Kids were milling around, far more subdued than they might be at a more reasonable hour. Even the kids who hadn’t had their Last Day yet were fairly quiet, and once people caught sight of me, the whole place went almost dead silent.
“Don’t pay her any mind!” Mrs. Harris’s sharp voice cracked through the air. The sound echoed between the buildings, amplified through Nancee’s microphone.
Nancee watched me with her big eyes, and I suddenly wanted to scream at her to run. But there was nowhere for her to go—nowhere for any of us to go. The best I could really hope for was to warn her away from doing what I had done, but I couldn’t even do that. She stood up a little taller under my gaze. She looked at the paper in her hands and smiled sadly.
The crowd turned back to Nancee in stages. I couldn’t have been very interesting to look at.
Mrs. Harris forced herself to smile and put a hand on the paper. “Nancee,” she purred. I hated when she spoke in that soothing tone.
Nancee was trembling. I could see it even from the back. The paper fluttered in her hands. She took a step and centered herself on the podium. Her eyes scanned the crowd. Her parents weren’t here. Like so many parents I knew, they’d been indentured to pollination. Once, I heard, this was a job done by bees, but honeybees were extinct, or close enough to it that it didn’t matter.
The air was rent by the shearing sound of tearing paper. A few gasps scattered through the crowd as Nancee let the pieces slip to the ground. She put her hand to her mouth, and Mrs. Harris slapped it away.
“Oh, damn!” Sam said, half amused, half worried. My breathing quickened.
“Stop that!” Mrs. Harris rasped. Nancee jerked away and stood on tiptoes so everyone could see her. She made the sign of the zippered lips. Mrs. Harris flushed with fury, glared at Nancee and then turned her wild eyes to me.
“Carlo Mendez did it yesterday,” Penepoli Graethe whispered, suddenly beside me. “And I heard Chevillia Tide did it the day before.”
Did what? I wanted to ask, but I had a sinking feeling I knew.
“What does it mean?” Penepoli asked me in a trembling voice, like I was leaving her behind. Nancee turned her back on Mrs. Harris, the platform and the crowd, and began to walk away. Penepoli grabbed my shoulder and shook me. “What does it mean?”
“If she told you,” Sam said, “it wouldn’t mean anything.”
I looked at him. I ached to know—what did it mean to Sam?
The crowd began to mill around. More eyes turned to me. Mrs. Harris moved off to intercept Nancee, and it seemed like a good moment to escape. I caught Sam’s attention with my eyes, and we headed home.
* * *
Mrs. Harris came straight to our apartment after dealing with Nancee, her eyes blazing. She stalked to the wall-screen and turned on the Central News Network™.
The news was calling them Silents. The report was vague about how many there were or what it meant. It sounded like there were more than the four I’d heard about that morning. They didn’t name any names, except mine. They showed the footage of my Last Day again. They’d found a reverse shot of Nancee looking up at me in wonder, implying I’d inspired her. I felt proud, embarrassed and sick all at once.
“She’ll never be Branded now!” Mrs. Harris squealed, like I had made Nancee go quiet. She was never going to be Branded by Huny®, like she’d wanted. I wondered if it would have been harder for her to go silent if Huny® had been on her table.
“It is estimated that Silents have cost the Dome of Portland, Vermaine, more than six million dollars in revenue.”
“The Silents,” Sam said in a dramatic voice, like it was a group of superheroes.
Mrs. Harris’s face contorted into a snarl of disgust. “Sam, this is not a joke.” She turned to me. “If you don’t fix this, they are going to take Saretha.” Her hands flailed around in a panic as she squawked. “And then they are going to take you. And then they will take him!”
We didn’t need her flapping around the room like an overwrought bird. Saretha stared right through her. Sam looked out the window, shaking his head. I didn’t say a word. Why didn’t she get the message?
“Do you have any idea what they are going to do? Saretha can’t even be properly Collected. I’ve never heard of anything like it.”
I was more than aware. I’d been thinking about what would happen to Saretha constantly. Yet the idea that they would disfigure her just for looking like Carol Amanda Harving only fueled my desire to keep quiet. I didn’t understand it, but somehow my silence hurt the system that formulated such terrible possibilities.
“I knew no good would come from trying to look famous,” Mrs. Harris said, shaking her head. Who was she trying to kid? I felt like she tried to dream up the most irritating things to say. She had been plenty excited that Saretha looked like Carol Amanda Harving until the letter arrived.
Mrs. Harris’s thin lips pressed tight. “Speth,” Mrs. Harris admonished. How was this my fault? I didn’t ask anyone to copy me.
“Stop talking to Speth,” Sam growled. He hopped off the couch and stood up. “Even if she started talking right now, that wouldn’t help anything.”
Oh, Sam, I thought. I wanted him to hear my thoughts. It was a useless hope, but if I could have managed it, I would have told him how sorry I was—not just for what I had done, but for the world we all had to live in.
“I think it would help a great deal if Speth stopped this foolishness. She needs to snap out of it, read that speech and apologize for the confusion she caused.” Mrs. Harris crossed her arms as if this was the last word on the subject, and her frowning puss would be the thing that finally brought me to my senses.
Part of me longed for what she said to be true. Most of me knew it wasn’t, and as if to drive that home, she followed it with the least believable words she could have selected.
“Speth,” she said, blinking her eyes with that particular nervous tick she had when she spoke the following words: “I love you.”
She didn’t love me. She didn’t even pretend it was true. The words made bile creep up my throat. Her budget had a special line item to speak those exact words to each of her charges once each month.
“You don’t have to spend it,” Sam said, arms crossed.
“Sam,” she began.
“Please don’t,” he said. We all hated it. Our parents couldn’t afford to say it, but she got to.
“Well, it seems like a waste,” she said. “It doesn’t roll over.” Her Cuff pinged. Her face turned even more sour when she looked down at it. “Well, I hope you’re happy!”
She turned the Cuff for me to see. The message glowed the angry color of flame.
Your Custodianship for Nancee Mphinyane-Smil has been terminated. Please remit all associated payments dated forward from this time.
“What does that mean?” Sam asked, squinting.
“It means I’ve been removed as Nancee’s Custodian!”
“Why haven’t they removed you as our Custodian?” Sam asked.
“I’m sure you think you are very funny,” Mrs. Harris said. “We’ll see how you like it when Keene Inc. is your guardian.” She turned to Saretha, her only real ally in the room. “Will you please tell Speth that you want her to speak? I will pay for your words.”
Mrs. Harris was more desperate than I’d thought.