chapter 1

“That twelve-hour gap was because my grandmother was dying.”

I spoke in a low voice to the HR woman, whose smile looked as though it had been measured out with a ruler.

“I had to visit the hospice and see her one last time…”

“I’m very sorry to hear about your loss,” she replied in a practiced tone.

Then she spread her hands. “But I haven’t gone home to see my parents once in the ten years since I graduated.”

“Six years ago, I received the nutrient paste made from my mother. Three years ago, I received my father’s.”

“Signing for each delivery took only thirty seconds.”

You had to listen for what people really meant.

I understood her message at once.

Quit hanging around and trying to win sympathy. Who wasn’t miserable in this salt-crusted wasteland?

You thought you had it bad?

Whatever you had suffered, she had suffered worse.

But I desperately needed the job, so I pretended not to understand and pressed on.

“I even had a hysterectomy for this position.”

The HR woman’s brow creased almost imperceptibly. My refusal to take the hint was clearly getting on her nerves.

“Every single person working in this building has had her uterus removed.”

“And isn’t removing it a good thing?”

“You save the time you would have lost to menstruation, avoid the physical pain, and no longer waste credits on sanitary products.”

I stared at her.

Had hysterectomies already become a basic requirement for women entering the workforce?

I had only been unemployed for forty-eight hours. The world sure changed fast.

Her finger had drifted toward the wall.

A translucent red alarm button appeared on what had been a blank surface.

If I kept arguing, an AI-controlled android guard would probably come chase me out with a particle rifle.

There was nothing left for me to do but leave the gilded building and step onto the street.

The bulletproof glass doors reflected the HR woman’s satisfied smile.

She knew perfectly well that I was angry. She simply did not care.

A properly functioning tool did not concern itself with the feelings of a defective one.

Night rain laced with weak sulfuric acid poured from the artificial sky.

“The world belongs to Xian!”

The neon glare of a holographic advertisement shimmered across pavement eaten raw by acid rain.

Everyone in the Lower City understood the truth.

It was an advertisement in name. In practice, it was a statement of fact.

Planet Blue and all seven neighboring planets now belonged outright to the Xian oligarchy.

We were lucky Xian’s engineers had not yet invented a vehicle capable of climbing onto a star.

Otherwise, the sun would probably have been company property too.

The rain thickened, and my cheap corrosion-resistant umbrella began to buckle.

I was unemployed. If I got hurt in this storm, my already meager credits would take another beating.

I hurried beneath the awning of a shop.

The moment I stopped, an android approached.

“Shelter from the rain costs four credits per hour. Stays of three hours or longer receive a forty-percent discount.”

“One hour for now.”

I held out my right hand and transferred the credits.

My bracelet showed a balance of 27,537 credits.

Of that, 7,537 was what remained after a year of work in the Lower City, rent and miscellaneous expenses deducted.

The other 20,000 had come from selling my uterus.

In an age when even breathing cost credits, ordinary people had no savings unless they sold off a few organs.

The downpour soon clogged the Lower City’s main road.

Antigravity engines hummed from ground cars while magnetic horns carried an unbroken chorus of curses.

Airships in the middle and upper lanes moved with perfect order.

They streamed like swift-running chains, layer upon layer, weaving a dense net between the towers.

I looked up at the airships floating overhead in all their different designs and made myself a promise.

Once I found another job and saved for two years, perhaps I could grit my teeth and make the down payment on one.

I was imagining how much better life would become when a dull ache low in my abdomen dragged me back to reality.

I hissed.

Had that black-market clinic installed the wrong model of bionic uterus?

I had no credits for a follow-up.

For residents of the Lower City, our bodies were the cheapest things we owned.

Live if you could.

If you couldn’t, die.