DOLLS: $4.99
I had the chance to bring my parents back, and I ruined it. Why? So what if Silas Rog was involved? So what if Beecher’s grandmother would be jailed or indentured, or whatever it was they were planning to do? I didn’t know Mrs. Stokes. Did she even understand what I had done, or how much it had cost me?
The door slid open behind me.
“I’m glad,” Sam yelled, stomping in. He didn’t seem glad. “I hope Silas Rog’s brain explodes. I hope the whole city crumbles to bits because one girl didn’t read her stupid speech! I hope everything falls apart.”
He was pacing, talking fast, because he could afford to say whatever he liked. He didn’t have to think about his words. He could let them fly. He stopped to hug me and then went on.
“Your friends are a bunch of turd muffins, by the way.”
I wanted to say, not all of them, but he knew.
An incoming request showed up on our screen from Dayline Exclusives™. Sam flicked at the screen to refuse the call.
“How is this even a big deal? No one ever did this before? Really? Like tons of people don’t read their stupid speech and then stop talking? The Juarze brothers probably say ten words each a year!”
This was an exaggeration, but only a mild one. I hugged him back in my mind.
Our door slid open again. Saretha came through, followed quickly by the Lawyer in the chartreuse suit.
“Speth,” Saretha said, breathless. “Not too late.”
“Who is that?” Sam asked, pointing at the Lawyer.
The Lawyer waved and bent his head, hands on his knees, as he caught his breath. “Arkansas Holt,” he panted. “Attorney at Law.”
An Ad for a competing Lawyer, Dirk Fronfeld, clicked on our screen, promising better returns. A call came in from his Law Firm. Sam canceled it.
Saretha’s brows pinched upward as she looked at me for some sign I hadn’t lost all my marbles.
Arkansas Holt moved to my side of the room, still breathing hard. Arkansas was the name of a state, I think. He had only a single medal on his chest, proudly proclaiming he had won at least one case, but sadly implying it was his only win.
Sam’s head suddenly snapped toward our room’s only window. “Son of a—” He stormed over. Our window was a milky, flickering mess that was supposed to be something we could adjust, clear to opaque, at our convenience. Instead it was stuck in an ugly, jittery state in between the two. Outside the window, a pair of dropters bobbed up and down, calculating how best to film me.
“Vultures,” Sam grumbled. He pulled open his pullout couch (Saretha and I shared the other) and yanked a blanket off to block their view. We didn’t have curtains. The Patent for the concept of curtains required a $90 monthly payment and we had never thought it was worth it. It usually didn’t matter on the twelfth floor. Now it meant Sam had to hold the fabric up; clipping fabric over a window was Intellectual Property we had no right to use.
“I can help with this!” Attorney Holt raised a finger in the air like he had practiced being dramatic, but hadn’t entirely mastered it. “I can make them vanish.”
He sounded like a cut-rate magician, or an Ad for cleanser, not a Lawyer.
“He can help us,” Saretha said weakly. She held herself tight and rubbed her shoulders like she was cold.
Holt cleared his throat and stood up a little taller, bolstered by Saretha’s apparent confidence in him.
“If you would like to be rid of the media, I can place an injunction against reproduction of your likeness,” he said. “It won’t prevent them broadcasting anything newsworthy such as this morning’s unfortunate events, but it will prohibit them from following you around and hoping for more.”
“Yeah? And how does this help you?” Sam asked Arkansas Holt.
Holt paused. “Pursuant to legal action, I would require a vested interest—control over commercial rights to your sister’s likeness.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “For what?”
Holt began itching at his nose. “I would profit from anything like posters or dolls or such if it were to ever come to that.”
Our buzzer rang. A small inset window on the wall-screen showed the feed from our door. Mrs. Harris was standing outside, fishing through her purse.
I didn’t need this. I needed time to think. There was too much noise and chatter. Too much was happening at once.
“Dolls?” Sam squinted at Holt, disbelieving.
Holt shrugged. “Theoretically, I would be able to sell virtual approximations. She isn’t old enough for anything more revealing than a bikini.”
