MARGOT: $24.99
Margot brought me north, to a tall gray building in the Deuxième. It looked like stone, but was blandly warm to the touch, with none of the cool strength of stone. The plastic had been sanded smooth and stippled to fool the eyes.
Margot pushed open an unlocked window and jumped inside. I followed and found myself in a nicely furnished bedroom. Framed posters hung on the walls, depicting composers I could only identify from their giant Trademarked names. MOZART™, BACH™, LENNON™. Margot didn’t pause to check if the room was occupied or if anyone was nearby. She strode through and out the bedroom door. In the hall, she pulled off her gloves and put a thumb to a keypad. A hidden door slid open. There was a Squelch inside.
Was this her home? Down the hall, I saw two more doors and, in the opposite direction, a kitchen and a living room. If she lived here, she was well-off, and she did not live alone. A dense smell of perfume hung in the air.
Margot pulled me inside the Squelch and closed the door.
“Okay,” Margot said as she pulled off her mask. She sounded younger, and a little nervous. Her hair settled back into its two perfect points. Her one word hung in the air alone. For the first time, I saw her as a girl not much older than me. How long had she been a Placer?
The Squelch was small and round, with four moderately comfortable chairs arranged in a curve. There were six polished and stained panels of auburn-colored wood spread out across the room’s walls. A violin rested on a stand nearby, virtually camouflaged against the wood.
I thought Margot was going to speak and ask me about Carol Amanda Harving, but instead she lifted the violin and placed it under her chin. She closed her eyes. Without another word, she began to play. I stepped backward, pulled off my mask and took a seat.
Margot played softly at first, pulling the bow lightly back and forth as her fingers moved over the strings. My heart began to pound. I had never heard music played live on an instrument before. I heard Margot’s strings vibrate so clearly, I could almost feel them in my bones. It was beautiful, but I could not enjoy it.
What she was doing was highly illegal. She did not have the music rights cleared. We were in a Squelch, and not likely to be caught, but my response was an almost primal fear, like when I heard people speak in Legalese. Margot hummed quietly under the tune, which only made it worse. How could she be so casual?
The Musical Rights Association of America® did not stand for this sort of thing. I knew all too well how vicious and methodical they could be. They did not tolerate anyone enjoying music without paying. What if they discovered Margot’s transgression a generation or two from now? Had Margot even thought what playing this song might do to her great-great-grandchildren?
She must have trusted me, or at least trusted in my silence. Had she brought me here just to hear her play?
“It’s called Henri,” she said, drawing one last, perfect note. She opened her eyes and looked at the ground, her cheeks bright red.
Henri? Had she written this? For him?
The MRAA wouldn’t care. Any combination of notes she could ever dream up was already owned. The MRAA had a computer model that rendered, catalogued and Copyrighted every possible melody, harmony and whatever else there was to music. We were taught that in the second grade. It is why we were warned so sternly against singing. Unlike speech, music was never, ever free. If a baby sang, its parents were charged.
But maybe I worried for nothing. For all I knew, there had never been a violation by my great-great-aunt. Maybe a computer program generated violations the way the MRAA generated songs. If they wanted to claim a violation, would it be so difficult for them to just make one up? How would we ever know? I had no access to my family’s history. None of us did.
Margot gently set her bow and violin back on the stand.
“He hasn’t heard it,” she said, one hand still on the instrument. She waited for a response or a reaction from me, but I didn’t know what I should do. This was not what I’d expected. I was worried she was going to ask about Carol Amanda Harving.
After a moment, she sat beside me, dropping down into her seat with a sigh.
“You are a dud to be with,” she said, shaking her head. I should have been insulted, but she was right. I couldn’t give her more than a weak, apologetic smile in return.
“I do not know what to think of you.” Margot leaned on her hand. “I want to know your real reason for keeping quiet. I said to Henri that it would be funny if it is because you are extremely dumb.”
She waited for a reaction. I scrunched my eyes up. I raised my shoulders a centimeter and let them drop. A micro-shrug. She didn’t know what it meant. Neither, really, did I. I wasn’t sure how to feel about Margot.
“That was a joke,” she explained.
I knew. What I didn’t know was why she’d brought me here. Was she trying to figure me out?
