Date: 2025-10-19 00:00:00+00:00
Description: One person told his testimony. Nine people couldn't unhear it. It's legal. It's voluntary. It's the only choice you can make. Drown in inherited debt, or sell yourself for a year. Struggle forever, or save your family. Stay broken, or become the solution. Except the system lies about the cost. Nine people heard the truth. Nine reckonings. One question: What are you willing to pay? For readers who need more reasons to eat the rich.
Publisher: Ravenshead Press

AFTER THE STREAMS

THE RETURNED

JONAH RAVENSHEAD

After the Streams

Copyright © 2025 by Jonah Ravenshead

Published by Ravenshead Press, Berlin
https://ravenshead.press

ISBN 978-3-911929-05-9

All right reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

V1.0.0

For everyone who survived. For everyone who couldn’t go home. For everyone who saves—one person at a time.

CONTENTS

Content Warning - A Word from Teal

1. The Daughter

(Or: How I Almost Became Merchandise)

2. The Sibling

(Or: How I Found My Brother and Lost Him Again)

3. The Intake Worker

(Or: How Silence Became My Job Description)

4. The Modifier

(Or: How I Confused Beauty with Value)

5. The Trainer

(Or: How I Made the Handbook Easier to Bear)

6. The Bidder

(Or: How I Got What I Paid For)

7. The Therapist

(Or: How I Lied So Something Would Be Better Than Nothing)

8. The Father

(Or: How We Spent the Money She Paid With Her Life)

9. The Survivor

(Or: How I Never Stopped Performing)

Epilogue: Teal

A Final Word from Teal

About the Author

Also by Jonah Ravenshead

CONTENT WARNING - A WORD FROM TEAL

My name is Teal Weaver. You might know me as Purple.

What you’re about to read isn’t my story—it’s what happened when I told it. Nine people whose lives collided with the truth I spoke. They all watched my streams. Some had to reckon with what they’d done. Some recognized themselves in my words. Some saw the system they’d been part of. Some finally understood what they’d survived.

These stories deal from different perspectives and roles with exploitation, coercion, dehumanization, and death—through complicity, through participation, through survival.

Enabling systemic abuse. Carrying out exploitation. Looking away from suffering. Profiting from trauma. Surviving destruction. Resisting.

If themes of exploitation, systemic abuse, trauma, or loss hit too close—turn back. Nothing here flinches. Nothing here softens.

These nine stories are what happened when I refused to stay silent.

CHAPTER 1

THE DAUGHTER

(OR: HOW I ALMOST BECAME MERCHANDISE)

The numbers don’t lie, but they also don’t tell the whole truth.

I’ve run the calculation forty-seven times in the past three weeks. Forty-seven times I’ve sat at this table—the wobbly one in the corner of our hab-unit on Level 156—and tried to make the math work differently.

It never does.

Our debt accumulated for four generations. Most of it medical: 4.2 million euros. And it doesn’t look good. My father’s lungs, destroyed by twenty years breathing synth-ox that was never quite filtered properly. My mother’s joints, deteriorating from a lifetime of standing in factory lines. My brother’s eyes—he needs surgery or he’ll be blind by twenty-five, and blind people don’t get factory work, don’t get any work, don’t survive in the Lows.

Our income: My mother makes 18,000 euros a year. I make 12,000 in the textile facility. My father used to make 22,000 but he can’t work. My brother, still in school for another year, makes nothing.

Interest on the debt: 340,000 euros annually.

We’re drowning. We’ve been drowning my entire life. Every year we fall further behind. Every year the debt grows. Every year the math gets worse.

Until recently, there was one calculation that made it work. One equation where the numbers balanced:

My body × 365 days = approximately 8-12 million euros (depending on augmentations, training scores, auction results).

Enough to erase the debt. Enough to save my family. Enough to give my brother a chance.

All it costs is me.

I turn eighteen in forty-two days.

Forty-two days until I’m legally old enough to sell myself. Forty-two days until I can walk into an augmentation center and begin the process. Forty-two days until I become merchandise.

I’ve been training for six months now. Since my brother’s diagnosis came back. Six months since the doctor said “blindness by twenty-five without surgery.” Six months since we got the bill: 380,000 euros. Added to what we already owe. And the surgery is just the start—there’ll be follow-up treatments, medications, monitoring. More bills. Always more bills. The debt doesn’t stop growing. It never stops.

But you pay what you owe. That’s—that’s just how it works. That’s what you do. The debt exists, so you pay it. We’ve always paid it. My grandparents paid it. My parents pay it. And if I don’t do something, Steven will go blind. And blind people can’t work. Can’t sell themselves either—who wants damaged merchandise? He’ll be worthless. The debt will just keep growing and there won’t be any way out. Not for him. Not for any of us.

The manual arrived when I was fifteen. Standard. Everyone whose family has debt gets one. “Career guidance,” they call it. I didn’t open it for months. Couldn’t. But then my father collapsed at work—his lungs finally giving out. More medical bills. More interest. The calculation changed from “maybe we can manage” to “Steven will go blind and then it’ll be his turn.” That’s when I opened it. That’s when I understood.

Six months ago I started. Positioning drills in our tiny bathroom when everyone else was asleep. The other training. The—the preparation. All of it. Alone, because I couldn’t let them see. Couldn’t make them feel the shame of what I was doing. What I was turning myself into.

The augmentations are scheduled for next week. Cat ears (popular), bioluminescent tattoos (unique), flexibility enhancement (practical), enhanced endurance (necessary). The augmentation center on Level 198 does good work, doesn’t cut corners. It’ll cost about 150,000 euros, but they offer financing against expected auction results.

My parents don’t know. Can’t know. They’d rather die than let me do this. They’d rather watch Steven go blind, rather drown in debt forever, rather see all of us pulled down together than let me make this sacrifice.

But it’s not their choice. In forty-two days, it’s mine.

The math works. It’s the only math that works.

Then, five days ago, my friend Samira sent me a link.

“You need to watch this,” her message said. “Before you do anything. Just—watch.”

I almost didn’t. I’d just finished a twelve-hour shift at the textile facility. My hands hurt from the machines, my back hurt from standing, my head hurt from trying not to think about the numbers.

But Samira doesn’t send me things randomly. So I watched.

“My name is Teal Weaver. You might know me as Purple. I am here to tell you the truth.”

I’ve watched seven streams now. Seven streams of Teal telling his story, telling other people’s stories, explaining what the system actually does when you volunteer yourself into it.

The numbers he gives are different from mine. More specific. More terrible.

Day 1: Disoriented but hopeful. Still believed in the year being “just a year.”

Day 47: First time he forgot his real name.

Day 89: Stopped dreaming. Sleep became “just absence.”

Day 156: Realized he was thinking of himself as Purple more than Teal.

Day 248: Couldn’t remember what his mother’s voice sounded like.

Day 365: Released. Stood later outside his family’s door and couldn’t walk through it. They still don’t know where he is.

Five years later: Still can’t go home. Still flinches at notification sounds. Still drops sometimes to his knees automatically when someone bumps into him in a crowd.

He made 26.7 million euros. He saved his family.

He lost himself.

I run a new calculation:

My body × 365 days = 8-12 million euros + [COST UNKNOWN]

That second part—the cost unknown—that’s what I’ve been trying to quantify. What’s it worth, being able to go home? Being able to look at your mother without shame? Being able to be spoken to without dissociating? Being able to exist in your own body without feeling like merchandise? Being able to know your own name?

How do you price personhood?

The math doesn’t work anymore. Not because the numbers changed, but because I finally see what I was leaving out of the equation.

I’m sitting at the wobbly table when my mother comes home from her shift. She looks exhausted, moves slowly, her joints clearly bothering her. She sees me with my device, sees Teal’s stream paused on the screen.

“What are you watching?” she asks.

I should lie. I should close the app. I should keep my plans secret until it’s too late for her to stop me.

Instead, I turn the screen toward her.

“Someone telling the truth,” I say.

She sits down, reads the profile: “Teal ‘Purple’ Weaver. Former Lot 722. Survivor.”

“Is this about—” she starts, then stops. We don’t talk about it. We don’t talk about the future, about options, about the math that doesn’t work. We just keep drowning quietly.

“I turn eighteen in forty-two days,” I say.

“I know.”

“I’ve been training for six months. Following the handbook. I’m—” I stop. Can’t say more. Can’t tell her what I’ve been doing in the bathroom at night. What I’ve been preparing myself for. “I was going to save us.”

My mother’s face goes pale. “Mira, no. We would never—”

“The math works, Mama. It’s the only math that works. 8 million euros minimum, maybe more. Enough to erase the debt. Enough to fix everything.”

“At what cost!” She’s not asking. She’s yelling it. Her voice breaks on the words, making me hear what I’ve been trying not to see.

I answer anyway.

“At the cost of me.”

She’s crying now. Silent tears running down her worn face. “You are not a number. You are not—you are my daughter. You are worth more than—”

“Than Dad’s lungs? Than your joints? Than Steven’s eyes?”

“Yes.” She says it firmly. Without hesitation. “Yes. You are worth more than all of that.”

“But the math—”

“I don’t care about the math.” Her voice breaks. “I don’t care about the debt. I care about you. I care about you coming home every day. I care about you staying you. I care about—” She stops, wipes her eyes. “I’ve watched you disappear these past six months. Watched you become hollow. Watched you stop laughing, stop hoping, stop being anything except a solution to our problems. If you do this—if you sell yourself—I lose you anyway. At least if we stay in debt, I get to keep my daughter.”

I watch the rest of Teal’s streams that night. All of them. And I watch the ones from other survivors who’ve started telling their stories too, following Teal’s lead. Stories from people who made the same calculation I was making. Who thought the math worked. Who learned too late what they were actually trading.

And those who almost made the same calculations but had someone stopping them.

One woman—she calls herself Ember, won’t say her real name—talks about standing outside an augmentation center four years ago, about a stranger with purple hair stopping her, warning her, offering her another option. She didn’t go through those doors.

Her family still has debt. They’re still struggling.

But she’s still herself. She can still go home. She can still look at her reflection without flinching.

“The debt doesn’t own us,” she says in her stream. “It tries to. The system wants us to believe our only value is what we can sell. But we’re worth more than that. We’re people. We are not merchandise.”

Forty-two days until I turn eighteen.

The debt is still there. The numbers still don’t work. My father’s lungs are still failing, my mother’s joints still hurt, Steven still needs surgery.

But I’m not going to the augmentation center.

I’m not doing this.

I don’t know what happens next. Don’t know how we’ll survive. Don’t know if the math will ever math out.

But I know I’m worth more than 8 million euros.

I know I’m worth more than the calculation.

I know my mother would rather drown in debt than watch me disappear.

And I know—because Teal told me, because Ember told me, because all the survivors told me—that some costs are too high. That some prices can’t be paid. That some math doesn’t work even when the numbers say it does.

My name is Mira Santos. I’m seventeen years old. I live on Level 156.

I was going to sell myself in forty-two days.

I’m not anymore.

Because Teal told me the truth.

And the truth changed the equation.

CHAPTER 2

THE SIBLING

(OR: HOW I FOUND MY BROTHER AND LOST HIM AGAIN)

My brother’s name is Marcel.

