The estate of House Dion had gotten worse since I’d last seen it. Vines wormed into the rafters. Shutters dangled by their final nail. The main house had so much paint that it was impossible to tell what the color had ever been. The front stairs to the veranda had collapsed on one side. A young trail in the grass led to the old servant stair that had become the default. It was there that I was intercepted by Rose.

"Where are all your friends?" She said more playfully than I would have expected. She'd spent the previous week in jail for the scene she'd made in the Lowland Court. From what I'd heard, she had not handled her stay well.

"Only me today. I don't have much need for backup with a midday social call." I smiled. Rose smiled. She had tied her hair back, high and proud. The silken layers of her dress flowed to an inky pool gathered at her feet. It seemed Rose had reserved all of her spirits for this meeting.

"A social call? That's a nice way of saying it. We'll take tea at the pavilion. Come with me." Rose led me through a garden that was a bit weedy, but not unpleasant.

"I've never seen your gardens. Are they your work?"

She turned with a blush on her cheek. "When I'm up for it, yes."

"I envy you. I love every garden I've ever stood in."

"I'll pretend you're not teasing me."

"No, I'd never." The pavilion, also not unpleasant, was just ahead. Paul stood at a table. A boy with a mane of rust-red hair was sulking in one of the chairs. I had never seen nor met the youngest Dion boy. The rumor, likely seeded by his parents, was that he had a troubled temper.

"Is that your son sitting at the table?"

"It is. I thought he should be part of the conversation, given the circumstances. It's good you came alone. He gets anxious around strange people."

"I understand. Remind me, how old is he?"

"He has seventeen years."

"That's a difficult time."

"Truly. He was already struggling to learn the responsibilities he'll inherit, now we're dealing with this marriage mess."

As we entered the pavilion Paul Dion nudged his son to stand. Rose left me at the archway. Paul strode over to greet me with a hard handshake. He introduced his son, Remy, who gave me a sullen "hello" from behind his hair and sat back down. Rose returned with a tray of tea and fresh cheese. All sat, poured, and passed. I decided to begin.

"I was hoping you would share with me the cause of disagreement between yourselves and House Usher."

"You should be talking to them, then," Paul said. "We didn't think anything of them before. Didn't know them, didn't want to know them. They were over there in Cruxham, and we're over here. Then you all changed your minds about my daughter's first marital contract and signed her for the Ushers. Then we get a summons to take her to some health inspector, at the request of House Usher. We tried being compromising, even took her where they wanted us to in Cruxham, their holding. The supposed inspector cooks up some ridiculous report that Usher uses to slander my daughter in his papers until you all give him what he wants."

"Much like he's doing now. No one has cared what he said to me in that Court hall," Rose said.

"None of you cared back then either. You gave the Ushers their out and finally decided to send my daughter to that dead-end House in the Midlands. We'll likely never see her again. But that's still not enough." Paul's temper was beginning to bubble.

"I can see how things have been poorly explained, and I do apologize for my colleagues' lack of communication--."

"Is there some better interpretation?" Rose scoffed.

"Only one of ignorance rather than malice. Things didn't progress as smoothly as they should have at the time of Isme's first contract. The family planners corrected the error far later than they should have. However, the reason for that contract's cancellation was provoked by your eldest son's actions. The planners would never marry siblings into a single House. It wasn't meant to punish you or your daughter, it was just a matter of mitigation. A response to the unanticipated. The same goes for House Usher now. They created a problem that the Directory planners could not have foreseen and it had to be mitigated. There was no value in forcing through the marriage for Isme, but we also can't afford to have two Houses escalating a conflict like this. You may not believe me, but let me ask, do you believe that Langston Usher will continue to write about your House once his daughter is a member of it?"

Remy spoke first. "I'm not going to marry her."

I looked to Paul and Rose, but neither seemed intent on correcting him. "Your Houses have been assigned. Despite the adjustments, you still both have qualifying members--"

Remy made some noise like a growl, balled his hands into red fists, and slammed them down on the table so hard the teacups bounced. "You aren't listening," he seethed. "You can say that all you like, you can move her in here, but I won't marry her. She'll never be my wife, just some ugly girl that shouldn't be in my house." He stood up and kicked his chair over before running off into the main house. Neither Rose nor Paul offered an apology.

"You've upset him," was all Rose said.

"I see that. My apologies." It was time to box this up. "Unfortunately, the union is all but final. The Directory will only expedite the process, the more it is resisted. You don't have to like the Ushers, but you need to be able to sit with them for the duration of the contract closing--"

"What if we can't?" Paul smirked.

"Then they'll go through closing without you and make your son the official Head of House Dion."

Paul clenched his fists and for a moment I thought he would make the same exit as his son. "I want it in proper writing that Usher will retract all the bile he's concocted about my family. Something that says you all will do something useful about it if he keeps up his slander."

"I can draft something when I leave here."

"See that you do, and we'll go to your... meeting, and pretend we don't hate it." Paul stood abruptly. "If you have some other demand you can tell it to my wife, she'll see you out." And with that, he walked out of the pavilion.

