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  Every word on the Word$ Market™ had three attributes: its price, its owner and its definition. “I thought all of them could change,” I said. “Didn’t Rog get the Commander-in-Chief Justice to rule that words don’t even have meaning unless one is assigned to them on the Word$ Market™?”

  “That is an old myth,” Margot said.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Rights Holders are not allowed to void, change or reassign meanings,” Margot insisted. “It is the Second Act of Connotation.”

  I was exhausted and probably in over my head arguing with Margot. A huge yawn escaped me.

  “You look tired,” Henri said. “Do you want us to escort you home?”

  “Escort.” Margot shook her head. “Henri the chaperone.”

  I blinked back tears. I couldn’t bring myself to go back. I couldn’t sleep in that empty apartment anymore. Sam was dead. Saretha was recovering in the Healthspital™—her leap to escape Silas Rog had shattered the bones in her legs. Without the WiFi, we had no idea if she could be healed right, or if she would ever walk again. My parents were still trapped, working in servitude somewhere in Carolina, almost certainly being punished for what I had done. With our city cut off, I would probably never be able to speak with them again.

  But where else could I go? I couldn’t really ask Margot if I could stay with her—she had a family. And Henri was out of the question, especially after all I’d done to betray his trust.

  Henri scrolled down the list of words and stopped on mephitic.

  “Foul of smell,” Margot said immediately.

  “How did you know that?” Henri asked.

  “Because I study, Henri. Two points for me,” she said with a grin. She took the Pad from Henri and handed it to me. I could feel a small knot of jealousy forming—not because I wanted to be with Henri myself, but because I envied how well they knew each other. I didn’t know how to express that, or if I even should. I was afraid that once they really knew me, they wouldn’t like what they discovered. All they really knew was what they’d observed—which I guess was a lot—and what they’d read in my profile.

  “Can I...” I started. I nodded at the Pad. “Can I look at your profiles?”

  Margot’s face scrunched up, as if I’d asked the wrong thing. Maybe the request was too personal. But then she shrugged. “You could have done that before,” she said.

  “I know,” I said. I’d typed in the Pad a few times after I’d gone silent and Margot felt that was foolish. “But I couldn’t ask your permission then.”

  “That is very polite, Speth.”

  “Yes, but also...” I hesitated, feeling embarrassed. “I don’t know your last name.”

  She cocked an eyebrow and typed it in for me.

  Redacted: $1.99

  A picture of Margot appeared on-screen, with her dark eyes and Trademark bob that came to points at each cheek.

  Margot Chem

  Age: 17

  Height: 5'2"

  Consumer ID: 319-02-0144P

  Hair: Black, “Edgy”

  Hair Style: Saxon 58 “Mid-Bob with Swept Side Points”

  Rating: A

  Eyes: Dark Brown, Unenhanced, Unremarkable

  Body: Muscular, Unenhanced

  Physical Condition: 95/100

  Rating: A

  General Appeal: B: Intelligent, Sarcastic, Dry

  Personal Style: Elle/Malakova Chic

  Socioeconomic status: 642/100: Upper Middle Class

  I hadn’t realized Margot was so well-off, though I probably should have. My own socioeconomic status was probably zero at this point.

  Volubility Index: 11/12

  Speech profile: Efficient, Avoids Contractions

  Loquaciousness Rating: 3958/5000

  Social Influence Score: 52/100; Moderate

  Emotional Index: 6/10

  Assessment: Volatile

  Gullibility Index: 2/10

  Assessment: Low

  Market Influence: 612/800

  Rating: B–

  Geodemographic Group: P2-132: Portland Outer Ring

  Branding: Buonicon Tea™

  Rating: B

  Employment status: Purged/Redacted*

  Her employment status was Redacted because she was a Product Placer, like Henri and me. Margot leaned over my shoulder to type in Henri’s name, and a photo of his grinning face popped up.

