In contrast, Kara, Zion, Gwen, and I, who were all wearing some white, had been circulating freely among the guests. Andy and Theo, the coat-checkers-slash-guards, were also wearing white — folded pocket handkerchiefs and silver cufflinks. Maybe we were the security detail, or maybe we were just assets to show off.

Though everyone seemed cordial enough, I noticed that people tended to group according to clothing color. Maybe the members of each group worked with one another more often and had gotten to know each other better.

As the rest of us talked, Williams leaned against the far wall, looking down. He seemed to be profoundly antisocial.

I realized as I watched him that he was an exception to the color-coding — he’d been circulating, and Kara had implied he had a lot of strength, but his clothes were all black.

Grant called up to let us know the Porsche was ready, so Zion, Kara, and I got in the elevator. It went down a lot faster than it had gone up.

When we saw the car, it appeared to have a big scrape along the driver’s side. It turned out to be masking tape — Koji had put it there to see Zion’s reaction. Everyone had a good laugh except Zion, who cuffed Koji on the shoulder. Not hard, though. I could tell she was only pretending to be mad.

As we crossed the bridge out of the city, I asked Kara and Zion whether they ever hung out with any of the dressed-all-in-black people.

“I’d sure like to hang out more with Koji — he’s hot,” Kara said. “But I guess it can get a little weird with them sometimes. They’re all pretty nice, though,” she added.

“How about you, Zion?”

“I don’t ‘hang out’ with any of you people. We’re coworkers, not friends.”

“Fuck you,” Kara said. “That’s stupid. There’s no one else for us to be friends with.”

Zion shrugged. Kara chewed her out a little more, then lapsed into resentful silence. After a minute or two, she said something else pissy.

Zion lost her temper. “You know what, Kara? You need to grow the hell up.”

“What does that mean? You think you’re too good for everyone else?”

“What do you think this is, high school? Like we’re in different cliques or something? You people are blind.”

I was more curious than offended.

“Blind? What do you mean?”

Zion rolled her eyes. “Lord Cordus gives some of us higher status and makes us advertise it to the others. That breaks us into groups that resent each other — we resent the weaklings for not doing the dangerous work, and they resent us because they’re menial labor and get paid a lot less. So now there’re factions instead of unity. That makes us all easier to control. See?”

The ensuing silence was profound.

Finally Kara said, skeptically, “He pays us more?”