Chapter Seven In Which Skullduggery Is Contemplated #2
“If we can prove that there really has been an increased rate of incorrect Heartsong matches, then we can push the council to commission an investigation and place your match under review.” Daphne spread her hands.
“And then, voilà! You break off your engagement to Buford, and the two of you can go on your merry, and very separate, ways. You’ll be free to discover your true soulmate and live out the rest of your life in perfect bliss.
Rainbows and fireworks and shooting stars, all that bullshit. ”
Zada glanced down at the floor, at the recycled laminate peeking through the gaps in the woven rug she’d made in historical arts class. “And if it doesn’t work?”
“It’ll work. And if it doesn’t, there’s worse things than a change of scene, you know.” Daphne leaned forward, a conspiratorial smile on her face. “I’m saying, you leave New Ionia—”
“Yes, I got that,” Zada snapped. “Why do you insist on bringing that up? I could never go, even if I wanted to—and I don’t. You know what it’s like out there. I wouldn’t survive by myself.”
“You wouldn’t be alone. I’d invite myself along. I’ve always wanted to try faking my own death. It sounds like fun.”
“You’d be no help,” Zada huffed. She shook her head. “I can’t believe Flora and Aiden were really prepared to leave.”
“They were desperate.”
“So you say.” Who was she to judge? She was desperate, too.
It was the only reason she was entertaining the idea of going against everything she’d been raised to believe in and abide by.
The only reason she was willing to consider that the very foundation upon which New Ionia was built might have a few cracks.
But if she found a flaw in the Heartsong program, only good could come of it. New Ionia was all about innovation, about improving upon the past and refining the present until it was the best it could possibly be. She really would be doing a service to the city.
And if she discovered that Buford was truly her match, after all, then she would recommit herself to him and to the life she ought to be leading. She just needed to make sure.
“All right, if there’s a flaw in Heartsong, do you know how many of the matches are off?”
“They were throwing around a lot of numbers, it didn’t all stick.” Daphne winced. “Two percent, maybe? No higher than five.”
Zada nodded thoughtfully. She could feel her mind shifting into problem-solving mode, away from the swamp of messy emotions clogging her throat and into the safer world of math and numbers.
“Do you know when it started?” she asked.
“Judging from the very narrow slice of conversation I was able to pick up? About twenty years ago,” said Daphne.
“I’d need a list of every match from the last twenty years,” said Zada.
“That’s a lot of matches,” Daphne mused.
“Yes.” Zada did some quick mental calculations. “Everyone who’s matched in the last twenty years, so say, on average, ages nineteen through thirty-nine. That would be about eighteen percent of the population.”
“How do you know that?” sputtered Daphne.
“Nerd mode,” said Zada. “We talked about demographics all the time in social studies. Doesn’t matter. So out of one million citizens, give or take a few every year that join the convent, that’s ninety thousand unions.”
Daphne’s eyes went wide. “How do you plan on gathering intel on ninety thousand marriages? No feed goes back that far.”
“Is there some kind of city database that logs all the matches?” asked Zada.
“Yeah,” said Daphne, “in the Core itself, at City Hall. Unfortunately, the door log reported that someone got in during Flora and Aiden’s wedding and I hear they’ve really beefed up their security.”
“Hmm,” said Zada. She tapped her thumb against each callused fingertip of her left hand, wishing she had another quaint little square of paper to fidget with.
One of the fake letters from a florist or a cake shop, even if her skin crawled ever so slightly at the notion that they’d known so quickly about her impending nuptials—and there it was.
She snapped her fingers. “Businesses can access the full list, right? Along with everyone’s birthdate, gender, and student number.
Otherwise they wouldn’t know what to sell us. ”
“They can,” said Daphne. “On their private feeds. How are you going to—”
“Most shopkeepers keep a pretty close eye on their Gems, obviously,” Zada broke in.
“But I remember Flora did say that when she visited the dressmaker, Mx. Beauchamp had to keep scurrying to a back room to access theirs. Something about hating the feel of jewelry. So if I can sneak in there for a few seconds, I can use my clone-scanner to copy the list onto a new Gem.”
