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“KYDELL,” SONYA SAID WITH A sweeping gesture over the city of domed buildings half-devoured by the encroaching jungle. “Such an adorable little trinket.” She turned to Malcolm, back arching and blonde hair falling in loose waves so the sinking sun gave her an ethereal glow.
Malcolm faked a smile and tried to keep himself from turning back to the private plane they’d arrived in. That was more interesting than the rooftop Sonya was enthusing over. The forward-swept wing design looked like it added to the drag, but the plane flew particularly well over the turbulent seas. Sonya had kept him from interrogating the pilot, but he’d sketched enough of the design to model it when he got home.
And home was where he desperately hoped he would be in a few hours. There was nothing appealing about Kydell. It was a typical Seahome port city: old buildings built from scraps of the colonial ships, narrow roads made of whatever local rock or shell was available, ruled by a class of people who knew the names of their sixteenth great-grandfather, but actually functioning because someone who didn’t even remember his mother’s name worked eighteen hours a day for enough money to buy dinner.
It was tasteless. Or, rather, he wished it were. The humid air smelled of rotten fish and he was deeply concerned it was going to be the only thing he’d be able to taste all week.
“What are you looking at?” Sonya asked. She stepped closer than he liked and peered around the plane to the jungles. “The plane? The plants? There’s not much to see that way. Banfur was there a century or so ago, but one of the typhoons destroyed it. There was no point in rebuilding.”
“Even in a housing crisis?”
She shrugged the concern away. “My grandparents visited it once before it was destroyed. Grandmother said it was a particularly smelly city, which isn’t hard to believe in Seahome. The whole place smells tannic. Never eat the fish here, they taste muddy.” She shivered in a way she probably thought was delicate and cute, but was as calculated as all her other gestures.
Not much different than Kydell, then. “I’ll consider myself forewarned.” At least there was a sea breeze off the port bringing in cool air to refresh the evening. Kydell wasn’t a large city, but the hill leading down to the port was steep and if Sonya wanted to traipse down there it meant—eventually—they’d have to walk back up that hill.
Sonya grabbed his arm and caught his elbow in hers. “That’s all right, we won’t stay here long. There is a darling little bakery near the main forum that does excellent cream puffs, but that isn’t why I dragged you here. It’s not exactly a date.” Her ashy-blonde eyelashes fluttered like the blink of a snake.
“I see. Why am I here, in that case?” He let Sonya drag him towards the wide stairs that wound down the side of the building. “And where is here, exactly?”
“This is the capital building,” Sonya said without slowing. Her familiarity with government buildings was becoming a theme. Twice now she’d invited him to a remote location, as a representative of Bennu Industries, and walked around as though she owned everything.
Virgil Lethe was an elected leader in Kytan, but Sonya acted as if she owned the planet.
“You’ll see,” Sonya teased with a wide smile.
Malcolm made a noncommittal sound and cataloged his surroundings. Kydell was a small city-state, little more than a port and a cluster of government buildings on a hill with a fringe of respectable housing for the better class of citizens. Ornate columns carved of a pink-and-white stone held up porticos of houses with blue-tiled roofs. The older part of the city was paved with crushed white shells and lapis blue stones.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Sonya sighed happily as she looked over the verdant garden of the governor’s estate. “Antiquated, certainly, but the rulers here can trace their lineage to the first ships to come to Malik, and they brought the gardens of the Empire with them. For centuries Kydell was considered one of the most luxurious retreats. A tropical paradise where it was always summer, where there was always a party. It was considered quite romantic too, once upon a time,” she added with a little coo and a meaningful look.
“What happened?”
“Greed, for the most part.”
He nodded. “It would be easy to be greedy if you were the playground of the rich. Did the locals ask for too much?”
“No,” Sonya pushed away from the stairs and stepped onto the shell pathway. “The servants did. The original ones were indentured. They worked for generations to pay off their passage. After they died out, outsiders were hired. But they wanted higher wages, fewer working hours.”
“How did whole family lines die off?”
“Most never had families,” Sonya said. “That’s the real tragedy. They owed the founders a great debt, seventy-two years of service, and in a lifetime a person might work only forty or fifty years total, once you account for time away from work or money spent on them. Each of the servants should have had progeny that stayed in service for another two or three generations.
“Naturally, as they were given food and housing, the costs would add up. In Kytun, the last indentured families didn’t pay off their debts until only a few years ago.
“It’s excellent having indentured peoples. But someone thought they were clever and passed out contraceptives to the servants.” She sighed as if disappointed by the long-dead abolitionist. “No children. No new servants. The founders had to hire others who wanted exorbitant wages.”
“Probably enough to keep them alive,” Malcolm guessed. “It wasn’t like there was cheap housing available, I imagine.”
Sonya nodded, completely missing his tone of voice. “Yes. Cost of living and such.” She shook her head with a little huff of annoyance. “They should have offered indenture instead. That’s what my father does when he hires personal servants. It keeps them loyal.”
Malcolm studied his shoes intently.
“Oh! Don’t be like that!” Sonya stole his arm again. “I would never ask that of you. Your family is titled. I hope you know I value that.”
