by Sean Danker
“And coffee,” Diana added. “The strongest you got.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m hungry.”
“You ate all those calorie bars, though,” Salmagard said, concerned. “Back in the shuttle.” There had been a thousand calories in each of them; Diana had wolfed down at least four.
“I’m hungry again,” the red-eyed woman replied, shrugging. Her stomach rumbled. The android behind the counter was asking for details about her coffee. “I don’t care, just make it happen,” Diana snapped, snatching her bag of pastries from the second robot.
“We don’t have time for this.”
“I thought you were trying to figure out where we were going next,” Diana said through a mouthful of pastry. She grabbed her cup and took a large gulp.
That stopped Salmagard. “I was.”
“You have one too,” Diana said, using a napkin to take a pastry from the bag and offering it to her.
Salmagard took it and dropped into a seat at a table for two by the window, feeling gloriously depraved. She was a mess. She was here illegally, doing illegal things, eating without utensils while walking about like a common galactic—it was a good thing the Admiral wasn’t seeing her this way.
Diana offered her coffee, and she took a drink, eyes still on her holo.
“I don’t think we can get into the big catalogs without going back out, then coming back in the right way and getting these entry codes,” she said.
“We’re not here to buy,” Diana said, shoving another pastry into her mouth whole and immediately beginning to choke. Salmagard distractedly pounded her back. The red-eyed woman drained the rest of her coffee and got up, then went to the counter for more.
“But we—we should, though. It’s the easiest way to get them back,” Salmagard called after her.
“Buy them?”
“It’s peaceful.”
“It’s stupid,” Diana said, bringing back her cup. “How much do they cost? I’m not in the good graces of my family right now; all I have is my salary.”
“I can afford them,” Salmagard said confidently.
“Must be nice.”
“Must be nice to have that metabolism,” Salmagard shot back, watching Diana devour another pastry.
Diana opened her mouth, looking hurt—then she gazed down at the pastry in her other hand, swallowed, and bit into it.
“But I can’t get into the buyer’s directories without a real account. You’ve got to have this number they assign you that legitimizes you to do business here, and we haven’t got it. So I can’t search for them. All we can do is”—Salmagard waved a hand—“buy lunch.”
“What about a physical directory? Can’t we just find out where they’re being sold and go track them down?”
“We’ll have to, but look at the size of all this. There could be a hundred places selling people,” Salmagard said, feeling the beginnings of panic.
“We have net access here. All we have to do is search on an independent database. They won’t care if we haven’t got these codes. Here we are. It’s a little outdated, but what are we looking for? People? Humans?”
“We can try. No. No, this is no good. I’m getting nothing but organ growers and propaganda and marketing firms. Slaves?” Salmagard swiped down the list.
“Try that.”
“This looks promising—no, these are all comfort android vendors and training schools.”
“Training schools?”
“For your human property, I presume . . . eurgh.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” Salmagard swallowed.
“Don’t be a prude.”
Salmagard bristled a little at that, but said nothing, continuing to search. “‘Indentured servitude,’ that’s what these people call it. Oh, yes.” Her eyes widened. “I’ve found it.”
“Found what?”
“The Open Market. That’s actually what they call it. The Open Market.”
“For?”
“For people. This has to be it.” She straightened up, excited.
“Oh.” Diana stopped chewing for a moment, then began again, slowly. “And?”
“It’s in the innermost cube. Apparently it’s quite substantial.”
Diana cocked her head. “Is the industry really that big?”
“And that’s just here physically. This can only be a part of it.”
The café was warm. It was cozy. It smelled mouthwatering. There was quiet music and a comforting murmur of relatively well-mannered customers.
But outside was the Bazaar. Bigger than a city, and infinitely more dangerous.
Somewhere, out in that sea of people, was the Admiral.
“How do we get there?”
“Take a flyer, I suppose.” Salmagard looked out the window at the passing vehicles. “There must be a system.”
“A system we can’t access,” Diana reminded her. “We can’t get a ride that way. Is there something else? A tram?”
“Not that I can see. We may have to go on foot.”
“How far is it?”
“In a straight line, from here to there, two kilometers. With the route we’d have to take”—Salmagard chewed her lip—“closer to five.”
Diana sighed and pushed away the bag of pastries, getting to her feet. “But you love running in that dress,” she said.
13
FREEBER pulled us out of the cargo compartment, more roughly this time. He had more patience than Willis, but at some point he had to get tired of dragging us around. That was fine with me; I was anxious to part ways too.
I’d braced myself for bright, painful light, but I didn’t get it. We weren’t in the open. My eyes adjusted, and I realized this was a residential district, a closed corridor with only a limited amount of space for vehicular travel. I could hear the vague roar of business from somewhere above, reverberating through the station’s superstructure.
Even by Free Trade station standards, this was a slum. Narrow little apartments lined long, tall, featureless blocks that flanked the passage. The ceiling wasn’t even smart carbon; someone had actually painted it blue. It couldn’t even simulate the look of sky. And that paint had been applied a long time ago; now it was coated with grime and buildup.
