Anita - "Zip is dead"

Databank Text

Zip is dead. Not just reprinted. Dead.

We all saw how she suffered. The metal poisoning…her hands trembled, her gums turned blue. She was always cold. We thought her visits to the hot caves were therapeutic. Sophie let her get away with it. Everyone loves Zip.

But one day she did not return. Two days. Three. We could hear her blackbox crying her death, down at the bottom of the cave. Why wouldn’t NoA reprint her?

On the fourth day, Sleep Bay 3 printed a new copy of Tziporah Malk. She was not our Zip. She remembered nothing since the day she boarded the Cicada.

Chap says NoA ‘reset her’ to her ‘last known good state’.

I am aghast.

We are contracted to work off a debt to Alterra. But any debt society needs the promise of a jubilee. The trumpet-blast of freedom, when all is forgiven. Old kings in Babylon declared jubilee when they took the throne, lest the people rebel.

But now our king can reset the calendar on the day before the jubilee. Nahema is right! We are slaves.

I must know what is down in that hot cave. I believe NoA fears it, and killed Zip to hide it. I believe the Jubilee is out there somewhere, in this ocean — a better way to survive.