The man who hates technology is a man who hates himself, for technology

  is not separate from humanity; it is an extension of humanity.

  —WINSTON GLASS,

  FOUNDER & CEO OF CEREBRUM

  CHAPTER 4

  For most of the drive to Harrison’s estate, I gaze out the window in silence. The Green District stretches across 600,000 square miles of shining cities and hidden towns. As a child, I preferred the countryside, with its low, grassy hills and quiet forests, where I could wander freely, away from prying ears, security cameras, and drones. It was where I felt safest and often happiest.

  But right now, even the scenery isn’t enough to distract me from Charlotte. I don’t want to see her, especially under these circumstances. If I’m stuck on a plane with her for hours on end, I don’t think I’ll be able to hold myself together. The last thing I want is for her to see that I’m still hurt by what she did to me.

  But I’m so tired of wondering. I’ve spent nearly two years trying to make sense of why she abandoned me, replaying the day she blocked my number again and again. I’ve only ever had suspicions, never a clear explanation I could call the truth. Maybe confronting her is the only way to burn the bitterness out of my heart.

  She was eighteen the last time I saw her, so she’s twenty now. I wonder how much she’s changed, if she has at all, and whether she regrets cutting me out of her life. Mom says it’s common for people to drift apart from friends when they start dating, and that maybe Charlotte stopped talking to me because she felt torn between two kinds of love. But I could never bring myself to believe that.

  I was happy for her. I didn’t meet her boyfriend back then, and I still haven’t met him. The only explanation that ever made sense was that she had traded me in for her boyfriend’s friend group. Maybe I stopped being interesting. Or worse, maybe she outgrew our friendship.

  Next to me, Harrison loosens his tie with one hand and drapes the other across the back of my headrest. Even though he’s in the driver’s seat, he doesn’t need to steer or operate the pedals as we pass rows of ivy-covered villas and stone mansions. The hovercar drives itself.

  He alternates between whistling along with the radio and falling into stone-faced silence. I know he’s nervous about returning to Grandmaster. There are so many rules about public manners that even Mom and Dad still feel uneasy in crowds.

  “Did Viv send you my tip list?” he asks, taking a sip from a silver flask. He offers me a drink, but I shake my head, still buzzing from the half bottle of wine I had at dinner.

  “Yeah. She sent it this morning. Thanks for taking the time to put it together.”

  “The tips on that list aren’t laws; they’re more like unwritten rules. Had I known about them when I first started, it would’ve saved me a lot of trouble.” Harrison huffs a laugh, but it’s edged with nervousness. His mind seems distant. “The reason I bring it up is… well, there’s one piece of advice I left out. I thought it might be better to tell you in person.”

  “What is it?”

  He pauses, curling his fingers tightly over one knee. “Charlotte should know, too, so I’ll wait until we’re in the air.”

  We plunge into a long tunnel filled with speeding hovercars, its granite walls lit by wrought-iron lanterns and flashy advertisement screens. The colors sweep across Harrison’s face like a spotlight, revealing his tense, shifting muscles. Whatever his final tip is, the fact that he didn’t write it down can only mean one of two things: it’s about the Blues, or he doesn’t want Vivian to know.

  I go back to staring out the window, even though I know I should make the most of my time alone with him. I should ask for advice about my professors, which students to avoid, and which areas to steer clear of at Grandmaster. But all I can think about is Charlotte.

  We drive for about ten minutes before reaching Harrison’s estate. The property, which could be its own district, is much larger than ours, with a private helipad and an airstrip. His mom is a Green Representative, and his dad owns Skyrider, the company behind all the most popular hoverboard brands. As an only child, Harrison is set to inherit more money than even Vivian can spend.

  Harrison heads directly to the airstrip. The jet’s engines are already running, bright as torches in the rain. Two Pinkies in rose-pink raincoats are waiting as we pull up. One robot guides me up the rain-slick airstairs to the boarding door with an umbrella, while the other helps Harrison unload our suitcases.

  Inside the jet, I’m escorted to a smoky lounge with silk carpets and leather-wrapped walls. I hardly notice the furnishings—the black onyx lamps, the jade-tiled kitchen, and the fully stocked bar of fine wines and prestige champagnes—while I search for Charlotte. A slow pressure builds in my chest, fueled by dread and panic. I relax my face until my expression betrays nothing, forcing myself to pull it together.

