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  The group of Silents who had been standing on the corner moved onto the bridge. They watched, wordless but fixed. Were they looking to me for answers, or were they judging my words?

  In the distance, I heard an unexpected sound and turned toward it. A tractor trailer was zooming along the outer ring. The sight was jarring—trucks didn’t drive in the ring. They had special routes to take so they didn’t interfere with the Affluents’ enjoyment of driving on the ring. They couldn’t risk an accident. I’d been warned about it in school.

  “Something big like that, you can’t just stop it,” Mr. Skrip had told us. “If they see an expensive vehicle, they’ll jam the brakes and jackknife into a crowd of you all before they’d risk scratching the paint on a Lawyer’s car.”

  I’d never heard the word jackknife before that, but it seemed pretty clear what it meant.

  The truck speeding on the highway below seemed like it wasn’t going to stop for anything. Whoever was inside was desperate. It didn’t occur to me until that moment that some people who didn’t live in our dome could have gotten trapped here when I destroyed the WiFi tether. Was this a driver just trying to get home? How many of us were trapped in this system created by men like Rog?

  “Let’s do it,” Sera said, grabbing Mrs. Harris by the shoulders and pushing her toward the rail like a rag doll. I imagined her going over the edge, panicked and flailing, plummeting into the path of the truck. I imagined the brief silence and then the sickening thud. The sound would be far worse than Shari Gark slapping her hands together.

  I knew that sound. Mrs. Harris might have been able to let it happen, but I couldn’t. Not even to her.

  “Stop,” I said. The growl of the truck grew louder.

  Sera’s brow furrowed.

  “Oh, Speth!” Mrs. Harris cried, reaching out to me for a hug. I recoiled.

  “You’re lucky Saretha raised me,” I said, pulling away.

  The truck tore under the bridge, its engine whining loudly as it blasted out the other side, making for the exit. The wind whipped up around us.

  “What are we supposed to do with her?” Sera asked. “Let her eat the last of the food?”

  “Speth!” Mrs. Harris begged, my name still coming out of her mouth like she was spitting it—or, in this case, blubbering. I thought of all the times she’d said she loved me, cold and purposely unconvincing. I scanned the angry faces gathered around and wondered if she’d said the same to them, and if they’d all gotten the same sour feeling hearing her speak the words.

  She didn’t say them now. She knew better than to say anything. Instead, she pinched her fingers closed and ran them across her mouth. The sign of the zippered lips. Did she think that would suddenly make a difference to us?

  “Dafuc?” Vitgo asked, a sneer curling his lip. Litsa Dox, one of Saretha’s former coworkers, stood beside him, her eyes lit with rage. A boy I didn’t recognize cracked his knuckles. This was quickly getting out of hand. I had to do something, but before I could act, Shari hauled back and punched Mrs. Harris in the face. My former guardian dropped to the ground. Vitgo laughed. Sera grinned and aimed a kick at her.

  “Stop it!” I snapped, shoving Sera away.

  “You owe her!” Sera exclaimed, clearing a path for me, like it was my turn. “For your brother. For your parents.”

  Mrs. Harris heaved a great sob beneath us. She got up on her knees. Maybe she deserved to go over the edge, and maybe she deserved a good beating, but I couldn’t find any pleasure in the thought. It wouldn’t bring Sam back. It wouldn’t make our families whole.

  “No,” I said. “She owes me.”

  Mrs. Harris’s eyes went wide. Another car passed under the bridge, making a break for it. A breeze fluttered between us. Her gaze darted around, looking for help.

  “You can start by telling me where Nancee is,” I said coolly, crouching down beside her.

  “That really isn’t any of your...” Mrs. Harris swallowed and shook her head. Her face was red and swelling on her cheek and chin where she’d been hit. “That information is proprietary,” she choked out. “I can’t. My Terms of Service—”

  “My Terms of Service requires you to answer,” I said. Sam would have liked my sarcasm—and that Mrs. Harris didn’t get it.

  “You aren’t affluent enough to have Terms...” She stopped. “Oh.”

