The Acquisition building is faceless, blank except for a sign that reads “Novus Strategic Holdings.” The main lobby is all chrome and glass, but the reception desk is empty. The elevator responds to my touch without a keycard; House Holloway doesn’t need identification. We just exist. The ride up is slow, deliberate, a measure of time designed to unsettle.
Seventeenth floor: the doors open into a corridor colder than the high-rise. A woman waits at the far end, tablet in hand, eyes sharp behind rimless glasses. I recognize her type—Acquisition’s handler caste. She nods once and gestures for me to follow.
“Briefing,” she says, and turns without waiting for my response.
We pass through two security doors, down a hallway lined with reinforced glass. The rooms beyond are full of people: some in conference, some alone, some huddled in clusters. Every one of them is scared, even if they don’t know it yet. The kind of fear that’s built into your genes after a few generations of compliance.
The woman leads me into a briefing room and locks the door behind us. She stands at parade rest.
“You’re early,” she says, looking me up and down. “That’s not a compliment.”
I don’t answer. I never do unless I need to.
She sets the tablet on the table, face up. “Security detail. Asset auction. Client list is flagged for potential incursion, so you’re not to let any externalities disrupt the event. We’re expecting a crowd. A few of the guests are… familiar to Erasure.”
“Copy,” I say.
She studies me, searching for something she’ll never find. “You’ll be paid triple. The Board expects perfection.”
“Copy.”
She turns and opens the door, gesturing for me to leave. “They start staging in an hour. Make yourself presentable. No bloodstains.”
I touch the spot where a fleck of arterial spray must have landed. It’s already dry, a tiny speck, but her words make me check again.
She watches me, waiting for another answer. I give her nothing. It’s easier this way.
Back in the corridor, I blend into the flow of bodies: execs, handlers, runners, the faceless clerks who make the system run. Nobody notices me. That’s the point.
As I enter the holding area, I calibrate my breathing.
In. Hold. Out.
The blood on my hands is already gone, and the next job is waiting.
The corridor from the holding area leads to a chamber they call “the floor.” I count seven security points on my way in—badged doors, two biometric locks, a facial scanner disguised as wall art. Beyond the final checkpoint, the air cools a degree, the pressure dropping as the hallway swallows sound. The transition is deliberate.
All Acquisition facilities are built to keep guests off-balance. No one is ever at home here, not even the staff.
The auction room is a stadium cross-bred with a surgical theater. Tiered seats curve around a shallow pit in the center, all upholstered in black with the kind of lumbar support you only get in high-level boardrooms or top-tier confessionals. No windows. The ceiling is too low, and the lights too bright. There’s a hum from the HVAC, tuned just high enough to annoy but never enough to distract.
Buyers arrive in increments, each with a handler in tow. They don’t talk to each other; they inspect their tablets, glance at the monitors cycling through “asset highlights,” and sip from glass bottles with imported labels. Most of them are men in charcoal suits, hair shorn close, shoes polished to obsidian. One or two women, same suits, same aura of disinterest. None of them look at the pit, not yet. Nobody wants to be the first to stare at the meat.
I move to the back wall, tracking sightlines, checking for irregularities. The security in here is subtle. No guards standing post, but I pick out the three enforcers in the seats. There’s a fourth by the door, leaning casual with a hand in his jacket pocket. None of them are from Erasure, but I know their kind.
Disposable, but not the first ones to be thrown away.
The lights in the pit stutter once, twice, then flare on. The auctioneer descends from a glass stairwell, tablet in one hand, posture so straight it looks painful. He wears a suit too, but it’s tailored to minimize, to vanish against the background.He steps to the podium, taps the mic. A hush falls over the crowd—small as it is, nobody wants to be heard breathing.
“We’ll begin in five,” he says, voice cold enough to snap. “Please finalize your portfolios.”
There’s a flurry of activity as the buyers skim their screens, check the balance sheets, and load up on whatever digital currency is in fashion this week. One man laughs, a short, dry bark, and the handler next to him elbows him in the ribs. The sound dies instantly.
I watch the perimeter. I always watch the perimeter. There’s a secondary entrance behind the pit, shielded by a black curtain. From here I can see the feet of the first two assets, both bare, one shifting from side to side. An assistant checks their wrists, flashes a light into their eyes, then disappears behind the curtain again.
The first asset is a girl, maybe seventeen. Blonde, tan lines on her shoulders, a ragged pink mark on her cheekbone. She walks out with the rigid, mechanical stride of someone who’s been coached on how to behave in front of strangers. She doesn’t cry, doesn’t look at the buyers.
The auctioneer introduces her by number—214—and lists her features with clinical efficiency. Height. Weight. Fluency in two languages. No chronic conditions. Virgin. The buyers makenotes, a few raise their hands to signal interest. The girl stands in the center, eyes fixed on the back wall, not even blinking.
