· INTERLUDE ·
EQUITY
In Aiya Sato’s village—some years before her Alexandrian Society recruitment; shortly after Dalton Ellery problematically resurrected a sapling, but before Atlas Blakely discovered his future among the detritus of his mother’s bin—there was a cat that was believed to be lucky. It did not belong to Aiya or her family. It belonged to a neighbor girl, having found her after slithering out from the wreckage of an earthquake and a storm, and later in life, that neighbor had the very great fortune of marrying well, bearing several healthy children. Of course, the neighbor was also the prosperous daughter of the village doctor. So, who knew if the cat had really chosen her, or if it had simply gone to the house where the heat was already on?
Aiya Sato did not like cats, she thought, eyes drifting to her ankles, where one was currently rubbing its head in a mewling sort of way, desirous and impertinent. She withheld the urge to make a face and instead looked up with the smile of the elegant Tokyoite she had painstakingly become.
“Yours?” she asked.
“Oh god, no. My daughter’s.” Selene Nova fell onto the sofa beside Aiya, crossing her ankles daintily and brushing away a nonexistent stray gold hair. “She begged and begged. Ultimately it was easier this way, kept everyone much quieter, and at least it was not a dog. Coffee?” Selene asked with a gesture that summoned someone from nowhere.
Aiya did not keep servants. Somehow they all reminded her of her mother. She could have hired a man, of course, but keeping men in the house felt similar to housing stray cats, however lucky they happened to be. “No, thank you.”
Selene mouthed something to the woman, who nodded before disappearing and returned with a glass of sparkling water. “Thank you,” Selene said with the look of slavish adoration given to someone underpaid without whom she could not live. “Anyway,” she continued, sipping her water, “as I was saying. About this little—” A flick of her wrist. “Forum issue. Obviously it’s going away.”
“Obviously,” Aiya agreed. The fact that it was the Forum at the helm of the investigation of the Nova Corporation was like bringing it before the United Nations. Public condemnation was well and good, but then who would conduct the tax audit? That was the crux of it. There would be no prison time no matter how self-righteous the Forum chose to get.
This was the thing, the only important thing worth knowing about the world. If you could not properly demolish a Nova’s wallet then you could not hurt a Nova, which was a law that exceeded the limitations of any government or well-meaning philanthropic cult.
“But still,” Selene continued, “I thought maybe you’d have some ideas. You know, woman to woman.” A faint, sly smile. “Or at very least, CEO to CEO.”
“Oh really? Congratulations,” said Aiya with genuine pleasure. Selene had her moments of inauthenticity but she was not an idiot, not a monster. She could not help the fortune she was born to. No worse and no better than the owner of the lucky cat, and anyway, Selene had been managing partner for almost a decade. Not a chance Dimitris Nova had done any substantial work since his daughter took the helm. “When did your father officially step down?”
Selene waved a hand. “Recently. Very recently, maybe a week or so ago, it hasn’t even been announced. I thought the board was going to have to pry it from his cold dead hands,” she added, exchanging a knowing glance with Aiya, “but in the end, he knew it was for the best.”
Aiya knew a little of what Selene must have endured in order to inherit her father’s kingdom. It did not matter that Selene was blood, that she was competent, that she’d grown up with more wealth than any member of her board could possibly earn in seven lifetimes. A man who did not want to listen to the voice of reason (or a woman) was a man cursed to deafness, to blindness, though unfortunately never to silence. Only the threat of losing money—or the favorable chance to pass the mantle of failure to a woman—was ever enough to shut him up.
“It’s good business.” Aiya wanted a cup of tea, but it was never as good outside of home. Though, she had recently bought a very expensive kettle for her new London flat on a whim, a cheery red that had matched her outfit, which didn’t make tea the way her mother did.
Because it made the tea much better, of course. Technology was really something, and Aiya had exquisite taste.
“Anyway, I’m thinking some philanthropy will be in order. A distraction, you know, from all the bad press.” Selene took another sip of water, looking momentarily glum. “I should have asked Mimi for something to eat. Are you hungry?”
“A little,” Aiya admitted. “Something light, like last time?” She had liked her mother’s omurice. She loved Selene’s caviar.
“Good idea.” Selene motioned again, Mimi reappearing. “A little of the osetra, with cream? And . . . do you prefer blini?” Selene asked in an aside to Aiya, who nodded. “Blini, please,” Selene continued, “and obviously some of the Pouilly-Fuissé? Unless you prefer vodka.” This, again, to Aiya, who made a small motion with her head to indicate it was Selene’s choice. (There was no wrong choice.)
“Right, wonderful. Thank you!” Selene sang to her household help, the cat mewling again at Aiya’s ankles. “Sorry, I can have her taken to the nursery—”
“No, it’s no problem.” Aiya, who did not kick animals or hold grudges, tickled the cat’s chin lightly with a finger. “And yes, perhaps it might be worth it to appeal to one of the Forum’s pet projects,” she added, calling back to the original subject. “They’re very concerned with poverty. It would put all of them in quite a frenzy if you simply made it disappear.”
Selene laughed the way Selene often did, with an effect that crinkled her eyes adorably, without disrupting her illusions. She was very tasteful, only a little augmentation here and there, never too perfect. She looked somewhere in her thirties, which was respectable for a woman nearing middle-age. “Oh, my father would be furious. Furious.” Selene shook her head. “Maybe something smaller, like oh, I don’t know. The Global Children’s Fund?”
