Derek’s smile was a bright, white slash in the dim hallway. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Babe? You gonna stand in the hall? You’re letting all the chilled air out.”

He said it like a joke. Chilled air. The premium climate-controlled atmosphere they paid 40 extra credits for each cycle. The 40 credits she earned in the first two hours of her shift at the diner, serving lukewarm synth-coffee to off-duty transport pilots.

Naomi’s gaze was still fixed on the comms in his hand. The screen had gone dark, but the name remained, burned onto her retinas. Amber.

“Naomi? What’s wrong with you?” His tone shifted, the easy charm dissolving into impatience. He stepped forward, reaching for the heavy bag still cutting into her shoulder.

She flinched.

It was a small movement, a tiny, involuntary recoil, but he caught it. His hand froze, hovering in the air between them.

“Hey.” His voice softened instantly, dropping into that low, concerned murmur. The one he used when he’d forgotten to pay the energy bill from their joint account. The one he used when he needed her to sign for another ‘unavoidable’ credit extension. “Rough night, huh? You look shattered.”

He stepped back, casually angling the comms screen away from her, slipping it into the pocket of his jacket. The expensive one. The one with the real-leather-look polymer that she hadn’t seen him wear since… since before the ‘debt consolidation.’

He hadn’t been on a speaker call. He had been on his comms, talking to friends, while getting ready to go out.

“Who’s Amber?”

Her voice wasn’t her own. It was a dry, papery rasp.

Seventy-three blocks away, Jax winced, pulling the ear-bud from his left ear. The line was still open. Derek, in his haste, hadn’t disconnected the audio feed from his comms, he’d only killed the speaker. Jax could hear everything. The hallway acoustics were terrible, all echo and hiss, but Naomi’s voice, thin and sharp, cut right through.

“Oh, shit,” Jax muttered.

“What?” Skag’s voice crackled in his other ear. “What’s happening?”

“She’s home,” Jax said. “She asked about Amber.”

“Dude! Hang up! Hang up!” Skag whisper-shouted.

Jax heard a frantic fumbling sound, a burst of static, and then the line went dead.

He sat in the silence of his hab-pod, the only sound the steady hiss of the rain against the glass. Below him, the kid who had been working on the delivery drone paused, looked up at the corporate server building, and then, as if sensing he was no longer being watched, quickly and efficiently slipped a data-wand into the drone’s exposed port. A second later, the kid was gone, vanishing into the steam of a ruptured thermal-vent.

Jax leaned back. “Poor bastard,” he said. He wasn’t sure if he meant the kid, Derek, or Naomi.

Amber tapped her painted nails against the glowing blue surface of the bar. The Nebula-Drift was empty, the ice-crystals long-since melted into a lukewarm, sugary puddle.

CALL ENDED.

Not a text. Not an “On my way.” Just… CALL ENDED.

“That son of a…” she muttered, signaling Gloss.

The bartender slid over, her multi-lensed optics whirring as they focused on Amber’s face. “Another one, sweet? Or are you calling it? He’s thirty-two minutes past ‘fashionably late.’”

“He’s busy,” Amber snapped, more to herself than to Gloss. “He said he was closing a massive data-trade.”

“Right.” Gloss polished a glass with a steel-fiber cloth, her movements economical and precise. “A ‘data-trade.’ That’s what they’re calling it in Sector K now?”

Amber glared. “He’s not from Sector K.”

“Sure he’s not.” Gloss shrugged, her brushed-steel shoulders catching the black light. “My brother? The one with the joy-wire problem? He also had a lot of ‘data-trades.’ Now he’s got a lot of broken fingers. This guy,” she tapped her temple, “he feels like a Sector K problem.”

Amber pushed the empty glass away. Gloss was right. Not about Sector K, maybe, but about the problem. Derek was fun. Derek was generous with his credits. But he was unreliable.

She stood up, smoothing the shimmer-silk dress. “He knows where to find me. If he wants to.”

“They always do,” Gloss said, already wiping the bar where Amber had been sitting.

Amber walked out of The Gilded Tentacle, the pneumatic-hiss of the door closing behind her. She wasn’t going home. It was too early. Derek had just cost himself a very expensive, very entertaining evening. His loss.

Derek’s face was a masterpiece of perfect, rehearsed confusion.

“Amber? Who? What are you talking about?”

He laughed. That same, full-throated, carefree laugh she’d heard from the hallway. “Babe, are you delirious? You’re so tired you’re hallucinating. You’re mixing my name with the gym.”

He put his hand on her shoulder. This time, she didn’t flinch. She just stood there, a statue carved from exhaustion.

