Episode 2

Chapter 2: Star Beast Station

I woke up face-down in garbage.

Actual garbage — corroded scrap alloy, leaking coolant canisters, something that might have been a maintenance drone's severed arm. My cheek was stuck to a frozen sheet of metal, and when I peeled myself off it, the pain was so immediate and specific that I almost admired it. Swollen left cheek from Caelen's backhand. Split lip courtesy of the shelf impact. Claw marks from Yara's nails running diagonally across my right cheekbone like someone had tried to write their initials on my face.

I sat up. The alley spun lazily around me.

The system display was still there, hovering at the edge of my vision — blue-white text on translucent panels.

*"Host status: stabilized. Injuries: non-critical. Recommendation: deploy Star Beast Station immediately. Quest timer: 68:42:11."*

Sixty-eight hours left. I'd been out for almost four.

I stood up. My legs disagreed with this decision but ultimately cooperated. Dustmere's artificial dawn was creeping across the sky in flat grey, and the storm had died down to a thin drizzle that found every cut on my face.

I was in the fringe district. If I was going to build something, this was the place — no foot traffic, no nosy neighbors, no Ashford surveillance drones. Just condemned buildings and stripped cargo containers in every direction.

I found it three blocks east. A building, two stories, walls still standing, windows blown out, the faded logo of a dead logistics company barely visible under decades of grime. The door was a sheet of warped alloy hanging off one hinge.

I kicked it open.

Inside: dust, darkness, the skeleton of a cargo shelf system. Something small and fast skittered away from my footstep.

"This'll work."

I pulled up the system interface and found the station blueprint in my inventory. A single-use deployment item, glowing faintly gold on the translucent display. I tapped it.

*"Deploy Star Beast Station at current location? Warning: deployment is permanent and irreversible."*

"Do it."

Gold light swallowed the building.

It lasted maybe two seconds and turned the entire block white. When it faded, the ruin was gone. In its place stood a clean, compact structure with smooth composite walls, reinforced alloy framing, and a glass-paneled entrance that slid open with a soft hiss as I approached.

Inside: polished floors, ambient lighting that adjusted to my movement, two sealed pods against the far wall — HEALING POD and EVOLUTION POD, each the size of a standard med-bay chamber. A front counter with a digital register. A back room with a narrow cot, a washbasin, and a food synthesizer.

The system populated the pricing menu on the counter's holo-display.

*"Medical service: 500,000 Star Crystals per session. Evolution assistance: 1,000,000 Star Crystals per session. Boarding service: 10,000 Star Crystals per day. Note: Host is invulnerable within station perimeter. Station walls cannot be breached by any force below Saint-tier."*

I read the prices twice. Half a million for healing. A million for evolution. These weren't fringe-district numbers — these were the kind of figures that made colony governors blink.

But the invulnerability clause. Nobody could touch me in here. Not Caelen. Not Helena. Not every Gold-tier contractor on this planet combined.

The door whispered shut behind me and the temperature jumped twenty degrees. Warmth flooded through me so fast it made me dizzy. I braced one hand against the counter and just breathed for a minute, letting the heat soak into my frozen muscles, into the bruises.

*"Quest 'First Shop' — complete. Star Beast Station established. Reward processing..."*

A chime in my skull.

*"Reward: all base attributes +5. New ability unlocked: Star Eye. Quality Upgrade Pill (Diamond-grade) x1 deposited to inventory. Daily Free Service activated — one complimentary healing or evolution session per day."*

I blinked. Read it again.

Star Eye. I focused on the counter in front of me and a new layer of perception kicked in — data scrolled across my vision: material composition, structural integrity, energy readings. Everything I looked at became readable.

I checked my inventory. The Gold-tier Star Beast Egg sat there, pulsing faintly with warmth, and next to it, a single pill that glowed with Diamond-grade energy.

I placed the egg in the evolution pod. The glass sealed, amber light enveloped it, and a timer began counting down: 71:58:00.

I leaned against the counter and looked out through the glass front at the fringe district — empty streets, rusted containers, grey sky.

For the first time in two years, I wasn't cold. Wasn't hungry. Wasn't waiting for the next hit.

*"Recommendation: open for business. Revenue unlocks additional station functions."*

"I need customers first," I said to the ceiling. "This is the fringe district. Nobody comes here."

The system didn't respond. Apparently motivational speeches weren't in its feature set.

---

Nobody came for the rest of the morning. Or early afternoon. I cleaned things that were already clean. Checked the egg's incubation readout twelve times. Ate a nutrient bar from the synthesizer that tasted like nothing and left me wanting real food.

