I didn't get to dig further into John for the next while. Instead, my week jumped into an initiation period at NxGen, which went exactly how I'd expected from an internship with such a goliath company. From a 'future prospects' perspective, they were the most important days of my life, but they incremented along in a monotonous, semi-robotic drag.

  Meet new people, shake some hands, run through introductions. Try to make a good impression, bowing more if the number in the corner of their name tag starts with a six and less if it starts with a four. Do as you've programmed yourself, be well-spoken and personable, and you'll be fine.

  But the process still required an annoying amount of attention, enough to keep me from fully considering the bombshell that was John's therapist appointment. I wanted to focus on that, not a talk by Annie from the Dietary Effects Research team or a presentation from the aura measurement department. I would zone out, attempting to piece together what I'd seen that day, then come back to earth with the realization that ten minutes had passed and I'd missed something important. I only avoided being caught because I was one intern among several dozen.

  They weren't surprising enough to make the experience enjoyable.

  The interns were all students at prestigious universities in the North Atlantic, South Atlantic, and Great Lakes sectors. None particularly stood out in personality or background, at least on the surface. They were a crowd of ambitious, status-climbing young adults from high-tier families, each with enough knowledge and research experience that their presence wasn't clearly shameless.

  The only high schooler besides myself, a girl named Giorgia, gravitated toward me once it was clear we were the only two. I was glad for it, though at seventeen she was closer to some of the others in age than me. And it turned out most of my peers were okay with the age difference, so I wouldn't have been an outcast regardless.

  The days eventually became busy with work, but a senior researcher or program mentor would treat us to an exorbitant dinner each evening, and we spent our nighttime freedom touring the high-culture, high-status pockets of the city. Lunch and breakfast were free, our rent was fully covered, and I'd make as much in the summer as Alicia's father made in a year. All of this was received with the gratefulness and humility of a Chinese emperor. Because that was what we were, to borrow the most conceited title for a human ruler – miniature 'sons and daughters of heaven.'

  I found it immature, and more than a little nauseating. But I had also seen it coming; a degree of entitlement was predictable with people for whom success had been a certainty from age eight.

  It took until my fifth day of work for the internship to hand me a surprise. It was the first time our mentors let us into the lab on the top floor, an enormous fluorescent-tinted room with white walls and the noticeable smell of disinfectant. My group of ten was conducting tests on experimental measurement equipment, models specialized in detecting aura channel activation, when Giorgia came rushing loudly up the stairs.

  "Guys! Everyone!" she all but shouted. "There's a recovery verification fight. It's on floor One-H in forty minutes!"

  The nine of us swiveled our heads to Giorgia, and I blinked at her, confused.

  I knew the 'H' in 'One-H' stood for hospital. NxGen's New Boston headquarters served as a hospital, research facility, and corporate office building in one, splitting each floor into three distinct sections. It was a massive complex of glass and gleaming steel, the largest building by far in a multi-block area.

  'Recovery verification fight,' however, was entirely unfamiliar.

  "How strong is the patient?" One of the older guys in my group asked, clearly familiar with the term. 'Marco,' I read his name tag, reminding myself.

  "5.7! He's one of the substitute Turf Wars fighters for a big local uni." Giorgia bounded over to our lab table, brushing stray strands of orange hair into her layered waves. "They're making sure a month of bed rest didn't hurt his fighting – we should go watch!"

  Marco whistled in approval at the ability level, then smirked. "They're making sure? You mean we're making sure. These are employee cards around our necks."

  The cards had ability levels on top of names, a standard corporate practice: Giorgia's read 5.0, Marco's 5.6. But Giorgia was significantly younger, with a good fraction of her growth period still ahead of her. These were the things that influenced you subconsciously in every interaction – like beautiful features, only worn around your collar and not your face.

  I was still trying to figure out what a recovery verification fight was.

  Giorgia pouted. "You know it's not the same as working here. It might as well be a decade before I'm here for real." She wrapped an arm around my shoulder, sniffling with faux-sadness. "Tell him, Meili. Tell him how weird it feels being surrounded by middle-aged people."

