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TWO SECONDS OF SCREAMING: $1.98

Once, I loved to talk. What did I say with all those words? It seems like nothing now. I honestly can’t remember much: a conversation with Nancee about how birds make it into the city, an argument with Sera Croate about my hair (she said I looked like a boy with it short, but the style was free), a discussion with Beecher about how I liked the feeling of certain words in my mouth.

Luscious, Effervescent, Surreptitious, Cruft. I wasn’t thinking about expressing myself. Beecher had warned me: “Expressive words cost more.” He’d said it as if I should already be careful. He looked down at his Cuff’s thin amber glow.

Beecher Stokes—sentence: Expressive words cost more: $31.96.

His face was all gloomy. He could have spent that money on kissing, or saying something nice. He could have told me how he felt—he could have asked me anything, or at least warned me about how it really felt to pay for every word. Maybe that’s what he was trying to do. That was our last conversation.

I raced to where he had jumped, then stopped myself short. I couldn’t look down. I shut my eyes tight. The leaden thump, screeching tires and clatter of twisted metal had spared me nothing. I reeled back and doubled over. What did he just do?

A shattering wail filled the air anyway—Beecher’s name as a question. My eyes stung with tears, burning the fresh overlays in my eyes. It took me a second to realize I wasn’t the one screaming. It was Saretha.

I let nothing escape, not a scream, not a gasp, not a breath of air. I had stopped breathing, like it wouldn’t be real until I drew breath.

The howling stopped. Saretha’s Cuff buzzed.

Her shriek was legally considered a primitive call for comfort, aid and/or sympathy. The charge was 99¢ per second. Mrs. Harris twisted a bony, aggrieved finger in her ear and shook her head. She picked up my left arm and looked at my Cuff in disgust, but then her sharp, disapproving face broke into a ghoulish smile.

“Speth,” she said, wide blue eyes piercing me, “there may be hope for you yet!”

There was no concern for Beecher in her. She exhibited no revulsion. She was simply pleased I had not made a sound.

I swallowed. I was breathing again. Long, panicked breaths passed in and out.

From below, an intense, white, molten light flickered. The NanoLion™ battery in Beecher’s Cuff had ruptured. And then I knew that he was truly gone.

Saretha looked at Mrs. Harris, wild-eyed. Mrs. Harris put on a look of concern and patted her shoulder three times, did the math on what it cost and calculated Saretha warranted two final pats. The government didn’t cover Mrs. Harris’s gestures. She had once quoted a statute to us about how gestures were an inexact means of communication.

“Personally, I find them coarse,” she had told us. “A poor use of funds.”

I could not look at the woman. I stared blankly up over the bridge’s rail, to the expanse where cars were slowing in the distance, backed up by the accident. Cars began to honk at the delay, a dollar per honk, even though the bright white glow of the ruptured battery told them there was nothing anyone could do.

They hated us, those wealthy people, driving the ring for pleasure. Beecher, whom I’d cared for—maybe not the way he’d wanted, and not as much as he’d cared for or needed me—he was dead, and all they felt was irritation at the inconvenience.

Around me, there were other noises. My party filled with gasps and cries, then trailed off into a timorous murmur.

Timorous, I wanted to say, but I did not speak it.

Cuffs buzzed like an insect swarm. Sam came running out of the crowd, his mouth open, his round, usually playful face squinting in confusion.

“Why?” he asked in a rasp, looking over the edge at a scene I could not bring myself to witness. How could I answer?

I pulled him back from the edge. I wanted to tell him what I knew, but it was too late. I looked at my Cuff. The clock had run out. I pinched my fingers closed and ran them across my mouth. The sign of the zippered lips was a rare gesture still in the public domain. It was meant to allow people without means a method to communicate their lowly state, so Affluents wouldn’t have to waste their time. I wasn’t really supposed to use it with people who weren’t wealthy.

Mrs. Harris winced. “This isn’t the proper circumstance.” Her tone was somewhere between compassionate and annoyed.

“What else is she supposed to do?” Sam asked, his face red with rising anger.

Mrs. Harris put a hand on Sam’s chest to settle him down. He batted it away.

