Dismantling Dechikely

Dechikely

Mara Veylan had never considered herself political, much less rebellious. At twenty-seven, she worked as a claims assessment clerk for Provisure, spending most of her days reviewing the misfortunes of other Dechikelians and determining what their insurance policies entitled them to receive. It was stable work with respectable benefits, reliable housing, and enough pay to live comfortably if she watched her spending. By Dechikelian standards, there was little for Mara to complain about. She had grown up believing much the same thing.

Both of Mara’s parents had spent most of their adult lives employed by large corporations. Their jobs had kept food on the table, provided the family with housing and medical care, and paid for Mara’s education. She had been raised with the understanding that the Firm was hardly perfect, but neither was anything else. Dechikely was prosperous. The corporations provided what people needed, and the people provided the labor that kept the corporations running. That was simply the arrangement.

She rolls her eyes at Acinonyx’s shameless praise of corporate presidents. She checks DNN when she actually wants to know what happened. She reads The Bottom Line when she wants to laugh. Its furious headlines and vicious attacks on Headman Aleko and the Firm are entertaining precisely because Mara considers them excessive. She forwards particularly outrageous articles to coworkers and jokes about how long it will be before someone finally sues the outlet into oblivion. But recently, some of the jokes have become uncomfortable.

Mara has begun recognizing things in The Bottom Line’s reporting; insurance practices, benefit restrictions, income disparities, corporate privileges. The resemble to information she sees every day at Provisure. She has started wondering whether the newspaper is actually exaggerating as much as she always assumed. For now, Mara still thinks the system works. She has simply begun asking who it works for.

Dechikely

Mara’s alarm went off at 6:20 every morning because Provisure had determined that twenty-seven minutes was the optimal amount of time for employees in her residential district to prepare for work before the 7:01 commuter train.

Mara had never really thought about that before.

It was just one of those things that existed.

Her apartment lights brightened automatically. The wall display switched from nighttime mode to the morning feed, showing the weather, train schedules, her remaining food allowance, and a cheerful advertisement reminding her that Provisure employees received discounted coverage on selected Night Ruby household products.

She brushed her teeth while DNN played in the background.

The lead story was still Ember City.

A child worker had been injured at Alhop. The union had gone on strike. Private security had been brought in. There had been several confrontations at the gates, but nobody had been seriously injured since the original accident.

Mara spat into the sink.

“Great start to the morning.”

She dressed, grabbed her bag, and left.

By the time she reached the train platform, she had opened The Bottom Line.

She told herself she only wanted to see what ridiculous headline they had come up with.

A CHILD WAS HURT AT WORK AND DECHIKELY SENT HIRED MUSCLE AFTER THE WORKERS

Mara snorted.

“Subtle.”

The article was exactly what she expected: angry, sarcastic, occasionally vulgar.

Then she reached the last paragraph.

If these companies are afraid of a few children, then imagine what we could change if we worked together towards a goal that isn’t pure profit.

Her thumb stopped moving.

That was new.

Not completely new. The Bottom Line had complained about collective action before. It had encouraged people to support local businesses, unions, and occasionally one another instead of automatically supporting corporate interests.

But this felt different.

Mara reread the sentence.

Then the train arrived, and she closed the article.

—

Provisure occupied forty-three floors of a polished glass tower in central Juse.

Mara worked on the seventeenth.

Her department processed claims involving workplace injuries, property damage, medical expenses, and employment-related coverage disputes. Most cases were boring. A broken wrist. A flooded apartment. An improperly installed appliance. Someone crashing a Capital Pizza delivery scooter into somebody else’s parked car.

Numbers went into boxes.

Boxes went into systems.

Systems produced decisions.

That morning, Mara received a workplace injury claim from Ember City.

She noticed the location immediately.

Alhop Industrial Complex.

Mara sat a little straighter.

The name of the injured worker had been redacted from the general processing screen because the claimant was a minor. There were medical expenses, hospitalization estimates, rehabilitation projections, and several pending liability determinations.

Nothing unusual.

She opened the attached employment coverage information.

The worker had been properly registered.

The premiums had been paid.

The policy was valid.

Mara continued downward.

Then she found the dispute.

Alhop’s insurer was contesting part of the claim because the injury may have occurred during what the company described as an unauthorized deviation from assigned workstation procedure.

Mara read the sentence twice.

She clicked the supplementary report.

The child had apparently reached beyond a designated safety boundary while clearing a machine obstruction.

Mara leaned back.

Technically, that mattered.

Insurance worked on technicalities.

Technicalities were half of Mara’s job.

If employees ignored established safety procedures, companies could not reasonably be held responsible for every resulting injury.

That was obvious.

Except farther down, there was another note.

The machine had experienced recurring obstructions during the previous quarter.

Three maintenance requests had been filed.

Two had been deferred.

Mara stared at the screen.

Her coworker Nessa rolled her chair backward from the neighboring desk.

“You look like somebody died.”

“No.”

“Then it’s already better than yesterday.”

Mara turned the monitor slightly away without really knowing why.

“Workplace claim.”

“Those are always miserable.”

“Kid at Alhop.”

Nessa raised her eyebrows.

“The strike place?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

Nessa leaned closer.

“What happened?”

“Machine injury.”

“I meant with the claim.”

Mara looked back at the report.

“They might reduce coverage because the worker crossed the safety line.”

Nessa shrugged.

“Shouldn’t cross the safety line.”

“Machine kept jamming.”

“Shouldn’t clear it themselves.”

“They’d reported it.”

Nessa paused.

“So?”

“So nothing.”

Mara clicked back to the main screen.

Nessa watched her for another moment.

“Don’t become one of those Bottom Line people.”

Mara laughed immediately.

“Please.”

“I saw you reading it downstairs last week.”

“Because they’re funny.”

“They’re miserable.”

“They’re funny because they’re miserable.”

Nessa rolled herself back to her desk.

“Same thing.”

Mara smiled.

Then she looked at the claim again.

—

At lunch, everyone was talking about Flight 842.

Tariq Al-Jamil had beaten a Thessaran passenger badly enough to put him in the hospital after an argument over Thessara’s new clothing regulations.

Most of Mara’s coworkers had already chosen sides.

“Thessara started it.”

“He still nearly killed somebody.”

“They threatened his visa.”

“So?”

“So you’d react too.”

“Not like that.”

Mara ate quietly while scrolling through the three articles.

Acinonyx irritated her.

It always did.

The article spent so much time explaining what had provoked Al-Jamil that Mara could almost see where it wanted the reader to end up without actually saying it.

DNN was better.

Then she opened The Bottom Line.

She expected them to defend Al-Jamil.

They didn’t.

The opening paragraphs criticized Thessara’s law. They criticized Ian Reed. They criticized immigration threats.

Then they condemned Al-Jamil anyway.

Mara reread one line.

Two things can be true at once.

She lowered her phone.

That bothered her more than one of their usual rants would have.

The Bottom Line was supposed to be easy to dismiss.

Angry people were easy.

People screaming that everything was corrupt could be ignored because everything obviously wasn’t corrupt.

Her train worked.

Her apartment had heat.

Her doctor was excellent.

Provisure had paid for her mother’s surgery three years earlier.

The Firm wasn’t some cartoon villain sitting in a dark room trying to make people miserable.

But The Bottom Line hadn’t said that.

It had said two things could be true at once.

Mara looked around the cafeteria.

Above the serving counters was a display showing the current Firm rankings.

PROVISURE — SECOND IN THE CORE

Employees applauded whenever the ranking rose.

Mara had applauded too.

She suddenly wondered why.

—

Her afternoon was uneventful.

She processed thirty-one claims.

Approved nineteen.

Forwarded eight.

Rejected four.

At 4:48, her supervisor sent the department its weekly performance summary.

Mara’s efficiency score had risen by 0.7 percent.

A green arrow appeared beside her name.

EXCELLENT CONTRIBUTION.

She smiled automatically.

Then stopped.

The screen showed everyone else’s scores too.

Nessa was down 1.9 percent.

Yellow.

Another coworker, Olin, was down 4.2.

Red.

Mara knew what red meant.

Not firing.

Not yet.

First came performance counseling.

Then benefit review.

Then housing eligibility reassessment if the decline continued long enough.

Perfectly reasonable, she had always thought.

Companies provided benefits in exchange for work.

That was the arrangement.

Mara looked at Olin.

He was staring at his own screen.

His wife had given birth six weeks earlier.

He hadn’t been sleeping much.

Mara turned back to her monitor.

The green arrow beside her own name suddenly looked less congratulatory.

—

She stopped at Humungo-Mart on the way home.

The prices really were absurdly low.

She bought noodles, vegetables, coffee, and a bottle of SodaStar for less than she expected.

Across the street, the old butcher shop was dark.

Mara remembered that it had been there when she was a child.

She couldn’t remember when it closed.

For a moment she wondered whether it had belonged to Butch Ering.

Probably not.

There had to be thousands of butchers in Dechikely.

Still, she looked at the empty storefront longer than necessary.

Then she carried her cheap groceries home.

—

That evening, Mara sat on her couch eating noodles while a Property Siblings rerun played silently on the wall.

She opened The Bottom Line again.

Not the Ember City article.

Not Flight 842.

Instead, she searched their archive.

Retail deregulation.

Night Ruby profits.

The wealth gap.

Tahchee County.

Ket Baby.

Tierra Santa.

The scams.

She didn’t agree with everything.

Some of it was ridiculous.

Some of it was deliberately insulting.

Some arguments seemed constructed solely to make people angry.

But underneath the shouting were facts she recognized.

Names she knew.

Numbers she had seen elsewhere.

Events DNN had also reported.

She closed the site.

For several seconds she stared at the blank search bar.

Then she typed:

Dechikely Doctrine

The official government copy appeared immediately.

Mara had read portions of it in school.

Everyone had.

She remembered the important parts.

Work.

Liberty.

Industry.

Prosperity.

She opened Article IV.

Employees have the right to not belong to industry.

Mara frowned.

She read it again.

Then she looked around her apartment.

Her Provisure housing discount.

Her Provisure medical plan.

Her Provisure retirement account.

Her employee transportation pass.

Her corporate food benefits.

Her productivity-linked housing eligibility.

Of course she could leave industry.

Nobody was stopping her.

She could resign tomorrow.

Mara looked around the apartment again.

“Right.”

She wasn’t sure whether she had meant it sincerely.

For the first time in her life, Mara continued reading the Doctrine after she had found the section she wanted.

Not because she had to.

Not because somebody had assigned it.

She simply wanted to know what else it said.

Outside, the lights of Juse glowed beneath enormous corporate logos.

SodaStar.

Night Ruby.

TechNova.

Provisure.

They had always looked reassuring to her.

Proof that the city was alive.

Proof that somebody was working.

Proof that everything was functioning.

Mara watched them from her window.

Nothing about the city had changed.

That was what bothered her.

Something about her had.

Dechikely

By Friday morning, Mara Veylan had already decided she was doing absolutely nothing productive all weekend.

That decision improved her mood considerably.

She woke at 6:20, ignored the wall display for three full minutes, and remained under the blanket while the apartment gradually brightened around her.

The display politely reminded her that the 7:01 commuter train was currently operating on schedule.

Mara rolled over. “Of course it is.”

At 6:24, the apartment increased the lights another ten percent.

She opened one eye. “Traitor.”

The wall did not respond.

By 6:31 she was dressed, caffeinated, and standing in front of the mirror trying to decide whether the shirt she had worn on Wednesday was sufficiently different beneath a jacket to wear again on Friday.

It was.

She left.

—

Friday felt different in Juse.

Nobody actually worked fewer hours, but everyone behaved as though the weekend had already begun negotiating its way into the building.

The commuter train was louder.

People talked instead of staring at their screens.

Someone farther down the car had brought a box of Capital Pizza breakfast slices, and the smell had gradually conquered the entire carriage.