  I made a show of studying Marco's face, letting my eyes linger on his beard. Then I turned to Giorgia with a grin. "Middle-aged is being generous," I whispered loudly. "More like retired."

  We giggled, along with the rest of the group. Marco rolled his eyes.

  It was mainly manufactured chemistry, of course, fitting for a research lab. And not just on my end, either. Giorgia was pretty clearly doing bubbly and social to ward against aggression, although I couldn't catch the exact partitioning of genuine and fake. It was a smart move, given that she was the second-weakest of everyone: future potential and present strength were two different things.

  I was playing the same game, only less obviously (I hoped). Somewhere along the line, we'd made the unspoken agreement that we were more than happy to play off each other.

  "The concept's always seemed odd to me," a guy whose name I barely knew was Leo commented from across the table. He was tall and blonde, almost what I thought Arlo would look like in the future. "The patient spends all this time recovering, and then they risk getting injured right after they're recovered? Why?"

  "My mother did one, once," Marco said. "She told me that if something was off, she'd rather find out in the hospital. Not during a real, important fight." Some of the group nodded at the explanation. "And besides, they always get someone around a level below you as your tester. It won't be a problem if everything's normal."

  "I guess that's fair… I say we go watch, then. You don't always get a close view of a high-level match."

  "The more interesting question is," Marco said, glancing around the table, "why do the testers agree to do it? Why volunteer to lose? That's what I never understood."

  "I always assumed they were getting paid. Is that not how it works?"

  The conversation continued, the rest of the group chiming in, which let me gradually put everything together. Apparently, past some threshold of injury severity, a recovering patient could request a 'recovery verification match' to verify their fighting ability. It was only available to high-tiers, and the opponents were strictly volunteers.

  Injuries that caused harm to ability usage were both enigmatic and incredibly rare, but they were still possible. So I could understand the paranoia. The real question was why I hadn't heard about this from my mother – though one possibility was that it was a sector-specific practice.

  "Oh. That's Right!" Giorgia snapped, gesturing animatedly with her hand. "One of my cousins volunteered. I don't know why anyone else does it, but I know her reason."

  "Was it to increase her level?" I asked.

  "That's what I thought at first, too, but no! Her first time doing it was in her late twenties. And really, she didn't even want to explain herself, but I figured it out from context. She started volunteering for matches right after a divorce."

  Everyone was paying attention now. Giorgia glanced around, seeming satisfied. But this was risky: you didn't bring up something like that to a bunch of people you'd only known for a week, not unless the relative was…

  "She's an elite-tier, 4.5." The tension disappeared. Postures relaxed, as though the number made it perfectly fine to gossip. "Her husband was a whole level higher than her. Once he threw her away, she got so mad that she brought a load of random shit to court. Said he hit her out of nowhere, forced her to have sex – nobody believed a word of it. It was obviously to repair her tiny ego."

  Giorgia continued, "And while made-up accusations are hard to prove, public, recorded slander is open and shut. Her husband sued her for whatever divorce money she got from him. And he could've gotten more! He was being nice! But she never apologized or admitted to lying, and she started ranting about how all high-tiers are evil. As if it was a high-tier who forced her to lie in court."

  "Seriously?" It was one of the other girls I knew moderately well. "You're saying she wanted to beat up a high-tier, and the only way she could think of was targeting ER patients? That's pathetic."

  Her employee tag read Kinsley, 5.4.

  "It's even worse than that! She only volunteers for people who are her ex-husband's level – I think she sees it as personal revenge. Like, she imagines his face on her opponent's body whenever she manages a lucky shot. All because she couldn't handle him leaving for a better, higher-level girl."

  I was putting together a different interpretation of the story. One that made it so that I had to keep myself from sprinting out of the room for a trash can. I wanted to shut her up somehow, but by body language, I could tell that the reception was too good. The group wanted to hear more.

  Giorgia giggled into her hand. "The thing is, she loses every time. So if she really overlays his face on them, she's only reliving the experience he supposedly 'gave her.' Let's just say I'm being generous and believe she's telling the truth. I start thinking to myself… Wow, you really miss him that badly?"

