Meili's Journal

  Entry #24:

  Dear future self,

  As I write this, I'm fifteen years old, and I've been in this world for a little more than five years.

  If you don't want to do the date math, my internship is getting into full swing, and I'm learning all sorts of frightening and obnoxious qualities about the lives of high-tiers and their 'culture.' Maybe these are things you've already internalized, or maybe you would benefit from a journal entry to review them with. Regardless, I'd like to do something different with this entry, starting with an old adage about lying.

  I'm sure you still remember the saying, how you should look at someone's actions to decide if they're being truthful, not their words. I'm not the biggest fan of it. Competent liars incorporate their lies into their actions, too, things like body language and facial expressions, sometimes larger things if they're really good.

  But maybe it's a good rule in general, because most people aren't competent liars, not consistently, and their actions are often revealing. Accordingly, when Alicia stopped texting me updates about her spying around a week ago (or really anything we wouldn't want The Authorities to read), I should have read into it but didn't.

  Around two months before I'm writing this, we agreed that communicating through text was safe and secure. Our justification was that a handful of network providers dominate the world, offering coverage in every sector of every continent. Not the kinds of entities that, say, The Great Lakes Authorities can demand private text messages from.

  The top providers also have public leadership with ability levels around 8.2-8.4, which is stronger than the average Sector Head. They give privacy guarantees, and we took it for granted that they're powerful enough to keep them.

  …Given some recent revelations, it's now incredibly likely that all these Network Providers are under The Central Authorities' direct control. Alicia realized this, which is why she stopped texting me aside from jokes and internet memes, changing the subject whenever I wanted to talk about anything serious. It took a cross-sector trip for her to deliver me the truth.

  Really, the existence of entities that seem to surpass Sector Authorities should have made me suspicious (or clued me in on a higher level of government), if I had only been a little more observant.

  The natural conclusion here is that I've been engaging in motivated reasoning for a while now. Everything I want to do is safer and easier if the Great Lakes, North Atlantic, West Coast, and so on are all on their own, able to go off in their own direction without keeping in line with some broader agenda. Not to mention the hundred sectors in Asia, the hundred more in other continents. I don't want to live in a world where 7.5 Valerie Lingard has to listen to orders like a subservient pawn, because of what that means for the eight billion people weaker than her.

  So I didn't let myself live in that world. I didn't think hard enough to realize something I didn't want to know.

  I believe Alicia. She knows what she saw. I'm grateful to her for telling me early, while I'm probably still young and weak enough to be below The Authorities' notice. If there's anyone who needs a warning, it's Rei, so let this entry serve as a reminder to do that if nothing else.

  Finally, even if we're not in immediate danger, let me just acknowledge honestly that our path is much narrower now. I guess that doesn't really need saying. I just hope you've figured out an alternative, because harnessing Jane's 9.1 seems more and more like the only way through.

  Maybe it says something good about us, that our motivated reasoning tends toward hopefulness, a nicer and less difficult world.

  Maybe that judgment is in itself overly hopeful, and the only lesson here is that we can't afford another mistake.

  ***Beautiful***

  "You're already married?" Marco asked.

  "Meili's engaged," Leo said. "There's a difference, not that I would expect you to know."

  "…The hell does that mean?"

  "You know, come on. Playing stupid only works if you're actually smart."

  "The point of engagement is that you promise to get married. It's almost the same."

  "Okay," Leo shrugged. "Then I promise I'll buy you a new house. Now start thanking me."

  "…"

  "Alright, that is totally not a good-"

  I'd been opening and closing my mouth through the exchange, trying to find the space to insert my answer. I shook my head and gave up, bemused, watching as a conversation ostensibly about me turned into an ego clash.

  It was only my third Friday at NXGen, but this was already a familiar scene. We were on our lunch break but finished eating, and following custom we sat in stools around a long, elevated table and chatted to fill the hour. Some of the full-time employees were slower eaters, scattered in smaller groups around the office kitchen space, and every so often I noticed one of them studying our intern group with a watchful eye. I'd been doing the same. It had been long enough that I had a measure of their behaviors, some explanations as to why, and I wondered if the older researchers and doctors would agree with me.

  After a while, Marco reluctantly gave up his shaky conversational ground. "Alright. So you're engaged, Meili." He gave Leo a quick 'are you happy?' look. "I can't imagine what that's like, at fifteen."