“She is supposed to read her speech and have her party,” Mrs. Harris said, as if nothing else was possible.

“Mom doesn’t approve of that gesture,” Saretha said, a step behind, waving her hand vaguely in front of her lips.

Our mother felt like it was groveling. She used the word supplication, which cost $32 that day. Mom said the only reason the zippered lips gesture was free was so we could humiliate ourselves. I had never seen her do it, not even when we were broke, not even when she was supposed to. I suddenly felt like I had let her down.

I wanted to put a hand on Sam’s shoulder, but Mrs. Harris had warned me about comforting gestures. I bit the knuckle of my cuffed hand instead.

A low, strained chatter resounded from Falxo Park, first from the younger kids, then from everyone else, as they tried to work out who had jumped and why. I thought of Beecher, and I felt airless.

* * *

Mrs. Harris led me to the edge of the stage. Ads crawled blithely along the city wall behind, a blur to my wet eyes.

“The Placers did a fine job,” she said, gesturing to my product tables. Product Placers had slipped into the park and set up an array of snacks and product samples. I had truly been looking forward to seeing what they brought, but now I felt disgusted looking at it all.

Mrs. Harris took a Keene Squire-Lace™ Chip—an elegant, intricately printed, crisped potato disk with my name and the number 15 laser-etched into the center. The Placers had left bowlfuls of them.

Mrs. Harris popped the chip in her mouth. As she chewed, she pretended to be upset.

“No Huny®,” she commented, looking around with a wrinkled nose. Huny® was Saretha’s Brand. I didn’t expect they would be my Brand—usually it’s your sponsor—but it was a little unusual they hadn’t put out a few packets.

“Well,” Mrs. Harris said, “I guess you should go ahead and read your speech.” She wiped her hands clean of the chip’s Flavor Dust™.

My body shivered. I felt weak. Maybe she was right. I had my contract to think of. If I broke it, there was no telling what my sponsor might do. No one was paying attention. Maybe I could read it quick and get it over with.

Sirens wailed in the distance. A news dropter appeared out of nowhere and hovered over the highway, where Beecher and the mangled cars were splayed. Then another dropter appeared, then more. They jockeyed for position and, failing to find a good spot to film the body, they spread out to the crowd and then to me.

“She can’t make a statement,” Mrs. Harris said, shooing them away while smirking at the attention. She lifted my hand to show them. The beautiful paper of my speech was distressed—creased and wrinkled from the tension of my grip. Mrs. Harris clucked and moved my thumb. “Let them see the Keene logo,” she whispered, even though I wasn’t a Facer.

“You do know someone’s dead, right?” Sam muttered. Mrs. Harris’s face twisted into what she thought was an appropriate expression of concern.

Saretha gently pulled Sam back, and every lens turned to her.

On the highway, a dark line of cars threaded through the clot of traffic. The other vehicles parted to let the Lawyers through. They arced around us, taking the long curve up the exit to the green. News, police and cleanup crews trailed them, ready to deal with the wreckage Beecher had wrought.

A distinctive Ebony Meiboch™ Triumph snaked its way to the front. Everyone knew that car, and they all gave it a wide berth. The Law Firm of Butchers & Rog had arrived.

SILENCE: $2.99

Butchers & Rog was the city’s most prestigious firm. Silas Rog himself had drafted countless pieces of legislation for the city, and some, it was said, for the entire nation. It was hard to know how powerful he was, because one piece of his legislation barred what he designated “undesirable news and information from outside the city.” Other people said he ran the city, though Rog himself denied it.

I was nine years old when Butchers & Rog delivered a bright yellow envelope to our apartment door. My father peeled the thing open and dropped a thin, torn slip of yellow to the ground. Sam tried to keep it. He was too young then to know you need a license to keep paper. The Paralegal slid it out of his hand, then held out his Cuff for my father to plead. My parents never read the terms. There was little choice but to agree. No one could disprove an ancestral download. Fighting would only cost more money. Silas Rog never lost. My father tapped AGREE with a hard knuckle, my mother with a trembling thumb. We had seven days with my parents while they set affairs in order and packed the few possessions they were allowed. My father tried to give us what advice he could, with what words he could afford. My mother said nothing; she didn’t want the Rights Holders to make another cent.

