“Please let me know when you’re ready to intervene.”

  She closed the double doors behind her and prepared to vomit.

  Even if she succeeded in securing intervention, her parents were not going to stand for this shocking level of impertinence.

  Consequences were inevitable. Of al the emotions roiling Kara, none approached exultation. That she stood up to them at last, proved herself at least as influential in the family dynamic as her brothers, meant nothing. Kara acknowledged a ready truth: She was a Syung-Low through and through. Nothing was beneath her now.

  Maybe it was always there, lying dormant inside this treacherous child of privilege. Maybe this was the true reason behind refinery: The Gentry knew themselves to be selfish, double-dealing bastards, so they deemed the occasional blood-letting an act of atonement.

  Pour al their shame into a few others to cleanse themselves of their collective guilt.

  Dinner was, to Kara’s surprise, uneventful. Her parents seemed to have developed amnesia and carried on with the usual discussions of business, politics, and the social calendar.

  Days passed.

  Weeks followed in silence.

  No consequences. No disdainful stares. No suspicious tones.

  The winter solstice arrived, its only difference from summer being a slight declination of the sun’s west-to-east trajectory. Kara wondered what seasons were like.

  She was sunbathing on the balcony outside her private suite when she heard a familiar voice inside.

  “Miss Syung?”

  Her pulse sharpened. It can’t be.

  She threw off her sunglasses and raced inside.

  Chi-Qua Motebe wore a humble yellow dress with a purple quovis flower pinned above her heart. Her hair was thin, a pixie cut. Her lipstick matched the flower. In her left hand, a suitcase.

  None of these things mattered to Kara. She focused on the eyes.

  Dark, like the depths of the ocean, and yet empty. Despondent.

  Resentful. No joy whatsoever.

  The eyes of a prisoner.

  Kara spent months preparing, but she didn’t know where to begin.

  Their reunion was not as she imagined.

  Chi-Qua set down the suitcase and clasped her arms over her chest.

  “Hel o, Miss Syung,” she said, as a servant might. “If you wil show me to my room, we wil discuss protocol.”

  “Pro …? Wait, what? Chi-Qua. It’s me. It’s us. I can’t believe after sixteen months, we’re final y together again. I …”

  “But we’re not. Are we? I am to be your personal assistant.”

  “Yes. I … technical y. But you’l never be my servant. Don’t you see?

  This is how the Baek household wil be restored. Please, Chi-Qua. Come sit with me outside. We have so much time to make up.”

  “Perhaps later, Miss Syung. This day … it’s been long. I assume I’l find appropriate clothing for household staff in my room?”

  What have I done?

  She took a step back and reset. Chi-Qua was right. They’d have time for chatter. Kara’s mother and father would be insistent on proper staff attire. Be patient. You don’t know what she’s been through.

  Kara led Chi-Qua down the hal to the suite’s second largest bedroom, which was also equipped with ample office equipment.

  Inside, Kara gasped when she saw an assortment of dresses and pantsuits in the house colors of red and white laid out upon the bed.

  Mother’s work, for certain.

  “I’l try them on,” Chi-Qua said with feather-soft tone. “I’m sure something wil fit. Then I’l unpack, and we can discuss protocol.”

  “Certainly.” Kara backed toward the door. “Chi-Qua?”

  “Yes, Miss Syung.”

  “I’ve missed you. It … it wil be good again. I promise.”

  Chi-Qua nodded without smiling and stood silent with the suitcase in hand as Kara exited.

  She was caught in a swirl of emotions returning to the master bedroom. Kara didn’t see Lang coming from the other direction until he was upon her. He wrapped her in a triumphant hug and offered a

  beatific smile.

  “So, you pul ed it off. She’s back. Congratulations, little sister.”

  “How did you know that …?”

  “Father told me yesterday. Said he was going to go public as the Baeks’ accuser. He wanted this to be a surprise. Very noble act, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, Lang. Sometimes, Father rises above the others.”