  I shrugged. "It was a part of a clan cooperation agreement, first of all," I said. "Nobody got on one knee on the playground during recess."

  Marco laughed. People around the table smiled in understanding, falling for the lie, and of course it helped that some of them already 'knew' from earlier rumors.

  "Got it," he said. "I don't know everything about clans, but I'm guessing he's strong, then."

  I nodded. "He is. And I really like him, luckily."

  I shrank into myself and forced a flush to my face, speaking softly. "But I don't really think anyone wants to hear me gush about my cool, strong fiancé for fifteen minutes…"

  I'm getting really good at infantilizing myself, aren't I?

  Giorgia (the girl who'd latched onto me as the only other high schooler) was sitting beside me, and she shook my shoulders violently in exaggerated envy. "Meili~," she whined, drawing out the vowel.

  The rest of the group watched with varying shades of amusement on their faces. As the youngest two, Giorgia and I were de facto lighthearted entertainment.

  By the time she stopped, I had triggered multiple discussions on dating – the group was just recently getting comfortable discussing more personal aspects of their lives, so there was a lot to share. I decided to simply observe, thinking about my various new social theories about young adult high-tiers, though outwardly I was just a fifteen-year-old trying to understand the unfamiliar complexities of adult relationships. (And they really were unfamiliar, just not because of my age).

  Rather unoriginally, I had named my most significant idea the 'Small Pond Effect.' The inspiration came from an observation in my previous life, how underperforming or average Ivy League students could easily end up depressed or disappointed about themselves. They might say, "I'm super dumb now, but I was a genius in high school," when really it was the lower level of competition that let them feel exceptional in high school. That same feeling was much harder to get when surrounded by thousands of students just as brilliant or hardworking as themselves, when they had moved from a tiny pond to an ocean.

  Similarly, a strong high-tier would spend most of high school among the top handful of students. But once they graduated, high-tiers would crowd the same shortlist of Universities, ones where they filled more seats than not in every class, making college the first time in their lives where they weren't exceptional by default. To suddenly go from Queen or King to rank 2394 out of 7850… it was the kind of sudden shift that could really shake up a high-tier's identity, turning their previous pride and self-perception into a liability.

  They weren't maladapted, per se, not for this world. I had noticed a level of expectation for their kind of struggle. 'Young high-tier who's still learning how to live' was a known cultural archetype. From what I'd seen, older high-tiers tended to be accommodating, often looking for opportunities to teach their younger counterparts how to get along with a larger group of peers, instead of lackeys or lessers or whatever else.

  Still, if you watched my group for long enough, you'd notice the effects.

  "…I hate that. I hate it so much," Marco was saying. "When a girl decides the date and time in advance, and then they're still late anyway? Why?"

  "It makes sense to me," said Kinsley, one of the older girls. "I mean, maybe they're just bad at scheduling, but what if they think you're going to be late? No point in being on time and having to wait for you to get there."

  Marco gave her an unamused stare.

  "That never happens. I make it clear I'll be on time or early, and I am."

  "That doesn't mean she can't think you're lying or careless or something. And I'm sure you have times when you know she's going to be late, right? I don't think there's a reason to be on time at that point, either."

  "I don't know…" Giorgia joined in. "That can all be true, but I don't think there's an alternative for being there when you agreed to be there."

  "You can do what I do," Kinsley said. "Plan to get there when you think they'll get there."

  She tapped on her braincase with her index finger. "You show up late by however much you think they'll be late. Once you've done it enough you can usually get it right, and then nobody has to wait for anyone."

  Marco and Giorgia looked at each other, then back to her.

  "That's psychotic, Kinsley," Marco said. "That's just a roundabout way of making punctual people wait for you."

  Meanwhile, Giorgia's expression seemed to indicate a vague disappointment in the state of the universe.

  "But that's exactly why people set a date and time in the first place," she said to me. "Right? Both people should already know when the other person will be there, that's the whole point of scheduling…"

  I nodded. "Right."

  If you like someone enough to take them out, then waiting ten minutes or so shouldn't be a big deal. That was my solution to the dilemma, though maybe it was naive. Slightly more importantly, our group of ten had split into three conversing groups, and one of the other two groups was also arguing about something. That meant we'd had sixteen arguments total in a sample of five lunches this week. Now that most of the new-job caution was gone, the average had quickly increased.