I wanted to know what song was so important that our parents had to leave because of it, but Saretha said that was childish; we had to take responsibility for what our family had done.

Within just a few months, the same thing happened to Nancee. Her parents were plunged into debt by a similar discovery: her great-grandparents had once been in possession of a silvery, rainbow-colored disc that was said to contain twelve beautiful pieces of music sung by insects. They had smashed it to pieces long before Nancee’s parents were born, hoping to avoid trouble, but trouble found her family anyway.

There weren’t many kids at my party who hadn’t been affected by the National Inherited Debt Act, and its Historical Reparations Agency. Night and day, algorithms scoured every piece of data the Rights Holders could scrape up. Mrs. Harris was guardian to at least a half-dozen of my closest friends, Nancee included. We usually steered well clear of her, as best we could.

My Last Day celebration meant Mrs. Harris was all mine for the day. They would be spared.

Mrs. Harris took me by the shoulders with her strong little hands and made sure I was facing the glossy black Butchers & Rog Meiboch™ Triumph.

The Lawyer began to speak almost as soon as the driver had his door open. He knew he had everyone’s attention. Sam glared like he was the devil himself. The Lawyer kept talking until he reached me.

“On behalf of Butchers & Rog, and senior partner Silas Rog, Esquire, I, Attorney Derrick Finster, Esquire, advise the party hereforth provisionally referred to as the Provisionally Counseled Party, that you, Speth Jime, the Provisionally Counseled Party, may reasonably anticipate compensatory damages should you, Speth Jime, the Provisionally Counseled Party, choose to engage the services of Butchers & Rog and its Attorneys thereof against the actions of one Beecher Bartholomew Stokes, alleged Jumper.”

Finster jerked a thumb back to where the road was being cleared and smiled. My stomach turned. I knew enough Legalese to understand he was offering to sue Beecher Stokes and his family on my behalf, but the cold-blooded, litigious sound of his words made me recoil.

I didn’t see how it would work. Who was there to sue? Beecher’s grandmother? What would they do with her? She was so old, it wasn’t even worth it for Debt Services to take her.

“Silas Rog himself has taken an interest,” Finster added, polishing a legal medal with a pinky. He was tall and square-faced and wore a broad chest full of legal medals on his clean, perfectly cut charcoal-gray suit. His eyes were covered by matte sunglasses, gray and pebbled, which gave him a disturbingly eyeless appearance.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Harris groveled. It wasn’t her place to thank him, and I didn’t share her awe.

Finster stood before me politely, letting me think.

Traffic on the road began moving again. Beecher’s body had been cleared, and the road scrubbed of him. The thought of it made me sick. The speeding cars began to roar in the distance.

Finster tallied some costs on his Cuff and licked his lips. His Ebony Meiboch™ Triumph was parked askew on the sidewalk, its driver waiting expressionless for his return. Lined up behind him were other Lawyers, eyeing my guests, waiting to see what bones they might pick. Finster continued.

“Our preliminary, and by no means complete or binding, estimates suggest compensation should be sufficient to abrogate your existing family debt and thus relinquish all claims, public and private, against your assets, material and otherwise, including, but not limited to, time, labor and servitude imposed upon those members of your household in debt bondage.”

I worked out what he said, and my heart leapt with hope.

“Our parents could go free?” Saretha asked.

Finster’s face broke into an eager, gap-mouthed smile. He nodded reassuringly. “All you need to do is agree,” he said. He held out his Cuff for me to tap AGREE.

Was it really possible that my parents’ servitude could finally be over? Was a simple tap all it would take to bring them home?

Mrs. Harris blinked, and her brain tried to work out what this would mean for her.

“She hasn’t read her speech,” she said quickly. Her face was bright red. “She does have a contract.” She could not look Finster in the eyes. Finster cleared his throat and smiled, like we had passed some test. He lowered his Cuff and looked down at me.