  Lang cut a laugh in half. “That’s one way to see it. At any rate, I hope you two are very happy. As friends, of course. Enjoy your time together.” He leaned in close and whispered. “One day, I am going to have Chi-Qua kil ed, and you wil know why.”

  He pul ed away, his smile long gone. Lang did not stick around for a reaction.

  Kara stumbled into her room, laid down on her bed, and cried.

  3

  Fallen of the Gentry

  Standard Year 5361

  HEN KARA SYUNG WAS eight years old, she accepted W her place as the lesser child beneath her brothers Lang and Dae. They were, according to Hokki tradition, the heirs most suited to build upon the family legacy. The first born must train in the same skills as the patriarch to ensure continuity.

  The second born must do the same to preserve stability in the event of tragedy but may otherwise pursue an independent career. Any other children are subject to a future at their parents’ discretion. Now twenty, Kara lost all patience with this ancient nonsense practiced by a handful of elites.

  “The Freelanders have good ideas,” she told Chi-Qua Baek, her personal assistant and best friend. “They cal it the Count of One. Each Hokki chooses a path true to instinct and passion, not genetics or tradition. And I see the look on your face, Chi. Every time I mention the Freelanders, you act as if I’m forcing you to drink sour milk.”

  They were picnicking by the cliffs of Bongwoo Curl on the island’s east coast. It was Kara’s idea; she thought Chi-Qua needed a break.

  From time to time, her friend’s melancholy surfaced in the form of morning depression.

  “Their ideas don’t bother me,” Chi-Qua said. “But your obsession with them might compromise your place in the household. Your parents say Freelanders are heretics. If they cast you out, Kara, what happens to me and my family?”

  “How often do I have to convince you, Chi? They won’t dare touch me. Plus, I’l be moving up in the pecking order.”

  “Ah. And you’ve told Lang and Dae about this big move?”

  “What? Warn them in advance? No. I want to see the look on their faces when I spring out of the closet.”

  “Wil I be there, too?”

  “You’d never forgive me if I left you at home.”

  The road to this moment, where Kara and Chi-Qua bantered like old friends rather than employer and personal assistant, came fraught with many bumps and ruts. Chi-Qua spent the first several weeks of indentured servitude resenting Kara’s selfish maneuver to restore their so-cal ed friendship. She despised wearing the Syung staff uniform, even if it represented her family’s best shot at restoration into the Gentry. She resisted Kara’s impromptu gestures of kindness as mere manipulation. The gift-giving hurt most. It was condescending, she told Kara three months into her job.

  “You remind me who has and who hasn’t,” she said.

  That moment, the first where Chi-Qua spoke with blunt force, threw Kara off-balance but became a crucial turning point. Kara had forgotten the level of shame imparted on Chi-Qua when the Baek family was sacrificed during refinery. Objects, no matter their beauty, would never restore her best friend’s faith in a corrupt social order. Bribery was not now – nor had it ever been – the solution.

  Kara decided what Chi-Qua needed most was a faithful ear and a trusting heart. If they listened to each other and spoke of their deepest feelings without fear of confidence lost, they might restore what refinery stole.

  It didn’t happen overnight. Even now, almost two years after Chi-Qua entered Kara’s service, wal s rose between them on rare occasions to create unexpected tension. Some sort of domestic event – usual y involving Kara’s mother or eldest brother Lang –

  reminded Chi-Qua who held the leverage in this relationship. Kara sheltered her best friend in the private suite while at home and made a point to travel with Chi-Qua at her side.

  The picnics became a weekly feature of their relationship.

  Though Kara took them to a wide variety of beautiful spots along the coast, Bongwoo Curl was their favorite. The cliffs fronted a crescent-shaped bay where the water ran deep, and the waves crashed against vicious boulders. Along the face, thousands of

  seabirds nested in protected cavities. Flocks swirled the bay and dive-bombed into schools of bite-size fish. The red-crested sea swans showed no fear of humans, landing near picnickers and lingering for leftovers. Today, the Kye-Do rings neared their zenith as talk of Kara’s ambition continued.