  It seemed like a result of my 'Small Pond Effect.' These were former high school Royals, which meant experience leading a school and deciding on policy, probably with whole cliques of followers brown-nosing and bootlicking for them. Our group was ten of this specific kind of person, factored with a self-exceptionalism inherent to everyone at the top of the hierarchy, and the result was what I saw. Confrontation at a more frequent rate than I remembered anywhere else.

  The state of affairs only worked because arguments rarely had an interpersonal aftermath in this world. I had been clued in on this particular quirk a few months ago. Many times, I'd watched a genuinely heated debate turn into ancient history after a single night.

  "I think you guys are the crazy ones," said Kinsley. "Time is the worst thing to be self-sacrificing with."

  She pulled her phone from the pocket of her high-waisted suit pants. After tapping at the screen a few times, she showed a chat history to Giorgia.

  "Look." She pointed at a text. "If it's really so terrible, the whole issue disappears if you just date an elite-tier. They don't mind waiting at all."

  Giorgia read the screen and boggled, turning from me back to Kinsley repeatedly as if to confirm this wasn't a hallucination.

  "Oh no. Kinsley, you didn't really…"

  "Really! I've tried it a few times. It's fun. The sweet spot is a half-level gap, and then they never feel entitled to any demands. They don't try to argue about everything, don't point out things about you they'd like to see change. And they're so much more easygoing."

  Marco frowned, not really hiding his disapproval. "You think these guys are showing their real personalities, not trying to pander to someone out of their league?"

  "Some people are just naturally passive," Kinsley replied. "Besides, it's not like I'm going to marry them and have their babies."

  "And then your plan when you're older is what? Marry a guy you don't really like, keep a bunch of low-level boytoys on the side?"

  "I don't see what the problem is. My husband can have his own group of girls to play with."

  Marco shook his head in apparent disgust. His mouth twitched as though he were deciding whether or not to say something.

  Kinsley's archetype had already been clear to me for a while. The type who didn't see people as quite-so-human past a certain point down, and didn't hesitate to use these people however to maximize her pleasure. Marco was harder, I was realizing, and I wondered what it was that put him opposite her. Was it simply that he found the idea of a cross-tier relationship gross? Or maybe it was the prospect that high-tiers were inferior to their 'lessers' at something, even if it was only providing more relaxed company.

  I was trying hard to be rational. It was hard to overcome my instinctual dislike of both of them.

  "I can show you a real-life example of what the problem is," Marco said. "There's a woman in the hospital wing who probably had that same idea. A god-tier, I think her name's Kyoko. She let a low-tier get her pregnant."

  The final bit made my eyebrows leap in surprise. Kinsley seemed caught off guard as well, but she composed herself, took a sip of her drink.

  "Is that supposed to be a cautionary story?" she asked.

  "Just listen," he said. "Having a low-tier's kid inside you is only a part of it. Sometimes there are health complications with a pregnancy if the level gap's too large. That's what happened here, so she has to stay here long-term, until it's done."

  "…What, she's not going to abort?"

  "She could," Marco said, nodding. "Even though it's already close to the third trimester, company leadership is keeping abortion as an option. They've been sending people to tell her she can take the easy way out."

  Marco glanced around and leaned toward the center of the table, speaking quietly.

  "But it's not working. Rumors say she's set on keeping the kid, no matter what they tell her."

  Giorgia had been listening silently along with me, and she met my eyes, alarmed. For a second our quartet went fully silent.

  "Come on," Kinsley said, exasperated. "This woman, Kyoko, she's obviously fucking insane – of course I'd never get myself into a situation anywhere close to that."

  I felt a sense of alleviation, like a tense or pressuring atmosphere was fading away, and only then did I realize that I'd missed its arrival. Someone spilled a bit of water on the table. Two people laughed. Everything went on as usual.

  She's set on keeping the kid, no matter what they tell her.

  God, I thought.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

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  I sat at my desk later in the afternoon, staring at the larger of my two monitors without blinking. My final hours on Friday were supposed to be spent on a weekly report, but Javier, my group mentor, had evidently decided I could put it off. He'd started sending me a series of messages.

  Javier:

  ###

  Unfortunate news. It seems that company leadership is tightening security around Subject JCM91.

  I wholeheartedly believed I could get you access by Monday of next week, at least at the time I promised as much. A new realistic estimate is a few months.

