"You know about the thirty-day clause?" I ask.
She jerks, surprised I spoke. "What?"
"Thirty days. That's the trial period. If your buyer is cruel, if you can't survive it, you can terminate. You lose the payment, but you walk away." I shift my ankle, feeling the knife in my boot. "Always have an exit strategy."
"But the credits."
"Are worthless if you're dead."
She studies me then, really looks. Takes in the scars on my knuckles, the way I sit (back to the wall, clear view of the door), the silver dress that costs more than she's ever seen. "You're not here for credits."
"No."
"Then why?"
I could lie. Tell her about fictional debts or dying relatives. Instead, I watch the mirror as they remove the girl in yellow, as they prepare the platform for the next offering. "I'm here for a specific buyer."
Her forehead creases. "You can't know who'll bid."
"I can if I've done my research."
The Vorthan broker's gills had fluttered with excitement when she'd finally given me the name, after three years of dead ends and false leads. Nezavek.
Void Walker. The three-pronged scorch mark burned into the floor where Melara died matched old records of void energy signatures. Multiple incidents, but the broker swore this one was recent, was him.
"He always bids on the memorable ones," she'd said, webbed fingers counting my credits. "Silver hair like yours? Rare enough to catch attention. He'll be curious."
Curious. Good. I need him curious enough to take me home, comfortable enough to let his guard down.
The guard by the door, with four arms and an expression of terminal boredom, straightens. "Lessa. You're up."
She stands on shaking legs. Smooths that same wrinkle one last time. "What if no one bids?"
"Someone always bids." I keep my voice neutral. "That's the problem."
She walks out, and I don't watch her auction. I've seen enough frightened women sold to know how it ends.
My fingers find the thin scar along my ribs, the one that never healed right after Jakarta. The medic said I was lucky: another inch and the blade would have hit something important. I told him luck had nothing to do with it. The merc who put it there had aimed for center mass. I'd just moved faster.
I'll need to move faster today too.
"Yorika."
The guard's voice is flat. Bored. To him, I'm just another product to move.
The walk to the platform is twenty-three steps. I count them. The warehouse opens up around me, a soaring ceiling lost in shadows, crowds of buyers pressed against barriers. The smell hits harder here. Ozone from the portal station. Sweat from a hundred different species. Something else, too. Something cold that makes my teeth ache.
The platform is simple wood, worn smooth by thousands of feet. The auctioneer is human, which surprises me. Elderly, bent, survived the post-Shift world by making himself useful to the new order. He doesn't meet my eyes as he reads from his tablet.
"Lot 49. Yorika. Human female, twenty-seven years. Physical training background. Verified intact. Starting bid at five hundred credits."
The lies cost extra, but they're necessary. Virgin stock brings higher prices, attracts different buyers. The kind who collect rare things.
A Zelthani raises a webbed hand immediately. "One thousand."
"Fifteen hundred." A Korthani, his four mechanical eyes clicking as they focus on me.
"Two thousand."
