"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.
Inyanga could hear the arguments in her own head, though; she wasn't stupid. Maybe the magicians at the top knew what they were doing. Would the news incite panic? Would the truth do more harm than the lie?
Nope, nope, nope. "I think I do need to tell this to the world," Inyanga found herself saying. "This fear keeps my parens up at night. And maybe if the public knew, the people would make different purchasing choices. Immortality is a necessity, but some things we buy magic for aren't. We could have a consumer revolution!"
Up on the airweave page above them, Storm composed one simple message full of irregular words.
The world would explode.
Inyanga read it, blinked a few times, and replied, "Maybe we want the world to explode, Storm! Dream a little. We need to burn the old world down if it's corrupt, and build a new one!"
Storm wrote another: You would . . . expelled.
Inyanga gulped. "Well, some sacrifices will need to be made."
Another: Think more. There are other options.
Curls shook along with Inyanga's head. "I will think more. I'll sleep on it. But you know it's the right thing to do. The company shouldn't just get to lie. If they're about to charge so much some people die when they miss payments, the whole world should know. And if there's fallout, there's fallout. They should face up to any consequences."
"I'm not sure that's right," said Storm, aloud. "As I said before, maybe at some point we need to trust that some expert up there has their reasons — they're the licensed magicians and the leaders and the engineers who invented all of this, maybe they know what they're doing. Or maybe we all need to at least make sure we know what we're doing before we burn the old world down."
Glances were exchanged between Inyanga and Amafu. Amafu gave in to the temptation to toss into the ring, "Sounds like something a Gloriam would say." Yet her tone said she was only joking. Inyanga said, "Gah, it's annoying when you disagree with me and make sense at the same time."
"Listen, friend. You've got a lot of research ahead of you, if you want to make certain that telling the whole world is the right thing."
"Oh, oh!" said Amafu, jumping up. "I had an idea. A better one. Just as much research, but it's definitely the right thing to do. Hear me out." Amafu's eyes widened and she added, "I can't believe it was me who came up with this and not one of you."
Just as she was about to begin laying out her plan, a commlink portal appeared, one before each girl. The three links started out the size of a stamp, a pre-set distance of a foot and a half from each face, and slowly grew, as if feeling out that there was room to do so without bumping into anything, until each was as big as a medium sized picture frame. Inyanga glanced around while the link was growing, and saw that many of the other students in the courtyard were being sent a communication too.
Taking in quickly who had a link growing and expanding before their eyes, Inyanga processed that it seemed to be all secundae students, in her year. She looked over her shoulder and saw how, comically, students who had been walking or running somewhere had to slam to a stop because the link blocked their vision, though it remained always a foot and a half from each intended message recipient. Wherever the recipient students were, whether at home in bed, in the bath, out for a run, this one-way link would play the same message, perhaps waking some up and causing others to hide beneath mounds of bubble bath (out of fear that anyone could see).
The message only echoed because it came from so many links at the same time, as if by so many speakers, the sound wave hitting Inyanga's ears from so many different directions at once. Yet it was perfectly instantaneous, as the elderly voice of a library magician gravely informed them all, "The presence of all secundae students will be required at al-Maysan library hall at the end of crepesculum, that is, in ten minutes. Link portals will be provided to those off-campus. All students are expected to be suitably attired for a class assembly in the al-Maysan library hall in ten minutes."
The message repeated several more times. By the end of crepesculum's twilight, when the last rays of a descended sun were gone, all second year students were expected to be present for an assembly in al-Maysan library.
A/N. Dun dun duuuuun. Inyanga is just one star in a Constellation. Mingxia is another. Mingxia's Star comes next.
Please leave a star if you enjoyed this chapter.
For a little more info about the time-telling terminology in the Constellations series, it's based off Roman time-telling, when the hours of the day could only be counted by the sun's travel in the sky. Romans read the sundial to tell what hour of the day it was.
Time Telling Terminology
At dawn, the first light, prima lux, was followed by 30 minutes of twilight, called diluculum.
The day began at sunrise, solis ortus.
Sunset is called solis occasus or suprema, and when the sun had completely sunk below the horizon, 30 minutes of twilight followed, called crepusculum, before nightfall, vespera.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this chapter, please leave a star to help fuel this fantastical world.