Inyanga's Star and Other Constellations

III.iv - When Inyanga Goes

"Why wouldn't you worry?"

"Just forget it. I'll keep my voice down. I want you two to teach me about this," she pointed to the words Artificial Scarcity where they were written on the page that hovered over the chess board table. "Okay?"

"Just tell me why you're not worried."

Storm stepped in. "Maybe she doesn't want to talk about it and you should just trust."

"No, no," said Inyanga, blushing. "It's okay. I don't really want to go into it but I'll tell you—" That tender, still healing bruise to their friendship was expressing itself all over Amafu's face, as if there was a secret Storm knew and she didn't, and why did Storm always know everything? Coaxing Amafu back out of a protective shell, Inyanga admitted through great blushing, "She has been around me a lot lately, and I was trying to get up the nerve to speak to her, and my guess is she's trying to get up the nerve to speak with me. Sooo . . . if we could please simply refocus our—"

"I don't mean to be indelicate, but what if she's not trying to get up the nerve to talk to you? What if she's been spying?"

Inyanga didn't mean to be argumentative with her slightly sensitive bestie, but if the library magicians had been on to her for days or weeks, she would have been cursed by now. A deep breath helped her restrain herself. Everybody already knew that, it didn't need to be said. Shrugging her shoulders and with a soft tone, Inyanga said, "Maybe. Yet she is gone now. No librarians have popped up to take me away. Let us finish our conversation and hope for the best." She held up two fingers with opal painted nails, crossed.

Eyes rolled high to the purple twilit sky, Amafu made a frustrated aaaargh sound, just to let it out. Then she put a finger on the words Artificial Scarcity on the backlit page hovering between them all and said, "They never taught what it means in primary. Artificial . . . A.S. means a constraint on on supply that is not necessary." Suddenly she let out an amazed gasp. "I can't believe I can talk about it!"

"It is an economic force that we would need to be able to discuss in other contexts," said Inyanga.

"Well, in primary we learn the basis of nonmagical economics, yet A.S. ain't in the textbook or in the lesson plan." A little uncomfortable wriggle in her seat seemed to prepare her to say, with great dignity, "This part is not my area of expertise; could you take over, Storm?"

A row of perfect shiny teeth revealed itself as Storm grinned. "Yes. It's quite conspicuous that they don't teach it in class, actually. In relation to market economics, A.S. is basically what you were describing as you logic-ed out the function of supply and demand. A.S. is a constraint on supply that isn't real. Like pretending there isn't enough of a product, so it needs to be very expensive. They pretend there's little of a product that could theoretically be limitless, or at least have greater quantity of production and supply than currently is being sold. The company may be hoarding a product to jack up the prices."

Inyanga translated, thinking. "If magic can't run out, Constellation's pretending there's only so much energy to go around, when really it's infinite. They say supply is low. Which allows them to set prices high, because there's high demand. If people were to stop buying magic because it's too expensive, they might wanna drop the price — but they hold all the cards." Her voice got a little emotional, wavering a little out of control. As if it were life or death she kept it quiet, but outrage seeped through. "No one else is selling immortal life; consumers can't just choose not to pay for eternal life month to month. They're lying and fear mongering on the news only to justify their price point."

The look on Storm's face said she had so many counter-arguments to make — but she couldn't talk about it, and she was going to explode, and at this rate, it would take her months to write them in a message. Hands on her face, she kept growling as if deciding between them all and puzzling out whether there were any words she could use to get the arguments out this millennium.