SQUELCH: $16.99
Penepoli Graethe once took Nancee and me aside at school, to a secret spot where the wall juts out and no Ads or camera could see. We were nine years old and giddy at the idea of doing something we shouldn’t. Penepoli showed us a handful of paper bits—words carefully cut, she said, from a book. She said they belonged to a cousin who had a boxful hidden away. She wanted us to be impressed. We were only nine years old, and could talk freely then. But even so, we anxiously read the little slips of paper, both delighted and terrified.
Woeful, his palms, each, warm summer, flick, Argentine, smelly.
We were risking a lot for a handful of words that didn’t add up to anything. After the briefest thrill, Nancee told her to get rid of them, quick.
“What if they find out?” she hissed in a panic. “If they don’t find out now, they’ll find out when you have kids, Penepoli, or grandkids, and then they’ll have to pay!” The Historical Reparations Agency had cut a swath through our class, and a lot of parents were gone.
Penepoli’s joy fizzled away. I tried to think of where she could get rid of them. She plucked the two I was holding back and clutched them all in her hand. Before we could figure out what to do, Sera Croate appeared, like she had been looking for us.
She slapped Penepoli’s hand and sent the lot flying. They were lifted up and carried away like confetti into the Quatrième. A sickening longing wormed its way through my chest as they fluttered away.
Sera tried to report Penepoli, but the evidence had flown away. When Principal Ugarte demanded to know what happened, Nancee, Penepoli and I all said the paper was Sera’s. A week later, Sera Croate’s parents were gone.
A terrible, guilty quiet fell between us for weeks. The three of us were stunned and horrified by what had happened. The few times we spoke, we tried to convince ourselves that the events were unrelated. I succeeded, I think, in making them think it wasn’t our fault, but I was less sure. I had to remind myself that Sera hadn’t thought twice about squealing on Penepoli.
We should have known Sera would show up. Our secret spot wasn’t very secret at all.
* * *
The bookcase the Placer opened concealed a perfect hiding spot. Who even knew it was there? The four of us squeezed inside, with just enough space to not be in each other’s faces. A round circle of deep red carpet gave us each a place to sit.
I had the distinct impression this was not the first time the Placers had been here. The bookcase closed behind us. I heard nothing. I felt like I’d gone deaf.
The big Placer with the cylinder swiped at its controls, and the sound was released. The leader turned to me and asked, “What is your plan?”
Her question startled me. I had no plan. The media treated me, and the rest of the Silents, like some great gang conspiring to bring down the economy, but how could we plot anything? We couldn’t communicate with each other. I had no idea what Nancee thought she was doing, or even where she was.
Did she want to be free to say whatever she wanted, like I did? I wanted things to change; I wanted, maybe, to be left alone, but my desires were hardly a plan.
“How did you get the others to do it?” the little one asked.
Maybe this had been a mistake. If they knew who I was, why were they asking me questions? They had to know I wasn’t going to talk. I suddenly felt afraid. I was standing in a secret room with three people dressed head to foot in black, their faces covered by masks. They could have been anyone. They could have done anything, and no one would ever know. No one knew where I was.
What did they want from me?
The big one asked, “Do you know where you are?”
I thought about this and, somehow, feeling a little on the spot, it made me think about the dome and its place in the world. I wasn’t sure exactly where we were. I knew we were part of the States, but my history classes were vague about what, exactly, the states were and how they connected. We were in the Northeast, near or against an ocean, but I’d never seen a map, so I couldn’t tell you where we were in relation to other domes, like DC or the Great Dome over Athens, Florida.
The big Placer didn’t mean any of this, of course. I didn’t know what building we were in, either.
“If she does not know, then she will not answer, Henri,” the small one said with a note of exasperation. I startled, even though it wasn’t exactly unexpected that she should speak.
“It’s called a Squelch,” the big one, Henri, explained, gesturing widely to the small room around us.
“Nothing you say will be recorded,” the leader said, with a sidewise glance at the little one. “We’re sealed off from the WiFi. The tether is cut. Your words are free and unmonitored.”
My panic turned to disbelief. I breathed out hard as my brain tried to find purchase on this idea. I should have realized that places like this existed. The whole system of fees relied on us always being connected. Of course people would build spaces to block the tether, and, of course, the people who needed it least were the ones who could benefit from this trick.
“Do you understand?” the big one, Henri, asked me.
I understood. They wanted me to speak. I could speak, if I wanted to. I felt giddy and nervous all at once. It was drilled into us from the time we were very small that an always-on connection is critical to the fabric of society. FiDos were one thing, but this was something else. It was a willful skirting of the Law, one I would have wholeheartedly endorsed if it occurred in my neighborhood rather than here.
