In the Shadow of the Rings by Frank Kennedy (reading list TXT) 📗

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