  The sound of shifting cushions draws my attention to a velvet sofa near the windows, where Charlotte lies, her feet propped up, in a way that seems more tired than relaxed. One of her arms hangs loosely over the headrest. A cigarette dangles from her painted mouth, its smoke drifting like wandering thoughts.

  When Charlotte sees me, she jerks upright with a startled gasp, and the cigarette slips from her mouth onto the carpet between us. She curses and pulls her hair forward, letting her long, wavy curls fall across her face like a mask.

  “You gonna pick that up before it burns a hole in Harry’s carpet?” I ask.

  Charlotte doesn’t move to retrieve the cigarette, so I reach for it, my hand shaking as I fight the urge to flick it at her. My skin feels too hot, and my throat constricts. Seeing her again hurts more than I expected.

  When she stays silent, my self-control snaps. “What are you doing here, Charlotte? Your boyfriend couldn’t save you a seat?”

  “I’ve been planning to fly with Harry since last week,” she replies, her voice muffled by her hair. “How was I supposed to know you’d show up at the last minute?”

  Her hair slips enough for me to catch a glimpse of her cheek before she cups her hand over it.

  “What’s with the act?” I say. “Why the hell are you hiding your face?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Bullshit. You’d be less obvious wearing a bag over your head. But I guess I’m not surprised you can’t look me in the eye.”

  “That’s… not what it is.”

  “Then what?”

  Charlotte straightens on the sofa, fingers twitching against her face. “It’s none of your business.”

  “It’s a long flight, Charlotte. You’re really gonna sit there with your hands over your face the whole time?”

  “If that’s what it takes.”

  I step forward, gripping the cigarette butt tightly before flicking it at her. Charlotte scrambles to catch it, and her hair slips away, revealing a face I barely recognize. Her dark skin is flawless, her jawline unnaturally sharp, and her chin more pointed. Her fuller, bow-shaped lips contrast with her once-lively beauty, now cold and symmetrical, lacking any trace of warmth or happiness. I feel an unexpected, unwelcome stab of pain, as if I’m losing her all over again.

  “What the fuck?” The words scrape out hoarsely. “Charlotte… Who made you do this?”

  She swallows hard, her eyes shifting uncomfortably as she crushes the cigarette in the ashtray. “No one. I did it for myself.”

  If that’s true, she’s a liar on top of being a lousy friend. “What happened to you hating cosmetic surgery? What happened to you swearing up and down you’d never get it?”

  “I changed my mind.”

  I let out a sharp, disbelieving scoff. “It was Jack, wasn’t it?”

  “No. He doesn’t even know. I had it done after we broke up.”

  “You broke up?”

  “Yeah. A year ago.” Charlotte clears her throat and avoids my gaze. “He’s the one who ended it.”

  My anger hits a wall, shattering into bitterness. Their whole relationship lasted only a year, which means Charlotte threw away our friendship for nothing. She threw me away for nothing.

  “Guess you know how it feels, then,” I say, fighting the tremor in my voice.

  Her posture stiffens awkwardly. She rises from the sofa and edges toward me, her hesitation making her seem even more foreign. “Look, Lore, I didn’t mean to blindside you like this. I’ve wanted to reach out for a long time, but I didn’t know how. I thought you wouldn’t want to see me.”

  “I don’t want to see you,” I snap, and that’s the least of it. I want to erase the day she entered my life. If I could, I’d wipe away every memory we shared, still stacked like bodies in my mind, unburied and rotting. “Never once, Charlotte. Never once did I pressure you to put me first, and yet, after three years of calling me your best friend, you screwed me over for a fling.”

  “It wasn’t a fling,” she says, her voice rising. “Jack’s the one, Lore.”

  “Well, if he dumped you, he must not think so.”

  “Yes, he does—I mean, he did. It’s just that… before we broke up—” She licks her lips and shakes her head anxiously. “Never mind.”

  She walks around the sofa, her fingers trembling against her thigh. The nervousness in her movements makes me do a double take.

  This isn’t Charlotte.

