My eyes flutter open, and I see the inside of a transport shuttle. I feel the soft rumble of the engines vibrating through the floor beneath me.

Fear rolls over me in sickening waves. This is wrong. This isn’t where I’m supposed to be.

My head falls to the side, and I see a row of other women. Their eyes are closed. When I notice the thin wire cuffs around their wrists, I realize I can feel cold wire cutting into my own. I try to move my arms, to fight my bonds. My muscles don’t obey the order, but a wave of nausea rolls over me from the effort.

I’ve been drugged.

Darkness creeps in from the edges of my vision, and the world fades away.

* * *

My eyes open again, and this time I’m lying on something stiff, but softer than the floor of the transport shuttle, staring at a ceiling made up of a series of lightweight metal panels, like the ones forming the walls of—

The dormitory building in Settlement A.

And just like that, it all comes back to me.

Aging metal buildings, missing half their doors and windows. A single crumbling street. Men everywhere, most of them unbathed, with overgrown hair and hands that grab. Eyes that leer.

Audra and Tyson.

I’m supposed to be in zone four, Settlement A, with Audra and Tyson. My friends. My protectors and allies.

Someone sneezes, and I realize I am not alone. I roll over and nearly fall off the edge of the platform I’m lying on. Because it’s a bed. A top bunk.

“Whoa, watch out,” a soft voice says, and my gaze finds a woman sitting on a bottom bunk a few feet away, staring up at me. “You might be dizzy at first, as that shit works its way out of your system.” She looks nice enough. But she’s not Audra. Neither are any of the other women moving on the periphery of my vision, most reclining on one of the dozen or so other bunks in this large room.

I have no idea where I am. But this is nothing like Settlement A.

Mindful of the nice lady’s warning, I sit up slowly and let my legs hang over the bunk while I take in my surroundings. There are no men here. No windows. No dirt. Everything here is shiny and clean. Sterile and hard. Even the mattress pad beneath me smells like disinfectant and lacks bedding.

I press my fingers into the vinyl covering the pad, and there is some give. But only a little.

“If you’re going to puke, go to the bathroom,” the woman on the lower bunk says. “I scrubbed the mattresses this morning.” Her hair is long and pale. And clean. Her skin is smooth and unblemished. She smells…good. Like something sweet.

Or maybe that’s the way the whole room smells.

I want to know if it’s still morning, but I don’t want to know badly enough to ask. There’s only one true door in this room, at the end of the aisle between rows of beds, but that door is a solid sheet of metal. Through the small window, I see only a hallway. No sunlight.

“She’s awake?” Another woman stops in the aisle and props her elbow on the top bunk across from me. “That’s the last of them.” She assesses me for a second, then she turns to the blond on the bottom bunk. “You got this?”

“Yeah. She hasn’t said anything yet, but I don’t think she’s…damaged. Get the others showered. I’ll be there with Sleeping Beauty in a minute.”

The other woman—a brunette with short hair—leaves us, headed across the room where several more women are huddled next to an open doorway that leads into a tiled room. A bathroom.

The huddled women stare around with wide eyes, arms crossed over their chests, hugging themselves. I recognize a couple of them from the transport shuttle. They were already on board when the guard took me, kicking and screaming for Audra.

Tyson held her back, refusing to let her fight for me.

I want to hate him for that, but I can’t. He’s the only reason I survived Settlement A. But Audra’s safety comes first. That was clear from the beginning.

“That’s Lilli.” The blond woman stands, nodding at the brunette. “What’s your name?” Her gaze takes in my face, and when she reaches up like she might push my hair back for a better view, I scuttle backward on the bare mattress, toward the metal wall at the head of the bed. Out of reach. “No one here will hurt you. I swear. We’re all friends. Allies. Like a support system.”

I only stare at her, trying to figure this out. She’s wearing the same uniform I was issued on Station Alpha a month ago, when the prison transport arrived at Rhodon. The infamous Red Rock. Called Devil’s Eye because from a distance, it looks like a bright red eye staring out at the universe from the blanket of deep, dark space.