Mara stood holding one of the overhead rails while reading the morning headlines.

The automotive subsidies were everywhere.

Acinonyx had a photograph of Apollo Profeta standing in front of a gleaming silver vehicle with the headline:

PROFETA DRIVES DECHIKELY FORWARD

Mara stared at it. “They really couldn’t help themselves.”

The woman beside her glanced over. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Mara opened DNN instead.

The Firm had approved expanded subsidies for automobile manufacturers, suppliers, research facilities, modernization projects, and other businesses connected to vehicle production.

Profeta said everybody would benefit.

Mara scrolled.

Then she saw the quote.

More cars, more factories, more business. Everybody wins.

She read it again.

Everybody.

The train passed an enormous digital billboard advertising a Profeta sedan.

OWN THE ROAD.

Mara looked from the billboard back to the article. “Convenient timing.”

—

Nessa was already at work when Mara arrived.

She had placed a paper cup beside Mara’s keyboard.

Mara stopped. “What is this?”

“Coffee.”

“I can see that.”

“You look suspicious.”

“You bought me something.”

“It’s Friday.”

“That doesn’t explain anything.”

Nessa swiveled around in her chair. “I need somebody to go out with me tomorrow.”

“There it is.”

“A few people are meeting in the East Quarter.”

“No.”

“You don’t even know where.”

“I don’t care.”

“Night Ruby opened that new entertainment complex.”

“No.”

“There are restaurants.”

“No.”

“Arcade.”

“No.”

“Indoor beach.”

Mara paused.

Nessa smiled.

“You’re a terrible person.”

“They imported sand.”

“That seems unsanitary.”

“They sanitize it.”

“That somehow makes it worse.”

Nessa leaned back. “You have plans?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“That isn’t a plan.”

“It is absolutely a plan.”

Nessa shook her head. “You’re twenty-seven.”

“Correct.”

“You’re supposed to enjoy being alive.”

“I enjoy being alive horizontally.”

Olin laughed from two desks away. “I’m with Mara.”

Nessa pointed at him. “You have a newborn. You’re disqualified.”

“I haven’t slept more than three consecutive hours in seven weeks.”

“Exactly.”

Olin lifted his coffee. “This is my weekend.”

For a few minutes, nobody talked about the Firm.

Nobody talked about politics.

They talked about restaurants.

Someone complained that SodaStar had changed the formula of one of its citrus drinks.

Nessa insisted the old version tasted better.

Olin claimed nobody could actually tell the difference and everyone was pretending because complaining about SodaStar was practically a national hobby.

Mara disagreed. “The new one tastes like floor cleaner.”

“You drink floor cleaner often?”

“Enough to recognize quality.”

Someone across the aisle asked whether anybody had watched the latest episode of Home Hunters.

Nessa had.

Mara hadn’t.

Apparently a couple with a completely unreasonable budget had rejected an apartment because the kitchen counter was three centimeters too low.

Mara considered this a perfectly reasonable basis for television.

—

At 9:43, Mara received her first Donneg-related claim.

She knew what it was before opening the file.

The medication name had been everywhere since the price increase.

The claimant was sixty-two.

Neurodegenerative disorder.

Long-term prescription.

Coverage review requested following revised supplier pricing.

Mara opened the previous year’s records.

The medication had been expensive before.

Now it was dramatically more expensive.

The policy covered most of it.

Most.

Mara calculated the remaining patient responsibility.

She stopped.

Then calculated it again.

Same number.

Nessa rolled over. “Coffee run?”

“In a minute.”

Mara kept reading.

The claimant had been taking the medication for four years.

There was a physician’s note attached.

Treatment interruption not recommended due to risk of accelerated functional decline.

Mara stared at those words.

She opened Donneg’s pricing justification.

Research. Specialized manufacturing. Limited patient pool. Future innovation.

All perfectly respectable phrases.

She had heard them on DNN.

She had read them in Acinonyx.

She didn’t even necessarily think they were false.

That was becoming the irritating part.

Mara approved the portion Provisure was obligated to cover and forwarded the case for supplementary assistance review.

She couldn’t do anything else.

That was her authority.

She sat back.

Nessa was waiting. “You coming?”

“Yeah.”

They walked toward the break room.

Mara said, “You see that Donneg thing?”

“The medicine?”

“Yeah.”

“Insane.”

Mara looked at her. That wasn’t the answer she expected. “You think?”

“My aunt takes something from them. Different drug.”

“Oh.”

“She was complaining about it yesterday. Says pharmaceutical companies know people can’t exactly shop around.”

Mara hesitated. “That’s basically what The Bottom Line said.”

Nessa stopped walking. “No.”

“What?”

“I refuse to agree with The Bottom Line before ten in the morning.”

Mara laughed. “Fair.”

They continued.

Nessa added, “Still true, though.”

Mara said nothing.

—

Lunch was usually the most political fifteen minutes of Mara’s day, mostly because everybody had enough time to complain but not enough time to solve anything.

Apollo Profeta was today’s victim.

“He’s giving himself money,” Olin said.

“He isn’t giving himself money,” Nessa replied. “The subsidies apply to the whole industry.”

“Which includes him.”

“Yes.”

“So he’s giving himself money with extra steps.”

A man from actuarial shook his head. “You people realize automobile manufacturing supports half the manufacturing sector, right?”

“Half?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I want to know if that’s an actuarial half.”

“Steel. Electronics. Glass. Logistics. Software. Tires. Maintenance. Dealers. Construction.”

Nessa pointed her fork at him. “Congratulations. You’ve discovered supply chains.”

“Exactly. That’s why the subsidy makes sense.”

Olin shrugged. “Then subsidize everything.”

“That isn’t how economics works.”

“How does it work?”

The actuary opened his mouth.

Then closed it.

Mara smiled into her food.

Someone farther down the table said, “I don’t care. Maybe cars will get cheaper.”

“They won’t,” someone else replied.

“You don’t know that.”

“They never do.”

“My Profeta is twelve years old.”

“That’s because you refuse to buy anything made this century.”

“It runs.”

“It screams whenever you turn left.”

“That’s character.”

Mara listened.

What struck her was how ordinary the conversation was.

Nobody sounded revolutionary.

Nobody seemed particularly loyal either.

Profeta was simultaneously a member of their government and something to joke about over lunch.

The Firm governed the country, but it was discussed like weather.

Annoying.

Unavoidable.

Occasionally useful.

Mostly something happening above them.

Mara wondered when she had started noticing that.

—

Later that afternoon, a company-wide message appeared.

PROVISURE WEEKEND WELLNESS INITIATIVE

Employees were encouraged to use their leisure time productively by resting, socializing, exercising, participating in cultural activities, and preparing mentally for the coming workweek.

Mara stared.

Then forwarded it to Nessa.

Mara: They have assigned us recreational freedom.

Nessa replied immediately.

Nessa: Please enjoy yourself efficiently.

Mara covered her mouth to stop herself laughing.

Another message arrived.

Nessa: Failure to relax may affect quarterly performance.

Mara typed:

Mara: I will relax aggressively.

For several minutes she forgot entirely about Donneg.

About Profeta.

About Alhop.

About anything larger than getting through the final hours of Friday.

—

At 4:55, the department began watching the clock.

Nobody admitted it.

Everyone did it.

At 4:57, Olin had already put his coat on.

At 4:58, Nessa closed every application except the one she technically needed to remain working.

At 4:59, Mara refreshed her inbox twice in terror that somebody would send a complicated claim.

Nothing.

At 5:00, the floor transformed.

Chairs moved.

Computers locked.

People suddenly remembered they had families, bars, restaurants, games, partners, children, hobbies, and lives that existed somewhere beyond Provisure.

Nessa stood. “Tomorrow.”

Mara sighed. “The indoor beach?”

“The indoor beach.”

“I hate you.”

“Eleven.”

“That’s too early.”

“It’s almost noon.”

“On Saturday, eleven is legally dawn.”

“You’ll survive.”

Mara put on her jacket. “Fine.”

Nessa grinned. “See? You do have plans.”

—

The station was crowded.

Friday evening advertisements competed across every surface.

Night Ruby wanted her to buy clothes.

SodaStar wanted her to try something called Midnight Cherry Ultra.

Capital Pizza promised delivery in nineteen minutes.

Profeta was advertising financing.

888Big was offering weekend betting promotions.

TechNova wanted her to replace a phone she had purchased fourteen months ago.

Mara stood among hundreds of people being instructed what to eat, drink, wear, drive, watch, and buy.

She had seen these advertisements every day for years.

Tonight they seemed louder.

Not sinister.

Just loud.

Her phone vibrated.

Her paycheck had been deposited.

Mara immediately felt better about capitalism.

She smiled at herself.

“Principles.”

She transferred money toward rent, savings, utilities, and the small vacation account she had been building for nearly two years.

Then she bought a SodaStar from the platform machine.

Midnight Cherry Ultra.

She took one sip.

Her face twisted. “Oh, that’s terrible.”

A man waiting nearby laughed. “New one?”

“Yeah.”

“Everyone says that.”

“Why are they selling it?”

“Because you bought it.”

Mara looked at the bottle.

The man had already turned away.

She started laughing.

—

At home, she changed into comfortable clothes, ordered food, and opened her entertainment feed.

She deliberately did not open the news.

That lasted nineteen minutes.

The Bottom Line had published a short commentary about the automotive subsidies.

Mara stared at the notification.

She could ignore it.

Instead, she opened it.

The headline was exactly as obnoxious as expected:

APOLLO PROFETA SOMEHOW CONVINCES FIRM THAT APOLLO PROFETA NEEDS MORE MONEY

Mara laughed before reading a single word.

Then she read it.

The argument wasn’t complicated.

Profeta ran an automobile company. Profeta represented automobile manufacturing in the Firm. Profeta advocated subsidies for automobile manufacturing. Profeta’s company would benefit.

Mara thought about the Doctrine.

She had been reading pieces of it throughout the week.

Monies raised shall NOT be used for any betterment of any company of any industry in place of profit.

The subsidies weren’t exclusively for Profeta.

That mattered.

They supported an entire industry.

That mattered too.

Manufacturing had enormous secondary economic effects.

The Firm probably had legitimate reasons.

Mara could construct the defense herself.

That bothered her.

Because she could also construct the criticism.

She closed the article.

Opened DNN.

Read their version again.

Then Acinonyx.

Then the actual Firm announcement.

Twenty minutes later, she realized what she was doing.

Mara put the phone down.

“No.”

She picked up her food.

“Weekend.”

She turned on a comedy.

Her phone remained facedown.

For nearly an hour.

Then a thought appeared in her head without permission.

If Apollo Profeta were not sitting in the Firm, would automobile manufacturing still have received the subsidies?

Mara stared at the television.

Someone on-screen fell through a table.

The audience laughed.

She didn’t.

There was no way to know.

That was the problem.

She wasn’t accusing Profeta of corruption.

She didn’t have evidence of corruption.

Maybe the policy really was excellent.

Maybe it would create thousands of jobs.

Maybe cars would become cheaper.

Maybe Dechikely would export millions of them.

Maybe everybody really would win.

But the person deciding whether the industry deserved government assistance was also a man whose personal fortune depended upon that industry’s success.

And Dechikely didn’t consider that unusual.

Mara reached for her phone.

Stopped.

She looked at it.

Then withdrew her hand.

Tomorrow she was going to an indoor beach with Nessa.

She was going to drink something overpriced.

She was going to complain about artificial sand.

She was going to waste money on an arcade game she wasn’t good at.

She was going to have a normal Saturday.

The Firm could survive forty-eight hours without Mara Veylan thinking about it.

She smiled.

Then another thought came.

For twenty-seven years, she had barely thought about it at all.

Mara’s smile faded.

That was beginning to seem stranger than thinking about it too much.

Dechikely

At 10:36 Saturday morning, Mara Veylan was still in bed.

This was a problem only because at 10:41 Nessa sent her a message.

