Elisa was preparing herself for lunch. Her suite had been unlike anything she had ever slept in, a small palace situated a slight bit above cloud level. It even had its own balcony, although remaining there for too long was not advised at present altitude. Cans with supplemental oxygen were available on a rack next to the door.

In the morning, she had received various Feudatoriate dignitaries in the Corzant Pension's stately conference room, each representing a Subsidiarity on Earth. She remembered Kandun Erem, who like most dignitaries had approached her to speak passionately about the possibility of population transfer to Elisa's colony. Mutual agreement between Feudatories permitted the transfer of people between planets, even those that did not hold citizenship, Elisa learned. Kandun Erem could supply highly motivated people for her colony, he had claimed.

Hamishi Okar had invited her for lunch and a tour of his Subsidiarity situated only a few hundred kilometers away, which Elisa politely declined.

The long meetings had already left her dreary. She summoned Oyana.

"Ser Oyana, I have a personal question."

"My notability graces me amply today," she said smiling. "What would you wish to know?"

"When you are not performing your duties, where do you go? Do you have a home?"

"I do," Oyana answered with pride, much to Elisa's relief, as the latter remembered the millions of tightly packed Service Department of Flow contractors she had seen on Maxproxemix, their eternal work days only affording them short breaks in recuperation pods. "It is tiny, but yes, I have a home."

"How tiny?", Elisa asked, concerned it would be a recuperation pod as well.

"Eight cubic meters, your notability."

"Oh!" Elisa's eyes lit up. "That is quite nice! Back when I was on Earth, living with my father, we only had twelve cubic meters with the two of us. And once I got to space, I had to make do with three. Would you say it is possible to go for a visit after lunch? We still have four hours to spend until the ceremony."

Oyana frowned. "I am afraid the milieu is... not too great."

"What do you mean?"

"So far you have only seen the citizen areas, your notability. The dignitaries you met earlier, those are all citizens or above." Elisa knew, as like herself, certain dignitaries were styled 'the notable'. "It is not indicative of the average conditions on Earth, I am sorry to say."

"This sounds like an excellent reason to visit your home. So I can experience the real Earth instead of hiding up in the ivory towers."

"You might not like what you may see," Oyana warned.

"I want to see, and not have wool pulled over my eyes by a bunch of fat cats."

"As you wish, your notability."

"First, let’s have lunch."

===

Elisa and Oyana rode down the escalator and boarded a waiting transport capsule, walking through the aisle until they found two adjacent empty seats. Where the terminal had been spotless, the transport capsule was covered in the type of grime that no amount of scrubbing could remove. The surfaces were not the only unpresentable feature in the cabin. Elisa realized immediately what Oyana was referring to when she spoke of the helots, as she spotted several specimens in subfusc dark clothing draped across the seats.

Then they slowed down and entered the next station. Some of the citizens got off, only to be replaced by more soulless-eyed helots. Why does human trash always have to dress in garbage bags? Elisa wondered.

As the capsule left the station, the freak in front of them turned around and looked over the seat. Irregular white teeth shone in a scarred face. "Ey serra, what ya doin' wif dat bugga dispo?"

Oyana glared back. "Do shut your mouth," she said in a firm tone.

"Ey, yer wif fudi!" the tramp jeered loudly, having spotted Oyana's badge. "Dispo slutta for yer party t'nite? Dispo 'arlot, har har har, ah pakka!" Several other passengers started grinning. "Aybe me come alon' an' hava lekki feast'nite!"

The man pontifically licked the palm of his hand, then moved to grab Elisa's hair. Oyana was faster, drawing a small pistol from a fold in her robe and blasting the hand clean off. Instead of relenting or displaying shock, the man's eyes immediately turned wild, and he attempted to launch himself over the backrest at Oyana. A second shot flashed and took a good chunk of the man's head off, whose body thrashed wildly for a moment, then toppled into the seat behind him before sliding sideways onto the cabin floor.

"Ya see dat? Ya see dat?" another passenger shouted in surprise and excitement. "Dat serra took 'is 'ead off, har har har!"

Much of the cabin burst in frantic but incomprehensible conversation and laughter as blood pooled on the floor, then flowed forward in several crimson streaks as the transit capsule decelerated for the next station.