Aiya made a slight gesture with her chin, a quiet contradiction. “Your demographic skews younger and younger, does it not? The little ones like a promise here and there that we won’t let the world go to shit. Think of it as a small hit for a larger gain.” Like killing one to save five, for example. Impossible in the moment. Unimaginable.
Easily forgotten in the rearview.
“The board will have one big heart attack. They’ll say it’s bad business, no capital return. But the board is a bunch of idiots.” Selene hummed to herself, still smiling, so Aiya knew she was considering it. “I like it,” Selene confirmed. “It’s bold.”
It was also very likely a dollar amount Selene Nova made in interest per annum, purely for being alive, for being born. For breathing. Enough to sting, perhaps, or merely singe. A little pain for a great deal of pleasure, and Selene didn’t have her father’s outlandish tastes. She had no interest in yachts and was much too beautiful to pay for sex. Her board would not see that as a benefit, of course, being only less successful carbon copies of the Nova patriarch, but if Selene acted decisively enough, they would not be able to stop what was already set in motion. If she announced it, even hinted at it publicly so that a word from her went instantaneously viral, the crusty board of governors would have no choice but to bend.
A woman’s power looked different than a man’s. It had to have the right hair, the right face, but Selene Nova had all of that and more. Crowned in gold as she was, she had something even Aiya did not.
“I suppose I’ll have to do something as well, to show support,” suggested Aiya, as the caviar arrived in tiny plates over crushed ice, delicate iridescence gleaming from the mother-of-pearl spoons. Someone else aside from Mimi arrived with a glass in hand, perfectly chilled. Aiya made herself small in gratitude, glancing demurely through her lashes at Selene. “What do you think, shall I host something? A charity event? A silent auction to celebrate the birth of our new world?”
Selene laughed again, spooning a tiny amount of caviar onto the stretch of skin between her finger and thumb. “Can you imagine? I think possibly it will help me enjoy the world more. New York without the vagrants might actually make it palatable.”
Selene slid the caviar into her mouth, savoring it with a look of bliss before reaching for her wine. Aiya did the same, enjoying the texture of the caviar meeting her tongue. She liked it with the little pancakes and cream, but this method of consumption was slightly erotic, like licking sea salt from bare skin.
“Perhaps we should simply fix America,” Aiya suggested in jest. “The traffic there is terrible. Possibly we should gift them a train or two for our own convenience, maybe one from New York to Los Angeles? It would vastly improve Fashion Week, I suspect.”
Selene chuckled into her wineglass. “Quite a stretch, don’t you think? From one coast to another?”
Aiya began compiling a decadent bite’s worth of caviar and crème fraîche atop a blini. “Are they not neighbors? I can never remember.”
“Either way it would be silly. Talk about no capital gain,” said Selene, the two of them laughing prettily in unison. “But yes, let’s do a party!” Selene added with a toast. “If we’re going to remake the world, we might as well do it in style.”
“So it’s settled, then,” Aiya said. “You’ll come to Tokyo in the spring? For the cherry blossoms? Your board will love it. And mine will be horrified by everything they do.” She could see it now. Soy sauce poured carelessly over rice. Chopsticks funereally upright. Confusion between what was Chinese or Japanese or maybe even Korean. “It will benefit us both.”
“I do love the way your mind works,” said Selene admiringly.
The wine mulled in Aiya’s mouth. It was all so sensual, the silks of Selene’s blouse, the tartness, the little sighs of pleasure. Expensive caviar always reminded Aiya of good lovemaking. Nice furniture was always softer, fancy glassware much shinier, beautiful lingerie containing a type of magic that even a Nova’s illusions could not provide. It was a pity that so much of power was theater, a play put on for a thousand empty seats. A pity that Aiya could not simply lean forward and suggest Selene follow her to the bedroom, where everything could be even simpler. Just a little sweetness for the palate. A little friction to relax them both.
Alas, no lucky cats for Aiya. Just the luck she made for herself, which had its limits. Regardless, she had a vibrator for every mood, even the smallest of which (a pearly-pink clamshell the size of a compact, which currently sat in her purse) was more effective than the lips or fingers of any actual person. And was anything more delicious than good champagne? Everything else—happiness or purpose or goodness for the sake of goodness, the ability to love or even fuck without judgment—the ability to not be talked over by a room full of white men—all of that was just insubstantial glitter. Just noise.
If Aiya could not have luck, then at least she had the patience, the fortitude to know that real power was very simple. It was not compromisable. It was the ability to forget an empty house, an empty life, because it meant not being buried in an unmarked grave after a lifetime of servitude. It was the freedom to make choices that did not end in destitution or death.
Anyone who thought otherwise had not tasted hunger, or Selene Nova’s caviar.
“Here’s to our new world,” said Selene, raising her glass to Aiya’s.
Aiya smiled beatifically in reply. (Had Atlas Blakely chosen to confide in Aiya Sato rather than Dalton Ellery, she would have told him this: When an ecosystem dies, nature does not stop to mourn it. Why accept the terms of the Society for any reason but to live?)
“To our new world,” she agreed, meeting Selene’s toast with the tenderness of a kiss.