  Henri Sinclair

  Age: 18

  Height: 6'3"

  Consumer ID: 319-01-8772A

  Hair: Light Brown, Messy

  Hair Style: Lonreal™ 5 “Unkempt”

  Rating: B

  Eyes: Green, Unenhanced

  Body: Muscular, Unenhanced

  Physical Condition: 99/100

  Rating: A

  General Appeal: A: Loyal, Earnest

  Personal Style: Boy Chic

  Socioeconomic status: Redacted

  “Redacted?” I asked curiously.

  “You shouldn’t look at socioeconomic status, anyway,” Henri said, red creeping up his neck.

  Margot looked back and forth between us and took Henri’s arm. “I thought you and Speth had talked about it,” she said quietly, her face flushing, too. “When she visited your apartment.”

  “Why would we talk about his socioeconomic status?” I asked.

  “Why would you visit his apartment?” There was an edge in Margot’s voice. She hadn’t forgotten I had pretended I wanted Henri to kiss me so I could steal his Cuff removal device.

  Neither had I. It had been a terrible thing to do.

  “I’m sorry. I handled it badly,” I admitted. “Though, to be fair, I didn’t have a way to ask.”

  “I invited her,” Henri said helplessly.

  “Henri, you always know the wrong thing to say,” Margot sniffed. She tightened her grip on his arm.

  Henri swallowed. “I hope word has gotten out of the dome,” he said, looking up. I swallowed my guilt and looked away. He still had faith in me and hoped people would be inspired by what we’d done.

  “Me, too,” I said, but I had less confidence. Without any real sense of what was out there, I didn’t know what people in other domes would think.

  Above us, our dome was a lifeless gray. We weren’t really supposed to think about the world beyond it. With the weird and shapeless exception of our hazy vision of France, the scope of our experience wasn’t expected to reach very far. The only people from my neighborhood who had traveled beyond the dome’s thick walls were like my parents, Indentured to a lifetime of servitude after accruing too much debt.

  “Your fans are here,” Margot said, looking down. A small group stood on the street below, waiting for me. They were Silents. Like me, they had stopped talking—stopped paying for every word and gesture. But when the WiFi was destroyed, I felt free to speak again. They did not. Many Silents seemed to feel I had betrayed them, though I couldn’t be sure. I could ask, but I knew they wouldn’t answer.

  “How can I know what they want when they won’t say anything?” I asked.

  “That is a dilemma,” Margot said sarcastically. I shifted uncomfortably. I had put Margot and Henri through exactly the same thing for nearly a year.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again. She shrugged and turned away. I had more to apologize for than just making life difficult with my silence. I had used Henri and betrayed her trust. Maybe I could explain more when we were alone.

  I poked through my bag to distract myself and my fingers hit on an orange. Kel had raided the Placer stores and handed out all that she could find, but they wouldn’t last.

  “What does it matter?” I weighed the orange in my hand. “What are we going to eat? No more oranges will be coming. Even if someone outside hears about what happened, nothing will b
e allowed in.” Without the WiFi, there was no way to pay and no way to legally agree to the all-important Terms of Service.

  “We’ll figure out the inks,” Henri promised, like he needed to believe. “We have that book.”

  Margot nodded her agreement with him, started to speak, then stopped herself. She eyed me carefully. Margot knew that even if we got the printers to print food from the inks, we were only staving off the inevitable. Eventually the inks would run out, too.

  “I just wanted...” My heart would barely let me speak. I had been silent for so long, you’d think the words would come pouring out, but they didn’t. Being free to speak didn’t make the words easier to find.

  Near the center of the city, two hexagonal holes showed a brighter slate of nearly featureless clouds. I wanted to climb out and see, at last, the ocean everyone said is beyond, but I was waiting until I could bring Saretha up with me. My gaze lingered for a moment on the bridge in Falxo Park—where Sam was murdered. Then I looked away, scrambling to think of something else.

  “Have you ever been outside the dome?” I asked Henri and Margot. “Seen the ocean?”