The walls near the ground were covered in crude adhesives and amateur artwork. Loud, grinding music was audible from one of the apartments, and I could smell controlled chemicals in the air.
Recyclers coughed and rattled, and half the light fixtures were dead, leaving the corridor’s lighting gray and grainy.
Sei looked around with obvious distaste. I’d seen places like this before, though not for a while. Still, the corridor itself was spacious, and the apartments were more or less intact—so no matter how shabby it all looked, this probably wasn’t, by Bazaar standards, a bad place to live. Compared to the Bazaar proper, it was wonderfully peaceful. That alone was almost enough to make me forget that the control cuffs now seemed to weigh about twice what they had half an hour before. The same for my shoes.
Freeber guided us toward a stairwell. There were lifts, but it didn’t look like any of them worked. The carbon shield over emergency levers and biohazard sensors had all been broken long ago. There were safety violations everywhere.
At least down here these two probably didn’t have to worry about station security catching up to them. If the lights weren’t being maintained, surveillance probably wasn’t either.
It probably cost a thousand Free Trade credits a month to rent one of these apartments. Maybe more, since lodging within the Bazaar was so scarce.
In the Empire, you could live in a vastly nicer—though perhaps slightly smaller—sustenance apartment for absolutely nothing. You’d have your own combiner and a small living stipend, all courtesy of the Empress. For nothing. Just for being Evagardia
n. What about health care? Education? These people had to struggle for everything that the poorest imperial took for granted.
They worked hard to live here. Even Cohengard, the most reviled city in the Empress’ embrace, was like a fantasy ideal compared with this block.
True, it was humiliating to live on sustenance and depend on the Empress, but was it worse than this? In the Imperium, that was a contentious topic.
We climbed up two flights, making our way down the row. Below, some kids were playing a game with cling boots and a holographic ball, swatting it back and forth across the corridor as they ran up the walls to get at it when it bounced. None of them was wearing any protective gear—that reminded me a bit of Cohengard.
It looked fun. I wished I had that kind of energy.
Willis jabbed the chime for a door. Nothing happened. No light, no audio cue. She prodded it again. Then again.
She rolled her eyes and started to pound on the metal door.
Minutes passed. She looked at her chrono.
“You do it,” she said to Freeber, who gave it a try. He was much louder; his blows actually shook the door in its frame.
More time passed. Finally, the door opened.
The bleary woman inside was a little older than I was. She was reasonably fit, completely bald, and wearing only plain underwear and an undershirt with a bird on it. There were some blocky, angular tattoos on her shoulders, and she had a big scar on her left thigh.
She was rubbing her eyes and yawning. Her eyes focused on Willis, and she immediately tried to slam the door shut.
Freeber pushed it open and let himself in. Willis dragged Sei and me inside.
The apartment was humble, but spotlessly clean. The bald woman didn’t seem to have much, but everything she had was in its place. The temperature control wasn’t working—it was far too warm.
She stared at Willis and Freeber for a moment, then scratched tiredly at her stomach and padded into the kitchen without another word.
We all followed.
“Who are they?” she asked, taking a cup and filling it with coffee from a beverage combiner.
“Just meat,” Willis said. “Imperials.”
The bald woman said nothing. She stirred something white into the coffee and drank half of it in a single gulp. She put the cup aside, her back still to us, placing her hands on the tile surface and leaning forward, bowing her head. Praying for patience? Trying to wake up? Collecting herself?
Finally she straightened and faced us, folding her arms and leaning back against the counter.
“You’re going to have to tell me what you want,” she said, looking resigned. “I’m not guessing. I’m not an empath.”
“Put these two on the market for us.”
“Why can’t you do it?” Her eyes narrowed. “Did you sneak in again?”
“What’s the problem? You have codes.”
“How much do I get?”
“Nothing. Take care of it today and we’re even.”
The bald woman scowled. “Give me their contracts.”
“They don’t have any.”
“Of course. Leave me out of it. If people want to sign their lives away, that’s on them. But you can’t go around just grabbing people to make a credit. Take them to Idris.”
Willis produced her holo and called something up. She showed it to the other woman, whose eyes widened.
She gathered herself quickly. “How did you get that?”
“How do you think, Nora?”
“I was drunk.”
“I can tell.”
Freeber was angling to see the feed, but Willis quickly covered it. “Not for you,” she said sternly. Nora pushed him back. “Nope,” Willis said.
Bemused, Freeber went back to watching Sei and me.
“Do people have to record everything?” Nora put her face in her hand, groaning. She rubbed at her smooth scalp and eyed the two of us. “Who are they?”
“I told you. Imperials.”
“They’ll be missed. Someone will find them. Those people don’t just let folks disappear.”
“Must be nice.”
“I have to sell them unlisted, miscellaneous. You won’t get much, even if they are Evagardian. Who wants imperials with no contracts? Nobody needs that stress.”
“Someone’ll take them off the listing. They always do. Even if it’s just for parts.”