Was Marcel. Is Marcel.

I don’t know which tense to use anymore.

Three years since he left. Two years since the contract ended. He should have come home.

The law says 365 days exactly. Mandatory release. He did his time. And then—a few days later—the money came. Eighteen million euros. Showed up in the family account. More than enough. Enough to clear the debt. Enough for Papa’s treatments. Enough to move us from Level 198 to Level 284 where the air doesn’t taste like metal and Mama’s lungs work again.

We got the money.

We didn’t get Marcel.

Nobody talks about it. That’s the rule in our family now, unspoken but absolute. We don’t talk about where the money came from. We don’t talk about what Marcel did for a year. We don’t talk about why he hasn’t come home.

Papa got his treatments. The cancer is in remission. He goes to work now at a real job, not the factory, something with an office and benefits and a future.

Mama’s lungs are better. She doesn’t cough blood anymore. She smiles sometimes.

My little sister Nora is in school. Real school, not work-training. She’s twelve and she’s learning music and she has friends and she’s going to have opportunities we never had.

We’re surviving. We’re more than surviving. We’re living in ways we couldn’t have imagined three years ago.

And Marcel isn’t here.

We waited for him to come home.

He didn’t.

“Maybe he needs time,” Mama said after the first week.

“Maybe he’s traveling,” Papa said after the first month. “Seeing things. He earned it.”

“Maybe he forgot about us,” Nora said after three months, and Mama slapped her. The only time I’ve ever seen Mama hit any of us.

After six months, we stopped talking about it.

After a year, we stopped talking about him.

And now it’s been three years since he left and two years since his contract ended and I don’t know if my brother is alive or dead or something in between.

I’m watching a stream at 01:00 because I can’t sleep. Because I never sleep well. Because every night I wonder where Marcel is and why he didn’t come home and whether it’s my fault somehow, whether I could have stopped him, whether I should have sold myself instead. Of course I have not. I was fifteen when he did it. Too young to sign a contract. He was eighteen. Freshly legal. Freshly able to save us.

“Don’t,” I told him the night before he went to the auction. “Please. We’ll find another way.”

“There is no other way,” he said. He was holding me, his little brother, and I could feel him shaking. “Papa is dying. Mama is dying. You and Nora—you deserve better. I can do this. It’s just a year. I’ll come back.”

He promised he’d come back.

He didn’t.

And I don’t know why.

Until I start watching Teal Weaver’s streams.

“My name is Teal Weaver. You might know me as Purple. I am here to tell you the truth.”

I don’t know Purple. How should I? He starts to talk and I listen. My brother never came home to tell us. Teal is telling.

“I couldn’t go home,” Teal says. “I stood outside my family’s door and I heard them inside—happy, waiting for me—and I couldn’t walk through. Because the person they were waiting for was dead. I was just what was left.”

The person they were waiting for was dead.

Is that what happened to Marcel? Did we kill him by needing him? By letting him save us?

“I found somewhere else,” Teal continues. “A community. Level 319. We call it River’s Harbor. It’s for people like us. People who can’t go back. People who need—who need somewhere.”

Level 319.

My hands are shaking. I’m writing it down. Level 319. River’s Harbor. A place for people who can’t go home.

A place where Marcel might be.

I don’t tell anyone where I’m going. I just leave early one morning, take the transport up from 284, ascending slowly until we arrive at 319.

It’s not what I expected. Not a facility, not an institution. Just—apartments. Corridors. People living. People with modifications, with augmentations, with that look. That empty look I’ve seen in photos of returned workers.

That look I imagine Marcel has now.

There’s a woman with fox ears sitting in a common area. She looks up when I enter.

“Can I help you?” she asks. Not unfriendly, but cautious.

“I’m looking for someone,” I say. “My brother. He—he sold himself. Three years ago. He didn’t come home after.”

Understanding crosses her face. Sad understanding.

“A lot of people here didn’t go home,” she says gently. “What’s his name?”

“Marcel Soul. He was—he got blue hair before auction. Bioluminescent. He was tall. He liked—he liked music. He always sang before—”

“I don’t know everyone here,” the woman says. “There are about three hundred of us. But—but we can ask around. What’s your name?”

“Martin. I’m his brother. His little brother.”

She nods. “Wait here. I’ll find Lotus. She knows everyone.”

Lotus is older. Fifty, maybe. She has bioluminescent tattoos and silver-streaked hair and eyes that have seen too much.

“Martin,” she says, sitting across from me. “Your brother is—”

“Is he here?” My voice breaks. “Is he alive?”

“He’s alive,” Lotus says, and relief floods through me so powerfully I almost collapse. “He’s here. He’s been here for the last two years. He—” She pauses. “He didn’t go home. He couldn’t.”

“Why?” The word comes out broken. “We waited. We wanted him back. We—”

“He knows,” Lotus says gently. “He knows you waited. He knows you want him. But the person you’re waiting for—he’s not that person anymore. He’s someone different now. Someone broken. Someone who—” She stops. “Someone who couldn’t face showing you what he became.”

“I don’t care what he became,” I say. “He’s my brother. I don’t care about—about whatever happened. I just want him back. I just want to know he’s okay.”

“He’s not okay,” Lotus says quietly. “None of us are okay. But he’s living. He’s healing, slowly. He’s helping others. He’s—he’s finding purpose.”

“Can I see him?”

Lotus looks at me for a long moment. “That’s up to him. I can ask. But Martin—you need to understand. He’s not the brother you remember. He’s someone else now. And seeing you might—might break something in him that’s barely holding together.”

“Please. I’ve been looking for him for two years. Just—just ask him. Please.”

I wait for two hours in the common area. The woman with fox ears—Yuki, she said her name is—brings me tea. Sits with me sometimes. Doesn’t push me to talk.

And then—

Then I see him.

Marcel. My brother.

Except he’s not the brother I remember.

He’s thinner. His hair is still blue—the modification he got before auction, the one he was so nervous about, the one that cost him three months of wages. The bioluminescence under his skin pulses faintly. His eyes are—

His eyes are empty. That look. That returned-worker look.

But he’s here. He’s alive. He’s—

“Martin,” he says. His voice is different too. Rougher. Older.

“Marcel.” I stand up, want to run to him, want to hug him, want to—

He holds up a hand. Stop.

“Don’t,” he says. “I can’t—I can’t do that. I can’t be—be touched without—”

He doesn’t finish. Doesn’t need to.

“Okay,” I say. “Okay. I won’t. I just—I just needed to see you. To know you’re alive. We’ve been—we’ve been worried. Mama and Papa and Nora—we didn’t know where you were.”

“I know.” He won’t look at me. Won’t meet my eyes. “I know you were worried. I’m sorry. I just—I couldn’t come back. I couldn’t let you see—see what I became.”

“We don’t care what you became. We just want you back.”

“No.” His voice is hard now. Sharp. “You don’t want me back. You want the Marcel who left. The one who sang and laughed and was—was whole. That person is dead. I’m what’s left. And I can’t—I can’t be him for you. I can’t pretend.”

Silence.

I don’t know what to say. Don’t know how to bridge this gap between us.

“The money,” I say finally. “The money saved us. Papa’s in remission. Mama can breathe. Nora is in school. You—you did what you wanted to do. You saved us.”

“I know,” Marcel says. “That’s the only reason I’m still—” He stops. “I’m glad. I’m glad it worked. I’m glad you’re okay.”

“But you’re not okay.”

“No.” Simple. Honest. “I’m not okay. I’ll probably never be okay. But I’m living. I’m here. I’m—I’m helping people. People like me. We stop kids from making the choice I made. We save who we can.”

He finally looks at me then. Really looks.

“You’re wearing new clothes,” he says. Not accusatory. Just—observing. “Good quality. And you’re taller. You’ve been eating better. Real food, not synth-protein.”

I look down at myself. He’s right. Everything I’m wearing—everything I have—came from his eighteen million euros. From what he—

“I’m glad,” Marcel says again. Quieter. “That’s what I wanted. That’s why I—” He stops. Swallows hard. “But I can’t come back and sit at that nice table in your nice hab-unit on Level 284 and watch you all enjoy what I bought. Can’t watch Nora play music I paid for. Can’t watch Papa go to his office job. Can’t be there while you live off what I—what they—”

He stops. Can’t say it.

But I know what he means: What they did to him. What he had to become. What he had to let them do to earn that money.

He turns to leave.

“Marcel,” I say. “Wait.”

He stops. Doesn’t turn around.

“I watched Teal’s streams,” I say. “All of them. I know—I know what you went through. I know what it cost. And I don’t care. I still want you in my life. However that looks. Whatever that means. You’re still my brother.”

Silence.

“I can’t,” he says finally. “Not yet. Maybe—maybe someday. But not yet. I’m not—I’m not ready.”

“When you’re ready,” I say. “I’ll be here. We’ll all be here. Waiting.”

He nods once. Then leaves.

And I sit in the common area of River’s Harbor and cry for the brother I found and lost in the same moment.

I go back to Level 284. I tell Mama and Papa that Marcel is alive, that he’s safe, that he loves them but he can’t come home yet.

Mama cries for three days.

Papa doesn’t say anything at all.

Nora asks if it’s her fault. If something she did made him stay away.

“No,” I tell her. “It’s not your fault. He just—he can’t. Not yet.”

“But he’s alive,” Nora says.

“He’s alive,” I confirm.

And maybe someday he’ll be ready to see us again. Maybe someday the gap between who he was and who he became won’t feel so impossible to cross. Or maybe he’ll stay at River’s Harbor forever, saving others from becoming what he became, and that will have to be enough.

I don’t know if finding him without getting him back makes anything better. I don’t know if knowing where he is helps or hurts more. I don’t know if I should have left him alone.

But I know he’s alive. I know he’s not alone. I know he’s fighting.

My name is Martin Soul. I’m eighteen years old now. I live on Level 284.

My brother bought us this life and he can’t come home to live it with us.

But at least he’s somewhere. At least he’s alive. At least he’s fighting.

I can’t bring him home.

But I know where he is.

CHAPTER 3

THE INTAKE WORKER

(OR: HOW SILENCE BECAME MY JOB DESCRIPTION)

My shift starts at 06:00. Thirty-minute transport from Level 223 to the Rother Auction House on Level 425. Above Cloud Break. Real air.

I’ve been doing this route for eleven years.

Today’s schedule: Auction day. 50-60 lots. Standard intake. Verify identification, confirm debt status, explain preliminary terms, direct to medical processing.

Efficient. Professional. Streamlined.

I’m good at my job.

Intake processing, Lots 720-770. Fifty lots assigned to me today. I’ll be done by 16:00.

I’m efficient.

The process is simple. The merchandise is desperate. It complies.

I’ve processed 28,600 people over eleven years.

I know the number exactly because we track it. Metrics. Performance reviews. Every intake completed, every contract signed, every lot number assigned.

Eleven years. Fifty auctions per year, roughly one per week. Fifty to sixty people per auction day.

28,600 people who walked through the doors of the Rother Auction House.

28,600 people I helped turn into merchandise.

The job pays 80,000 euros a year.

