MARA
The pen weighs nothing, but my hand shakes anyway.
“Miss Barnov.” The intake coordinator's voice cuts through recycled air that tastes like desperation. “You need to initial all seventeen boxes.”
Seventeen ways to say: yes, I'll let an alien use me. Seventeen variations of: I understand Earth law stops at the portal.
The underground facility used to be a shopping mall. I can still see the old Macy's sign through the paint. Now it processes human women like inventory. Send us through. Collect the credits. Pretend it's voluntary.
Lily's medical bills sit in my bag. $847,000 for the surgery she needs. Two hundred more every day she stays on life support. The math is simple—thirty days in the Hunt, or watch my sister's machines go dark.
The Alliance calls it the Cultural Exchange Initiative. Pre-industrial worlds provide raw materials; we provide breeding stock. Everyone pretends there are other options.
“Miss Barnov?”
“I'm reading.”
Lie. I'm thinking about Lily's last words:Don't do anything stupid for me, Mara.
Too late. Already here. Already holding this pen.
Initial here to confirm you understand Pyraxian males have a breeding imperative.M.B.
Initial here to acknowledge the mating process may result in permanent physiological changes.M.B.
Initial here to confirm you've been informed of Pyraxian anatomy designed to secure a partner and ensure conception.
My hand pauses. The clinical phrasing can't hide what it means: mating with a being built to trap you, to make refusal nearly impossible once it begins.
“The briefing videos covered all this,” the coordinator says, not bothering to look up. “Signature indicates understanding, not consent to specific acts.”
Right. Because consent matters so much when you're being hunted.
M.B.
Initial here to acknowledge that survival for thirty days without accepting a permanent bond bite grants return passage through the portal.
“Bond bite?”
“The formal claiming mark. Junction of neck and shoulder. Without it, you're technically unclaimed regardless of…” she waves a hand, “…activities.”
“So I could be used every day, but if I don't accept the bite?—”
“You can return after thirty days. Though,” she finally looks up, “no one has lasted that long without accepting the bond. Biology makes it unlikely.”
M.B.
She swipes through the forms like she's reviewing invoices. Just credits. Just units.
“Payment releases immediately upon portal entry. Your designated recipient is Lily Barnov at Detroit Medical. She'll have surgery within six hours of your arrival on Pyraxis.”
“Even if I die in the first hour?”
“Even if you die in the first minute. You've volunteered. That's all that matters for payment.”
Volunteered.Such a clean word for what this is.
“Follow me.”
