**Thank you for reading my novel. If you enjoyed the story, please give it a like and leave a comment — your support really encourages me to keep writing and sharing more chapters.**73Please respect copyright.PENANAiR7lNOzjQX
Robin Shen saw Zorina again forty-six hours later.
He did not set foot on the island himself.
At least, not publicly.
The first arrival was a low-consumption supply vessel73Please respect copyright.PENANAXr9pd5d1fU
bearing the crest of a private medical foundation. Officially, it was73Please respect copyright.PENANAORh36C71L6
conducting a search-and-rescue operation for missing technical personnel in the73Please respect copyright.PENANAIOPN4U4KlH
South Atlantic. On board were two medics, three crates of emergency supplies, a73Please respect copyright.PENANAfs487hbVgD
portable communication tower, and twelve containers which looked, with73Please respect copyright.PENANAmy2C3IHj6g
admirable innocence, like medical refrigeration units.
They were in fact filled with unregistered energy73Please respect copyright.PENANALXJWokoW3E
cartridges.
A distinction only the law would have found meaningful.
When Zorina descended from the direction of the volcano, the73Please respect copyright.PENANA7CMeJncoaN
rescue team stared at her.
She was still wearing the torn flight suit. There was dried73Please respect copyright.PENANAgTCndaLeh5
blood at her temple, evidence of injury, though no injury impressive enough to73Please respect copyright.PENANAPyw5POrweq
satisfy the expectations of people who had been sent to retrieve a crash73Please respect copyright.PENANASZEwF8PiDz
survivor. Her expression did not belong to someone recently rescued from73Please respect copyright.PENANA50XaBYG5pu
disaster.
She was too calm.
So calm, in fact, that she looked less like a woman awaiting73Please respect copyright.PENANAcqfA0LnnMK
rescue and more like a supervisor watching a shipment of tools arrive late.
“Miss Li,” one of the medics said carefully, “please allow73Please respect copyright.PENANAZI2tCcxx1C
us to conduct a medical examination.”
“Set up the communication tower first.”
“But your injuries—”
“My injuries are not your occupation, so you may relax. They73Please respect copyright.PENANAG5zdqhYQ58
will not make you redundant.” She looked at him. “The tower.”
The medic, having encountered the sort of woman whom even73Please respect copyright.PENANARNtwcYAGuv
trauma had failed to render decorative, sensibly stopped speaking.
The communication tower was assembled inside the temporary73Please respect copyright.PENANAsHMylpxysE
shelter. A few minutes later, Robin Shen’s holographic image appeared above the73Please respect copyright.PENANA1RkjMUTSi4
projection unit.
He wore a silver-grey suit that was offensively expensive.73Please respect copyright.PENANA7BOtXsGos0
Behind him, there seemed to be a banquet terrace: laughter, music, the soft73Please respect copyright.PENANAopLIsLVmeW
chime of champagne glasses, and the well-bred murmur of people who had never73Please respect copyright.PENANAjJMMtMsHCw
once been inconvenienced by the truth without making staff handle it.
He looked exactly like any young plutocratic heir of 3911.
Beautiful.
Careless.
Irritating.
A man who appeared to have never concerned himself with73Please respect copyright.PENANAohDyas5pqI
anyone’s survival unless it affected the seating arrangement.
But his eyes were different.
His eyes, when they rested on Zorina, contained no trace of73Please respect copyright.PENANAOWdzArzhgX
wine.
“You’ve lost weight,” he said.
Zorina sat in the folding chair opposite the projection.
“You’ve gained some.”
Robin sighed. “Plutocratic life is brutal. One must73Please respect copyright.PENANANAGF8raLtx
accumulate spare fat for warmth.”
“Good,” she said. “Your fat may soon become useful.”
One of his eyebrows lifted.
“After all these years, and not a single tender word. I can73Please respect copyright.PENANAlZiE9OBJIP
see exile has improved your manners.”
Zorina ignored him and placed the first energy crystal on73Please respect copyright.PENANAO0aQR35EPK
the scanning table.
It was a tiny thing.
Almost unimpressive.
Robin looked at it.
“What is that?”
“An energy crystal formed from converted human waste73Please respect copyright.PENANAb8l2etYdfP
biomass.”