  I nearly choked on the cruelty, but the lab burst with laughter. Marco cackled especially loud, squirming his eyebrows suggestively. "I guess she missed the way it hurt. People are into that stuff."

  Quickly, almost as a reflex, three responses surfaced in my mind:

  'Do you ever stop to listen to yourself?'

  'You didn't earn your genetics. You're a high-tier because of dumb luck.'

  'Why be a medical researcher if people's suffering is so enjoyable for you?'

  I didn't say any of them. What good would it accomplish – a few seconds of satisfaction, then a few months of regret? Instead, I doubled over in laughter like everyone else, shaking my shoulders and clutching my stomach as though it was humor that had knocked the breath from my body. It was a well-forged fake, a motion I'd practiced in front of my bathroom mirror for exactly moments like these.

  "You're all bad influences," I gasped, taking the opportunity to further cement myself in the group. "Now I'll be watching for body fluids other than blood in the fight."

  Chairs tipped in response. Heads were thrown back in laughter. The spacious laboratory turned it into a single echoing squeal.

  If a small part of me laughed sincerely, it was certainly at myself.

  .

  .

  .

  The recovery verification fight was unpleasantly one-sided – but I made myself clap and cheer regardless, in emulation of the well-dressed, talkative men and women who wore six on their chests. Despite genuine effort, I failed once again to understand what made bloodsports so enjoyable to watch.

  Because it was Friday, the evening was a dinner party with my ten-person intern team. Or, in other words, with the most difficult group I'd ever had to pretend to like. We took three cars to our senior mentor Javier's house – notably in the New Boston suburbs, not the city center.

  I activated my ability to observe when we arrived. The outside was four stories tall, a slight off-white with a strong nature theme. Its roof was a garden, not a stereotypical pool, and perfectly messy vines coiled down the sides like hair. The windows had flowers and greenery growing around them, but in an even, aesthetic way that made it clear they were left purposefully.

  The house felt alive and vibrant in an effortful, intentional way.

  Javier stood in the driveway with hands splayed outward in an open welcome, wearing a cashew sweater over a white collared shirt and fitted pants. He was a tall, thirty-something man with forest-green curls in a slightly edgy undercut – multiple intern girls had squealed over him without spotting the ring on his finger. More generally, our group of interns tended to admire him.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  "I'm glad to see everyone found their way out!" Javier called down the long driveway. "You can park on the roadside."

  His wife was there too, and he turned to her, a redhead only an inch shorter than him in heels. "I think we should yell at the chefs to make extra courses, Nyla. I remember how much I could eat at their age."

  I deactivated my ability.

  Once we made our way up, Javier welcomed us in, throwing out rapid-fire factoids and details about his house. "Appetizers will be soon," he said as we shuffled into a large shoeroom. "Twenty minutes, maybe. Make yourselves comfortable wherever you'd like."

  Nyla smiled at the group. "We're so grateful to have you all here! Javier's been speaking about you all nonstop recently, and it's made me want to get to know you guys."

  "We have pool and air hockey, classic arcade games in the basement. If you want to see the kitchen, you can come with us – if not, nowhere's off-limits." She smirked at Javier. "Other than the master bedroom."

  A wave of titters washed through the group. The two strode off, a few curious foodies in tow, leaving most of the group to gawk and chatter.

  "The latest pair of Lokis…" Marco murmured to someone behind me, gesturing at a ceiling-high shoe display shelf. "Those sell out in fifteen minutes – the line stretched for three blocks last time!"

  My eyebrow twitched, but I jumped on the chance. "Aren't they super exclusive? My friend told me that there are basically none left by the time god-tiers get their pickings."

  "Yeah. That's my experience, too. And now I'm wondering if Javier has a pair of Odins in a vault somewhere." At my confused look, he added, "In December, one in ten pairs of Lokis come as Odins. The spear symbol on the sole is different."

  "There's a rumor that they're coming out with a line of Freyjas," said one of the girls behind me. Kinsley, I reminded myself, trying to intertwine her name with her tan skin and purple bob. "They're supposed to be pure white high-tops, targeted at women. But it's a competitive space already."

  "You think it'll flop?"

