Shalk pushed his way out of the mass of people. Three officers trailed behind.
Rog shook his Cuff, trying to get it to work. When it failed, he shouted, “Arrest her. I will prosecute her myself!”
The officers moved in around me. Shalk drew his plastic restraints and turned to Rog, as if looking for further instruction.
“Now!” Rog commanded, like Shalk was his servant. “Her crimes are multitudinous. I want—”
Shalk pressed a button on his modified Cuff.
“Under criminal code 7129-A, you are prohibited from all forms of Copyrighted and Trademarked communication, including speech, while WiFi and tether services are unavailable.”
“I wrote code 7129-A!” Rog screeched.
Shalk frowned and put his thumb and forefinger to his mouth. He zipped in a hard, quick gesture. Rog stared at him, momentarily stunned. Shalk forced him to turn and bound Rog’s hands behind his back.
“Have you lost your mind?” Rog screamed. “She murdered Leeland Butchers!”
Had we?
Shalk played the recording again.
“Under criminal code 7129...”
“Kill her!” Rog thundered at the gold brother nearby.
The gold brother broke forward like a bull. Phlip took a step, but Vitgo held him back. The crowd stirred. I coiled, ready to hit him in the throat or eyes to slow him, but before I could strike, a blur crossed my vision. It was Henri. He slammed into the gold brother’s beefy side and knocked him off course, into the crowd of Silents. Margot rushed in behind. The gold brother shook them off and tried to stand, but hands shot out from the crowd. Bodies overwhelmed him. Two more officers moved in and brought him down.
I turned back to see Kel and Saretha only a yard behind me. Henri and Margot stood near Rog, dusting themselves off, and Mandett was making his way toward us.
“Do you have any idea what will happen to you once I am free?” Rog hissed.
Shalk tapped again on his Cuff. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can, and will, be charged against your account, with a 20 percent surcharge to cover processing fees. Anything this officer or any other Law enforcement official says in the course of the investigation will be charged to you, and billed at such time as your case is adjudicated. You have the right to an Attorney. If you cannot afford an Attorney, one will be assigned to seize your assets, and you will be turned over to Debt Collection. Do you understand these rights?”
“When the WiFi returns, you will regret this,” Rog warned. “Everything will be rebuilt. It will all be reprinted, and I will destroy you! I will snake this city with so much cable and wire that it will strangle every one of you sluks!” he screeched wildly, whirling around at the crowd. His voice bounced across the plastic melt of the faux French buildings and vanished.
Shalk began to pull him away, but I raised a hand. I wanted Rog to be here for what came next.
“That’s speech!” He laughed with wild eyes. “You cannot trust her! She will destroy our city, and with it, all of you!”
I looked from Mandett and Henri to Silas Rog’s smirking, sneering face. Margot tore a strip of fabric out of the supplies in her bag. She, Mandett and Henri gagged the struggling Rog while Shalk looked on, as if all of this was normal.
Everything stopped then. The screens around the park glowed faintly, still powered, but blank. The noise and wind of the cars on the ring had ceased. A breeze of a different sort wafted across the park—cold air from the outside that smelled crisp and sweet and salty.
I pushed through the crowd and mounted the stage. My body ached from all I had been through. Kel, Margot, Henri and Saretha all watched, wide-eyed. My eyes searched for Sam in the crowd, though I knew I would not find him. Speaking now would not betray him, though I felt his absence acutely. He would have relished what was to come.
I put a shaking thumb and finger to the corner of my mouth, and drew it slowly across my lips. I made the sign of the zippered lips, only this time I was unzipping them. I cleared my throat, letting sound escape, and the feeling was exquisite.
It was time for my speech.
FREE
“Words matter,” I said. “Words make ideas. They preserve truths and history. They express freedom, and they shape it.”
The feel of letters on my tongue quenched me, like water on parched lips. I could hardly believe I was speaking. It seemed like a lifetime has passed. I was a different person now.
“Words,” I went on, “mold our thoughts. That gives them value and power. The Rights Holders keep them not just for profit, but to control us, and to put us in their service. Rights Holders create nothing. They jealously protect the copies of copies of copies of things created by others. They get away with owning our right to speak because they have the money and power to do it.”
My mind was crafting sentences like they were shaped in a forge. I’d seen that once in a movie, where glowing steel sparked as it was hammered into shape.
“Our only recourse has been a deeper, more painful silence. Rights Holders like Silas Rog squeezed our speech down to a trickling stream, but kept that small stream flowing to make us pay for every word—to make us think we could speak. But that was an illusion. We fought them with silence, and now we are freed to fight them with our voices.”
“Yeah!” Mandett Kresh called out. People around him nodded. Vitgo looked confused, and Phlip had disappeared. Some of the Silents puzzled over my words.
“The time of our silence is over!” I cried out.
Most of the Silents hooted and hollered and cheered at this, but a few faces narrowed and frowned, their lips shut tight. A thrill ran through me, and then a cold fear. They all looked to me for what came next, and that was terrifying.
“No printer will function now,” I explained, working to steady my voice. “The WiFi is destroyed. Without the tether, every pattern, every wall, every design is locked down. Without the ‘legally required,’ always-on connection, there is no way for Rog and his Legal team, or anyone else, to take over this city again. No one can legally speak here, or call for help. No one can enter or leave the city, because no one can legally agree to the Terms of Service to cross, or pay the tolls and tax to come and go. No one can legally enforce the Law. No one who is Indentured can be commanded.”
I thought of Nancee, wherever she was. There were no news dropters to record me, but I prayed my words would reach her somehow.
Rog scowled and smirked beneath his gag, his face twisted with the fuming smugness of a man who had never been denied anything. He did not believe me. He thought the problem would be solved in a matter of days. He was so sure he could not lose that even now, he could not recognize he had lost everything.