By three o'clock I was seriously considering whether talking to myself counted as a customer interaction, when the system chimed.

*"Incoming vehicle detected. Arrival: thirty seconds."*

I straightened up so fast I almost fell off the counter.

Through the glass front, I watched a vehicle glide in from the direction of the colony's main strip. A Lysander-9 hovercar — matte black, custom trim, the kind of machine that cost more than most people's houses. Extremely out of place in the fringe district.

The door opened.

The man who stepped out was tall, lean, and wearing a white military-cut jacket over dark base layers. Angular face, sharp jaw, dark hair precisely cut. Pale eyes, clear and cold.

He was carrying something. Small, wrapped in his jacket lining, trembling.

Star Eye activated before I even thought about it.

*"Species: Fire Squirrel. Tier: Silver. Status: CRITICAL — rare neurotoxin detected. Multiple organ failure imminent. Survival without intervention: four hours. Healing Pod compatibility: 98.7% — full recovery achievable."*

He walked through my door without hesitation. One sweep of the interior — pods, counter, girl with a bruised face — and zero reaction.

He stopped in front of me. Up close, the Fire Squirrel looked worse — russet fur darkened with sweat, tiny claws dug into his jacket, breathing in rapid little hitches. Its tail, which should have been bright and bushy, hung limp.

"Can you treat it?"

His voice was low and controlled, but his hands were trembling. Just barely. Just enough for me to catch.

"Rare neurotoxin," I said. "Most clinics in Dustmere can't handle it. Mine can. Full recovery."

"How much?"

"Five hundred thousand star crystals."

That's a year's salary for a mid-level contractor. He transferred the money before I finished blinking.

*"Payment received: 500,000 SC."*

I took the Fire Squirrel from his arms. It flinched at the transfer, then pressed its nose into the crook of my elbow and went still. I set it in the healing pod. Glass sealed, bio-gel flooded the chamber, and the readout started scrolling — toxin identification, antidote synthesis, cellular repair initiating.

"Few hours," I said. "You can wait or come back."

"I'll wait."

The way he'd been holding that squirrel — pressed against his chest, wrapped in his own jacket, body heat keeping it warm — I already knew he would.

I grabbed two canned coffees from the synthesizer. Cheapest brand imaginable, the kind that tasted like someone had described coffee to a machine that had never met an actual bean.

I tossed one at him. He caught it. Looked at it. Looked at me.

Then he cracked it open and drank.

We sat on the floor — him against the wall by the healing pod, me across from him against the counter. The floor was the only seating option.

"Sera," I said. Not because he asked.

He took another sip. "Lucian Blackwell."

Blackwell. As in Blackwell Industries. As in the family that owned forty percent of Dustmere's commercial infrastructure.

I looked at the Lysander-9 parked outside. Then at the canned coffee in his hand.

"You always drink floor coffee with strangers in condemned districts?"

The corner of his mouth twitched. "No," he said.

Three hours later, the healing pod chimed. The glass opened. The Fire Squirrel shot out like it had been spring-loaded — fur blazing a deep, healthy copper, eyes bright, tail full and plumed again. It landed on Lucian's shoulder and chittered so hard it vibrated.

Lucian's hand froze mid-reach. His eyes went wide for a fraction of a second.

"It upgraded," he said.

Star Eye confirmed it — the healing had cleared a toxin that had been suppressing the squirrel's advancement for months. Silver to Gold-tier, just like that.

"Side effect," I said. "The toxin was blocking its growth ceiling. Remove the block, clear the path."

He looked at the squirrel. Then at me. Then at the bruises on my face that I'd forgotten were there.

"Your injuries," he said. "Who?"

"Doesn't matter."

He didn't push. He stood. The squirrel adjusted on his shoulder. He pulled up his transfer interface.

*"Payment received: 500,000 SC. Note: voluntary additional payment."*

"I didn't charge extra," I said.

"I know."

He walked to the door. Paused.

"I'll come back tomorrow," he said. "The evolution pod — I want to see what it does."

The door slid shut. The Lysander-9 lifted off without a sound.

I stood in my station. One million in my account. One customer. One bruised face reflected in the glass of the healing pod.

The system chimed softly.

*"Daily Free Service activated. One complimentary healing or evolution session available. Resets in twenty-four hours. Suggestion: use strategically to build customer loyalty."*

I looked at the door Lucian Blackwell had just walked through.

"Want to see what free looks like, Ice Prince?" I muttered.

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