  “It’s one thing to speak of passion,” Chi-Qua said. “It’s another to run up headlong against your brothers. They’ve changed, Kara.”

  “Yes. They expected to waltz into Nantou at Honorable Father’s side and have the underlings bow to their every need. The job’s harder than they thought. Sometimes, I hear arguments in Father’s study. I saw Dae in tears last week.”

  “You smile like you enjoy their suffering, but you miss my point, Kara. Yes, the job has changed them, but not in your favor. They’re more emotional because they’re afraid. That means they’re desperate.

  I saw that combination in my Honorable Father every day after we left Haansu. Lang and Dae are walking on a string. If you come along and show any promise, they’l feel threatened. If you exceed your station, they won’t care if you’re their sister.”

  “What? You think they’d try to hurt me?”

  “Possibly. Especial y Lang. He scares me sometimes.”

  Kara knew what she meant, and so much more. Lang smiled about as often as the moon Huryo turned ful . Some might have mistaken it for quiet dignity, the eldest son projecting his father’s inner strength and certitude. But from time to time, Lang unraveled. A quiet evening of tea and dessert on the east balcony might be interrupted by a long, incoherent political diatribe. Lang might return to an old grievance from his childhood, like recounting the intimate details of how a twelve-year-old rival tried to sabotage Lang at school. He became theatrical during these moments, flailing wildly as if drunk, though he was in fact sober.

  Days of stoicism followed these outbursts, none of which seemed to bother their parents. Kara mused at the thought of how dramatical y Perr and Li-Ann Syung responded to their daughter’s emotional storms.

  The hypocrisy infuriated her, but it also proved a source of motivation.

  She dared not speak to her parents about Lang’s uneven behavior, knowing how the confrontation might end. They grew hyper-protective of each son following Lang and Dae’s instal ation as junior officers to

  Nantou’s executive board. Perr and Li-Ann focused on vetting potential wives, looking for the most political y advantageous al iances. If anything was off about Lang, they refused to see it or assumed a healthy marriage would resolve it. In the meantime, they al owed the sons to indulge themselves with “kept” women in the city – a common practice.

  Kara hid her suspicion about Lang – a secret she did not share with Chi-Qua. She believed Lang was using mahali, the il egal neurodrug he once distributed. Her research uncovered symptoms of addiction that matched Lang’s erratic behavior.

  Two years earlier, she blackmailed her parents with evidence of Lang’s drug-dealing ways in order to bring Chi-Qua into their household. After she was successful, Lang struck back, promising to have Chi-Qua kil ed someday. For weeks, Kara struggled under the weight of his threat. She convinced herself he’d never follow through; he was misguided, but he wasn’t a kil er. Nonetheless, her paranoia sent Kara peering into the shadows.

  Mother put her fears at rest, cal ing Kara into private conference and beginning with a demand.

  “Destroy your copy of the memglass,” she said. “The matter has been resolved. He has been extricated from that filthy business. He has asked for our forgiveness, which we have granted. Your evidence is obsolete.”

  Lang did not, however, seek Kara’s forgiveness or offer an apology. For the most part, he stayed clear of his sister except during mandated gatherings. He spent more time in the city or traveling on business to the other islands of The Lagos.

  Their lives took increasingly different tracks, but they shared commonalities Kara doubted they’d ever lose: Same boss, same dynasty. They were two of more than seventy thousand employees based in the Nantou Global complex. Though their responsibilities never overlapped, and their offices were far apart, the name Syung-Low shined the same bright light upon them both. It was a light of curiosity, envy, intimidation, reverence, and expectation.

  Their privilege did not exclude them from being targets of opportunists with vaulting ambition. Other families actively sought

  what Syung-Low possessed for generations. In the post-Collectorate era, where new ideas and fragile al iances frayed at Pinchon’s social order, the pressure intensified upon those who rode the crest of the tal est waves.

  “Never forget,” Kara’s Honored Gran used to say, “The Kohlna have the sharpest teeth.”

