I turned to Henri, waiting for more, hoping he had some plan that might, somehow, save our family from Collection.
He pulled out the small, metallic-blue key he’d used to remove my attacker’s Cuff. “Do you want your Cuff off?”
I backed away from him instinctively. I hated that Cuff, but I was not ready to have it taken off my arm.
“It’s not like you’d get shocked for talking,” Henri said.
This was something I had not considered. I didn’t need the Cuff at all.
“Put it away,” the leader insisted.
“We could tell her about the FiDos,” Henri said, placing the little teardrop-shaped device back in a special pocket in his pack.
“I’m sure she knows about FiDos,” replied the leader.
I did, of course. This wasn’t what I needed. I racked my brain for a way to get them to take Saretha. I could lead them to her, but I couldn’t think how and, even if I did, how would they understand what I wanted? A Placer’s salary would surely pay Saretha better than the horrible Mrs. Nince.
Henri explained further. “Kel used to cause them,” he said in a low whisper, pointing to the leader.
“FiDo Queen,” Margot whispered with reverence.
Kel, the leader, rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you also give her our bank information and social security codes?”
“She used to take out WiFi nodes between placements,” Henri went on, undeterred.
“I took out nothing,” Kel countered. “I turned a blind eye, on occasion, when a member of my crew carelessly banged into one. But that was my old crew.”
“That would have been such fun,” Margot said wistfully. “But Silas Rog locked it all away long before Henri or I were recruited.”
“Rog,” the leader grumbled, shaking her head. “Okay, Henri, besides regaling our guest with the dazzling breadth of your knowledge, what was your other idea?”
“I thought,” Henri said, hesitating, “she might join us.”
The leader fixed him with a serious gaze. My heart skipped a beat. That wasn’t exactly the idea, but maybe it was better. Could I really become a Placer? The thought of it was so exciting, I could hardly understand it.
“I think she is interested,” Margot said, pointing at me beaming. I covered my grin with my hand. It felt too much like talking, like I was begging them to take me.
“Kel, you said—” Henri stopped himself. He moved closer to Kel and whispered in her ear.
Margot grabbed my arm and pulled me down to sit beside her. She said, “He will probably ask you to marry him.”
“Henri, first of all, she isn’t trained...” Kel responded to Henri’s whispers.
“She’s quiet.”
“Yes, but that isn’t the only qualification.”
“She kept up with us really well.”
“Reasonably well,” the leader huffed. “But even if she can be silent and run, she doesn’t know how to rappel, to climb, how to cut a window, disable a magnetic lock, pilf a car, read a map—”
“I didn’t know those things, either,” Henri said, “and I learned.”
Margot grinned. “If Henri can learn them...” Margot sang in a whisper.
The leader shook her head. I looked up at her from the floor. My whole fate seemed to hang in the balance.
“And you already said you liked her,” Henri said to the leader. “When she was all over the news.”
Margot waggled her brows at me again and elbowed me like a friend.
“And we need a fourth,” Henri said.
Kel looked exasperated. She pulled off her own mask. Her face was long and narrow. She had the darkest skin I’d ever seen. She might have been thirty or forty, or older if she’d had her telomeres extended to keep her young.
“I’ve been looking,” she said, her tone implying she had not met with success.
She ran a hand through her tight, black, curly hair and shook off her more cautious self. She looked at me with big, dark eyes and said, “It’s up to you.”
My heart felt ready to explode. Up to me? How? I sat beside Margot in silence for a moment, confounded.
Kel tapped something on her Pad.
“Normally you would agree to ToS, but you can’t do that,” she said, finally settling on an idea. “So, if you want to join us—if you want to become a Placer, I want you to stand up, right now,” Kel said.
I waited for more, but that was it. The action of standing, technically, would be my yes. I didn’t know if the Cuff would record it. I didn’t have time to think. I worried in the back of my mind that Saretha’s heart would break if she found out I had the one job that would be perfect for her, but I couldn’t worry about that. This was for her, and for Sam, as much as it was for me.
“If you are worried standing will be a tacit yes, keep in mind that I’ll consider sitting an equally communicative no,” Kel offered, making my decision only about the choice itself.
With a swift, fluid push off the ground, I stood, shoulders back, my spine arched like after a landing in gymnastics. I wanted Kel to know my answer was more than yes.
ROOFTOPS AND PATIENCE: $17.97
I had to wait for them to contact me. Kel would not say how we would communicate, only that I would know what to do, and how to find them, when the time came. I could not sign a contract. I could not verbally agree. I had little choice but to hope I would be paid enough to save us.
I was told to go back to my “normal” life: go home, go to school, wait and keep a low profile. I don’t think Kel understood how difficult that would be.
Sam and Saretha saw my bandaged chin the moment I walked through the door. It was morning, and they were both up. Sam looked exhausted, but he sat bolt upright and rushed over to examine my chin.
“What happened to you?” Saretha’s face crinkled up with worry, but then went a little slack as she remembered I would not answer her. Her question was wasted money.
“Where did you go?” Sam asked, starting to pace. He asked the room. “It isn’t safe out there.”
I tried to show him there was reason to hope. I raised my eyebrows, and widened my eyes, but I only ended up looking crazy.
Saretha turned away with a huff and clicked on our screen.
“Are you hungry?” Sam asked. “Do you want a roll?” He went to the food printer and printed out a sheet of Wheatlock?. He spread a squeeze-packet of bright yellow Huny? over it, covering the Ad for Prénda? Suppositories that had been embedded in the thick Wheatlock? sheet. Sam rolled it up and handed it to me. I felt sad and embarrassed that he was taking care of me. I was supposed to take care of him.
The bright, cloying Huny? tang hid the bland, musty flavor of the Wheatlock?. I didn’t realize I was hungry until then. I ate it and smiled at Sam, thinking I would try to get him a real orange someday. I would take care of him.
“What?” he asked. I smiled more, a little desperate. My chest felt tight knowing I couldn’t tell them my news.
Saretha sniffed. She turned. “Is that the last Huny??” Her eyes looked wild.
Sam held up two packets. “There is still a little more.” He gave her his impish smile. “You can have them both.”