"We should get off, your notability," Oyana said to Elisa, urging her out of the seat. As the capsule pulled into the station, Elisa saw four blue-clad security officers waiting for them, with more attempting to clear a segment of the platform against a mass of people that all wanted to rush in and take a look at the scene.

The doors opened. Oyana holstered her pistol and disembarked first. To Elisa's surprise, the officers paid her no heed and let her pass. Elisa followed, and was also let through unimpeded. Then Elisa stiffened, as a group of bald, pale-skinned workers cleared the cordon from the opposite direction. Each bore the all-too-familiar livery of Flow and one was hauling what looked like a wheelie bin along.

Behind them, an officer shouted into the cabin, "All up and out, please." The request was met by protests. Some passengers started arguing. "We're not throwing you off, you can board the other cabins...", Elisa overheard as they moved away, while the passengers shouted profanities in return. She heard a noise and turned around just in time to see the blue shape of one of the security guards tumbling backwards out of the cabin, a frenzied passenger latching onto him. Elisa quickly followed Oyana off the platform, as more officers came rushing in from all directions, brandishing stun batons.

"Welcome home, my arse!", Elisa cursed.

"I am sorry your honor was violated, your notability."

"What the fuck is wrong with these people?"

"This is what most normal people on Earth are like, your notability."

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"They are violent morons! Why don't they use Provider tech to upgrade their brains to have more than one pair of neurons?"

"The helot masses despise Providers and distrust their technology, your notability."

"Stop the notability crap!"

"As you wish."

"Let me guess, they violated First Policy repeatedly, and the Providers garrisoned them into compliance?"

"Indeed."

"Fuck them."

Oyana remained silent.

"Something else. Why did they think I was a disposable?"

Oyana expressed embarrassment. "Because of your skin..."

Elisa looked shocked, as the pieces clicked into place. "All the whites are disposables? Why?"

"The populace is free to choose any physical appearance. White is the color primarily associated with colonists. The native helot population predominantly chooses black and male, in physically stronger configurations. When the Providers introduced disposables, there was a demand to have them stand out. Because there is no native white population, no-one objected to the appropriation of that skin color. Looking white and… female… I am sorry…"

"But you are a contracted disposable too?"

"The Feudatoriate has all its contractors genomed for dark skin. We are treated more respectfully that way."

Elisa buried her face in her hands, her knuckles pale. "Fuck. FUCK!"

She was no longer in the mood to ride the transit capsule further to visit Oyana's house and said they would wander the upper-level streets around the station instead. They went past malls and elaborate animated holo-gardens. As they went on, red lanterns in an alleyway to her right caught Elisa's attention. "I want to see what is in there," she said.

Oyana nodded. They encountered an old man in a traditional shirt standing in the door of a mahjongg house. Behind him, tiles could be heard shuffling across lacquered wooden tables. The man laughed, then beckoned them with an underhanded gesture of his fingers.

"You sers look lost. Ha! What brings you to this place?", the old man asked.

"You grace me too much, ser," Oyana replied. "Please, allow me to introduce her notability," she said, completing the forms that indicated the way in which they were supposed to be addressed.

"Apologies, your notability," the old man grinned. "If you can find the time, would you care to come in? I offer you a pot of zhenmei on the house."

Elisa nodded, and they followed the man inside. At the entrance were two traditional carved wooden chairs with a table in between, above which hang a painting of a Chinese woman in a traditional blue robe. Two red banners on either side of her contained black Chinese characters.

Elisa translated. Good fortune wherever you may go, it read.

Patrons briefly looked up at the strange visitors, but then refocused their attention on their games. The old man clapped at a server, dressed in a pristine red dress adorned with crane birds. "Zhenmei," he said sharply, then motioned for his guests to join him at a table in the corner. As soon as they were seated, the server brought cups and a pot of steaming, fragrant tea.

"You may call me Elisa," Elisa finally said. "And this is Oyana."

"Pleased to meet you, Elisa. I am Yee," the man introduced himself. "Are you a tourist?", he asked.

"No, just here because the Feudatoriate invited me."

"Ha!," the man said. "With hair like that, I thought you were a Folkeforening tourist. Only that there are no sights to see around here. And then I saw her badge."

"Better than taking me for a disposable, I guess," Elisa laughed.

"People think that?", Yee snarled.

"Within ten minutes of riding the public transport, no joke," Elisa replied.

