Did she expect me to talk? She didn’t understand the depth of my refusal, or my fury at her. I wouldn’t speak unless I was certain everything had changed—and certainly not for her. It was too late for her to come around. Too late to save Sam.
“I’m so sorry.” She sniffled and took my hand again. I stared, focusing on her bony white knuckles as she half crushed my hand in her frantic clutch. She raised our hands together and dropped them again, easing her grip, then let go with a whispered, “Thank you.”
She took my silence for forgiveness, ignoring the blaze in my cheeks and the hate in my eyes. She had no idea how lucky she was that I did not hurt her. Being silent for so long had taught me all forms of restraint.
Footsteps sounded behind me. The lights dimmed again. The Blocks returned; everything became blurry once more. Sera stiffened and then slumped with disappointment. A woman across from us spoke a single word—“They”—and then squealed against the pain shocking her eyes for it. The FiDo had come to an end.
Speth.
The word flickered to life in my vision, hovering over the pixelated blur of my cell. I closed my eyes and opened them, but the word remained.
A figure outside the bars growled at me.
“Speth Jime. Let’s go.”
The word faded. I heard the door open.
“Speth,” Sera whispered. Her Cuff buzzed in alarm. “I’m sorry.”
Someone grabbed me roughly by the arm and shoved me down the hall and into the atrium. He stopped me short at the benches. A figure was seated there—a dark, calm, motionless figure dressed in forest green. A lean woman, from the shape of her.
She had to be a Collection Agent. Who else would come for me? I squinted, as if that would help me see through The Blocks, then balled my fists in frustration. What would happen if I throttled a Collection Agent?
She quietly typed away on what must have been a Pad.
Another message, Relax, appeared before my eyes. Did she type this? Did she have access to my feed? Had I already been sold off? The officer still gripped my arm, and I tried to wrest it free.
The seated woman spoke quickly and clearly to the officer. “Under statute 792-C, I hereby claim custody of Speth Jime and, having taken said custody, demand you immediately cease and desist use of The Blocks, and any other means of non-mandatory restriction or restraint.”
The officer released my arm at once, intimidated by the razor sharpness of her Legalese. The sound of it made me shudder, too. A moment later, The Blocks vanished.
Standing before me in a deep green suit jacket and skirt was a dark-skinned, serious-looking woman. She had a slim but impressive row of Legal medals pinned over her blazer pocket.
“Follow me, please,” she said without emotion. I did as she said, and a series of dots lit the path in my eyes. I didn’t resist—in fact, all thought of fighting vanished.
It was no Collection Agent who had come to retrieve me. It was Kel.
GEORGETOWN LAW?: $44.98
We walked in silence, a thousand questions pushing through the haze I was in. How had she found me? How did she know I had been arrested? Were her clothes a disguise, or was she actually a Lawyer? Where was she taking me now?
It was late. The dome was black above us, and the sidewalks were nearly deserted. We crossed onto Stewart’s Ring, a street on the south side known mostly for a clot of insurance agencies. I had been here before, though mostly on the rooftops. Kel entered a building through the front and I followed her to a bank of elevators, my mind and emotions reeling.
Did she know that Sam had been killed? Had she just pulled me out and rescued me so she could destroy me? I could not read her expression. I was terrified and grateful and sick to my stomach with grief.
She placed a thumb on the elevator controls and selected 22. We shot up to the building’s twenty-second floor. The elevator doors hissed open to a spacious apartment that was elegant, but austere. Kel led me toward a wall decorated with large panels displaying a glowing rotation of family images. There were two adults, with the same deep, dark skin as Kel, standing over three little girls. The oldest one had to be Kel at seven or eight years old. Her eyes were just the same. It was not a posed photograph, but rather looked like one that had been culled from an Ad screen in a park. Another picture showed Kel and her sister, laughing wildly. They were both dressed poorly in public domain clothes, walking along the street. This image, too, looked like it had been taken by an Ad screen in a part of the city I didn’t recognize—or perhaps even a different city.
A wave of resentful despair washed over me. I had heard that you could do this—go back and rescue images from your past held by data companies. I would never be able to afford to do this for Sam. Sam’s images and scans and data would slowly erode over time, until it was like he no longer existed. No company would see any value in him or his data. Worse, it was likely they would scrub him away intentionally, to hide the crime of the three brothers.
Kel put a hand on my shoulder, but I shrunk away from the gesture.
A picture faded in to show Kel dressed in a satin robe, accepting a paper scroll under a banner that read Georgetown Law?. She stood proudly beside her family, with one girl missing.
She touched the picture almost thoughtfully, like she wanted to connect. The panel pulled in and slid away. The Squelch behind it was unremarkable, except that it had shelves of books inside. I had never seen this before. People who owned books always wanted them displayed. Even Henri’s hung on a wall. Kel, on the other hand, hid hers. The more I knew about her, the less I understood.
She ushered me in quickly, and the door closed us inside. Her Lawyer’s outfit unsettled me. She unpinned her medals and stowed them in a pocket, and then she waited. I didn’t know if she was offering me a chance to speak, or hesitating because the words she wanted to say were difficult.
Sadness and regret washed over me again. I had betrayed her. I had betrayed Henri. I had broken Margot’s heart. Sam was dead. Saretha was with Silas Rog.
I had nothing left.
“I’m very sorry, Speth,” Kel said in the sparest whisper.
I wished she hadn’t said it. It meant she knew what had happened. Something erupted in me, and I wanted to slap her, but that made no sense. I balled my hands into fists to control myself. Why hadn’t she stopped it? Why hadn’t she helped? She had to know an end like this was coming. How had the world turned into the Copyrighted, litigious, lethal monstrosity that treated us this way? How had anyone let this happen?
A low sound, like a moan or an animal cry, filled the air, followed by a sob that wracked my body. I clamped my hands to my mouth, disgusted and horrified. The sound came from me. Me. My lungs gulped for air. Had I kept my silence at the expense of Sam’s life, only to disgorge this awful, meaningless note?