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It definitely wasn’t cute. Micah tried using sheep and wolves for our people, but he gave up on that idea because they kept coming out too Disney. So we stuck with people. He came up with different characters. We changed the names, tweaked the story lines a little. The whole protect-the-innocent thing, especially since the innocent was us.
     
    Then we realized something else. We didn’t know how to produce or distribute Memento without getting caught. I didn’t think it was a big deal. Free speech and all that. We should just upload it, I told him, and send it to everyone at school.
     
    Micah laughed so hard when I said it that Ms. Curtis suggested it was time for us to go home.
     
    “I know just the person who can help us,” Micah whispered as he shoved his sketch pad into his bag. “Tell your car service you need to go to the downtown library tomorrow. I’ll meet you there, and we’ll go to my friend’s place together. Okay?”
     
    “Downtown?” I dreaded the thought of going down there again.
     
    “Don’t worry,” Micah said. “I have your back.”
     
    And I knew he did.
     

Nothing Works
Anymore
     
    Therapeutic Statement 42-03282028-13
Subject: NOMURA, WINTER, 14
Facility: HAMILTON DETENTION CENTER TFC-42
     
    One of the hands, the one with the silver watch painted on the wrist, flopped to the ground like a dead fish. No matter how tight I ratcheted the hands to the armature, one would eventually work its way off. I threw the hand across the garden, smacking it into the bamboo gate—just as Sasuke-san walked through in his best blue suit. His only suit really. He only wore it to one place, and he looked so tired and old and small in it today.
     
    “Ay, Win-chan,” he said. “Watch it.” He was annoyed, but not at me.
     
    “Sorry, Grandfather,” I said. “I can’t get this stupid sculpture to work right.” Then I launched into a tirade about kinetic sculptures, school, and what an idiot Micah was. I don’t know what I said. I was just babbling to distract my grandfather. And myself. Anything to keep us from talking about it .
     
    “We’ll talk later,” he said. I knew without him saying it anyway. The motion didn’t work. Another lawyer quit. We didn’t get visitation rights. Again.
     
    Nothing worked right anymore.
     
    “I’m going to change,” my grandfather said as he picked up the hand and tossed it to me.
     
    “Micah’s coming over later,” I told him. “He’s bringing a girl. Nora James.”
     
    Sasuke-san raised an eyebrow. I shook my head. Sure, I liked Micah, but more like a brother. The idiot brother you have to look out for. And maybe this girl wasn’t the best thing for my idiot brother, but that’s not what was bugging me about her. At the moment.
     
    “Who was Mom and Dad’s first lawyer?” I asked. “That lady you liked.”
     
    “Sidney James,” he said slowly and more like a question. “Oh,” he said silently, and walked back to the house.
     
    I turned the mannequin hand over in mine. Maybe if I added some weight to the hand, maybe a real wrist watch, it would balance out all of the hands, keep them turning like gears. And maybe if I added solar cells and mobile processors to those sheets of canvas I’d found, it would drown out the sounds I hear in my head whenever I slow down long enough to listen.
     

10
     

Whatever That Is
     
    Therapeutic Statement 42-03282028-11
Subject: JAMES, NORA EMILY, 15
Facility: HAMILTON DETENTION CENTER TFC-42
     
    From the downtown library Micah and I walked to the corner of Eighth and Day. The edge of the warehouse district. Mom had said once that this area used to be nice. Trendy lofts. High-priced condos. Hip clubs. It wasn’t so trendy now. Most of the buildings were boarded up. A bombed-out car, the rust thick on its body like scales, hugged the curb at Sixth and Day. The air smelled of rotting garbage.
     
    I stayed close to Micah as I followed him down an alley to a chain-link fence covered with