All Rights Reserved: the must read YA dystopian thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat!. Gregory Katsoulis Scott
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Автор: Gregory Katsoulis Scott
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Детская проза
isbn: 9781474074520
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My Cuff felt warm. I pressed a finger to the edge near my wrist, realizing that I might never again feel the skin underneath. The Cuff’s warmth troubled me. It was not unheard of for NanoLion™ batteries to malfunction and go white-hot in a Cuff. If that happened, I’d lose my arm—and probably my life. Would I scream? Would it matter?
Perhaps sensing my blackening temper, the Ad on my arm finally winked away. The screens around me shut down, and the park darkened.
A short time later, a thick group of golden-haired teenage boys ambled by. They were enormous, fat-legged specimens of wealth and privilege. They glanced at me and walked on like they had stepped in dog feces. I lowered my head and hid my face. I didn’t want another confrontation.
Screens burst to life around them, flooding the path before them in bright, sunny colors. Ads addressed them loudly by name. Parker. Madroy. Thad. The Ads scrambled after them, like dogs desperate for a master’s attention, moving from screen to screen. Moon Mints™ invited them to sit in the park, showing them fatter, more pleasant-looking versions of themselves sitting in the park in golden light, laughing and surrounded by skinny, big-breasted girls far prettier than me.
Please no, I thought.
They heaved themselves down the street, waving off the Ads like flies. They couldn’t be bothered. One of them cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled back at me. “Sluk!” That was all the effort he could expend.
My Cuff popped to life again. Are you a Sluk? Take the Cosmo™ Quiz!
I kept my head down. The Ad faded quickly. Then I heard a different voice, this one quiet and gentle.
“I have things to tell you,” the voice whispered.
I looked up. Beecher’s grandmother was standing right in front of me. She was smaller and more stooped than I remembered. She wore a stiff black dress with sleeves so long they covered her hands. It looked ancient. She looked so sad, and I had the urge to tell her how sorry I was.
“Find me,” she said in a low, quavering voice. Her lips barely moved. Her head was low.
She shuffled away, back out of the park, and stepped onto the bridge with a heavy sigh. Find her? Did she want me to follow now? Why didn’t she just say what she wanted to say? Was she on the edge of Collection, too?
She moved to the side of the bridge opposite where Beecher had jumped, and then made her way over the curve. Anger suddenly twisted through me. Was she toying with me? Hadn’t I done enough for her? If Beecher hadn’t jumped, I don’t think any of this would have happened.
I wasn’t going to follow her. I wasn’t going to find her, either. If what she wanted to say was so important, she could find me.
Nancee’s Last Day ceremony was moved to Pride’s Corner, a small, empty square of land not far from Mrs. Micharnd’s gymnastic academy. It was a “waker,” because Nancee had been born at 4:12 a.m. and Mrs. Harris refused to apply for a shifting permit to schedule the ceremony at a more reasonable hour.
“Maybe we’ll see a Placer,” Sam said, scanning the rooftops as we walked. He wasn’t supposed to come, technically, but he said he wanted to walk with me. Even if I had been speaking, though, I wouldn’t spoil his enthusiasm by pointing out that the Placers would have come through long before. They would have to know Nancee’s schedule, to make her Last Day Placements and set her Brand. But Sam enjoyed looking out for them too much for me to ruin it. I’d already ruined enough.
I couldn’t hold his hand while we walked, either. Even without the cost of the gesture, Sam was too old for that. Instead, I half curled my fingers over my thumb and thought about when he was little, and I would hold his hand and take him walking in the better sections of the city.
A small platform was set up for Nancee—much smaller than mine had been. Her product tables were sparse, with only Moon Mints™ and Kepplinger’s™ Hair Braids. I didn’t see any Huny®. Nancee had so wanted to be a Huny® girl, like my sister. If you weren’t rich, it was like a verified stamp of approval that you were pretty and worth something, but I don’t think Nancee or I were ever going to make that grade, according to the algorithms of the Huny® corporation.
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.
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