“No,” Duke Spencer replies, “no, of course not. I’m sorry. I’m…out of my element, as you might imagine. There are so many worst-case scenarios, I can’t seem to keep track of which is actually the worst.”
“Welcome to my world,” I say wryly, eliciting laughter from Lord Aaron and Lady Mei. Soon enough, Duke Spencer joins in. I muster a smile—in truth, my own concerns are at least as serious as those expressed by the duke. I’ve programmed the car to reverse course at a moment’s notice, but I can’t not follow up on this possible insight into Reginald’s operation. Each day that I fail to make progress toward a solution is a new opportunity for everything to come crashing down on my head.
Soon Lord Aaron’s cheek finds Duke Spencer’s shoulder, and even Lady Mei is quiet as the SUV eats up the kilometers. The silence that settles around us is comfortable, welcome. An emotional oasis.
Though what I could really use is a physical oasis. I hurt in places I’d forgotten I had. I used to get sore arms and shoulders during my more intense lessons with Giovanni, but nothing like whatever Saber’s doing to me. When he presented the idea, I figured he’d have me do a million sit-ups and crunches, but he’s doing something entirely different, where I’m constantly lifting various body parts and holding them in the air. The result is that I’m sore from neck to knees every single day. He told me the aches would ease up in time, but so far they haven’t lightened so much as a feather.
The gradual loosening of my daily corset has begun as well—one centimeter every other day. Saber lobbied for one a day, but I’m already concerned about the speed. It took me over half a year to lace down as far as I have, and it was imperative I make him understand that he can’t undo it all in two weeks. Even if my body could handle it—and I have serious doubts—my mind could not.
I still fight the impulse to run back to my room and have my bots cinch my ribbons every time I see Lady Cyn, or when my husband is in a particularly foul mood, or when my customers behave erratically—which seems to be happening more and more often of late. There are moments when I have to drag Saber into an empty room and make him wrap his arms around my waist and squeeze me as tightly as he can until I can regain control of the panic that’s always waiting to slip through my fingers.
“Whatever else we see today,” Lord Aaron says, staring out at the sunny green fields north of Paris, “I do love a trip out into the countryside.”
“I’ve never been,” I say.
“Truly?” Lord Aaron asks, raising his head from Duke Spencer’s shoulder.
I shrug. “I’ve never been farther from the palace than Paris. I was born in the city of Versailles, and my father was very dedicated to his job. My father’s brother was a company man of the nobility, and my mother was an only child, so there was no one to visit elsewhere. And face it—we Sonomans make rather dreadful tourists.”
Everyone laughs at that. We certainly stick out among the rest of the world with our elaborate dress and formal mannerisms. Some of the courtiers, often the younger ones, are obsessed with the cultures of the outside world and spend hours researching them on the feeds, watching videos of everyday life outside our little country, but I was always satisfied with what we had. I don’t know anything else, and even now I’m not sure what I’ll do when I finally break away.
When. Not if.
The Nav screen shows that we’re getting close, and I nudge Lord Aaron. We all prepare ourselves to pretend we’re doing nothing but attending a lavish picnic in a random field.
“Is this right?” I ask as we turn down a dusty but well-paved road lined with surprisingly tall security fencing that completely obscures our view of the fields. “I confess I don’t get out much, but I’d have thought maybe barbed wire, or even just chain link. Isn’t this overkill?”
“You’re thinking like a Sonoman,” Lord Aaron says. “In agribusiness, there’s not much point putting up expensive walls. You’ll never miss an ear of corn. This is a biotech firm we’re approaching, judging by their name and what little I found on the feeds. A single plant could potentially be worth hundreds. More on the black market.”
Our SUV crunches onto a gravel road that ends at a small guard shack outside an impressive-looking gate—features I’m unprepared to address, as they were apparently erected after the most recent satellite survey.
“What now?” Lady Mei asks, the same panic I’m trying not to show raw and bare in her voice.