He considered her.
“Human language, please.”
“Fat, viral remnants, necrotic cells, metabolic waste.73Please respect copyright.PENANAd8EdfaTl2T
Converted into stable energy.”
The lazy expression on Robin Shen’s face slowly disappeared.
He did not understand the world as Atlas did. Atlas read73Please respect copyright.PENANAX4GLT6varJ
systems through data, structure, and pattern. Robin read them through price,73Please respect copyright.PENANAzfmjL19N9T
leverage, appetite, fear, and the speed at which people became murderous when73Please respect copyright.PENANAqhnsPOZaS3
ownership was in dispute.
Which meant he understood the crystal faster than almost73Please respect copyright.PENANAxSHG7RRmOK
anyone else would have.
“Efficiency?”
“Unknown at scale. The device I found is only a73Please respect copyright.PENANA8rIcpNTYAv
first-generation interface.”
“Side effects?”
“Low-grade operation appears painless. It also produces73Please respect copyright.PENANAaGW6WkNgAc
medical repair.”
“Reproducible?”
Zorina paused.
“The equipment can be generated. But the core activation73Please respect copyright.PENANAnufFzZ43C6
currently requires me.”
Robin heard the important part and smiled, charmingly enough73Please respect copyright.PENANA79rrlABYnQ
to suggest that civilisation had been invented only to give him places to be73Please respect copyright.PENANAd4HJrl2ban
forgiven.
“So if someone steals the machine, they may not be able to73Please respect copyright.PENANANXGpqzB8N9
use it.”
“Correct.”
“Can it be scaled to city level?”
“With time, materials, space, a legal shell, and a large73Please respect copyright.PENANAfz5VYAYCDf
number of willing participants.”
Robin laughed softly.
“Willing participants? Zori, you underestimate human73Please respect copyright.PENANAw8E9Va81v7
vanity. Tell the Second Tier you can reduce fat, repair damaged cells, lower73Please respect copyright.PENANAh4MCiSJkBs
viral residue, and slow visible ageing, and they’ll queue into the sea. You73Please respect copyright.PENANAneigKzyoH8
needn’t mention energy at all.”
“I reached the same conclusion.”
“Medical aesthetics as the shell. Healthcare as the flag.73Please respect copyright.PENANAhxd6kwMKNq
Plutocratic bodies as the first raw supply.” Robin’s voice grew slower as he73Please respect copyright.PENANAsVYVhq8WdH
assembled the idea. “Charge them money, extract their waste, convert it into73Please respect copyright.PENANAbd6KNacMP3
energy, then use that energy to expand the system.”
Zorina watched him.
“Would it work?”
“Perfectly.”
He sat a little straighter. The laughter and music behind73Please respect copyright.PENANAbzOpzvyqN8
him seemed, all at once, unrelated to him.
“But you must understand something. This is not starting a73Please respect copyright.PENANAonikXgfsJi
company. This is declaring war on Quota Civilisation. The moment energy is no73Please respect copyright.PENANADTTvWclcRj
longer something regimes alone can distribute, the Five Tier system begins to73Please respect copyright.PENANAcy8Oj6jvzM
loosen. The First Tier will want to control you. The Second Tier will want73Please respect copyright.PENANAF4lTSCe8nn
shares in you. The Third Tier will want to reverse-engineer you. The Fourth73Please respect copyright.PENANAWzt72NlchH
Tier will call you hope. The Fifth Tier may call you a god.”
“I do not want to be a god.”
Robin looked at her.
“My dear, when has history ever troubled itself with what73Please respect copyright.PENANA5hx7SFJUAv
women wanted to be called?”
Zorina did not answer.
His voice lowered.
“You have always been like this. Since we were children. The73Please respect copyright.PENANAj8b6iSTRhj
instant you see someone drowning, you reach for them. Have you considered that73Please respect copyright.PENANA2xGnS0QyWN
this time the entire world may be underwater and holding on to your wrist?”
“That is why I called you.”
“Because I am charming?”
“Because you know how to bribe lifeguards.”
Robin paused.
Then he laughed.
