Pakart looked at Hesta with some surprise, then quickly pointed to another chair in front of her. "No. Come, sit."
"I came from the other side." Hesta pointed toward the other end of the room. "Were you waiting for me?"
"Where have you been these past few days?"
"The Pious Youth Front, do you remember?" Hesta said softly. "I paid a visit to their settlement—"
Pakart's gaze suddenly sharpened. "Is this the organization trying to establish a socialized childcare system?"
"They say it's meant to take in abandoned babies and orphans from nearby," Hesta replied. "But there may be other considerations—"
"Mass-producing tools they can command, is that it?"
"Maybe." Hesta looked at the lamp on Pakart's desk and fell silent for a while. "You recalled an email earlier..."
"I did intend to tell you about that reply," Pakart said, narrowing her eyes. "But before that, tell me: were the people leading their socialized childcare project all men?"
"I'm not sure. I didn't meet many members of the organization this time," Hesta answered truthfully. "But the person who introduced the project to me was indeed a man... Why do you ask?"
"Look at this first."
Pakart pushed several sheets of white paper from the desk toward Hesta.
Hesta glanced over them and immediately recognized the body of the email Pakart had recalled that day. Though she had not had time to read it, the shapes and placement of the charts felt familiar.
"Orphan mortality rates at the end of the Silver Age?" Hesta skimmed through it in leaps.
"It states it very clearly. In the mid-to-late eighteenth century, orphanages in the most prosperous areas of District 4 took in roughly twenty thousand infants every decade. Of those, fewer than a third survived past their first birthday.
"In the early nineteenth