  The real Charlotte would be yelling at me, firing back just as fiercely. She’d give me a clear reason for why she cut me off, remaining confident even if she knew she was wrong. I expected everything else except this quiet, sad-eyed person willing to swallow whatever I throw at her. The change in her attitude is even stranger than the one in her face. It’s the only thing keeping me from unloading on her, from tearing into her the way she tore into me.

  “So, why did you do it, then? Are you hiding from someone?”

  Charlotte frowns, a tight expression with no forehead wrinkles. “No. I made a shitty decision, is all—one of a thousand since we last saw each other. Ironically enough, the only good decision I made was cutting you off, but it wasn’t because I wanted to.”

  “Why then?”

  “Because as long as Jack and I were together, I had no choice.”

  I stiffen. There’s no way I’m letting her shift the blame. “How the hell could you have had no choice? Did Jack force you to cut me off?”

  “No. Of course not. It wasn’t because of him.” She pauses, a hint of fear flashing across her face. “It was… because of his best friend.”

  “Buckle up. We’re taking off,” Harrison calls.

  The moment he steps out of the corridor, Charlotte returns to her seat on the sofa and lets her hair fall over her face. I watch, stunned, as she opens a Polo magazine and flips through the articles as if I weren’t even here. What the hell does she mean? Why would Jack’s best friend be involved in this? Confusion washes over me, followed by a terrible feeling of being cheated, as if the moment meant to give me closure has been snatched away.

  Charlotte and I keep to ourselves during the first leg of the flight. Pinkies serve appetizers and champagne cocktails at the dining table, though the spread remains untouched. Charlotte is still staring at the Polo magazine in her lap, her expression blank, as if she’s not seeing the words.

  From the dining table, I keep glancing at her, fighting the urge to demand the whole truth. Who is Jack’s best friend? And what’s his problem with me? Is he someone who opposes Dad’s politics and pressured Charlotte to cut me off because of my last name? I don’t understand it. And now that she’s tossed me a few scraps, I’m starving for the rest.

  Harrison, who’s aware of the bad blood between Charlotte and me, avoids the tension by calling Vivian. He communicates with her through his Bond, a computer interface chip embedded in his brain’s cerebral cortex. Almost everyone has one—myself included—because it’s more advanced and convenient than a mobile phone. With a Bond, you don’t have to type with your fingers; the device decodes brain signals, letting you browse the internet or send messages with just a thought. The only people who refuse to get one are those like Dad, who don’t trust the technology, and others like Vivian, who don’t understand it.

  When Harrison finishes his call and deactivates his Bond, his left eye shifts from electric blue back to its original green. Grabbing a bottle of vitamins from his jacket, he slides one into his mouth and heads to the custom putting green that winds through the middle of the lounge.

  “We need to talk,” he says, nodding toward a black velvet sofa near the putting green. “Both of you, please sit.”

  “I can hear you just fine over here,” Charlotte calls from the bar, where a Pinkie is mixing her a Gibson cocktail.

  “You want to talk about your final tip?” I ask, half expecting him to repeat Dad’s warning to steer clear of the Blues.

  “Yeah.” Harrison rolls up his sleeves and takes a putter from a Pinkie. “Look, I know you two aren’t friends anymore, but if you want to survive at Grandmaster, you’re better off sticking together.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Charlotte and I exchange a tense, prickly glance from opposite sides of the lounge. Harrison sighs and shakes his head as if our disagreement is a spitball compared to the bullets we’re about to face.

  But I don’t care.

  “I’ll just stick with you, Harry,” I say.

  “That’s not possible.”

  “Why not?” He’s a third-year student, so we won’t have any lectures together, but that doesn’t explain why he can’t be around outside of class or on weekends.

  “We’ll get to that.” Harrison lines up his shot, his leather-laced brogues sinking into the turf, then taps the golf ball into the hole. “Ten years ago, seven percent of low-citizens got executed before graduating from Grandmaster. Now it’s eleven percent. Do you know what’s behind the spike?”

  “Is this some kind of trick question?” Charlotte murmurs as the Pinkie sets her Gibson on the bar. She tastes the cocktail, then nods in approval. “It’s obviously because of the Blues.”

