Gifted (32 page)

Then halfway through Ms. Crawley questioning Tati, the door in the back of the room opens. Everyone turns to see who it is. An audible gasp goes up when Calliope Bontempi slips inside. Ms. Crawley stops badgering Tati long enough to do a double take while everyone in the room whispers. But Calliope seems to take no notice. She quietly slides into a seat near the back and speaks to no one. Ms. Crawley continues questioning Tati about how long ago I set up my transmitter, how often I broadcast, and how far my signal can reach. Tati keeps her answers short, vague, and hostile, but she can't deny that I regularly broadcast music.

When Ms. Crawley excuses Tati, she turns back to the Arbiter and says, “Ma'am, I'd like to submit records of radio transmissions by DJ HiJax that correspond to the times Zimri Robinson broadcast from this setup nearby. It is our contention that Zimri Robinson is DJ HiJax.”

I burst out laughing along with every other Plebe in the room.

“Our records show that DJ HiJax began broadcasting at roughly the same time Zimri built her antenna. All of our records of HiJax's transmissions come from near here. We believe the link is clear.”

“That's absurd!” Tati says.

“Then produce DJ HiJax,” Ms. Crawley says, “and disprove my theory.”

At that moment, Calliope Bontempi shoots out of her chair and runs from the room, leaving everyone stunned as the door bangs shut behind her.

Finally, Ms. Crawley stands to make her closing argument. “Ma'am,” she says to the Aribiter, “I stood here five years ago, a younger and more naive justice broker at the beginning of my career with Chanson Industries, and I brought a very similar case against this girl's mother.”

I inhale sharply. Esther Crawley's bright blue eyes have dulled somewhat and her skin has become more mottled, but the picture is clear in my mind. She told me to stop singing then, and now she's back to stop me again.

“Zimri Robinson is a product of her mother's deviance regarding music, but that is no excuse. She is sixteen, an adult under the law who holds a full-time job, and she knows the difference between right and wrong. But like her mother, she has no regard for private property and is a thief. Rainey Robinson never paid her debt to Chanson Industries and she never served her jail time. I implore you not to let this Robinson get away with the same thing.”

“Zimri,” the Arbiter says, “would you like to make a statement?”

“Yes,” I say and stand up. In that moment, I understand why my mother never named names and I know that I won't pass the blame either. I lift my chin the way my mother had at her trial. “I admit it. I have put on concerts many times. I found the places to play, I promoted the shows, and I sold the tickets. I played alone. No one else was involved.”

The crowd shifts and murmurs. I hear Brie gasp and say, “No!”

“But,” I add and the room gets very quiet, “the music I make and share is mine and mine alone. The only exception was when I was eleven, a child grieving the loss of my parents. Then I sang my mother's favorite songs because I missed her. Money had nothing to do with it. I would have sung those songs whether people gave my grandmother money or not. Since then, all of the music I've made and shared is mine. And Harold Chanson said himself that anyone is free to promote and distribute original music. That's all I do.”

“That's not true!” Ms. Crawley says. “This very evening you knowingly sang an Arabella Lovecraft song.”

“That's my song!” I shout at Esther. “I wrote it. I sang it. I even recorded it long before Arabella stole it.”

“Wait a moment,” the Arbiter says. “Can you produce a recording of this song prior to the release of Arabella Lovecraft's version?” she asks me.

I stand, my mind reeling. I think about the digital and video recorders I scrubbed clean, the waves I sent out that dissipated into the night. I was so careful to erase all of the evidence of my music that I can't give her what she wants. My eyes sting and my nose itches like I might cry. I start to shake my head. My knees begin to give out, but then I remember. “Piper McLeo!” I shout. “When I auditioned for Piper McLeo, the engineer recorded me singing ‘Nobody from Nowhere.'” The whole crowd lets go a collected breath. “That recording will be time-stamped a few hours before Arabella dropped her sneak peek of the song.”

The Arbiter sits back and turns her attention to Esther Crawley. “You'll need to get Piper McLeo on the screen.”