“We—ask for directions,” I say shakily. “Blame the Nav computer.”
The SUV stops at the gate automatically, and a uniformed man emerges from the shack. I try not to notice that he’s wearing a gun at his hip. With a shaking finger I push the button to lower the window closest to me and don a bright smile.
“Ma’am,” the guard says, touching the brim of his hat. His vest boasts no name tag or corporate logo.
“I—”
“Oh, excuse me,” he interrupts, and then, incomprehensibly, bends into a stiff bow. “Your Highness. I didn’t recognize you.” He rises, and I study him with eyes that I hope aren’t wide with shock. “Were we expecting you today?” He consults a clipboard, and when he lifts a few pages, my whole body freezes as I catch sight of the familiar stylized Demeter insignia of Sonoma Inc. at the top of the first paper.
Why are we at a farm seemingly owned—or at least run—by Sonoma?
“You should have received notice,” I bluff shamelessly. “But these things have been known to fall through the cracks.”
He laughs as though I’ve told an exceptionally funny joke, and I force my smile to stay glued to my face. “They sure do.” His accent is neither Sonoman, like mine, nor French, like Reginald’s. After a moment I realize it’s American, like Duke Spencer’s. “Is His Majesty here with you?”
“He’s on an extended trip, actually. But he suggested I might enjoy touring all the Parisian facilities, now that I’m Queen.” I look up through my eyelashes flirtatiously. “This one’s next on my list.”
“Of course. If you’ll pull through to the main building, I’ll find out who we have available to show you around.” He hesitates. “Unless you’re here for a surprise inspection.”
Trying to falsify that seems like overkill to me. And would almost certainly result in some sort of paper trail.
“Perish the thought. We’re just out for some fresh air and maybe a picnic.”
“I’ll let Owens know, then,” the guard says with a smile, and the heavy gate opens on a little gravel lot where half a dozen other cars are parked, one with the Sonoma logo on the side.
“I don’t understand what just happened,” Duke Spencer whispers once the window is closed. He sounds a little shell-shocked.
“Nor do I,” I reply, a little dazed myself.
“This is a Sonoma facility. I’m not the only one who saw the logo, am I?” Lady Mei asks.
“Something rotten in Denmark,” Lord Aaron says dryly.
We all tumble out of the SUV and stretch our legs. I’m glad I eschewed my usual formality for a lightweight frock—supposedly modeled after the costumes Marie-Antoinette once wore to the fake farm we Sonomans converted into a medical center. I thought the design was charming when I ordered it on a whim, but I never thought I’d be doing anything like this. Traipsing about an actual farm?
The woman who comes out to greet us isn’t exactly dressed in a business suit, but she looks more official than the guard, and her polo shirt has the Sonoma insignia embroidered on it.
“Welcome, Your Highness,” she says, inclining her head to me. It’s odd—while my husband is this woman’s boss of bosses, technically she’s not a citizen of Sonoma, so I’m nothing to her but a figurehead who happens to also be a shareholder. I’m struck again by how much more power Justin has than I do by simple virtue of being the CEO as well as king. His influence is international. Mine is practically superficial. I need every edge I can get, and I have a feeling today?
??s little field trip is going to lend me quite an edge indeed.
If I can only figure it out.
Greetings are exchanged, and we follow the woman toward a remarkably modern-looking building—like the gate, new enough to be missing from satellite photos of the area. She comments on the rich soil, the crop rotation, the weather over the past few months—all the sorts of maddeningly mundane things one might expect to hear on a tour of a semi-remote company farm, and none of the things I really want to know.
“Are those bots out there?” Lord Aaron asks, pointing at something glinting in the field.
“Oh, you must not be aware,” the woman says pleasantly. “This is the proving ground for the new Amalgamated bots as well as our papaveris atropa cultivation. The crops are completely cared for by bots. Why revolutionize one area of commerce when you can revolutionize two?” she adds with a laugh. Lord Aaron and Duke Spencer chuckle along politely; Lady Mei remains quiet as a church mouse.