My daughter is seventeen. She’s in real school. Not work-training. Real education. Music. Literature. Sciences. She has friends. She has a future.

She never got a handbook. Never had to open one. Never had to think about what her body might be worth.

Because I make 80,000 euros a year processing other people’s children.

Lunch break. 12:30. Twenty minutes before the afternoon shift.

My colleague Sara pulls up a stream on her device. Laughs. “You gotta see this. Kid made twenty-six million euros and he’s crying about it. Can you believe this shit?”

She turns the screen toward me.

Purple hair. Grey eyes. Thin.

“My name is Teal Weaver. You might know me as Purple. I am here to tell you the truth.”

“Twenty-six point seven million,” Sara says, still laughing. “And listen to him whine. ‘I couldn’t go home.’ Boo hoo. I’d take that money and—”

He’s talking now. About the year. About the contract. About what happened.

And then he moves. Someone off-camera shifts, makes a sound, and Teal—

Drops. Mid-sentence. Just drops to his knees. Automatic. Instant.

Five years after his contract ended.

And I see it. That fear. The same fear I see in the intake rooms when they realize. When they understand what they’re signing. When they strip naked and put on the presentation attire.

Except he’s had five years. Five years since his year ended. Five years at home.

And he still has that fear.

I’m not listening to Sara anymore.

I’m listening to him.

He gets back up. Shaking. Continues talking.

“The conditioning,” he says. His voice is steady but his hands aren’t. “It doesn’t end when the contract ends. You have to unlearn it. Relearn that you can choose not to drop. That you don’t have to present when someone enters a room. That you don’t have to—”

He stops. Breathes.

“It takes years. Some people never manage it. The kneeling. The presenting. The—the auction postures. All of it. It burns into your nervous system. Becomes the fabric you are made of.”

The auction postures.

I order those. In intake. Stand here. Turn. Present. Let them see.

The first time they use what the handbook taught them. The first time the training becomes real.

And I’ve done it 28,600 times.

“The person they’re waiting for doesn’t come home,” Teal says. “Because that person died somewhere around day—” He stops. “Somewhere during. And what comes out is just—just what’s left. What they made.”

Sara closes the stream. “Depressing shit. Anyway, back to work in five.”

I sit there.

28,600 people.

And they don’t come home.

Not really.

Number 742 enters my intake room at 14:23.

Female. Eighteen years, two months. Identification verified.

She has that fear.

The same fear I’d seen in Teal’s dead grey eyes.

“Please place any personal belongings on the desk,” I say. Professional. Detached. “All items will be catalogued and stored until contract completion.”

She complies. Phone. Wallet. Keys. A picture of her family.

“All merchandise must relinquish clothing and personal attire. Please disrobe completely.”

She strips. Awkward. Embarrassed. That fear getting stronger.

I hand her the presentation attire. “Black miniskirt or silver jockstrap. Which do you prefer?”

She chooses the miniskirt. Puts it on with shaking hands.

“Please sign the preliminary intake form.”

She signs. Rosa Martinez. Lot 742.

“Medical processing is through that door. They’ll complete your examination and you’ll sign the binding contract.”

She stands there. Not moving. Tears running down her face. That fear—that fear that will never leave—written all over her.

“I can’t,” she whispers. “I can’t do this.”

Standard response: “You’ve signed the intake form. Please proceed to medical processing.”

That’s my job. That’s the script.

But I see Teal’s grey eyes. I see him dropping to his knees five years later. I hear his voice: It burns into your nervous system. Becomes the fabric you are made of.

And I see my daughter. Seventeen. In real school. Safe.

Because I make 80,000 euros a year doing this.

“The intake form isn’t binding,” I say quietly.

Rosa looks at me. Confused. Terrified.

“The contract you sign after medical—that’s binding. Right now, right here, you can still leave.”

“But I signed—”

“Preliminary agreement only. Not legally binding. You can walk out.”

Her hands are shaking. “But my family—”

I don’t have an answer for that. Don’t have a solution. Just—

“Run,” I whisper. “Just run.”

She stares at me. At the door. At her choice.

And she runs.

My supervisor finds me ten minutes later.

“Where’s number 742?”

“She left.”

“Left? Before medical processing?”

“Yes.”

He stares at me. “What did you say to her?”

“I told her the intake form wasn’t binding. That she could leave before signing the contract.”

Silence. Absolute silence.

“You told her she could leave.”

“Yes.”

“In eleven years, nobody has ever left between intake and medical.”

“I know.”

“Do you understand what you’ve done? The precedent? If word gets out that people can leave—”

“They always could leave,” I interrupt. “The intake form says ‘preliminary agreement to proceed.’ It’s not binding. It’s in the regulations. We just—we never tell them.”

“Because they all proceed,” he says. “They all walk through. That’s how the system works.”

“The system works because nobody tells them they have a choice.”

He looks at me for a long moment.

“Clear your desk,” he says finally. “You’re terminated. Effective immediately.”

I take the transport home to Level 223. Think about how I’ll pay rent next month. How I’ll feed my daughter. How long before—

Before what?

She’s seventeen. In real school. She has a future.

Had a future.

80,000 euros a year. Gone.

For one girl. One girl out of 28,600.

One girl I let run.

My daughter is waiting when I get home. Homework spread across the table. Music playing. Real education. Real future.

“Mom? You’re home early. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I say. “Just—tired. Long day.”

She goes back to her homework. Doesn’t push. Doesn’t know.

Doesn’t know that I just destroyed her future for one girl.

One girl out of 28,600.

I sit at the table. Look at her textbooks. Literature. Sciences. Music theory. Things that cost money. Things that require 80,000 euros a year.

Things we don’t have anymore.

I don’t tell her. Can’t tell her.

Silence. That’s what I’m good at. That’s what I’ve always been good at.

Eleven years of silence. Of not thinking about it. Of processing merchandise and going home. Of telling myself they’re not really—

That they’re from the Lows. That they’re desperate. That they choose this. That it’s legal. That it’s just a job.

I knew where they went. Knew what they were bought for. Knew what happened during that year.

I just never let it matter. Never let them be real. Never let myself see them as—

As people who don’t stop being people just because I process them as merchandise.

Until Teal dropped to his knees. Until I saw the fear in his dead grey eyes. Until the cognitive dissonance broke and I couldn’t—

Couldn’t keep pretending anymore.

So I told one girl to run.

One girl out of 28,600.

And now my daughter will pay for it.

The math is simple.

Factory work pays 18,000 euros a year. Maybe 20,000 if I’m lucky.

Rent on Level 223: 12,000 euros annually.

Food, transport, utilities: 6,000 euros.

That leaves 2,000 euros.

My daughter’s school costs 8,000 euros per year.

The math doesn’t work.

She’ll have to drop out. Get factory work. 18,000 euros a year for her too, maybe. If she’s lucky.

No more literature. No more sciences. No more music theory.

Just standing in lines. Breathing synth-ox. Destroying her body for wages that barely cover existence.

And then—

Then the medical bills will come. Because factory work destroys bodies. Lungs. Joints. Everything.

My medical bills when I die. Debt she’ll inherit.

She won’t sell herself. She can’t.

But her child will.

Carmen’s grandchild will be fifteen when the handbook arrives. Will be eighteen when they do the math. Will calculate what their body is worth. Whether destroying themselves for a year is worth saving their mother from the medical debt their grandmother left behind.

Three generations.

All because I processed 28,600 children and told one to run.

My name is Carmen Silva. I’m forty-two years old. I live on Level 223.

I processed 28,600 people into slavery to keep my daughter from becoming 28,601.

Today I told one person they could run.

It cost me everything.

CHAPTER 4

THE MODIFIER

(OR: HOW I CONFUSED BEAUTY WITH VALUE)

Today’s schedule: Three consultations, two procedures.

09:00 - Cat ear installation (neural integration, 6-week recovery) 11:30 - Hair modification consultation (gene therapy, color selection) 14:00 - Bioluminescent tattoo mapping (subdermal light implants)

I’ve been an augmentation specialist at Cervantes Modifications for five years.

I make people beautiful.

My studio is on Level 301. Clean. Professional. State-of-the-art equipment. Before and after portfolios covering the walls—my best work, transformations I’m proud of.

The bioluminescent tattoos on my arms pulse softly as I prepare the workspace. Silver-blue hair catching the light. Subdermal patterns shifting under my skin.

I’m walking art. Proof that augmentation is beautiful.

That transformation is desirable.

I look at us in the mirror sometimes—me and my coworkers, gorgeous and modified and extraordinary—and I feel proud.

We’re making the world more beautiful.

The 09:00 consultation arrives right on time.

A girl. Eighteen. Thin. Nervous.

“I want cat ears,” she says. Shows me reference images on her device. “Like these. With the white tips.”

I examine the images. Good references. Clear vision of what she wants.

“We do surgical installation—scarless, clean work—and neural integration injections,” I explain. “The injections help the nerves grow together so you can move them naturally. They’ll perk up when you’re curious, flatten back when you’re relaxed, twitch when you hear something interesting. Within a few weeks, they’ll feel like they’ve always been part of you.”

Her eyes light up. “Really? They’ll move like real ears?”

“They’ll BE real ears. Gene-modified tissue. Part of your DNA. They’ll be you.”

She’s smiling now. Excited. “That’s—that’s amazing. That’s exactly what I want.”

I love this part. Seeing people understand what’s possible. What transformation means.

“Let me show you my portfolio,” I say, pulling up images. Before and after. Dozens of modifications. Cat ears, fox ears, elaborate designs. “This is what we can create together.”

She looks through them, wonder on her face.

This is why I do this work. This moment. When someone realizes they can become beautiful.

“When can we start?” she asks.

“I have an opening next week. Tuesday, 09:00. The procedure takes about four hours. Recovery is minimal—some tenderness for a few days, but you’ll be functional immediately. The neural integration takes about two weeks to fully settle.”

“Next Tuesday.” She nods, determined. “Yes. Let’s do it.”

I schedule her. Another transformation. Another person becoming beautiful.

She leaves smiling.

I clean the workspace. Prepare for the 11:30 consultation. Look at my before/after portfolio on the wall.

Hundreds of transformations. Five years of work. Every single one beautiful.

Cat ears. Fox tails. Iridescent scales. Bioluminescent patterns. Hair in colors nature never imagined. Subdermal light that makes skin glow.

I made all of this. Created all of this beauty.

This is why I became an augmentation specialist. To make people extraordinary. To make them beautiful.

I’m good at what I do.

The 11:30 consultation cancels. Equipment malfunction at their work, can’t make it.

I have an hour free.

I pull up my device. Check messages. Social feeds. And—

There’s a trending stream. Everyone’s talking about it.

“You have to see this,” one of my coworkers sent earlier. “Some kid complaining about making millions. Purple hair though—gorgeous work.”

I click.

Purple hair. That purple.

MY purple.

I know that shade. I CREATED that shade. Vivid violet with hints of blue, luminescent in certain lights. Custom formulation. One of my best works.

I mixed that color myself. Spent two hours testing it under different lights. Making sure it would photograph well, catch attention, be absolutely perfect.