  “Partly. Mostly, it’s because of other low-citizens—Oranges, Purples, even Greens like us. Plenty of them will pretend to like you. Some might even mean it. But the second it pays to turn on you, they will. It happens all the time. I’ve seen low-citizens report their friends, their partners, even their families. You can’t trust them. Most would hand you over to the Coppers for a pat on the head from a Blue.”

  Harrison’s words echo Dad’s advice, and even though I already know about Grandmaster’s skyrocketing execution rate, thinking about it sends a cold, tingling sensation through me. Growing up in the Green District, I always felt safe among my kind. Sure, some Greens are rough around the edges, but most are easygoing, orderly, and care about keeping the peace. I never even saw litter on the streets.

  In the Civilized World—everywhere except Grandmaster—the execution rate is four percent, which is high but nothing compared to the university’s death rate. Many say you’d have to be a danger-blind lunatic to enroll now, and maybe they’re right. But the benefits make the risk worthwhile for some. If you survive and graduate, your future is secure, and your odds of execution drop to match everyone else’s.

  “How have you managed to do so well?” I ask Harrison. He brought up execution rates for a reason, and from the way he keeps shifting his stance, I can tell he’s reluctant to explain why.

  “Because I’ve got protection.”

  Charlotte sips her cocktail, silent, her eyebrow arching curiously.

  “From whom?” I ask. “The professors?”

  “No. Most of the professors are low-citizens. They don’t have that kind of power.” He lines up another shot, taking his time, as if deliberately avoiding my gaze. “My protection comes from a Blue.”

  Charlotte chokes on her Gibson, spraying liquid across the bar. A Pinkie darts to her side and offers her a linen handkerchief, which she uses to wipe her mouth. Harrison ignores our reactions as he taps the golf ball into the hole.

  His calm only makes me more confused. Even though I understand exactly what he’s implying, I can’t fully wrap my head around it. He’s talking about entourages, groups of low-citizens who serve the Blues in exchange for favors. Entourages are rare and mostly limited to the worlds of business and politics, but Dad hates them enough to rant about them weekly. It never even crossed my mind that they might exist at Grandmaster University.

  Why the hell would Harrison do this? Why trust a Blue? The questions claw their way up, but I force them down, reminding myself he’s been at Grandmaster for three years, while I’ve never even set foot on campus.

  “Seems reckless, Harry,” is all I say.

  He props the golf club on his shoulder defensively. “Half the low-citizens at Grandmaster get protection from Blues, and the other half would if they could. Blues invite us into their entourages every day. Yeah, it’s risky, but it’s worth it. Being in an entourage doesn’t just protect you from other low-citizens—it protects you from other Blues, too.”

  Charlotte tosses the handkerchief onto the bar, as if shocked he’s admitting this, while I’m shocked he’s defending it. I know Harrison hates the Blues as much as I do. I’ve lost count of how many times he’s railed against their corruption at dinners with my family. And now, even after accusing them of being tyrants, he’s sold out for a spot in one of their pockets.

  “Blues don’t do anything for free,” I say. “What’s the trade?”

  Harrison meets my gaze as if he’s about to sell me something. “It’s different in every entourage, but… usually, we do service work.”

  “Service work? Like what Pinkies do?”

  “You could say that.”

  He lowers the golf club from his shoulder, grabs another ball, and casually resumes putting.

  I watch him, trying to figure out why he’d agree to this. No one, not even criminals, does manual labor in the Civilized World. I’ve never scrubbed a floor or taken out the trash in my life. All the grunt work, from cleaning sewers to breaking rocks in quarries, is done by Pinkies. Blues aren’t asking low-citizens to serve them because they need help; it’s a power move, a humiliation.

  “Drop the dance already, Harry,” Charlotte says, stubbing out her half-smoked cigarette. “If you’re going to rope us into this, you might as well give it to us straight. The real trade is sex, right? Sex in exchange for protection?”

  “Sometimes,” Harrison admits, still focused on his game. “But not always. Most Blues aren’t interested in low-citizens like that. They think we’re beneath them. In my three years at Grandmaster, I’ve only heard of it happening a handful of times.”

  Depending on the size of the hand, that could mean ten or fifty times.

  “And what about you, Harry?” I ask. “Is your Blue a woman?”

