After a short internal debate, Jade opted for the Spaceport Outskirts as her destination.

The vast conglomerate was relatively safer than the Badlands, and it was close to Belarus Spaceport. If necessity arose, she could hop on the first outbound shuttle and leave the planet behind.

But first, she needed a job.

Past-Jade had left her in a dire predicament. After paying the space fare for her fake trip to Marlin, she had enough to rent a room for a week, maybe two depending on the place, but not enough to eat. Food was scarce on the Outer Belts. Only the richest among the rich could afford fresh produce, while the majority of the population couldn’t even afford the synthetic variety. For a gallon of drinkable water, the black market charged thirty parsecs, the daily pay of the average worker. And a pint of the most expensive alcohol on Belarus cost less than a piece of stale bread. Even children were fed cheap ale to give them sustenance.

Thinking of food made her hungry. Painful stomach pangs reminded Jade she was fasting. During the past two days, Vivaldi must have given her one or more bags of saline solution to keep her hydrated, but she needed to bite into something solid, or she would faint.

With eating as her new priority, Jade took care to smear dirt on the exposed white marks on her skin and left the spaceport behind. She hitched a ride on the first vehicle that drove by. As before, the driver of the tank started to complain, but she reached inside the cabin to grab the man by the lapels of his dirty raincoat. A few good old shakes prompted the man to ask her where she wanted to go. She pointed at the outskirts and enjoyed the brief drive.

Even without her marks in plain sight, she was a force to reckon with, and people tended to recognize a warrior at first glance. Or, like in this case, at first shake.

Less than an hour after leaving Zeus Omnipotent, Jade was sitting at a ramen kiosk. One of the three customers perched on the high stools, she ordered as soon as the woman behind the bar finished arguing with the man at the stove.

A small bowl of muddy soup with a nest of white noodles and a few floating pieces of wild shitake set her back of most of what was left on her card. She eyed the synthetic food with loathing, but hunger pangs doubled her stomach, and she sunk the curved ladle into the plasteel bowl, fishing for the pieces of mushroom.

At her first slurp, memories assailed Jade. Unpleasant reminiscences from a poor youth spent in the squalor of a Celestian ghetto came back to her. The taste of synthetically-grown food was forever etched in her mind. A mouthful was all that was needed to go back in time.

Nausea hit her again, but she refused to let her body stand in the way of nutrition and forced herself to eat. The soup was nothing more than water and salt, and the noodles had a plastic-like quality that made chewing them difficult. Spoonful after spoonful, she gulped the too-salty broth down as her stomach rebelled with all its might.

Once she reached the dregs on the bottom of the bowl, her stomach spasmed violently. She breathed to lessen the rising panic vomiting always prompted and hopped off the stool.

“Tomorrow, octopus stew,” the woman said after her. “Fresh catch!”

Jade waved her hand over her shoulder. The whole of Belarus had never seen a live animal, least of all a delicacy from the Celestian seas, but the neighboring Rim cultivated artificial meat. Tanks as big as a city occupied the entire surface of many farm planets that supplied the Outer Belts with synthetic proteins. Lately, a few of the more entrepreneurial farmers catered more exotic fare to an emerging population of small businesspeople and landowners. Jade doubted that those new, rich folks lived anywhere close to the Spaceport Outskirts in Belarus. The fresh octopus might have been anything from month-old fake fish meat to something even more sinister, ground and reshaped to resemble tentacles.

Jade shivered at the thought of what the deceitful ramen kiosk’s owner might have fed her for the astronomical sum she paid. She hoped that the too-salty soup and thin noodles would not cause her much grief later.

Given the spare change left on her card, getting a job became imperative again. Where to sleep that night came second, but it was contingent upon having enough credit to rent a hole. She took several gulps of the recycled air and steadied her legs, eyeing the few stores open on either side of the street. Grates made of scrap metal and plasteel covered the windows and doors, and buzzers showed prominently at the side of the entrances. Customers had to scan their cards before merchants would let them in.

One of the stores had a big guy standing guard with an electric assault rifle. Above the large porthole that served as a revolving door, a sign said, “Extraordinary Celestian Ornaments.” Like the fresh catch found at the ramen’s place, the baubles this store sold were probably far from fine, but its owner thought he needed the extra protection of a mercenary to protect the merchandise. Jade would have bet the last of her meager credits that jewelry wasn’t the only item for sale inside. Seedy businesses needed muscle to keep unsavory characters at bay, but also to ensure the local mafia wouldn’t become overly greedy.

