1 The Potential in Utter Trash #3
Temmi pointed meaningfully at the badge pinned to her jumpsuit’s collar.
“Essential personnel. And please, I’ll only take a minute of your time.
” She held out her biomedical miracle. “I’ve got a theoretically sound prototype for a fully ambulatory synthetic lung capable of melding seamlessly with organic material and mimicking cellular regeneration without the drawback of frequent blood clotting. ”
The guild master’s gaze dropped to Have a Lung. Temmi held her breath and bit her tongue to keep from begging please .
He sighed, stepping barefoot onto the meager porch, seemingly unfazed by the cold-as-balls temperature. The front door swung lazily behind him. From inside his townhome came the distant voice of a newscaster droning on about Spielin Expani’s most recent fling.
Seriously? Even the AG’s guild master listened to that shit?
“Is it operational?” Master Huxo asked. “Have you run tests? Accounted for every possible variant? Experimented on actual humans?”
Temmi opened her mouth, then closed it.
“Look, kid.” The guild master rubbed his hand against the back of his neck.
“You got ideas, and you clearly got some knack for putting them together. I admit I’m curious.
Who’s your faculty sponsor? Bring the prototype to them, start a research initiative under their mentorship, and once you’ve got something more legitimate, apply to the guild through the proper channels. ”
A weight as dense as tungsten dropped into Temmi’s gut. “Master Huxo, please. I admit the prototype is premature, but the schematics and theory are sound. If you’ll only let me explain—”
“You’re the girlfriend.”
“Excuse me?”
Huxo shook a knobby finger at her. “Scot Meridan. Great kid. I mentored him when he won the Prince Nix Alliance Scholarship—first ever from X72. Hell, he was the first from the whole X-er System; did you know that? He used to sneak you into my lectures even though you weren’t a student.
I would’ve cared, except you had great insights. ”
At the mention of Scot, Temmi had to physically bite down on the inside of her cheek to keep calm.
Great insights? Hell, yeah, Temmi had great insights .
Scot Meridan had stolen her proposal and submitted it as his own.
She should’ve won the PNA Scholarship. She should’ve been gifted free transport off this landfill of a planet.
Should be expanding upon the field of applied physics while her mother received top-line treatment in an imperial hospital and Ollie studied botany or music or zoology or whatever the fuck he wanted simply because he could.
But as much as she yearned to scream in this man’s face that the ideas had been hers , she knew she’d only come off sounding like a lunatic.
No one had believed her two years earlier when it happened.
Scot had been a well-respected physics student with connections.
She’d been a secondary-school dropout with a criminal record and less than five credits to her name.
“Master Huxo. I’d be an incredible asset to the guild.”
“Who are you studying under? You’re a student, now, I assume.”
“I— No.” How had this gone so terribly wrong? “But my prototype is solid. With a fellowship grant and full research team, it could revolutionize healthcare on X72. Save thousands of lives—hundreds of thousands. Please.”
His expression softened. “Go home. The guild doesn’t consider anyone without a proper degree. Enroll yourself in university, get yourself a mentor, and try again in a few years.” He stepped back, grabbing the edge of the door to close it.
Temmi’s entire body went rigid with panic. Once that door closed, she had no delusions that it would open again.
She thrust Have a Lung in his face. “Buy it from me. You said you’re curious. The engineering is sound, I swear.”
He paused and glanced back at the prototype. “Fifty credits.”
Temmi blanched. “This technology is priceless. It’s easily worth a thousand times that much.”
“Maybe. If it worked. But what you have is a crude mash-up of scavenged parts and a head full of dreams. Two hundred credits.”
“Fuck you. Give me ten thousand.”
His eyebrows shot up his forehead. “One thousand. And watch your language.”
“Two thousand. And no.”
He narrowed his beady gaze on Have a Lung. “Fine. Two thousand. Give me your scan.”
Two thousand credits was enough to cover their back rent plus another two months.
Buy her time to figure out a more-permanent solution.
It should be a relief. Their mom wouldn’t die in the Graveyard and Ollie wouldn’t sneak out in the middle of the night to the mines.
But Temmi had given so much of herself to Have a Lung.
Her passion, her sweat, her hope. She knew the technology was good.
If she sold it for a fraction of what it was worth, she’d never get it back.
Never get the right to claim it for herself.
It’d be Scot all over again. Only this time, she’d be the one selling herself out.
But what other choice did she have?
“Deal,” she said, and then held out her right hand, palm up. The guild master scanned her barcode to transfer the funds into her personal database. When he snatched Have a Lung from her, it felt like a bone being ripped from her body.
By the time she clambered back into the driver’s seat of her truck, she was already crying.
Thick, pointless tears she couldn’t stop.
She doubled over the steering wheel and slammed her fist against the dashboard.
Her tears came harder. It was unfair—her whole life had been unfair. One shitstorm after another.
But crying in a place she’d never belong wasn’t helping anyone.
She wiped her eyes, ignoring the sensation of her chest collapsing in on itself, or trying to anyway, and checked the time. Five hours to pull off two routes. She peeled into the street.