The uniforms say I’m still on Devil’s Eye. But this definitely isn’t zone four.

It’s zone two. The guards on the transport shuttle had said that’s where they were headed as they’d hauled me on board.

The blond woman’s uniform is clean and unstained, like mine was before I spent a month trekking through the woods, fishing, foraging, and helping check Tyson’s traps. Before Audra helped me cut the pants into shorts with Tyson’s knife. I’d been hesitant to show that much skin in Settlement A, but Devil’s Eye is hot and humid, during the day.

This room is not. The air has the cool, dry feel of an artificial environment. As if we were onboard a ship. But I don’t think that’s the case.

“What’s your name?” the blond woman tries again. When I don’t answer, she sighs and tries another tactic. “I’m Danna. Basically, I’m the welcoming committee. I’m supposed to explain where you are and what’s expected of you, then get you showered and changed.”

I stare out at the room again and notice that there are no personal objects. No standard issue backpacks, nor any of the supplies that were handed out with them on Station Alpha. I see no bedding, no clothes, no food, no toiletries, nor do I see any dressers or lockers where belongings might be kept. There is nothing in this room but two rows of bunkbeds and a long narrow aisle between.

“I want to be patient with you,” Danna says. “I’ve been where you are. But if you don’t start cooperating, they’ll take it out on all of us, and that’s no way to make friends. Or allies. So, I’ll ask one more time.” She sounds frustrated, but there is no malice in her tone. “What’s your name?”

“Maci.” My voice sounds hoarse. My throat is very dry.

“Great. Maci, welcome to zone two. Did they bring you here from Station Alpha? From in-processing?”

I shake my head and watch as the other new women file into the bathroom. A couple of them wear stained, cut-up clothes like mine, but most have clean, new-looking uniforms, like Danna’s. They’ve come straight from Station Alpha. From the prison transport that brought them here. Without a detour into one of the open-population zones.

“I’m not sure where you were before this,” Danna continues. “But I was in zone six. Women were not treated well there. I was…passed around. Beaten. Half-starved. Life is much better here. It’s still prison. We still do as we’re told. But none of that other shit happens here. We get decent food. Clean clothes. Hot showers.”

There’s a catch. There has to be. But I won’t ask.

“We have to keep this place clean. We have to keep ourselves clean. But if you think about it, those are pretty civilized concepts. And the alternative is…well…zone six. Or whatever zone you’re from.”

“Danna!” Lilli calls from the bathroom doorway. “We’re running out of time!”

I won’t ask. I won’t ask. I won’t—

“Come on. I’ll explain the rest in the shower.” Danna waves me forward, and when I don’t move, her smile falters. “Our fates are tied together, Maci. When one of us fucks up, we all pay. Do not be the reason that happens.”

That’s why there are no guards. There’s no need for guards if the women are willing to keep themselves in line.

Without a word, I scoot to the edge of the bed and hop down. Now I have to look up at Danna. She reaches for my chin, but I step to back, out of reach again.

“I told you I wouldn’t hurt you. I’m just trying to get a good look through all that hair,” she says. So, I push it back myself, to keep her from touching me. She smiles, but the expression has a sad look to it. “They’re gonna like you.” Then she frowns. “How old are you?”

I get that a lot. I’m twenty, in Earth-standard solar units. Plenty old enough to be tried as an adult. But I look a lot younger than that, and though my mom said I’d appreciate that when I get older, so far, I haven’t found a youthful face to have many advantages.

Only predators seek out women who look like children. That’s as true on my homeworld as it is here on Devil’s Eye.

When I don’t answer, Danna shrugs and heads for the bathroom. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

I follow her, and though steam is now rolling from the bathroom, when we step inside, I see that most of the other women have finished showering.