“On your phone,” Naomi said. Her voice was flat. Lifeless. “The text.”

“Oh, that!” He laughed again, louder this time. It was a laugh of pure, unadulterated relief. “That’s Amber-crombie! From the orbital-lifts. Total meathead. Always texts me stupid memes about his ‘gains.’ You know the guy, big arms, no neck?”

He pulled the comms from his pocket, his fingers dancing across the screen. “Look. See?”

He flashed the screen at her. It was a message thread, a group chat labeled ‘Lift-Krew.’ The last message was a pixelated-GIF of a muscle-bound alien flexing.

It was a lie. So fast. So smooth.

A year ago, she would have collapsed in relief. Six months ago, she would have apologized for doubting him.

Tonight, standing in the hallway that smelled of his cologne, she just saw the lie. She saw the speed. She saw the jacket he was wearing to go meet a ‘meathead.’

She didn’t have the energy to fight. She didn’t have the energy to cry. She didn’t have the energy to care.

“Okay,” she said.

She pushed past him. The smell of the whiskey and the sharp citrus cologne was cloying, coating the back of her throat. She wanted to gag.

Derek, left standing by the open door, was baffled. He had been prepped for a fight, for tears, for a dramatic scene. This blank-eyed “okay” was… anticlimactic.

“That’s it?” he called after her. “‘Okay’?”

“I’m tired, Derek.” Her voice drifted back from the kitchen alcove.

She stopped. Her sink. Their sink. It was piled high. Sticky nutrient-paste packets, a burned-looking pan, two coffee-bulbs, and the whiskey glass he’d been using. The dishes from this morning. The dishes from last night.

“You’re not even going to say hi properly?” His voice was closer now, laced with that familiar, petulant whine. The whine that meant he was the victim. “I was just heading out. Guys’ night. Jax and Skag are waiting.”

Liar. He was going to meet Amber. The guys’ night had just ended.

Naomi turned. She leaned her hip against the counter, the cold synthetic-stone grounding her. She looked at him. Really looked at him. The man she had promised to… The man who used to…

He was just a man. In a jacket. Smelling of lies.

“Have fun,” she said.

She turned her back on him and walked toward the bedroom.

“Suit yourself!” he yelled, his anger palpable now. He was being cheated of his drama. “Don’t wait up!”

The front door slid shut with a pneumatic thump.

Naomi stood in the narrow hallway between the kitchen and the bedroom. The silence of the apartment descended. It was no longer a peaceful silence; it was an empty one.

She heard his voice in her head. I got it made.

She walked into the bedroom. Their bedroom. She closed the door. She slid the cheap, magnetic lock into place. The click was deafening.

She stood with her back to the wood-plastic composite, her eyes tracing the cracks in the ceiling. She didn’t cry. Tears were a luxury. They required energy she did not have.

Slowly, one button at a time, she began to undo the fastenings of her scrub-top. The antiseptic smell of the clinic rose up to meet her.

She heard another voice. Personal slave.

She stopped, her hand frozen on the third button.

The exhaustion was still there, a crushing weight on her shoulders, her back, her feet. But something new was mixing with it. It wasn’t anger. Anger was hot, and she was cold.

It was… clear.

The fog of exhaustion and love and denial that had clouded her mind for three years was suddenly, terrifyingly, gone. She was just tired. And she was just… done.

She finished unbuttoning the scrubs. She walked into the tiny bathroom, her feet leaving dusty footprints on the cheap tile. She turned the shower dial all the way to ‘Hot.’ Steam began to fill the room.

She didn’t have a plan. She didn’t have an idea.

She just knew, with absolute, bone-deep certainty, that she couldn’t do this again tomorrow.

Steam, thick and white, billowed from the shower stall, filling the small, windowless bathroom. It clung to the cheap, polymer-coated walls, gathering and dripping in slow, lukewarm tears. It did nothing to warm the chill that had settled deep in Naomi’s bones.

She stood in the center of the room, her scrub-top half-undone, her fingers still resting on the third button. The mirror above the sink was a blind, white void. She couldn’t have seen her reflection even if she’d looked.

Slowly, her hands resumed their task. The buttons slipped from their holes. The top fell open. She pulled it from her shoulders, the material stiff with sweat and the day’s grime. It smelled of antiseptic, stale synth-coffee, and the faint, coppery tang of a plasma-burn she’d helped clean at the clinic. She let it drop to the tiled floor.