  The group tightened into a circle around us. We’d all been robbed of our parents, but that wasn’t Mrs. Harris’s doing. Mrs. Harris was just the awful, counterfeit replacement, and now I realized how important it was for her to talk. She had information we desperately needed to know, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought to track her down first.

  “You’re going to tell us where Nancee is,” I said, helping her to her feet. “And then you’re going to tell us how to find our parents.”

  Nancee: $3.99

  The mob followed me toward Le Rocazor™, an ornate Affluent apartment building near the center of the city. Mrs. Harris claimed Nancee had been Indentured there. Henri and Margot had dropped from the roof and were on one side of me, with Mrs. Harris and Sera Croate on the other. There was a dark, dangerous mood emanating from the crowd behind us. Farther back, Silents trailed along at a distance, which I found unnerving.

  “I can’t know if she’s there now!” Mrs. Harris squawked, eyes darting around the darkened city.

  “Better hope she is,” Sera hissed. She shook Mrs. Harris like a doll she didn’t like, and I tried not to snap at her.

  “What about our parents?” I asked Mrs. Harris, trying to sound less threatening. “Do you remember where they are?”

  “I don’t,” Mrs. Harris pleaded, struggling to keep pace with her injured foot. I was certain she knew. She feared what would happen when all her information was used up.

  “You’re stalling,” I said.

  Mrs. Harris gulped. “Driggo, Shari,” she said, tripping over herself as she turned to them. “I just remembered. Yours are in the Motorlands™, outside the Dome of Ford™. It’s west. West of here, in Meiboch™ state.”

  Shari’s head turned to look back toward the western exit.

  “You could take a car. You could drive there,” Mrs. Harris encouraged.

  “And then what?” I demanded. I stopped, and the whole group halted with me. The amount of power I had at that moment frightened me. My hand found Driggo’s shoulder, and I squeezed it, like I would have done to reassure Sam. “You think any of us can drive outside this dome and expect anything but Indenture?”

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. Harris whimpered. “Every dome is different. I don’t know what they’d do.”

  “You’re lying,” Sera said, gripping Mrs. Harris tighter. Our former guardian swallowed hard and tried to act like she’d thought of something new.

  “Oh!” she cried. “Your mother’s on a farm with Speth’s parents, Sera! Crab Creek. That’s it. In Carolina. Yes. It’s called Crab Creek.”

  She drew a frantic map in the air, tracing a line from our dome in Vermaine to the farm in Carolina.

  “What good is that?” I asked, mimicking her awkward gesture.

  “I’m not even supposed to do it!” Mrs. Harris answered, genuinely surprised.

  “She’s probably lying,” Sera said, her voice icy, but I could tell that she desperately wanted to believe our guardian.

  “I think Carolina is approximately where she gestured,” Margot said slowly, looking at Mrs. Harris closely.

  “How do we find them?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. Harris bawled. “I truly don’t. I only have the name, but someone with access to a map could locate it, I’m sure.”

  I pushed her forward a little, but there was little menace in it. The group moved again. We were close enough to Le Rocazor™ that it made no sense to delay further. Nancee needed us.

  * * *

&nbs
p; As we walked, Henri dug around in his bag and came up with the blue teardrop-shaped device he used to unlock Cuffs. I felt a pang seeing it. I’d manipulated Henri to steal it. I still owed him an apology for going behind his back, but hadn’t found a moment for it yet. I really needed to make it up to him soon.

  Margot and Henri had ditched their Cuffs to show that we’d never go back to the way things were. I wished we all could have rid ourselves of the ocular overlays, too, but that wasn’t possible without damaging our own corneas. Instead, we would always live with the threat of our eyes being shocked, and the low-grade ache the manufacturer claimed was “legally impossible to substantiate.”

  When Henri volunteered to unlock everyone’s Cuffs, nearly everyone scrambled to his side. Their relief made me a little more hopeful—and eager to set Nancee free, as the Cuffs were left behind. By the time we reached Le Rocazor™, only Sera and Mrs. Harris had refused Henri’s offer.

