She types this in. "And you're registering voluntarily?"
"Yes."
She glances at the computer screen and begins reading off of a script. "You understand that registration enters you into the Bureau's matching database? That if a compatible match is identified, you may be contacted and subject to the Bureau's matching protocols?"
"I understand."
She slides a consent form across the counter. I scan it. The language is dense but the meaning is clear: by registering, I'm giving the Bureau permission to analyze my biological profile and match me with a compatible alpha. If a matchis identified, I'll be subject to whatever protocols the Bureau deems appropriate.
I sign it.
The blood is drawn in a room down the corridor, past a poster with an overly cheerful young omega/alpha couple on it. The two of them are grinning as if they’re on drugs. I resist the urge to roll my eyes.
Instead, I take a seat in the lab and roll up my sleeves when ordered.
"Small pinch," the phlebotomist says as he slides the needle in.
I watch my blood fill the vial. It’s dark red and ordinary. There’s nothing in there that should be worth two hundred and twenty dollars to anyone, except the Bureau.
He fills three vials, labels them, puts them in a rack. "The scent profile requires a separate sample. I'll need you to hold this against your wrist for thirty seconds."
He hands me a cotton pad wrapped in plastic. I press it to my pulse point and hold it there, feeling slightly ridiculous.
I count to thirty then pass the pad over.
The technician seals the cotton pad in a bag, labels it, then types something into his laptop. "All done. You can collect your payment at the front desk."
At the front desk, the clerk counts out two hundred and twenty dollars in twenties, has me sign a receipt, and wishes me a nice day.
I put the money in my inside jacket pocket, the one with the zip, and walk out of the Bureau office into a Tuesday afternoon that looks exactly like every other Tuesday afternoon of my life except that I now have enough money to eat.
And I also now have a potential match hanging over my head. The thought fills me with horror.
The rational part of my brain is already calculating. The Bureau's matching database is enormous. It has millions of profiles. The probability of a high-compatibility match is statistically low.
Most matches are in the sixty-to-seventy percent range, which carries no legal obligations. You'd need to hit ninety percent or above for the Bureau to try force it and matches that high are rare enough that I don’t need to worry about.
It’s not going to happen, I tell myself. It’s free money. That’s all.
I tell myself this as I walk to the nearest store and buy bread, peanut butter, bananas, and a bottle of water. The total comes to eight dollars and forty cents.
I find a spot for the night under the overhang behind the laundromat on Kellerman Avenue, where the industrial dryers vent warm air through a grate. I've slept here before. It's not comfortable but it's warm and dry and nobody bothers you.
I make myself two peanut butter sandwiches and it’s the best meal I've had in a week.
I try not to think about my mother, but there's something about lying in the dark with nothing to do that makes it impossible to keep that particular door closed. She comes to me in fragments: the smell of her perfume, the way she'd hum in the kitchen when he wasn't home, this low tuneless sound that was the closest thing to happiness I ever saw in her.
Then there was the way she'd go quiet the moment his key turned in the lock. The way her body would change, her shoulders pulling inward, chin dropping, everything about her shrinking to take up less space.
I was seven when I understood what was happening. Not the specifics. I didn't have language for the dynamics of bonded pairs, but I understood the shape of it. The way she couldn't leave.
Her alpha, my father — although I don’t like to think of him like that —drank more after she died. The fights got worse. The bar on the corner of our street became his permanent residence, and I learned to stay away until very late, until I could hear through the front door whether it was safe to go in.
Sometimes it wasn't, and I'd sleep on the landing outside our apartment, curled up against the wall, listening to him breaking things inside.
The point is: I know what a bond does and I will never let that happen to me. No matter how hungry I get. No matter how cold the sidewalk is.
This is what I tell myself as I fall asleep.