“Butchers & Rog recognizes your preexisting obligation to read, as your first and primary paid words, the sanctioned a priori speech approved by the entities of Keene Inc. and its subsidiaries, including but not limited to those endorsements and declarations of intent to purchase products and services from your guarantor. I hereby defer communication concerning Lawsuits and damages levied against Beecher Stokes, his corpse, his family and/or his assigns until such time as the allegedly aggrieved Provisionally Counseled Party, Speth Jime, has fulfilled her preexisting obligation of allocution of said speech, and can freely affirm her intention to retain Butchers & Rog for legal representation pursuant to actions against Beecher Stokes, his corpse, his family and/or his assigns.”

“The hell you say?” Sam asked.

“He is agreeing,” Mrs. Harris explained calmly, “to allow Speth to read her speech before giving a response.” She smiled like this was a great favor.

How generous, I thought.

“How generous,” Sam said flatly. I loved Sam.

“You may read your speech,” Finster said to me, waving a magnanimous arm toward the microphone. He took a step back to give me space.

“Thank you,” Saretha mouthed to him. Her Cuff buzzed with the fee, plus a 15 percent surcharge for speaking without sound.

The crowd of partygoers watched, wide-eyed. Even the younger kids were silent. I stepped to the podium. The Ads behind my celebration muted. I lowered my head and covered my eyes. Nothing made sense. Why would Silas Rog care? If I could have our parents back, surely it meant a worse fate for someone else.

Cars roared nonstop on the road where Beecher had been. They had returned to full speed, as if nothing had happened. On the bridge, two police officers were pointing, marking the trajectory where Beecher had leapt. Between them was a small, bent woman in a rough long-sleeved public domain dress: Beecher’s grandmother. Her misery was apparent, even at a distance. What would become of her? Dropters buzzed around her like a cloud of flies, small, dark lenses flicking between Beecher’s grandmother, Finster, the traffic and me. We would surely make the news tonight.

The police pointed at me. Did they tell her he’d kissed me? She looked bereft. I suddenly felt embarrassed to be onstage. Did she think it would be wrong for me to continue?

“Read your speech,” Mrs. Harris said.

Saretha nodded. Her Cuff buzzed in the eerie quiet. Sam looked away, arms crossed, eyes blinking.

My breathing grew fast and labored, like I couldn’t get enough air. How could I read the speech? How could I accept Butchers & Rog’s terms?

How could I refuse?

Finster stood placidly by. He knew exactly how everything would play out. I didn’t have any real options. I had to read the speech. I had to tap AGREE. I had to do what everyone expected. Silas Rog would sue Beecher’s grandmother or Beecher’s mangled body, or whatever his vile plan was, and he would grow richer from it. In the bargain, I would get our parents back.

The small quaint buildings on either side of the park seemed to close me in. I saw worry on faces in the crowd. Norflo Juarze met my eyes and shouted, “Feliz Quinceañera!” $25.99 spent on Spanish words he couldn’t afford. Sera Croate smirked, her eyebrows raised. I was taking too long to speak. She wanted me to fail, of course. Your friends come to your Last Day, but so do your enemies.

I thought I might throw up, and then thought, if I did, at least something would come out of my mouth. Sam would have laughed if he heard that thought. He would have understood. I wanted to show him with my eyes that everything would be okay, but instead, I started crying.

Beecher’s grandmother was watching from the bridge, stunned and expressionless. I wish she had been angry, or sneered. I wish she had walked away. I wish she had told me it was okay. The speech in my hand had no words of comfort or mention of Beecher. It was nothing more than typical generic nonsense about consumer responsibility, Moon Mints™, Buonicon Tea™ and Keene’s Kelp Gum™ (all owned by Keene Inc.).

I held the speech up. I couldn’t say how I felt about it. I wasn’t allowed to speak other words. Suddenly, a tide of rage coursed through me. My hands seemed to burn. I crumpled the speech into a ball. I threw it as hard as I could toward the highway. It fell uselessly into the astonished crowd, not even a quarter as far as I’d imagined it would go. Gasps rose all around. Mrs. Harris actually started to cry. The news dropters raced to film it like a pack of dogs chasing a bone. They got their shot and turned back to me.

Everyone knew what came next. I would be one of those few pathetic kids you see on the news who squeak out a few words of protest before being carted off. Finster waited for it, smiling, as though he expected me to break contract. It would ruin me. It would ruin my family, and for what? Whatever I might say would change nothing. He eyed Saretha and smiled a little more.