  “No,” Margot answered after a moment. “I have never been outside. I was going to participate in a concert once, but the clearances were too difficult to obtain. The systems for each city are different. You must be educated and, of course, the information is proprietary, so you must pay for it.”

  I hadn’t been able to ask questions when I was silent. I wanted to know if her family could afford it, but a tremor of dread quivered through me. I sensed she wouldn’t like my asking about her wealth. I knew Margot had a sister, younger than Sam. I knew her sister was home, safe, in a better neighborhood than this one. And she had parents who hadn’t been taken into Collection. The thought of them filled me with an aching jealousy.

  I looked over to the bridge in Falxo Park again. A delicate rasping sound jarred me. I was grinding my teeth. Henri and Margot exchanged a look.

  I didn’t know anything about Henri’s parents. I opened my mouth to ask, but a movement in the distance caught my eye. Farther up the sidewalk, a group of kids were on the move, shoving someone along. From the way she was dressed, she had to be an Affluent. I sorely wanted to ignore what was happening, but I couldn’t let myself be that person. That wasn’t who I’d fought to become.

  I stood and took a breath. Henri and Margot rushed to my side and peered over the edge. Expressions of alarm crossed both their faces.

  The well-dressed woman below was screaming, and the shrillness of the sound struck me. It was familiar—I knew that voice. I squinted to see better. The corneal overlays in my eyes were supposed to improve my vision, but I felt sure this was a lie.

  My eyes widened as I recognized the awful woman who’d been my guardian in place of my parents. Mrs. Harris was being forced onto the bridge to Falxo Park—the same bridge where she’d let Sam die—and it looked like they were going to push her off.

  Hug: $2.99

  “She’s roadstain!” I heard someone shout from the crowd. A loud, vicious whoop followed.

  Mrs. Harris screamed and fussed, and it only made me hate her more. I could think of no one I wanted to help less. The mob surrounded her, pushing her along, ever closer to the edge. She was the guardian of many—or maybe all—of them, including Sera Croate, who was clutching Mrs. Harris’s arm behind her back and marching her forward.

  I took out my Placer’s gear and attached one end of my grapple to the roof. Henri started to do the same, but when he reached into his bag, he came up short of what he was looking for. He turned to Margot.

  “Can I borrow your grapple?”

  “You should not have destroyed yours, Henri.”

  “I took out a car with it!”

  “You shot a car tire, Henri,” Margot said. “That is not the same.”

  “Speth lost hers, too.”

  “Speth destroyed the WiFi with a single shot. She earned her replacement.”

  “Stay here,” I said, simplifying things. “Both of you.”

  “But—” Henri started.

  “And find something to do other than bicker!” I said, shooting out a line. I gave Margot a wink. She looked taken aback. Maybe she would take this moment to finally kiss him—or maybe she already had, and just didn’t want to do it in front of me.

  I jumped over the edge and skittered down my line to a stop a few yards away from the bridge’s apex—the last place in the world I wanted to be.

  As my feet hit the ground, heads turned to me in surprise. A Product Placer is supposed to be discreet. We were supposed to sneak products into people’s homes to Advertise. We weren’t meant to be seen.

  None of that mattered now. Kel, Margot, Henri and I would never do a Placement again.

  “Speth!” Mrs. Harris cried, desperation twisting her face. She reached out to hug me and I pushed her back, disgusted. She’d never hugged us when she was our guardian. Her Cuff was still clamped over her arm, its screen in low-power mode because it had no way to charge her for her words or her pathetic attempts at affection.

  At the corner, the group of Silents shifted to watch me from afar. Unlike the group surrounding Mrs. Harris, I didn’t recognize any of them.

  “You shouldn’t be speaking,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her. I might have come to save her, but that didn’t mean I was going to make it pleasant for her. “You have an obligation to pay for each word. You wouldn’t want to rob from the Rights Holders.” I gave her a mocking smile. She’d repeated those words to me time and time again, trying to make the lesson stick. She’d warned me never to speak if I could not pay, but to also speak just as much as I could afford. That would make me a good citizen. Speaking without paying was a crime and socially reprehensible in her eyes.