  Mrs. Harris was scandalized by the idea. “It’s mine!” she squawked, holding her Cuff away like it was her baby and Henri wanted to take it from her. Sera didn’t say a word, but simply hung back, out of reach.

  “How do we get up there?” she asked, hands casually behind her back as she looked up at the towering apartment building. Mrs. Harris claimed Nancee would be on the thirty-seventh floor.

  The entrance was locked and shuttered. It was doubtful the elevators still worked. The Affluents were doubtless hoping the WiFi would return at any moment and, with it, their old way of life.

  “We will climb,” Margot said. “You all stay here.”

  Sera frowned at this, and the others who had followed us began to mutter among themselves.

  “If Mrs. Harris lied about Nancee, you can do whatever you want with her,” I said. Mrs. Harris whimpered in terror.

  “I’m not staying down here,” Sera whispered to me, as if she and I were somehow allies.

  “You’ll do what Margot tells you,” I said.

  “I can climb as good as you guys,” Sera insisted.

  “You can’t,” I told her.

  “I could carry her,” Henri offered, mistaking Sera for a friend of mine. Margot pursed her lips in frustration as he pointed to a more accessible building across the way. “We could go up in that building and shoot a line across.”

  “Fine,” I said with a sigh. “Let’s go. I want to get Nancee out and tell Saretha about Crab Creek.”

  “How are we going to find them?” Sera asked, automatically including herself in whatever plan I was making. She struggled to keep up with Henri, Margot and me as we raced across the street and into the building. The mob behind us encircled Mrs. Harris.

  I didn’t have an answer. I’d only ever seen Kel gesture to the locations of rooms when we were placing products—rooms I could see on a map on her Pad. I’d never seen a map of the country. Geography was proprietary information, owned mostly by shipping and real estate companies, and they guarded it closely.

  We raced up the stairs.

  “Are you going to bring Harris?” Sera asked, hurrying after me. I mulled over her suggestion. I hadn’t considered that. Mrs. Harris seemed, at least, to have a rough idea of the geography—though I’d prefer a map to her company.

  Margot took Henri’s hand and held it pointedly as we climbed. Henri beamed and blushed.

  “I’m not sure yet,” I answered Sera at last. “But I’m going to set out as soon as Saretha can travel. We’ll go to Crab Creek.”

  Margot tensed. “You are going to leave the dome?”

  “Others have,” I said.

  “We don’t know what happened to any of them,” Henri said.

  “I bet Saretha will be excited,” Sera said, almost like she wished she could tell her.

  I nodded, but I felt a tightness in my chest. Something was broken between Saretha and me. I held on to the hope that finding our parents would somehow fix it.

  “We all may have to leave,” I said. It was a realization I had been coming to since we destroyed Rog’s tower. If there was no food, we would have to go outside and find it.

  “We would lose everything we have gained,” Margot protested. “Once again, you would be unable to speak.”

  We reached the topmost floor and spilled out into the hall.

  “Maybe,” I said. “Or I could just take the shocks.”

  “You’d go blind.” Henri fretted.

  “There’s that story,” Sera said eagerly, “about the girl who got her Cuff off and then said a few words a day until her overlays ran outta power.”

  “It is just a story,” Margot said, exasperated.

  I shot out a line as Sera asked, “How do you know?” She bumped me with her shoulder, like we were having a good time. I wasn’t. If she really believed that story, then why wasn’t she letting her Cuff go?

  “People would do that all the time,” Margot insisted.

  I rushed over the open street, hanging on to my runner as it zipped across the long wire. I slowed to a stop at a balcony on the thirty-seventh floor of Le Rocazor™. Two glass-paned doors were shut and locked from the inside. I reached for my lock pick, but then remembered I didn’t have to treat them like a Placer. I was burning to vent some frustration, and I wasn’t going for subtle and invisible. I kicked at the glass. With a little effort, it split, splintered and shattered to the floor.

