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?”

“He pays you more if you ask, dumbass. You should be making four times what I make — you’re at least that much stronger. Instead, you’re probably making what Grant makes.”

The genius of Cordus’s system started to become clear to me.

“So,” I said, “to get the extra pay, you have to ask to be treated better than the others. That means you’re the one who has to go to him and claim they’re not your equals.”

“Got it in one. Bonus for the new girl.”

“But why?” Kara said, sounding choked up. “Why would you do that? We’re not better than them. I’m not better than you. Beth’s not better than me.”

“Seriously. That part of the system would fall apart if no one asked him for the raise,” I said.