  For the first time in the conversation, a flicker of shame crosses his face. “Yeah. Lily. She doesn’t blackmail me or anyone in her entourage for sex, but she does expect us to go everywhere with her. That’s why you won’t see me much.”

  “Sounds like slavery to me,” Charlotte mutters.

  Harrison shrugs and taps another ball into the hole. “Call it what you want. Every low-citizen, including you two, is in the same boat as me. The difference is, I don’t have to worry about drowning anymore.”

  “Better to choke on water than to choke on a chain around our necks,” I say.

  Harrison pauses mid-swing, his jaw tightening, as if he expected hostility from Charlotte rather than from me. But I’m not the one he needs to worry about.

  “Does Vivian know you’re in an entourage?” I ask.

  “Of course, she does. And she’s fine with it.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Ask her yourself, then.”

  The fact that I can confirm it with a single text tells me it’s true. But even if, through some mental lapse, Vivian is okay with Harrison being part of an entourage, my parents wouldn’t be. If they ever find out he’s in an entourage, they’ll lose it, especially Dad. At best, they’ll push to delay the wedding until after he graduates; at worst, they’ll withdraw their support for the marriage altogether.

  “And what about my dad, Harry?” I ask. “You realize that if he knew you were advising me to do this, he’d beat you to death with his saxophone, right?”

  “And it’d be justified, too,” Charlotte adds, waving a hand at him. “Sorry, Harry, but your advice sucks.”

  He cuts her a look, clearly growing tired of her voice in this conversation. “Why are you acting like you know more about Blues than I do? You’re not a Public Person yet. You’ve never been to Grandmaster.”

  Charlotte toys with the stem of her cocktail glass. “Oh, I don’t know… maybe because I know Edmund Prew.”

  Harrison laughs, loud and amused. “Bullshit.”

  Charlotte side-eyes me as if she’s waiting for me to accuse her of lying, too. Under different circumstances, I might agree with Harrison, but if I’ve learned one thing since seeing her again, it’s that time can turn the tables… and in this case, flip them over.

  I don’t know the Prews personally, but my parents do. Mom says they parade their power and wealth like a flag, staking it in every room they enter. They own three gold mines, enough to buy half the Civilized World, and lease out the rest for sport. Edmund’s older brother is a Blue Representative, and his mother is the Headmistress of Grandmaster University. Dad once told me to see the Prews the way rats see poison: recognize it fast, run away faster.

  “How do you know Edmund?” I ask Charlotte.

  “Met him through Jack.” She slides onto a barstool, her eyes glazing over, as if she’s had too much to drink. “I haven’t seen him since Jack and I broke up, but during our relationship, I learned enough about Blues to convince me they’re all spiders. They might act nice when you’re caught in their web, sucking up to you as they suck out your blood, but the niceness only lasts until you do something wrong… or until your blood runs out.”

  Harrison grunts and turns back to the putting green. “Having experience with one Blue isn’t comparable to being a student at Grandmaster.”

  “It’s not just Edmund—I know his twin sister, too.” Charlotte’s face twists as if the very mention of Edmund’s sister were a curse word. “Look, Harry, I’m not pretending to know more about Blues than you. I’m just saying that this shit you’re trying to sell us is—”

  “It might be shit, but I’m not the one selling it,” he assures. “Spend a few days at Grandmaster, and this shit sells itself.”

  Harrison steps off the putting green, running a hand down his face. I know he’s trying to help us, but advising us to join an entourage is like telling us to strike a match in a room doused with gasoline. Plus, I’m not convinced it’s necessary. Blues have the legal right to kill us, sure, but only under certain conditions. As long as we avoid breaking the law or insulting their honor, they have to wipe their boots on somebody else’s face.

  “I didn’t expect you to react like this, Lore,” Harrison says. “But I don’t regret telling you. Even if you’re against joining an entourage now, there might come a time when you don’t have a choice.”

  “Then I’ll just have to make sure I always do,” I say.

  Our eyes lock, and we share a long, unblinking stare. For the first time since we met, he looks at me like I’m a child, as if he’s thinking: Wait. You’ll learn soon enough.

  But I’m already wearing enough chains.

  Harrison checks the time on his pocket watch. “I’m heading to bed. If you two stay up, think about my advice. I’m not saying being part of an entourage isn’t hard, but for people like us, everything’s hard. Choose your hard.”

