Chapter 4

I knew Brittany well enough by now to take her threats seriously.

At St. Augustine's Prep, she maintained her social position the way our father maintained his business interests—through a network of favors, implied threats, and occasional acts of public humiliation. I'd watched her reduce a sophomore to tears for wearing a dress similar to hers. I'd seen her friends pour ink into backpacks, spread rumors that got people ostracized, create an ecosystem of fear that everyone pretended not to notice.

So when I walked to the garage the next morning and found the Bentley's back seat drenched in red paint, I wasn't surprised.

Brittany stood by the passenger door, dressed in pressed linen, her expression arranged into theatrical regret. "Oh no. I was going to offer you a ride, but there's been an accident. Paint everywhere. Such a shame."

Marcus tossed me a folding umbrella. "Mom and Dad both took the other cars. You'll have to walk." He paused, the pause of someone checking for loopholes. "You can take the car home tonight. That balances out."

Outside, the heat was already pushing ninety-five degrees. The air shimmered above the driveway. My phone showed a heat advisory through noon.

Walking to school now meant arriving soaked in sweat while Brittany glided through the gates air-conditioned and pristine. Walking home tonight, when the temperature dropped and the other vehicles were available, meant nothing.

This wasn't fairness. It was a shell game.

I pulled out my phone, watching their faces.

"Health assessment: Brittany Costello, 85. Valentina Costello, 71. Resource allocation adjusted. Valentina claims vehicular transport for this trip."

Brittany's face dropped. "What does that even mean? Health scores? That's arbitrary."

"System metrics are proprietary and non-negotiable."

The words hung in the garage like a verdict.

I stepped past Brittany and opened the passenger door. "You heard the system. Out."

"That's my car!"

"Was your car." I settled into the leather seat and signaled the driver. "St. Augustine's, please. I have a calculus review session."

The car pulled away, leaving Brittany standing in the garage, her face contorted into something ugly beneath her careful makeup.

I didn't look back. I pulled out my study cards and reviewed integration formulas while the air conditioning dried the sweat on my collar.

...

That evening, the shouting reached my new room from two floors down.

"Your idea, Marcus! Your brilliant, worthless idea! I walked four miles today! Do you know what that kind of heat does to a seventy-dollar blowout?"

"Don't put this on me. You asked for my help. I gave you a plan. Not my fault you executed it badly."

"Executed it badly? The system has health metrics! How was I supposed to know that?"

Through the crack in my door, I watched them in the foyer below. Brittany's dress was wilted, her mascara smudged into gray half-moons beneath her eyes. Her stockings had a run from ankle to knee. Marcus kept trying to step away, but she advanced on him with every accusation.

My father sat in the study, a glass of whiskey in his hand, staring at nothing. My mother was on the phone with someone—a lawyer, from the fragments I caught. "Lifetime binding... no exit clause... there has to be a workaround..."

I closed the door softly and sat on my new bed.

The east guest suite was larger than any room I'd ever slept in. The windows faced the gardens. There was a walk-in closet, an en-suite bathroom, a mattress that didn't smell like mildew. My mother had arranged for furniture overnight—not custom, not Parisian, but clean and functional and mine.

I should have felt triumphant. Instead, I felt something colder.

They'd always had this capacity. They'd always had spare bedrooms, spare resources, spare attention. They'd simply looked at me and decided I wasn't worth the effort. It took electrodes and an algorithm to force what should have been instinct.

...

Three nights later, my door slammed open at two in the morning.

Brittany stood in the hallway, her robe cinched tight, her face luminous with something that looked almost like joy.

"Your little winning streak ends tomorrow," she said. "Father's announcing the share allocation for the company. It's going to be based on academic performance—verifiable, objective, completely fair. Marcus and I have been top-ranked for years. You?" She smiled. "You've been failing."

I sat up slowly. "You're certain my performance is worse than yours?"

"I've seen your transcripts. Everyone has. You're a joke in the junior class." She leaned against the doorframe. "Without grades, you get nothing. Without shares, you're just a girl sleeping in a guest room that can be taken away the moment the system's gone. And trust me—Father is working on that."

She didn't wait for a response. Just turned and walked away, her bare feet silent on the runner.

I waited until her door clicked shut. Then I reached for my phone and opened the testing portal.

The transcripts Brittany had seen were real. My St. Augustine's grades were abysmal—a direct result of three months of stolen homework, sabotaged labs, and the kind of low-grade terror that made focusing in class impossible.

But standardized tests were different. They were administered off-site, proctored by strangers, graded by machines. Brittany's friends couldn't reach them. And I'd been taking them quietly for months, using money I'd saved from the only birthday card I'd received that year—twenty dollars from a grandmother who'd died before I could meet her.

I opened the latest score report.

99th percentile. First in the district.

I uploaded it to the System portal and set my phone aside.

The ceiling was smooth and white above me. No water stains. No exposed pipes. Just clean plaster and good lighting.

Tomorrow was going to be very interesting.