Was this why Lang fell into addiction? Was the light too bright, the pressure too intense? Was he more fragile than anyone suspected? Did he scare people like Chi-Qua because they didn’t understand his struggle? Kara thought these were important questions, but she was not her brother’s therapist, and his instability would not get in the way of her calculated move up the ladder.
Toward the end of the picnic at Bongwoo Curl, Kara unveiled the final stage of her plan. She wanted to prepare Chi-Qua for the eye of the needle.
“I think it has to be done in public, Chi,” she said while tossing half a crab roll to a red-breasted swan. “My family won’t push back if there are hundreds of witnesses.”
Chi-Qua winced. “Wait. Aren’t we talking about a job transfer?”
“Yes. An internal personnel matter. Paperwork. Payroll adjustment. The sort of thing that goes through channels. Honorable Father and his ilk oversee those transfers. If they don’t catch wind of it, my brothers will. They’ll block me. So, I’ve come up with a workaround.”
“Which is?”
“Sanhae.”
“What about it?”
“That’s where I’ll spring out. Nantou’s Gala at Sanhae. They’ll never see it coming.”
Sanhae, which meant new year, was one of the few words on the calendar dating back pre-colonization to Earth. One of the few words preserved after Hokkaido converted to Engleshe as its official – and only – language.
For years, Kara wanted to join Nantou’s Bioresearch and Engineering Division (BRED). She first made the announcement weeks before her sixteenth birthday and was promptly ridiculed by Lang, who said she was best suited for marketing. Her parents did not object. Mother offered brief but superficial encouragement, though she never saw Kara rising above the company’s communications department. Test scores too low, ambition too limited.
The Global Marketing Division underwhelmed Kara from the first day of her internship. These people were automatons, spinning the same generic promotional campaigns for the IntraNex and Global Wave as their predecessors had for generations. They fashioned the company’s public communiques with heavy doses of euphemisms and time-tested brand slogans familiar to Hokkis from early childhood. They showed no interest toward innovation or discovery. These Kohlna had no teeth.
“Kara, you’re telling me you want to make the move at Nantou’s biggest formal gala?”
“There’s no better time. Anyone who matters will be there. The entire Nantou hierarchy, the Governor’s Council, even the Circle of Mothers. Especially them. No tongues wag louder than theirs. Once it’s done, there will be no takebacks.”
“There might also be no forgiveness.”
“I know, Chi. I’ve thought about it. If I play this right, there won’t be a public spectacle. If the announcement is made by Lord Taron himself, no one will question it.”
Chi-Qua choked on her wine. “Taron? You’re talking about Lord Ban-Ho Taron? The wealthiest Hokki in The Lagos. Some say the world. Why would he announce your move to BRED? For that matter, why would he care?”
“I’m sure he doesn’t, but his great grandson does.”
“Wait. What?”
“Ya-Li. You’ve met him. I introduced you a few weeks back.”
“I remember. Tall, thin, shy. About our age but looks like he’s twelve. Oh, Kara. Don’t say it. You caught his heart and now you’re playing him.”
“I promised him nothing, and he’s too shy to say how he feels. Besides, he knows he won’t be allowed to choose his wife. It’s no accident the Taron line has officers in every seamaster corporate.”
Two red-breasted swans zeroed in on the remains of their lunch. Chi-Qua grabbed a roll and tore it into little pieces.
“OK, so you’ve got inside help. How exactly? Ya-Li can’t just ask his great grandfather to make the announcement.”
“No. Every year, twenty minutes before the arrival of the Sanhae, Lord Taron offers a series of toasts. He’s been doing this for sixty years. It’s all scripted and timed. About forty toasts. Continues up to the instant of Sanhae. He praises everything. Corporate profits, top executives, individual achievements, technological breakthroughs. Name it. He used to spend half his time praising the Chancellors, back before all that ended. But he has a small section reserved for rising stars. That’s where I come in. Ya-Li is on the family committee to script his toasts.”
“So, he’s just going to slip it in there? Won’t someone vet it?”