Nessa: You are awake.

Mara stared at it.

She had not told Nessa she was awake.

Mara: Prove it.

Three dots appeared immediately.

Nessa: You read this.

Mara considered throwing her phone across the room.

Instead, she pulled the blanket over her head.

Mara: Eleven was your idea.

Nessa: Correct.

Mara: And therefore your fault.

Nessa: Also correct.

Mara: I’m glad we agree.

Nessa: East Quarter station. 11:15.

Mara lowered the phone.

That was not eleven.

She could work with that.

—

Night Ruby’s new entertainment complex occupied what had once been several warehouses near the eastern commercial district of Juse.

At least Mara thought they had been warehouses.

It was difficult to tell anymore.

Entire sections of the city had a habit of disappearing behind construction screens and reopening six months later as something with a digital waterfall and a membership program.

The building itself was enormous.

A curved glass facade rose above the street beneath a glowing Night Ruby logo. Animated advertisements moved across the exterior promising restaurants, shopping, virtual sports, live performances, an arcade, a spa, a cinema, and—somehow—an indoor beach.

Across the entrance, enormous letters proclaimed:

SUMMER DOESN’T NEED PERMISSION.

Mara stopped beneath them.

Nessa was waiting near the doors wearing sunglasses despite the fact they were indoors. “You’re late.”

“It’s 11:14.”

“You were supposed to arrive early.”

“That isn’t how arrival times work.”

Nessa looked at the building. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“It looks expensive.”

“Same thing.”

They went inside.

—

The beach was on the fourth floor.

Mara had expected a large swimming pool with some sand around it.

She had underestimated Night Ruby.

The room was cavernous.

Artificial sunlight shone from panels suspended several stories overhead. The ceiling had been designed to resemble a blue sky, complete with slowly moving clouds that Mara suspected were advertisements waiting for the correct moment to become something else.

A broad artificial shoreline curved around a pool large enough to qualify as a small lake.

There were palm trees.

Actual palm trees.

Mara stopped walking. “No.”

Nessa looked delighted. “Yes.”

“They planted trees.”

“They’re real.”

“Why?”

“For atmosphere.”

“We’re inside.”

“That is the atmosphere.”

Mara looked at the sand.

Hundreds of people were spread across towels, chairs, rented cabanas, and small recreation areas.

Children were building sandcastles.

Someone was playing volleyball.

A group of teenagers were taking pictures beneath a decorative waterfall.

A server walked past carrying drinks in hollowed-out imitation coconuts.

Mara slowly looked at Nessa. “They imported sand.”

“I told you.”

“Where from?”

“No idea.”

“That’s important.”

“Why?”

“I need to know whose beach we stole.”

Nessa laughed. “Come on.”

—

Entrance had been cheaper than Mara expected.

Mostly because Nessa had a Night Ruby leisure voucher.

Mara watched her scan it at the gate. “Where did you get that?”

“Employee rewards.”

“You work at Provisure.”

“Provisure has a partnership with Night Ruby.”

“Of course it does.”

“I had points.”

Mara looked at the price she had paid. “You couldn’t have mentioned this yesterday?”

“You didn’t ask.”

“I didn’t know recreational economics required research.”

Nessa smiled. “That’s your first mistake.”

They found two chairs near the water.

Mara removed her shoes and cautiously placed one foot into the sand.

She frowned.

Nessa watched. “Well?”

“Warm.”

“Yes.”

“Suspiciously warm.”

“They heat it.”

Mara looked genuinely offended. “They heat the sand?”

Nessa lay back in her chair. “You are exactly as miserable as I hoped you’d be.”

Mara sat down.

A moment later she ran both feet through the sand.

It was actually quite nice.

She decided not to mention that.

—

For almost an hour, nothing important happened.

Mara swam.

Nessa attempted to convince her to participate in a group exercise session being conducted in the shallow end.

Mara refused.

Nessa joined anyway.

Mara watched her spend twelve minutes following an instructor who seemed personally offended whenever anyone moved at less than maximum enthusiasm.

When Nessa returned, Mara handed her a towel. “You looked ridiculous.”

“I feel incredible.”

“You looked like you were fighting the water.”

“Fitness requires sacrifice.”

“So does war.”

They ordered drinks.

Mara’s cost eighteen kets.

She stared at the payment screen. “Eighteen?”

Nessa didn’t look up. “You said you were going to drink something overpriced.”

“I didn’t mean manifest destiny.”

“It has fruit in it.”

“There are four pieces of fruit.”

“Luxury fruit.”

Mara paid.

She took a sip.

It was excellent.

This irritated her.

Nessa noticed. “You like it.”

“No.”

“You absolutely like it.”

“It tastes financially irresponsible.”

“So yes.”

Mara took another sip.

—

They eventually made their way toward the arcade.

On the way, they passed storefronts selling everything from swimwear to furniture.

Mara stopped outside a Bunny and Bunk showroom.

A large display featured Addisen Bay reclining dramatically on a sectional beneath the slogan:

DROP YOUR OLD STYLE.

Mara stared at it.

Nessa followed her gaze. “Oh, that’s terrible.”

“They know what they’re doing.”

“Obviously.”

A smaller advertisement showed a chair falling from somewhere above the frame before transforming into a new product.

Mara started laughing. “They actually used it.”

“What?”

“The balcony thing.”

“I told you. Her entire campaign is based on it.”

“She could have killed somebody.”

“Didn’t.”

“That’s not a defense.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

Mara looked through the glass.

Customers were taking pictures beside a promotional replica of Addisen Bay’s balcony.

“People will buy anything.”

Nessa shrugged. “People like a story.”

“That story is reckless endangerment.”

“Still a story.”

Mara thought about that as they continued walking.

For once, she didn’t connect it to the Firm.

She just thought marketing people were terrible.

—

The arcade occupied almost half a floor.

There were racing simulators sponsored by Profeta, fishing games sponsored by Reelix, gambling-adjacent prize machines bearing Atomic Bets branding, and a large virtual-reality combat arena whose equipment carried the logo of Voodoo Manufacturing.

Mara pointed at it. “Very normal.”

Nessa looked. “What?”

“Arms manufacturer sponsoring children’s laser tag.”

“It’s not children’s laser tag.”

A group of eight-year-olds ran past them wearing Voodoo-branded tactical vests.

Mara raised an eyebrow.

Nessa sighed. “Fine.”

They settled on a racing game.

Mara chose a Profeta sports car.

Nessa looked at her.

“What?”

“You spent all night reading about Apollo Profeta and now you’re driving one.”

“I’m complex.”

“Hypocrite.”

“Also that.”

The race began.

Mara crashed into a barrier within twelve seconds.

Nessa laughed so hard she missed a turn. “You can’t drive.”

“I can drive.”

“You hit a wall.”

“The steering is unrealistic.”

“You’re going backward.”

“I am repositioning.”

“You’re in last place.”

“Strategically.”

Mara finished eleventh out of twelve.

The only person she beat appeared to have abandoned the machine midway through the race.

Nessa placed second.

Mara demanded a rematch.

She lost again.

By the fourth race, the automotive subsidies had completely disappeared from her mind.

Profeta was no longer a government official.

Profeta was simply the company whose stupid digital car refused to turn properly.

Mara enjoyed that.

—

They ate lunch at a restaurant overlooking the artificial beach.

Nessa ordered something involving grilled fish.

Mara ordered a sandwich large enough to require structural engineering.

For several minutes, they discussed nothing more consequential than whether Mara could physically eat it.

Then Nessa said, “Olin’s looking for a new apartment.”

Mara looked up. “Already?”

“Apparently.”

“He just moved into that one.”

“Baby.”

“Oh.”

“They need another room.”

Mara nodded.

Housing was one of those things everyone eventually talked about.

“What district?”

“Probably south.”

“That commute is terrible.”

“Cheaper.”

“Provisure housing?”

“Mostly.”

Mara pulled a piece of lettuce from the sandwich. “He should qualify for the family adjustment.”

“He does.”

“Then why south?”

“His performance score.”

Mara stopped.

Nessa continued eating.

“What about it?”

“Apparently his last review pulled down the housing tier they’re offering.”

Mara remembered the red number beside Olin’s name. “He had a baby.”

Nessa shrugged. “Which is probably why his performance dropped.”

“So they know why.”

“I’m sure they do.”

“And?”

“And what?”

Mara opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

Nessa looked at her. “Mara.”

“No, I just—” She put the sandwich down. “That seems stupid.”

“Probably.”

“He’s tired because he has a newborn, so his performance goes down, so when he needs more space because he has a newborn, his housing options get worse.”

Nessa considered that. “When you put it like that.”

“How else do you put it?”

“I don’t know.”

Nessa drank from her glass. “He’ll find something.”

Mara knew that.

That was the thing.

Olin wasn’t going to become homeless.

Provisure wasn’t throwing him into the street.

He would find an apartment.

It might be smaller than he wanted.

It might require a longer commute.

His family would survive.

Nothing catastrophic was happening.

Mara picked up her sandwich again. “This is how they get you.”

Nessa looked amused. “Who?”

“The Bottom Line.”

“Oh no.”

“They take something annoying and make it sound like the collapse of civilization.”

Nessa laughed. “You’ve been reading too much.”

“I know.”

“And you’re still reading it.”

“I know.”

“That’s concerning.”

Mara pointed at her. “You agreed with them about Donneg.”

“Before ten in the morning. I was vulnerable.”

Mara smiled.

The conversation moved on.

—

Around two, Mara’s phone displayed a news notification.

She almost dismissed it.

DNN ALERT: THREE DECHIKELIAN WORKERS KILLED IN TIERRA SANTA CONSTRUCTION INCIDENT

Her thumb stopped.

Nessa noticed her expression. “What?”

Mara turned the phone.

Nessa read the headline. “Oh.”

There wasn’t much information yet.

Three construction workers.

Tierra Santa.

An incident.

Work suspended in the affected area.

Investigation underway.

Identities withheld pending family notification.

Mara scrolled. “That’s awful.”

Nessa nodded. “Yeah.”

They sat quietly for a few seconds.

Then someone’s child screamed happily from the beach below.

Music continued playing.

Servers carried drinks.

A wave machine activated in the pool.

The world did not pause because three people had died somewhere else.

Mara had processed death claims before.

She knew that better than most.

Every tragedy was catastrophic to someone and background noise to everyone else.

She locked her phone.

Nessa said, “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You look weird.”

“I work in insurance.”

“Occupational hazard?”

“Basically.” Mara looked over the railing at the beach. “How much do you think Tierra Santa’s worth now?”

Nessa frowned. “The land?”

“The whole project.”

“Didn’t Deidadios pay some absurd amount?”

“Hundred sixty-five billion eurodollars.”

Nessa stared. “You just know that?”

“It was in the news.”

“You really have been reading too much.”

Mara smiled faintly. “Probably.”

She didn’t open The Bottom Line.

Not then.

—

They stayed another two hours.

Mara won a stuffed shark from a prize machine after spending considerably more money than the stuffed shark could possibly have been worth.

Nessa pointed this out.

Mara refused to acknowledge it. “It is about the achievement.”

“You paid thirty-two kets.”

“He’s priceless.”

“You could buy one downstairs for nine.”

“That one wouldn’t be earned.”

Mara held the shark beneath one arm.

Nessa looked at it. “What are you naming him?”

“Donneg.”

Nessa nearly dropped her drink. “Why?”

“Because he cost too much.”

That ended the discussion.

—

By the time they left the complex, evening had begun creeping across Juse.

The artificial sunlight inside had made the real sky feel strangely dim.

People streamed through the East Quarter carrying shopping bags, restaurant boxes, toys, clothes, and branded merchandise.

Mara had the shark.

Nessa had purchased a pair of shoes she insisted had been discounted enough to count as saving money.

“You spent money.”

“I saved forty percent.”

“You spent sixty percent.”

“Negative attitude.”