 

ORPHEUS

Smythe keeps her
word. She deposits me in my father's office then guards the door as I watch helplessly while Esther tears Zimri apart on the screen. Esther parades witness after witness from the Complex, each more scared than the last. When Calliope Bontempi comes in, I gasp along with the rest of the crowd. I can't imagine what she's doing there. When she runs out again, I hope and pray that she's smart enough to tell my mother what's going on since I can't reach her myself.

Mostly, I sit slumped and helpless. I can't believe I put Zimri in this position, and I need to get her out of it. Then she shouts, “Piper McLeo!”

I jump up from my chair, cheering, “Yes! Zimri, yes! You're brilliant. Why didn't I think of that? Piper has the song!”

Even Smythe hurries over to see what's happening. She looks at me and smiles. “See?” she says. “Justice can prevail.”

Now Smythe and I sit together, waiting like everyone in the courtroom with Zimri, for Piper to come on screen. And when she does, she does what Piper McLeo does best—she spins the story in her favor.

“Yes, Orpheus brought Zimri along when he visited me, but I have no recording of her,” she says as if the idea is preposterous.

“Liar!” I scream at the screen.

“Did she sing for you?” Esther asks.

Piper pretends to think this over, as if her memory of Zimri is so murky. “She may have,” she says. “But it was nothing special. I pulled Orpheus aside and told him I was worried about him. Clearly he'd been beguiled by this girl. It was almost as if he had been brainwashed by her. I can't think of another reason a person like Orpheus Chanson would give everything up to work in a warehouse. What can I say, maybe he was in love, or maybe he'd been coerced. But I told him the truth—Zimri could never be a superstar.”

I shake with fury over how she spins her words. None of them are exactly lies, but they are not the truth either.

Then Zimri shouts, “Ask Arabella!” The drones all zoom in on Zimri's face. She stands tall, unflinching, stronger than I could ever be. “Ask her if that song is hers.”

The Arbiter sighs and thinks this over. Then she says, “It can't hurt.” Esther begins to protest but the Arbiter overrules. “Get Arabella on the screen.”

When Arabella comes online, Zimri's disheveled and disorganized justice broker stands up to question her. “Um, hello, Ms. Lovecraft. What a pleasure. I enjoyed your song.”

I groan aloud.

“What an idiot!” Smythe says.

“So, um, could you please tell us about the song ‘Nobody from Nowhere'?” he asks.

Arabella blinks. Her eyes say it all. There is a blankness in her stare. The ASA has changed her. She's no longer the kind and empathetic person I grew up with. The first girl I thought I could love. She is driven now, and obsessed. Her mind is filled with music and there is no longer room for compassion.

“It's a song about Orpheus Chanson,” she says. She's so calm, as if lying is the most comfortable thing in the world. “I was trying to understand what he was going through. How he could leave our life behind and become a warehouse worker. When he came into the City that day with Zimri, we spent some time together and he told me all about his job. The song is my tribute to him.”

I want to shout at the screen. I can't believe what a conniving little worm Arabella has become.

“So you didn't steal the song from Zimri Robinson?” Fernando asks.

“Oh, heavens, no,” says Arabella with a little laugh as if the accusation is absurd. Then she cocks her head to the right, raises her eyebrows high and does a sweet tiny frown. It was an expression we'd practiced at SCEWL called CondescenPathy, the art of talking down while you seem to care. “That's so sad that she thinks it's her song. I guess Plebes have big dreams, too.”

Right then I know it's over. Esther closes up her arguments. She accuses Zimri of being DJ HiJax, a willful and repeat offender. She claims she brainwashed me—how else to explain why I'd work as a picker in a warehouse, pay her grandmother's MediPlex bills, embarrass myself in front of Piper McLeo, and attend an illegal concert that would hurt my father's company? She claims Zimri is a dangerous criminal and a mastermind who has no regard for private property—the irony being that's a more apt description of everyone on my father's side.

It only takes a minute for the Arbiter to rule in favor of Chanson Industries. Then she asks Esther to name the punishment for Zimri.