“Amalgamated—” Lord Aaron sounds very serious as he asks more questions about the bots, but I stopped listening the moment Dr. Owens said papaveris atropa. Those words have already changed my life; I would never forget them, though I heard them spoken only once, months ago, by a man with a heavy French accent. I can’t say anything to the others at the moment, but now I understand.
This is Glitter.
SABER SAID THERE was a pharmaceutical company involved. A company Reginald’s original scientist stole the plants from. I knew all that. The idea that the company might be Sonoma never crossed my mind. Sonoma is first and foremost an agricultural concern, partnered with Amalgamated in the robotics industry. I didn’t even know we had a pharmaceuticals division until the King put up that graph at the shareholder meeting.
A prescription drug like this—something as powerful as Glitter, but clean and legal—is revolutionary. This is going to be Justin’s legacy as King. This must be the project he was talking about, the one that kept him on the throne. And it’s somehow tied up with Amalgamated as well. The bots minding the fields—that’s where they come from. A partnership, and an immensely profitable one. What did he say at the meeting? Seven hundred percent profit growth? Either Justin is more modest than I could possibly have guessed, or he has woefully underestimated the value of what he has.
But Reginald is stealing it. Sabotaging the King. And I’m helping him. If Justin ever finds out…there’s no telling what he’ll do.
I’ve been in over my head this whole time.
Duke Spencer seems to sense my dismay and offers an arm. I take it numbly, feeling as though my brain has choked on this barrage of revelations and now refuses to process anything until I’ve made it to the far side of a good, long panic attack.
Lady Mei—the only one of us who seems to be keeping her head—bids a smiling goodbye to the farm staff and even waves out the window as our SUV pulls away.
“Well,” she says mildly after we’ve driven in silence for a few minutes, “you three have been gathering storm clouds since we set foot on that property. You saw something there that I didn’t. Any chance I’m to be let in on the story this time?”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” I say.
“It’s a disaster,” Lord Aaron agrees, hands spread out in front of him.
And I’ve put my friends right in the middle of it. I close my eyes and lean back against my seat. Again. “It’s worse than I ever imagined,” I say softly.
“I know. They’re going to roll them out in France—and soon, from the look of things. We’ll put half the globe out of work.”
I narrow my eyes and peer at him. “Lord Aaron, I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing.”
“The bots, Danica, surely you saw—I was talking to Dr. Owens about them the whole time.”
I blink. “No, we’re definitely not talking about the same thing.” But I say it softly, and he doesn’t seem to have even heard the words.
“They’re an adaptable model,” he continues, alive with a desperate mania I haven’t seen in him for a while. “With manual dexterity enhanced by years of testing in the palace. Our palace! It’s always been Amalgamated’s end game, of course, but I thought we had more time. Ten thousand jobs will vanish overnight. And that’s only the first day! There’s no way the Foundation can absorb so many—”
“Foundation? What Foundation?” asks Lady Mei, blessedly cutting off his rampage before I can snap that I’m far more invested in freeing the man I love than a bunch of workers I don’t know—workers who have choices and get paid for their work and aren’t owned by someone else. I should care—I know I should—but I’m having trouble seeing beyond myself at this moment.
“The Foundation for Social Reintegration,” Duke Spencer says, quietly, one hand rubbing Lord Aaron’s back, trying to calm him.
“The—those activists who are always hanging about, making a nuisance of themselves? Oh!” Her eyes widen and she points at Lord Aaron. “They vandalized the orchards last year. You know they ruined my favorite blue early-Baroque dinner gown? They threw paint—”
“Apologies. I shall order you another,” Lord Aaron says crisply, “as I’m among their chief financiers.”
Lady Mei’s eyes grow wide, and for once she has nothing to say.
“The Foundation does have a number of anticorporate, anti-GMO members who like to make a ruckus,” Duke Spencer explains, “but the main reason they exist is to help Sonoma employees who get paid in Sonoman-Versailles credits.”