On the bridge, Beecher’s grandmother didn’t move, or acknowledge that I had done anything. She stared blankly toward my stage, flanked by two gaping police officers.

Then, suddenly, another option blossomed in my mind. I seized it, because it was a choice—my choice—and one I’d never heard anyone suggest or seen anyone do. I put a shaking thumb and finger to the corner of my mouth and drew my hand slowly across. I made the sign of the zippered lips, and I silently vowed I would never speak again.

TERMS: $3.99

Moon Mints™ has defriended you, my Cuff warned me with a chime. Chills ran down my back.

“Speth,” Saretha pleaded with a single word.

My eyes ached. My left arm felt heavy from the Cuff. Mrs. Harris, red-faced, ran into the crowd and retrieved my ruined speech.

My Cuff chimed again:

Keene Inc. reminds you that you have agreed to Terms of Service requiring you to read the speech agreed upon by both parties. Failure to do so as your first adult communication will result in fines and levies of no less than $278,291.42.

I could feel my orange dress stained with sweat under my arms. A slick trickle dripped down my back. That was more than enough to destroy us.

Finster’s docile expression never changed. He looked from me to Saretha, pleased, if not satisfied, and turned to walk back to his Ebony Meiboch™ Triumph. Other, lesser Lawyers, who had been waiting in the wings for Butchers & Rog to proceed, broke for the crowd.

I swallowed hard. The world blurred from my tears. I turned away from the podium and dismounted the stage.

“Everyone reads their speech!” Mrs. Harris screamed. Her tightly coiled blond updo, a Vivian Metro™ original, had sprung undone. I think she had to pay a fine for that.

Sam ran after me. I wanted to hug him or take his hand, but I could not. My silence—my lack of communication—had to be complete.

Sera Croate is no longer following you, my Cuff informed me.

Sera tapped at her wrist, a Lawyer standing at her side, bouncing on his heels. A moment later, I had an InstaSuit™.

Failure to provide reasonable value for time. $1,250.

I don’t know why it surprised me. Sera always was a pathetic, petty opportunist.

Phlip and Vitgo, two ill-named boys from my class, elbowed each other and then did the same. They were saving up to buy a nude data-scan speculation of Litsa Dox, a girl Saretha worked with. I hadn’t even invited them to the party.

Franklin Tea™ has defriended you, my Cuff buzzed. Keene’s Kelp Gum™ is no longer following you.

Nancee stared at me, frozen, wide-eyed, from the middle of the fleeing crowd, holding an ice-cold bottle of Rock™ Cola limp in her hand. Tears streamed down her face, like I’d betrayed her. Mrs. Harris stomped over to her, burning with frustration, and made her turn the label inward because Nancee was no Facer.

“What are you doing?” Penepoli Graethe begged me from the crowd, her long face contorted in horror, like what I had done was worse than Beecher’s leap. “What are you doing?” she repeated. She stepped closer. She was taller than me, but younger and hunched, like her height embarrassed her. She still had almost a year before it would be her up on stage. I had promised her we wouldn’t stop talking. Now that promise made my heart ache.

News dropters spiraled in a frenzy, looking for interviews with my friends, dramatic angles from the bridge or shots of me up close. I covered my face with my hands and blindly made a run for it.

Sam called after me. My heart sank further. He’d never understand.

Penepoli called, too, running a little—she was an awkward runner—then stopped, as if it was too much.

In their excitement to follow me, the dropters banged against each other, ruining the smooth and steady shots each network desired.

Norflo Juarze called after me, “Smatta, Jimenez?” Even after his fifteenth, when he worked hard to shorten everything he had to say, he insisted on lengthening our last name from Jime to Jimenez. He said, “What it was, ’fore ’twas shorted, like all Latino names ’round here.” He’d spent $138.85 that day.

What was the matter? Everything, I wanted to scream, but I said nothing, because I had to keep silent. If I never spoke, I wouldn’t have to read the speech. I wouldn’t have to worry about being economical with words or who was making money when I spoke. I would not have to AGREE to Butchers & Rog, and they couldn’t claim I had refused them. This was my only way out.