“I’m well aware.” It was the only thing she valued.
“You’re so much more than a servant to me, Malcolm. I think of you as a friend. A co-conspirator.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What are we conspiring on?”
Her grin turned impish. “Do you really want to know?”
“Of course.” If only so he could avoid future trouble. The only advantage to Sonya’s attentions was that there was no possible way his parents would approve of him dating a genocidal maniac, or stepping into the power politics of Descent by snubbing her. She gave him a nice pocket of freedom as long as he balanced her worst tendencies out with careful guidance. It was like steering a particularly angry toddler, but it could be done.
Sonya led him past an arched gateway that divided the hill crest from the poorer part of the city. The street turned to a cobblestone made of smoothed sea rock and there were the small cars popular in overcrowded coastal towns. The buildings had less metal, more wood.
It was unusually quiet for midday. Most cities would be filled with workers, but Kydell felt abandoned. Storefronts were closed. Windows were dark. Cars had dust on them.
This was a forgotten closet of a city, a place where the unwanted things were dropped until needed.
It wasn’t a terribly reassuring thing to consider while Sonya dragged him down the hill toward the smell of fish and saltwater.
“I knew you’d be interested in my plan. You don’t mind getting a little dirty, do you?” she asked as they stepped over a puddle of muddy rain water.
“Dirty?” He looked down at the dull, gray suit he’d chosen. It wasn’t fashionable, flattering, or remotely attractive. He’d chosen the suit for exactly that reason after the salesperson informed him it made him look sallow and unsexy. Sonya wasn’t as repelled as he’d hoped.
She patted his arm. “You’ll be fine. All I meant is we’ll be walking in the seamier side of the city. It’s not all picnic benches and roses, you know. There’s a port, and that’s where the rowdies are found.”
He dug through his memory for a reference. “Rowdies are the non-native citizens?”
“Residents Of Wandering Descent,” Sonya said. “I always liked the term. We can’t use it in Kytan, naturally, there was too much blending between houses in the early days of settlement. Even I wasn’t born there, but only because my mother insisted on having an elegant view when she was in labor, so I was born at a resort in Northland. But I’d still love to be able to differentiate. Wouldn’t you?”
“Since I would be a rowdy, I’m not sure I can say I’m passionate about the idea of being labeled without my consent.” Although, from everything he’d heard, the rowdies sounded a lot more fun than the Lethe clan. “What are you hoping to do with them?”
“Watch, for now. They’re part of a shared experiment.”
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. “What kind of experiment?”
“My father and I have a bit of a wager going on,” Sonya said as if she were confessing to something sordid. “He believes that all you need to do to achieve lasting change is influence key points in the social structure.”
“Social Node Theory?” He scraped through his memories for the lecture. “In any social network there are key influencers, most are visible but some are not. What are they called?”
The city center broke into tributaries, the wide avenue turning into multiple smaller roads as the houses grew closer together and the smell of briny sea rose with each step. Overhead a gull screamed.
“Second Level Influencers,” Sonya said. “People who directly control the visible influencers. In fashion it’s the dresser who picks clothes for the six most influential women. Society sees the six women as influencers, but all of them had their decisions made by the person society doesn’t see. In politics you look not at the orators in the forums, but at the advisors who sit on multiple city-state panels, or in the budget committee, or in the brothel where the leaders love to meet.”
Malcolm nodded in understanding.
“My father thinks that controlling the second-level influencers is enough.”
He shook his head. “Can’t be done. Not easily. Those people are in those positions because they don’t change their minds. They make a decision and it’s the one they’ll keep to for life. It doesn’t matter how catastrophic it is in the long run.” His father was like that.
Sonya took his arm. “Why wouldn’t we be able to control them?”
“What could you offer to change their minds?”
“That is my little secret for now. But, play along, what would happen if we could reliably control all of them?”
“Worldwide?”
“Worldwide.”
Nothing good. Which wasn’t the answer Sonya would want. “I wouldn’t trust that system. There’s too many moving pieces. Too many chances for things to fall apart or for the system to be abused. You don’t wind up in a situation where everyone in the room has turned against you because you trusted the system and they didn’t.”
She laughed. “I can’t imagine that happening.”
Why was he not surprised? Sonya had probably never been in a situation where things didn’t go her way.
“Still, there’s some truth to that. Influencers are good to control, but they never outnumber the common person.”
“The common people.” He knew which side he’d fall on. “The problem is you can never convince mobs to agree on anything. Everyone is pulling in different directions.”
Sonya tipped her head. “Only when there’s peace. In times of tragedy there’s a unifying fear.”
Malcolm schooled his expression. “You’ll have to find something else. The only current crisis is the housing issue and that’s artificial at best. There’s plenty of land and resources. The governments just have to allow them to be used.”
Sonya laughed. “Oh. It’s cute how naïve you can be some days. The wealthy don’t wait for the right moment, we create it.”
She steered them to the left and down a low slope to the docks.
The wharf smelled of dead fish, sweaty humans, and briny sea air. It wasn’t unpleasant compared the crowded boardrooms that smelled of cologne, avarice, and unremarked flatulence. At least here there was a breeze.