And it is. The color holds beautifully. The luminescence catches the light exactly right. The way it falls, the way it frames his face—

Gorgeous. One of my best transformations.

I’m admiring my own work when he starts talking.

“My name is Teal Weaver. You might know me as Purple. I am here to tell you the truth.”

I remember him now. Of course I remember him. You don’t forget work like that.

He came in nervous. Most of them are nervous before their first modification. It’s exciting but also scary—changing yourself permanently, becoming something new.

I showed him color samples. Dozens of purples—lavender, violet, deep plum, electric magenta.

“This one,” he said, pointing to a rich violet. “But—brighter? More vivid?”

“I can do that,” I said. Excited now. Custom work is my favorite. “Let me show you what’s possible.”

I pulled up my design interface. Started mixing. Adding blue undertones here, luminescent particles there. Adjusting the saturation until—

“There,” I said. “Look at this.”

His eyes lit up. “That’s perfect. That’s exactly—that’s perfect.”

I love that moment. When someone sees exactly what they’ve been imagining. When they understand they can become that.

“Let’s do it,” I said.

The procedure took four hours. Hair modification first—genetic alteration at the follicular level, carefully and precisely changing his natural color to that custom purple permanently. Then the depilation treatments—genetic modification to deactivate hair follicles everywhere except his head and eyebrows.

The changes would be part of his DNA now. Part of him forever.

When I finished, I turned him toward the mirror.

Purple hair that caught the light perfectly. Smooth, hairless skin. Simple modifications, but striking. Beautiful.

“What do you think?” I asked.

He stared at himself for a long time.

“I don’t recognize me,” he said finally.

“That’s the magic,” I said, smiling. “You’re transformed. You’re extraordinary now.”

On screen, Teal is talking now. Really talking.

“I spent everything I had to make myself sellable,” he says. “Every euro I’d saved. Gone. To buy purple hair and smooth skin. To transform myself into something people would want to buy.”

Buy.

He touches his hair—my purple, my perfect custom formulation.

“I look at this color and I see the moment I stopped being Teal,” he says. “The moment I became product. When I paid someone to make me beautiful so I’d be worth more when they sold me.”

Sold.

My stomach drops.

“The modifier was nice,” he continues. “Professional. Told me I’d be beautiful. Spent hours mixing this exact shade of purple. Made sure it would photograph well, stream well, catch attention. She was so proud of her work. And I—I thanked her. Thanked her for making me into better merchandise.”

No.

No, that’s not—

That’s not what I did. I made him beautiful. I transformed him. I—

“It’s permanent,” he says. “Genetic. Part of my DNA. I can’t undo it. Can’t go back. Even if I wanted my natural hair color back—it’s gone. Forever. Replaced with this. With the color someone mixed to make me valuable. To make me sellable.”

I made him sellable.

The first time someone said it out loud.

I know many have always thought my work is only for the pleasure worker industry. I always say it’s for everyone. For anyone who wants to be beautiful. For anyone who wants to be extraordinary.

It IS for everyone. I have proof.

I pull up my client records. Five years of appointments. Hundreds of names. Addresses.

See? Everyone comes here. Everyone wants—

Level 198.

Level 215.

Level 167.

Level 203.

Level 241.

Level 189.

I keep scrolling.

Level 178. Level 234. Level 209. Level 156.

Page after page after page.

Every single client from Level 250 or below.

Every single one from the Lows.

Not one person from my own level. Not one from anywhere above Level 200.

Five years. Hundreds of transformations.

And I’m seeing it for the first time.

What I’ve always seen from the corner of my eye. What I never looked at directly.

There is no one from the Highs. No one from the mid-levels. No one from—

No one who isn’t about to be sold.

And that purple-haired boy on my screen is telling me what my work actually does.

Not make people beautiful.

Make them fuckable.

Make them sellable.

The cat ears I install—not beautiful. Just a fetish category that increases value.

The purple hair I mix—not artistic. Just branding. Product differentiation.

The smooth skin, the bioluminescent patterns, everything I do—

It’s not beauty. It’s marketing. It’s packaging merchandise.

Five years of telling myself I’m an artist.

Five years of preparing them to be fucked.

I close the stream.

Sit in my beautiful studio with my beautiful augmentations and my before/after portfolio covering the walls.

Five years of work. Hundreds of transformations.

Preparing them to be fucked.

I stand up. Walk to my supervisor’s office.

“I’m quitting,” I say.

She looks up. Surprised. “What? Charlize, you’re one of our best—”

“I’m done.”

“Can we talk about this? Is it the pay? The schedule? We can—”

“I’m done,” I repeat.

I don’t own this studio. Can’t close it. Can’t stop it. I’m just an employee. Just a tool in the machine.

I leave.

Walk out into Level 301 with my silver-blue hair and my bioluminescent tattoos pulsing softly under my skin.

My beautiful augmentations. My art. My transformation.

And everyone who sees me will think: One of them.

I can’t undo it. It’s genetic. Permanent.

I marked myself the same way I marked hundreds of them.

My name is Charlize Okonkwo. I’m twenty-eight years old. I live on Level 301.

I made Teal’s purple hair.

I made hundreds of modifications.

I thought I was an artist.

I was preparing them to be merchandise.

And now I look like one of them.

CHAPTER 5

THE TRAINER

(OR: HOW I MADE THE HANDBOOK EASIER TO BEAR)

Today’s schedule: Two sessions. 09:00-12:00 and 14:00-17:00.

Morning session: Three clients. Ages 16-17. Working on Chapter 3 endurance conditioning.

Afternoon session: Four clients. Ages 15-18. Mixed skill levels—two beginners on Chapter 1 positioning, two advanced on Chapter 4 collaborative drills.

I’ve been a handbook mastery instructor for eight years.

My studio is on Level 219. Private. Professional. Equipped with everything the manual recommends—positioning supports, endurance training equipment, mirrors for form checking.

I help clients master the handbook before their contracts begin. Make sure they’re prepared. Make sure the transition isn’t shocking.

Because the handbook is overwhelming. Three years of material. Complex techniques. Physical conditioning that takes time to build. And most try to do it alone, in shame, in secret.

I give them a safe space. Proper instruction. Support.

I’m booked out six months in advance.

I started this work because I saw a need.

Eight years ago, my neighbor’s son went to auction. Eighteen. Desperate. Family debt. He’d been training alone for three years—trying to follow the handbook by himself, making mistakes, injuring himself because he didn’t know proper technique.

He came back after his year. Couldn’t speak for months. Couldn’t be touched. Eventually told his mother that the worst part wasn’t the contract itself—it was being unprepared. Not knowing what to expect. The shock of everything.

“If someone had helped me train properly,” he said, “maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad.”

So I became that someone.

I studied the handbook. All of it. Learned proper techniques, safe progression, injury prevention. Set up a studio. Started offering instruction.

Word spread. Parents whose children were preparing. Young people who didn’t want to train alone. They came to me.

And I helped them. Made sure they understood the positions. Built their endurance safely. Prepared them properly so the actual contract wouldn’t destroy them.

I’m not proud of the system. I hate that it exists. But it DOES exist, and these clients are going through it regardless.

At least this way, they’re prepared. At least this way, they’re not going in blind.

That’s what I tell myself.

The morning session goes well. Two clients, both progressing nicely on Chapter 3 endurance work. But there should be three.

“Where’s Liliana?” I ask. “Is she sick?”

The clients—both sixteen, both scheduled for auction in two years—exchange glances.

“She’s not coming anymore,” one says quietly. “She said she’s not doing it.”

“Not doing the year?” I’m surprised. Liliana was committed. Determined. Her family’s debt was severe.

“She watched some video. Said it changed everything.”

“What video?”

They shrug. Don’t know. Just that Liliana sent them a link and told them she won’t come to training anymore.

After the session ends, I pull up my device.

I need to know what video they’re talking about. Need to understand what’s affecting my clients. Need to see if there’s new information I should be incorporating into my instruction.

Professional development. That’s all this is.

I search recent trending content related to the handbook, the industry, contracts—

And I find it.

“My name is Teal Weaver. You might know me as Purple. I am here to tell you the truth.”

I watch.

Teal talks about the training. The three years with the handbook. The preparation.

“People think if you’re prepared, it’s easier,” he says. “That if you know what’s coming, you can handle it better.”

He stops. Looks directly at the camera.

“It’s the opposite. Being prepared made it worse. Because my owners KNEW I was prepared. Knew I could handle more. Knew I’d been conditioned for three years to comply, to endure, to perform.”

No.

“The training isn’t protection,” Teal continues. “It’s just—it’s pre-breaking. It’s making you easier to use. The more prepared you are, the more they can do to you. The better you follow the handbook, the less recovery time you need. The more positions you know, the more variety they have.”

He pauses. His grey eyes look tired. Dead.

“In what world does someone need to be prepared to have objects inserted in their body for hours?” he asks quietly. “What kind of world requires teenagers to train their bodies to endure that? To build up tolerance for pain? To practice dissociating?”

He leans closer to the camera.

“And what kind of people help them prepare for it?”

I stop the stream.

Sit in my studio. My professional training studio. With the positioning supports. The endurance equipment. The mirrors.

Eight years of telling myself I was helping them.

But I wasn’t helping them. I was helping their buyers.

Every endurance drill I ran—preparing them to bear everything longer like the handbook says—that doesn’t give them armor. It just means their owners can use them for eight-hour sessions instead of two. Can push harder because the merchandise recovers faster. Can do more because the body’s already been conditioned to accept it.

Every position I taught—it didn’t prepare them to be pain-free. It helped the buyers use them in those positions without being disturbed by cries of pain.

Every bit of conditioning—that was less resistance. Less recovery time. More availability.

I made them easier to abuse.

And they paid me for it.

Desperate teenagers. Families drowning in debt. Paying me hundreds of euros per session to make their year WORSE.

To enable their buyers to do more. Push further. Go longer.

I’ve been helping the wrong people.

And charging for it.

I have afternoon session in two hours. Four clients scheduled.

Two beginners on Chapter 1 positioning. Two advanced on Chapter 4 collaborative drills.

I could cancel. Could close the studio. Could—

Could what? Find other work? Doing what? I’ve been a handbook instructor for eight years. That’s what I know. That’s what I’m good at.

And the bills still need paying. Rent on the studio. Rent on my apartment. Food. Transport. Life.

The clients will train regardless. With or without me. At least with me they won’t injure themselves. At least—

No. That’s the same lie. Different words.

They’ll train because the handbook exists. Because the system exists. Because they’re desperate.

And I’ll help them. Not because it helps THEM. Because it helps their buyers use them more efficiently.

I’ve always known that. I just let myself believe the kind words mattered. The gentle encouragement. The safe space.

As if there’s anything safe about preparing someone to be merchandise.

My name is Helena Kirch. I’m thirty-four years old. I live on Level 219.

For eight years I’ve trained people to endure abuse.

I thought I was helping them survive it.

I was making it worse.

I have four clients this afternoon.

I have bills to pay.

CHAPTER 6

THE BIDDER

(OR: HOW I GOT WHAT I PAID FOR)

My name is Frank Toben. I’m forty-seven years old. I live on Level 615.