“If she understands, that does not mean she will speak,” the small one said. Her voice was soft and tired. She dropped down along the wall, sitting on the floor.
“Oh,” Henri said, looking a little confused. He offered me his hand awkwardly. I didn’t take it. Handshakes are Copyrighted. Was I going to speak here? Could I trust them? My lips mashed together as I tried to decide if words would betray everything I had done.
“We don’t even know if she is able to speak,” the small one pointed out.
“It is completely safe,” the leader explained.
Was it? I had a soft spot in my heart for Product Placers. I was amazed they had taken me in and brought me here, but I was not prepared to blindly trust them.
WiFi or no, I wasn’t going to take any chances. I kept looking at my Cuff, worried it would somehow report this back. Even if it didn’t, even if I got away with speaking, it felt wrong that I should do it here, with strangers.
Henri pulled off his mask.
“Henri!” the leader cried out.
Henri looked younger than I expected. He was maybe seventeen, but had wide, deep creases around his mouth. He pulled a big smile—too big, almost. His light brown hair stuck out at odd angles, full of static from the mask. He tried to smooth it out without success.
“What,” the leader asked, “is the singular, most important thing about our job?” Her voice was low, musical and flute-like, but the tone was not friendly anymore. Her Pad seemed to purr in her hands. I’d never seen a device like it. It still worked with the WiFi blocked. I didn’t see how this was possible. I thought all software required a constant connection to verify it wasn’t pirated or hacked.
“Free swag,” the girl who’d given me the bandage on the roof giggled.
“This isn’t funny.” The leader held up a finger. The girl lowered her head.
“Never be seen,” Henri muttered with a small, apologetic shrug.
The leader looked around the room in frustration. She was expecting better. “So you take off your mask?”
“I was hot,” Henri said.
“Henri runs warm,” the little one said.
He didn’t take that mask off because he was hot. He wanted me to see his face. I was flattered, but could not understand why he’d done it.
“She isn’t going to say anything,” Henri assured the leader. “She isn’t even talking now.”
He was right; I was choosing not to speak, even here.
“You don’t trust us?” the little one asked, pretending her feelings were hurt.
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust them. I wanted to talk. I wanted to ask a million questions. A world of possibilities opened before me. I could explain my situation. I could ask them for help. I could beg them to let Saretha join them—the only job in the world where she could wear a mask and be outside the house. But something stopped me.
For all the harm it had done, and the trouble it had brought into my life, my silence meant something. It was a protest. I owned it. I couldn’t cave just because I had a chance for free speaks. The funny thing was, this was what I most wanted to say and, if I said it, the words would mean nothing.
The leader eyed me. “I like her prudence,” she said. I saw admiration in her eyes. I felt hopeful something good might come of this—a feeling I hardly recognized. Could I show them the way to Saretha?
“But this was a bad idea,” the leader went on, shaking her head and looking at the ground.
“You let me go down to rescue her,” Henri said.
“I did not sanction any such thing.”
“Henri the heroic,” the little one chimed.
“And you let her follow us,” Henri continued.
“I let my curiosity get the better of me,” the leader said, sighing. “But wanting to know her plan is one thing. Showing your face to her is something else.”
“What difference does it make? She isn’t going to tell. If no one knows she’s seen us, it’s like she hasn’t seen us at all.”
“Henri the philosopher,” the little one commented. She turned to me, zipped her lips and raised her eyebrows as if to say, That’s your thing, right? It wasn’t the same as when the others had done it. I couldn’t tell if she was impressed or mocking me. It felt weirdly like both.
The leader rubbed her hand over the top of her masked head, and suddenly, her body posture fell. “What’s your plan, Henri?”
“I had two ideas, actually,” Henri said, rubbing his hands together.
“I’d love to hear even one,” the leader said.
“First, I thought if we brought her here we could...explain things.”
“Oh, Henri!” the smaller girl squealed. “You are so wise, explain things to me!” She jumped up and down, clutching her hands to her chest.
“Margot, stop,” Henri said.
“I will stop,” Margot answered obediently.
“But no, I meant, for example, she might like to know that if she doesn’t speak, she isn’t tracked. Legally, they can only check your location when you initiate conversation.”
“Initiate,” Margot said. “That is a very good word, Henri.”
Henri took a second to glare at her.
“You might think it’s good, but it could be dangerous. Like if you needed to call for help.”
My body shivered. I had just learned this the hard way.
“Henri, that’s not very exciting. Obviously she knows this,” Margot said, dropping her head and slumping her shoulders. “I’m no longer in love.”
The leader covered her mouth to conceal a grin. “That isn’t entirely true,” she said. “They can track a Cuff at any time. They just can’t do it legally unless there is a transaction. The only way to go completely off-line is to enter a Squelch or to remove your Cuff.”