  He heads down the corridor, swinging the putter back and forth, as if he didn’t just drop a bomb on our heads and play it off as a firecracker. Despite his bad advice, I still don’t think the worst of Harrison the way Hillaire does. He has no addictions, he’s ranked seventeenth in his class, and like all Greens, he’s as strong as a tank. I’ve always believed he’s more than capable of protecting Vivian and their future family. But if someone like him has to resort to begging high-citizens for favors, then I’m missing something. Something big. Something even Dad doesn’t know about.

  At the bar, Charlotte stares into space, absently running her fingers through her hair. I remember how she used to brush it everywhere, whether we were at track meets or tap dance clubs. It was what she liked most about herself, which is probably why it’s the only thing she left unchanged.

  “You look like you could use a drink,” she says. “Let me guess… martini?”

  “Wine.” I walk to the bar and check the selection. “A good Imperial, if Harry’s got it.”

  Charlotte snorts. “Don’t tell me you swirl before you sip.”

  I glance at her sidelong, surprised to see her expression light up with a hint of her old self: the Charlotte who had music inside her, ragtime in her walk, and jazz in her laugh; the Charlotte you could never get to shut up, even in her sleep.

  The feeling intensifies as I sit on a brass barstool beside her and catch a whiff of her black orchid perfume. The scent takes me back to roofless hovercar rides and sunny afternoons by the lake, when Charlotte and I sprawled on the dock and talked about her dream of becoming a long-distance runner and my dream to be a fencer. The memories are so vivid that, for a brief moment, I’m tempted to admit how much I needed her over the past year—to tell her how many nights I cried myself to sleep, not just because I was afraid the sealed court records would leak, but because I didn’t know how to cope with the aftermath of taking a life.

  What stops me is the reminder that while I was fighting for my life against a Blue, Charlotte was cozying up to one.

  “Is Edmund Prew Jack’s best friend?” I ask as a Pinkie hands me a glass of Imperial, a red wine that’s light and not too acidic.

  “Yeah.” Charlotte nods stiffly and lights a cigarette with an emerald-studded lighter.

  “So, Edmund’s the one who made you cut me off?”

  “No. I never told him about you.” Her mouth hardens, as if she’s holding back half of what she’s thinking. “When I was with Jack, I saw Edmund and his twin sister all the time, way more than I was comfortable with. I loved Jack, so I figured putting up with Blues was worth it, but I didn’t want to drag you into the Prews’ path, especially since your dad would’ve killed me.”

  “So why didn’t you just tell me?”

  “Because I knew you’d try to protect me. And since Jack would rather die than turn his back on Edmund, you wouldn’t have approved. You’d have tried to break us up.”

  She’s right about that. There’s no way I would’ve stood by and watched her risk her life for a relationship.

  “You really love Jack that much?”

  “Yeah, Lore, I do. But…” Charlotte stubs out her cigarette with a slow, defeated motion. “It’s over. He’ll never take me back. I was hoping being at Grandmaster would help me move on, but last week I found out Jack got accepted. Edmund and his spider of a twin sister did, too.”

  It strikes me how differently Charlotte talks about Edmund compared to his twin. There’s pain in her voice when she mentions Edmund, but pure hatred when she mentions his sister.

  “Grandmaster’s got thirty thousand students,” I say. “Why can’t you just avoid them?”

  She laughs bitterly, as if I just told her to outrun a heat-seeking missile.

  “Attention, passengers,” an automated voice says over the jet’s PA system. “We are now leaving the Green District. Remaining flight time: eight hours.”

  Charlotte and I get up from the bar and rush to the nearest window. Through the darkness and rain, I can make out only a sea of hazy lights, shimmering like bright blooms of jellyfish. But I know it’s the Rainbow District. Of the five districts in the Civilized World, it’s the only one where high-citizens and low-citizens live together.

  “Can’t see a damn thing,” I mutter, my breath fogging the glass.

  “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” Charlotte says. “The Prews own property in the Rainbow District. When Jack and I were together, Edmund invited us there a few times a month. The driveway alone is the size of a damn freeway.”

  I frown. “You’re still a Private Person. How’d you get permission to leave the Green District?”