“There won’t be time. He’s going to submit a last-minute revision to Lord Taron right before the toasts begin. Apparently, Ya-Li is a favorite of his great grand. He’ll be trusted.”
“You’re mad, Kara. You won’t win this for free.”
“No. But I’ll win. It’s what I deserve. Are you going to support me?”
“On what? This loony plan you never told me about?”
There she was, the old Chi-Qua, hopping aboard for the ride.
“Thanks, Chi. This is just the beginning, for both of us. Before long, I’ll have the leverage to push for the Baek name to be rehabilitated.”
Two weeks later, the Syung family arrived together at the Nantou Global Entertainment Tower adjacent to the corporation’s curvaceous glass skyscrapers. It was the event of the Pinchon social calendar, one of elegance and excess, where The Lagos Unified Symphony entertained the elite who paraded in formal gowns and suits made in the colors of their households. It was a time to display family jewels, to clink deep-fluted glasses, to devour Kohlna as only its top chefs could prepare it, and to celebrate the good fortune Hokkaido’s seas would always provide.
Kara’s flowing red gown and white gloves seemed an afterthought against the ten-ounce acenomite diamond hanging at the end of her necklace. Legend said it was first given to the Syung-Low matriarch seven generations back. Kara’s mother, conscious not to wear the same jewelry at these events more than once every three years, took her daughter by surprise minutes before they left Haansu.
“You have wanted attention all your life,” she said, clasping the necklace onto Kara. “You will not have this problem tonight.”
She was right. Kara’s peers from the great families and those who worked with and above her at Nantou, offered compliments. Sometimes for the diamond, but more often for Kara.
“They never realized you were so beautiful,” Chi-Qua whispered in her ear, the voice coming from across the plaza, where support staff were required to congregate for their own modest revelry.
Kara kept her promise to bring Chi-Qua inside the festivities, to be there when Kara “springs from the closet.” She placed a shell in each ear, matching frequency with Chi-Qua’s devices. She camouflaged them behind the large pearls pierced to her earlobes.
“Some of them are leering,” Kara told her best friend. “And I thought my brothers were pathetic.”
The guests mingled before the requisite Sanhae dinner. At first, they drifted in packs as unified households; small cells of different colors and shades navigated around and through each other. More than two hundred variants were represented. The only shade not of the elite? The dull gray of the wait staff, which circulated with trays of full wine glasses, fresh pipes full of poltash, and an array of cream covered F’heldabeast roe (the kind that went for eighty Dims each on the open market).
In time, the houses blended into a frenzied kaleidoscope. Kara enjoyed this part away from parents and brothers. Though the fleeting conversations were vacuous, and the gossip anything but shocking, she enjoyed passing along her observations to Chi-Qua, usually tinged with the snark only her best friend might appreciate.
“You’d never know the Chancellors only left four years ago,” she said. “I haven’t heard one word about the ‘glory days.’ Funny. Most of these people run The Lagos now because the Chancellors let them eat from the adult table – Honorable Mother and Father included. We strut around here like gods. But you know what I think? If the Ark Carriers returned, half these people would wet their pants.”
“Bend down and assume the position, I guess.”
“That’s disgusting, even by your standards, Kara.”
“What can I say? I’m a disgusting coit.”
She bumped into someone and spilled a few drops of wine. Her fault. However, the encounter was a hopeful one.
“Ya-Li. Hello.”
“Good evening, Honored Miss Syung.”
Ya-Li Taron carved a stately figure, as if he morphed into a different man from the gangly, shy thing she often passed in the corridors of work. He wore a deep green tuxedo with long tails and striking yellow tie leaf. Perhaps it was the makeup that matured him. Maybe the high-cut coif. At least he looks his age for a change, she thought.
“Ya-Li, aren’t you nineteen?”
“I am.”
“I’m a year older, and I’m an intern. I haven’t earned the honorific.”
“Oh, I think you have. You must hear the way people speak of you.”
“Nice things, I hope.”
“Very.”
He removed a cylindrical pipe from a jacket pocket and pulled a long drag of poltash. In the awkward silence, he expired the smoke through his nostrils in delicate streams.