  “This is an emergency!” Mrs. Harris protested. “They’re going to—”

  “Shut up!” Sera Croate yelled. She slapped Mrs. Harris on the back of the head. Sera was a foot taller than our guardian, at least, and the blow nearly sent Mrs. Harris sprawling to the ground. She turned to me. “She’s finally getting what’s coming to her,” Sera said.

  I eyed her warily. She stood in front of the Ad screen I’d shattered after Sam died. It still had its gaping hole and cracked, spiderweb pattern. My elbow still bore the bruise from smashing it. And my heart still ached, missing Sam.

  “I thought you were training to be a guardian,” I said to Sera. “I thought Mrs. Harris was your mentor.”

  The words startled Sera, like she was expecting friendship and got a slap instead. She’d clearly been expecting me to be on her side.

  “I...I...” Sera stammered. I stared at her until she flushed and looked away. I hadn’t forgotten what she’d done. She’d had a part in Sam’s death, too. She’d alerted the authorities that Saretha and I had removed our Cuffs. She’d ratted us out, and we both knew it.

  “If you think holding my hand in that jail cell meant everything is forgiven, you’re sadly mistaken,” I snapped. “Sam is still dead.”

  Sera winced and shook her head helplessly, even though she knew it was true. She averted her eyes from the spot where Sam had been dropped. The wide bridge felt different with the screens all blank and lifeless.

  Dead. Just like my brother.

  “I’m still your guardian!” Mrs. Harris suddenly called out, wild-eyed. “I have a responsibility!”

  “To who?” I demanded, my lips curled back. “What did you ever do for any of us? We should have had parents! Instead, we had you.”

  “On paper it’s the same,” she said with a sob. “As long as you have a guardian, your upbringing is considered handled.”

  Handled? I could have shoved her off the bridge myself. My hands balled into fists.

  “Your parents—” Mrs. Harris began.

  “Don’t you dare talk about my parents!” I yelled.


  The crowd closed in around us, faces grim and angry. Vitgo Osario, Chevillia Tide™, Shari Gark and the Frezt sisters were up front. Behind them were a dozen other kids who’d had Mrs. Harris for a guardian. I tried to remember if all of us had ever been together before. It wasn’t like we were a family. I wondered, for a fleeting moment, if she could have made us one—had she been a different person. Instead, our mutual guardian made a nice living for herself, claiming us. She never thought to bring us together. In fact, I suspected she’d worked hard to keep us apart. That was probably part of the job.

  I couldn’t help but notice who wasn’t there—my closest friends, Penepoli Grathe and Nancee Mphinyane-Smil. Penepoli was too sweet to get caught up in a mob, and Nancee had been taken away months ago, Indentured within the city to “a woman who could put up with the girl’s insolence and train her like a dog.” That was how Mrs. Harris had put it. She hadn’t cared that Nancee was suffering. She’d only been concerned about losing income.

  “Shez gotta go,” Shari Gark said, mocking the whistling sound of Mrs. Harris dropping over the edge. She punctuated the sound with a slap of her hands. I shut my eyes against it. I understood the mob’s fury, but this wasn’t the way.

  “I tried to help,” Mrs. Harris insisted.

  “‘Words are too valuable to waste on falsehoods,’” I quoted her from memory. She’d told me that more than a few times. I opened my eyes and glared at her. She was crying now. I’d never seen tears form in her eyes.

  “I raised you,” she whimpered, and looked to see if anyone else would take the bait.

  “Saretha raised me,” I growled.

  “Sheggot it coming,” Shari Gark yelled. Her brother Driggo nodded, his face contorted with hate.

  “She does,” I whispered. Mrs. Harris had willfully ignored the men who’d murdered my brother. She’d tottered along without a word, even though she saw them dangling Sam over the edge. I could still remember the sound of her heels clacking over the bridge.

  I glanced down at Mrs. Harris’s feet. They were bare now, like she’d been dragged from her home. One foot was raw and bleeding.