“Yes.”
She says it like that answers everything.
The next room is worse. Colder. Quieter. The technician is male, old enough to be bland instead of threatening, and clinical enough to make that almost worse. He instructs me to stand inside a transparent chamber while the system collects scent samples from my skin, my hair, my neck, my wrists, even my clothing.
He gives me cleansing wipes first. Then tells me not to use them.
“Natural state is preferred. Biological authenticity required.”
I stand there with my coat open and my hair lifted off my neck while cool air streams around my body and tiny lights move from my head to my ankles. Humiliation crawls hot under my skin.
The technician studies the screen.
“Stress markers are elevated.”
I stare at him.
“You think?”
He ignores my tone. “Elevated stress can interfere with scent interpretation. Breathe slower.”
For one second, I want to tell him to go to hell. Instead, I breathe. Because if I walk out now, all of this was for nothing.
The next room is for fertility imaging. A female examiner leads me through it in a clipped, practiced voice. Weight. Height. Bonedensity. Organ scan. Reproductive scan. I lie on a narrow table staring up at the ceiling while a blue light grid moves over my body. With every minute, I feel less like a person.
At one point, the examiner says, “Pelvic structure is strong.”
My head turns sharply toward her.
She does not seem to notice there is anything strange about saying that out loud.
A hot knot of shame and anger twists low in my stomach. I want to leave. I really want to leave. I want to get off the table, pull my coat back on, and walk out of this building and tell myself there has to be another way.
Then I think of the red rent warning. The alley yesterday. Marai’s flatbread. The supervisor smiling outside the line.
So I stay still while strangers map my body and decide how useful it might be.
By the time they send me to the last waiting room, I feel wrung out. There are fewer women here now. Maybe half as many as before. A few are already crying quietly into their hands. One storms out under her breath, cursing about animal brides and wombs for sale. Another sits perfectly straight with the fixed look of someone trying not to come apart in public.
I sit too. Fold my hands in my lap. Try not to let anyone see them shake.
On the wall, a screen scrolls through information about Tigris pairings. Images flash past. Large shadowed males with heavy bodies and darker coloring. Some in armor. Some wearing strange jewelry or bone worked into black hair. Some standing in city settings. Some out in wild land beneath huge skies and pale, unfamiliar moons.
A line of text runs below the images.
Due to severe female scarcity among Tigris populations, compatible human pairings are reviewed according topheromone receptivity, biological viability, fertility probability, and territorial compatibility.
Severe female scarcity.
Another slide appears.
Some candidates may qualify for leadership-level matches, including territorial kings, military command figures, and bonded household elite.
My stomach turns. Leadership-level. Maybe I should feel lucky. Maybe I should feel chosen. Instead, I feel sick.
A door opens at the far end. A different official steps in. Taller than the others. Better dressed. Dark formal coat. Silver insignia. No district exhaustion on him anywhere. The whole room goes quieter without being told to.
He looks down at the tablet in his hand.