I saw Sei swallow. It looked like we were moving toward the worst-case scenario.
“I’m telling you,” Nora said firmly, “the price is going to be low.”
“I know that. Just take care of it. We need to get out of here before our number comes up and we get fined. And I’m done with them. Okay? I’m done.”
“Just pay and stay as long as you want. Get a membership. You’re here often enough. Jesus. Or don’t. God knows, I don’t want you here.”
Willis took a controller out of her pocket and tossed it to Nora, who caught it, looking disgusted.
Willis blew a kiss at her and walked out.
Freeber nodded to Nora, then to us, and he followed Willis. A moment passed, and the front door opened and closed.
Nora looked glumly at the controller in her hand for a long time. “Sorry, guys.” She looked up at us. “I’m going to check this to make sure it works. If it doesn’t, good news: you’re free to go.”
I braced myself; Nora shocked us with the power low and kept it as brief as she could.
She winced as Sei and I did. It really wasn’t that bad.
“Sorry, sorry. It does work. Um. Okay, sit down.” She pulled chairs out from the table, and Sei and I seated ourselves. “And don’t get up,” she added, thinking fast. This was all coming at her suddenly, and she was trying to keep up. However reluctant she might be, she hadn’t put her foot down. So she owed Willis something, and dealing with us was a small price to pay to balance the scales.
Nora refilled her coffee and sat down across from us, placing her holo on the table and calling up a browser.
“There goes my morning,” she muttered, taking another drink. “I’d unmute you guys, but men who don’t talk are actually kind of nice . . . Let’s see what you’re going for. Yeah. It’s just like I thought. You don’t go unlisted unless you’re desperate. This is stupid.” She leaned on her elbow, eyes tracking the scrolling menus. “This guy just went for fifteen hundred. I don’t even want to know where they found him. That girl got twenty-five. You guys are imperials, though.”
She looked up at us. “You’re young, and you look good. You look like Prince Dalton. What are the cute ones going for?” She continued to search. “This kid pulled three thousand, but he’s only sixteen, so he’s gray—why doesn’t he get more? Must be something wrong with him—the only people who buy kids are the ones with enough money to smuggle them out without getting caught . . . Can’t sell you to them. Too bad there isn’t a gray option for you, but I guess if there was, they’d have already found it.” She sighed and stared at us.
“Who wants to buy you? Who would want to buy two guys like you? You don’t want to be sold, do you?”
We both shook our heads.
“See? Exactly. So it’s not like you’d make good indentureds. Whoever buys you has to try and hold you. Hmm.” She went back to the reader. “I’m going to say you’re virgins. You probably aren’t, but everyone else is lying on here, and the perverts that buy people like you probably like that.”
She captured images of our faces, then listed us for sale.
“And we’ll offer a little discount if someone wants to buy you both,” she added. “So three apiece, or five and a half for both. Don’t look at me like that,” she said, giving us a pained look. “I’m not a merchant. I don’t know what I’m doing. There.”
She put the reader down and got up, arching her back and stretching. “You guys
better sell fast—I have to get to work.” Yawning, she turned to leave the room, then turned back. “I guess taking my eyes off you probably isn’t a good idea.” She sighed. “Are you hungry?”
Sei and I exchanged a look, then nodded.
Was it really morning? Of course not; there was no morning here. Everyone on this station was running on a different schedule. But our arrival had clearly gotten Nora out of bed.
She went to the counter and pulled out a flat heating element, then switched it on. She took a bottle of protein solution from the cooler and plugged it into the nutrient combiner, then dialed in a code I couldn’t see. Yellow streams of liquid began to mix with the clear protein, quickly changing the bottle’s color to a pale gold.
She sprinkled something green on the cooking surface, and it began to sizzle. Sei and I watched as she took thin, flat starch discs and put them on the surface, where they began to fry.
Sei was pleased with this delay; in his mind, it brought him closer to being rescued before something bad could happen to him.
This wasn’t good. We could be in the hands of someone very shady in a matter of minutes if we sold quickly. In that case, the poison in my body was the least of my worries.
Nora was appropriately wary. She’d see anything we did—anything at all—as an attempt to escape. There were two of us, and only one of her. Anything I did to try to get her to unmute me, she’d see as a ruse—and she wouldn’t hesitate to dial up the electricity and teach me a lesson.
Though she seemed decent enough, she wasn’t in a position to help us. Freeber and Willis were dangerous. She didn’t want to defy them. And dealing with us was illegal. Her best move was to sell us quickly and hope her involvement wouldn’t come back to bite her in some way. Because taking us to the authorities or setting us free certainly would.
Freeber and Willis had put her in an awkward position, but I didn’t have much sympathy for her.
Nora skillfully flipped the discs a few times, then pushed them aside and took the bottle from the combiner. She poured the yellow fluid onto the heating element, where it began to solidify. She used a pair of metal slicers to chop it, push it around, and do a lot of things we couldn’t see clearly, all the while seasoning the mixture with things from the cabinet.