Dead End

Three days since my charming conversation with Vex. Forty-two days left to find five thousand creds, and I was exactly nowhere.

I'd spent the morning asking around about this mysterious "government program" Ashton had mentioned. Hit up the usual information brokers in the Rust markets, checked with the scavenger crews, even swallowed my pride and asked at the social services kiosk near the transit hub.

Everyone knew something existed. Nobody knew what.

"Yeah, some girls got into something," was about as detailed as anyone could get. "Haven't seen Zyra in months, but word is she's doing better." "Government thing, medical building somewhere." "Heard it pays decent, but nobody talks about what you actually do."

The information drought was fucking irritating. Usually, street networks knew everything about everything—who was hiring, who was buying, which cops could be bought, which gang territories to avoid. But this program? Radio silence. Either it was so new that word hadn't spread, or people were being unusually tight-lipped about it.

By noon, I'd burned through half my remaining creds on transit fares and gotten exactly nothing useful in return. Time to face some unpleasant math.

I sat on the edge of my sleeping bag in the abandoned factory unit I'd been crashing in, counting my remaining assets. Forty-seven physical creds, twelve digital creds in my account, and a handful of items I could maybe sell if I got desperate enough.

Forty-two days. Five thousand creds.

One hundred nineteen creds per day, every single day, for six weeks straight.

Yesterday's blowjob had netted me fifty creds, but that required finding a client, negotiating terms, and risking my safety in dive bar bathrooms. Even if I could manage that every day—which was optimistic as hell—I'd still fall short by almost two thousand creds.

Theft was hit-or-miss at best. A good day might bring fifty creds, assuming I didn't get caught, beaten, or arrested. Most days brought nothing, and the Grid merchants were getting wise to the uptick in desperate people trying to grab easy scores.

I pulled out a scrap of paper and a stubby pencil, starting to run calculations, trying every combination I could think of. Blowjobs three times a week, theft twice a week, odd jobs whenever available, maybe selling plasma if I could find a clinic that didn't ask too many questions...

The numbers didn't work. No matter how I calculated it, no matter what combination of desperate measures I put together, I couldn't reach five thousand creds in six weeks. Not without getting arrested, beaten, or killed in the process.

Forty-seven creds to my name. Vex expecting five thousand. This is mathematical impossibility.

But the alternative was letting him harvest my organs, which seemed like a poor long-term strategy.

I needed something that paid better than anything I'd ever done before. Something that didn't require skills I didn't have or connections I couldn't make. Something—

Government program. Medical building. Pays decent.

The fragments of information Ashton had given me weren't much, but they were the only lead I had. And if this program was real, if it actually paid the kind of money that could solve my problems...

I counted my remaining creds again. Twelve digital, forty-seven physical. Transit to the Grid would cost five creds each way. That left me with forty-nine creds total if this turned out to be a waste of time.

Can't afford to waste time. Can't afford not to check it out.

I grabbed my jacket and headed for the transit station.

The medical building on Fifth Avenue was exactly the kind of place that made me nervous. Clean glass facade, professional signage, security guards who looked like they actually knew what they were doing. The kind of institutional legitimacy that usually meant forms, waiting periods, and disappointment.

"Department of Biological Resources - Citizen Services" read the sign by the main entrance. Government agency, then. That explained the secrecy—bureaucrats loved their procedures and confidentiality agreements.

The lobby was surprisingly busy for a Tuesday afternoon. Mostly women, I noticed, ranging from barely-legal teenagers to women in their thirties. Mixed demographics—humans, Dark Elves, even a few High Elves who looked like they'd come down from the Spire for some reason.

Weird crowd for a government office.

I approached the reception desk, where a professionally dressed human woman looked up from her terminal with practiced customer service smile.

The forms were standard bureaucratic bullshit—name, address, employment status, financial situation. I answered honestly, figuring they could verify most of it anyway. Under "current financial status," I wrote "desperate."

Twenty minutes later, a woman in medical scrubs called my name. Dr. Martinez, according to her badge. Professional but not unfriendly, the kind of demeanor that suggested she'd had this conversation many times before.

She led me to a small examination room and gestured to the chair.

Height, weight, blood pressure, basic medical history. The same routine I'd been through at free clinics when I couldn't afford real healthcare. Dr. Martinez worked efficiently, making notes on her tablet.

She nodded, finishing her notes.

Dr. Martinez set down her tablet and looked at me directly.

"........."

Did she just say what I think she said?

I stared at her, waiting for more explanation that would make this make sense. She just looked at me expectantly.

"What the actual fuck..."

My brain had completely shut down somewhere around "carry a baby to term." This was insane. This was beyond insane. This was—

Wait. Did she say compensation?

I caught that word, even through the mental static. But pregnancy? That was—that was not what I'd signed up for when I walked in here.

I headed for the door, leaving her with whatever else she'd been planning to say. Pregnancy. They wanted me to get pregnant for money. Like some kind of breeding program.

This is fucked up. This is completely fucked up.

But as I walked back through the lobby, past the other women waiting for their appointments, one word kept echoing in my head.

Compensation.

The transit ride back to the Rust gave me time to process what had just happened. Or try to, anyway. Every time I thought I'd wrapped my head around it, the sheer absurdity hit me again.

Contract to carry a baby to term.

What the hell did that even mean? Get pregnant and... what? Just have a baby and hand it over? To who? Why? None of it made any sense.

Who the fuck comes up with this shit?

But underneath the confusion and disgust, a small part of my brain kept circling back to that one word.

Compensation.

She'd said compensation. Which meant money. Possibly significant money, if they had a whole medical building dedicated to whatever this was.

No. Absolutely not. I'm desperate, but I'm not that desperate.

Except I was exactly that desperate. Forty-one days left on Vex's deadline, no viable plan to reach five thousand creds, and my alternative was having my organs harvested.

But pregnancy? Whatever that "contract" thing was supposed to be? That wasn't desperation, that was insanity.

I shook my head, trying to clear the thoughts. I had forty-one days to figure something out. Legitimate something. Normal something. Not... whatever the hell that program was supposed to be.

Forty-one days. Better make them count.

The transit pulled into the Rust station, and I stepped back into my familiar world of broken concrete and rusted metal. Tomorrow, I'd try again. Find another angle, another opportunity, another way to solve this that didn't involve... whatever that was.

Because that was insane.