The bathroom is one big, open, titled space, organized into various sections without any actual dividers. Directly across from the open doorway, the floor slopes gently toward a row of shower heads high on the far wall. Mounted beneath each of them is a dispenser, loaded with an inverted soft pouch of some kind of soap. On the floor are a series of drains, one centered beneath each shower head.

To the left is a row of toilets, as exposed to the rest of the room as the showers are. Opposite those, on the right, stands a long metal countertop with a series of integrated sinks. The seamless metal wall behind them has been polished to a mirror sheen, and unlike glass, it cannot be shattered and used as a weapon.

A metal bench runs down the center of the room, bolted to the tile floor, and as Danna leads me toward the showers, Lilli gestures for the other women, now wrapped in spotless white towels, to sit on the bench. “Uniforms are arranged in descending size order.” She gestures behind her to a wall of open metal cubbies interrupted only by the doorway leading into the dormitory. “If you don’t know your size, take a guess. If you guess wrong, carefully refold the clothing and place it back in its stack. We do not make messes here, because we do not like to clean messes here.”

As if on cue, several women who’ve obviously been here a while take spray bottles and sponges from the bottom row of cubbies and descend upon the showers in a quiet cleaning frenzy. They pull hair from the drains, then they scrub the tile and the soap dispensers, paying special attention to the grout and seams.

On the way to the showers, Danna pulls her shirt over her head, then drops it into a bin labeled “uniforms.” Her pants come off next, and she’s completely nude. Without underwear.

Or any body hair whatsoever.

I take off my shirt and start to drop it in the laundry bin, but she stops me with one hand pointed at a trash chute in the wall. “They won’t let you wear that again,” she says. “Any of it.” So, I strip and drop my clothes into the trash chute, trying not to wonder who “they” are.

Danna steps beneath the shower head on the end, and I take the one next to her, fighting the urge to cover myself with my hands. No one here is interested in me, and my modesty serves no purpose. Yet it’s hard to let go of.

Water flows from the shower head the moment I step beneath it. It’s warm, and I’m immediately suspicious of the luxury, even though Danna told me there’d be hot showers. I’m not naive enough to think we’re being kept in relative comfort with nothing asked of us other than a few chores.

I wet my hair, then hold my hand beneath the soap dispenser. The thick liquid that squirts into my hand smells sweet and clean. Danna’s using her handful to lather her hair and body indiscriminately, so I do the same.

“You’re not going to ask, are you?” she says as she bends to rub thick suds over her legs. I only blink at her. “We’re companions.”

I’m not entirely sure what that means, despite the salacious implication. The women in Settlement A could be described—somewhat ironically—as companions, but we weren’t kept clean and soft with on-demand soap. We weren’t given our own beds. Clearly the women here aren’t meant to service fellow prisoners, but I can’t imagine who we’re…

Guards.

Who else would have the authority and resources to put something like this together?

I stop scrubbing my head and breathe through a wave of panic. My rib cage seems to be trying to fold in on itself. My lungs won’t expand.

“Relax. If you do as you’re told, they won’t hurt you.” She frowns, reassessing. “Well, they won’t injure you, anyway. Can you say that about wherever you were before?”

No. But I was insulated from the true dangers of Settlement A by Audra and Tyson.

“Breathe,” Danna orders as she picks up a bottle I hadn’t noticed before. She squirts a generous dollop onto her palm, then steps out of the flow of water and begins smearing the cream over her legs. “Everywhere you have body hair,” she says as she pushes the bottle toward me across the tile. Let it sit for a couple of minutes before you rinse.”

I follow her example, shivering in the cold, now that I’m not under the shower, while women across the room dry their hair.

When Danna rinses the cream from her legs, I step beneath the water again too, and my body hair washes down the drain along with the cream. I am smooth and soft everywhere. After a month without shaving, that should be a luxury. Instead, it terrifies me down to my soul.

Danna steps out of the shower, and I stick my head under the water to rinse it.

“You look curious,” she says as she crosses the room, dripping, to grab a couple of towels. “I’ll answer any question you ask.”

