I had really been looking forward to the party—seeing all my friends, what the Product Placers had brought and what my Branding would be. I was finally going to be a contributing member of society. Mrs. Harris said so. But suddenly, I didn’t want to cross the bridge. I didn’t want a party. I didn’t want a Brand. I didn’t care if I got lifelong discounts on Keene Inc. candies in return for unwavering loyalty to their family of products, or a small monthly allowance to speak encouragingly about Pamvax® Feminine Vaccines™. Now that I could really feel the change about to take place, I wanted to run. Why was this something to celebrate? How would I get used to measuring the cost of my words?
I had a strange urge to do or say something meaningful before the clock ticked over, but such behavior was frowned upon. I was supposed to wait until the moment after I turned. Then I would read the speech I had crafted with Mrs. Harris. I was contractually obligated to read it, from start to finish, as my first paid words.
The speech was in my hand, printed by Mrs. Harris on a thick sheet of real paper. My sponsors had approved it and subsidized my costs in return for peppering the speech with positive statements about their products. Keene Inc. even offered to have it framed afterward, so I could remember my Last Day, but I’d refused that offer; I didn’t want to be responsible for keeping a sheet of paper safe any longer than I had to.
I didn’t really care for the speech. I had thought it was funny to cram in as many endorsements as I could, giggling with my friend Nancee Mphinyane-Smil for weeks about how to work in something about Mrs. Harris’s favorite brand of industrial-strength suppositories.
I suddenly wished the speech said something more. More about me, my thoughts...my future.
“We should really get moving,” Mrs. Harris said.
I nodded, swallowing hard, and began to move. My eyes ached.
“I understand it can be difficult. Reducing your chat so precipitously, after fourteen years of free speech.” Mrs. Harris let the word precipitously slip out between her teeth with delight. The government paid for her words, and she relished them. There was a reason a woman like Mrs. Harris became a Custodian and took on guardianship of so many children.
It wasn’t compassion.
“Undoubtedly you have been speaking more than normal lately,” Mrs. Harris said, waving at me to hurry.
I hated that she was right. I had been talking more. I had also been dancing and singing and practicing gymnastics. That was all finished. Every dance move, every gymnastic flourish and every note of every song was Trademarked and priced outside what my family could afford. None of this was Mrs. Harris’s fault, but I still wanted to blame her. I had always disliked her. I glared at her horrible, insincere face.
“What?” she asked, taken aback. I took a deep breath.
“Is it normal to be able to see through people’s clothes?” I asked, squinting through my new corneal overlays.
Mrs. Harris flinched and moved to cover herself, until I snorted out a laugh.
“Sorry,” Saretha said for me. Sorry was a fixed-price word at $10, and a legal admission of guilt. She should have let me say it. I still had a minute left. I just wanted to have a little fun.
Mrs. Harris shook her head, tapping at her own Cuff a few times until a micro-suit showed up. The first thing to appear on my Cuff’s screen was $30 worth of Mrs. Harris’s “pain and suffering.” She sued us all the time like this for petty grievances. Saretha just tapped PAY.
“I have helped thousands of boys and girls transition, and trust me, you aren’t any different,” Mrs. Harris sniffed.
The clock was ticking down. In a few seconds, I would officially turn fifteen. I wanted to think of something meaningful to say, but what? My heart was pounding. My tongue felt like a solid lump in my mouth. Mrs. Harris sighed.
“It is very easy to slip up and speak, or shrug or scream, before you read your speech. This would void your contract, which would be disastrous. I must remind you of your obligation to read it first.” She lifted the hand that held the speech and shook it around, like I was a puppet. “These need to be your first paid words, Speth.”
I pulled away from her. I knew what my responsibilities were.
Mrs. Harris watched the time tick over on her Cuff. “You are an adult now,” she said, her eyes fixed on the podium in a way that highlighted the fact that we had not yet reached it.
The bunnies sang more loudly at the apex of the bridge. “Don’t jump, puh-leeze.”
Saretha beamed at me. Smiling was still free. How bad could things be if she seemed so happy? Her smile was wide and bright and friendly. It made you feel warm. She looked like she belonged in movies. A step behind us, her Ads sang a different tune across the glossy LCDs.
Saretha’s Ads were full of romance, perfume, alcohol and shoes. She didn’t come close to a jumper’s algorithm: she was too pretty, too graceful and too well-dressed. When she chose her Branding, Saretha got to choose between twenty-three different corporate brands. I would be lucky to pick from three. Saretha was a Facer, which meant that when she drank a soda in public or ate some chips, she was expected to face the product label out so people could see it. The systems almost treated her like an Affluent, although they never digitized her into the Ads. Truly wealthy people often had their likeness scanned, recreated and enhanced to look a little more beautiful and happy in a commercial.
Mrs. Harris thought Saretha’s looks were our family’s best chance at a better life. She didn’t just look like a movie star—she looked a lot like a particular star named Carol Amanda Harving. Carol Amanda Harving’s smile was more perfect and white, but somehow Saretha’s was more comforting and real. As Mrs. Harris liked to point out, my sister and the actress looked more alike than Saretha and I did. My heart sunk every time she declared it, usually in a tone she reserved for crueler moments.
Saretha and I looked enough like sisters, but whatever people might have said about her, they said less enthusiastically about me. Saretha was beautiful with an almost golden complexion. With work, I could be pretty, but my skin never shone the way Saretha’s did. Saretha had dark, welcoming eyes, the color of chocolate. Mine were just dark and sharp. Saretha had long, amazing, black wavy hair that rode over her shoulders like a shampoo Ad. I kept mine short, fashioned in a pixie cut Mrs. Micharnd, my gymnastics teacher, found for me in the public domain. When she was my age, Saretha already had curves, and now she had more. I had next to none. I was small, sinewy and perfect for gymnastics.
Saretha went on dates with gorgeous boys who paid for her words and expected affection in return. I went walking with Beecher Stokes, a skinny boy with messy hair who lived with his grandmother. He wasn’t terribly cute, but he made me laugh—or at least he did, until his fifteenth birthday. Then his mood soured. His jokes vanished. He would just stare at me, wordless. To fill the awkward silences, I let him kiss me—as much as he could afford. He could not afford much.
I find it creepy that the system can tell how long or hard a kiss is. I don’t know exactly what the system monitors, but Beecher would pay something like 17¢ for each second. That’s supposed to feel normal. It’s been like this longer than I’ve been alive, but something still felt wrong about it.
Mrs. Harris didn’t think it was appropriate for me to be with him, given what she called his “circumstances.”
When Beecher was ten, his father tried circumventing the programming of a food printer. He wanted to make more nutritious meals. It was in blatant violation of Copyright, Patent and Terms of Service—the Three Major Fields of Intellectual Property. Mr. Stokes disconnected from the network, but he was caught anyway. Debt Services took Beecher’s parents into Collection immediately. They would have taken Beecher, too, but Collection must let you finish school.
Beecher could have had another two years, but he dropped out of school a few weeks after his fifteenth. I couldn’t believe it. I asked him why. He shrugged like it was no big deal—50¢ to act casual. I kind of loved that