She pauses. Not flinch. Not shrink.
Just pauses, like she’s weighing the truth against instinct.
“No,” she says finally. “But Iheardthings. Rumors about terror runs, shadow ops… I figured if I sounded like I belonged, they wouldn’t test it.”
I watch her mouth as she speaks — tight lines, eyes steady, tone unvarnished by performance or fear. She’s not hiding in her own lie. She’sinhabitingit with complete commitment.
“You put them down,” I say, voice low.
“Doesn’t mean I am one.”
I nod, thinking about that.
We keep walking.
The market traffic thickens around us — vendors hawking low-grade weaponry, illegal cybermods, stolen starship parts clanging on crates like metallic bees swarming a hive.
I take in every smell: oiled metal, sweat, synth-food fryers, and the faint copper tinge of nervous blood.
Then I notice something subtle: people aren’t just watching us.
They’regiving us space.
Like a predator with a reputation is moving through the room and gravity itself is warning them to back off.
Her bluff isn’t just surviving — it’s growing legs.
And that’s dangerous.
For everyone.
I keep walking until we reach a quieter corridor lined with shipping containers and stacked salvage crates. The hum of the main docks fades here. It’s quieter. More raw. More real.
She stops.
“Why don’t you just kill them?” she asks, voice curious, not afraid.
I glance at her. Not impressed. Just observing.
“Hurt my position,” I say. “Especially here. There’s too much heat, too many eyes, and don’t think for a second some of these gangs don’t have friends with long-range rifles.”
She exhales, slow and thoughtful. “So it’s damage control.”
“Damagemanagement,” I correct.
“Semantics.”
“Survival,” I say.
We stand in silence for a second that’s too long.
Then she looks up at me.
“Do you trust me?”
I don’t answer at first.
Because trust isn’t a word I hand out like currency. It’s a tactic. A gamble. A risk assessment.
