Trapped in the house, Saretha took to mining for gold and candy in one of these games. She made little hammering gestures in the air, and her avatar made the same tedious motion projected on the wall screen. If she didn’t get distracted, she could make about a three or four dollars an hour by selling what she gathered—but only if she could transport it safely to an in-game bank. Time and again, she was ambushed by players who paid for perks that made them nearly invincible. They thrilled in making players like Saretha miserable; they were unaware or unconcerned that the tiny sums of money they were stealing might ruin us.
“You’re just wasting time,” Sam told her, turning over in his bed. It was late. The dim glow of the twilight dome faded so it was lit pale by the city. Sam was tired. There was an ache in his voice.
Saretha tensed. Her half-open mouth closed into a tight, lipless frown. Some kind of half wolf/centaur smashed her character to the ground, and her gold and jellybeans scattered across the screen.
“Sam!” Saretha cried out, blaming him. Her Cuff buzzed. Sam shook his head. We both knew it cost Saretha more to say his name than she would have made from the loot. The half wolf/centaur turned and farted a noxious green cloud over her avatar’s body—a perk you could purchase in-game to taunt your enemies. It likely cost more than the loot as well.
“You should go to school,” Saretha said.
Sam looked puzzled. It was nearly eight o’clock at night. “Now?”
“In general,” Saretha said, flailing a hand around and letting out an exasperated breath. “Don’t make me waste words!”
Her Cuff buzzed. She meant I should go to school. I hadn’t been in days. After Nancee’s Last Day, I knew the pressure on me would only grow worse. Sera Croate would be waiting. Others would, too. I hoped Nancee was okay, and realized too late I should have gone to be with her.
“You probably should,” Sam encouraged in a small voice.
I almost said, Yeah, because speaking with Sam felt more familiar than my silence. But I stopped myself just in time. Still, he was right. It wasn’t good for Saretha and I to be cooped up together. I wasn’t helping her, and I doubt she understood how much I longed to help.
Still frowning, Saretha waited to respawn and scrolled through her Cuff at her friend count. She once broke two thousand followers. Now she was down to a couple dozen. She sighed. She tried to pull up her Huny? status, but it wouldn’t load. I hadn’t even thought about how her Branding might be affected. Had they dropped her?
“Crap,” Sam said realizing what this meant. Sam hated the taste of Wheatlock?. The Huny? spread was the only thing that made it palatable, probably because it had an actual flavor: sweet. Wheatlock? tasted like the bottom of a shoe, but probably blander. “I guess we’ll have to ration our supplies.” He laughed, but he laughed alone. I didn’t find it funny; I found it sad. We wouldn’t have Huny? anymore.
A moment later, Saretha’s character was back on-screen, unarmed and tiny, headed to the mines. The half wolf/centaur charged, having stuck around to crush her again, just because he could. I couldn’t watch her do this anymore.
I left. I had to get out. I walked for a few hours, along to the far side of the rim where the shops gave way to small houses, greenery and then exclusive Law Firms, nightclubs and the enormous City Court House.
The imposing marble building made me uneasy. It’s one of the few in the city built from real stone, not printed layers of plastic. It is meant to intimidate. Obedience to the Law is Freedom? is chiseled over the columned entrance, a hundred feet above me in letters twice my height. The Commander-in-Chief Justice adjudicates there when he isn’t ruling the Supreme Court?. I’d never been inside, and couldn’t imagine I ever would. Arkansas Holt would cave in to any Lawsuit before it got to court.
The streets were mostly empty this late at night. The buildings’ eaves were dotted with lights that overhung the street, nearly obscuring the dome above. Ads didn’t follow me into Section Fourteen; I was too poor. The dark and quiet felt peaceful, if a little eerie. I knew I looked horribly out of place. My gray public domain T-shirt and loose blue public domain jeans didn’t belong here, but I walked on with a tense resolve. I might as well walk the whole eleven miles around the city; I was nearly halfway. What did a few hours more matter?
I’d rarely been out here. Section Fourteen was the only part of the city with an English name, supposedly because the French word for it was too close to Quatrième.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move across a rooftop at the far side of the Court House Plaza. The Law Firms were closed and dark. Glum as I felt, I was thrilled by a glimpse of what I was sure was a Product Placer. I had never seen one before, even though Sam and I had been going up to our roof to look for them for years.
I followed to where the dark shape went. I waited, looking up, but there was nothing there. Someone called from behind me.
“Speth?” he said, as if he knew me.
I turned. It was no Product Placer. Walking up the sidewalk, followed by eager Ads, was an Affluent I did not recognize. He had a broad, flushed face, with a small, piggish nose and a thin goatee cut to a fine point beneath his chin. You could tell he’d been LaserShaved?. He was trim and fit, a good foot taller than me, with overlarge, muscled arms. He was dressed for the evening, with a formal black waistcoat and a platinum-rimmed Cuff poking out from his sleeve. The platinum ring was a thing for Affluents. It signaled intent and willingness to offer free speaks—a successful pickup technique. It was odd that he was alone; the city was full of young girls willing to trade their company for the ability to freely talk. Why bother me?
I pretended I hadn’t heard him and picked up my pace. He called my name again and jogged to catch up.
“You’re that Silent Girl, right?” His Cuff vibrated. He looked at it, as if thinking of holding it out to me, then he thought better of it. “What a shame. You have a lovely mouth.”
Charming, I thought. Sometimes it was nice to think words clearly in my head, even if I could not say them. He was not so ugly that he should have a hard time finding companionship, but something about him felt wrong. Maybe it was because he was standing too close. Or because he was twice my age, or even older. It could be difficult to gauge the age of an Affluent with all the options for cosmetic surgery and youth treatments.
An Ad strip at the corner of a building burst to life, bright blue and silent. Ads had to run silent from midnight to six in the good neighborhoods. A bottle of mouthwash popped up and spun, like it was desperate for him to drink it. Smelling his sour breath, I was a little desperate for him to drink it, too.
“I feel bad for you. It can’t be easy, not being able to speak. I’ll bet a lot of people think they can get you to talk. I saw that the Daily Spec? will pay $15,000 for proof you can. I don’t need the money, of course.”
He pulled back his sleeve to make sure I could see the platinum ring. His eyes closed for a moment, and he swayed in place before steadying himself again. He had obviously been drinking. Across the narrow alley, between shops, another Ad strip popped to life. The mouthwash bottle hopped across and back. The systems must have scanned his breath. He leaned over me, his hand pressing flat on the Ad. Under the bad breath were wafts of cologne or perfumed liquor. He looked up and down the empty street.