“Why would we need help?” She bristles.
“You don’t. Most of the residents of the palace don’t. But those who wish to quit—or who get fired—quickly discover that after living in company-owned housing, earning company-issued currency, their salary is almost worthless anywhere else. It’s an economic model once called the company store, and it was outlawed for a long time—until companies like ours started buying their own countries where they could enact their own laws. Our employees might lose their job after fifteen years and discover their life savings won’t feed them for three months.
“The Foundation finds housing and work for Sonoma’s corporate refugees,” Lord Aaron adds, calmer, but sounding depressed now. I’m not sure it’s an improvement. “A few dozen each month.”
“So many?” asks Lady Mei.
“Sonoma Inc. is a very big company,” Lord Aaron says with a bitter grimace.
“Replacing human workers is hardly new.”
“But the jobs that currently still have to be performed by human hands—mechanics and technicians, mostly—can all be taken by these new bots, pretty much immediately. So that ‘few dozen’ will turn into thousands. The Foundation will be overwhelmed. And that’s just the Sonoma employees that the Foundation deals with directly. Over the next few years, it’ll happen worldwide. Millions upon millions of human beings, instantly obsolete. Jobless. Homeless. It’s going to ravage society in a way we haven’t seen since the Industrial Revolution.”
“But the Industrial Revolution was a turning point in development of the world. A positive one,” Lady Mei argues.
“Sure, decades after the fact,” Lord Aaron snaps. “At the time, it happened so quickly that the rich got obscenely wealthy while the poor died in droves.”
Lady Mei sits back, clearly affronted, and Duke Spencer murmurs something in Lord Aaron’s ear. A long silence passes before Lord Aaron rubs a hand over his face and releases a noisy sigh. “I’m sorry, Lady Mei. You didn’t deserve that.”
“Already forgiven,” Lady Mei says, leaning forward and patting his hand. “You’re overwrought—it happens to us all.”
“Thank you,” Lord Aaron whispers. “I’ve been thinking of leaving Sonoman-Versailles for years. I adore our culture, our formality, but I wanted a chance to find someone in a…broader population. But also, I frequently felt…wrong, living the decadence that we take so for granted.” He smiles sadly, his eye
s turning to me. “I love it—you know I do. But it started to weigh on me, living so finely when I know there are so many in the world who are suffering. It’s not that I thought I could save everyone—I know I can’t—but I didn’t want to sit up in a literally gilded palace and remain apart from the very real concerns of the rest of the world.”
“But you stayed,” I say.
“I stayed,” he agrees, his hand sliding onto Duke Spencer’s knee. “For love. I found someone I loved more than I worried about the rest of the world. In the end, I guess I’m just another spoiled, selfish noble.”
I don’t say anything. Aren’t I doing exactly the same thing?
“I thought maybe I could make a difference from inside the company, and I’ve tried. But this? This is catastrophic.”
“I think you’re making too much of this,” says Lady Mei. “It’s one company making bots. You said it yourself—automation has been destroying jobs for centuries, and people always find something else to do. It’s a time-honored tradition: if you’re replaced by a machine, learn how to build the machine.”
Lord Aaron shakes his head. “Not when they’re good enough to build themselves. Most bots are purpose-built and can perform only a narrow range of tasks. Because of their versatility, the bots we have in the palace are far and away more advanced than anything anyone else in the world can get for less than a price tag in the millions. Each. Danica, how many years do you think it took for programmers to make a bot that could fasten all the little closures on your gowns?”
I remember the way my mother used to threaten to buy more stock in Amalgamated every time a human staff member made her angry. It doesn’t seem amusing at all anymore.
“It looks like they’re advanced enough now to mass-produce. They’re ready to start raking in the profits and displacing workers by the millions.” Lord Aaron looks so disgusted I start to feel ashamed that I can’t work up the energy to care.
But I’m where Lord Aaron was two years ago: giving up my standards for the one I love. I suppose I should embrace the irony.