He tapped Kara on the shoulder and led her away to a quiet place.

  “What are you trying to accomplish? These theories could sabotage your very birthright.”

  She shrugged. “People talk. I like to know what people are saying everywhere, not just in Haansu and Nantou. I’m being a critical thinker, Honored Parke. Didn’t you encourage us to be so at Vox?”

  He sighed. “I think this tour was a mistake. You’l never be employed in BRED anyway. I understand your Honorable Father and Mother have tapped you for a career in marketing.”

  “So they say, but marketing touches al divisions. Yes?”

  “Leave the complexities of our industry to your brothers. Lang and Dae are exemplary young men. Everyone who has fol owed Syung-Low understands where the future lies. It is not with you.”

  The jab hurt, but Kara needed it.

  “Maybe you’re right, Honored Parke. I should leave now. And I don’t require an escort. I know the entire complex.”

  He pointed toward the lift, but she faced the opposite direction.

  “I also know shortcuts. Goodbye, Honored Parke. I’l leave you to talk more about those pleasure supplements.”

  She imagined the blades in his eyes, but he wouldn’t dare complain to her parents. Dr. Parke knew his station in Nantou; any perception of a conflict between him and a child of Syung-Low would not resolve itself in his favor.

  Kara did not take a shortcut back to the central offices. Rather, she exited through a nondescript service door, raced down two flights of stairs, passed through a workers Commons, and entered the room where she expected to find her target.

  The lighting was dimmed twenty percent, and the air did not smel as fresh. She passed rows of tiny offices – each little more than a cubicle with a ceiling – and heard a puttering of keys, the murky vocals of Puratoon Opera, and the aromatic fragrance of wild quovis flowers. She studied the schematic on her hand-comm and matched it to Office 5399.

  Please let it be him.

  She reached for the lock pad, but the door slid open before her.

  Kara didn’t have to wonder any longer. Suddenly, he was standing before her, a heavy-set man with a forehead scar, gasping.

  “Honored Baek,” she said. “I knew I’d find you here.”

  Teemo Baek looked frantical y about then rushed Kara inside, shutting the door.

  “Young Miss Syung,” he said. “You can’t be here, and you can’t be seen talking to me.”

  “Please, Honored Baek. Cal me Kara. We’ve known each other too long.”

  “My name is Kae Motebe. I no longer wear an honorific.”

  Kara understood his difficulty, but she intended to win him over.

  “Yes, yes. An anagram of Teemo Baek. I recognized it when I was reviewing personnel records. I couldn’t believe it. For the longest time, my parents said you weren’t on the rolls. But I heard rumors. I had to investigate. Tell me, Honored Baek, how is Chi-Qua? I miss her.”

  He draped a hand over his eyes as if a headache of unspeakable pain grabbed hold.

  “Young Miss Syung, I lost the honorific last year. I’m Kae. Who knows you are here?”

  “No one who wil ever matter. How is Chi-Qua? We only spoke once.

  We cried. That was ten months ago. Please tel me how she’s doing.”

  Kae Motebe, once one of the wealthiest men in Haansu, who owned the estate next door to Syung, bowed his head.

  “She lives. Some days she smiles. She speaks of leaving for the continent. She knows someone in New Seoul.”

  “No. She can’t. Pinchon is her home.”

  “Pinchon is the city where she lives. Chi-Qua no longer considers it home. In her position, would you?”

  He made a valid point. Kara often wondered how she would have reacted had it been her own family who lost everything in the social refinery that followed the departure of the Chancel ors. She had yet to shake the horror of that morning thirteen months earlier when she arrived at the Baek estate to find it empty. Then, to return home and learn the sordid, disgusting truth from her mother.

  “I’ve tried to reach out, but I’m blocked at every turn. I can’t even find her on the IntraNex.”

  “Please, do not take it personal y. Her mother and I made those choices for Chi-Qua. We wanted to shield her from the repercussions of our shame. After I was offered this position under a pseudonym, we felt fortunate. I earn enough to pay lease and provide for Chi-Qua’s basic needs. If she leaves for the continent, she’l have a few months’

  worth of Dims to see her through.”