“Ma'am,” Esther stands and says, “I cannot put a price on all the music that she's likely stolen through her concerts and illegal radio broadcasts. And I can't quantify a price for the week she stole from Orpheus Chanson's life. All I can say is that Zimri Robinson clearly has no intention of stopping. It's possible that she's not even able to control herself. Like her mother, she seems compelled to steal. Her obsession is detrimental not only to herself and those around her but to the free enterprise of the music industry. Therefore, the only way to rectify this situation is to get to the root of the problem. Chanson Industries respectfully requests that as retribution for her acts of piracy, the auditory cortical regions of Zimri Robinson's brain be scrubbed, which will result in amusia.”

Everyone in the courtroom screams when the Arbiter responds, “Punishment is granted.”

 

BRIDGE

Zimri shivers beneath
a thin sheet, groggy and disoriented in a cold room where everything is made of clean white tile and smells of antiseptic. She wishes someone would turn off the bright light. She wants desperately to sleep. Her head pounds, like a bass drum keeping an excruciating beat inside her skull that wakes her each time she slips toward unconsciousness. In and out she goes, memories swirling like an eddy in the river, and she thinks,
Maybe I'm a dragonfly
. She remembers darting upriver while looking down with myriad eyes at the dark splotches of electronics graveyards and landfills between the Complex and the City.

Zimri surfaces from this strange delusion. The cold white tile and harsh bright lights clear her mind and she remembers,
This is not where I belong
. She knows that she is far from home, from Nonda and Brie and the warehouse where she works but she can't recall the rest. It's as if she can hear traces of a melody in her mind and the rhythm of words but she can't quite sing the song.
How's it go again,
she keeps asking herself.
How does it go?

And there's someone else, Zimri thinks. A boy with straight white teeth. She sees his dazzling smile as if his image has been tattooed on the inside of her eyelids. He was beautiful and kind and she thinks he may have loved her once. Or was he a lyric from the song she's trying to sing? Because those kinds of boys don't exist in reality.

*   *   *

Orpheus runs through a labyrinth of low-ceiling halls. His bare feet slap against the tile. It's late. The facility is mostly dark and empty, but he knows that Zimri's here, too, because Smythe didn't turn off the Buzz when the trial was over. They watched the whole thing hand in hand, both fighting back tears as Medgers and Beauregarde pinned Zimri down in the courtroom. She kicked and screamed when the medic came at her with a tranquilizing needle. Then the drones trailed them as commentators provided a play-by-play of her transfer to a surgical facility in the City. The same one where Orpheus has been deposited by his father because only the finest surgeon will do for the Chanson heir's ASA and this wretched girl's induced amusia. The surgeries are scheduled one right after the other.

Orpheus turns corner after corner. Cold air wafts beneath his surgical gown. He shivers while he sweats. At any moment the nurses will realize that he's missing and will come looking for him. Another corner, another empty corridor, but somewhere in this building is the room where they will destroy Zimri. Take away the part of her mind that is fundamental to her soul. The thing that makes her truly and uniquely herself. The part she cannot live without. So he won't stop running, must not stop looking, until he finds her.

Around another corner, and Orpheus sees light spilling from a window. He slams his body against the plexiglass and there she is. On a table, shrouded in a white sheet beneath a bright light. He tries the door but it's locked. He pounds on the window. “Zimri!” he shouts. “Zimri!”

*   *   *

Zimri hears that boy calling her name. It echoes in the auditory recesses of her mind. “Open your eyes!” he calls and she tries, but the drugs are like a heavy blanket over her consciousness and she can't quite remember what to do.

“Open your eyes, Zimri!” She hears it again and savors the cadence of his words and the melody of his voice. She repeats it to herself as she drifts again toward deep sleep and a dream of floating down the river. Or is she flying through the air? A dragonfly? A fish? No matter. Either way, she is leaving behind the world that she's known and the boy who fought for her.

Orpheus collapses against the window, arms overhead, fists balled, head bowed as if in defeat as Zimri cycles out of her dream. The pounding in her head has stopped. It is quiet and cold and for a moment she thinks she is floating in the river under the sun.
How did I get here,
she asks.
Did I take the plunge? Have I become my father, spiraling away?
She thinks of Nonda—who will care for her? When her father went under, did he think of Zimri and try to fight his way back to the surface, or was death such a relief that he let himself be pulled into the abyss? She will not be her father.
Swim,
she tells herself,
swim,
and forces herself to wake up.