“You, uh, still have that thing?” Daphne’s voice sounded strangely gruff. She’d given the clone-scanner—obtained, according to her, on the black market via a series of highly unlikely shenanigans—to Zada for her fifteenth birthday.
“Of course,” said Zada, with more feeling than intended.
Daphne cleared her throat. “Well,” she said briskly. “I guess that’s useful. So once you have your ninety thousand matches, what’s next? How do you determine which ones are false?”
“Randomize a sample and then research everything I can find about them,” said Zada. “Visit them door-to-door if I have to.”
“The nuns collect personal testimonies from people in the dome,” said Daphne. “You could probably cross-reference them. I know how you feel about cross-referencing.”
Zada nodded. “It could take weeks to find a likely candidate. If the rate of mistaken matches really is two percent now, then any recent couple has a one in fifty chance of being faulty.” It also meant that hundreds and hundreds of New Ionians in total had been partnered with the wrong person, but she refused to let her thoughts settle on that shifting, uncertain territory.
“Hmm,” said Daphne. “How are you going to access Mx. Beauchamp’s Gem?”
“I’ll creep back and—”
“Right, and what will Mx. Beauchamp be doing while you creep?”
Zada could feel her face fall. “I’ll have to cause a distraction. I guess I could come in and ask questions about my dress?”
“Then how will you sneak away during a fitting?” Daphne pressed.
Of course. Zada sighed. There was a reason she’d always worked as part of a team. “I don’t know.”
“This all sounds like a two-person job,” said Daphne, somehow reading Zada’s mind. She leaned back onto her elbows. “Good thing that last time I checked, we are two people.”
Zada tried not to boggle. “What?”
“Oh, come on, you’re the one of us who’s good at numbers,” said Daphne, examining her nails.
“Why would you help me?” Zada managed at last. “You have no reason to.”
“Buford is a promising baby politician-in-training,” said Daphne. “That means people will be watching, hoping to get on his good side. They’ll be strategizing and planning and anticipating. Imagine if the wedding just—doesn’t happen.” Her eyes glittered. “Hilarious.”
Zada pinched the bridge of her nose. “You can’t literally do this for shits and giggles.”
Daphne opened her mouth.
“And don’t,” Zada hurried onward, “say, ‘Why, Zada, how is there shit involved?’ Please don’t. This is my future. You don’t have to care about that, but if this is purely a lark for you, I don’t want your help.”
Daphne closed her mouth. Then she sat up straight and said, “Look, I wanted to help Flora and Aiden but I couldn’t. You and I, we were friends once. Can we chalk it up to old time’s sake?”
She looked so achingly sincere that for a beat, Zada couldn’t think of what to say.
“Right,” said Zada. “Okay. Truce?”
“Temporary truce,” Daphne agreed. “You realize we’ll be spending a lot of time together, right?”
“I do,” Zada told her. “If anyone asks, you’re helping me plan the wedding. We’ve rekindled our friendship, and you have many, many opinions on pearl white versus cream.”
“Ugh,” said Daphne, with feeling. “Yeah, okay. And you can stay with me at Grandfather’s estate, or else you’ll be spending about half our skullduggery time just riding the train into town and back.”
Zada nodded. “We absolutely cannot get caught,” she heard herself say.
There was no need to explain why. She was risking everything on the chance that, just maybe, her Heartsong match was wrong.
If they were apprehended, Daphne, the chancellor’s granddaughter, would likely face no consequences, but Zada’s reputation and future were on the line.
And if the worst came to pass, she’d be Extricated.
“Of course,” said Daphne. Then, with an all-too-familiar rakish grin, she stuck out her hand and said, “Ruin a wedding with me?”
This was a foolhardy, impossible mission that went against everything Zada had ever known. But everything seemed impossible, until the first time it happened. And with Daphne, the possibilities had always felt endless.
They shook on it. They were in this together now. It was the two of them, against the world—just like old times.
“Well then,” said Zada. “Let’s get started.”