They approached the station.

A large screen above the entrance was showing DNN.

The Tierra Santa story had developed.

Mara slowed.

The screen displayed construction footage.

Scaffolding.

Concrete.

Emergency vehicles.

The chyron beneath it read:

STRUCTURAL COLLAPSE SUSPECTED IN DEATHS OF THREE DECHIKELIAN WORKERS

Mara stopped completely.

Nessa took another two steps before noticing. “Coming?”

“One second.”

They watched.

Preliminary reports suggested temporary supports beneath a concrete section had failed.

Investigators were reviewing installation, loading, engineering plans, and inspection records.

Photographs may have shown deformation before the collapse.

Mara’s expression changed.

Nessa read the screen. “That’s bad.”

“Yeah.”

“Still preliminary.”

“I know.”

The broadcast moved to another story.

Mara remained still.

Three workers had been underneath it.

She imagined the claims.

Death benefits.

Workplace liability.

Contractor insurance.

Subcontractor insurance.

Disputes over who was responsible.

Engineering company.

Shoring supplier.

Installer.

Inspector.

Each with its own policies.

Each with its own lawyers.

Each with its own explanation.

She could almost see the files arriving at Provisure.

Nessa touched her shoulder. “Mara?”

“Sorry.”

They walked toward the platform.

—

On the train home, Nessa showed Mara pictures from the day.

There was one of Mara standing ankle-deep in artificial water looking deeply suspicious.

One of her holding the eighteen-ket drink.

One of Nessa celebrating after beating her at the racing game.

And one of Mara sitting on the train platform with Donneg the shark tucked under her arm.

“That one.”

“No.”

“I’m posting it.”

“You absolutely are not.”

“You look cute.”

“I look exhausted.”

“Same thing.”

Mara attempted to take Nessa’s phone.

Nessa pulled it away.

For several minutes they fought over the picture like children.

The people sitting across from them pretended not to watch.

Eventually Nessa promised not to post it.

She immediately made it Mara’s contact photo instead.

Mara accepted this as the best settlement available.

—

When Mara reached home, she dropped her bag beside the door and placed the stuffed shark on the couch.

She looked at him.

“Don’t judge me.”

Donneg stared blankly.

Mara changed clothes.

Her feet still had sand between the toes despite having showered at the complex.

“Sanitized sand,” she muttered.

She opened her phone.

There were more updates about Tierra Santa.

She read DNN first.

Temporary supports.

Recently poured concrete.

Possible premature loading.

Possible installation failure.

Possible defective equipment.

Different companies responsible for different parts of the work.

No confirmed cause.

Then she opened Acinonyx.

THREE WORKERS KILLED IN ISOLATED STRUCTURAL FAILURE AT TIERRA SANTA

Isolated.

Mara reread the word.

Maybe it was.

Probably it was.

Most construction sites did not collapse.

Millions of people went to work every day and came home.

The article emphasized that work elsewhere continued under increased safety precautions.

That was reasonable.

A project that large couldn’t simply stop forever because of one accident.

Then she opened The Bottom Line.

She knew the headline before she finished reading it.

THREE WORKERS DEAD WHILE EVERYONE ARGUES OVER WHOSE SUPPORT BEAM FAILED

Mara exhaled through her nose.

“Of course.”

She read.

The article was angry.

That was normal.

It emphasized the layers of contractors and subcontractors.

Normal.

It questioned whether deformation had been ignored.

Fair.

Then came the last line.

If warnings were raised and construction continued anyway, then this was not simply a structural failure. It was a decision.

Mara stopped.

She read it again.

A decision.

She didn’t know whether that was true.

Neither did The Bottom Line.

They said as much.

Maybe the supports had simply failed.

Maybe somebody had installed something incorrectly.

Maybe a component had been defective.

Maybe three people had died because sometimes terrible things happened despite everyone’s best efforts.

That happened too.

Mara knew that better than most.

She placed the phone beside her.

Donneg the shark was still staring at her from the couch.

She picked him up.

“You’re terrible company.”

She put him beside her.

For a while, Mara watched television.

Eventually she stopped thinking about concrete.

She stopped thinking about Profeta.

She stopped thinking about Olin’s apartment.

She stopped thinking about Donneg Pharmaceutical.

She had enjoyed the day.

Really enjoyed it.

She had laughed until her stomach hurt.

She had spent too much money.

She had lost four races.

She had consumed an eighteen-ket drink and defended a thirty-two-ket stuffed shark.

She had spent an entire Saturday enjoying things created by the same corporatocracy she had been questioning all week.

And nothing about that felt contradictory until she thought about it.

Mara looked around her apartment.

That was becoming the most uncomfortable part.

She did not hate Dechikely.

She wasn’t even sure she hated the Firm.

She liked her life.

Most days, anyway.

The trains worked.

Her apartment was comfortable.

Her job mattered.

Her friends were good.

There were indoor beaches for absolutely no defensible reason.

It would have been easier if everything were terrible.

Then there would be nothing to understand.

Nothing to defend.

Nothing to lose.

Mara reached for her phone.

She opened The Bottom Line again.

Not the article.

The homepage.

She scrolled past Tierra Santa.

Past Ivroyia.

Past Donneg.

Past Profeta.

Then she noticed something she had never paid attention to before.

At the bottom of the page was a small link.

Letters to the Editor.

Mara stared at it.

She didn’t click.

After several seconds, she locked the phone.

Then unlocked it.

The link was still there.

She locked it again.

“Weekend,” she reminded herself.

Donneg offered no opinion.

Mara put the phone facedown.

She did not write anything.

Not yet.

Dechikely

Mara Veylan woke Sunday morning with Donneg the shark lying on her face.

For several seconds she did not understand why she could not see.

Then she grabbed the stuffed animal by the tail and threw him toward the foot of the bed.

“You’ve become a problem.”

Donneg landed upside down against the blanket.

Mara checked the time.

9:17.

Acceptable.

Her phone contained six notifications.

Two were advertisements.

One was from Provisure reminding employees that enrollment for supplemental dental coverage would close at the end of the month.

One was from Nessa.

Nessa: My legs hurt.

Mara smiled.

Mara: Fitness requires sacrifice.

The response arrived almost immediately.

Nessa: Go to hell.

Mara put the phone down.

Sunday had begun well.

—

Her parents expected her for lunch at one.

Expected was perhaps too weak a word.

Mara’s mother had informed her on Thursday that lunch would occur at one.

Mara had replied that she might have plans.

Her mother had responded:

With whom?

Mara had not answered.

At 12:24, she boarded a train toward the western residential districts.

Her parents lived in the same neighborhood where Mara had spent most of her childhood, although not in the same apartment. Her father’s employer had transferred them into a larger unit after his twenty-fifth year with the company, and her mother had refused to leave it ever since.

The neighborhood was quieter than central Juse.

Lower buildings.

More trees.

Children riding bicycles between housing complexes.

Small restaurants beneath apartment towers.

Corporate signs were still everywhere, but they were smaller here.

A Provisure clinic occupied one corner.

A Night Ruby convenience store occupied another.

There was a SodaStar vending machine at the train exit.

Mara bought water.

She deliberately did not buy Midnight Cherry Ultra.

Some mistakes did not deserve repetition.

—

Her mother opened the door before Mara knocked. “You’re early.”

Mara checked the time. 12:57. “You say that like it’s suspicious.”

“It is suspicious.”

Her mother hugged her anyway.

Mara Veylan had inherited most of her sarcasm from Lira Veylan, although Lira insisted this was impossible because she was “a pleasant person.”

She was fifty-seven, short, sharp-eyed, and incapable of allowing anyone to enter her home without immediately determining whether they were hungry.

“Shoes.”

Mara removed them.

“You look tired.”

“Hello to you too.”

“Did you sleep?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“Enough.”

“That isn’t a number.”

Mara walked toward the kitchen.

Her father was standing over the stove. “She’s interrogating you already?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Saves me time.”

Tomas Veylan was sixty-one and had worked for a logistics contractor for thirty-eight years. He had begun loading freight vehicles as a teenager and now supervised regional distribution planning from an office where, according to him, his primary responsibility was attending meetings that should have been messages.

He turned. “Indoor beach?”

Mara stopped. “How do you know about that?”

“Nessa posted pictures.”

Mara’s eyes narrowed.

Her mother looked delighted. “You looked adorable with the shark.”

Mara took out her phone. “No.”

Tomas laughed. “She didn’t post the train picture.”

Mara paused. “She posted others?”

“Several.”

Mara opened Nessa’s profile.

There she was.

Standing suspiciously in artificial water.

Holding the eighteen-ket drink.

Losing at the racing simulator.

Mara stared at the screen. “Traitor.”

Her mother leaned over her shoulder. “I like this one.”

“I look angry.”

“You always look a little angry.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s your father’s eyebrows.”

Tomas pointed the cooking spoon at them. “Leave my eyebrows out of this.”

—

Lunch was chicken, rice, vegetables, and a sauce Mara’s mother refused to give anyone the recipe for despite the fact Mara had watched her make it at least fifty times.

For the first twenty minutes, conversation remained safely meaningless.

Her father complained about a neighbor who had purchased a new vehicle and now occupied slightly more than his assigned parking space.

Her mother had begun watching a medical drama and wanted Mara to explain whether insurance companies actually behaved the way they did on television.

“They don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because television has to be interesting.”

Her father nodded. “That’s what I always say about management.”

Mara asked about her mother’s garden.

Her mother corrected her. “Balcony agriculture.”

“You have six pots.”

“Seven.”

“I apologize.”

“One is basil.”

“National food security secured.”

“Mock me when you need basil.”

Mara ate another piece of chicken.

This was what visiting home was supposed to be.

The same jokes.

The same chairs.

The same faint mark on the kitchen wall where Mara had thrown something when she was nine and then spent three years denying it.

Her mother still kept the ceramic bowl Mara had made in school.

It was objectively terrible.

Mara had repeatedly asked her to throw it away.

Lira treated this as proof that Mara lacked sentiment.

—

Her father eventually brought up Zane Gibson. Not because anybody was discussing politics. Because he had seen a video. “Did you see the national park thing?”

Mara looked up. “What national park thing?”

“With Gibson.”

“SodaStar Gibson?”

“How many Zane Gibsons do you know?”

“None personally.”

Tomas started laughing before he could explain. Apparently Zane Gibson had illegally camped inside Mudah Caverns National Park. That alone did not sound particularly interesting.

Then her father continued. “He set trees on fire.”

Mara stopped chewing. “Accidentally?”

“Apparently.”

“That’s less funny.”

“He threatened some kids.”

“Even less funny.”

“Then he declared the campsite an independent tax haven.”

Mara stared at him.

Her mother shook her head. “Don’t encourage him.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“You’re enjoying it.”

“Because it’s absurd.”

Mara put down her fork. “He declared part of a national park a country?”

“Tax haven.”

“That’s not better.”

“Then he called Aleko a fascist dictator.”

Mara laughed despite herself. “No.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the trees disagreed with his monetary policy.”

Lira gave her husband a look.

Mara covered her mouth.

“Stop.”

Her father continued grinning. “They fined him.”

“Good.”

“Massive fine.”

“Good.”

“Apparently he made it back before they finished writing the ticket.”

Mara’s smile weakened. “What?”

“He earns that much.”

Her mother sighed. “And now people are arguing about fines.”

Tomas nodded. “Some want them based on income.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Lira said.

Mara looked at her. “Why?”

“Because the punishment should be based on what you did.”

“It still would be.”

“No. If one person pays ten thousand and another pays ten million for the same thing, that’s not equal.”

Tomas sat back. “I don’t know.”

Lira pointed her fork at him. “You always know until I disagree.”

“That is an important marital survival strategy.”

Mara smiled, but she was still thinking.

Her mother continued. “If I park somewhere illegally and Zane Gibson parks somewhere illegally, why should he owe more?”

“Because ten thousand might matter to you.”

