TWO SECONDS OF SCREAMING: $1.98
Once, I loved to talk. What did I say with all those words? It seems like nothing now. I honestly can’t remember much: a conversation with Nancee about how birds make it into the city, an argument with Sera Croate about my hair (she said I looked like a boy with it short, but the style was free), a discussion with Beecher about how I liked the feeling of certain words in my mouth.
Luscious, Effervescent, Surreptitious, Cruft. I wasn’t thinking about expressing myself. Beecher had warned me: “Expressive words cost more.” He’d said it as if I should already be careful. He looked down at his Cuff’s thin amber glow.
Beecher Stokes—sentence: Expressive words cost more: $31.96.
His face was all gloomy. He could have spent that money on kissing, or saying something nice. He could have told me how he felt—he could have asked me anything, or at least warned me about how it really felt to pay for every word. Maybe that’s what he was trying to do. That was our last conversation.
I raced to where he had jumped, then stopped myself short. I couldn’t look down. I shut my eyes tight. The leaden thump, screeching tires and clatter of twisted metal had spared me nothing. I reeled back and doubled over. What did he just do?
A shattering wail filled the air anyway—Beecher’s name as a question. My eyes stung with tears, burning the fresh overlays in my eyes. It took me a second to realize I wasn’t the one screaming. It was Saretha.
I let nothing escape, not a scream, not a gasp, not a breath of air. I had stopped breathing, like it wouldn’t be real until I drew breath.
The howling stopped. Saretha’s Cuff buzzed.
Her shriek was legally considered a primitive call for comfort, aid and/or sympathy. The charge was 99¢ per second. Mrs. Harris twisted a bony, aggrieved finger in her ear and shook her head. She picked up my left arm and looked at my Cuff in disgust, but then her sharp, disapproving face broke into a ghoulish smile.
“Speth,” she said, wide blue eyes piercing me, “there may be hope for you yet!”
There was no concern for Beecher in her. She exhibited no revulsion. She was simply pleased I had not made a sound.
I swallowed. I was breathing again. Long, panicked breaths passed in and out.
From below, an intense, white, molten light flickered. The NanoLion™ battery in Beecher’s Cuff had ruptured. And then I knew that he was truly gone.
Saretha looked at Mrs. Harris, wild-eyed. Mrs. Harris put on a look of concern and patted her shoulder three times, did the math on what it cost and calculated Saretha warranted two final pats. The government didn’t cover Mrs. Harris’s gestures. She had once quoted a statute to us about how gestures were an inexact means of communication.
“Personally, I find them coarse,” she had told us. “A poor use of funds.”
I could not look at the woman. I stared blankly up over the bridge’s rail, to the expanse where cars were slowing in the distance, backed up by the accident. Cars began to honk at the delay, a dollar per honk, even though the bright white glow of the ruptured battery told them there was nothing anyone could do.
They hated us, those wealthy people, driving the ring for pleasure. Beecher, whom I’d cared for—maybe not the way he’d wanted, and not as much as he’d cared for or needed me—he was dead, and all they felt was irritation at the inconvenience.
Around me, there were other noises. My party filled with gasps and cries, then trailed off into a timorous murmur.
Timorous, I wanted to say, but I did not speak it.
Cuffs buzzed like an insect swarm. Sam came running out of the crowd, his mouth open, his round, usually playful face squinting in confusion.
“Why?” he asked in a rasp, looking over the edge at a scene I could not bring myself to witness. How could I answer?
I pulled him back from the edge. I wanted to tell him what I knew, but it was too late. I looked at my Cuff. The clock had run out. I pinched my fingers closed and ran them across my mouth. The sign of the zippered lips was a rare gesture still in the public domain. It was meant to allow people without means a method to communicate their lowly state, so Affluents wouldn’t have to waste their time. I wasn’t really supposed to use it with people who weren’t wealthy.
Mrs. Harris winced. “This isn’t the proper circumstance.” Her tone was somewhere between compassionate and annoyed.
“What else is she supposed to do?” Sam asked, his face red with rising anger.
Mrs. Harris put a hand on Sam’s chest to settle him down. He batted it away.
“She is supposed to read her speech and have her party,” Mrs. Harris said, as if nothing else was possible.
“Mom doesn’t approve of that gesture,” Saretha said, a step behind, waving her hand vaguely in front of her lips.
Our mother felt like it was groveling. She used the word supplication, which cost $32 that day. Mom said the only reason the zippered lips gesture was free was so we could humiliate ourselves. I had never seen her do it, not even when we were broke, not even when she was supposed to. I suddenly felt like I had let her down.
I wanted to put a hand on Sam’s shoulder, but Mrs. Harris had warned me about comforting gestures. I bit the knuckle of my cuffed hand instead.
A low, strained chatter resounded from Falxo Park, first from the younger kids, then from everyone else, as they tried to work out who had jumped and why. I thought of Beecher, and I felt airless.
* * *
Mrs. Harris led me to the edge of the stage. Ads crawled blithely along the city wall behind, a blur to my wet eyes.
“The Placers did a fine job,” she said, gesturing to my product tables. Product Placers had slipped into the park and set up an array of snacks and product samples. I had truly been looking forward to seeing what they brought, but now I felt disgusted looking at it all.
Mrs. Harris took a Keene Squire-Lace™ Chip—an elegant, intricately printed, crisped potato disk with my name and the number 15 laser-etched into the center. The Placers had left bowlfuls of them.
Mrs. Harris popped the chip in her mouth. As she chewed, she pretended to be upset.
“No Huny®,” she commented, looking around with a wrinkled nose. Huny® was Saretha’s Brand. I didn’t expect they would be my Brand—usually it’s your sponsor—but it was a little unusual they hadn’t put out a few packets.
“Well,” Mrs. Harris said, “I guess you should go ahead and read your speech.” She wiped her hands clean of the chip’s Flavor Dust™.
My body shivered. I felt weak. Maybe she was right. I had my contract to think of. If I broke it, there was no telling what my sponsor might do. No one was paying attention. Maybe I could read it quick and get it over with.
Sirens wailed in the distance. A news dropter appeared out of nowhere and hovered over the highway, where Beecher and the mangled cars were splayed. Then another dropter appeared, then more. They jockeyed for position and, failing to find a good spot to film the body, they spread out to the crowd and then to me.
“She can’t make a statement,” Mrs. Harris said, shooing them away while smirking at the attention. She lifted my hand to show them. The beautiful paper of my speech was distressed—creased and wrinkled from the tension of my grip. Mrs. Harris clucked and moved my thumb. “Let them see the Keene logo,” she whispered, even though I wasn’t a Facer.
“You do know someone’s dead, right?” Sam muttered. Mrs. Harris’s face twisted into what she thought was an appropriate expression of concern.
Saretha gently pulled Sam back, and every lens turned to her.
On the highway, a dark line of cars threaded through the clot of traffic. The other vehicles parted to let the Lawyers through. They arced around us, taking the long curve up the exit to the green. News, police and cleanup crews trailed them, ready to deal with the wreckage Beecher had wrought.
A distinctive Ebony Meiboch™ Triumph snaked its way to the front. Everyone knew that car, and they all gave it a wide berth. The Law Firm of Butchers & Rog had arrived.