I’ve contracted six workers over the past six years. One per year. At auction, I study them carefully. I look for something in their expression—intelligence, depth, the capacity for meaningful conversation. The ones who chose more artistic modifications often have that sensibility. An aesthetic awareness that suggests they’ll appreciate what I can offer them.

I don’t touch them during evaluation. That’s crude. Disrespectful.

I provide private quarters. We attend exhibitions, theater, concerts. We dine at excellent restaurants and discuss what we’ve experienced.

I learn their names. Use proper pronouns. Treat them with respect.

I never touch them. Their year with me is about intellectual companionship, cultural enrichment. About ideas and beauty and shared experiences.

That’s what makes me different.

I come home at 18:30. The apartment smells like—

“Welcome back.” Lisa appears from the kitchen. She’s wearing the blue dress, the one I said would look elegant on her last month. Her hair is pinned up. “Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes. Your clothes are laid out in your room—we should leave by 19:45 for the exhibition.”

The exhibition. I mentioned wanting to see it three days ago. Just mentioned it in passing.

“You remembered.” I smile.

“Of course.” She smiles back. Warm. Genuine.

I change into the clothes she selected—appropriate for the gallery, coordinated perfectly. When I return, dinner is plated. Pasta with this perfect Arrabiata. She is a magician in the kitchen. She learned all the recipes I told her I would like to have now and then when she arrived. She made the first perfect salmon the next day.

We eat. I tell her about my day, a tedious meeting with colleagues who don’t understand nuance.

“They’re focused on metrics,” I say. “No appreciation for the process itself.”

“That must be frustrating,” she says. “When you clearly see the bigger picture.”

Exactly. She gets it.

I make the joke—the one about the colleague’s terrible presentation style. Lisa laughs. Bright, delighted laugh.

It’s a good joke. She appreciates my sense of humor.

At the gallery, we move through the rooms together. I’m explaining the historical context of the pieces, the artistic movement, the technical innovations.

“But how did the patronage system affect what they could create?” she asks. Perfect question. Thoughtful. Leads exactly where I wanted to go with this.

“I’m so glad you asked that.” I launch into the explanation. She listens, nods, asks follow-up questions. She is really engaged. Learns something in our time together.

Two hours. We discuss every piece. She’s fascinated. Asks questions that show real understanding.

When we return home, she pours my scotch. The specific bottle. Two fingers, one ice cube. Exactly how I prefer it.

“That was wonderful,” she says. “Thank you for taking me.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it.” I settle into my chair with the scotch. “You had such insightful observations tonight.”

“I love talking with you about these things.” She smiles. “You make everything so interesting.”

I watch her move to the kitchen, begin cleaning up from dinner.

She’s so engaged. So thoughtful. Remembers details. Asks intelligent questions. We have genuine rapport.

This is what contracted companionship should be. Mutual enrichment. Shared appreciation for culture and ideas.

Not what others do. Not crude usage. Not exploitation.

This is different.

Lisa returns, asks if I need anything else.

“No, thank you. You should rest. It’s been a long evening.”

“I’m fine.” That smile again. “I’ll just finish the dishes.”

So considerate.

Nine months left in her contract. Then she’ll complete her year, return to her family with the money that changed their lives.

And she’ll remember this year fondly, I think. The exhibitions, the conversations, the culture we shared.

Not like what others put their workers through.

This is ethical acquisition.

Lisa goes to the kitchen to clean up. Finally, some time to myself. I’ve been generous with the evening—two hours at the gallery, the long dinner conversation. She needs to handle her tasks now while I attend to mine.

I pull up my device. My feed is full of it—everyone discussing the streams. Teal Weaver. Purple. The Marelli twins’ former worker.

Finally. Someone who was actually there. Not activists with theories, but first-hand testimony. Someone exposing what’s wrong with the system from the inside.

The crude public usage. The cameras. The monetization. Everything I’ve always known was unethical.

I need to watch this.

I click on the latest stream.

“My name is Teal Weaver. You might know me as Purple. Today I want to talk about the other owners. Those who don’t physically abuse us. You all know my story—I did not experience these horrors. I invited someone to join me. She has been with an ‘ethical owner’ and she will tell you what she experienced. This is Miriam.”

The camera shifts.

A woman. Fox features—golden, matching her hair. Maybe thirty.

And I recognize her.

“I had what people call an ethical owner,” Miriam says. Her voice is quiet. Steady. Then she laughs—tired, brittle.

“He never hit me. Never loaned me out. Never made me perform for guests. He gave me my own room. Took me to theater, museums, restaurants. We had intelligent conversations about art, culture, ideas.

The first night, I arrived expecting what the handbook prepared me for. Instead he showed me to my room. Asked if I was comfortable. Offered dinner. Was polite. So I performed polite back. Grateful. Comfortable. I didn’t sleep. I waited all night for him to come to my room. For it to start. It didn’t.

Day two. Day three. Week one. Still just conversation. Museums. Dinners. I kept performing. The perfect companion. I remembered every preference. Anticipated his needs. Asked questions he wanted to answer. Laughed at his jokes. Was charming, engaged, thoughtful. Because I didn’t know what would happen when I wasn’t interesting enough. He never used me the way others use their workers. Which meant he must be planning something worse. Something so twisted I couldn’t imagine it.”

Her voice drops.

“365 days waiting for whatever he was really capable of. Every conversation—calculating. Every smile—survival. He thought I was happy. Thought we had genuine rapport. That I was learning from him, appreciating what he offered.

Better than being beaten, maybe. But better than terrible is still terrible. And I was more terrified of him than I would have been of someone who just used me and was done. At least then I would have known the rules.”

She touches her golden fox ear.

“My nervous system broke. 365 days of constant fear. By the end I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. My hands shook. I dissociated for hours. And he didn’t notice. Because I was still performing. Still smiling.”

The stream ends. I sit for a moment. But I know what to do.

I stand up and walk into the kitchen. Lisa is at the sink, still doing the cleanup.

“Lisa!” She turns around. I smile. “No, 454 is much better. Don’t you think, 454? Now go on your knees.”

She hesitates for a second, then her training kicks in. In one smooth move she drops on her knees and holds her hands behind her head.

“Now open your mouth,” I say and drop my pants.

My name is Frank Toben. I’m forty-seven years old. I live on Level 615.

I learned the kindness was torture.

So why keep pretending?

I paid 23.4 million euros for Lot 454.

Nine months left.

She better be worth every euro.

CHAPTER 7

THE THERAPIST

(OR: HOW I LIED SO SOMETHING WOULD BE BETTER THAN NOTHING)

I’m in my office at 19:00, writing notes from today’s sessions. Two hundred case files. Twelve months of therapy each. Three years of work.

The Arcology Reintegration Program Pilot Study.

I’m the lead therapist. Have been since the program launched three years ago. The goal was simple: determine whether post-contract psychological support improves reintegration outcomes for returned contracted workers.

Two hundred subjects. Weekly one-hour sessions. Twelve months per subject. Evidence-based therapeutic approaches. Comprehensive evaluation at the end.

The hypothesis: With proper support, contracted workers can successfully return home, resume normal lives, reintegrate into society.

The reality: It doesn’t work.

Not in twelve months. Not with weekly sessions. Not with the resources we have.

But I wrote the report anyway. Submitted it last month. Said it worked. Said 78% of subjects showed significant improvement. Said reintegration success rates increased by 43%.

I lied.

Because the alternative was nothing. If the pilot fails, the program shuts down. No therapy. No support. No resources. Just—release and good luck.

And something is better than nothing.

Right?

My name is Dr. Mehmet Eir. I’m forty-three years old. I’ve been a clinical psychologist for fifteen years. I specialize in trauma recovery.

I wanted to help.

Samuel came to his first session three weeks after release. Wouldn’t make eye contact. Flinched when I moved too quickly. Had a medical report showing twelve fractures over the course of his contract—arms, ribs, fingers. All healed. All within the legal bounds of “no permanent damage.”

“They could break your arm every month and it’s still legal,” he told me in session six. The first time he’d said more than ten words. “As long as it heals. As long as there’s no permanent damage. That’s the rule.”

I asked if he wanted to file a complaint. Pursue legal action.

He laughed. Not a happy sound.

“For what? They followed the rules. No permanent damage. It’s all in the medical records. Twelve fractures. Twelve healings. All legal.”

Session eight, he told me how it happened.

“They liked to hit. During. And I—I couldn’t say stop. Wasn’t allowed to speak. The handbook teaches you—three years of learning to scream silently. So I just—I took it. Until something broke. Every time.”

He touched his ribs. Healed.

“Twelve fractures in twelve months. The medical records say ‘no permanent damage.’ Everything healed. So it was legal.”

Pause.

“They paid every bill. Never questioned. Just—paid and did it again next month.”

He came to eight sessions. Then stopped. I tried to follow up. His contact information was disconnected. His registered address was vacant.

Six months later, I hear someone mention a Samuel at River’s Harbor. Silver hair. Twenty-six. Same description.

I mark his file: Successful reintegration. Returned to family.

A lie.

Rose lasted longer in therapy. Fourteen sessions. Made actual progress, I thought. Talked about her contract, about being property, about what happened.

“People think it’s about sex,” she said in session nine. “That’s what they imagine. Sexual slavery. But it’s not—it’s not just that. It’s the other things. The casual things. The way they’d discuss you while you stood there. The way they’d loan you to friends for dinner parties. The way they’d—”

She stopped. Couldn’t finish.

“No permanent damage,” she said finally. “That’s all that matters, right? I’m intact. Functional. Alive. What more could I want?”

Session twelve, she told me more.

“They’d use me. Then—‘go stand over there with the drinks while we talk.’ So I’d stand. Hold the tray. And listen to them discuss what they just did. What they were planning to do next. My body. How I performed.”

She stopped. Breathed.

“And my owner—my owner was proud. ‘It performs so well.’ So they loaned me out. Every week. Different parties. Different houses. Level 600, 650, sometimes higher. Always the same—hold drinks, listen to them discuss me, get used, go back to holding drinks.”

I’ve heard about these parties. The kind where people from the Highs network over champagne. Where contracted workers are present.

“A year of parties,” Rose said quietly. “Hundreds of people saw me. Took me to private rooms. Discussed me while I held their champagne. And then I came home and—and I couldn’t face my family. Because how do you explain that hundreds of strangers—”

She couldn’t finish.

She came to session fifteen on time. Sat down. Looked at me.

“This isn’t working,” she said.

“Therapy takes time—”

“No. I mean—this program. Weekly sessions. Twelve months. You’re trying to fix something that can’t be fixed in twelve months. You’re trying to help me go home, but home isn’t—I can’t go back there. Can’t face them. Can’t explain. Can’t—”

She stood up.

“There’s a place. For people like me. People who can’t go home. I’m going there instead.”

“Rose, if you leave the program, you’ll be marked as unsuccessful reintegration—”

“I am unsuccessful reintegration,” she interrupted. “That’s the truth. I’m not going home. I’m not reintegrating. Your program failed. But you won’t report that, will you? Because if too many of us fail, the program fails, and then there’s nothing.”

She left.