“It shouldn’t matter who I am.”

“Doesn’t punishment have to hurt at least a little?”

Lira frowned. “It isn’t supposed to ruin you.”

“Exactly.”

Her mother paused.

Mara continued. “If the fine could wreck an ordinary person’s month and Gibson earns it back before the citation printer stops making noise, then you technically gave them the same fine, but you didn’t really give them the same punishment.”

Her father pointed at Mara. “That’s what I said.”

“You said you didn’t know.”

“I knew internally.”

Lira ignored him. “So rich people should be punished more for being rich?”

“No.”

“It sounds like that.”

Mara opened her mouth.

Closed it.

She wasn’t sure.

There was something about the argument she didn’t like, but she could also understand her mother’s point.

Her father said, “Maybe just don’t set national parks on fire.”

“That is the strongest policy proposal so far,” Mara said.

Her mother nodded. “Agreed.”

The conversation moved on.

No one changed anyone’s mind.

Civilization survived.

—

After lunch, Mara helped her mother carry some storage boxes from the bedroom.

One contained old school materials.

Mara found an elementary civics workbook.

She opened it.

On the first page was a cartoon illustration of the Firm.

Fifteen smiling executives stood around a semicircular table beneath the Dechikelian flag.

At the center was the Headman.

Mara stared. “What?”

Her mother was looking at her. “Nothing.”

She flipped through the workbook.

There were sections about industry.

Trade.

Markets.

The Core.

The Ext.

The Headman.

The Doctrine.

One exercise asked students to match industries with the goods or services they provided.

Another explained that corporate representation ensured government decisions were made by people with practical experience managing the nation’s economy.

Mara remembered doing these.

She had probably been eight.

There was even handwriting in the margins.

SodaStar makes drinks.

A masterpiece of political analysis.

She turned another page.

Why does Dechikely entrust industries with political representation?

Below it, eight-year-old Mara had written:

Because they know how to make things people need.

Her adult handwriting was very different.

The answer still sounded reasonable.

That was irritating.

“You keeping that?”

Mara looked up. “What?”

“The book.”

“Oh.”

She nearly put it back.

Then didn’t.

“Sure.”

Her mother smiled. “See? Sentiment.”

“Don’t make this unpleasant.”

—

Before Mara left, Lira packed enough leftovers for what she described as “at least two meals” and Mara recognized as five.

At the door, her mother hugged her. “You should visit more.”

“I was here two weeks ago.”

“Exactly.”

Her father called from the kitchen. “Bring Nessa next time.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because then you’ll have allies.”

“We already have each other.”

“That’s what worries me.”

Her mother kissed Mara’s cheek. “Text when you’re home.”

“I always do.”

“I know.”

Mara put on her shoes.

As she stepped into the hallway, Lira said, “And stop reading so much news.”

Mara turned. “What?”

“You’re arguing about fines now.”

“So were you.”

“Yes, but I’m old. It’s my job.”

Mara smiled. “Bye, Mom.”

—

The train home was nearly empty.

Mara sat beside the window with the old civics workbook in her bag.

She opened her phone.

There was already an Acinonyx article about the Gibson controversy.

She read it.

The argument was almost exactly her mother’s.

Equal crimes.

Equal fines.

Income-based penalties would discriminate against successful citizens.

Mara opened DNN.

More neutral.

Then The Bottom Line.

The headline made her laugh.

ZANE GIBSON DISCOVERS LAWS ARE SURPRISINGLY AFFORDABLE WHEN YOU OWN SODASTAR

“That’s good,” she muttered.

A man several seats away glanced toward her.

Mara lowered the phone.

The article made essentially the argument Mara had made at lunch.

Same fine.

Different consequence.

Equal ticket.

Unequal punishment.

She reached the end.

Normally she would have closed it.

Instead her eyes moved downward.

Past the comments.

Past related articles.

Past the subscription box.

There it was again.

Letters to the Editor.

Mara looked out the window.

Then back at the screen.

She clicked.

—

The page was disappointingly ordinary.

She had expected something dramatic.

Perhaps a warning.

Perhaps a manifesto.

Perhaps a red button labeled BEGIN DISSENT.

Instead there was a submission form.

Name

Email

Subject

Letter

Below that were publication options.

Publish full name

Publish initials

Request anonymity

The outlet reserved the right to verify the identity of anonymous contributors before publication.

Mara stared at the form.

Her pulse had increased.

Which was stupid.

She wasn’t doing anything illegal.

Amendment I protected the right to speech, press, assembly, and petition.

People wrote letters to newspapers every day.

Probably hundreds of them.

She closed the page.

The train continued moving.

Mara opened it again.

“Ridiculous.”

She closed it.

Three stations passed.

She opened it a third time.

—

At home, Mara placed the leftovers in the refrigerator and put her mother’s civics workbook on the kitchen counter.

Donneg was exactly where she had left him.

“Productive day?”

He said nothing.

“Freeloader.”

She made tea.

Then cleaned the kitchen despite the fact the kitchen was already clean.

She reorganized a drawer.

She watered a plant.

She changed the sheets.

She watched twenty-three minutes of a documentary about deep-sea mining before realizing she had absorbed absolutely none of it.

At 7:42, Mara opened the Letters to the Editor page on her computer.

The larger screen made it somehow worse.

Name

She typed:

Mara Veylan

She stared.

Deleted it.

Typed it again.

Deleted it.

“This is pathetic.”

Donneg continued contributing nothing.

Mara typed her name a third time.

Then her email.

Subject.

She had no subject.

She leaned back.

What exactly was she planning to say?

She wasn’t a journalist.

She wasn’t an economist.

She wasn’t an activist.

She didn’t have secret documents proving the Firm was corrupt.

She didn’t know that the Firm was corrupt.

She had complaints.

Everyone had complaints.

The Bottom Line was practically built from complaints.

Mara rested her fingers on the keyboard.

Then typed:

Performance Scores and Housing

She hated it immediately.

Deleted it.

When Benefits Become Punishment

Too dramatic.

Deleted.

A Question About Employee Housing

Boring.

She left it.

Then she clicked inside the letter box.

Nothing happened for a long time.

Finally:

I work for a major company in Juse.

Mara stopped.

Deleted it.

Too specific.

I am employed by a company that provides performance-linked benefits.

She stared.

That sounded like half the country.

Better.

She continued.

I am employed by a company that provides performance-linked benefits, including housing assistance. Recently, someone I know experienced a temporary decline in their performance score after having a child. Because of that decline, their available housing options became worse at the same time their family needed additional space.

Mara stopped typing.

She read it.

This felt wrong.

Not false.

Wrong.

Olin had not given her permission to tell his story.

She deleted the entire paragraph.

“Okay.”

She started again.

Why are some essential employee benefits tied so closely to short-term productivity?

She paused.

I understand why companies reward high-performing employees.

True.

I understand that benefits cost money and that employees who contribute more may qualify for additional compensation.

Also true.

But there are situations where an employee’s performance can decline because of circumstances that are temporary and normal. Having a child. Caring for a family member. Recovering from an illness. If housing, medical priority, or other important benefits are reduced during those periods, are we rewarding productivity or punishing people for temporarily needing the system they contribute to?

Mara stared at the last sentence.

Her heart was beating harder now.

She almost deleted it.

Instead she continued.

The Dechikely Doctrine says employees are entitled to wages and benefits. It also says people have the right not to belong to industry. I have been thinking about what those statements mean in practice.

That was too much.

Delete.

She highlighted the paragraph.

Her finger hovered.

Then she removed only the second sentence.

The first remained.

The Dechikely Doctrine says employees are entitled to wages and benefits.

She continued.

I don’t think companies should be required to provide unlimited benefits regardless of work. I don’t think every disappointing outcome means the Firm is corrupt. But I do think we should be able to ask whether some systems create incentives that contradict the purpose of the benefit itself.

Mara stopped.

That sounded reasonable.

Painfully reasonable.

Maybe too reasonable for The Bottom Line.

She smiled.

Then typed:

Housing is supposed to provide stability. If someone’s housing becomes less stable precisely when their family circumstances become more difficult, perhaps performance is not the only thing that should be measured.

She read the whole letter.

It was not revolutionary.

It barely qualified as angry.

The Bottom Line might reject it for insufficient profanity.

Mara added:

I am not asking for the Firm to abolish performance standards. I am asking whether we have become so accustomed to measuring everything that we sometimes forget to ask whether we are measuring the right thing.

She stopped.

That one stayed.

—

Mara selected Publish initials.

The page displayed:

M.V.

She imagined seeing it beneath an article.

Her stomach tightened.

No.

She selected Request anonymity.

That somehow felt worse.

Anonymous meant she was afraid.

Was she afraid?

Of what?

Provisure could not legally punish her for criticizing benefit structures.

Probably.

Amendment I.

She knew that.

The Bottom Line published criticism every day.

Its writers called Firm members thieves, oligarchs, idiots, hypocrites, and worse.

Nobody had disappeared.

This wasn’t that kind of country.

Mara moved the cursor back to Publish initials.

Clicked.

M.V.

Better.

Maybe.

She reread the letter.

Then again.

Then once more from the beginning.

She changed “become less stable” to “offer less stability.”

Changed it back.

Removed a comma.

Put the comma back.

At 8:26, Mara realized she had spent forty-four minutes editing 184 words.

“This is why I don’t write.”

She moved the cursor toward Submit.

Stopped.

She stood.

Walked to the kitchen.

Poured more tea.

Returned.

The button was still there.

She sat.

Moved the cursor over it.

Stopped again.

Donneg sat on the couch.

Mara looked at him.

“Don’t.”

The shark’s expression remained smugly neutral.

“You’re named after pharmaceutical pricing. You don’t get a moral position.”

Mara looked back at the screen.

She clicked.

—

Thank you. Your letter has been received.

Mara froze.

Nothing else happened.

No alarm.

No knock at the door.

No Provisure notification informing her that her employment had been terminated for excessive opinions.

Just:

Thank you. Your letter has been received.

“Oh.”

She sat very still.

Then immediately regretted everything.

She clicked backward.

The form was blank.

“Can I undo that?”

There was no undo.

She searched the page for a withdrawal option.

Nothing obvious.

Mara opened her email.

A confirmation had already arrived.

Submission Received — The Bottom Line

She opened it.

The message thanked her for contributing and stated that submission did not guarantee publication. Editors might contact her for verification or clarification.

That was all.

Mara exhaled.

Maybe they wouldn’t publish it.

Probably they wouldn’t.

They likely received hundreds of letters every day.

Why would anyone care about hers?

It wasn’t even particularly interesting.

She felt relieved.

Then strangely disappointed.

That irritated her.

—

At 9:11, Nessa messaged her.

Nessa: Are you emotionally prepared for work tomorrow?

Mara stared.

Mara: No.

Nessa: Good. Me neither.

Mara typed:

I wrote a letter to The Bottom Line.

She stared at the message.

Then deleted it.

Instead:

Mara: My mother thinks you’re a bad influence.

Nessa: Your mother is correct.

Mara: My father wants you at lunch.

Nessa: Your father has excellent judgment.

Mara: Do not encourage them.

Nessa: Too late.

Mara smiled.

She didn’t tell Nessa.

Not because it was secret.

She simply wasn’t ready to hear herself explain it aloud.

—

Before bed, Mara opened the old civics workbook.

She found the question again.

Why does Dechikely entrust industries with political representation?

Eight-year-old Mara had answered:

Because they know how to make things people need.

Mara ran her thumb across the faded handwriting.

She still believed that.

SodaStar knew how to distribute beverages to millions of people.

Provisure understood insurance.

Night Ruby understood retail.

Profeta understood automobiles.

Apex Bedrock understood mining.

Their expertise was real.

Their companies employed enormous numbers of people.

Their decisions mattered.

Mara did not suddenly believe that a random collection of citizens could run those industries better.