  "Nothing Alfson designs is a total failure. But it might not do as well, I think…"

  I nodded along. Eventually, after settling into a white leather couch, I managed to steer the conversation along the lines of fashion in general. This was the thing about being social with people you didn't want to talk to: you had to grab every half-decent opportunity and try to set topics, or you'd be left with terrible entry points and a diminishing willpower to try.

  "I think red works with a lot of colors!" Kinsley blustered. "It goes great with black, white, orange, green-"

  Marco jabbed her in the stomach. "Red does not work with Green. I've never seen a single piece of clothing with both – rainbow tie-dye doesn't count. And just about everything works with black."

  "I don't understand… Why red?" I made sure to take Marco's side. "My ability's red, my hair's red, and it keeps me from wearing half of the things I want to wear."

  "Maroon isn't red," Kinsley said, poking back at Marco. "And it isn't a point in your favor, having the fifteen-year-old agreeing with you."

  "Well, Meili's smart," said Marco. "We understand that red's not a valid favorite color."

  Kinsley recoiled slightly, like she was hurt, then rounded on me. "Meili, I swear you wore a dark green blazer to the Ability Research summit. My first thought was that it looked nice with your hair."

  "Did I?" I blinked at her, realizing she was right. "Maybe I did, but maroon isn't red."

  Marco did a subpar job of stifling a snort.

  Further into our mentor's large living room, two interns had engaged in an intense air hockey match. Faint laughing and music from the basement meant someone was messing around with a game, and the three who'd gone to the kitchen were now having a cowboy standoff over the best type of meat. The atmosphere corroborated a trend I'd been noticing – that high-tiers were generally cold and constrained people only until there were no lower tiers around. The dynamic had been entirely different yesterday, walking around at 6:00 PM on a public (if wealthy) street.

  Thankfully, non-awful clothes talk lasted just about until dinner started. I nearly breathed a sigh of relief when we sat down at a redwood dining table stocked with wines and cocktails. The drinking age was 18 in all the sectors I'd bothered to check – so everyone but Giorgia and me would be getting buzzed, meaning more freedom for error on my end.

  "We'll do fried latkes, spinach-feta turnovers, roasted root vegetables, mint honey lamb skewers…" Javier listed the appetizers with a smile. One by one, house staff in uniform brought platters of food to the table. "Personal favoritism may have played a part in the spread."

  People weren't ashamed to tuck in. Sitting to my right, Giorgia bit into a skewer energetically, then raised her hand in a joking facsimile of classroom behavior. "I think you have great taste, Senior team mentor, sir!"

  Javier laughed. "Thank you, Giorgia. I didn't do any of the cooking, unfortunately."

  He served himself a portion of lightly charred carrot, sweet potato, and beet. "It's bad form to talk about anything work-related this late, I know," he said. "But I came across an interesting paper just a week ago. A group over at New Berkeley University found that vegetables are best for inner-channel aura circulation. Root vegetables, in particular, were best for growth in the study."

  Javier waved a fork of carrot in front of his face. I had already copied him, having scooped a large portion onto my plate.

  The interns sitting at the table's edges were splitting into their own conversations, but the middle section was paying attention. Giorgia dropped her half-eaten skewer onto her plate, seeming surprised.

  "Really? Meat's been the scientific consensus for a decade, though, hasn't it?"

  I swallowed some sweet potato. "I thought so, too. But those were smaller studies, done almost entirely on mid and low-tiers. In this one, they had a population of almost thirty thousand people, and the levels were more diverse."

  "It's an entirely reasonable idea that effects vary in response to aura capacity or even ability type," Javier added. "Root vegetables were best only above a very high aura cutoff. I'm assuming you read the paper too, Meili?"

  "A few days ago." I nodded. "I was surprised they managed so many high-tier participants."

  The appetizer platters were being emptied, with the roasted vegetables going first – Giorgia had unsubtly accumulated a miniature stockpile on her plate. Gradually, uniformed house staff were swapping them out for a second round of starters.