I marked her file: Successful reintegration. Returned to family. Therapy completed.

I lied.

Three days later, I got the call. They found her behind a waste facility on Level 420. Wrists cut. Broken champagne glass in her hand.

The same kind she’d held at those parties. The ones where she stood for hours between being used.

I should have known. Should have seen. Should have—

But I marked her file successful. Before I even knew she was dead.

Another lie in a report full of lies.

Then there was Fabs.

His file looked different. Medical evaluation: no injuries. No fractures. No physical trauma documented. I thought—hoped—maybe this would be an easier case.

He came to the first session and couldn’t sit still. Paced. Fidgeted. Shifted constantly in his chair. Got up. Sat down. Got up again.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t—I can’t stop moving. If I stop moving I hear them.”

“Hear who?”

“My owners. Yelling. Telling me—telling me I’m doing it wrong. That I’m not holding the position. That my face isn’t right. That I’m—that I’m worthless, useless, decorative garbage that can’t even stand still properly.”

I didn’t understand at first that he was used as decoration. Living furniture. A statue that breathes.

“They never hit you?” I asked, checking his file again.

“No. Never. Didn’t need to. Motion sensors. Everywhere. If I moved—if I adjusted my weight, if I scratched, if I breathed too visibly—the light would trigger. And they’d know. And they’d come.”

He’s pacing while he talks. Can’t sit still.

“Even when they left. Even when the house was empty. I had to hold position. Because the sensors would catch it. And they’d review the footage later and—and yell. About how worthless I was. How I couldn’t do the one thing they bought me for. Just stand still.”

He described the guilt-tripping. The constant criticism.

“I paid twenty-three million euros for you. And you can’t even stand still? Do you know how pathetic that is? I could have bought someone competent.”

“Other workers can hold positions for hours. But you? You can’t make it thirty minutes without moving. What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m trying to be patient. I’m trying to help you improve. But you keep FAILING. Why do you keep failing me?”

Fabs came to eleven sessions. Each one, he paced. Fidgeted. Couldn’t be still.

Session ten, something changed.

“I saw it. In a shop window. Calendar. ‘Living Sculpture: A Year of Form.‘”

He’s pacing. Can’t stop.

“Twelve poses. Me. I didn’t—I didn’t know they were taking pictures. I thought I was just—just standing there. Being decoration. Failing at it.”

His voice breaks.

“But they were photographing. The whole time. Every position I held. Every failure. They were—they were creating art. And I didn’t know.”

Pause. He touches the window, like he’s still seeing the calendar.

“It looks painted. Professional. Beautiful. Sixty euros. People buy it. Hang me on their walls. Admire the ‘artistry.’ And I—I didn’t even know I was being photographed. I thought I was just—just worthless decoration they kept yelling at.”

He stops pacing. Stares at me.

“But the photos are—they’re perfect. Every pose. Professional quality. Which means—which means I was holding them correctly. I was doing it right. And they still—they still yelled. Told me I was worthless. Told me I couldn’t do the one simple thing they bought me for.”

His voice cracks.

“I was good enough to sell. Just not good enough to—to not get screamed at.”

Session twelve, he didn’t show up. I called. No answer. I went to his registered address.

I found out three days later. He went to his apartment building’s roof. Six floors up.

He jumped.

The note in his apartment said: “I need to stop moving but I can’t stop hearing them yell.”

The impact finally stopped him moving. Finally everyone is quiet.

I marked his file: Successful reintegration. Returned to family.

Another lie.

I’m in my office at 19:00, three weeks after submitting the falsified report, when I see the notification. My colleague sent it with a message: “Isn’t this one of yours?”

I click.

“My name is Teal Weaver. You might know me as Purple. I am here to tell you the truth.”

I don’t know Purple. He wasn’t part of my program—his contract ended before the pilot launched.

But as he talks, he mentions names.

Samuel. Rose. Others.

Names I know. Cases I marked successful. People who disappeared, died, went to River’s Harbor instead of home.

People I lied about.

He talks about what happens after. About trying to go home. About standing outside his family’s door and being unable to walk through.

“There are programs now,” he says. “Reintegration support. Twelve months of therapy. Weekly sessions. They’re supposed to help you go home. Help you resume normal life.”

He pauses.

“Twelve months. One hour per week. To undo a year of being property. To fix what three years of training and 365 days of use did to you.”

His grey eyes look directly at the camera. At me.

“It doesn’t work. It can’t work. You can’t fix slavery with inadequate therapy. You can’t help people ‘reintegrate’ into families they can’t face. Into lives they can’t resume. Into a world that sold them and called it legal.”

I stop breathing.

“The programs exist so people can say they’re helping. So the system looks humane. So there’s ‘support’ that makes it all seem manageable. But it’s not help. It’s—it’s just another lie. Another way to avoid asking the real question.”

He leans forward.

“Why does this exist at all?”

I stop the stream.

Sit in my office. My two hundred case files stacked neatly on the shelf.

The report I submitted three weeks ago: 78% successful reintegration.

The lie that makes the system look humane.

I pull up my files. Not the official report. The other one. The real one.

The one I kept. The one with actual data.

Arcology Reintegration Program Pilot Study - Confidential Draft

Actual outcomes (200 subjects, 12 months post-release):

18% returned to families

• Reintegration success unknown

• Lost contact within 3-6 months

• No follow-up possible

35% confirmed suicide within 6 months post-contract

• Rose (wrists, champagne glass)

• Fabs (jumped, 6 floors)

• 68 others documented

• Average time to death: 11 weeks post-release

20% disappeared, untraceable

• Contact information disconnected

• Registered addresses vacant

• Likely deceased, unconfirmed

12% institutionalized

• Catatonic states

• Severe psychiatric breakdown

• Long-term care facilities

• Deemed unable to function independently

15% relocated to communities (River’s Harbor and similar)

• Samuel and 28 others confirmed

• Did not return home

• Cannot “reintegrate” into families

• Living in survivor communities instead

Summary:

• 82% did NOT successfully reintegrate

• 35% confirmed dead

• 20% likely dead (55-60% total mortality)

• 12% permanently institutionalized

• Only 15% found alternative communities

• 18% went home (outcomes unknown, probably not positive)

Conclusion:

Twelve months of weekly therapy cannot address trauma of this magnitude. Current program resources are grossly insufficient.

But the real conclusion—the one I’ve been avoiding for three years—is this:

This is slavery. Legal slavery. And we cannot rehabilitate people from slavery with therapy while the system continues to destroy new victims.

The question is not “how do we improve reintegration?” The question is: “Why does slavery exist?”

Recommendation: Abolition of the contract system.

I never submitted this version. Kept it locked. Encrypted. Safe.

Because if I submitted it, the program would be shut down. There would be nothing. And something is better than nothing.

But Teal’s question echoes in my head.

Why does this exist at all?

And I realize: I’m asking it too. I’m the only professional asking it. Not the legislators who want better regulations. Not the therapists who want more funding. Not the intake workers or trainers or anyone else who works within the system.

Just me.

And I have data. Real data. Proof that slavery destroys people even with “support.”

I stare at the encrypted file. Three years of data. Two hundred lives. The truth I’ve been hiding.

Samuel’s twelve fractures. Rose’s champagne glass. Fabs’s jump. Seventy suicide cases documented in clinical detail. Contact information that leads nowhere. Families who will never know what happened.

35% dead within six months. 55-60% total mortality likely.

And I reported 78% success.

I open my contacts. Scroll through. Find the journalist who’s been covering Teal’s streams. The one writing about River’s Harbor, about survivors, about the system.

I write an email.

Subject: Arcology Reintegration Study - Real Data

I have information about the Arcology Reintegration Program Pilot Study. The official report states 78% successful reintegration.

The real data tells a different story.

18% went home (outcomes unknown). 35% confirmed suicide within 6 months. 20% disappeared, untraceable. 12% institutionalized. 15% relocated to survivor communities.

82% did NOT successfully reintegrate. 55-60% are confirmed or likely deceased.

The program failed. The legislation being drafted based on my falsified data will mandate inadequate therapy that cannot fix what a year of slavery does to people.

I falsified the report because I thought inadequate support was better than no support. I thought twelve months of therapy was better than nothing. I thought something was better than nothing.

I was wrong.

I have the real report. Encrypted. Complete with case files (anonymized). Samuel’s fractures. Rose’s suicide. Fabs’s calendar and jump. Seventy others.

If you want to see what actually happens to people after contracts end, I can show you.

This is slavery. I’m the only professional willing to call it that. Everyone else tries to manage the system, regulate it, make it safer.

But the only question that matters is: Why does slavery exist?

I’m attaching the real data. All of it.

—Dr. Mehmet Eir

I attach the encrypted file. The real report. The case studies. Samuel, Rose, Fabs. The seventy suicides. The disappeared. The institutionalized. The ones at River’s Harbor who can never go home.

The truth I’ve been hiding because something is better than nothing.

Except something built on lies isn’t better. It’s just permission for the system to keep destroying people while pretending it’s being fixed.

I press send.

Three hours later, the journalist responds.

I want to see everything. When can we meet?

I look at my office. At my files. At my career that’s about to end.

At the inadequate legislation that might not pass now.

At the data that might actually force real change. That might make people confront whether a system this destructive should exist at all.

I don’t know what will happen. Don’t know if leaking this will change anything. The system is too big, too profitable, too entrenched.

But I have data. Real data. Proof that slavery destroys people.

And I’m asking the question everyone else refuses to ask.

Why does this exist?

My name is Dr. Mehmet Eir. I’m forty-three years old. I live on Level 398.

I ran the Arcology Reintegration Program Pilot Study for three years.

I thought inadequate support was better than no support.

But now I ask: Why does something exist that requires an extensive reintegration program?

Why does slavery even exist?

CHAPTER 8

THE FATHER

(OR: HOW WE SPENT THE MONEY SHE PAID WITH HER LIFE)

The dinner party on Level 370 is exactly the kind I never could have attended five years ago. Real food. Real wine. People with office jobs and investments and futures.

I belong here now. We deserved this. After everything we went through. After waiting. After—

“Andrew, do you have children?” someone asks. A colleague from my office. We’re talking about schools, about opportunities on the higher levels.

“Yes,” I say. “One daughter. Ronja. She’s nineteen, studying engineering at the university.”

“That’s wonderful. You must be so proud.”

“I am. She works so hard. Really taking advantage of the opportunities here.”

The conversation continues. Someone mentions their son’s internship. Someone else talks about university placements. I talk about Ronja’s grades, her future, how well she’s doing.

Normal conversation. Normal people. Normal lives.

It’s a good night. Good people. Good conversation.

I say goodbye, thank the hosts, walk home through Level 370. Real grass. Real air. Clean streets.

That’s when I see her.

Woman. Maybe thirty. Fox ears. Reddish-blonde. Fox tail swishing as she walks. Walking down the street like she belongs here. Smiling at someone she passes.

She has fox features. Like my Xenia.

A few weeks before she went, she came home with white fox ears and a white tail. She smiled. Her light reddish hair matched so well with her green eyes.

I remember thinking: She looks beautiful. She’ll sell well.

I stop walking.

