Chapter Two: Licensed Goods

The police left after another round of polite warnings and professional stares that felt anything but casual. The door clicked shut behind them, and only then did I realize my back was soaked with cold sweat. I stood there for a few seconds longer than necessary, listening to their footsteps fade down the narrow hallway, before locking the door twice.

Silence returned to the room.

I turned slowly toward the bed.

The girl—no, my sister-shaped mystery—was no longer snoring.

She was sitting upright.

The mask was still on, smooth and white under the dim ceiling light, but her posture had changed completely. Gone was the limp, exhausted figure I had dragged home. Her back was straight, shoulders relaxed, hands resting neatly on her thighs as if she were attending a meeting rather than waking up in a stranger’s rented room.

“You lied convincingly,” she said.

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

“G-good evening?” I replied reflexively, then immediately regretted how stupid that sounded.

She tilted her head slightly, the motion precise, mechanical even. “You told them I was your sister. That was an acceptable risk assessment under the circumstances.”

“…You’re not denying it,” I said carefully.

For a moment, she did not respond. Then she reached up and pressed two fingers against the side of her mask. There was a soft click, followed by a faint shimmer of light, and the mask dissolved into particles that vanished like dust in water.

The face beneath it was familiar.

Too familiar.

Same sharp eyes. Same mole near the corner of the lip. Same expression she wore whenever she thought she was smarter than everyone else in the room.

“My-my sister doesn’t wear masks,” I said weakly.

“She does when she’s working,” she replied. “Or when she doesn’t want her client base to trace her civilian identity.”

Client base.

That word landed heavily.

“You’re really my sister,” I said. “Not a clone. Not an impostor. Not some underground cosplayer with identity theft issues.”

She sighed, rubbing her temple. “Mimi, if I wanted you dead, you would not have had time to order chicken.”

That, unfortunately, made sense.

I sat down hard on the chair opposite the bed. My brain felt like it had been stuffed with wet cotton. “You were glowing,” I said at last. “Your hands. And the pipe disappeared. And those men—normal people don’t do that.”

“Correct,” she said calmly. “They are registered irregular users.”

“…Registered what?”

She looked at me then, really looked at me, as if reassessing a variable she had previously marked as irrelevant. “I suppose concealment is no longer cost-effective,” she said. “Especially since you’re already implicated.”

“Implicated in what?” I asked.

“In a Tier-Three unsanctioned transaction dispute,” she replied. “And obstruction of post-incident cleanup, though unintentionally.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “You sell superpowers,” I said finally.

She blinked once. “Abilities,” she corrected. “Powers is a marketing term used by black-market vendors.”

Of course. My sister corrected terminology while casually admitting to something that would rewrite every science textbook on the planet.

She stood up, testing her balance. The fatigue was still there—I could see it now—but it was restrained, controlled. “I am a licensed system vendor,” she continued. “I distribute limited-use frameworks to compatible users. Combat, utility, enhancement, specialized modules. Everything is tracked, metered, and subject to revocation.”

“…There’s a license,” I repeated.

“Yes.”

“…From who?”

She hesitated. Just for a fraction of a second.

“From the system,” she said.

That was not reassuring.

She picked up the jacket from the bed, checking its inner pocket before pulling out her phone—her phone—and silencing the missed call. “The two men in the alley were clients,” she added. “One attempted to force an upgrade outside his authorization tier. The other interfered.”

“And you?” I asked. “You just happened to be there?”

“I was concluding a retrieval,” she said. “You were the anomaly.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “I go for a walk, almost get murdered, lie to the police, and find out my sister runs an illegal supernatural shop—and I’m the anomaly?”

“Yes,” she said flatly. “You are not registered. You have no interface. Yet you were able to remain conscious within the residual field.”

That made the laughter stop.

She stepped closer, her gaze sharp now, analytical. “Mimi,” she said, lowering her voice, “the system noticed you.”

My stomach dropped.

“And once it notices something,” she continued, “it eventually wants to categorize it.”

I swallowed. “And what happens then?”

She put her hand on my shoulder. It was warm. Real. Familiar.

“That,” she said, “depends on whether you become a user… or a product.”

The room felt suddenly much smaller.

And for the first time since that evening stroll began, I understood one thing with perfect clarity:

My life had already been added to someone’s inventory.

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