  Kara looked around. The tiny office was nondescript. A desk. Two chairs. A touch bar with keyboard and holographics. A vase with purple quovis flowers.

  “What is your job? This division is Support Services.”

  “I am Inventory Logistics Sub-manager for Facilities.”

  Her heart ached. “You make sure the bathrooms are stocked.”

  He met her eyes with a surprising twinkle.

  “I also keep the vases fresh, Kara.”

  How could he bear to smile?

  “I’m so sorry, Kae. None of it ever should have happ …”

  “Please. Your sympathy is unwarranted. My family disgraced itself. Now we pay in standing. Many before us endured the same.”

  Kara wanted to spit.

  “The only disgrace is how you were sacrificed by families like mine. Don’t you dare try to convince me otherwise. If collaborators needed to be punished for siphoning revenue through the Chancel ors, it should have been my parents.”

  “Kara, no! Never in your life say that again. You cannot imagine how fragile your standing is. If even one of your parents’ associates heard such an accusation, they might bring down Syung-Low in a matter of days. You have no idea how dangerous life became in those first weeks after the Carriers left Hokkaido. Our economy stood on the brink of collapse. Anarchists and Freelanders kil ed thousands on the continent – much of it never reported on the Global Wave. We came within hours of a workers’ revolt in Pinchon.

  “The only solution was refinery, as it has been for centuries. They even practiced a form of it on Earth, before colonization. The Gentry Class sacrificed families in the name of appeasing the discontented.

  Refinery al ows scapegoats to fal , and honor be restored to the Gentry. This invokes confidence among plebians.”

  “It is sick, and it is disgusting, Kae. There are days when I loathe my family.”

  “No. Kara …”

  “My brothers do whatever Honorable Father says. They’re his deputies. I believe they spy on other families and build dossiers in case more sacrifices have to be made. I used to love growing up in Haansu. Now, the blades are out.”

  He grabbed her hands and wrapped them in his own.

  “They always were, Kara, but you were too young to see them.

  In a sense, there is relief in knowing we cannot fal further. Our lives have been diminished, but not our love for each other. Kara, why

  did you come down here? This was such a risk.”

  “Because I have a proposal. I think there’s a way to rehabilitate your family. At the very least, have Chi-Qua back in my life.”

  He leaned in and planted a tiny peck on her cheek. Outside the office, this would be deemed a gross violation, perhaps a firing offense.

  “Come now, Kara. You’re seventeen. A bit young to be fighting the scourge of social refinery, don’t you think?”

  “No. Kae, I’ve been researching for months. I can’t find any legal recourse, but there’s a remedy. It’s been used for centuries. Most of the time, families are rehabilitated within ten years. Wil you at least hear me out?”

  He pul ed away. “You sweet child. Also, naïve. Anything you might propose would be a product of your subterfuge. Your parents wil hear none of it, let alone the rest of the Gentry. Besides, by the time Chi-Qua is my age, the Baek name wil be spoken with reverence again.

  Social refinery is not a sentence of death. The next generation wil see things differently. They always do.”

  “That’s a myth. I’ve done the research. Most families never recover from refinery. The Ju-Ho clan practical y ruled The Lagos for two hundred years after colonization. One scandal involving the patriarch’s brother brought down everyone. There are no records of the family –

  even through pseudonyms – from fifty years after. Families don’t return to the Gentry without direct intervention from the original accusers themselves. Kae, it’s the only way, and it wil work. I promise.”

  She saw the sudden, stark realization in his weary eyes. He understood what “intervention” meant. Kara knew her proposal was selfish at best. It might very wel destroy whatever modicum of happiness the former Baeks found in their new lives.

  But it was a chance – and maybe a way back.

  “Kara, even if you had a plan, it would never work. Your parents were not the accusers.”

