"Comeon," I said."They've added a charge for tracking me down?Filing fees?There's a line here for emotional damages suffered by mymother.This isn't serious, Alet, and –" I looked at the number at the bottom of the invoice, and stopped breathing.
That was more than I'd made in the past decade.Sure, I paid Trident for room and board, and she deducted her own training fees and sometimes the den paid for me to learn new skills and those came out of my pay, but –
"There's no way I can pay this," I said, and I was horrified at how tremulous my voice sounded as I stared up at her again.
That single eyestalk was fixed on me."They have not billed you," she said primly."They have billed the den, and if the den fails to pay, they will pursue legal action.The claim will be finalized in a few days; this was a courtesy copy sent from a contact who works within the filing department of the Central Primus Economic Forum.If you are not my employee, I am not liable for your debt.You were my employee until you walked into this room.Now you are not and your termination is effective immediately.Thus, once the claim is officially notarized, the den will not be responsible for this invoice."
I stared, nauseated, at the numbers still stabbing into my eyes.They seemed to flicker ominously, hungrily.If I didn't have a job, what the fuck was I going to do?Ilivedhere.I'd lived here forten years.What would I do, go back?
As if she was reading my mine, Alet Trident said, "As you will be unable to pay once the debt is filed, you will be detained by CPEF until you are able to be transported to the claimant to make good on what you owe."She added then, broad mouth flattening in her narrow face, "You will return to Seraphim, Sashen."
"Why would they want me back now?"I hissed, flicking the invoice away.The longer I looked at it, the sicker I felt, all the confidence I'd had as I strutted in, ready to ask for a raise, curdled into something acidic and dark in my stomach."Youcan'tlet them, Alet.You know what they'll do to me if I go back, especially if I go back –" I gestured broadly at myself, heat prickling up my neck as Iconsidered it, really let myself marinate in what that would look like for me.
Back to Seraphim Station.They'd confiscate my wristband, cut me off from the broader universe again, and then send me to the planet for re-education.And if the prolonged torture didn't work, they'd put me to work in the factories where I'd have a miserable, painful, short life, all while the higher-ups insisted merrily that the suffering would sanctify my eternal soul.Through misery, I could be made righteous again.They'd tell me every hour of every day that I was repugnant, that everything about me was wrong, and while I didn't think I'd believe them, that chorus would be the last thing I heard when I was worked to death or tortured past the point of recovery.
I'd risked it all to leave at fifteen.How could I go back now that I'd had a taste of the universe beyond?Now that I'd seized my own ruin with both hands and accepted my own fall?
Maybe they'd arrange a public stoning, just for me.One of the Shepherds I'd been particularly afraid of on station had been a big advocate for the return of old forms of punishment.Who knew how much traction he'd gained in the 'cut off hands, gouge out eyes' camp since I'd left as a terrified teenager?
"It is a sad situation," Trident admitted, that one eyestalk still fixed in my direction."But the document is clear: either the debt is paid or you must be returned.The den cannot pay your debt.You cannot currently pay your debt.I am not aware of any particularly wealthyclientswho visit you often.Indeed, you have none now who frequent the backrooms with you."
All that,andI guess I was shit at my job.I shoved myself to my feet, the heat that had been prickling under my skin flushing up my neck and gathering behind my eyes.Fuckno, I wouldnotbe crying.This wasn't happening.I wouldn't let it.
An hour ago, I'd been making eyes at a pretty abaya and imagining he might come back to see me another time; I'd been sad about being short a few credits and wondering how long I could keep this up.And now, everything I'd known about what my future would look like – as predictable and boring as it might be – was gone.SuddenlyI was staring down the barrel of Seraphim Station, with its torture, its sanctimonious bullshit, and its fuckingawful food.What I wouldn't give to be back on that couch with the voltaari who'd tipped me a lowly single credit, listening to them prattle on about whatever sporting tournament they were excited to bet on.
"You are nothing if not resourceful, Sashen," Alet offered mildly, and her attention slid away from me as she took in the cast of my features, the fists clenched at my sides, my flushed colour.She always hated it when I got upset.After all, she paid me to smile."Perhaps there is a way to find the credits you require, or a benefactor."
"I don't knowhow–" I said miserably, voice thick, and I had to admit to myself that, whether or not I wanted to, I was about to start crying."I'd have to place the best bet in the world on something withinsaneodds, or, I don't know, take out the universe's most expensive assassination contract and somehow learn to dothatand –"
I stopped.I cast my mind back to the voltaari with their hand on my ass, and the cluster of others in the shadowy little corner of the den where we'd been sitting.I'd only been half paying attention to the details, thinking instead about what my sad little life was like and whether or not I had a retirement plan from dancing and how to ask for a raise.But what had filtered through my skull might be promising.Or stupid.Maybe both.