Instead, I turn to face the wall while I rinse.

“Still not talking?” Lilli says from behind me.

“Nope,” Danna answers. “And if she’s not talking, I’m not either. Let the rest of it be a surprise.”

When I step out from under the flow of water, she hands me a towel. I wring my hair out with it and pat my arms dry, then wrap the towel around myself. Danna puts a bottle of lotion and couple of folded pieces of clothing on the bench for me, and by the time I’ve moisturized and gotten dressed, she’s moved on to the sinks.

“Here.” She presses a button on a box set into the counter between two of the sinks, and the box slides open with a hiss and a puff of steam. Several freshly sterilized toothbrushes lie inside, neatly lined up and held in place by a series of sturdy plastic clips. We each take one, and a fixture mounted to the mirrored wall dispenses toothpaste onto them. “Don’t forget the back of your tongue,” Danna instructs. “Bad breath is a no-no.”

We brush our teeth, then dry our hair with dryers holstered beneath the countertop and brushes from a drawer. Afterward, we wipe the dryers clean and pluck hair from the brushes.

“Well?” Lilli says as I turn away from the mirror.

Danna shrugs. “I think she’ll pass.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

The door at the end of the room slides open as we head back into the dormitory, where the other women are now lined up in the aisle, as if for a military-style inspection. “Stand there,” Danna says, pointing at the end of the bunk I woke up on, as she takes her position at the end of the next bed.

The olive-skinned woman to my right is evidently my lower bunk mate. She doesn’t offer me her name. I don’t offer mine either.

At the end of the room nearest the door, two guards—one male, one female—are working their way down the rows of inmates, inspecting their hair and teeth, occasionally demanding to see the soles of a woman’s feet.

So far, none of the women have been criticized, but I can tell from the tension rolling off Lilli, across the aisle from me, that she’s far from sure that will last.

The female guard finishes with the woman to my right, then steps in front of me. My pulse rushes so fast that for a second, her face blurs in front of me. She reaches for me, and I flinch away.

The guard’s eyes narrow angrily on me.

Danna makes a soft distressed sound on my left, and I stiffen my spine. I can’t get everyone else in trouble.

This time when the guard reaches for me, I grit my teeth and hold still.

She runs one hand into my hair from the back of my neck, feeling of my scalp. Her gaze takes in my face, evidently looking for flaws. Then she frowns at my lips. “Open.”

I open my mouth, and she grabs my chin and tilts my face up toward the light, inspecting my teeth. She inhales inches from my mouth, then she lets me go and moves on to Danna, evidently satisfied.

Lilli seems relieved when both guards make it to the end of the aisle without complaint.

“All right, move it!” the female guard shouts.

The experienced women turn toward the door, and my fellow novices and I follow their lead. We head out of the dorm and form a single line down the center of a wide metal hallway. At the end of the hall, a third guard holds a door open for us.

We march down another length of metal hallway, past a double set of doors, through which I hear running water and the clang of pots and pans. The other closed rooms are all silent.

At the end of the hall, we turn a corner and head through another door held open by yet another guard, and this next hallway is…

I feel like I just stepped through the door onto another planet.

Gone are the metal-paneled walls and sterile white tile.

My steps make no sound on the plush red carpet beneath my bare feet. The walls are covered in red-veined black fabric thick enough to absorb the voice of the guard at the head of our line, and I hope I’m not supposed to hear whatever she’s saying.

Our line slows as we approach a series of doors set into the walls on either side of us. They’re made of solid slats of real wood, as far as I can tell, set into frames of the same material, all sanded and stained a dark, rich color. The effect is archaic opulence. Above each door is a plaque listing a room number.

My pulse begins to race along with my thoughts. We’re not here for the guards. Universal Authority no doubt pays its guards good money, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the authorities turn a blind eye to whatever recreational opportunities they take with the prisoners. But there’s no way the perks even approach this level of organization and luxury.

Universal Authority is renting out female inmates to… To whom?

