GEORGETOWN LAW®: $44.98
We walked in silence, a thousand questions pushing through the haze I was in. How had she found me? How did she know I had been arrested? Were her clothes a disguise, or was she actually a Lawyer? Where was she taking me now?
It was late. The dome was black above us, and the sidewalks were nearly deserted. We crossed onto Stewart’s Ring, a street on the south side known mostly for a clot of insurance agencies. I had been here before, though mostly on the rooftops. Kel entered a building through the front and I followed her to a bank of elevators, my mind and emotions reeling.
Did she know that Sam had been killed? Had she just pulled me out and rescued me so she could destroy me? I could not read her expression. I was terrified and grateful and sick to my stomach with grief.
She placed a thumb on the elevator controls and selected 22. We shot up to the building’s twenty-second floor. The elevator doors hissed open to a spacious apartment that was elegant, but austere. Kel led me toward a wall decorated with large panels displaying a glowing rotation of family images. There were two adults, with the same deep, dark skin as Kel, standing over three little girls. The oldest one had to be Kel at seven or eight years old. Her eyes were just the same. It was not a posed photograph, but rather looked like one that had been culled from an Ad screen in a park. Another picture showed Kel and her sister, laughing wildly. They were both dressed poorly in public domain clothes, walking along the street. This image, too, looked like it had been taken by an Ad screen in a part of the city I didn’t recognize—or perhaps even a different city.
A wave of resentful despair washed over me. I had heard that you could do this—go back and rescue images from your past held by data companies. I would never be able to afford to do this for Sam. Sam’s images and scans and data would slowly erode over time, until it was like he no longer existed. No company would see any value in him or his data. Worse, it was likely they would scrub him away intentionally, to hide the crime of the three brothers.
Kel put a hand on my shoulder, but I shrunk away from the gesture.
A picture faded in to show Kel dressed in a satin robe, accepting a paper scroll under a banner that read Georgetown Law®. She stood proudly beside her family, with one girl missing.
She touched the picture almost thoughtfully, like she wanted to connect. The panel pulled in and slid away. The Squelch behind it was unremarkable, except that it had shelves of books inside. I had never seen this before. People who owned books always wanted them displayed. Even Henri’s hung on a wall. Kel, on the other hand, hid hers. The more I knew about her, the less I understood.
She ushered me in quickly, and the door closed us inside. Her Lawyer’s outfit unsettled me. She unpinned her medals and stowed them in a pocket, and then she waited. I didn’t know if she was offering me a chance to speak, or hesitating because the words she wanted to say were difficult.
Sadness and regret washed over me again. I had betrayed her. I had betrayed Henri. I had broken Margot’s heart. Sam was dead. Saretha was with Silas Rog.
I had nothing left.
“I’m very sorry, Speth,” Kel said in the sparest whisper.
I wished she hadn’t said it. It meant she knew what had happened. Something erupted in me, and I wanted to slap her, but that made no sense. I balled my hands into fists to control myself. Why hadn’t she stopped it? Why hadn’t she helped? She had to know an end like this was coming. How had the world turned into the Copyrighted, litigious, lethal monstrosity that treated us this way? How had anyone let this happen?
A low sound, like a moan or an animal cry, filled the air, followed by a sob that wracked my body. I clamped my hands to my mouth, disgusted and horrified. The sound came from me. Me. My lungs gulped for air. Had I kept my silence at the expense of Sam’s life, only to disgorge this awful, meaningless note?
Kel wiped her eyes.
“Involuntary sound is not communication,” she said, and then, more forcefully, like an incantation, “and charges stemming forth constitute a breach of Law. Said sound does not obligate or bind to payment the party from which said sound emanated. This includes laughing, coughing, sneezing and other bodily sounds for which a reasonable expectation of control cannot be demonstrated.”
I could not remember anyone ever using Legalese to console me. I let go of my fury at Kel. Silas Rog deserved it more. Sam once said, after he turned fifteen, he would learn to communicate through farts. The memory of his irreverence soothed and unsettled me at the same time.
“All the good I thought I could do as a Lawyer...” Kel shook her head. “It came to nothing. I thought I could change things. I thought I could get in and get us back some rights—some freedom. For years, I sought proof that freedom of speech is a right, but I can’t find it. There are hints and clues, but none of it matters.” She gestured to the books around us. I realized they were all books of Law.
“I’m certain it used to be different. I’ve seen where the Law started out as protection for the people, and somewhere it was perverted, like there is a missing link where the Law changed. Copyright became perpetual. Trademark expanded beyond Brands. Patent turned into a game of war. I tried to discover how, but everything surrounding the change is suppressed, censored and classified into an opaque Legal fog. It’s possible the change is recorded in the book people whisper about—the book they say Rog possesses. But I never found any evidence of it.”
I closed my eyes for a moment and drew a breath. I tried to understand. Why was it always Rog? He wasn’t our city’s leader, though it seemed like he controlled everything. Wasn’t there a world outside, beyond him?
I yearned to ask Kel questions, but she had been clear; she respected my silence. I had to keep it, at the very least until I had some revenge. Was the book the revenge that I needed?
“I did everything legally and out in the open. It galled them. Suits mounted against my family and me, all of them spurious. I could not defend against the volume. They took one of my sisters well before I started, and the other to teach me to back away. I had been too obvious and too threatening. So I dropped out of sight. I became a Placer. I tried to make a difference there, too, knocking out the WiFi and giving people a chance to talk, but that backfired. Rog took control of every node and hid them underground.”
Rog, I thought. He was there again. They taught us in school about the two branches of government—the Legislative and the Judicial. We had a representative for our dome, and a Commander-in-Chief Justice who was in charge of the country, but Silas Rog didn’t seem to answer to either of them.
“The best I could do was set aside extras for Henri and Margot to pass along. I swore to do it all legally—no stealing, no breaking in. I—”
A knock came at the door. She put a finger to her lips to tell me to be quiet, but then remembered who she was talking to. My eyes felt raw and my head was spinning. My head and elbow still ached.
Kel opened the door. Henri and Margot stood waiting. Margot’s face was grim and anxious. Henri’s flushed with relief when he saw me. Kel pulled them in and sealed the door.