Page 1 of Reaper Said Mine

CHAPTER 1

URSA

Every morning, the IHC-Now main floor wakes before the sun even touches the towers of Neo Boston. Holo-screens bloom to life across the walls, spilling blue-white light over rows of desks, floating data feeds, live casualty tickers, market crawlers, and the latest manufactured outrage some producer has decided the public needs to choke on before breakfast. Voices overlap in half a dozen languages. Compads chirp. Shoes slap against polished composite flooring. Somewhere near the assignment pit, a printer coughs out physical copies no one will read because Stanton from Standards still thinks paper makes news feel more respectable. The air carries the faint metallic tang of too many machines breathing too hard, mixed with the bitter aftertaste of recycled office caf strong enough to strip paint off a transport hull.

Upstairs, floor-to-ceiling holo-screens dominate the newsroom, washing the rows of workstations in shifting blue and white light. News crawls race across the walls. Market reports flicker beside casualty counts. Live feeds from half a dozen worlds compete for attention overhead while producers weave between desks with armfuls of notes. The entire room moves with the frantic precision of a machine that never truly shuts down, its pulse measured in deadlines and breaking stories rather than hours.

I occupy the edge of the conference table with my compad tucked beneath one arm and my face arranged into the calm, blank expression that has kept me employed through four years of condescension, public correction, and men with worse instincts explaining my own job to me.

Ted Dawson loves an audience.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, he has one.

He stands at the table in a sapphire suit that costs more than my first three years of journalism training, his silver hair lacquered into place and his smile calibrated for broadcast even though no cameras are on him. Dawson never wastes posture. Every tilt of his head, every spread of his manicured fingers, every exaggerated pause before speaking is performed for people who already know he controls their schedules, their exposure, and most of their futures.

"Let us all take a moment," he says, tapping two fingers against the table, "to appreciate the audacity of youth."

A few people laugh because they know what kind of laughter keeps them safe.

I do not.

Dawson turns his smile toward me. "Ursa Ramone, everyone. Our very own living piece of history. The girl from Horus IV, all grown up and ready to tell the galaxy how power works."

Heat creeps up the back of my neck, but I keep my shoulders relaxed. The conference room is too bright, too cold, and too full of hungry people pretending they are not grateful it is me under the blade today. The overhead vents breathe chilled air across my bare wrists. My fingertips rest against the smooth edge of my compad, and I count the seconds between Dawson's words the way I once counted shell impacts.

"Dawson," I say evenly, "I asked to be considered for the protectorate negotiations because I have experience covering postwar civilian fallout, military accountability, and Badlands reconstruction. Not because I enjoy being patronized before nine in the morning."

His smile widens. "See? That's the tone right there. That solemn, wounded, very intense thing you do. Viewers love it in ten-second clips. They do not love it across a forty-minute geopolitical analysis segment."

Across the table, Jana from trade policy lowers her eyes to her notes. Bellamy, who once told me in a bar that I had more nerve than the rest of the bureau combined, suddenly finds his stylus fascinating. I do not blame them. Not exactly. Cowardice is easier to identify from the outside than survive from the inside.

"I am not asking to host a lifestyle stream," I say. "I am asking to report from Guyver Station."

Dawson gives a low whistle and leans back as though I have just announced my intention to wrestle a fusion reactor. "Guyver Station. Listen to that. She says it like she's requesting a weekend conference on Ceres."

"It is the center of the most consequential territorial negotiation currently underway."

"It is a Reaper-held station on the edge of the Badlands," Dawson replies. "It is controlled by a pirate with delusions of statehood and enough bone spurs to make furniture out of his enemies."

"His name is Gnash."

"I know his name, sweetheart. The public knows his name. That is rather the point."

The word sweetheart lands on the table like something spoiled. No one moves. No one breathes too loudly. The old familiar anger rises in me, sharp and clean, but I fold it neatly and put it where I put everything that cannot help me.

"My segment proposal is in your queue," I say. "So is my source list, my risk assessment, and my breakdown of the factions already present on the station."

"Oh, I read it." Dawson lifts his hand and flicks his fingers, sending my proposal from his compad to the central holo-screen. My own words appear above the table, disassembled into highlighted fragments. He has marked some of them in red, some in yellow, and one sentence in an obnoxious pulsing pink. "Very thorough. Very earnest. Very Ursa."

"Thank you."

"That was not praise."

"I know. I decided to accept it anyway."

A real laugh escapes from someone near the far end of the table. It dies quickly, but not before Dawson hears it. His eyes narrow, and then his broadcast smile returns with a little more tooth.

"Here is the problem," he says. "You are intelligent. You are disciplined. You have presence, I will grant you that. But presence is not the same as warmth, and warmth is what keeps viewers from switching feeds. When you look into a camera, half the audience feels like you are judging them for having dinner."