was, it eluded me.
I worried that if I waited too long, the apartment might change or my plan might crumble. Taking Henri’s device shouldn’t be that hard. There was a decent chance I could sneak it out of his bag and put it back before anyone realized, yet I kept putting it off. I was comfortable making Placements. I let myself fall into a rhythm. Kel had backed away and somehow moved on from forgiving me to taking me under her wing in a way she hadn’t before.
Then, one morning, after a long night of Placement, I found Saretha awake and suddenly, inexplicably, chipper. She greeted me with a hug, $2.99, as if everything was going to be okay again.
“Can I make you breakfast?” she asked, bright and cheerful. $9.87. She took up a wooden spoon in her hand. Then she laughed. Relief flooded over me. I thought, Maybe the worst of it is over.
“Dinner! I mean dinner for you,” Saretha when on. She bopped me lightly on the nose with the spoon as her Cuff rang up the charge. $32.98 for the various words. $11.99 for the cutesy bopping of my nose—a gesture Trademarked by Tiger Motion Pictures™. She was acting like she was in love. Had she met someone? But where? She couldn’t leave the apartment. How? Who was it?
Something more was at work than Saretha just learning to live with being locked inside. How could I ever expect her to be happy like that? Then a thought occurred to me—had the DESIST order been lifted? How else could I explain her behavior?
Was it possible I wouldn’t have to steal Henri’s little blue device after all? Saretha could go back to work, and I could keep being a Placer. The money would be pretty good.
But my delight quickly faltered. Something didn’t feel right. At first, I thought it was just me. If I was truthful, I still wanted her to take Carol Amanda Harving’s place. I wanted to put a dent in Silas Rog’s reputation. I wanted to do something to the system that felt like a boot on my throat. That thought may have held back my joy, but it was Sam’s face that demolished it.
Sam watched from the corner, his face full of concern, not relief, at Saretha’s vastly better mood. It seemed to ask, What the hell happened?
“It’s weird,” he whispered to me. “She won’t stop smiling.”
It was true. Her old smile was back, but just a little lopsided. It was like she had been drinking, but Saretha didn’t drink. It was too expensive, and whenever it had been offered to her, it was always by men trying to bribe her for favors. Plus, what did we have to drink? We couldn’t afford alcohol.
“I can hear you,” Saretha said, turning around with a broad, toothy smile and regarding us. “I can see you.” $23.92.
Something didn’t look right about my sister. Her hair looked clean, but also over-brushed and shaped into a tight curtain around her cheeks to make her now-chubby face look thinner. Her eyes tracked slowly and off-kilter, like she was seeing, but not exactly what was in front of her.
“Saretha?” Sam asked.
“Yes, Sam?” $33.99.
“Are you okay?”
“What could be wrong?” Saretha asked, as if she could now only see everything that was right with the world. “Be positive.” $18.98. She ruffled his hair.
Be positive. The phrase spun through my mind, and then I saw what Saretha had done. A medicinal disc was attached to the wrist end of her Cuff. In small, discreet letters was a company logo—Zockroft™.
Saretha met my gaze. She smiled beatifically and closed her eyes.
“Zockroft™,” she said, holding the Cuff out to me so I could see a tiny needle jab into her skin and vanish. She let out a quick, pleasured gasp. 99¢ for the gasp, plus $22.99 for the word. The injection of Zockroft™ was provided free each time she said it.
“Dropter delivered,” she said, spinning around, her head lolling.
She must have ordered it over the WiFi, from her Cuff or the wall-screen. It was sickening. I almost wished I hadn’t seen it.
Zockroft™ is powerful, terrible stuff. It is addictive and expensive. Maybe it did some people good, but not like this. Saretha hadn’t seen a doctor. She wasn’t allowed out of the house for that. She hadn’t been told what dosage to use; Zockroft™ had made that decision for her. There was no way to know how much that little needle in her arm was injecting.
I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to get Henri’s device and get that Cuff off her. It didn’t just chain her to the house and to her name—it was now poisoning her and charging her for the pleasure.