"What do you think I’ve been trying to do for the past year?" Sam snapped. "It hasn’t done any good. Janice has become a nonperson to Renraku. I know they provided her with the usual benefits of relocation and restart money, but that’s all I know. The Imperial Japanese government is scrupulous about that. They despise metahumans, but they do care about their global image as a compassionate government. Compassionate! Metahumans are the new bunrakumin in Japan; a new class of outcasts, doomed to misery, poverty, and the dirty jobs that the upper classes disdain. Even the bunrakumin look down on metahumans. That’s what Janice has now."