  “That was foolish,” Margot said, landing behind me. “Now we are announced.” She turned to watch Henri zip across the gap with Sera clinging to his back. I rushed inside and down the hall to apartment B. I tried one run of the magnetic lock pick. It failed, but I could hear distant voices arguing within.

  Henri, Margot and Sera finally caught up with me. I ran the pick a second time with no luck. When Henri saw that the pick wasn’t working, he rammed a shoulder into the door. With a crack, it slammed open.

  “Shut up!” I heard a muffled voice shout.

  “No!” A reply came, just as muffled, but more familiar. I knew that voice; it was Nancee.

  “Spread out and search the rooms,” I ordered. Henri and Margot obeyed. Sera followed me.

  “I’m here!” Nancee called out.

  There was a slap and a pained cry. “Stop talking!”

  “No!” Nancee yelled, defiant. I felt a surge of pride as I scanned for her.

  “Now you aren’t a Silent?” the woman’s voice screeched. “Now?”

  “Help!” Nancee cried. “Help!” She must have heard us and knew we could only be potential allies.

  “Where are they?” Sera asked, looking around. The place was large, and it took several minutes to search all the rooms—including a small depressing one that was obviously meant for a servant like Nancee. I held up a finger and waited for Nancee’s voice.

  “Help!” she called out.

  “It sounds like it’s coming from the wall,” Sera said, confused.

  “This is outrageous!” the woman’s muffled voice said. “If you make one more peep...”

  I zeroed in on the sound and found the subtle, faint outline of a hidden door. The woman had dragged Nancee into a Squelch. Of course.

  “Do all rich people have secret rooms?” Sera asked.

  “A lot of Affluents do,” I answered, getting my lock pick out again. “Margot does.”

  Margot’s face soured. “For music,” she said.

  “It’s called a Squelch,” Henri explained. “Rich people keep them as a secret space to talk without paying. The room is designed to keep the WiFi out and words in.”

  “How can we hear inside?” Sera asked.

  “What do you mean?” Henri asked.

  “This Squelch? It’s supposed to keep words in, right?”

  I suddenly realized why and had to laugh. “The noise cancellation software won’t work without the WiFi.” It felt good to speak, even if I had to hurry and conce
ntrate on getting the door open. “Every system has to handshake with every other system, get permission and agree to Terms of Service.”

  Sera frowned. “That’s...”

  “Ridiculous,” I muttered. “The software they designed to break the Law won’t function until it gets a legal okay over the WiFi.”

  “Oh,” Sera said, nodding. Then she slapped the wall with her hand a few times. “We’re coming!”

  “I’m in here!” Nancee called.

  “You aren’t authorized!” the woman’s voice wailed.

  “Hurry,” Henri said to me, pressing his ear to the wall.

  “She is hurrying,” Margot said, keeping a hand on Henri’s shoulder and an eye on Sera.

  “All of you!” the woman inside rasped. “Stop speaking. It’s illegal!”

  She didn’t understand or care that she was breaking the same Law—that she had a room specifically to cheat the Rights Holders and break that Law.

  “Who’s out there?” Nancee cried with rising excitement.

  I ran the lock pick quickly to no effect. “Everything needs the WiFi to function, even this stupid thing.” I shook it with frustration.

  “You can’t keep me in here,” Nancee said from within. Her voice was low and shaky now.

  “Where else am I going to keep you?” The woman’s voice came back. She sounded distressed, but only as if she was having a bad customer service day. I don’t think she understood the gravity of her circumstances.

  I twisted the small lock pick against the spot where the magnetic lock should be. I had to think about how the lock actually worked and picture the mechanism in my mind to unlock it manually. After a few moments, it clicked.

  A gasp escaped from the woman, or perhaps it was the air releasing from the sealed room. The panel sprang out an inch. Henri pried it open.

  In the center of the small white room, Nancee was bound by a cable to a chair. Her eyes were tired and fearful, but they brightened when she saw us.

  “Sera?” she asked tentatively as Sera rushed in ahead of me. Then Nancee saw me and her face broke into a wide smile. “Speth!”