We knew, from time to time, that Advertisers sold scan data so boys like Phlip and Vitgo could buy a peek at the system’s best approximation of what some girl looked like naked. It had happened to Saretha half a dozen times. I thought it was gross, but Mrs. Harris said she should be flattered. Saretha forced herself not to mind, because she was legally entitled to 10 percent of the profits.
Arkansas went on, “You can’t possibly have a reasonable expectation of privacy at your income level. Anyway, this isn’t likely to be a lucrative trade.” Holt gestured a hand to my apparently uninteresting body. My face went warm and pink.
Outside, Mrs. Harris found what she was looking for and ran her keycard across the door lock. The door opened, and she swept in.
“What in the world were you thinking?” she screeched. Then she caught sight of Holt, drew herself up to impress him, saw his lonely medal and drew herself right down again.
“Speth,” she said, making my name sound like she’d spit it up.
I drew my knees to my mouth. I wanted to put my hands to my ears, but that gesture cost $7.99 per minute.
“Tell them what you told me,” Saretha begged Holt. Mrs. Harris folded her arms. Holt stood tall again and fixed his eyes on me.
“Whereas the terms of your contract with Keene Inc. stipulate you will read what was agreed upon before any other paid speech, and whereas that agreement does not specify a time, date or location, you have not yet broken the terms of said agreement, as you have not yet spoken, and are therefore presently indemnified against suit for breach of said contract, including, but not limited to, trailing and ancillary suits derived thereof.”
Even when it was spoken in my defense, Legalese seemed to cut at me. I tried to focus on what he was saying and not the sound, but it was right up there with face-slapping as a means of communication.
“She’s not in trouble?” Sam asked, stretching his arms high to cover the full window.
“She is in a great deal of trouble,” Mrs. Harris assured him.
“Perhaps,” Holt said, “but that depends on her intention. If her silence were a demonstrable act of protest or antagonism, that could be problematic. But since she has not spoken, how can we know?”
I looked up from my knees.
Mrs. Harris bit her lip.
“All you have to do is read the speech,” Saretha said. She quickly thumbed through her Cuff until she was able to pull up a copy. She flicked it so it would show up on my Cuff. “You can read it and then explain you were traumatized by what happened to Beecher.”
By what happened to him? Beecher killed himself; it didn’t happen to him. I couldn’t let myself think about it. I was confused. I was sad. I was angry. Did that mean I was traumatized?
“She made the sign of the zippered lips,” Mrs. Harris said. “Twice. That is not something a traumatized person does.”
Holt narrowed his eyes at her. “You must beg my forgiveness. I was unaware you are a psychologist qualified to diagnose trauma.”
Mrs. Harris backed away a little.
“Mrs. Hairball falls silent,” Sam said, like he was narrating a Baseball™ game.
Mrs. Harris calmly began tapping out a Lawsuit for being called a hairball. Sam threw down the blanket and grabbed her wrist. “You want to sue us? How about we sue you? Weren’t you in charge of her transition?” He turned to Holt. “Can we sue her?”
Holt made a face that said, maybe?
“Sam,” Saretha said, as if suing Mrs. Harris was a ridiculous thing to suggest. I didn’t think it was ridiculous. I was tired of her. I would have loved to see her sued by us instead of the other way around.
Sam let her go. Mrs. Harris backed up, scowling.
Outside, seven or eight dropters drew in close to the window. Holt moved to that side of the room and turned his back to them.
“Whatever happens,” Holt said, “and I cannot stress this enough.” He waved a hand at me to make sure I was listening and dropped his voice low. “If you choose to speak, or when you are able to speak, now, later or ten years from today, the first words out of your mouth must be these.” He pointed to my Cuff and the speech that sat there, glowing.
I don’t know why this made me cry again. I couldn’t even see the speech. I pushed his hand away. I could do that. I could push people out of my space without charge. I just couldn’t hold them.
Holt moved back, and out of the corner of his mouth, he whispered to Saretha.
“Now, how about my fee?”