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A CRESCENT: $10.98

Mrs. Nince was the kind of woman who wore a cinched half-corset and tight black jeans, even though she was sixty years old and weighed about eighty pounds. She had jet-black hair interwoven with delicate, sharp, printed shapes. Her face had been rebuilt at least a dozen times, and it looked like something from a creepy wax museum. She thought her look was stylish, though that wasn’t the word she used to describe it. She called it modish, because she owned that word. She bragged about how she’d watched auctions for years for a word this good to be sold. I think she just took what she could find. Modish wasn’t exactly a common word.

Mrs. Nince wanted people to say it so she could make money. Words, she knew, were good investments.

Saretha had worked under her for two years and never said a bad word about her. She never described Mrs. Nince’s face as pinched and cruel. She never mentioned how painful the clothes must have been to model. In fact, she never mentioned Mrs. Nince at all, if she could help it, because Saretha never liked to say anything bad.

Her boutique was north, part of the shops above Falxo Park, but far enough along the outer ring that it was in the next section, the Duodecimo. I’d never understood why that section had a Latin name. The buildings were still printed to look French. That was baffling, too. The obsession with French style supposedly came from the period when the French let all their Intellectual Property rights lapse, but I’d only heard that from kids passing it on. It didn’t seem like the full story. My history classes were weirdly devoid of information about the world outside our nation’s borders.

At the shop, Sam asked for Mrs. Nince, and a pretty girl in a painfully tight silver corset and tight white jeans scurried awkwardly into the back to fetch her. I don’t think she could bend at the knees.

We waited.

“Litsa, pour l’amour de Dieu!” a voice croaked. The girl backed out the door and nearly fell over.

Mrs. Nince stepped out of her office, locked the door behind her conspicuously, then turned to us expectantly as she pocketed the key.

“We were hoping,” Sam said, trying to sound both humble and professional, “you might consider letting my sister Speth take over Saretha’s job?”

I tried my best to smile Saretha’s smile. I caught sight of myself in the mirror. My short hair stuck out at odd angles to keep the style in the public domain. I had to be careful not to let it get too neat, or it would drift over into a Patented Pixie 9®. My eyes were red and puffy and opened too wide.

I looked ridiculous. I dialed my expression down to a more appropriate level.

“Her?” Mrs. Nince asked, drawing a long finger up and down in the air to indicate what an inferior specimen I was. Then she drew herself up and held a hand to the silver rim of her Cuff, indicating she would like us to pay for her speaks. The Cuff vibrated—99¢. The gesture was not free. Sam tapped in our family code, and Mrs. Nince relaxed just a hair.

“Litsa, get back to work,” she growled at the girl who was hovering nearby. The girl scurried off, the top and bottom halves of her body seeming to twist without coordination, the corset, perhaps, hampering communication from top to bottom. Phlip and Vitgo wanted to see her nude? Why was this supposed to be attractive? It looked warped and creepy to me.

“What is it that you wanted?”

“We know Saretha can’t work here anymore...” Sam began.

Mrs. Nince rolled her eyes. “Saretha’s unapproved departure from my employ was extraordinarily inconvenient.”

“But Speth...”

“Speth,” Mrs. Nince spit the word out with even more distaste than Mrs. Harris. She shuddered. “At least it isn’t one of those tedious French names like Claudette or Mathilde. Those are rather passé, and so costly.”

She looked me over again—probably jamming me into a corset in her mind—and grimaced. “Why would I want to hire her? She’s flat as a board.”

My face heated up. Sam took a breath. He didn’t want to be part of this conversation. Neither did I. I hated this woman, and it set my jaw tight to think about working for her. I pictured the crescent-shaped scar she’d punched into Saretha’s arm and had to work hard to clear the image from my mind.

“People might be curious...” Sam began. “Affluents...they might like to see if they can get her to talk.”

“How would that be good for business?” Mrs. Nince asked. “Why should I want people distracted by some carnival game of trying to make a Silent Freak talk when they should be buying my modish clothes?”

Sam tried to answer this, but she talked right over him.

“My modish customers don’t want some oddball Silent Freak hovering over them. Can you imagine? You ask the Silent Freak how you look in these modish jeans, or you ask the Silent Freak how many ribs should be removed for a modish Frid-Tube™ Halter, or you ask the Silent Freak if we’re having a sale, and the Silent Freak would just stare and stare like a farm animal.”

“Don’t call her that,” Sam growled.

“Farm animal, or Silent Freak?” Mrs. Nince asked innocently. “Isn’t her silence unusual and freakish? She can’t control it. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to believe? It’s a malformation; the poor Silent Freak can’t speak because her idiot boyfriend killed himself.”

I said nothing, but I thought so many things. She was a noxious, sour, self-important excuse for a human being. I struggled to keep my loathing from showing. How had Saretha been able to stand working for her?

She stepped to within an inch of my face. “Silent Freak,” she said, calmly, as if I should nod so we could all agree.

There was something odd about how pleased she was with herself. Was she trying to goad me into talking? It didn’t seem like it. Despite her overall hatefulness, she seemed more than happy to keep talking to us—at least until Sam spoke.

“You waxy old prune,” Sam burst out. His brow was furrowed, and his cheeks were flushed red. “Everyone can see you slathered on your makeup and had some doctor pull your face folds back. It doesn’t fool anyone into thinking you’re younger.”

I wished I could have said those things. Once, I would have. Sam and I were a lot alike that way.

Mrs. Nince stepped away and pretended to pick at something under a long curling black nail. “Silent Freak,” she said. “So much better and more descriptive than Silent Girl.”

Sam reached for her Cuff, to stop paying for her words, but she held her arm up and away.

“I made a lovely purchase after the incident at your party. I bought the Trademark to the phrase Silent Freak™.” Sam feinted left and quickly moved right. She whipped her Cuff arm back behind her, but teetered a little on her heels.

“I do hope you will stay in the news.” She grinned, her thin, translucent teeth glistening. She must have really hated me to go to the trouble of obtaining the phrase, coordinating with the owners of the words silent and freak, offering a cut of the profits and paying all the Lawyers’ fees.

“I’d love for everyone to keep talking about the Silent Freak™,” she hissed.

I reached out suddenly, and my movement surprised her. I grabbed her arm and held it fast. I wanted to pull it back, like Sera had done to me, but I’m sure I would have broken something on this horrible twig of a woman. Sam leapt up and jammed his thumb to her Cuff, and I let go. The conversation ended abruptly.

She sued us, of course—$1,700 worth. The bill showed up at home. Mrs. Nince also managed to make $3,108.88 off the words modish and Silent Freak, pushing us to within $80 of Collection.