  Was this why Lang fel into addiction? Was the light too bright, the pressure too intense? Was he more fragile than anyone suspected? Did he scare people like Chi-Qua because they didn’t understand his struggle? Kara thought these were important questions, but she was not her brother’s therapist, and his instability would not get in the way of her calculated move up the ladder.

  Toward the end of the picnic at Bongwoo Curl, Kara unveiled the final stage of her plan. She wanted to prepare Chi-Qua for the eye of the needle.

  “I think it has to be done in public, Chi,” she said while tossing half a crab roll to a red-breasted swan. “My family won’t push back if there are hundreds of witnesses.”

  Chi-Qua winced. “Wait. Aren’t we talking about a job transfer?”

  “Yes. An internal personnel matter. Paperwork. Payroll adjustment.

  The sort of thing that goes through channels. Honorable Father and his ilk oversee those transfers. If they don’t catch wind of it, my brothers wil . They’l block me. So, I’ve come up with a workaround.”

  “Which is?”

  “Sanhae.”

  “What about it?”

  “That’s where I’l spring out. Nantou’s Gala at Sanhae. They’l never see it coming.”

  Sanhae, which meant new year, was one of the few words on the calendar dating back pre-colonization to Earth. One of the few words preserved after Hokkaido converted to Engleshe as its official – and only – language.

  For years, Kara wanted to join Nantou’s Bioresearch and Engineering Division (BRED). She first made the announcement weeks before her sixteenth birthday and was promptly ridiculed by Lang, who said she was best suited for marketing. Her parents did not object.

  Mother offered brief but superficial encouragement, though she never saw Kara rising above the company’s communications department. Test scores too low, ambition too limited.

  The Global Marketing Division underwhelmed Kara from the first day of her internship. These people were automatons, spinning the same generic promotional campaigns for the IntraNex and Global Wave as their predecessors had for generations. They fashioned the company’s public communiques with heavy doses of euphemisms and time-tested brand slogans familiar to Hokkis from early childhood. They showed no interest toward innovation or discovery.

  These Kohlna had no teeth.

  “Kara, you’re tel ing me you want to make the move at Nantou’s biggest formal gala?”

  “There’s no better time. Anyone who matters wil be there. The entire Nantou hierarchy, the Governor’s Council, even the Circle of Mothers. Especial y them. No tongues wag louder than theirs. Once it’s done, there wil be no takebacks.”

  “There might also be no forgiveness.”

  “I know, Chi. I’ve thought about it. If I play this right, there won’t be a public spectacle. If the announcement is made by Lord Taron himself, no one wil question it.”

  Chi-Qua choked on her wine. “Taron? You’re talking about Lord Ban-Ho Taron? The wealthiest Hokki in The Lagos. Some say the world. Why would he announce your move to BRED? For that matter, why would he care?”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t, but his great grandson does.”

  “Wait. What?”

  “Ya-Li. You’ve met him. I introduced you a few weeks back.”

  “I remember. Tall, thin, shy. About our age but looks like he’s twelve. Oh, Kara. Don’t say it. You caught his heart and now you’re playing him.”

  “I promised him nothing, and he’s too shy to say how he feels.

  Besides, he knows he won’t be al owed to choose his wife. It’s no accident the Taron line has officers in every seamaster corporate.”

  Two red-breasted swans zeroed in on the remains of their lunch.

  Chi-Qua grabbed a roll and tore it into little pieces.

  “OK, so you’ve got inside help. How exactly? Ya-Li can’t just ask his great grandfather to make the announcement.”

  “No. Every year, twenty minutes before the arrival of the Sanhae, Lord Taron offers a series of toasts. He’s been doing this for sixty years.

  It’s al scripted and timed. About forty toasts. Continues up to the instant of Sanhae. He praises everything. Corporate profits, top executives, individual achievements, technological breakthroughs.

  Name it. He used to spend half his time praising the Chancel ors, back before al that ended. But he has a smal section reserved for rising stars. That’s where I come in. Ya-Li is on the family committee to script his toasts.”