"I'll try," I say.
Kira nods. Not grateful. Expectant. As if this is a debt I owe and she's simply collecting.
Maybe she's right about that too.
The security checkpointon level four is where my illusion of access disintegrates.
I've walked through two sets of doors without trouble, my clearance chip singing its little electronic song to every scanner, opening the way forward. The medical transfer protocols should be simple. I've watched the system work for syndicate members: a request filed, a bed allocated, a transport authorized. Clean, efficient, bureaucratic. The station runs on paperwork even when it runs on blood.
The third checkpoint has two guards. One is bored, leaning against the wall with the studied indifference of someone killing time until shift change. The other is awake, alert, and watching me approach with the particular attention of a man who enjoys the parts of his job that involve saying no.
"Access for medical transfer request," I say, holding up my wrist for the scan.
The alert guard scans it. Looks at the readout. Looks at me.
"Debtor," he says. Not a question.
"I have level-three clearance."
"You have companion-tier clearance." He says it the way you'd correct a child who's mispronounced a word. Patient. A little amused. "That lets you move through residential and recreational areas. Doesn't authorize administrative functions."
"I need to file a medical transfer for someone in the labor ward."
"Then you need someone with administrative authority to file it."
"Fine. How do I reach someone with administrative authority?"
He smiles. The kind of smile that's all teeth and no warmth, the expression of someone who has a very small amount of power and has learned to extract maximum pleasure from wielding it. "You don't. Debtors don't initiate administrative requests. That's policy."
"I'm not a standard debtor. I'm attached to Zane Torrence's household."
"I can see that." His eyes drop to my mark, pulsing its soft glow. "Pretty. Doesn't change policy. You want something filed, you get your keeper to file it."
My keeper. The word sits between us like a slap I can't return.
"There's a woman dying in the labor ward," I say. "She needs real medical care. I have the access to be standing here, which means someone decided I'm allowed to move through this station. Let me file the request."
"Can't." He doesn't even pretend to be sorry. "But I tell you what. You want to wait here while I call up to Mr.Torrence's office, I can verify your authorization to submit administrative requests. If he approves it, I'll process it myself. Might take a few hours, though. He's a busy man."
A few hours. Renna's breathing in my ears. That blue tint around her lips.
"In the meantime," the other guard says, pushing off the wall with the lazy interest of someone who's found entertainment, "you're a debtor in a restricted administrative corridor without authorization. That's a protocol violation."
I feel the ground shift under me before anything physical happens. The way a conversation stops being a conversation and becomes something with rules that only one side knows.
"Standard procedure for unauthorized debtors in restricted areas." The alert guard's voice has gone formal now, almost bored, reciting from memory. "Down on your knees, hands on your thighs, wait for escort or clearance verification. You can comply or I can file a formal violation, which goes on your record and adds six months to your debt term."
My face goes hot. Then cold. The corridor stretches in both directions, empty except for the three of us and the security cameras that record everything on this station, every moment of every day, so that somewhere in a server bank my humiliation will be stored as data.
I kneel.
The floor is cold through the thin fabric of my pants. I put my hands on my thighs the way he said, palms down, fingers spread. The position is designed for exactly what it accomplishes: to make you feel small, manageable, owned.
The guards go back to their conversation. Something about a shift rotation. A card game. The mundanemachinery of their day resuming as though there isn't a woman kneeling on the floor between them. As though I'm furniture. The particular cruelty of being beneath notice.
I don't know how long I've been there when I hear the footsteps. Measured, unhurried, the click of heels that cost more than a debtor earns in a year. The sound approaches, pauses. I don't look up. I'm staring at the floor, at the scuff marks from hundreds of boots that have walked this corridor, at the fine line where the metal plating meets the wall, at anything that isn't another person's eyes.
"Gentlemen." Astra Venn's voice is cool, professionally pleasant, and instantly recognizable. "Productive afternoon?"