The woman with fox ears is gone. Turned a corner. Disappeared into a building. Living her life.

And I don’t know where Xenia is.

Five years.

I stand on the street for a long time. Then I go home.

My wife is already asleep. I get ready for bed quietly.

But I can’t sleep.

I lie there staring at the ceiling. Thinking about the woman with fox ears. Thinking about Xenia’s white ears. White tail. Green eyes.

Finally I get up. Get my device. Sit in the living room in the dark.

I search for—I don’t know what I should search for. I start with her name but nothing shows up. Of course not.

Maybe they go somewhere after? I search for “released contracted worker.”

I get hundreds of results. Articles. Posts. All about someone named “Teal.”

I read an article. It says Teal knows what happens. What really happens.

I click on his channel. There are a dozen videos.

One is called “We and Our Parents.”

I click it.

“My name is Teal Weaver. You might know me as Purple. I am here to tell you the truth.

I want to talk about families. About parents. About the people who let their children sell themselves and then act surprised when we don’t come home.

You knew. Don’t pretend you didn’t know. We spent three years training. Three years with the handbook. Coming home from sessions. Out of bathrooms where we spent half the night because we had no place else to practice. You SAW us. You watched us prepare. You knew what we were preparing for.

And you let us. Because we as a family needed the money. I wanted to rescue my family. My parents let me do it.

So we went. We sold ourselves. We spent a year being—being what you needed us to be to get that money.

And we kept our deal. We sent the money home. Most of it—to you, our parents. To clear the debt. To save you. That’s what we promised. We kept it.

We held our deal.

What about you?

We come out broken. Thrown onto streets—different streets, wherever our owners are done with us.

But most of you know who bought your child. You have the auction records. You could have asked them, or their office, or just fucking SOMEONE where to pick us up.

You didn’t.

You waited passively. Comfortably. Some of you in the old homes. Some in NEW homes—the ones you bought with our destruction. The ones we don’t know the address to because you moved up while we struggled to face you, to get home. You just changed home to somewhere else.

But it doesn’t matter where you wait. Because you don’t SEARCH. When we don’t come home, you don’t ask where we are. You don’t demand answers. You don’t show up at release points looking for us.

You just... wait. And when we don’t show up, you accept it. You move on.

You don’t talk about us. Not in the family. You took the money and built new lives and we became—inconvenient. A reminder of where the money came from.

And the silence. The silence you built around it.

When your neighbor’s child comes home with colorful hair, animal ears, glowing skin—you all decided silence is better. Don’t ask. Don’t acknowledge. Don’t see.

We’re already drowning in shame. We already can’t look at ourselves. We already feel contaminated. Ruined. Used up.

Your silence tells us we’re right to feel that way. That we’re too dirty to speak about. That what was done to us is too shameful to name.

Maybe the shame would have been bearable if you’d talked about it. If you’d said our names. If you’d acknowledged that your neighbor’s child went through it too. If you’d made it something that could be spoken instead of hidden.

If you’d waited at the doors we got thrown out of. If you’d searched when we didn’t come home. If you’d broken the silence and said: This happened to my child. This is happening to our children. We need to talk about it.

Maybe we could have come home then. Maybe we could have faced you. Maybe the shame wouldn’t have been so crushing if you’d made space for us to exist in it.

But you didn’t. You chose silence. You chose passivity. You chose comfort.

You let us sell ourselves to save you. You took the money. You benefited. You moved up. You thrived.

And when we don’t come home when you expect us, you do nothing.

And we? We did everything. A whole year.

We are the victims. You are complicit.

Just like everyone else.”

The video ends.

I sit in the dark living room. Device in my hands.

I don’t know Teal Weaver. Never met him. Never heard of him before tonight.

But he knows me. He described me exactly.

Morning. Breakfast. Margaret is making coffee. Ronja is still at university.

“Margaret,” I say. “Where are the files from Xenia’s auction?”

She stops. Frozen. Coffee pot in hand.

“What?”

“The auction records. The contract. Where did we put them?”

“Why?” Her voice is tight. Careful.

“I need to know where she is.”

“Andrew, don’t.”

“It’s been five years—”

“Exactly. Five years. We moved on. We have Ronja. We have this life. Don’t—don’t ruin it.”

“Ruin it? She’s our daughter—”

“She MADE her choice,” Margaret says. Sharp. Angry. “She chose to do it. We didn’t force her. And now—now we have this life. This good life. Why go back? Why open this wound?”

“It’s not YOUR wound,” I say.

I stand up. Go to the storage closet. Start pulling out boxes.

“Andrew, stop. Please. Just—just leave it alone.”

I find the box labeled “Important Documents.” Pull it out. Open it.

Insurance. Property deed. Ronja’s university enrollment.

And underneath. The auction contract. Thick. Official. Xenia’s signature at the bottom.

Lot number. Auction house. Owner information.

I take it. Leave the box on the floor.

“Andrew—”

I walk past Margaret. Out the door. Into the clean streets of Level 370.

I have the records now.

I know who bought her. The owner’s name. Address. Contact information.

But calling them won’t help. She’s not there anymore. The contract ended five years ago. They wouldn’t know where she went. Wouldn’t care.

I start calling. Authorities. Social services. Reintegration programs. Hospitals.

“I’m looking for my daughter. Xenia Morton. Her contract ended five years ago. I don’t know where she is.”

Most don’t have records. Some can’t share information. Some just—don’t care.

I keep calling.

Finally, someone at a psychiatric facility on Level 287 says: “Yes. Xenia Morton is here. She’s been here for four years and eight months.”

Four years. Almost five years.

She’s been there the entire time. While I lived on Level 370. While I went to dinner parties. While I told people I have one daughter.

“Can I visit her?”

A pause.

“Mr. Morton, your daughter is—she’s not able to receive visitors.”

“What do you mean?”

Another pause. Longer.

“Her body made it out of the contract. Her mind—” The administrator stops. “She’s catatonic most of the time. But when anyone enters her room, she—she becomes violent. Toward herself. She tries to—”

The administrator doesn’t finish.

“She tries to what?”

“She tries to crawl out of her own skin,” the administrator says finally. “Tries to tear herself open. We can’t let anyone in. Not family. Not therapists. No one. It triggers something we can’t—we can’t help her through.”

I’m holding the device but I can’t speak.

“Her medical records show significant psychological trauma,” the administrator continues. “The kind that—the kind that doesn’t resolve in a lifetime. We’re keeping her comfortable. Safe. But she’s—”

“She’s gone,” I say.

“Her body is here,” the administrator corrects gently. “But yes. The person you knew—I’m sorry.”

I ask about the contract. About the owner. About—

“There was a legal finding,” the administrator says. “Permanent psychological damage. Violation of the ‘no permanent damage’ clause. The owner was fined 100 million euros.”

100 million.

“The fine goes to the arcology government,” she says. “Not to the victim. It’s punitive, not compensatory.”

100 million euros to the government. The same government run by people like the owners. The same people who profit from the system.

Nothing to Xenia.

Just a fine. A slap on the wrist for breaking a person so badly she can never be whole again.

I record a video. Post it publicly.

“My name is Andrew. Five years ago my daughter sold herself to save our family. She ended her year of slavery. The money came. We moved up. We thrived. And I never asked where she was. I found her yesterday. In a psychiatric facility. Destroyed. She’s been there almost five years while I lived comfortably on the money she paid with her mind.

Where are your children? The ones who saved you. The ones who sold themselves so you could move up. Where are they?

Ask. Search. Don’t wait like I did.

It’s too late for Xenia. Maybe it’s not too late for yours.”

My name is Andrew Morton. I’m forty-eight years old. I live on Level 370.

Five years ago, my daughter Xenia’s time as a slave ended.

I waited for her but I didn’t ask.

Now I ask: Where are our children?

And it is too little and too late.

Want to read Teal’s full story?

CHAPTER 9

THE SURVIVOR

(OR: HOW I NEVER STOPPED PERFORMING)

My colleague shows me a link during break. “Have you seen this? It’s everywhere.”

I glance at her screen. Purple hair. Trending stream.

“Not interested,” I say. Smile. Go back to my work.

She shrugs. Goes back to her desk.

I’m good at deflecting. Good at seeming normal. Good at performing.

Someone knocks on my office door at 10:30.

My body moves before my mind catches up.

Turn. Present. Freeze.

NO.

I force myself to stay in my chair. Force my hands to keep typing. Force my voice to sound normal.

“Come in.”

It’s Marcus from accounting. Needs a signature. Stands too close to my desk.

My spine wants to curve. My body wants to drop. Wants to assume the position. Wants to present my back and freeze and wait to be used.

I sign the form. Hand it back. Smile.

“Thanks, Sina.”

He leaves.

I’m shaking.

Every time someone enters this room, I fight this. Every single time.

Ten years. Ten years of this office. Ten years of people walking through that door. Ten years of fighting my body’s automatic response.

Turn. Present. Freeze.

That’s what I was for a year. And my body still hasn’t forgotten that holding still was the only way to endure when other people were around me.

Lunch break. 12:30. I go to the cafeteria because that’s what normal people do. Normal people eat lunch with other people. Normal people are social.

And I’m normal. I’m okay. I told everyone I’m okay.

But the cafeteria is worse.

People sitting. Everywhere. At tables. In chairs. Normal human behavior.

And my body sees empty space. Sees people who might need somewhere to sit. Sees opportunities to be useful.

I find a table in the corner. Sit. Force myself to stay sitting.

Someone walks past looking for a seat. The cafeteria is crowded.

My body tenses. Wants to drop. The floor. All fours. Become the bench. They need somewhere to sit and I’m RIGHT HERE and I could—

I grip the edge of the table. Hard enough my knuckles go white.

The person finds another table. Sits. Doesn’t notice me shaking.

I eat my lunch. Or pretend to. Performing normal.

3:00 PM. Meeting. Eight people. Conference room.

This is the worst. Parties were like this. Lots of people. Lots of potential uses.

Stand here. Hold this. Present. Be available.

I sit in my usual chair. Take notes. Perform engaged employee.

Someone drops their pen. It rolls toward me.

My body wants to crouch. Wants to retrieve it. Wants to hold it. Wants to become the holder. That’s what I did at parties—stood holding trays, holding bottles, holding whatever they needed while they used me between holding sessions.

I pick up the pen with my hand like a human. Pass it back like a human. Smile like a human.

“Thanks, Sina.”

Inside, I’m screaming.

Because it would be so easy. So easy to just—stop fighting. To let my body do what it knows how to do. To be the thing they made me.

But I can’t. Because that’s not normal. Because humans don’t position themselves as furniture. Because I have to perform.

So I fight. Every second. Every interaction.

Going home is hard too.

6:00 PM. I’m on the transport. Crowded. People standing.

I’m sitting. Someone elderly boards. Needs a seat.

Normal human response: offer your seat. Stand up. Let them sit.

My response: terror.

Because if I stand, if I give up my seat, my body will want to drop. Will want to become the seat. Will want them to sit on me instead of the chair.

I force myself up anyway. Offer the seat. The elderly person sits.

I stand. Hold the rail. Fight the urge to get on all fours in the middle of public transport.