But the question in the workbook was not:

Why should industries manage industries?

It was:

Why does Dechikely entrust industries with political representation?

Mara frowned.

She had never noticed the distinction.

Maybe because no one had asked her to.

She closed the book.

On her nightstand, the phone illuminated.

Mara looked.

Email.

Her stomach tightened.

She grabbed it.

The Bottom Line Editorial Desk

Mara opened the message.

Dear M.V.,

Thank you for your submission. We would like to consider your letter for publication in an upcoming reader correspondence section. Before proceeding, please confirm that the letter reflects your own views and that any circumstances described have been generalized sufficiently to avoid identifying private individuals.

Mara read it twice.

Then a third time.

She looked toward Donneg.

“No.”

The shark remained unsympathetic.

Mara read the email again.

They wanted to publish it.

Not definitely.

Consider.

But still.

Her thumb hovered over Reply.

She could say no.

Nobody would know.

The letter would disappear into whatever archive contained rejected submissions, forgotten drafts, and things people almost had the courage to say.

Her life would continue exactly as before.

Work tomorrow.

Claims.

Coffee.

Nessa.

Performance scores.

Train home.

Maybe Night Ruby again next weekend.

Everything normal.

Mara looked at the civics workbook beside her.

Then back at the email.

She typed:

Yes. The letter reflects my own views. The circumstances have been generalized.

She stopped.

Her thumb hovered.

This felt different from submitting the letter.

Before, she could pretend she had thrown words into a machine.

This was a person asking whether she meant them.

Mara reread what she had written.

The letter reflects my own views.

She swallowed.

Then pressed Send.

The message disappeared.

Mara placed the phone on the nightstand.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then she picked it up again.

She opened The Bottom Line.

Reader correspondence.

There were letters from the previous week.

Most were anonymous.

Some had full names.

Others had initials.

T.R.

J.A.

P.N.

Mara stared at them.

She had never wondered who those people were before.

They had just been letters.

Opinions.

Little blocks of text beneath headlines.

Now she imagined them sitting somewhere in Dechikely doing exactly what she had just done.

Reading something.

Getting irritated.

Thinking about it longer than they meant to.

Writing.

Deleting.

Writing again.

Eventually pressing a button.

Mara scrolled.

Some letters had replies beneath them.

Agreement.

Arguments.

Insults.

People telling the author they were brave.

People telling the author they were an idiot.

One had more than four hundred responses.

Mara’s stomach tightened.

She closed the page.

Then opened her own sent email again.

The letter reflects my own views.

Suddenly M.V. did not seem nearly as anonymous as it had forty minutes ago.

Nessa knew how she talked.

Olin knew what had happened with his housing.

Her parents knew she had started arguing about the Firm at lunch.

Her coworkers knew she had been reading The Bottom Line.

Provisure employed thousands of people in Juse.

There were probably hundreds of M.V.s.

Maybe thousands.

That should have been comforting.

It wasn’t.

Mara opened a search engine.

Typed:

Can an employer identify an employee from published initials

She stared at the question.

Deleted it before searching.

“No.”

This was getting ridiculous.

She wasn’t leaking company information.

She hadn’t named Provisure.

She hadn’t named Olin.

She hadn’t accused anyone of breaking the law.

She had asked a question.

A protected question.

Amendment I.

Speech.

Press.

Petition.

Mara knew the words.

She had learned them in school.

She had repeated them on exams.

She had never before needed them to reassure herself.

That realization frightened her more than the letter.

Mara slowly looked toward the civics workbook.

Why should exercising a right feel like testing whether the right actually existed?

She didn’t have an answer.

She wasn’t even sure the question was fair.

Maybe this anxiety belonged entirely to her.

Maybe nobody at Provisure would care.

Maybe nobody would recognize her.

Maybe The Bottom Line wouldn’t publish the letter at all.

Probably nothing would happen.

Mara wished that thought felt better.

Her phone illuminated again.

For one horrible second she thought it was another email from the editorial desk.

It wasn’t.

A routine Provisure notification.

MONDAY WORKFORCE REMINDER

Employees are encouraged to review weekly performance goals before beginning the new work cycle.

Mara stared at it.

Yesterday that notification would have annoyed her.

Tonight it felt strangely personal.

Not threatening.

That would have been easier.

The message knew nothing about her letter.

The system knew nothing had changed.

Tomorrow morning Mara would walk into Provisure like she always did.

Her badge would work.

Her desk would be waiting.

Nessa would probably complain about Monday.

Olin would be tired.

Claims would appear on her screen.

Everything would look exactly the same.

But somewhere else in Juse, an editor at The Bottom Line now possessed 184 words that Mara Veylan had written because she believed something about the system deserved to be questioned.

Maybe they would publish them.

Maybe strangers would read them.

Maybe strangers would agree.

Mara had spent weeks allowing The Bottom Line into her apartment.

Tomorrow, perhaps, a small piece of Mara would enter everyone else’s.

She pulled the blanket over herself.

Her heart was still beating too quickly.

“Ridiculous.”

Donneg stared at her from the other side of the room.

Mara closed her eyes.

She had not joined anything.

She had not protested anything.

She had not broken a law.

She had done something much smaller.

She had attached herself to an idea.

And if the letter was published, the idea would no longer belong entirely to her.

Someone else could read it.

Someone else could recognize themselves in it.

Someone else could answer.

For the first time, Mara understood that questioning the Firm did not have to begin with a crowd.

It could begin with one person.

Then two.

Mara opened her eyes.

That thought should not have frightened her.

It did.

A moment later, she realized something worse.

It also excited her.

Dechikely

Mara woke Monday morning before the alarm.

This was unacceptable.

She lay still beneath the blanket and stared at the ceiling.

5:58.

Twenty-two minutes of sleep had been stolen from her by consciousness.

She closed her eyes.

Her brain immediately supplied:

The letter reflects my own views.

Mara opened them again.

“No.”

From the other side of the room, Donneg remained where she had abandoned him the night before.

He appeared rested.

Of course he did.

He had no employment.

No obligations.

No political opinions.

No bones.

Mara checked her phone.

Nothing from The Bottom Line.

Good.

She put it down.

Three seconds later, she picked it up again.

Still nothing.

“Good.”

She got out of bed.

—

By 6:31, Mara had showered, dressed, made coffee, burned one piece of toast, and checked her email nine times.

There was no editorial message.

The letter probably would not be published today.

Perhaps not at all.

That was sensible.

Editors presumably had schedules.

They probably prepared correspondence sections days in advance.

Maybe the message last night had been routine.

Maybe they “considered” hundreds of letters.

Maybe hers would sit in a folder until someone deleted it six months later.

Mara found this possibility reassuring.

Mostly.

At 6:44, she opened The Bottom Line.

The homepage loaded.

Tierra Santa.

Zane Gibson.

Donneg Pharmaceutical.

Ivroyian fraud.

A column about the automotive subsidies.

Nothing.

Mara exhaled.

Then she noticed a smaller section near the bottom.

READER CORRESPONDENCE

She stopped scrolling.

There were three letters.

The first concerned public transportation maintenance.

The second argued that the flat fine system was correct and that The Bottom Line was “encouraging envy as national policy.”

Mara almost smiled.

The third headline read:

ARE WE MEASURING THE WRONG THING? — M.V., JUSE

Her coffee stopped halfway to her mouth.

“Oh.”

She put the cup down very carefully.

The letter was hers.

Not approximately.

Not edited into something unrecognizable.

Hers.

The opening sentence had been moved.

One phrase had been shortened.

The editors had added a brief introduction:

The following letter was submitted by a reader in Juse regarding the increasing use of short-term performance metrics in determining access to employee benefits.

Then:

Why are some essential employee benefits tied so closely to short-term productivity?

Mara read it.

She had written it.

She knew every sentence.

She still read the entire thing.

When she reached the end, her eyes moved automatically toward the byline.

M.V., Juse

Two letters.

One city.

She had approved that.

Last night it had seemed like almost nothing.

This morning it felt approximately the size of her national identification number.

She looked at the time.

6:49.

Train.

“Right.”

Mara grabbed her bag.

She made it halfway to the door.

Stopped.

Went back.

Picked up Donneg.

Considered him.

“No.”

She put him down again.

“This is work.”

Then she left.

—

The 7:01 train arrived exactly on schedule.

Mara hated it for that.

She stepped aboard and found a seat.

Normally the morning train contained the same loose collection of faces.

A man in a Commonetsys jacket.

Two women from a medical facility.

A Night Ruby employee who slept through four stops almost every morning.

Three university students who looked personally betrayed by the existence of dawn.

Today they all seemed suspicious.

Nobody was looking at Mara.

That made them more suspicious.

She opened her phone.

The letter had twelve responses.

Mara stared.

That was eleven more than she had been prepared for.

The first:

FINALLY SOMEBODY SAID THIS.

Mara’s stomach moved strangely.

The second disagreed.

Performance benefits exist precisely because employers need incentives. If everyone receives the same benefits regardless of output, what motivates higher productivity?

Fair.

The third:

My company does something similar. I lost part of my housing priority after taking family-care leave when my father was sick. It took almost a year to get my score back where it had been.

Mara read that one again.

Then another.

The problem isn’t performance bonuses. The problem is when necessities are treated like bonuses.

Another:

This is why employees need benefits independent of individual companies.

That seemed much larger than what Mara had written.

She frowned.

Another called her an entitled complainer.

That one was almost comforting.

At least the internet remained normal.

Mara refreshed.

Fourteen responses.

“No.”

She locked the phone.

The train moved through Juse.

Advertisements passed outside the windows.

SodaStar.

Night Ruby.

Profeta.

Provisure.

A building-sized screen displayed a smiling family beneath the words:

PERFORMANCE BUILDS POSSIBILITY.

Mara looked away.

That slogan had probably existed for years.

Today it felt like somebody was making a joke specifically at her.

—

Nessa was already at her desk.

This was more alarming than the letter.

Mara stopped beside her. “What happened?”

Nessa looked up. “What?”

“You’re early.”

“Coffee machine on my floor is broken.”

“My condolences.”

“I have crossed two departments for caffeine.”

“A journey of unimaginable hardship.”

Nessa lifted her cup. “Remember me.”

Mara sat at her workstation.

Her computer recognized her badge.

Nothing happened.

No warning.

No security officer.

No message from management.

Her performance dashboard loaded.

CURRENT STATUS: GREEN

Mara stared at it slightly longer than necessary.

Nessa noticed. “You okay?”

“Yes.”

“You look weird.”

“That’s just my face.”

“No. Different weird.”

“Monday.”

“Acceptable explanation.”

Mara logged into the claims system.

First case.

Routine outpatient surgery.

Second.

Vehicle injury.

Third.

Dental reconstruction after an industrial accident.

Nothing political.

Nothing philosophical.

Nothing capable of overthrowing the economic order.

Excellent.

At 7:53, Mara finally started breathing normally.

At 7:58, Nessa said: “Have you seen The Bottom Line this morning?”

Mara’s hand stopped on the mouse.

Very slightly. “No.”

It came out too quickly.

Nessa turned toward her. “You haven’t?”

“I’ve been working.”

“You read news before work every day.”

“Not every day.”

“Yes, every day.”

“I do other things.”

“You read DNN on the train.”

“Sometimes.”

“And then The Bottom Line so you can complain about it.”

Mara clicked a completely unnecessary menu. “I was tired.”

Nessa stared at her.

Mara continued pretending the menu required concentration.

Finally Nessa said: “There’s a letter about employee housing.”

Mara’s throat felt dry. “Oh?”

“Yeah.”

Nessa rotated her chair. “It’s actually pretty good.”

Mara still did not look at her. “What does it say?”

“You definitely read it.”

“I did not.”

“Mara.”

“What?”

Nessa narrowed her eyes.

Mara turned.

They looked at each other.

Nessa slowly smiled. “No.”

Mara frowned. “What?”

“No.”