  And I do not mean to alarm you, but a worst-case estimate is multiple years. It is very possible that protocol changes to be even more rigid, with availability only for a few full-time Senior Researchers held in especially high esteem. At that point, even my own status would be questionable.

  ###

  I sighed. The code 'JCM91' triggered a lingering frustration when I read it. 'J' for Jane, 'CM' for Channel Master, '91' for ability level 9.1. It was also the same acronym Alicia had caught a few months ago while spying on the Lingard clan, but I had only realized during the long discussion that occurred after Alicia came to New Boston. I was still kicking myself for not noticing earlier.

  Of course I'd been counting down the days until I could see Jane, but the whole process had felt too straightforward and simple for someone of her importance. There had also been recent rumors of tighter security, more hired guards, so the dullness of expectation softened my disappointment.

  I kept reading.

  Javier:

  ###

  On a related note, I heard a part of your discussion with Marco and the others. What Marco said was true. There is a woman - Kyoko Albright, level 6.1 - whom we currently have housed in a personal room in the Hospital Wing. I'm unsure of what you have already been told, but her ex-husband was indeed a low-tier, and she will (foreseeably) live in the complex for the final fourteen weeks of her pregnancy due to related health risks.

  The vast majority of women in her situation abort. To be frank, I cannot recall a single instance of anyone nearly as stubborn as her. We have explained to her that the expected outcomes for the fetus are incredibly poor, certainly in comparison to her own, but she refuses to take any future course but raising it as her own son. All of the employees who are in the know are universally baffled by the situation, including myself.

  To be completely transparent, the working staff view this mainly as a puzzling but ultimately minor issue. Separately, the company leadership's view is the view of The Authorities; they believe that minimizing tier intermixing is a top priority, especially in cases with a gap of multiple tiers. In their eyes, this is a non-negotiable battle to be won as a matter of principle, though I should not explain why. As your mentor I can only advise you to research and learn independently.

  The most important point, the reason I am writing this, is as follows. Anyone who succeeds in convincing Kyoko Albright to abort will gain a tremendous amount of favor with company leadership.

  I have already made my attempt and failed. You are one of the very few interns who have been given a chance to try, and success here may be your sole way to guarantee access to Subject JCM91 this summer.

  ###

  When I was done I read everything over a second time, almost as though I expected the messages to change. They stayed the same. I covered my eyes and forehead with my hand, using it as a blindfold, and inhaled as long as I could.

  What else could it be, other than this? I berated myself. Hadn't it been obvious already? She's set on keeping the kid, no matter what they tell her.

  I took another breath. Questions and potential answers, speculations, and tentative plans filled my thoughts. I tried to start untangling them, and a new message appeared on my monitor with a corporate chime.

  Javier:

  ###

  I apologize, Meili. Reading over what I've sent again, I think it might have given you the impression that you must succeed, which is not at all the case. You are very young.

  However, you were also given the opportunity over others. There's a chance it reflects badly on you if you do not make an attempt, so I would personally advise you to make a visit. Kyoko is in Room B-74 in the Hospital Wing – do not expect to convince her and do not provoke her.

  If you do make an attempt, send me a written report of what occurred after you're finished. Hopefully, this will be enough to vindicate whoever among the company leadership nominated you.

  ###

  So it's important to at least look like I tried, I thought as I finished reading. To signal that I'm aligned. I spent an unknown amount of time stuck in the same position, re-reading the messages and trying to figure everything out, but in the end I just leaned back and groaned.

  No plan survives contact with the enemy, that was the saying. My foreknowledge let me 'contact' canon characters ahead of time, but I was flying blind with people who weren't, just like everyone else.

  I started typing.

  Meili:

  ###

  Thank you for explaining everything, sir. I'm still a little confused about the situation, but this is very helpful.

  I have a few questions, whenever you can answer.

  1: What is Kyoko Albright's background? Her first name, at least, makes me think of one of the three far-eastern sectors.

  2: Do we have cameras or audio recorders in her room?

  3: Has anyone tried…

  ###

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  It was Monday evening the next week when I managed to knock on Kyoko Albright's door.

  As I waited stiffly at the entrance, I had a full view of a dimming sun in the silver skyline, the hospital wing hallways dominated by windows. After a minute, I was answered by a hoarse, muffled, "Come in."