Her trousers followed. She stepped out of them. Underneath, she was a map of her labor. A dark, purple-blue bruise bloomed across her left hip, a near-perfect negative of the gurney-corner she’d slammed into during the 7:00 AM rush. A pale, shiny scar, thin as a data-thread, ran along her right forearm—a souvenir from the diner’s nutrient-fryer three months ago. When she peeled off her socks, her feet, swollen and pale, looked alien. The nails on her big toes were a dull, bruised yellow, a common, un-spoken symptom of 18-hour days in non-slip clogs.

Personal slave.

The words echoed in the hissing silence of the shower.

She stepped into the stall, not waiting for the temperature to regulate. The water was scalding, a needle-sharp, chemical-scented spray. The apartment’s water-heater was old, one of the pre-regulation models, and its default was ‘caustic.’ She should have flinched, should have yelped. She didn’t. She just stood there, her back to the spray, letting the heat prickle and burn, a dull, distant punishment.

Her hand reached for the soap. It was a cheap, yellow bar, worn into a deep, concave curve. It smelled of the same synthetic-pine that haunted the building’s hallway. It was her bar. Derek had his own—a sleek black bottle of citrus-scented, bio-energizing gel she’d bought for him with her diner tips, an “investment” in his “networking.” He’d used it all in a week, then started on her bar without a word.

She picked up the worn sliver of soap. Her, worn down to a sharp, hollowed-out shape, all for him.

She began to wash. It was a mechanical, joyless process. Scrub the clinic from her arms. Scrub the diner-grease from her hair. Scrub the sticky-sweet smell of Derek’s cologne from the skin of her neck where he’d brushed past her. She scrubbed until her skin was raw and red, but the water still felt hotter.

She turned the dial. The spray sputtered, coughed a final plume of steam, and died.

The silence that rushed in was absolute, broken only by the steady drip… drip… drip… from the faulty faucet. It was a sound she had been meaning to file a maintenance-request for with the landlord-bot for six months. Another task on a list that never, ever got shorter.

She stepped out, water running in rivulets down her legs, puddling on the floor. She grabbed the towel from the hook. It was thin, the threads worn bare, and it felt like rough-grade sandpaper against her skin. The “good” towels, the ones she’d bought when they first moved in, were undoubtedly at the bottom of the laundry hamper in the bedroom. Waiting for her.

She walked out of the steam-filled bathroom, wrapping the threadbare towel around her. The apartment was cold. Derek always left the climate-control set to 18 degrees. He said he “ran hot.”

Her bare feet made no sound on the synth-wood floor. From the doorway, she could see the kitchen. The sink. The pile of dishes was a silent, greasy accusation. It was her next job. Wash the dishes. After that, pack her lunch for the 4:00 AM shift—two protein-bars and a water-bulb. After that, check her comms for any extra shifts at the call-center. After that, sleep.

She looked at the dishes. The burned pan. The sticky-paste packets.

She turned, and walked past them.

She walked into the bedroom. Their bed was unmade, the covers thrown back on Derek’s side. Her side was still neatly tucked from… when? Two days ago? She hadn’t slept in it. She’d fallen asleep on the transport-shuttle on the way home, woken up at her stop, and gone straight to the diner.

She looked at the bed where he would, in a few hours, crawl in, stinking of Amber and whiskey.

No.

She turned around. She walked to the narrow closet in the hallway. On the top shelf, behind a box of old data-slates, was the spare pillow. It was lumpy, the filling compacted into hard knots. She pulled it down, along with the thin, gray blanket they kept for guests they never had.

She went to the living room. The couch was a short, unforgiving block of foam and cheap fabric. The cushions were permanently indented.

She lay down. The towel was still damp beneath her, making the fabric of the couch feel cold and clammy. She didn’t care. She pulled the thin, gray blanket over her.

Her wrist-com, which she’d plugged in to charge by the couch, glowed. 12:15 AM.

She tapped the screen. The 4:00 AM alarm notification lit up, bright and demanding. ‘Med-Clinic Run.’

Her thumb hovered over the ‘Confirm’ button. A simple tap. The tap she had done every night for three years.

I got it made.

Personal slave.

Her thumb moved.

She tapped ‘Cancel.’

A new prompt appeared. ‘Cancel this alarm only? (Y/N/Cancel All)’

Her finger didn’t hesitate. She pressed ‘Cancel All.’

The screen flashed a confirmation, suddenly dimming as it registered her lack of activity. ALL ALARMS DEACTIVATED.

Naomi dropped her arm onto the lumpy pillow. She closed her eyes. The drip… drip… drip… from the bathroom was the only sound.

She had no plan. She had no money. She had no energy.

She had just stopped.

Tomorrow morning, for the first time in 1,095 days, Naomi was going to be late.