Chapter 3 #2
He accepts that with total faith, because children are reckless enough to believe the people who love them can do impossible things.
“Okay,” he says, and yawns. “Need yellow ship.”
“The yellow shuttle toy?”
He nods sleepily.
I retrieve the battered little shuttle from under the bed and tuck it into his hand. He closes his fingers around it, already drifting.
I stay there longer than I need to, listening to his breath even out.
The room smells faintly of soap and warm fabric and the lavender packet Mrs. Keth insisted would “keep bad dreams from nesting.” Out in the main space, traffic hums beyond the window.
The apartment creaks. Pipes knock somewhere in the walls like a distant, irritable ghost.
When I finally stand, the world feels too sharp.
I make tea I don’t really want and sit at the table with my comm, the contract, and the GXC prep packet Director Pell shoved into my file.
Contestant Departure Instructions.
Mandatory transit ID verification.
Initial station screening.
Medical baseline.
Athletic apparel requirements.
Then the archived event footage links.
I tap the first one open because information is leverage, and leverage is the only thing standing between me and panic.
The screen fills with screaming lights.
A commentator’s voice booms over pounding music. “—absolute carnage in the third obstacle phase—”
My tea goes cold in my hand.
Contestants sprint across suspended platforms while a mechanical terrain system reconfigures beneath them.
One misses a jump and slams into a net barrier hard enough to make me flinch.
Another gets hit with a burst of water pressure and pinwheels sideways, swearing in three languages before disappearing into foam.
The crowd roars. Drones swoop overhead, catching every stagger, curse, and near fall.
“Good God,” I whisper.
I open another clip.
A desert track. Heat shimmer. Cargo sleds. Contestants hauling impossible loads through red dust while medics stand by at checkpoints with those calm, watchful faces that say people absolutely bleed doing this.
Another event. Ice field. Climbing walls. A siren blares as one section collapses into a lower safety grid. The commentators sound delighted.
I keep watching because I have to.
My skin prickles. My mouth tastes metallic. Every instinct I possess starts screaming that this is not a game, not really, not under the pyrotechnics and glossy editing and host smiles. This is pain packaged as aspiration. Survival cut into episodes and sold with sponsor tags.
And I signed Jesse into the orbit of it.
I set the comm down and press both palms to my eyes.
Prize money.
Housing.
Promotion review.
A way out.
I pull my hands away and stare at the dark window above the sink. My reflection looks like someone I used to know. Tired. Pinned together by grit and caffeine and obligation.
“I can do hard things,” I say to the empty room.
The room says nothing, which is rude but expected.
I open another file, slower this time. Not spectacle clips. Rules. Scoring systems. Team penalties. Resource management components. Endurance thresholds. Navigation challenges. Public vote modifiers. Sponsor influence opportunities.
There.
That I can use.
Under all the noise and cameras and flashy cruelty, it’s still a structure. A machine. Machines can be studied.
I start taking notes.
Minimize energy waste in early phases. Observe before committing. Let louder people burn themselves out. Watch for puzzle elements disguised as brute-force contests. Track which events reward consistency over drama. Avoid alliances built on adrenaline and jawlines.
Especially jawlines, I add privately, because life has taught me that beauty is a terrible substitute for planning.
By midnight the apartment is a controlled explosion of lists. Packing notes. Jesse’s food preferences. Emergency contacts. Clothing. Med kit. Spare comm chargers. Layered socks. Documents. The reinforced carrier harness I swore I’d never need again but am suddenly grateful I kept.
I sleep badly.
In the morning, everything happens at once.
A transport confirmation pings in. Brautigaum’s office sends a cheerful branded message wishing me luck “as I embody the company spirit,” which is enough to make me bare my teeth at the screen.
A courier drops off contestant travel bands and luggage tags with the GXC logo on them in gleaming silver.
Jesse is ecstatic.
“Shiny!”
“Yes,” I say, fastening one to my wrist. “That’s usually how they get you.”
By midday I’ve packed two bags three different ways. One for me. One for Jesse. Then I repack both because sleep deprivation makes me stupid and I’d somehow given my child six shirts and one sock.
Mrs. Keth comes by with a parcel of dried fruit strips and the grimly ceremonial air of a woman preparing somebody for war.
“For the boy,” she says.
“Thank you.”
She squints at me. “And for you, because you’ve gone pale around the mouth.”
“That’s just my personality.”
“Don’t get clever with me.”
I laugh despite myself and let her fuss over Jesse for ten minutes while I seal the apartment and run final checks. Locks. Utilities. Mail hold. Neighbor contact. Fenn arrives to carry one of my bags downstairs and mutters, “If they kill you for ratings, haunt somebody rich.”
“Beautiful. I feel supported.”
“You are.”