Jade couldn’t present herself as an assassin, but even impersonating the lower role of a mercenary, she would still fetch good money in an economy based on the big-fish-eat-small-fish philosophy of business. She needed to find one store that looked wealthy enough but didn’t sport a guard outside. From her vantage point, she spotted one or two candidates on the opposite side of the street, and eventually decided to try her luck at a place called, “Oberin’s Fine Jewelry.” The shop sported a neon sign depicting two dancing ladies, from which it became obvious that Oberin’s Fine Jewelry didn’t deal in trinkets but fleshier merchandize.

The afternoon crowd filled the road with a multitude of rickshaws. Street vendors with slumped backs and loud voices dragged their heavy carts, occasionally stopping for last-minute clients.

Jade waded through the throng, heading straight for the brothel’s door. At the buzzer, she swiped her card only to start an infernal ruckus that warned every passerby in a kilometer radius that her funds weren’t sufficient to earn her admittance to the place.

“No need to tell everyone I’m poor,” she said under her breath before jamming her fist through the buzzer. The obnoxious sound fizzled to nothing. “Much better.”

A small plasteel window encased between the metal bars of the heavy grate popped open. The muzzle of a long pistol protruded menacingly, angling its aim toward Jade’s eyes.

Jade stepped forward and pressed her forehead against the barrel of the pistol. It was a show of bravado to give the right impression from the start: weapons would not faze her.

To the credit of whoever stood on the other side of the door, the weapon didn’t waver, indicating a steady hand and steadier nerves. The place might not be successful enough to hire security, but it was run by professionals who weren’t trigger happy, and that made it a good choice for Jade.

“I’d like to offer my skills,” she said.

A moment later, the pistol disappeared, and the metal grate clanked as it rolled up. The door opened only a crack. Jade had not even fully slid inside when it started to close.

Inside the pink-lit hallway, a tall woman looked down her nose at Jade. “What can you do for me than other guns-for-hire haven’t already offered?” Her voice held a familiar lilt that Jade couldn’t identify at first.

“I can screen customers better than your broken buzzer,” Jade answered.

The woman raised a well-trimmed eyebrow. Her eyes were a radiant shade of azure, and they danced under the light of the sconces on the wall. “Does it look like I need a screener?” she said, pointing her chin over her shoulder.

Electric candles sputtered and flickered like the real deal, bathing the place in a haze of pink. The scent of beeswax wafted from two braziers hanging from the vaulted ceiling, completing the old-world effect. Slabs of quartz covered the floor which shone like a mirror, reflecting the suffuse lighting. A mechanical worker glided along the end of the hallway, polishing the gilded frames on the wall. Animated paintings of Terran landscapes created a colorful spotlight that drew the eye. The whole display screamed high-end luxury.

Jade had stumbled inside one of the Outer Belts’ famed harems. She had been sorely mistaken; the place made more money than it wanted to show on the outside, which meant that they wanted to maintain a low profile. A low-profile harem meant high-profile patrons.

“I can escort your most prestigious clients.” Jade stared at the woman long and hard. “Not every brothel can afford a professional bodyguard as a driver.”

The woman cocked her hip and waved in Jade’s general direction. “And how much would hiring such a skilled mercenary cost me?”

“Room and board, and one thousand parsecs every two cycles.” Jade didn’t know how long she would remain on Belarus. “First payment at the beginning of my service.”

“You aren’t cheap, are you?” the woman said.

“I’m very good at what I do and always deliver.”

The woman stared intently at Jade, her eyes lingering on her face.

Jade suffered the intense perusal without blinking. She had made sure her marks were still covered, but it looked like her interlocutor could see underneath the sooth and dirt with her piercing gaze.

“It so happens that the business is booming, and I am in need of another driver,” the woman finally said. “Do you have a name?”

A name sprung unbidden to Jade. “Call me Jewel.”

“What a fortunate coincidence.” The woman’s lips quirked into a smile as she extended her hand toward Jade. “Lady Lisandra, owner of Oberin’s Fine Jewelry, the most exclusive harem this side of the galaxy,” she threw back at Jade. “Clean up. You start now.”