Margot hesitantly pulled off her mask as well, as if she were defeated. She had her round little face in a frown. She was freckled and pale, with a face that seemed Asian and African and French, all at once, like her background was a mixture of everything. Her black, silky hair, styled into a bob, swept forward into two points. It was clearly an expensive haircut. She didn’t look much older than me. I’d had no idea Placers were so young.
I turned to Henri, waiting for more, hoping he had some plan that might, somehow, save our family from Collection.
He pulled out the small, metallic-blue key he’d used to remove my attacker’s Cuff. “Do you want your Cuff off?”
I backed away from him instinctively. I hated that Cuff, but I was not ready to have it taken off my arm.
“It’s not like you’d get shocked for talking,” Henri said.
This was something I had not considered. I didn’t need the Cuff at all.
“Put it away,” the leader insisted.
“We could tell her about the FiDos,” Henri said, placing the little teardrop-shaped device back in a special pocket in his pack.
“I’m sure she knows about FiDos,” replied the leader.
I did, of course. This wasn’t what I needed. I racked my brain for a way to get them to take Saretha. I could lead them to her, but I couldn’t think how and, even if I did, how would they understand what I wanted? A Placer’s salary would surely pay Saretha better than the horrible Mrs. Nince.
Henri explained further. “Kel used to cause them,” he said in a low whisper, pointing to the leader.
“FiDo Queen,” Margot whispered with reverence.
Kel, the leader, rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you also give her our bank information and social security codes?”
“She used to take out WiFi nodes between placements,” Henri went on, undeterred.
“I took out nothing,” Kel countered. “I turned a blind eye, on occasion, when a member of my crew carelessly banged into one. But that was my old crew.”
“That would have been such fun,” Margot said wistfully. “But Silas Rog locked it all away long before Henri or I were recruited.”
“Rog,” the leader grumbled, shaking her head. “Okay, Henri, besides regaling our guest with the dazzling breadth of your knowledge, what was your other idea?”
“I thought,” Henri said, hesitating, “she might join us.”
The leader fixed him with a serious gaze. My heart skipped a beat. That wasn’t exactly the idea, but maybe it was better. Could I really become a Placer? The thought of it was so exciting, I could hardly understand it.
“I think she is interested,” Margot said, pointing at me beaming. I covered my grin with my hand. It felt too much like talking, like I was begging them to take me.
“Kel, you said—” Henri stopped himself. He moved closer to Kel and whispered in her ear.
Margot grabbed my arm and pulled me down to sit beside her. She said, “He will probably ask you to marry him.”
“Henri, first of all, she isn’t trained...” Kel responded to Henri’s whispers.
“She’s quiet.”
“Yes, but that isn’t the only qualification.”
“She kept up with us really well.”
“Reasonably well,” the leader huffed. “But even if she can be silent and run, she doesn’t know how to rappel, to climb, how to cut a window, disable a magnetic lock, pilf a car, read a map—”
“I didn’t know those things, either,” Henri said, “and I learned.”
Margot grinned. “If Henri can learn them...” Margot sang in a whisper.
The leader shook her head. I looked up at her from the floor. My whole fate seemed to hang in the balance.
“And you already said you liked her,” Henri said to the leader. “When she was all over the news.”
Margot waggled her brows at me again and elbowed me like a friend.
“And we need a fourth,” Henri said.
Kel looked exasperated. She pulled off her own mask. Her face was long and narrow. She had the darkest skin I’d ever seen. She might have been thirty or forty, or older if she’d had her telomeres extended to keep her young.
“I’ve been looking,” she said, her tone implying she had not met with success.
She ran a hand through her tight, black, curly hair and shook off her more cautious self. She looked at me with big, dark eyes and said, “It’s up to you.”
My heart felt ready to explode. Up to me? How? I sat beside Margot in silence for a moment, confounded.
Kel tapped something on her Pad.
“Normally you would agree to ToS, but you can’t do that,” she said, finally settling on an idea. “So, if you want to join us—if you want to become a Placer, I want you to stand up, right now,” Kel said.
I waited for more, but that was it. The action of standing, technically, would be my yes. I didn’t know if the Cuff would record it. I didn’t have time to think. I worried in the back of my mind that Saretha’s heart would break if she found out I had the one job that would be perfect for her, but I couldn’t worry about that. This was for her, and for Sam, as much as it was for me.
“If you are worried standing will be a tacit yes, keep in mind that I’ll consider sitting an equally communicative no,” Kel offered, making my decision only about the choice itself.
With a swift, fluid push off the ground, I stood, shoulders back, my spine arched like after a landing in gymnastics. I wanted Kel to know my answer was more than yes.