Malcolm looked around at the crowd. He stood out because of his suit, but there was a good range of phenotypes on display—all skin tones, heights, and body types readily visible—and a universal expression of hard-won distrust.
Groups of private security stood out like warning buoys in the crowd, their driftwood-brown single-piece uniforms marked with three orange arm bands. Whoever hired them had been going for a Look. Without fail, they were each over two meters tall with large builds that suggested steroid use rather than weight training, all with shaved heads and pale skin.
Lethe guards then.
Malcolm frowned at the setup in general. It wasn’t his problem, but it was hard not to roll up his sleeves and walk over to help unload the ship. He’d been taught to work.
The native Kydellians lounged on the upper decks of the ship while the work was done and it made his fists itch. Laziness was nearly as bad as treason, maybe worse. At least treason could be forgiven, if one survived the uprising.
He forced himself to turn away and study the menu taped to the window of a dockside bar with interest as Sonya finished complimenting herself.
The sooner they could get away, the better.
A movement, or lack of movement, caught his attention. There was a woman reflected in the glass who drew his attention. Black hair tied back in three rosettes along the nape of her neck, and the working clothes of a dockside rowdy, but she stood like a battle commander. Shoulders back, chin up, eyes narrowed, lips pressed into a look of grim frustration. Her gaze swept across the piers as she searched for someone.
Malcolm ducked his head, praying to whatever ancestors might be listening that he went unnoticed. She couldn’t be searching for him. No one knew he was on Seahome except Sonya, and Sonya wouldn’t tell anyone from his past that he was in Kydell.
There were certain things that couldn’t be said.
Not here at least.
Not if he wanted to live.
Thunder grumbled across the sky and the angry black clouds pressing across the bay threatened a tropical downpour.
“Shall we get going?” Malcolm asked Sonya, knowing better than to demand they leave, no matter how much he wanted to run. Something was wrong on the docks. The hair on the back of his neck was standing up and the air felt heavy with more than just humidity.
Sonya’s bright smile dimmed. “Now? The fun hasn’t even started.”
“F—” He bit off an angry curse. “Fun?”
If Sonya had the social awareness of a louse, she would have picked up the undertone in his voice, but she was oblivious. “One of the toys is ready for testing.” She ran her hand across his bicep. “It’s time to make the changes we want to see.”
“Sonya, this isn’t the place to start a fight.”
Her hug was sudden and insincere. “Your worry for me is touching. We won’t have to do anything though. There are people in this crowd already primed to take action. We’ll be innocent bystanders.”
Across the dock, the black-haired woman made eye contact. She dismissed him with a small sneer and focused grimly on Sonya.
“Will anyone be hurt?”
“It’s all for a higher cause, Malcolm.” She patted his arm condescendingly. “Don’t be so prudish. Sacrifices have to be made for the greater good.”
Malcolm watched the black-haired woman moving through the crowds like a shark on the hunt. “What did you have in mind for the demonstration? Can you put them to sleep or make them all leave?”
“I’m going to make them fight,” Sonya said. “One of them might even die.” She giggled.
The words ‘over your dead body’ burned the tip of his tongue.
“What’s wrong?”
Malcolm looked at the black-haired woman and back at the sociopath smiling up at him. “Why not wait a few days?”
“Why ever for? This is perfect!”
“Except we’re here.” Malcolm took the control device from her hand and tucked it in his pocket. “And to keep the contracts I have at Bennu, I need plausible deniability.”
Sonya pouted.
“Why not next week?” he asked. “While we’re at the opera you’ve told me so much about?”
The lights of vanity glittered in her eyes. “Are you asking me on a date, Doctor Long?”
“I do believe I am, Lady Lethe,” he said with a sincerity cultivated from a lifetime of surviving abusive narcissists. “If you think I’m worthy of you.”
“You are very nearly there,” she said, “but we’ll have to do something about this awful suit. What would you say to a shopping trip?”
“I’d do anything to keep you happy.”
Sonya smiled prettily. “How could I possibly refuse if my happiness brings you happiness?” She took his arm. “It wasn’t my original plan, but it will work. The men here are, regrettably, very loyal to my father. It will become a problem in time. There will still be a fight, but it won’t kill all the rowdies.”
“Could you have done that?” It was a miracle she didn’t hear the terror in his voice.
“Probably. My experiment can wait though.” She patted the device in his pocket. “We’ll play with it later, won’t we?”
“Would having all the control make you happy?”
She giggled again. “That’s a very personal question to ask before our first date.”
“I’m an engineer. I plan ahead, and I’m... thorough.” He put the right spin on the word, suggestive with just a hint of leer. And over her head he made eye contact with the black-haired woman.
The woman looked at him and then turned away, vanishing into the crowd.
Not the reaction he’d expected. Perhaps it wasn’t his friend. It was better if it wasn’t.
Safer, for his future and for the ones he’d left behind.
All he’d ever wanted was to keep his friends safe. Keep them safe long enough that they could dig themselves out of the mess they’d been born into. If it meant being Sonya’s arm candy, so be it. With enough charm, maybe he’d be able to turn her away from the idea of genocide.
Whatever he needed to do, it would be worth it in the end.