  "Yes! That's the key point." Javier let out an overdone breath. "Even getting a reasonably-sized sample of growth phase teenagers from high-tier families is nightmarish – and I understand exactly why. Nobody wants to risk their child having unfavorable development because they followed some subpar, experimental diet or strategy. Not during the most key years. But the resulting harm to intellectual progress is exasperating."

  "How did they manage to get higher-ranking people, then?" Giorgia asked. "It couldn't have been money, could it?"

  "I can only wish I knew." Javier shook his head. "I've sent six emails, all unread, and my former colleague dances around the issue every time we call. There's not even a hint in the methodology section – which might as well be an insult to the rest of us, as far as I'm concerned."

  "On the other hand, mid-tiers sell out their children easily because they're uneducated and poor enough to be bought." Marco wore a wry grin as he interjected. "They hear 'cutting-edge,' 'experimental,' and they think it can't be that bad. It's idiotic, really – the exact group of people who can't afford to mess up their growth period participate in risky studies the most."

  The table gave no more reaction than if he'd commented on the lovely summer weather, and I had to disguise my cringe of distaste as chewing.

  "It's the way of the world," Javier said. "They can't help but be exploited, even if they realize."

  He leaned back languidly in his chair. "Cassidy," He called out. "We'd like another round of strawberry lime. Less Ice this time."

  The uniformed woman, almost certainly a mid-tier, quickly bowed assent and walked off. I could feel my face twisting into a tiny wince, and I almost let myself mouth a sorry to her, before all I could see was her retreating back.

  She was probably used to hearing things like that, but I wasn't quite there yet. So I had to resist the urge to announce that urgent business had come up with my gravely ill relative and keep myself from speedwalking out.

  I made a small effort to keep the conversation on research and medicine, but Marco's comment was like the breaking of a damn. As the dinner courses incremented on, everyone at the table began speaking about politics… Which was really just cruel and unrepentant social commentary at the expense of all the tiers below them. Because that was what politics amounted to, among a full group of high-tiers, so long as there wasn't an open revolutionary like Rei.

  The minutes dragged on at an awful pace.

  Multiple times, I came close to making an excuse and leaving. Each time, I reminded myself that I had reasons for staying. I needed to make some kind of contact with Jane, needed to gather information on ability-modifying drugs… Needed to learn what aura actually was, and not the vague, figurative explanations used by biology textbooks and websites.

  Finally, I noticed that Javier was getting tipsy. He was developing a slight lag before his responses as he spoke. His head motions were exaggerated, and his cheeks were the lightest shade of red.

  I decided, mortified, that he was going to be the most amazing person in the world for a while.

  "Um." I glanced at him. "Mr. Javier…"

  "Hmm? Yes, Meili?"

  I looked down at my lap, feigning shyness. I squeezed my arms together to play up my youth.

  "I… I've been wanting to tell you that I'm a huge fan of your essays. For a while now. I love the one where you argue for a new category of abilities. I thought it was really well-written, and your arguments were great."

  "Is that right?" He smiled, slightly lopsided. "You're referring to the one that combines the attributes of construct generation and augmentation?"

  "Yes, that one!" I said. "I really enjoyed it, and it helped me understand my ability a lot better."

  I activated my claws, having them crawl and swirl harmlessly in the air. Then I compressed and morphed them into the crimson, jagged-looking flower I'd seen in Vaughn's office.

  "It's officially classified as a unique type of augmentation. But the type of precise, telepathic control it gives me is extremely similar to construct-type abilities. I figured it out thanks to your essay."

  "Amazing." Javier's eyes were focused on my claws, studying their movement. "That's fantastic, Meili."

  He took a long sip from his glass, and his grin widened. "Do you know what's funny about that? All the old, dull-minded scientists who cobbled together the current classifications have stopped doing their own research. 'Retirement,' they say. Yet they still make time to bark down the throats of anyone who even dares to question their precious system. So I appreciate you telling me."

  "Well, I don't think they're right," I huffed. "What are classifications for, other than helping us know our abilities better?"

  He blinked at me. "You understand."

  "It's not just that. I think comparing the particle density of aura across ability types is really promising, and…"

  The exaggerations and lies churned from my mouth like a waterfall. Only in the privacy of my mind could I let out a groan, all while forcing myself to smile eagerly through the most degrading experience of my life.