“Henri was mad when I said you were dumb,” she said. “If that matters to you. He is too nice, and too easy to tease. But if I do not tease him, he will not pay any more attention to me than he does to his backpack.”
She leaned her head down, her hand a little out from her chin, fingers moving again. Realization dawned on me as I watched her fingers flutter across invisible violin strings. Did she hear silent music when she did that?
“Carol Amanda Harving,” she said, shaking her head like she was disappointed. “A movie star? Is it because you look a tiny bit like her?”
She squinted at me, like she was trying to see the resemblance. I suddenly felt insulted, but I could not explain that my reasons were more important than just wanting to pry into the life of some random starlet.
“She is not very good,” Margot added. I don’t know if she wanted me to feel better or worse. Her head cocked to one side. “I do not imagine you would want to explain?”
Even if I could, would she be an ally? Would Margot help me find her? She probably could, but what then? I felt a tension underneath Margot’s playful demeanor, as if I had done something against her.
“Why will you not talk in a Squelch?” Her brow was wrinkled. She gestured around the room to show me it was perfectly fine. She looked annoyed. I hoped she did not think it was personal.
“Kel said to leave you alone,” she went on glumly. “I think she likes that you will never talk. It makes all the right people angry.”
She made the sign of the zippered lips, more to herself than to me, then let her hands fall in her lap.
“It feels weird that you don’t ask anything. Don’t you feel trapped by not having any questions? It would make me very claustrophobic.”
That was an interesting way for her to put it, and not very different from the airless feeling I got when I thought of all the things I wished I could say.
“Do you know how I got to be a Placer?”
I didn’t, but I think I sat up straighter or something because Margot smiled, knowing she had my attention.
“Normally Placers recruit after careful observation. Kel does not cover the Onzième, but if you took gymnastics, someone from the Agency evaluated you before your fifteenth.”
She paused to let that sink in. The hairs on the back of my neck rose as I remembered the pale, blond man, and then I began to fume. I realized Margot was implying that I technically was not good enough to be a Placer.
I had the distinct impression she both admired and disliked me.
“Kel spotted me on a soccer field. I had been told I could have been in the Olympics™ if they had soccer for girls. They do not. I find the Olympics™ a joke anyway, since we no longer compete against other nations.”
I didn’t realize that we ever had. I was glad I didn’t have to admit it. My cheeks burned for a minute, and I had the ugly impression Margot could read my embarrassment. I wondered how much else she knew. She obviously had money and the better education that went with it.
“Kel found Henri doing Parkour in an alley in the Cinq. She says if she had not recruited him right then and there, he probably would have broken his own neck. He needed training. He moves like a dream now, though. Have you ever watched him?”
She fell silent. She wasn’t waiting for an answer; she was thinking, or maybe imagining Henri move. He was very skilled. Her posture changed. She looked smaller and younger.
“Do you like him?” she asked in a whisper.
I would have said no, even though I had not had time to weigh how I felt. This was what she really wanted to ask. Nothing else mattered to her. The trouble was that I could not give her an answer. A micro-shrug or a smile wouldn’t cut it. She looked me in the eye, frowning. She couldn’t discern anything one way or the other, and it frustrated her. It frustrated me.
She looked at me for far too long for it to be anything but awkward, and I didn’t know what to do. Without her chatter or her music, the Squelch seemed achingly quiet. Her violin ticked, settling on its perch. A string sounded an almost imperceptible note. Margot tensed, then slapped her hands at her thighs and stood.
“Well...” Her voice trailed away, and her cheeks burned red again. Was she angry or embarrassed? Mine felt warm, too. I felt them with the back of my hand. She opened the door and led out into the hall and back to her bedroom. Our conversation was over.
Did she still have both parents? She didn’t seem like an Affluent, but her home was extravagant compared to mine. It had a Squelch. Those framed composer posters were paper, which meant she paid for their registration and the monthly fees that went with them. Was she a Placer just for the fun of it?
“You know how to get home?” she whispered. Her Cuff vibrated and charged her. It shook me to see her speak so blithely. She could afford to talk. Resentment coiled in my belly.
She held the window open for me. I put my mask and gloves back on with care, then climbed outside. Margot shut the window and sat down on her bed, staring off into space. I shot a line out and zipped away. She would probably sleep until noon. I wished I could have done the same, but I didn’t have that luxury. I still had to go to school, and I scarcely had time to change.