Who would fly all the way to Rhodon to hire a prostitute?

“Calm down,” Danna whispers at my back. Which is when I realize I’m breathing too hard. And too loudly. “You’ll be fine. Just do whatever he wants. Or whatever she wants. If you’re lucky, it’ll be a woman.”

If I were lucky, I wouldn’t be here.

Hinges squeal open down the hall and I lean to the left to see one of the wooden doors swinging open the old-fashioned way. The female guard escorts a woman inside, and a male guard follows her. A few seconds later he steps back into the hall holding her clothes, which he drops into a cloth bag another guard holds open for him. Then he closes the door and rattles the knob to ensure that it won’t open.

My heartbeat thuds in my ears as we slowly make our way down the hallway, losing woman after woman to room after room. By the time I get to the front of the line, I feel like I’m going to throw up. Which may be why they haven’t fed me yet.

Or maybe I don’t get food until I…cooperate.

Maybe this clean, richly appointed hell isn’t so different from zone four after all.

The female guard glances at me, then points to the open door on my left. I look into the room. It appears to be unoccupied. “Go on,” she snaps.

My hands tremble as I step through the doorway, and though my eyes refuse to focus on anything other than the thick carpet beneath my feet, this room feels every bit as luxurious as the hallway.

“Clothes,” a male guard demands, and I flinch, even though I was expecting the command. Keeping my back to him, I pull my shirt over my head. My hands are shaking so hard I can’t untie the drawstring at the waist of my uniform pants, and finally, with an irritated grunt, he spins me around by one shoulder and picks at the ties himself. “No more double knots,” he grumbles as he shoves my pants over my hips.

I step back, out of the puddle of material, and he snatches it from the floor, then hurries back into the hall. “Do as you’re told,” he warns me as he slams the door shut. The knob rattles, but the door doesn’t move.

I’m locked in.

For a moment, it takes all of my focus to concentrate on breathing slowly and evenly, to keep from hyperventilating. When I’m sure I’m not going to pass out, I turn and take in my surroundings.

The large room is actually a suite. There’s a bathroom immediately to the left of the door, decked out with natural stone surfaces and expensive plumbing fixtures. The glass-walled walk-in shower is spotless and gleaming. A robe hangs from a hook on the back of the door, reflected at me in the mirror. I want to put it on, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t intended for me.

One corner of the main room holds a full bar, with a variety of snacks displayed neatly on the counter. There’s fresh fruit—the first I’ve seen since I was arrested. Bottled water. Gourmet cheeses I’ve never even heard of.

My stomach growls. I turn away from the food before the temptation becomes too much. The food probably isn’t for me either.

In front of the bar is a cluster of couches arranged to face a wall of glass. What appears at first glance to be a single huge window pane is actually three very large panes, stretching the entire length of the room, and through them, I see a broad, flat lawn of red-tinted grass, painted even redder by light from the rapidly setting sun. The lawn is bordered by a large metal wall. Peeking over the wall at the far end of the lawn is an enormous, unbroken stretch of what appears to be untouched forest.

From what I can see, the trees have the typical crimson foliage, which—along with abundant rust-colored seas—are what give the Red Rock its nicknames.

I’ve just turned to confront the huge bed taking up the other half of the room when the door opens at my back.

I freeze, hands clasped over my breasts, as footsteps clomp into the room behind me. Someone whistles, and I flinch.

“She’s a little skittish.” I recognize the voice of one of the male guards. “Just got here today. And she looks pretty young. So a little patience might be in order.”

“Nonsense,” a new voice declares. “I am a personal friend of Warden Shaw, and I paid the security deposit. I’ll do whatever I want with her. Get out.”

“Yes, sir,” the guard says, and I’m trembling all over by the time the door closes again.

Breathe. I suck in one long, slow breath after another, waiting for… something. An order. A touch. Whatever form this hell is going to take. But for nearly a minute, there is only silence. Then, finally, he exhales.

“Turn around.”