  At some point, my neck began to hurt from all the nodding. Pandering, bootlicking, fawning… Name the term, and I did it. The essays he wrote, the papers he published, were all twisted to have provided some sort of benefit to my life. According to me, Javier was a great researcher, debater, innovator, educator, and my inspiration for wanting to intern at NxGen. Once he was drunk enough, he might as well have been the greatest in the universe, for all I cared – and it was such a horrible, awful shame that he was only getting a fraction of the recognition he deserved.

  I was lucky that his wife didn't seem too interested in his work.

  I also slipped into conversation that I was on track for god-tier. More often and obviously, later into the night as everyone drank. And as we neared the end I could almost see the turning gears in his head, realizing that I would one day be one of those higher-up women in pantsuits, the ones whose gold-bordered name tags started with six instead of five.

  Javier was a 5.8. If he were a god-tier, if he had the means and privilege, his penthouse would probably have been in the center of the city. That was simply the type of person he was. Meanwhile, I was 15 years old and inexperienced, the weakest intern, with no power or influence of any kind. But it wouldn't always be this way. Among the interns (investments), I had the most potential for upside.

  By the end of the dinner, I was without a doubt his favorite. Because I 'wanted' to help him, and he wanted to help me.

  .

  .

  .

  The stars were missing.

  I noticed it instantly, staring out the window of Marco's sports car as we re-entered New Boston. A large crescent moon ate up the blueish night sky, while the city lights were too strong and numerous to let anything else shine through. It was finally that time of year when the night was nearly as warm as the day, and the wind of our speeding car swept me without the slightest chill.

  Giorgia had ordered a 24-hour healing service for our designated drivers, so there was little danger. Someone in the seat in front of me snored, and to my right, somebody murmured about overcoming their ability potential and becoming a god-tier.

  Once I stared at the sky again, the moon seemed oddly lonely.

  The ride was safe, but it was empty and hollow – my fellow interns sat in the seats around me, and it was just as sad as being alone. I'd been trying to ignore it, but I couldn't: that awful feeling when you were surrounded by people you hardly knew but knew too well.

  I was struggling even to see them as people, I realized. That was how far apart we were. I'd talked myself up to Rei about how we were all the same species, claiming that I could understand with enough experience and immersion. Now I was here, surrounded by high-tiers I needed to fit in with, and I was barely scraping by. It made me realize just how much harder it was when the person on the other side was older – when I couldn't dull the impact by ascribing to them a child's lack of agency.

  It wasn't as though they were uniquely extreme compared to the students at Wellston. More confident in their worldviews, more effortless and natural, but not strictly worse. And the most repulsive things they'd said were probably the result of group dynamics. With many like-minded people together, words and actions could often end up more extreme than any one of their views.

  But that was also how The Authorities made their decisions, as far as I knew – with a group of like-minded high-tiers in a room.

  Can I change anything at all, when this is how they run the world? The city was around us now, all golden lights and humming cars. What does that even look like if I do?

  I couldn't figure it out, not even a little, by the time Marco parked in front of my apartment complex. If he said goodnight to me, or me to him, I didn't manage to hear it.

  I walked through the lobby, to the elevator, and my apartment with my mind full of nothing. I had a whole weekend ahead of me, and I lacked the energy to ponder long and hard about everything I'd said and done. Instead, I went to bed exhausted, too tired to care that I'd sold myself out for a goal that would likely never come to fruition.

  The undercover therapist, the glasses-wearing Authority agent, appeared in my dream that night.

  We stood shoulder to shoulder in an endless, near-empty room, both of us staring at a cage in the center. I looked inside of it to find John staring back at me.

  The brown-haired agent smiled. She repeated the word 'resource,' pointing at John with her finger, and I disputed her with every bit of rhetoric I could think of. She did it again after a while, but with a stranger I couldn't recognize, and I argued again. Then there was a new person, then another, and another…

  Until the person she pointed at was Zeke. Then it was Seraphina. Then Javier. The woman put her hand on my shoulder.

  And I had too much self-awareness, felt too much shame, to argue with her any longer.