For one brief moment, the expensive suit, the banquet, the73Please respect copyright.PENANAfdbcsivjk3
plutocratic mask, all of it slipped. He looked almost like the boy from a Hong73Please respect copyright.PENANA7wkJhBNk9W
Kong kindergarten playground, placing sweets in her hand with the solemn73Please respect copyright.PENANAvZ9XghKd4v
generosity of a child who had not yet learned that kindness was dangerous.
Back then, whenever she had needed something, Robin had73Please respect copyright.PENANAztH3ASo6HJ
appeared with money, access, excuses, and an astonishing talent for making73Please respect copyright.PENANA5YN4DZOApw
consequences lose interest in her. Always at precisely the right moment. Always73Please respect copyright.PENANAe0ODehuxRS
from behind the curtain.
Then his parents died in a political purge dressed very73Please respect copyright.PENANAsslThHYE1x
neatly as a traffic accident.
After that, he learned to play the fool.
To be stupid.
To be rotten.
To become the sort of decorative wastrel everyone73Please respect copyright.PENANAT3isAafcq9
underestimated, because the powerful were always more comfortable around vice73Please respect copyright.PENANAkxyw3WxL7s
than intelligence.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll help you.”
“Conditions?”
“Conditions?” Robin looked almost offended. “What conditions73Please respect copyright.PENANA3EjE8HKwo7
do you imagine I require?”
Zorina was silent.
He looked at her with a stubbornness that had not changed73Please respect copyright.PENANApnqQ937TfD
since childhood.
“I am not helping you because I believe the world deserves73Please respect copyright.PENANAFRvzCKCy1k
saving.”
He smiled as he said it, but his voice was gentler than the73Please respect copyright.PENANAfY1MGXlzit
expression allowed.
“I am helping you because you believe it does.”
Outside the tent, sea wind dragged black volcanic ash across73Please respect copyright.PENANA2oGKPtjjxY
the ground.
Zorina lowered her gaze to the energy crystal.
It was small.
Yet it looked more like dawn than all the white light in73Please respect copyright.PENANAAQs4jVa1PW
Britain’s government domes.
“First step,” she said. “I need Britain to recognise my73Please respect copyright.PENANAk4ttL9dNu8
control of this island.”
Robin’s smile thinned into something more professional.
“Tristan da Cunha remains within Britain’s residual overseas73Please respect copyright.PENANA1tugeJ919a
control sequence. Britain will not simply hand over sovereignty because a73Please respect copyright.PENANA3ZVKxK2jPm
missing analyst has had an eventful weekend.”
“Then we do not ask for sovereignty at first.”
His eyes brightened.
“Development rights. Scientific autonomy. Long-term lease.73Please respect copyright.PENANABHs7B8N2tD
Energy special zone.”
“And one more clause,” Zorina said. “All subterranean73Please respect copyright.PENANA2Jo32bIAGa
discoveries on the island are to be administered by me.”
“Britain will ask what it receives.”
“Priority sales rights. The legal products produced during73Please respect copyright.PENANATILpwSuFXt
phase one of the biological energy medical system: Britain receives priority73Please respect copyright.PENANAsM2QHcs6hk
procurement and agency rights.”
Robin touched his chin.
“They will want control of the technology.”
“They can control distribution. Not the core.”
“They will be displeased.”
“Then let them be shown a demonstration first. Enough to73Please respect copyright.PENANAsrxjvB72is
make them greedy.” She paused. “And they should understand that even if the73Please respect copyright.PENANAOZRwkFn2VN
devices are exposed, they will only operate under my instruction. If they kill73Please respect copyright.PENANA9AAWV3cKEK
me, they inherit nothing.”
Robin studied her for a moment.
“How much are you prepared to show them?”
Zorina closed her fingers around the energy crystal.
“Enough to make them want it. Not enough to make them think73Please respect copyright.PENANAGZum0Lm8wa
they can murder me and take it.”
Robin’s smile returned slowly.
“Starling,” he said, “you have grown up.”
She looked past the tent flap towards the black volcano.
“No,” she said. “I finally have tools.”
**Thank you for reading my novel. If you enjoyed the story, please give it a like and leave a comment — your support really encourages me to keep writing and sharing more chapters.**
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