I was glad taking her Cuff off would mean separating her from the drug. For that alone, it might be worth it, though I felt a pang that Zockroft? was the only thing that provided her with any peace. I placed the Cuff on the kitchen counter, splayed open like a gutted animal.
Sam’s window reflected my thin, weary face in its cloudy glass. I held up my arm and looked at my own Cuff. It was nothing more than a shackle to me. I took Henri’s little device and ran it up my left arm. The Cuff unlocked, and I peeled it off. I put it next to Saretha’s on the counter. She watched, her eyes half-glazed with her final dose.
“Speth, I don’t know what you want,” Sam said desperately.
I scanned the room for some way I could communicate. I looked back at the screen and then out the window.
“Carol Amanda Harving,” Sam said dutifully. His eyes flashed recognition. “You found her?”
My chest rose and fell in relief. Yes, I thought. I walked out the door and waited for them to follow. Saretha finished jamming herself into her dress, which only barely fit. I hadn’t considered how little she had to wear now, but it would have to do. Sam pushed her forward and we were on our way, leaving the precious remains of the orange behind.
MURDEROUS: $40.99
It was still bright when we emerged outside. The dome glowed a brilliant frosty white above the city. Saretha blinked in the light. She hadn’t been outside in so long, she needed a moment to adjust. She glided along, running her fingers over the buildings’ walls and Ads, like she needed to feel them to know this was real. The light patter of Ads around us suddenly went dark. Even without Cuffs, we were still being monitored. The Ad panels pinged for Cuffs, only to find they weren’t there. I worried. What if they scanned our faces? Would Rog be notified? Would the police?
They mostly shut down, which was a relief, but an illusionary ring of shadow surrounded us wherever we walked. It was hard to hide, and people began staring.
Cars drove fast around the outer rim. The sound of them bounced between the tall, long buildings. My body was trembling with nervous exhilaration. We just had to make it to Malvika Place.
“Do you think she will talk?” Sam asked. “Are we going to meet her?”
I wished I had a better way to explain. I had to show them what I’d seen. I hoped to pass Saretha off as Carol Amanda Harving. How could they prove my sister wasn’t her? They could never produce Carol Amanda Harving in court. Not even Butchers & Rog could conjure a human being from thin air.
I could feel eyes on us everywhere. Some were curious, others disdainful. We hadn’t traveled far when a pack of kids a little younger than me fell quiet at the sight of us. One of them signed the zippered lips. Sera Croate hissed from behind them, “Don’t do that!” I was startled to see her. Her Cuff buzzed, and her face sneered.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” she demanded. The kids around her scattered. I said nothing, praying she would get bored with us and move along. “I should—” She stopped talking and began tapping up an InstaSuit?. She waited for my Cuff to buzz in receipt, and when it didn’t, her eyebrows knit in angry confusion.
I put my left arm behind me, to hide my missing Cuff from her view.
“Hey!” Sam said suddenly, brightly. “Let’s go! Mrs. Harris is waiting!” He lied so easily.
He took my right hand and pulled me forward. Sera eased out of our path, baffled, cowed by our Custodian’s name.
We made it as far as the bridge leading to Falxo Park. I’d planned to move toward the city center and Malvika Place, but a car came toward us and pulled to a sudden stop. A tall, sharp-faced man emerged, staring at me.
He wasn’t a Lawyer. He wasn’t dressed like one, and he looked too brutal and dim. He wasn’t a police officer, either. His lip curled, and he rapped on the roof of his car.
“Hey, look,” he said, like he had found something interesting. Two other men, who appeared to be his brothers, emerged from the vehicle and sneered.
They all looked identical—lean and rough, with long, muscled necks that seemed dangerous and the same watery blue eyes. Each of them was dressed in an ivory-buttoned Arlington Heights Transcolor? shirt—one indigo, one maroon and one gold. Their crisp black pants were thick and itchy-looking.
I don’t know if Sam sensed my unease, but he turned to me and said, “I can make you think of zebras.”
He remembered our dad’s trick of the mind. He nudged me with his elbow and inclined his head backward, toward the bridge.
“Come on,” he whispered.
I didn’t want to use the bridge, but I sensed Sam was right; it was better to avoid confrontation. We could go into the park and then turn back at the next bridge.
At first I thought the brothers might have been summoned by some alert from the Ad scans, but then I saw Sera Croate standing uncomfortably in the distance, pretending not to watch.
Ads babbled in our wake as we moved across the bridge, brought to life by the three brothers who began to follow us.
Sam forced a laugh. “Do you see it?”
I wasn’t thinking of zebras, not with those three men behind us.
“I wonder what your zebra looks like,” Sam said. “Whether it’s standing in a great plain, or by a tree. Are the stripes thick or thin, or curved or straight?”
I saw it then. A zebra flicked in my mind’s eye, striped thin, standing under a tree, ready to bolt at the first sign of danger.
We should have run.
“Did you know zebra stripes are like fingerprints? If you ever look at them, it’s like a huge thumbprint on the side of a white horse—like a huge giant with inky fingers picked the zebra up and left the mark behind.”
I turned back to look at the men. Two of them were right behind us, near enough for me to hear the the rustle of their stiff clothes as they walked. The third brother, the one in indigo, peeled off and was walking quickly on the far side of the bridge forty feet away. I think he was trying to flank us.
“Are you picturing the giant? Is it a cyclops?” Sam asked, elbowing Saretha, then me. “I bet it is now.”
Saretha laughed a loopy little laugh. What a time for Sam to come back. I’d missed his voice, but I could only half-listen.
“I can make you think of a gigantic cyclops picking up a zebra, just by saying it. That’s a pretty serious power,” Sam said more seriously. I didn’t know if he was thinking of what I had sacrificed, or of his own future. I would never be able to ask, but I know he was trying to reassure us.
“Sluk,” a low, rasping voice behind us said. I felt Saretha bristle.
We were halfway across the bridge now, a few feet from the apex. The split in the safety mesh had never been repaired from when Beecher jumped. Sam wheeled around.
“You need to watch your mouth,” he warned. He was easily two feet shorter than any of these men.
“We know who you are,” the leader in gold warned.