Saretha and I looked enough like sisters, but whatever people might have said about her, they said less enthusiastically about me. Saretha was beautiful with an almost golden complexion. With work, I could be pretty, but my skin never shone the way Saretha’s did. Saretha had dark, welcoming eyes, the color of chocolate. Mine were just dark and sharp. Saretha had long, amazing, black wavy hair that rode over her shoulders like a shampoo Ad. I kept mine short, fashioned in a pixie cut Mrs. Micharnd, my gymnastics teacher, found for me in the public domain. When she was my age, Saretha already had curves, and now she had more. I had next to none. I was small, sinewy and perfect for gymnastics.
Saretha went on dates with gorgeous boys who paid for her words and expected affection in return. I went walking with Beecher Stokes, a skinny boy with messy hair who lived with his grandmother. He wasn’t terribly cute, but he made me laugh—or at least he did, until his fifteenth birthday. Then his mood soured. His jokes vanished. He would just stare at me, wordless. To fill the awkward silences, I let him kiss me—as much as he could afford. He could not afford much.
I find it creepy that the system can tell how long or hard a kiss is. I don’t know exactly what the system monitors, but Beecher would pay something like 17￠ for each second. That’s supposed to feel normal. It’s been like this longer than I’ve been alive, but something still felt wrong about it.
Mrs. Harris didn’t think it was appropriate for me to be with him, given what she called his “circumstances.”
When Beecher was ten, his father tried circumventing the programming of a food printer. He wanted to make more nutritious meals. It was in blatant violation of Copyright, Patent and Terms of Service—the Three Major Fields of Intellectual Property. Mr. Stokes disconnected from the network, but he was caught anyway. Debt Services took Beecher’s parents into Collection immediately. They would have taken Beecher, too, but Collection must let you finish school.
Beecher could have had another two years, but he dropped out of school a few weeks after his fifteenth. I couldn’t believe it. I asked him why. He shrugged like it was no big deal—50￠ to act casual. I kind of loved that he did that, even though it seemed so foolish.
“Beecher...” Mrs. Harris said, shaking her head. It was like she knew I was thinking about him. She really didn’t like him, which was part of the reason I kept seeing him.
Mrs. Harris hadn’t read my mind, however. Beecher was at the foot of the bridge opposite us, waiting, like he wanted to catch me before the party. My heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t love or a crush. The way he looked at that moment worried me.
Bunnies surrounded him, too, but in darker colors like green and midnight blue, because these were supposed to be “boy” colors. His eyes were red. Had he been crying?
“Don’t jump, don’t jump,” the bunnies sang cheerfully to us both as Beecher drew up.
“Speth,” Beecher said. His face winced. Mrs. Harris grabbed my arm and pulled me away.
He closed the space between us, quick, and kissed me. I felt a sharp jolt. This wasn’t like his other kisses. My lips stung. My body tingled. I realized, with horror, that his eyes were being shocked for kissing with insufficient credit.
“Beecher Stokes!” Mrs. Harris warned.
My pastel bunnies and his dark ones mingled in the Ad, harmonizing, “Don’t jump, pleeeeezeey weeezeey.”
My cheek twitched. I put a hand there to feel the spasm. Warmth spread through my face. Somehow, my Cuff’s software knew I hadn’t kissed back. It really unnerved me to realize my Cuff had such weird access to my lips and intentions. How did it know? Suddenly this whole system seemed too, too real.
Beecher abruptly stalked off, head down, hands jammed in the pockets of his dumpy brown public domain longcoat. Black, gray and blood-red bunnies, glowing from the Ads at his feet, kept singing that he shouldn’t jump. But Beecher didn’t take advice from bunnies. That had been one of his jokes, back before he turned fifteen. I’d always thought it was really funny—until he mounted the rail and took a great leap into the traffic eighty feet below.
The bunnies stopped singing.
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.