"Most people are fools. If I didn't feel so attached to Arobi I'd move off-world myself. But I was born here. And I have family. I am not going to move because of the helots. Those are not my customers, anyway, ha!"

Elisa looked around and across the mahjongg tables. Most patrons had skins with East Asian characteristics, with a few of indeterminable stock.

"Still, the riots are bad for business. They smashed this place three times already. Every time the Feudatoriate sends contractors to mop it all clean and rebuild. But it is an endless cycle. If this keeps up, I will have difficulty replacing my own contractors," he said, glancing at the server girl.

"Could you explain something, ser Yee?", Elisa asked. "This world has three trillion people. There do not seem to be that many establishments compared to the amount of housing areas I saw. Then why do I see disposable contractors everywhere? Why not employ a helot or a citizen?"

Yee burst into laughter so loud that heads turned his way.

"No joke?", he said after he finally regained his breath. He poured the tea, first into Elisa's cup, then Oyana, then his own.

"Sorry, I don't know much about how things work on Earth."

"Helots don't work, Elisa. Can't, or don't want to, probably both. Ever since the Providers appeared six millennia ago and started handing out everything for free, they just sat on their ass. And nearly everyone that gains citizenship transfers out of here. The Providers encourage them to live on these grandiose new worlds they terraformed for us. There are now over three hundred billion ex-Solarites living in the TRAPPIST-1 and Kepler 42 systems, not sure you heard of that."

"I did not know...", Elisa said.

"You see this tea?", Yee said rhetorically. "It doesn't come from Earth. Earth is a dead world. Little is produced here."

"Then where does it come from?" Elisa asked, then took a sip.

Yee pointed a finger upwards. "Every two months, a Provider Mover appears. The large type. Loaded with everything you need to sustain 3 trillion people in luxury. Food, clothing, radioactives, crates full of fine zhenmei tea, shiny stuff to stock the malls..."

Elisa's eyes became narrow. "Yet the helots riot?!"

"Ha! Worse," Yee scowled, while drinking from his cup. "They broke every Provider Policy. Kept trying to rebel, formed their parallel corrupt institutions of power... Then one day all over media was this call to stop sharing data with the Providers, so directly calling for a mass First Policy violation. Many helots got carried away and..."

"And Earth got garrisoned?"

"First thing that showed the Providers were angry was that not one Mover, but three enormous ones appeared in orbit. Of a size unseen before and since. And instead of the usual manna, it rained combat drones. Ha! Endless streams of combat drones. More combat drones than we have people. When they were done, it seemed there was one at every door and window. It was a sight to behold. And then the ultimatum came. People went compliant overnight. The Movers disappeared. Within a week, the drones had disappeared too. But the garrison remained. Then we found the Feudatory was missing."

"Compliance took him?"

"Her. She hasn't been seen since."

"Consequences for failing to uphold the Provider's Policies in a Feudatoriate one governs are... severe. It is the burden of lordship."

"I wouldn't know, I'm just a citizen, not a notability. Either way, we have Ross as our new Feudatory now, and while he is better at upholding the Policies, all other problems remain. The Providers are still despised, the riots still rage, ha! Compliance won't interfere, as hating, vandalizing, even murder are not Policy violations. So there just isn't a good way to stop rioters."

"So the ungrateful shits bite both the hand that feeds them and the one that wipes their butts for them. You could begin by shooting them!"

"Ha! We already do, we already do! The carnage is beyond imagination. And the next day, Flow has issued them a new skin, as even helots have that right, and they go bitch about their brutal mistreatment. While my establishment is still in shambles!"

"Do they target you because you're Asian?" Elisa ventured.

"No, no, this is not a race issue," Yee answered. "It's a class issue. Or a mentality issue, not sure. Anyone with a business like myself, anyone caught working, anyone thought to actually, you know, do well, contribute, enjoy life - those are the targets. Contractors and citizens and their property, mainly."

"I don't know what to say," Elisa replied softly, looking at Oyana. That piece of shit on the capsule will be walking again tomorrow, but if anyone gets Oyana, she won't be coming back, she thought. At least not in one piece.

"I do," Yee said, grinning "I hope one day, those enforcers just let off… clean this place out for good."

Elisa nodded slowly. "We have to go back," she realized. "Thank you so much for the tea, ser Yee."

"My pleasure talking to you, Elisa. And you too, Oyana. I hope to see you both again one day. You're always welcome here."