"Do you know much about the Galactic Tournament of Superiority?"I asked mildly, feeling ridiculous even as I said the pompous name aloud."And also, how much is it to enter?"
Trident's four hands flicked simultaneously, the screens around her winking out.Without their light, the room was a murky purple, the dangling wires and cables making the space a tangle of shadows.But even in the shadows, her eyes were bright, gleaming with interest, and both eyestalks were pointed directly at me."An interesting prospect," she fluted."Very interesting indeed.Sit down, again, Sashen.Let us discuss this properly."
And that's how I decided to go on galactic television.
Chapter 2 – Goodbye Gorelion
The thing about growing up on Seraphim was that it positioned itself as beingagainstthe rest of the universe.Our forebears left Earth because it was wicked.They pointed themselves at some distant stars that looked likely and matched some scripture – I had tried to make myself forget as much of it as possible, which meant I pretended Icouldn'trecite the chapter and verse backwards and while drunk – and then, when they arrived and realized that this corner of the universe wasvery muchoccupied, they decided that they'd been sent all the way over here to minister to the alien heathens.And when those heathens turned out to be made up of dozens of species and hundreds of cultures with, I don't know, probably thousands of religious traditions of their own, the powers-that-be at Seraphim decided that the best thing to do was close ourselves off and basically ignore everyone and everything else, except for the occasional trader.They set up off a moon that was uninhabited, unfolded the station, did some light terraforming, and called it a day.Or manifest destiny.
So when I had escaped, even though I'd lived my whole life in this corner of the universe, even though these stars were the ones I'd grown up with, even though I'd been siphoning media from the datasphere from the moment I realized I could hack, I had these giant holes in my cultural literacy.So when people were gossiping in the den about this tournament and were thrilled at its return, they never included the pertinent details – and there was generally so much going on in my life that I didn't think to stop and search for details on every reference that went over my head.
Which means that when Alet Trident outlined the whole thing, I will admit that I thought it sounded – well, fake as shit, and incredibly stupid, and like it should definitely be illegal.
The Galactic Tournament of Superiority, like its pompous name suggested, was an initiative of a ketaar media conglomerate whose name I didn't have a hope of pronouncing, loosely based on ancient, blood-drenched tournaments that used to take place on the voltaarand ketaar homeworlds millennia ago.Realizing that they were sitting on a media goldmine, the media conglomerate had revamped the concepts for modern viewing (and gambling) audiences.
The premise was simple enough: contestants were shoved into an arena for an hour a day where they battled each other until there was only one person left standing.It was an absolute media circus, with the contestants living together in the week or so leading up to the Tournament's official commencement, and I couldn't decide if that was brilliant – there was alotof footage of terse conversations and sparring and death glares across the training ring – or an incredibly vapid way to fill dead space while waiting for contestants to be eliminated.But it seemed like the lead-up was almost as important to viewers as the actual bloodbath.There were already viewing parties scheduled around station, which would basically involved hunkering down and living in a club for two weeks – honestly, it sounded like my idea of hell.Well, after the hell that I expected I'd get to experience actuallybeingin the fucking thing.
But there was a reason it might be a hell worth enduring: whoever made it all the way through the Tournament got their pick of some ridiculous prizes, like an entire asteroid, a palace on Alessia-IV, a brand new battle cruiser with three (three!) on-board arcades, and other things that seemed almost offensively over-the-top.Or, of course, the most popular prize: a staggeringly massive amount of credits.
It might be easy to gloss over thebattle until there's only one left standingpart.And admittedly, when I saw the absolutely ludicrous sum total of credits on offer for the victor, I didn't fully register whatbattlingmight entail.Alet Trident agreed to front me the entrance fee – after all, in for a penny, in for a pound; if I owed Seraphim more than I'd made in a decade, what was another few years' worth of wages owed to my eyestalk-y patron?– and we submitted my application, which involved signing a whole lot of lines and putting my thumbprint on a whole lot of dense paragraphs, and then when I returned to the privacy of my own bunk, I started my research in earnest.
It took me about ten minutes of poking around videos of old tournaments to realize that battling until the last person standing meant, well, a lot of death and dismemberment.
I don't know what I'd been expecting.Tapping out?Yielding, like knights on a battlefield?Some contestants tried; they were often decapitated, which was a very cool and normal thing to watch before I tried to fall asleep.I made it another 20 minutes down my rabbit hole before I'd had my gut-churning fill of watching different contestants being stabbed, torn apart, or bludgeoned to death while the live arena audience screamed in a violent cacophony.
I slapped my hand hard on my wrist, the hovering video feed vanishing immediately.My heart pounded as I stared blankly at the bunk above mine, my mouth scraped dry.Wedged into my narrow bed, I allowed myself one moment of sheer, desperate panic, heart stuttering frantically against my chest.