My throat felt so tight, I was amazed I could breathe. I pushed through the crowd and raced up the bridge, past Mrs. Stokes, who watched me go, wordless and unblinking. I wanted to tell her I did this for her, but that wasn’t really the reason. I didn’t fully understand what I had done, or why I was doing it—except I finally had control over something. The whole system of paying for words seemed so normal—until it was on me, like a wave crashing over me.

Beecher hadn’t seen a way out, but I had to take another path.

“Speth,” Sam called out a second time. I hated the worry in his voice. I had never done something like this to him before. I felt like I was abandoning him.

“We had plan,” he said, despairing. My heart sunk. I looked at him. He tried to smile.

“I was going to do all the talking,” he said. I remembered. “You were going to answer with a cheap word. Termite, maybe, if you agreed.”

We had tried this with Saretha two years before, but she said it went against the spirit of the Law. Then she added, “And it would be cheaper to say Speth than termite, anyway,” which was a little cruel, and cost her $12.73 to point out.

“A termite can still read the speech,” Sam said sadly. His face scrunched up, like he couldn’t comprehend what I was doing.

I paused, straining to keep my sobs silent, keeping an eye on my Cuff for any sign I had slipped up. Crying was free unless you made a sound. I wished I could explain to him. Behind him, Saretha looked bewildered as a small, punchy man in a chartreuse Lawyer’s suit raced up to her, talking fast.

I ran on, full speed, followed by the bunnies over the bridge’s screens, hopping quickly to keep up, singing more vigorously than before. They stopped short when I made it to the bridge’s other side.

Small voices began calling to me from the dropters.

“Crane Mathers from the Murdox Posts™—will you grant an interview?”

“Will you make a statement for Kingstan Press™?”

“CNC™. Can we get you to stare in silence at our camera for just one minute?”

The Kingstan Press™ dropter made a sudden dip, colliding with the one below it. The CNC™ dropter wobbled, then came back, tilted a hard right and slammed the one from Kingstan Press™ into the Ad wall, smashing its surface so the screen sputtered to gray.

I put my arms over my head to protect myself. A media frenzy like this could easily end with a dropter knocking you out cold, or catching its small heli blades in your hair and scalping you. If that happened, dozens more would appear on scene to cover that story.

An Ad for Dropter Gyroscopics™ flashed on the next panel, then more Ads clicked on across the walls in front of me, suggesting Law Firms, running shoes and Media Image Consulting™.

I made it inside our building, slamming the glass door quickly behind me. The dropters tapped at the glass, but were unable, physically or legally, to open the door. I took the elevator upstairs to our apartment on the twelfth floor.

Suddenly everything was quiet.

Our Ad-subsidized home had just one cheaply printed room. The walls were made of slightly rough, striated layers of polymer melt. Our building had been 3-D printed, millimeter by millimeter, from a set of economy plans, and warped to the curve of the ring just inside the outer highway. There were dozens of nearly identical buildings out here, printed from the same template, with all the same sorts of rooms inside.

Our rent was kept affordable as long as we watched thirty hours of Ads each month. There was no place cheaper to live in the city. If you couldn’t afford to live here, you were sent into servitude, like my parents had been.

For years, our home had a slight scent of scalded plastic. One wall had been printed in and smoothed over when my parents were taken. Our apartment was reconfigured to the “proper” allocation for three. It was infuriating to know my parents’ space was still there, empty, a useless void withheld because the Rights Holders couldn’t stand for us to have more than the legal minimum. Mrs. Harris tried to claim it was so we wouldn’t feel sad remembering our parents.

I could still smell the burnt plastic. I could still remember when that room was there—what it looked like. I could still remember them.

Sensing my warmth, the wall-screen clicked on and began a mandated rotation of Ads. I dropped myself on our couch and buried my head in my hands. The Ads increased in volume to remind me that if I did not see them, they would not count toward our monthly required viewing total for our subsidy.

My ears were ringing. My stomach churned, both hungry and upset. If everything had gone as planned, I would have been choosing my Brand like everyone else did on their Last Day, looking over my Placements with my friends and eating pizza—real pizza, not the printed kind. Instead, I had to face what I had done alone.

In silence.