“What are you doing?”

Nessa leaned closer. “M.V.”

Mara’s face became very still.

Nessa’s smile disappeared.

Her mouth opened.

Then closed. “Oh my God.”

“Be quiet.”

“Oh my God.”

“Nessa.”

“You wrote it.”

“Lower your voice.”

“You wrote the letter.”

Mara glanced around.

Nobody appeared to be listening.

“Nessa.”

Nessa lowered her voice to an aggressive whisper. “You wrote a letter to The Bottom Line?”

Mara turned back toward her monitor. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“M.V.”

“There are many people with those initials.”

“In Juse?”

“Yes.”

“Who write exactly like you?”

“I don’t have a distinctive writing style.”

“You absolutely do.”

“That seems made up.”

Nessa pointed at her. “You use the phrase ‘I understand’ when you’re about to explain why something is stupid.”

“I do not.”

“You do it at work.”

“No.”

“Last week: ‘I understand why the claimant was denied, but if we require three forms that contain the same information then we’re just collecting paper for emotional support.’”

Mara remembered saying that. “That proves nothing.”

Nessa leaned back.

Then her expression changed.

The amusement softened.

“Wait.”

Mara did not like that. “What?”

“This was about Olin.”

Mara looked at her. “No.”

Nessa raised an eyebrow.

“It was inspired by something I noticed.”

“Mara.”

“I removed anything identifying.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t say he works here.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t mention the baby.”

“You mentioned having a child as an example.”

“Along with illness and family care.”

“I know.”

Mara looked down. “I deleted the first version because it was too close.”

Nessa was quiet.

That was much worse than joking.

Mara finally said: “I didn’t want to use his situation.”

“You didn’t.”

“I still feel like I did.”

Nessa looked toward Olin’s desk.

He had not arrived yet.

Then back at Mara. “You wrote about the policy.”

Mara said nothing.

“Not him.”

Still nothing.

Nessa took another sip of coffee.

Then: “You really wrote it?”

Mara looked at her. “Yes.”

Nessa smiled.

Not mockingly.

Just surprised. “Wow.”

“Please stop reacting.”

“I don’t know what reaction is acceptable.”

“None.”

“That’s not how reactions work.”

Mara sighed.

Nessa glanced around once more. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I almost did.”

“When?”

“Last night.”

“And?”

“I deleted the message.”

“Rude.”

“I didn’t know what you’d say.”

Nessa stared at her. “What did you think I was going to say?”

“I don’t know.”

“‘Dear management, Mara has developed a thought’?”

Mara smiled despite herself. “Something like that.”

“I’m offended.”

“Sorry.”

“You should be.”

Nessa turned back toward her screen.

For approximately fifteen seconds, the conversation appeared to be over.

Then: “It’s good.”

Mara looked at her.

“The letter.”

“Oh.”

“I mean it.”

“Thank you.”

“You sound terrified.”

“I am not terrified.”

“You whispered ‘be quiet’ like we were trafficking weapons.”

“I did not know who could hear you.”

“Mara, you wrote about housing benefits.”

“I know.”

“You didn’t call for Dean Briggs to be dragged through Juse behind a train.”

“That wasn’t my second draft either.”

Nessa laughed loudly enough that someone across the aisle looked over.

Mara immediately stared at her monitor. “Excellent.”

“Sorry.”

“No, you aren’t.”

“No.”

—

Olin arrived at 8:17. His hair appeared to have lost a fight.

Nessa looked at him. “Good morning.”

“No.” He sat.

Mara glanced toward him. “Bad night?”

“Baby discovered 3:00 in the morning.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you. We were worried she might never find it.”

Nessa laughed.

Olin logged in. His status dashboard appeared.

Mara could not see the number from where she sat. She was glad.

At 8:43, Olin said: “Did either of you see that letter in The Bottom Line?”

Mara nearly dropped her pen.

Nessa looked at her.

Mara looked at Nessa.

Nessa’s face became a masterpiece of artificial innocence. “No,” Nessa said.

Mara hated her.

Olin continued. “Somebody wrote about performance-linked housing.”

Mara swallowed. “Oh?”

Nessa looked down at her desk. Her shoulders moved once.

Mara was going to kill her.

Olin opened the article on his screen. “It’s basically what I was talking about Saturday.”

Mara’s discomfort sharpened. “I saw it,” she admitted.

“Right?” He turned slightly toward her. “They get it.”

Mara looked at the article on his monitor.

ARE WE MEASURING THE WRONG THING?

Her own words.

“They?”

“The writer.”

“Oh.”

Olin scrolled. “Obviously it’s not exactly my situation.”

Mara said nothing.

“But this part.” He pointed. Having a child. Caring for a family member. Recovering from an illness. “That’s the problem.”

Mara looked at him.

Olin continued.

“If my score drops because I’m lazy, fine. That’s on me.”

Nessa said, “You haven’t slept properly in six weeks.”

“Exactly.” He rubbed his eyes. “My supervisor actually likes me. HR isn’t trying to punish me. Nobody sat down and said, ‘Olin had a baby, ruin his housing.’”

Mara listened.

“The system just sees the number.”

That sentence stayed with her.

Olin shrugged. “Anyway.” He closed the article. “Whoever M.V. is, they explained it better than I did.”

Nessa made a sound.

Mara looked at her sharply.

Nessa converted it into a cough.

Olin glanced over. “You okay?”

“Coffee.”

“Dangerous.”

Mara stared at her claims screen.

She should tell him.

The thought appeared immediately.

She rejected it almost as quickly.

Why?

Because it was his situation?

Because he deserved to know?

But the letter was not about him.

She had made sure of that.

And telling him would transform something general back into something personal.

Maybe later.

Not now.

Mara opened the next claim.

Her hands felt warm.

—

By 10:30, the letter had sixty-eight responses.

Mara knew this because she was absolutely not checking.

She had merely happened to observe the number several times.

Nessa sent her an internal message.

Nessa: 73

Mara looked over.

Nessa smiled.

Mara: Do your job.

Nessa: I am monitoring public sentiment.

Mara: You process claims.

Nessa: Multidisciplinary.

Mara did not respond.

Two minutes later:

Nessa: 76

Mara blocked her messaging window.

Nessa gasped theatrically. “Authoritarian.”

Mara ignored her.

—

At 11:14, a routine departmental notice appeared.

EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATIONS REMINDER

Mara’s stomach dropped.

She opened it.

Employees are reminded that confidential claimant information, proprietary operational data, internal financial information, and personally identifying information may not be disclosed through public communications, media, social platforms, or unauthorized third parties.

Mara read it twice.

Her mouth went dry.

Nessa leaned over.

“What?”

Mara tilted the screen slightly.

Nessa read.

Then shrugged. “They send that every quarter.”

“They do?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Quarterly.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I delete it every quarter.”

Mara looked at the date.

A scheduled notice.

No mention of The Bottom Line.

No mention of housing.

No mention of her.

“Right.”

Nessa studied her. “You’re going to give yourself a heart attack.”

“I am perfectly calm.”

“You’re gripping the mouse like it owes you money.”

Mara loosened her hand.

Nessa lowered her voice. “You didn’t disclose anything confidential.”

“I know.”

“You didn’t identify the company.”

“I know.”

“You didn’t identify Olin.”

“I know.”

“You didn’t even say insurance.”

“I know.”

“Then stop looking like Dean Briggs is going to descend from the ceiling.”

Mara glanced upward.

Nessa followed her gaze. “Oh, come on.”

“That was your image.”

—

Lunch occurred at 12:06.

The cafeteria was louder than usual.

Not because anything had happened.

Because it was Monday and one of the food stations was serving fried potatoes.

Civilization had priorities.

Mara, Nessa, and Olin found a table near one of the wall screens.

An actuary from their floor joined them.

His name was Pavel.

Mara knew almost nothing about him except that he wore identical shirts in different shades of gray and had once spent twelve minutes explaining why a statistical anomaly was “beautiful.”

The screen above them displayed DNN.

TIERRA SANTA WHISTLEBLOWER ALLEGES COST CUTTING AND RUSHED WORK BEFORE FATAL COLLAPSE

Mara looked up.

The report summarized new allegations from an anonymous source connected to the project.

Lower-quality materials.

Accelerated schedules.

Concrete loaded before adequate curing.

Pressure to keep construction moving despite concerns.

The claims remained unverified.

Investigators were reviewing records.

Olin shook his head. “If that’s true…”

Pavel looked up from his food. “Anonymous source.”

“Doesn’t mean false.”

“Doesn’t mean true.”

Nessa pointed her fork. “Reasonable. Disgusting.”

Pavel nodded. “Thank you.”

The report continued.

Existing scrutiny of temporary shoring.

Possible premature loading.

Procurement records.

Concrete testing.

Internal communications.

Mara remembered the line from Saturday night.

If warnings were raised and construction continued anyway, then this was not simply a structural failure. It was a decision.

She had thought it sounded dramatic.

Now someone claiming direct knowledge was alleging almost exactly that.

Still not proof.

Mara reminded herself.

Still not proof.

The screen changed to footage of Tierra Santa.

Construction cranes.

Stone avenues.

The partially completed Grand Basilica in the distance.

Workers in helmets moving behind barriers.

Olin said: “My cousin does concrete.”

Nobody responded immediately. “He says everyone rushes cure times until something scares management.”

Pavel frowned. “That’s a broad statement.”

“Yeah.” Olin ate a potato. “Still.”

Nessa glanced at Mara.

Mara knew why.

Everything was starting to sound like a letter.

Complaints people made privately.

Things everybody had seen somewhere.

Stories that felt individual until somebody said them where other people could hear.

Mara looked back at her food.

She did not need to turn every conversation into a theory.

That would be exhausting.

And probably annoying.

The screen changed stories.

—

Halfway through lunch, Pavel opened his phone. “Speaking of complaints.”

Mara felt danger.

He continued. “Did you see that housing letter?”

Nessa put her face into her drink.

Mara stared at Pavel. “No.”

Nessa made a choking sound.

Pavel looked at her. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

Mara kicked her under the table.

Nessa kicked back.

Pavel continued. “Someone wrote The Bottom Line about performance metrics being used for housing.”

Olin pointed. “I was just talking about that.”

“It’s interesting.”

Mara looked at Pavel. “What do you think?”

He shrugged. “I disagree with part of it.”

Mara’s first reaction was defensive. That surprised her. “Which part?”

“The framing that housing should be insulated from performance.”

“I don’t think that’s what they said.”

Pavel looked at her.

Mara realized how quickly she had answered.

Nessa looked down.

Olin was eating.

Mara continued more carefully. “They said performance maybe shouldn’t be the only thing measured.”

“Sure.” Pavel nodded.

“That’s more defensible.” Mara waited.

“But performance-linked benefits exist because companies are allocating finite resources.”

“Yes.”

“If demand exceeds supply, you need criteria.”

“Sure.”

“Performance is a rational criterion.”

Mara nodded. “That doesn’t mean it’s rational in every circumstance.”

“No.” Pavel seemed pleased.

Mara hated that this was becoming interesting.

He continued. “The problem isn’t measurement.”

“What is it?”

“Weighting.”

Mara paused.

Pavel set down his fork. “If someone’s score falls because of family leave, illness, temporary caregiving, whatever, then the model should distinguish that from sustained low output.”

Olin pointed at him. “Yes.”

Pavel shrugged. “That’s a model problem.”

Nessa said: “Congratulations. You just reinvented the letter.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“The letter was normative.”

Nessa stared at him. “You have made lunch worse.”

Pavel ignored her. “I agree with the concern. I just think the solution is better metrics.”

Mara leaned back.

Better metrics.

That sounded reasonable.

Very Dechikelian.

Find the defect.

Improve the system.

Measure more accurately.

She almost liked it.

Then she remembered the line she had deleted the night before.

It also says people have the right not to belong to industry.