  She wagged a finger. “Not yet.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’m an angry coit,” she said, using an extreme vulgarity for women. “I’ve been angry for thirteen months. And now I have leverage to make my parents see things in a new light. Chi-Qua

  deserves better. If I can make them intervene on her behalf, wil you and her mother go along with it?”

  “Chi-Qua used to say your stubbornness was going to bring trouble down upon you someday. She also said you’d probably change the world when it did. I think you believe you have a plan, but reality wil be a painful adversary, I fear. I wil speak to Chi-Qua’s mother, but I wil say nothing to my daughter. If you somehow succeed, we wil consider intervention.”

  It was as much as Kara might have reasonably expected. He was right on one count: Trouble was about to take a loud, punishing swipe at her. The next step in her plan required more than effective strategy and verbal gymnastics. She needed the sweet kiss of luck.

  More specifical y, stolen secrets from her brother’s memglass.

  Betrayal among the Gentry was, Kara discovered, a matter of context. One family might turn upon another without repercussions if the refinery appeared to benefit the social order. But to betray within the family? Such madness demanded swift retribution, anything from long-term exile to inexplicable “suicide.”

  Kara understood the potential outcome when she sat before her parents a few days later. Her initial strategy involved recounting a history of refinery they almost certainly knew then reminding them of the long, unshakeable bond between Kara and Chi-Qua.

  “She was more than a friend,” Kara told them. “She fil ed my heart with love when I was depressed. When the snobbery and elitism at Vox became too much, we relied on each other’s sense of humor to make light of the sil iness. We made plans for the future.

  We wanted to travel beyond Pinchon and see everything Hokkaido offered. We finished each other’s sentences, even without speaking them. If we were blood sisters, we could not have been closer.”

  Her father, Perr, cared little for sentiment and appeared distracted as she laid out her case. Her mother, Li-Ann, held a dutiful half-smile and nodded throughout.

  “You sound to me like lovers,” Perr said. “In my long experience, those who complete each other’s sentences are romantical y entangled. Hmm. Daughter, were you lovers?”

  Though Kara sometimes imagined the possibility, she never

  doubted they were meant for others.

  “No, Honorable Father. Though some in school were, as you say, entangled, Chi-Qua and I were platonic, but our bond was unbreakable. So much so, I find myself untethered every day. I have not spoken to her in months, but I’m certain she feels the same emptiness and misdirection. If I could have her back in my life, where I see her from morning to night, I’m sure my wounds wil heal. As wil hers. Chi-Qua played no part in her family’s disgrace.”

  Perr tapped his desk.

  “You are asking for intervention. Even if I could orchestrate the maneuver, Chi-Qua would become the property of another house.

  Asking such a thing of the accusers might beg unwanted questions among those seeking to undermine Syung-Low.”

  “Honorable Father, I have read historical accounts where one house made a public proclamation as the accusatory party in order to shield another house from potential retribution. It is considered a noble act.

  It even leaves the other house indebted to the intervening house. We might gain in stature.”

  Perr turned to Li-Ann. “And what do you think of Daughter’s unusual stratagem?”

  Mother did not hesitate. “She is, as always, leading with a reckless heart. These precedents you speak of, Daughter, do not account for a post-Collectorate Hokkaido. We no longer live in the shadow of the Chancel ory. The great families have few al egiances.”

  “I think you’re wrong, Mother. These so-cal ed ‘great families’ have shared concerns. The Freelanders gain strength. They’l threaten The Lagos and our privilege. The families wil look inward to protect each other instead of sacrificing. I believe they wil accept an act of intervention without so much as a shrug of the shoulders.”

  “Your ideas are interesting,” Perr said, “and not without potential.

  But any danger from the continent is years away, perhaps even decades. Daughter, the political landscape is too delicate. Your Mother and I deny your request for intervention.”

  Kara sensed the futility from the moment she entered her father’s elaborate office, but she pivoted to her mother for one last shot.

  “Please, Honorable Mother. You often said how Chi-Qua and I were

  a shining example of true friendship. When I was thirteen, you confessed to never having a close friend as a child. You said it was your greatest regret. Please, Honorable Mother.”