  I opened the door, finding a dim room with drawn blinds. Basic and plain. Aside from a small bookshelf in the corner, there was nothing personal about it, no sign that someone was staying long-term. Kyoko was lying on the bed, reading what looked to be a novel, though she set it down and pointed at a bedside chair when I entered. I sat in it. She had long, straight hair that was silver until the sunlight hit, where it turned a dark green.

  She slowly leaned up against a stack of pillows and adjusted her glasses, squinting at my face. "I'm sorry, how old are you?"

  "Fifteen," I said. I held up my nametag. "I'm Meili, it's nice to meet you."

  Kyoko let out a strangled bark or laugh, her voice hoarse and hard to read.

  "A high school student? And here I was, preparing myself to…" She shook her head. "Well, I'm Kyoko, and likewise."

  She gave me another once over, this time leaving her gaze lingering on my nametag. "You can tell me I'm misunderstanding something, but I find it hard to believe you understand what it is you're here for."

  "I know what the others tried to do," I replied. "Five of them, I think, and I'm number six."

  I realized I had been glancing at her protruding stomach. I forced myself to stop.

  "I'm here because I want to know what they believe that you disagree with," I clarified. "Like you said, I'm a student. I'm young. They gave me some background, and I think I can learn from you. I'm not going to try to convince you unless it turns out there's really something I think you haven't considered."

  The quizzical expression on her face made me think that she saw me as some kind of puzzle. It would have been a fair enough assessment if she did.

  She ran a hand through her hair, smoothing it, and rubbed her eyes beneath her glasses.

  "Alright," she said incredulously. "I suppose when you get to the heart of it, the difference isn't so convoluted that I can't explain. Have you heard people claim that your Ability Aura is really your soul?"

  "I have," I said.

  Kyoko nodded and activated her ability, eyes glowing a greenish-gray, and pointed at the shimmering light.

  "No species but humans can do this," she said. "That's what they say, that's the extent of their evidence. It's essentially true. But let me ask: if there was a genetic outlier animal, say a chimpanzee, that possessed the aura of a mid-tier, how would you treat it? Say it had the same intelligence and behaviors as other chimpanzees."

  I said nothing, pretending to think. Kyoko deactivated her ability.

  "Like an animal," she said. "That's what I think. If it died, I would be annoyed that a particularly interesting chimpanzee test subject had died. If it got caught by surprise and eaten by a Jaguar, I would shrug my shoulders and say that nature had run its course. On the other hand, if an outlier chimpanzee with the mind of a human was eaten-"

  "You would feel sad," I finished. "Almost like it happened to a person."

  "Right. If there really is a human soul, I say it's in the mind. Your coworkers think Aura is your soul, your most important attribute, so they believe I should be disgusted with a lesser child. The idea is called Aura Supremacy Theory."

  "My disagreement is that I think it's nonsense," Kyoko continued. "They call themselves scientists and doctors but choose to believe only what's convenient for them as high-tiers. I research Human Biology. I know more about this child - and every human - than everyone who came to convince me. And whatever the level, I think it's wrong to kill a human brain."

  I remembered that Kyoko was also a primate biology researcher, as Javier had informed me. Which left her hypothetical suspiciously close to her career.

  Still, I forced myself not to move or speak, no nodding or twitching or whatever else. I didn't want my expression to morph into what I knew would be an off-putting smile. There were studies estimating that 95 percent of high-tiers believed in some version of Aura Supremacy theory, meaning Kyoko was firmly in oddball territory. Just like me.

  The safe, intelligent thing would be to put up a token effort at convincing her. Success was unlikely even if I tried the meanest and worst of my ideas. And I didn't want to, more importantly. I found myself appreciating this stranger in front of me, too much to attempt something I found so disgusting.

  But an opportunity to see Jane wasn't something I could easily give up. I knew there weren't any cameras or audio recorders in the room, so I decided to try something clever.

  "I don't think I believe in Aura Supremacy Theory either," I said. "And I'm sorry everyone has been bothering you so persistently - but I'm going to have to emulate them for a bit, if that's okay."

  She just gave me a resigned, expectant look.

  "NxGen is an extension of The Authorities," I said, taking it as permission. "This is all political. They want to erase evidence of tier-intermixing, and your child will imply an inter-tier couple's existence. That's their main motivation."

  "I know this already. I'm a God-tier. I can take a hit to my political standing."

  "I'm saying that they might 'misdiagnose' a birth defect. Purposefully."

  Her mouth stopped midway through enunciating a response, stuck partway open. She looked far, far more surprised than when I'd told her my age.