Mara looked at Pavel. “If the company provides your housing, healthcare, transportation benefits, retirement, food allowances—”

“Some of them.”

“Most of them.”

“Depends on the company.”

“Fine. If most of what makes your life stable comes through employment, how much can the system keep measuring before employment stops being just employment?”

The table went quiet.

Mara heard herself.

That had not been in the letter.

Pavel considered the question.

Olin stopped eating.

Nessa looked directly at Mara.

Mara wished she could retrieve the sentence and put it back in her mouth.

Pavel finally said: “That’s a much bigger question.”

“Yeah.” Mara looked down at her lunch. “That was my concern.”

Pavel nodded slowly. “I don’t know.”

Nobody laughed.

Nobody argued.

Nobody accused anyone of anything.

After a few seconds, Olin picked up another potato. “Still need an apartment.”

Nessa smiled. “See? Material analysis.”

Pavel sighed.

Lunch recovered.

—

At 2:18, Mara received an email.

Not internal.

Personal.

She saw the sender and immediately minimized it.

The Bottom Line Editorial Desk

Her pulse accelerated.

Nessa noticed. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Email?”

“No.”

“You’re terrible at this.”

Mara waited until Nessa returned to her work.

Then opened it.

Dear M.V.,

Your letter has generated significant reader engagement since publication this morning. We appreciate your contribution.

Mara swallowed.

Several respondents have shared similar experiences involving performance-linked access to housing, family support, medical benefits, and leave-related scoring.

She read that sentence twice.

If you are interested, our correspondence editor would welcome a follow-up letter in the future. There is no obligation to do so.

That was all.

No recruitment.

No invitation to a secret organization.

No request for documents.

Just another letter.

Mara closed the email.

Opened it.

Closed it.

Nessa’s message appeared.

Nessa: What.

Mara ignored it.

Nessa: Mara.

Ignored.

Nessa: M.V.

Mara looked at her.

Nessa raised both eyebrows.

Mara typed:

Mara: They said people responded with similar experiences.

Nessa read.

Her expression changed.

Nessa: How many?

Mara: They didn’t say.

Nessa waited.

Then:

Nessa: That’s good, right?

Mara stared at the question.

Was it?

It meant the problem wasn’t just Olin.

That was good in the sense that Mara had not imagined it.

It was bad in almost every other sense.

Mara: I don’t know.

Nessa replied:

Nessa: Fair.

—

At 3:40, Olin received a call from his wife.

He stepped away from his desk. When he returned, he looked exhausted.

“Everything okay?” Mara asked.

“Yeah.”

He sat. “Apartment.”

Mara waited.

“We got offered one.”

Nessa smiled. “Good?”

Olin made a face. “Technically.”

“That’s ominous.”

“South Juse.”

Mara knew the district.

Not bad.

Not unsafe.

Just far.

“How far?”

“Hour and twelve minutes if the trains line up.”

“Each way?”

“Yes.”

Nessa winced.

Olin shrugged. “Bigger place.”

“Can you wait for something closer?”

“Maybe.”

He opened his housing portal. “But our current unit isn’t really built for three people.”

Mara looked at his screen.

There was a photograph of a perfectly respectable apartment.

Two bedrooms.

Small balcony.

Modern kitchen.

Nothing visibly wrong.

That was the irritating part.

The system had not failed him catastrophically.

He was not homeless.

His child was not starving.

Nobody had thrown his family onto the street.

He had simply been offered a solution that would remove more than two hours from his day because his performance had declined after becoming a father.

He could accept.

He could reject.

He had choices.

All of them had costs.

Olin rubbed his forehead. “I might take it.”

Nessa said: “You’ll never see us.”

“That is a benefit.”

“Rude.”

He smiled faintly.

Mara looked back at her screen.

Her letter suddenly seemed inadequate.

Not wrong.

Small.

But perhaps small was the only size she knew how to write.

—

At 5:03, Mara left Provisure.

Her badge worked on the way out.

She noticed that too.

Nessa walked with her toward the station.

For almost a block, neither mentioned the letter.

Then Nessa said: “So.”

“No.”

“I haven’t asked anything.”

“You were going to.”

“Yes.”

Mara adjusted her bag.

They crossed beneath an elevated pedestrian walkway.

Evening advertisements moved across its sides.

A Night Ruby campaign showed three friends laughing beside an artificial waterfall.

YOUR TIME IS YOURS. SPEND IT WELL.

Nessa said: “Are you going to write another one?”

“No.”

Immediate.

Certain.

Nessa nodded. “Okay.”

Mara glanced at her. “You believe me?”

“No.”

“Excellent.”

“I believe that you believe you.”

Mara sighed.

They walked farther.

Nessa finally said: “I won’t tell Olin.”

Mara looked at her. “Thank you.”

“You should eventually.”

“Why?”

“Because if I were him, I’d want to know somebody heard me.”

Mara slowed slightly. “I didn’t write it for him.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want him thinking I used his problem.”

“I know.”

Nessa shoved her hands into her jacket pockets. “That’s why I said eventually.”

They reached the station entrance.

Mara stopped. “Nessa.”

“Yeah?”

“Were you surprised?”

“That you wrote it?”

“Yes.”

Nessa considered. “Yes.”

Mara nodded. That hurt more than she expected.

Then Nessa continued. “But not because you disagreed with the policy.”

Mara looked at her.

“I was surprised you actually sent something.”

“Oh.”

“You complain constantly.”

“I do not.”

“You once submitted a three-paragraph customer feedback form because a vending machine gave you warm water.”

“It charged refrigeration pricing.”

“Exactly.”

“That was fraud.”

“It was three kets.”

“Crime has no minimum dignity.”

Nessa laughed. Then became serious again. “You’ve always noticed stuff.”

Mara looked down the stairs toward the train platform.

“You just usually keep it here.” Nessa tapped two fingers lightly against Mara’s forehead.

Mara recoiled. “Don’t touch my thoughts.”

“Sorry.”

They walked down.

—

On the train, Mara checked the letter again.

One hundred and eighty-six responses.

She regretted doing that.

Some were insults.

Some argued about performance.

Some argued about capitalism.

Some argued about whether housing should be employment-related at all.

One person somehow blamed Ivroyia.

Mara did not understand how.

She kept scrolling.

A comment from someone identified only as R.K.

My wife had cancer last year. I took reduced hours to care for her. My performance score fell and my transit subsidy was downgraded, which meant I spent more time commuting while already working fewer hours. Nobody did anything illegal. Nobody hated me. The system just applied the rules exactly as designed.

Mara stopped.

She read it again.

Nobody did anything illegal.

The system just applied the rules exactly as designed.

Below it:

That is the problem.

Mara locked the phone.

The train windows reflected her face back at her.

For months, maybe years, she had thought about bad systems as systems where somebody broke the rules.

Fraud.

Corruption.

Negligence.

Someone cheating.

Someone stealing.

Someone abusing authority.

Those were easy.

Find the person.

Find the violation.

Fix it.

But what if the rule itself produced the stupid result?

Not because anyone hated you.

Not because anyone intended to hurt you.

Just because the machine did exactly what it had been built to do.

Mara stared at her reflection.

She thought of Senior Aleko.

Not the Headman.

The other one.

The one from school history.

The rebel from Rhonel.

The man who supposedly looked at the victorious Core and said:

You have not built a nation. You have built a machine.

Mara had always thought the quote was dramatic.

Maybe even bitter.

A defeated man insulting the people who defeated him.

She still thought that might be true.

But for the first time, she wondered what exactly he had meant by machine.

—

At home, Mara fed herself leftovers.

Her mother’s “two meals” remained four meals.

She put on a comedy series.

Watched eleven minutes.

Paused it.

Opened The Bottom Line.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

“Excellent.”

Donneg sat beside her.

“You are enabling this.”

The shark remained unapologetic.

Mara opened the reader correspondence page.

Her letter was still there.

Now lower down.

New stories had pushed it away from the top.

That comforted her.

The world had already begun moving on.

She clicked the responses.

Two hundred and fourteen.

She did not read all of them.

She told herself this firmly.

Then she read most of them.

A factory worker whose score fell after a hand injury.

A father whose childcare schedule repeatedly damaged attendance metrics.

Someone caring for an elderly mother.

Someone who thought all of them were making excuses.

Someone who argued companies should provide wages and nothing else.

Someone who argued the Firm should mandate standardized benefit protections.

Someone else replied that the Firm itself was made of the companies being regulated.

Mara paused.

The response beneath it:

Then maybe that’s the part we should be talking about.

Mara stared.

There it was.

Not from The Bottom Line.

Not from an editorial.

Not from Mara.

Some stranger.

She clicked the profile.

Nothing useful.

Anonymous account.

Created three years ago.

Mostly comments about public transit and professional football.

Mara went back.

Then maybe that’s the part we should be talking about.

Her civics workbook sat on the kitchen counter where she had left it.

Mara looked at it.

She did not open it.

Not yet.

Instead she returned to the comments.

Another person had replied:

Careful. Every complaint doesn’t need to become an argument against the Firm.

Then:

Why not? The Firm writes the rules.

Then:

The Firm is fifteen companies, not a magical creature controlling your toaster.

Then:

Fifteen company presidents governing the country is actually a fairly important detail.

Mara laughed.

She covered her mouth.

“Okay.”

That one was funny.

She kept reading.

The argument continued for thirty-seven replies.

Nobody agreed.

Nobody persuaded anyone.

Several people insulted one another’s intelligence.

One person corrected somebody else’s spelling.

Democracy, Mara thought.

Then immediately frowned.

That word had appeared without permission.

She wasn’t advocating democracy.

She wasn’t advocating anything.

The comments were just people arguing.

Dechikelians had always argued.

About prices.

Fines.

Taxes.

Companies.

Headman Aleko.

Football.

Whether Capital Pizza had ruined its sauce.

Nothing new was happening.

Except—

Mara stopped.

Maybe that was the point.

Nothing new had to happen.

These people already existed.

They already had complaints.

They already had experiences.

They already disagreed with one another.

Her letter had not created them.

It had simply given them somewhere to gather for a moment.

That thought returned.

One person.

Then two.

Mara felt the same nervous excitement she had felt the night before.

Only now there were two hundred and fourteen.

—

Her phone buzzed.

Nessa.

Nessa: 216.

Mara smiled.

Mara: Blocked.

Nessa: Coward.

Mara: Goodnight.

Nessa: Proud of you btw.

Mara stopped.

Read it again.

She typed:

Mara: Don’t make this weird.

Nessa responded immediately.

Nessa: Too late.

Mara put the phone down.

She sat quietly.

Nobody had ever told Mara they were proud of her for having an opinion.

That seemed like an absurd sentence.

She wasn’t sure she liked how much it mattered.

—

Before bed, Mara finally opened the civics workbook.

She found the old question.

Why does Dechikely entrust industries with political representation?

Because they know how to make things people need.

Mara took a pen from the nightstand.

Then stopped.

The workbook was twenty years old.

Her mother had kept it all that time.

Writing in it felt strangely disrespectful.

She put the pen down.

Then picked it back up.

Beneath her childhood answer, in smaller adult handwriting, Mara wrote:

Does that mean they should decide everything else?

She looked at it.

Two questions.

Twenty years apart.

Neither erased the other.

Mara closed the book.

She did not know the answer.

That was beginning to bother her less.

Across Juse, people she would never meet were still arguing beneath something she had written.

Tomorrow most of them would forget her initials.

By next week perhaps all of them would.

But they would not forget their own problems.

Neither would she.

Mara turned off the light.

For most of her life, whenever something in Dechikely frustrated her, she had assumed somebody smarter had already thought about it.

Some manager.

Some executive.

Some regulator.

Someone inside the Firm.

The system was enormous.

Surely someone understood it.

Tonight, for the first time, another possibility occurred to her.

Maybe they understood perfectly.

Maybe the people living with the consequences understood something too.

And maybe expertise was not the same thing as permission.