At the transit hub, contestants gather in pockets of nerves and ego under towering departure boards.
The terminal smells like fuel, hot metal, stale pastries, and too many species breathing in the same anxious key.
Everywhere I look there are bodies built for spectacle—towering Khepri, lean human athletes, a pair of laughing Trinex siblings with matching sponsorship patches, one huge woman with scarred knuckles.
And me. Administrative support with a diaper bag.
Jesse sits in his travel harness on my chest, one hand wrapped in my collar, the yellow toy shuttle tucked under his arm. His warmth seeps through my shirt. The crowd noise vibrates in my bones.
A contestant beside me glances over. Human man, broad smile, too much confidence.
“First season?” he asks.
I shift my bag higher. “Is it that obvious?”
He grins. “You still look morally opposed.”
“I am morally opposed.”
He laughs like I’m flirting. “Name’s Dax.”
“Tilda.”
He nods at Jesse. “Didn’t know they allowed kids.”
“They allow ratings.”
His eyebrows jump, then he snorts. “Fair point.”
Boarding begins in waves. Uniformed staff herd us toward the shuttle with professional brightness. Scanners blink over our travel bands. Cameras drift nearby, already gathering footage. A woman in glittering silver outerwear speaks to a drone about “fresh faces and heartbreaking backstories.”
I turn my shoulder so Jesse’s face is hidden from it.
The shuttle interior is louder than I expected—overhead bins slamming, contestants talking too loudly, the hiss of climate vents and docking seals. I strap in with Jesse asleep against me before we’ve even fully lifted, dead weight and trust pinning me to the seat.
Across the aisle, Dax is telling another contestant he plans to “dominate the endurance phases.” Somewhere behind me, somebody is crying quietly into a call with family. Ahead, two women argue about whether Syfer Station counts as a luxury waypoint or merely expensive.
I stare out the port as Novaria falls away.
The city becomes geometry. Light. A glittering wound wrapped around the curve of the planet.
For one irrational moment I want to get off. Grab Jesse, run back, apologize to nobody, and take my chances with layoffs and rent and all the ordinary forms of ruin I at least know by name.
Then Jesse stirs, makes a little sleepy sound, and tucks his face closer under my chin.
I press my lips to his hair.
“No,” I whisper to the reflection in the port. “We’re doing this.”
The shuttle docks at Syfer Station hours later with the soft, bone-deep thunk of magnetic locks engaging.
The station is enormous—glass promenades, polished metal arches, the faint scent of recirculated air overlaid with spice kiosks and engine grease.
Contestant handlers move us through a private corridor away from the public concourse.
I expect industrial transport from there.
Instead, the corridor opens onto a docking bay where a luxury cruise liner waits in impossible white and gold.
I stop walking.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
The ship gleams under bay lights like vanity made structural. Sleek hull. panoramic viewing decks. decorative light strips curling along the gangway. Across the side, in enormous silver script, the liner’s name glitters like it expects applause.
A contestant behind me whistles. “Well, that’s obscene.”
“It is,” I mutter.
A staff escort with a headset smiles without slowing. “Welcome to the Celestial Bloom, our official transfer vessel to Fratvoy One.”
Of course it is.
Jesse wakes enough to lift his head and blink at the ship. “Big.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Big.”
Dax comes up beside me, carrying his duffel over one shoulder. “Guess they want us comfortable before they start trying to kill us.”
“That is not comforting.”
He laughs again.
I don’t.
We move up the gangway in a glittering procession of contestants, staff, luggage, nerves.
Somewhere overhead, cameras pivot like bright mechanical birds.
The liner smells of polished wood composites, chilled citrus, expensive fabric, and that faint sterile undertone all luxury transport has—the smell of money trying to disguise logistics.
My cabin assignment includes a family suite, exactly as negotiated. Small, but clean. Reinforced crib frame already in place. Thank God.
I set my bags down and stand in the middle of the room while Jesse toddles toward the viewport with a gasp.
Beyond the glass, Syfer Station glows against the dark like a jeweled wheel.
This is real now.
No office. No apartment. No pretending it’s just paperwork and signatures.
I rest my fingers on the back of the reinforced chair, testing its weight, its steadiness.
Strategic challenge, I tell myself.
Not entertainment.
Not fear.
Not spectacle.
A problem.
A series of problems, actually. Physical, social, logistical, political. Fine. I solve problems. That is what I do. I solve them in ugly rooms with bad coffee and impossible constraints while people with nicer shoes make everything worse.
So I will solve this too.
I look at Jesse, his small hand pressed to the window, his scales glowing warm copper in reflected starlight.
“For you,” I say under my breath.
Then I square my shoulders, open the event brief again, and start planning how to beat a machine built to turn people into a show.