  "...I guess I hadn't thought of that," she said.

  "You would have to be incredibly paranoid to," I replied. "But… But with the right 'birth defect' it won't be your decision. And later, if it turns out that there was no defect after all, they can say it was an honest mistake and pay damages. I work here. I don't think it's an impossibility."

  While I spoke, her eyes widened into a look of disgusted comprehension. She stared at me. I was wincing on the inside, of course, but with the bomb now irreversibly dropped I could only commit to being convincing.

  "You can still get them off your back," I said earnestly. "I'm not telling you to roll over. They want to make you abort to get rid of signs of tier intermixing, but adoption would satisfy our leadership just as much. A random mid-tier boy floating around in the foster system isn't a sign of an inter-tier relationship until you put him with a god-tier mother."

  "This is insane," she finally said. She shook her head repeatedly, having pulled herself fully upright against the backrest of her bed. "You- Look, I… You're misunderstanding something. It's fine if he'll be an elite-tier at best. Truly. I'm not looking for an excuse to dump my child, if that's what you're trying to give me."

  "I'm not," I said. "You're a god-tier. You can easily get him back from the adoption clinic later on. Or better yet, switch hospitals! Go to a tiny clinic that couldn't afford to do anything to you."

  Kyoko was still trying to calm herself. She rubbed at both temples with the knuckles of her thumbs, staring down at the peak of her bulging stomach. Nausea and uncertainty kicked around in mine. I had no idea what the chance was, in truth, of NxGen getting forceful with her, and for all I knew it was under five percent. Maybe causing her stress and paranoia would result in just as much risk to her pregnancy.

  Neither was it clear how long I stood there in the silence, observing her, trying to guess at what she was thinking. Was she at all convinced? Was she simply searching for the reason I was wrong?

  Eventually, Kyoko let out a laugh. It was the last emotion I'd been expecting. She put her hands over her mouth in an attempt to stifle herself, but that failed, and she finally broke into shrieking, echoey laughter.

  "You're fantastic." Her voice was breathless when she spoke. "Really amazing. You are an order of magnitude better than everyone else - you really got me to consider it! And at fifteen, too!" Her smile dropped into a calculating look. "But if you were older, you would understand that cartoon villains don't exist. Certainly not in The Authorities, not to people like me."

  She glanced at my nametag indiscreetly.

  "Coming up with a story like that, the moment you realized none of the normal arguments would work. You'll make it far. And I bet you're on track for god-tier, with that 4.2…"

  I sighed. That is how it could look, isn't it?

  "Thank you, I guess," I said. "You're probably right to dismiss something so insane and outlandish. Maybe I'm too immature."

  Kyoko smiled again. "You did great."

  "But I'm only number six," I added. "You're going to get more visitors, and they're going to keep getting more aggressive, day after day. By the time visitor number twenty comes around, I think you'll remember me differently."

  I went for the exit, walking slowly. "Have a good day."

  I was trying to bait her - to continue the conversation of her own volition - thereby separating myself from everyone who had forced their views onto her one-sidedly. By the time I was halfway through the doorway I had halfway given up.

  "Wait," she called. The confidence in her voice was a bit shaken. "What are they offering as the reward, if you're so sure twenty people are going to try?"

  I shrugged.

  "Favorability with the higher-ups is always useful. There will be promotions for some of them, I'm guessing."

  "You're guessing?" Kyoko echoed. "You're one of them; why do you have to guess?"

  Briefly, I considered the idea of going for broke and explaining everything right away. Jane's story would almost definitely be one Kyoko could sympathize with. Still, my plan had been to plant a seed in her mind and wait for it to grow, until she asked for me again.

  "You wouldn't believe what I want to tell you," I said. "But I'm a bit different from my coworkers."

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  "People will lose all respect for you, Kyoko. I mean it. Once they know you carried a low-tier's child in your body, they won't look at you the same."

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  "Can you please just help me understand? You have your whole life ahead of you. You could have any number of real children. Why do this?"

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  "Kyoko - listen to me. Listen to me! He won't be your son; he'll be a fucking charity case. He'll be alive because you felt sorry, for god's sake, not because you love him."

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  "I just don't think it's right, you know? It's just not. At the very least, don't delude yourself by thinking the child will be happy."

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  .