“Would you like some?” He asked.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” she said, taking the pipe and giving it a gentle pull.
“Oh, I’ve smoked poltash since I was ten, if I’m being honest. My parents forbid it, of course. My friends and I, we found other ways. I’m embarrassed to say, I wasn’t allowed to smoke socially until a year ago. If not for Honorable Great Grand, I think they’d still treat me like a child.”
The voice in her ear broke through loud and clear.
“He’s a twat.”
“And my savior.”
He winced. “What’s that now?”
“I trust everything is in order for Lord Taron’s toasts?”
“Oh, yes. It’s perfect, actually. I revised the wording myself three times. Maybe four.” He finished off a glass of wine. “Marketing Division’s influence, I suppose. Always revising and polishing.”
She lost her smile. “Linguists. Always hunting for another word.”
“Indeed. So, Kara, I’ll hope to see you again later. After Sanhae?”
“Certainly. Make this happen, and we’ll find a way to celebrate.”
She thought he was going to melt where he stood. Instead, he found a waiter, replenished his glass, and vanished into the crowd.
“Did you just make him a promise?” Chi-Qua asked. “You told me you never promised him anything.”
“I didn’t. Personally, I think Ya-Li would be satisfied with a few minutes alone, just talking and drinking. Poor thing. He’s hopeless.”
“Don’t take pity, Kara.”
When Sanhae dinner was called, Kara joined the Syungs at their table, one of the closest to the dais. She was surprised but also relieved to discover her seat had been reserved between Mother and Father. Lang and Dae sat opposite, which was perfect positioning to see their reactions at the big moment. She also had no interest in sitting with her Aunt Mei, Uncle Cho, or Great Uncle Prem, none of whom ever said a word worth hearing. One seat was left empty to honor Gran Enna Syung, who passed in her sleep thirteen months earlier.
The meal was, of course, the most exquisite combination of food anyone ate on Pinchon that night. The conversation, meanwhile, followed the predictable script of family banter, pretentious observations, and assorted niceties that were forgotten as quickly as they were said. Kara smiled as she indulged Mei, Cho, and Prem’s stories of past Sanhaes without ever once mentioning Gran Enna or the Chancellors, who used to be represented by Unification Guard captains in spectacular finery. Naturally, they asked Kara how her internship at Nantou was progressing. She used the Marketing Division’s unimaginative linguistic training to answer without saying anything of substance.
Lang and Dae puffed their chests on occasion, but when talk swirled around to company business, Honorable Father wagged a finger of disdain. “Tonight,” he told them all before arriving, “is about celebration, not evaluation or calculation.” As usual, Lang shaded his eyes to avoid Kara’s. She took it in stride, having grown used to the behavior but also for anticipation of what was to come.
She wanted to apologize to Chi-Qua for the long interlude of absolutely nothing of interest to hear, but they never rehearsed coded language. At one point, however, Chi-Qua provided an update.
“Food’s decent,” she said. “Better than expected. Buffet, of course. I don’t see a server anywhere. I think I’ll have extra cake. I earned it. Tell me when the show begins.”
Which Kara did. The program ran to perfection, with a plodding but smiling Lord Ban-Ho Taron reaching the dais with minimal help exactly twenty minutes before the new year began. He was one hundred two years old, but Kara thought he could pass for ninety.
He leaned into a microphone and said with a wry smile:
“This is my eighty-sixth Sanhae, and nothing has changed.” He paused, as if for dramatic effect. “Good! As it should be.”
Polite applause followed for the same opening line Kara remembered from last year, and the year before that. She thought it interesting how most citizens of The Lagos identified as Modernists but seemed least interested in change.
Lord Taron launched into a string of toasts, his deep-fluted wine glass held high as he read from a screen chest-level. From time to time, he stumbled over words or butchered names – likely of people he’d known for decades – but he ended each toast with a sip and a grin.
Kara’s stomach turned as the moment neared. Her category – rising stars – would be last, according to Ya-Li. Was he so bold as to include her at the finale itself? In the final minute before Sanhae? Chi-Qua piped in with a warning.
