Something more was at work than Saretha just learning to live with being locked inside. How could I ever expect her to be happy like that? Then a thought occurred to me—had the DESIST order been lifted? How else could I explain her behavior?
Was it possible I wouldn’t have to steal Henri’s little blue device after all? Saretha could go back to work, and I could keep being a Placer. The money would be pretty good.
But my delight quickly faltered. Something didn’t feel right. At first, I thought it was just me. If I was truthful, I still wanted her to take Carol Amanda Harving’s place. I wanted to put a dent in Silas Rog’s reputation. I wanted to do something to the system that felt like a boot on my throat. That thought may have held back my joy, but it was Sam’s face that demolished it.
Sam watched from the corner, his face full of concern, not relief, at Saretha’s vastly better mood. It seemed to ask, What the hell happened?
“It’s weird,” he whispered to me. “She won’t stop smiling.”
It was true. Her old smile was back, but just a little lopsided. It was like she had been drinking, but Saretha didn’t drink. It was too expensive, and whenever it had been offered to her, it was always by men trying to bribe her for favors. Plus, what did we have to drink? We couldn’t afford alcohol.
“I can hear you,” Saretha said, turning around with a broad, toothy smile and regarding us. “I can see you.” $23.92.
Something didn’t look right about my sister. Her hair looked clean, but also over-brushed and shaped into a tight curtain around her cheeks to make her now-chubby face look thinner. Her eyes tracked slowly and off-kilter, like she was seeing, but not exactly what was in front of her.
“Saretha?” Sam asked.
“Yes, Sam?” $33.99.
“Are you okay?”
“What could be wrong?” Saretha asked, as if she could now only see everything that was right with the world. “Be positive.” $18.98. She ruffled his hair.
Be positive. The phrase spun through my mind, and then I saw what Saretha had done. A medicinal disc was attached to the wrist end of her Cuff. In small, discreet letters was a company logo—Zockroft?.
Saretha met my gaze. She smiled beatifically and closed her eyes.
“Zockroft?,” she said, holding the Cuff out to me so I could see a tiny needle jab into her skin and vanish. She let out a quick, pleasured gasp. 99￠ for the gasp, plus $22.99 for the word. The injection of Zockroft? was provided free each time she said it.
“Dropter delivered,” she said, spinning around, her head lolling.
She must have ordered it over the WiFi, from her Cuff or the wall-screen. It was sickening. I almost wished I hadn’t seen it.
Zockroft? is powerful, terrible stuff. It is addictive and expensive. Maybe it did some people good, but not like this. Saretha hadn’t seen a doctor. She wasn’t allowed out of the house for that. She hadn’t been told what dosage to use; Zockroft? had made that decision for her. There was no way to know how much that little needle in her arm was injecting.
I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to get Henri’s device and get that Cuff off her. It didn’t just chain her to the house and to her name—it was now poisoning her and charging her for the pleasure.
PILF: $38.99
I considered sneaking into Henri’s apartment, but that would mean stealing the little blue device while Henri slept. What would I do if he woke up? I could not take the risk. It would be better to get him alone, after the night’s Placement, and distract him.
I hated the way I planned it, but I had to be sure he would be occupied. The pack was always near him or on him. When he wore it, the pocket with the device was right behind his head. If I got him to hug me, I could reach back and steal the device. I would have to do it in a Squelch, just to be sure I wasn’t registered as hugging him back.
I went through it in my head, over and over, figuring out exactly how to place myself in front of him. My posture would be important. I would track him with my eyes, brush against his arm. I wasn’t the first girl to make these kinds of calculations. I’d heard Sera Croate whisper about it to her friends like she was an expert. I had mostly ignored her, because that kind of manipulation wasn’t really me. I felt a little nauseous trying to think back to what she’d said.
I didn’t want to be like Sera Croate.
Would Henri kiss me? It was hard to imagine he wouldn’t. I had to be ready. I prepared to close my eyes and slip the device away. The kiss, if it happened, couldn’t last long. How could Henri enjoy it when I wouldn’t kiss back? Did that not matter? I don’t know how other people feel about things like that. I don’t even know what I think, because my only experience was with Beecher. When Beecher had kissed me that last time, it was disturbing and awful. The physical shocks from his implants overwhelmed everything else. This time, if it happened, it would be sad and terrible down to the bone.
But the more I rehearsed in my head, the less queasy I became. Cold as it made me feel, I couldn’t lose my nerve. I didn’t want it to be this way; I didn’t want anything to be the way it was. I hated what I had to do, but I didn’t have any other choice.
However awful the experience, Henri would be devastated if he knew the truth behind it. I would have to pretend afterward that I’d changed my mind. That happened all the time, didn’t it? Margot would be furious, whether she knew the truth or not. I had no way to handle her. How she might react worried me more than how Henri might take it.
I met the others at our rendezvous and tried to pretend it was like any other night. The Squelch was oval, with dark gray carpeting and walls printed to look like porous stone. We had twelve short Placements that night. Kel was uncharacteristically dramatic about revealing what we were placing.
“This should be an easy one,” Kel said, grinning a little. She had been in a better mood the past few weeks. The debacle with Tico? Entertainment’s Ad screens resulted in Tico? suing the screen maker, the screen maker suing the adhesive maker, the adhesive maker suing a glue manufacturer and the glue maker suing a genetics firm who raised genetically altered beetles that could be milked for a glue-like paste. Our Agency, on the strength of Kel’s report, turned around and sued them all.
Kel lifted a bag, lumpy with rounded shapes, and poured out its contents on the floor. Against the gray carpet, the oranges that rolled out looked dazzling. A thin citrus aroma filled the room. The scent was beautiful—far more exquisite than the smell of orange printer ink or candies.