  Kyoko requested to see me just a few days later, though this time I was visitor number eleven. She looked undeniably lonely. I was the only repeat visitor, and it seemed like she'd asked for me so she could have someone to talk to, so I sat on a stool by her bedside and listened quietly as she spoke about her life and work.

  As with all abilities above level 5.0, Kyoko's Plant Manipulation granted her a passive effect that worked regardless of ability activation. By looking at a living thing, she would have a superhumanly accurate intuition about its inner workings. This was useful in a fight, for divining all the weak points of her opponents, but her passive also gave her an intuitive understanding when it came to genetic code and even brain structures – which benefited her work massively. It was exactly the kind of passive I wanted for myself.

  When it came to her situation, the opposite was true. Kyoko's family had threatened her husband so violently and doggedly that the man wouldn't even call, fearful that they would somehow get a hold of the call and use it to track him down. Kyoko's family didn't want anything to do with her anymore, either, and her now-absent husband had made the smart, self-preserving decision of running away across an ocean. If a whole family wanted my head, and they were all five orders of magnitude stronger than me, there was a good chance I would have done the same.

  The conversation eventually turned to what I'd said to her previously, and I realized that she'd asked to see me for multiple reasons.

  "What would you get if I put my son up for adoption, Meili?" she asked. "I've thought about it, I know I can get him back, and I want to do something for you. You're the only half-good person I've spoken to in this whole hospital. How would they reward you?"

  I considered it for a while. "You would have to act like you're really giving your son away, first of all. A really convincing act. Like you're eager to get anything related to your husband out of your sight."

  She nodded. "Of course. I know how to lie."

  "Then assuming they buy it," I said, "the higher-ups view me more favorably. That means access to facilities, some that I really need to get into."

  "Why? What's so important about them?"

  "I remember saying something along the lines of 'you won't believe me.' That hasn't changed."

  "Just tell me anyway," she insisted.

  We held eye contact. I evaluated my chances.

  "You won't believe me," I said with a smile. "But everything starts with this friend I have, John. His mother is a god-tier, his father is a low-tier, and they were forced apart by The Authorities when he was young. They're holding his mother in one of the facilities as a research subject."

  Of course, the similarities between Jane's situation and Kyoko's were immediately striking. She stared at me in disbelief.

  "You're not serious."

  "An amazing coincidence, right? But it's true. John and his mom have abilities that are incredibly useful for Aurology Research. Aura Manipulation and Channel Master. Which is exactly why…"

  .

  .

  .

  It took two hours of convincing and a picture of John's official Ability Profile, but I eventually got Kyoko to believe me. Even then, she asked an endless number of questions and made me reveal countless details – all the way to how I wanted to use Ability-modifying research if I could get my hands on it. She seemed thoughtful and pensive by the time I left, and she made no guarantees that she'd help me get my 'reward.'

  When I came in for work the next day, one of the front-door receptionists handed me a shiny silver key card. I knew him. He was a tall, elderly high-tier who used to work as a researcher, though he'd switched to less mentally taxing work instead of fully retiring.

  "Your access level rose from D-2 to C-3," he said to me. "Good work."

  For half a second I stood there frozen, surprised at the speed. I managed a slightly awkward smile back.

  "Thank you," I said. "The new card looks great."

  I started for the intern workspaces, but I felt a painful wave of self-awareness, of what I was doing, and nearly dropped the card. It was shameful. How badly I wanted to pump my fist and cheer, or skip joyous circles around the building, when on the face of it I had separated a mother and her child.

  But I also thought of my many journal entries, my countless schemes and plans. The fact that Jane was the only way they would ever mean anything at all.

  I backtracked a few steps to face the receptionist again. "Sorry - Now that I have better access, do you know when I'll be able to enter the special subject facilities?"

  "It's good that you're eager to use it," he said. He clicked around on his monitor. "Let's see… I don't think it'll be much more than a week."

  "A week?" I echoed. "That's fast, isn't it?"

  He looked up from his screen and grinned at me.

  "It is, and I'm glad you're excited, young lady. A large part of this work is waiting around for access; I think you've already caught on. The wait can even stretch to half a year, sometimes, so you ought to take everything they hand you."

  I nodded enthusiastically. Half a year, I thought.

  I chatted with the man some more, sticking to my excited teenage girl act. Even when I spoke, I had the uncontrollable impulse to rub the card between my fingers, enjoying the sensation of solidified effort against my skin.

  More than half a year, I thought as I walked off with the key. Try five.