  “Everyone has regrets.” She waved off Kara. “Childhood is over.

  You have begun your initial training at Nantou, and your career proper wil launch within the year. The Baeks’ disgrace is no longer our concern.”

  “This is your final word?”

  The parents spoke in unison. “It is.”

  “Fine.”

  Of course, it was anything but. Kara had a final play, the worst option but also the only. She knew they’d never trust her again, but they’d have to concede. The real question was whether they’d bring Lang to account. Her plan worked if they valued secrecy over confrontation. Kara rose from her chair and started to walk away.

  She wanted them to believe they beat her, even if for a few seconds.

  She swung about.

  “There was another matter,” she said. “Are you familiar with a synthetic drug cal ed mahali?”

  Their confusion showed. “No,” Perr replied. “Should we?”

  “Probably not. It doesn’t impact people like us. Usual y. It started on the continent a few years back. Nobody knows how. Mostly, it circulated in the worst parts of the cities. Now, it’s making the rounds on Pinchon. A few neighborhoods in Zozo and Umkau. They say it’s becoming popular among long-haul shipping crews.”

  “I see. And what is the effect of taking mahali?”

  “It brings on temporary blindness and deafness. Cuts you off from the world for maybe an hour, but your subconscious takes over. The users say it leads you to other worlds. Incredible journeys.

  And it’s highly addictive. Some have died.”

  Perr sighed. “I see nothing addictive about that experience. Why do you mention this, Daughter?”

  “I thought maybe you would be interested because Lang is the island’s biggest dealer in mahali.”

  Their faces drained of color even as their rage exploded. They fired back at Kara with a level of disgust and denial she predicted.

  “How dare you make this accusation against your Honored Brother,”

  Li-Ann said. “And after you come in here begging for our help with Chi-Qua Baek.”

  “Is this your revenge?” Perr asked. “Bring shame upon your eldest brother? What madness has consumed you, Daughter?”

  “Not madness, Honorable Father. A contact list of suppliers and clients. Smuggling schedules. Rendezvous points. I found them on Lang’s memglass then I copied them.”

  “You stole your brother’s property?” Perr asked the question as if he didn’t hear most of what Kara said. “What has Lang ever done to you?”

  “I’d go down the list if I thought it mattered. I didn’t intend to find out your heir was bringing shame to Syung-Low.” She reached inside a pocket and revealed a memglass. “This is a copy. I have two others.

  Would you like to see?”

  Li-Ann rose. “How disgusting a child have you become? Whatever is on the memglass is a fraud. Did you genuinely believe we would fal for your mindless scheme?”

  “What I hoped, Honorable Mother, is you would accept my plea for intervention. Had you done so, I would have destroyed the evidence.”

  “Blackmail?” She pivoted to her husband. “This child is trying to blackmail her parents.”

  “Not blackmail,” Kara said. “Compromise. Announce Syung-Low to be the accusers of Baek then intervene to bring Chi-Qua into our household. No one ever has to know about this, even Lang.”

  “Sit,” Perr told Li-Ann. “Daughter, if this evidence does support your accusation, what wil you do with it should we fail to compromise?”

  “Nothing. For a time. But you’l come to your senses. If another family had this information – especial y if they were on the executive board of Hotai Counsel – they’d ruin us overnight. Others inside Nantou would fal by association. We’d be run out of The Lagos.”

  They didn’t fight back this time. She saw reality sinking in. Pinchon was collapsing beneath them. Centuries of honor and privilege for Syung-Low hung by the flimsiest string.

  “My brother is an idiot,” she said. “Even if I never discovered the truth, it was bound to ruin us someday. For what it’s worth, I didn’t find Dae’s name on the memglass. Lang might be working alone. But

  he and Dae have always been a tandem. Here.”

  She placed the memglass on the corner of her father’s desk. He leaned back, as if it were poison. She turned toward the door and did not slow down for her parting remark: