"This job goes against the government."
Miss Brown said it plainly, without softening it. "Which means if we're seen, we're not students anymore. We're something else entirely." She looked at each of us. "Anyone who wants to leave, leave now."
Mute shifted in his seat. The movement of someone calculating. He didn't stand.
Mr Kim pressed himself up from the chair with the effort of a man who had not been designed for getting up quickly and had made peace with that. He straightened his coat, which appreciated the gesture without fully cooperating.
"Brown has introduced me," he said. "Let me give you the details."
We leaned in.
"Each of you will receive a gold card." He said it like it was the first item on a list, matter of fact, moving on. But I caught it landing differently on the others. Annabelle, Mute, Wells, all of them reading something into it that I didn't have the context for yet. Sherry, beside me, was in the same position I was. Still learning what things meant here.
