THINGS: $45.98
A CHANGE IN SCHEDULING: $46.96
THE STAIN OF A SENTENCE: $51.95
We had just started over the bridge, toward my party, when the famously cheerful “Don’t Jump” Ad clicked on. This had never happened to me before. The billboard’s advertising systems scanned me—analyzing my age, my style, even my pulse—and calculated I was in need of a friendly reminder not to kill myself. Colorful, hopping bunnies sang at my feet, on a waist-high screen that arced the full length of the bridge wall. Traffic roared along eighty feet below. Above, the city dome was lit a diffuse, fading gray by the evening sky beyond.
I felt a little queasy. Jumpers had been growing increasingly common, but I’m sure a higher railing would have been more effective than a glib cartoon. I wasn’t planning to kill myself. I had other things to concentrate on.
Mrs. Harris, my guardian, was still talking.
“You will get used to budgeting, Speth,” she chirped, but faltered slightly at my name, as if it wasn’t good enough for her mouth. My name was cheap and ugly. Speth. I hated it. It sounded like someone spitting. My parents chose it from a list of discounted girls’ names. When my brother was born, they vowed not to repeat that mistake and paid for a good premium name: Sam.
I wished Sam was nearby to distract me. Sam always made me laugh. But Mrs. Harris had shooed him off to help set up my party in the park, so she would have my complete attention.
Mrs. Harris was a little bird of a woman with restless hands and a tense, wrinkled little smile. She’d been lecturing me for the better part of an hour on what to expect on my big day.
I stopped walking and looked down at the shiny new Cuff she had clamped around my forearm that morning. It was a marvel of engineering—a cool processor, a rock-steady tether to WiFi and a smooth glossy surface impervious to scratches, dirt and smudges. It was rimmed in a burnished lightweight Altenium™ composite. The Cuff was nearly indestructible, unless the NanoLion™ battery went haywire and melted your Cuff and your arm off. The Cuff’s main purpose was to record everything I said and did, so I could pay the Rights Holders their fees.
“It’s beautiful,” my sister assured me. She patted my shoulder. The words she spoke scrolled up her Cuff as she was charged for each.
Saretha Jime—word: It’s: $1.99.
Saretha Jime—word: Beautiful: $8.99.
Then she was charged for patting me.
Saretha Jime—gesture: pat to shoulder—2 seconds: $1.98
Every word is Trademarked™, Restricted® or Copyrighted©. The companies and people who own these rights let people use them, but once you turn fifteen, you have to pay. Saretha had turned fifteen more than two years before. I was wearing the same bright orange dress she had, but not nearly as well. Everything else I owned was dull, gray and from a limited selection of public domain clothes Mrs. Harris allowed us to have printed at the UnderGap™.
At 6:36 p.m., it would be my turn; I would pay for every word I spoke for the rest of my life. Foolishly, I had believed it would be fun.
My Cuff felt tight. I tried to fit a finger between it and my flesh. There was no gap.
“In the unlikely event it needs to be removed,” Mrs. Harris said, “the proper authorities can do so. However, if your Cuff is removed for any reason, you will not be allowed to speak. Any utterance will result in a painful shock to the eyes.”
I closed my eyes. My lids slid down just a bit more slowly than before. As part of my transition, in addition to the Cuff, Mrs. Harris had roughly thumbed a corneal implant into each of my eyes. The implants were, at that moment, slowly fusing to my corneas. She said I would have terrible eyesight without them.
I’m almost certain this was a lie.
“You’ve read the Terms of Service?” she asked, but she knew I hadn’t. No one read the ToS. They were boring—hundreds of pages of intimidating, brain-melting Legalese. What did it matter? I had to agree. We couldn’t change them, and while technically I could “opt out,” I was required by Law to have the implants before I turned fifteen.
“Optic shocks may cause nausea,” Mrs. Harris said flatly, “dizziness, redness of the eyes, swelling, headaches, shortness of breath, seizures, confusion, heart palpitations, vision changes and, of course, blindness.”
“Rarely,” Saretha assured me. Her Cuff buzzed and charged her $1.75. I missed when we used to really talk. She was always so positive and joyful. I supposed she still was, inside, but I mostly talked with Sam after her transition. We didn’t have the kind of money that would let us talk freely once we were paying for our words.
“Traditionally, one arrives at one’s celebration at exactly the moment one turns fifteen.” Mrs. Harris’s thin smile pulled tight. I think she had timed our walk out to the park. Slowing down was not part of that plan.
I wished I didn’t have to have a Custodian. I wished my parents could have been here, but when I was little, our family was sued for an illegal music download traced back five generations to a great-great-aunt somewhere. We owed the Musical Rights Association of America® more than six million dollars in damages. Debt Services took our parents and placed them somewhere down in Carolina, pollinating crops with an eyedropper and brush until our debts were paid. My heart ached thinking of them so far away.
Mrs. Harris noted my sadness and moved on.
On the far side of the bridge, my celebration was crowded onto a small, manicured strip of green called Falxo Park. It sat at the very edge of the city, in the heart of the Onzième, where the dome curves down to the city wall. All the faux-Parisian-style shops crowded around the park, stretching off into the distance in a plastic approximation of Franco quaintness.
The outer shopping district and the park it flanked were beautiful if I squinted at it, awash and aglow in Moon Mints™ Ads. There was scarcely a surface in the city that couldn’t throw up an Ad. I liked the colors—sometimes. I just wished there was less going on all at once. It made my head feel fuzzy to try to take it all in—though Mrs. Harris said I had to try.
I could hear the party from across the bridge. All the younger