EDITORS PICK 2020. A new student doesn't think her mother understands how magic works. Inyanga Numbia will be the first in her family to go to Magicians' College, and she's going to find out.
"Why doesn't Magicians' College just let anyone in?"
"Won...
Storm or shine, the Lower Strata sent someone up on a levitating platform outside Constellation to protest. The movement was growing. Even on Rain Day, beneath the falling droplets Lower Strata protestors, Storm had witnessed, get soaked through. (They only gave up magic such as water repellent spells in times of drama, Storm had noticed.) They did use voice amplification spells, and they chanted, and always had a mouthpiece up there speechifying just as a woman was doing tonight — in the basement where the Lower Strata met 'secretly' (yet openly enough to expand its membership and pass along an airweave donation plate). In some basement the protestors met beneath a web of what were, Storm was willing to bet, illegal anti-tracking spells using a black market connection to the star dial.
"We are raising awareness about who's responsible for the animae crisis," the mouthpiece was saying now. Authentic connections to the star dial produced magic with no byproduct; not only was the dome of sound insulating and anti-surveillance spells visible — a pulsating spider's web of light —it also cracked like a giant bolt of static on occasion. It even created a sticky heat in the crowded audience until one of the licensed magicians cast a cooling spell — a legal one.
Silently, Storm mental linked into Inyanga's mind, "Of course the company is saying no one has died in six months." The two sat next to each other ignoring the speaker going on and on about corporate negligence and holding the company accountable, and sending mental link transmissions where whispers wouldn't have gone over well. "They're lying. The upper strata must be jumping the line. With this murder on the news, they won't be able to control the truth like they always do. They won't be able to stop people from talking about it.
"There's one animus available now, and the public knows it. One person will be granted a starborn."
The woman up on stage, casting aer voice to every corner of the room, said, "Anyone who wishes to join our pressure task force need only sign up — and undergo initiation. Everyone present has already been vetted."
It was a good thing the idea to steal animae from the rich and give them to the poor had come from Inyanga, because when Storm received an invitation to a Lower Strata meeting, aeh never would have expected Miss Save the World to join.
Storm told Inyanga this with the mental link straight into her mind, which no one else could hear. "I never expected Miss Save the World would come to the meeting until you suggested murdring the wealthy to steal their immortality."
"That's not what I said," Inyanga linked straight back into Storm's mind. "I was partly joking. Yet my concern for you is real, and I was just saying, if we could take animae from the deceased before Constellation does, you wouldn't have to wait for 99 people to pass — or was it 98? You wouldn't have to wait for 98 animae."
"It's 98 now. 98 animae. 98 animae, my starsfire ass. The waitlist is a lie. You know the high ups in the strata are jumping the line. No deaths in six months? I don't think so. I think when someone dies, their animus is recovered, quiet like, and given not to whoever's next, but to whoever ranks highest. Where's Mingxia on the waitlist?"
"We only made the downpayment three years ago," Inyanga linked silently. "Which puts us at around twenty thousand on the waitlist."
"Twenty thousand on a queue that isn't moving. It's the injustice that has me so outraged. I don't even want a baby that badly." That biological clock, though. As if sensing the lie, something inside aer twinged, like tears behind aer eyes — but it was everywhere. In aer belly, aer lungs, aer fingertips. And aer jaw, which was always clenching.
Aeh linked, "We can't go on like this forever. The Lower Strata think we should remove immortality from a tenth of the population, remove their animae and return them to the collective pool. A decimation. It could be randomized, or immortality could be taken from the eldest Solari, or the poorest, or the richest. It could be a lottery or a meritocracy. I don't have such a strong preference anymore, I just need something to change."
"I don't think you would want to be chosen in such a lottery. Or anyone you love, friend."
"I just need something to change."
Up on the stage, the Lower Strata mouthpiece cast to the audience, "We're calling for a lottery to remove thirty percent of Soliara's immortalities," and Storm thought "THIRTY percent," into Inyanga's mind. The mouthpiece went on, "This measure will merely return those selected to the natural cycle of life and death."
"I bet thirty is highballing. To get ten percent," linked Inyanga.
"Psychos," linked Storm.
The mouthpiece said, "It has historic precedence, and given that history, we imagine the company may prefer a meritocracy system to protect the Strata from losing their eternal lives. Should such a concession be requested, this body will vote on whether to accept."
"She means," Inyanga linked to Storm's mind, "whether instead of random selection, it will be plebeians returned to immortality, while the strata are protected. Replacing plebs with the strata. How often would such a cycle continue? How often must we decimate Soliara's population? Every thousand years? Every hundred?"
"These people are crazy," Storm linked back. "It's just that part of me hopes they win."
"It won't solve the problem of corruption."
"You're right. That should be the priority." The thought lacked the same level of inflection that a vocalized sentence would have, and Inyanga found herself wondering whether "should" would be stressed if Storm were talking aloud. That should be the priority.
And should it not?
When it came time to sign up for the task force, Storm surprised Inyanga by putting aer name down, linking, "Let's at least get in the room and see what they're planning."
"You're scaring me."
Inyanga couldn't believe her eyes when she saw her own name writing itself below Storm's; she couldn't believe her own fingers for writing it there.
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