“He’s taking too long. What happens if he isn’t done by Sanhae?”
Good question. Kara glanced at her hand-comm. Chi-Qua was right. No one appeared on the dais to encourage him to improve his pacing. Then again, who had the gills to speak up to Lord Taron in public?
Just at the instant when Kara thought her plans might be swallowed up in the decaying coherence of an old man, the light of victory shined upon her. Ya-Li was wrong, or else he wanted Kara to be surprised. Lord Taron announced the rising stars midway through his toasts.
Three peers, each a few years older, received due recognition.
And then …
“For her elegance, youthful tenacity, and spirit to drive our future to unbounded potential,” Lord Taron said, “I salute the divine Miss Kara Syung, the newest visionary to join Nantou’s glorious team in Bio-Research and Engineering.”
His words were inviolate, though all of them were written by his great grandson. Her heart sprinted as Chi-Qua cheered in her ears and applause rose through the cavernous hall. Many glasses were raised at the table of Syung, and Kara’s eyes turned to her brothers.
Dae responded as expected. His jaw hung limp, as if someone killed his favorite pet before his eyes. He grabbed his glass but did not raise it. Lang hesitated, pivoted briefly to his brother, then back to Kara. His stare was full. No hiding, no evasion. And much to Kara’s shock, no anger or resentment.
He nodded. She read his lips. Well done. Then he raised his glass higher than all others at the table.
She thought his dismay would be a joyful part of her victory. This brother, who never apologized for threatening to kill the friend she loved as a sister, now congratulated her success. Most surprising? She was relieved and moved her lips as well. Thank you.
Her parents held out their glasses, which they shifted toward Kara, waiting for her to do the join. All three clinked.
No outward anger. No condescending stares. Right.
Theater for the masses. They’d hold their explosion until later.
“I’m proud of you,” Chi-Qua shouted in her ear. “From the mouth of the man himself. You can book any path you wish.”
&n
bsp; Thirty seconds before midnight, Lord Taron’s eighty-year-old son intervened and announced the toasts would conclude after the welcoming of the new year. In the awkward countdown, the microphone picked up the old man telling his son, “Sanhae begins when I say it does! Cudfrucker.”
Barely restrained laughter and wide-eyed shock blended with the final countdown as a holowindow appeared behind the dais featuring a live aerial view of the Port of Pinchon and huge numbers overlaying it all. 10. 9. 8. 7.
When the countdown ended, everyone in the hall rose and shouted in unison:
“Sanhae!”
“Sanhae!”
“Sanhae!”
Delirium took hold, as hugs, kisses, and cheers dominated while fireworks erupted from stations all along the Isthmus of the Redeemer. The exultations continued nonstop for the next ten minutes, led on by triumphant blasts from The Lagos Unified Symphony.
Kara lost herself in the sheer joy of a victory she was certain would become legendary in the Syung family line. Anointed by Lord Taron; triumphant over the repeated blockades of her parents and brothers; intimidating to all who identified her as a new force rising through the ranks. She thought of the leverage tonight might buy, of how she’d push hard for an early end to the Baeks’ exile, and how she might no longer be left out of Father’s classified meetings with Lang and Dae.
It was a perfect victory. Too perfect.
At some level, Kara sensed it wasn’t going to be this clean cut. She remembered Chi-Qua’s warning during their picnic at Bongwoo Curl:
“You won’t win this for free.”
When the celebrating calmed and Lord Taron finished off the last of his toasts, most invited guests peeled away from their tables to mingle, some to go down one level for dancing. Kara’s father excused himself to have a few words with Lord Taron’s son, while Lang and Dae vanished before she realized it. Mother grabbed her by the wrist and asked her to remain seated. They were the only ones at the table.
“Are you happy, Kara?”
“I am, Honorable Mother.”
“Good. All your dreams come true. Your strategy was a success.”
That’s when Kara saw it. How did she miss it the first time?
The Impossible Future: Complete set Page 157