Rose watched him and shrugged. "You should have expected that." She stood and I followed. "Are there more demands?" She said over her shoulder.

"Not really. Personally, I'd recommend that Remy be refreshed on the way of things. Might make the change easier for him to adjust to."

"In my experience being told you have no choice simplifies things, but it doesn't make them any better or easier."

Rose cut across the front lawn rather than guiding me back through the pathways. I quickened my pace to keep up with her. "I was glad to see Paul here today, given the last time you and I met."

She stopped at the inner gate, her hand frozen on the lock. "You think you saw a happy marriage? A resolved marriage? You didn't, but you Directory people never seem to grasp how the Old Families work. No matter how much we may hate each other, a House will always close ranks when threatened. It was our families who lose their heads and homes for the sake of your new world. Even the most broken of us will do everything we can to prevent it from happening again." She yanked the gate open and held it for me.

AIRTEL TO:

[REDACTED]

An Introduction to

Economic Amplifiers

2 of 2

Short List of Data Inputs

FIRST QUESTIONS: (1) What (2) When (3)Where (4) How (5) Why (6) Who

GENERAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION:

(1) Wire taps

(2) Surveillance

(3) Analysis of Household waste

(4) Behavior of Children in educating centers

STANDARD OF LIVING ANALYSIS: (1) Foods (2) Clothing (3) Shelter (4) Mode of transport

SOCIAL CONTACTS:

(1) Wires - Itemized records of all correspondents.

(2) Family - Marriage records, birth records, etc.

(3) Friends, associates, etc.

(4) Memberships in organizations.

(5) Political affiliation.

Personal Paper Trail

INDICATIONS: Personal buying preferences, personal consumer preferences.

ASSETS: (1) Cheque accounts (5) Transportation

(2) Trust accounts (6) Safety deposits

(3) Property (7) Investments, when applicable

(4) Business

LIABILITIES: (1) Creditors (2) Loans (3) Enemies - SEE LEGAL

DIRECTORY SOURCES:

(1) Welfare (4) Doles (7) Taxes

(2) Social Safety. (5) Grants. (8) Census

(3) Surplus Food Program. (6) Subsidies (9) Mail

Habit Patterns — Programming

STRENGTHS and WEAKNESSES:

(1) Activities - sports, hobbies, etc.

(2) See ‘Legal’ - fear, anger, etc. — criminal records

(3) Hospital records - drug sensitivities, reaction to pain, etc.

(4) Psychiatric records - fears, angers, disgusts, adaptability, reactions to stimuli, violence, suggestibility, pain, pleasure, love, and sexual relations.

METHODS OF COPING — OF ADAPTABILITY — BEHAVIOR:

(1) Consumption of alcohol (4) Spiritualist Zealotry

(2) Consumption of drugs (5) Other methods of escapism

(3) Entertainment

PAYMENT MEANS:

(1) Payment of household communications (5) Housing payments

(2) Energy purchases (6) Transport payments

(3) Meter purchases (7) Credit payments

(4) Repayment of loans

POLITICAL SENSITIVITY:

(1) Beliefs (2) Contacts (3) Positions

(4) Strengths/ Weaknesses (5) Projects/ Activities

LEGAL INPUTS — BEHAVIOR CONTROL

Cause for investigation, search, arrest, or the employment of force to modify behavior.

(1) Court Records (4) Anonymous tip records

(2) Law enforcement records (5) Insurance accounts

(3) Driving records, when applicable. (6) Anti-establishment associates

National Input Information

COMMERCE AND TAX DATA:

(1) Prices of commodities

(2) Sales

(3) Investments

(a) Stocks/ Inventory

(b) Production tools and machinery

(c) Buildings and improvements

(d) The stock exchange

BANKS and CREDIT BUREAUS: (1) Credit information (2) Payment information

MISCELLANEOUS SOURCES:

(1) Polls and surveys

(2) Publications

(3) Wire records

(4) Energy and utility purchases

Short List of Outputs

OUTPUTS - The creation of controlled situations.

— Engineering of social behaviors via economic adjustment

— Control by oversight of compensation and income

SEQUENCE:

(1) Allocates opportunities

(2) Reduces opportunities

(3) Controls the economic environment

(4) Controls the availability of raw materials

(5) Controls capital

(6) Controls bank rates

(7) Controls the inflation of the currency

(8) Controls the possession of property

(9) Controls industrial capacity

(10) Controls manufacturing

(11) Controls the availability of goods

(12) Controls the prices of commodities

(13) Controls services, labor force, etc.

(14) Controls payments to OFS

(15) Controls the legal functions

(16) Controls individual personal data files - cannot be written over

(17) Controls advertising

(18) Controls media content

(19) Controls material available for news broadcasts

(20) Disengages attention from complex issues

(21) Engages emotion/ offense

(22) Creates disorder, chaos, and insanity

(23) Controls design of tax forms

(24) Controls surveillance

(25) Controls the storage of information

(26) Develops psychological profiles of individuals

(27) Controls sociological factors

(28) Controls health options

(29) Exploitations of weakened immunity

(30) Resource siphoning