Ten years of this. Ten years of every normal human interaction being a battlefield.

Home. Finally. 7:30 PM.

My apartment on Level 370. Real grass outside. Almost real air. Bought with the 38 million I earned being furniture.

I close the door. Lock it. Lean against it.

Safe. Alone. No one to perform for.

But I still have routines. Still have to maintain the performance even alone.

Dinner. I make dinner because that’s what normal people do. Eat at the table. Use utensils. Sit in a chair.

Not on the floor. Not waiting. Not positioned.

After dinner, I shower. The water helps sometimes. Reminds me I have a body that’s mine. That feels. That exists beyond—

I dry off. Stand in my bedroom.

And then the hardest part of every day.

Getting dressed for tomorrow.

My pajamas are laid out on the bed. Soft. Comfortable. Covering.

Why?

Why cover yourself? Furniture doesn’t wear clothes. Decoration doesn’t need fabric. How can they use you if you’re covered?

My hands shake as I reach for the shirt.

This is the fight. Every morning. Every night. Forcing cloth onto skin that was trained to be bare. To be accessible. To be available.

I put on the pajamas. Force myself. One piece at a time.

Tomorrow I’ll do it again. Work clothes. Layers. Coverage. Performance.

But tonight—

Tonight, I’m so tired.

So tired of fighting. So tired of forcing my body to be human. So tired of performing.

I go to my bedroom. Lock the door even though I live alone.

And I stop fighting.

Still in my pajamas—because I earned that much, that small dignity—I get on all fours.

The position. The one my body knows.

Back presented. Head down. Frozen.

Bench.

And I breathe.

This is the only rest I get. The only time I don’t have to fight my conditioning. The only time I can just—stop.

Because being furniture doesn’t take energy. Being decoration is easy. This is what my body learned for a year. The only way to endure when other people were around.

Fighting it—standing upright, moving like a human, existing as a person—that’s exhausting.

So I stay here. Alone in my locked room. On all fours. Bench.

Just breathing.

This is my rest. This is my peace.

Surrendering to what they made me.

Ten minutes. That’s all I allow myself. Ten minutes of not fighting.

Then I get up. Force myself vertical. Force myself human again.

Tomorrow I’ll do it all over again. The getting dressed. The work. The fighting every interaction. The performance.

And tomorrow night, I’ll come home and surrender again. Just for ten minutes. Just to breathe.

That’s survival. That’s what “successfully reintegrated” looks like.

Ten years ago, my contract ended. I went home. Because I didn’t know what else to do.

My family was so happy to see me. Crying. Hugging. “We missed you so much.”

I smiled. Hugged back. Performed happiness.

I’ve been performing ever since.

But recently, my colleague sent me a link. Some trending stream. I deflected. Said I wasn’t interested.

But I watched it anyway. Later. Alone.

“My name is Teal Weaver. You might know me as Purple. I am here to tell you the truth.”

I watch the whole thing. All of it. Every word.

Teal talks about training. About the year. About being property. About learning to perform. About smiling when you’re dying inside. About pretending to be fine.

About going home afterward and not knowing how to stop performing.

“You learn to hide it,” he says. “That’s what they teach you. How to seem normal. How to smile. How to pretend the person they knew is still there. And after the contract ends—you can’t stop. You don’t know how. Performance becomes survival.”

I’m crying.

For the first time in ten years. Since before the auction. Since before I learned that showing emotion meant you weren’t performing correctly.

I’m sitting on my couch and crying.

Not because Teal fixed anything. Not because he offered solutions.

Because he saw me.

Someone put words to what I’ve been fighting alone for ten years. Someone else knows what it’s like to perform every second. Someone else understands that “successfully reintegrated” means constant warfare with your own body.

I’m not alone.

I sit there for a long time. Crying. Breathing.

And then I do something I haven’t done in ten years.

I pick up my device. Turn on the camera. Point it at myself.

My bioluminescent tattoos pulse softly under my skin. Fox pattern. Permanent. Genetic. Proof of what I was.

My fox ears twitch nervously.

I press record.

“My name is Sina Meer,” I say. My voice shaking. “I was furniture for a year. I’ve been performing human for ten years since.”

I take a breath.

“And I’m not okay.”

I post it.

Right there. On the couch. Still crying. I post it to my profile. Public. Where my colleagues can see. Where my neighbors can see. Where everyone on Level 370 who’s been performing not-knowing can see.

My bioluminescent tattoos pulse rapidly under my skin. My fox ears flatten. My hands shake as I hit “share.”

“My name is Sina Meer. I was furniture for a year. I’ve been performing human for ten years since. And I’m not okay.”

It’s out there now. In the world. Everyone will know.

My colleagues who’ve been asking “how are you?” every morning for ten years—they’ll know.

My neighbors who see my augmentations and pretend they’re just aesthetic choices—they’ll know.

Everyone will know at once: I AM NOT OKAY.

And I won’t have to smile through their questions anymore.

Relief floods through me. Actual relief.

Because they already knew anyway. They see my fox ears, my tail, my tattoos. They know what augmentations like these mean. Why someone from the Lows ends up on Level 370 with genetic modifications.

They’ve been performing not-knowing.

I’ve been performing being okay.

Now we can all stop and breathe.

My name is Sina Meer. I’m twenty-nine years old. I live on Level 370.

For ten years I’ve been performing human.

Every night I surrender on all fours just to breathe.

I am not okay.

EPILOGUE: TEAL

The shame kept me away for fifteen years.

Fifteen years at River’s Harbor. Meeting hundreds of other Returned.

At first, the shame is about what was done to us. What we had to do. What our bodies learned. What we can’t forget.

But talking about it - years of talking about it with people who understand - that shame shifts. Becomes something else.

The shame that stays is different. Not shame for what was done to us, but shame that we walked through those doors at all. That we couldn’t see another way. That the system’s math was so absolute, we believed selling ourselves was the only option.

Even knowing those other options were nearly impossible. Even knowing we were children making impossible choices. This shame stays.

But it’s bearable now. Something I can carry without drowning.

The world shifted too. Slowly. People in the lower 300 levels started talking about us differently. Not in whispers. Not in shame. Acknowledging what we went through. Seeing us.

Then I wrote the book. Lot 722. Going back through everything. Every day. Every moment.

Remembering Rem’s voice. How it kept me alive. How thinking of my little brother was the only thing that made me hold on one more day.

Twenty years since I’ve seen him. Twenty years of not knowing if the money saved them. If destroying myself was worth it.

I need to know. Need to see him. Need to see if it really worked.

I need to go home.

I can go home.

I will go home.

I take the transport to Level 198. The address I remember. Our old hab-unit.

A different family lives there now. I knock. Ask where the Weavers moved.

“Level 284,” they tell me. “Been there... fifteen years? Maybe more.”

Fifteen years. They moved right after the money came. Right after I couldn’t come home.

“Thank you,” I say.

Level 284. Better air. Real grass. The kind of place we could never afford before.

The kind of place my money bought.

I find the building. Find the address. Stand outside.

New place. Clean. Safe. Everything I wanted for them.

Everything I paid for with a year of being Purple.

I stand there for a long time. Twenty years since I’ve been home. Twenty years since I’ve seen Rem.

What if the money wasn’t enough? What if they’re struggling anyway? What if I destroyed myself for nothing?

What if they don’t want to see me?

I take a breath.

Then I knock.

Footsteps inside. The door opens.

Rem.

My little brother. Not little anymore - he’s thirty-three now. Taller than me. Broader. A man, not the thirteen-year-old I left behind.

But I know his face. Know his eyes.

He stares at me. Recognition. Shock. Then—

“Teal.”

Just my name. My real name.

“Hello, little brother,” I say. My voice shaking. “I’m home.”

For a moment, he just stands there. Staring. Like he can’t believe I’m real.

Then he reaches for me.

I don’t flinch. Don’t pull away. Let him pull me into his arms.

We stand there in the doorway. He’s holding me. I’m holding him. Twenty years. Twenty years of not seeing each other. Twenty years of him not knowing where I was. Twenty years of me not being able to come back.

We cry. Both of us. All those years. All that time. All the words we couldn’t say.

He doesn’t let go. Just holds me. Like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he stops.

“We thought you were dead,” Rem says. His voice breaks. “And when the streams started we knew. But I saw it in your eyes that you couldn’t come home.”

“I couldn’t,” I whisper. “Not then. I couldn’t face you. Couldn’t let you see—”

“I don’t care,” Rem says. His voice fierce. “I don’t care what you look like. What happened. What you became. You’re my brother. You’re Teal. You came home.”

We stand there. Crying. Holding each other.

Twenty years.

Finally.

I’m home.

A FINAL WORD FROM TEAL

You’ve read nine stories. Nine people who heard what I said and couldn’t unhear it. Lives changed because I refused to stay silent.

Now you can read what I told them.

I wrote it all down. Every moment. The auction where I became Lot 722. The year I spent as Purple. The day I got out and couldn’t go home. The community that saved me. The choice to speak.

I used their tools against them. They used cameras to exploit my body, to extract value from my destruction. I used those same cameras to tell the truth. To stream what they never wanted anyone to see. To take back what they tried to take from me.

It’s not easy reading. It won’t be comfortable. You’ll encounter sexual exploitation, psychological degradation, dehumanization, trauma that doesn’t end when the contract does. I don’t soften it. I don’t look away. I can’t—that would be lying, and I’m done with lies.

Lot 722. That’s the designation they gave me. It’s not a name I chose. It’s not a name I’ll ever claim as mine. But it’s part of me now, like Purple is part of me, like everything that happened is woven into who I became.

Twenty years later, I went home. Saw my brother. He held me and didn’t let go.

That doesn’t undo what happened. Doesn’t heal what was broken. But it matters.

If you’re ready—

The book is Lot 722.

My name is Teal Weaver. You can call me Purple—because I’m taking that name back.

Want to read Teal’s full story? [LOT 722 - available here]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jonah Ravenshead is a Berlin-based author who writes queer erotica that celebrates sexuality in all its forms, exploring kinks and desires with joy and authenticity in a deeply descriptive, evocative style. Drawing inspiration from personal experiences, they craft stories in a stream of consciousness style that captures raw emotion and intimacy.

Their work explores vulnerability, trust, and the complexities of desire within queer relationships. The sex is hot. The politics aren't fluffy. Sometimes what starts as erotica gets sidetracked into dystopia or leftist propaganda—and they forget to delete the sex scenes.

Jonah believes in eating the rich. One at a time. Preferably with sauce hollandaise.

They also believe stories can be many things—pleasure, exploration, liberation. And sometimes, when necessary, weapons against systems that rely on silence.

CONTACT & SOCIAL MEDIA

To learn more about Jonah and stay updated on their work, visit https://linksta.cc/@ravenshead and follow them on social media:

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Table of Contents

- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Content Warning - A Word from Teal
- 1. The Daughter
- 2. The Sibling
- 3. The Intake Worker
- 4. The Modifier
- 5. The Trainer
- 6. The Bidder
- 7. The Therapist
- 8. The Father
- 9. The Survivor
- Epilogue: Teal
- A Final Word from Teal
- About the Author
- Also by Jonah Ravenshead