  “Edmund got it for me.” She tugs off her T-strap heels with a shrug. “Sometimes, hanging with Blues has an upside.”

  That’s more than an upside. The only time I was allowed to leave the Green District was for the Junior Fencing World Championship. Even then, it took more than three months to obtain travel approval from the border police. Not even Dad, with all his political influence, could fast-track the process.

  Charlotte returns to the bar with a tired sigh. “I’m going to get some sleep. You should, too.” She drains the rest of her Gibson in one go, then hands the empty glass to a Pinkie. “If you’re up for it, we can finish talking in the morning.”

  “No.” The word comes out sharper than I intend, but I don’t take it back. “There’s nothing else to say. Even if you hadn’t cut me off, our friendship wouldn’t have lasted.”

  Her eyes narrow. “You sound sure about that.”

  “I am, Charlotte. Because you were right: Blues are my line. Maybe I’ll have to cross it one day, but I’ll never do it willingly.”

  “Well, I didn’t cross it willingly, either.” Charlotte swipes her T-strap shoes off the floor with a grimace. “Look, Lore, I don’t regret what I did, but that doesn’t mean it was easy. It took months for me to stop watching from the window, wondering if you’d show up at my door for answers.”

  “I never considered coming.”

  “Not even once? Why not?”

  “Because I don’t chase love.”

  Charlotte stiffens as if I slapped her. “If that’s true, consider yourself lucky. For a lot of people, chasing love is the only way we get it.”

  “I never made you chase after mine.”

  “Yeah, well, you were the only one.” She swings her shoes over her shoulders, stalks down the corridor, and disappears into her bedroom.

  I stay in the lounge for a long time, staring out the window, barely noticing the view beyond the glass. Maybe I should be less angry after Charlotte’s explanation, but two years of feeling betrayed aren’t easy to forget. Whether she meant to stab me in the back or not, the knife still struck.

  And I’ll never forget the taste of those tears.

  ***

  Around midnight, after a late dinner, I head to my bedroom and activate my Bond to check the news. A blue light blinks in the periphery of my left eye, expanding into an augmented reality screen that hovers a few inches in front of my face. From left to right, the screen displays rows of applications I’ve arranged by importance: web browser, email, text messaging, social media, photos, and videos.

  I pull up Benjamin Bogart’s media outlet, The Civilized Voice, and am surprised to see almost no mention of the Bliss Prohibition Act vote. The front-page story is about Bogart himself, announcing that he’s dating Scarlet Du Pont, the famous jazz singer who performed at the Bloody Sunday afterparty. A collage of photos shows them tangled in each other’s arms at a glitzy nightclub in Charleston City, kissing so openly that I’m sure Bogart tipped off the paparazzi himself, probably to deter his most persistent stalkers.

  I scroll past the story, digging through the feed until I spot a live countdown to the vote: just over five hours, meaning it’ll happen at 5 a.m. It’s a bullshit time for a legislative meeting, but that’s how Blues operate. Tired people are easier to intimidate.

  Although I agree with Dad that Bliss is dangerous, I doubt the drug will be banned. Too many buyers are addicted, and too many dealers are making big profits. I wouldn’t be surprised if half the Civilized World has tried it. I haven’t—mainly because doing so would’ve damaged Dad’s political campaign against it—but I know the drug causes intense feelings of happiness, which is especially appealing to low-citizens living in constant fear of Blues. The downside is that taking it too often can lead to blackouts, memory loss, and violent outbursts.

  In my bedroom, I change into a silk nightgown and slip into bed. Sleep comes slowly. I’m tired, but my thoughts are loud, drifting back to my younger years: warm summer days spent with Hillaire and Vivian, holed up in the cedar-wood tree fort that Dad helped us build from scratch. As far as I know, the tree fort is still there, hidden at the edge of a grassy clearing in the woods. I haven’t gone back since Vivian started dating Harrison. The three of us were much closer before he entered the picture. Sure, we argued, but our fights never turned physical like Hillaire and Vivian’s fight tonight. At this point, I wonder if either of them still cares about our secret song or the promise we made whenever we sang it.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to hold onto each moment, make it last a little longer, even wishing I could stop time completely. Eventually, when the clock strikes midnight, consciousness slips away… and with it, so does my childhood.