The night the broker comes is the kind of evening that promises rain and then decides to do nothing out of spite. The streetlights buzz like insects and the market's tarps flap with tired lungs. I'm at the yard, ledger open, mapping safe routes in ink that smudges if I breathe wrong. Corin's gone to run an errand that smells like money; Jeong is polishing an old wrench with the kind of intensity that keeps nightmares at bay.
System: Alert — Potential hostile actor detected in vicinity. Suggested task: Prepare nonlethal deterrents. Reward: 150 XP.
The System is prompt and cheerfully unhelpful. I make a list instead: candles, oilcloth, a chain for the gate, and a plan that doesn't include violence. Corin taught me you can be stubborn without becoming brutal. It's a lesson the city forces you to relearn every so often.
The knock at the gate is polite. Two men step through like they own courtesy. One wears a suit that smells faintly of new paper and expensive cologne; the other grins like he's waiting for applause. The suit is the broker from the market, the one who showed up where things surfaced and offered the kind of deals that slide teeth into pockets. He smiles and it's the wrong shape for kindness.
"You keep interesting things," he says, stepping into the yard as if invited. His voice is the same oily tone, practiced on people who think conversation is a currency. "We could help each other."
Corin is back before I can answer. He sizes the men with a look that's efficient and tired. "We don't trade names," he says. Statement and barrier in one breath.
The suit laughs, a small, controlled sound. "Names are useless unless someone wants them. Think of us as facilitators." He turns to me, as if I'm the part of the bargain to be charmed. "You're the one with the new tricks, yes? People would pay to know what you can do."
I hate the way his gaze measures me like an appliance. It's the same appraisal I've seen on auction blocks or in markets when someone asks how much a thing costs. I tuck the ledger lower and feel the stabilizer fragment pressing to my ribs like a heartbeat.
Hae‑In arrives then, quiet as an afterthought, and her presence pulls the air taut. She doesn't like the broker the way someone dislikes rats in a pantry. She stands beside us, calm and severe.
"You leave," she says to the suit. "You and your client leave before I call people who understand litigation and louder languages."
The suit still smiles. "Madam, we only offer fair prices."
"Fair for whom?" Hae‑In asks. "You want to turn memories into coin. For some that's salvation, for others it's a robbery."
The broker's smile falters. He doesn't like being called rude in public. He moves to charm again, offering a card. His partner—clean‑faced, with a thin scar along his jaw—keeps his eyes on me, curious and hungry.
"You underestimate the market," the broker says low, as if lecturing a child on the rules of a game you do not want to play. "There's demand. We provide supply."
Demand is a thing I hear a lot lately. It's the polite word for people who have pockets and no scruples. I say nothing at first because words can make deals and I do not want to hand them one.
Corin's patience thins. "Get out," he says. Simple, a doorstep and a door.
The clean‑faced man steps closer and the yard's air tightens. For a second I see the echo of a move—his hand reaching for something hidden—and I act because Echo Sight is less of a blessing and more of a warning siren. I throw a lantern not to hurt but to make noise; a clumsy tactic but it works. The men stagger back and the candlelight makes their smiles look ridiculous in the dark.
The broker laughs then, not wounded but calculating. "You don't understand the value of what you hoard," he says. "We could help you find your missing things. We could make life easier."
"You mean easier for you," I say. The words feel small and true.
He tilts his head. "You have leverage. You could be rich, famous, important."
"Or you could be lonely and empty," Hae‑In snaps. "We keep things with the people they belong to."
The broker's face clouds. He turns to leave and then stops, as if he forgot something polite at the gate. He presses a folded card into Corin's hand before he goes—a business card with a logo that looks harmless in daylight and predatory if you think about it too long. On the back, in ink too small to be casual, is a line: WE CAN HELP FIND HER FOR A PRICE.
The yard goes cold. The card feels like a loaded sentence. Someone else knows about the missing name and is offering a transaction.
That night I pull the card out and stare at the neat logo until I want to tear it. I write in the ledger under the broker's line: No deals. No middlemen. No exceptions. Then I circle it until the paper whines.
The next day, small things happen that are too neat to be random. A vendor at the market forgets where she left a stack of produce and blames herself. A kid we sometimes see in the yard gets a cut on his hand in a way that looks accidental and now seems suspicious. I don't accuse anyone; accusing is a blunt instrument that breaks more than it mends. I watch instead and keep careful lists.
System: Suggested task — Monitor hostile actors. Reward: 200 XP.
The System wants me to make this a checklist. I want to make it a vow.
We decide to set a bait to see who bites. Hae‑In rigs a ledger page with a false lead—an address that should look like a promising, sellable memory address—then circulates the bait through a controlled channel. It's a sloppy operation, intentionally sloppy so it looks believable. We hand a copy to a market contact who owes us a favor and tell them to gossip loudly.
I wait in the market at dusk with Jeong and a thermos of coffee that tastes like tire smoke and sugar. The city hums around us. People trade fortunes and small graces. At one point the clean‑faced man from the yard slips by the stall where we sit, his eyes moving like a thief looking for silverware. He doesn't see me right away; his gaze is fixed on the gossip we planted.
When he realizes, he hesitates like someone choosing between two lies. He takes the bait. He moves to the alley and the night swallows him. I follow, keeping to the shadows because that's the part of the city that teaches you to be patient.
In the alley the clean‑faced man is meeting a woman with a hood pulled low. They exchange words in whispers that perfume the air with threat. The man's hands shake slightly as he slides a small packet across the hooded woman's palm. She opens it and lifts out a scrap of paper—our bait—and studies it, suspicion softening into satisfaction. She pockets it with a reverence that's almost religious.
I step forward then because watching is different than intervening. The alley is narrow and smells like a place secrets go to be quiet. "You like trading in other people's lives?" I ask, loud enough to be noticed.
The woman looks up and for a second her face is unreadable. She stands, small and composed. "You don't know what you're talking about, boy," she says. Her voice is calm and unfastened.
"You buy things people lose because they think it will make them whole," I say. "Do you ever think about what you take?"
She considers me like a coin. "We give people choices." It's the polite lie of merchants who prefer profit to pity.
I tell her then about the ledger and the stabilizer fragment, about ward collapses and the family who painted the sun on the wall. The woman listens and then the clean‑faced man steps forward and his jaw is more angry than the dealer he is supposed to be. "Keep your nose out of business you don't understand," he snarls.
I have no interest in scuffles. I have an interest in information. "Who do you work for?" I ask.
The woman laughs softly. "Name's Mariel," she says. "We work for clients. No names." She folds the conversation like a closing deck.
Mariel is not the broker's name from the market; she's someone different. She smells like rain and the sort of careful danger that doesn't brag. Her smile is small and precise. She uses the word clients the way lawyers use loopholes.
I go back to the yard with pockets full of useless knowledge and the uneasy sense that the city's market has formalized into a business with ledgers and investors. We have enemies that know how to write polite sentences.
That night Hae‑In pulls me aside. "Be careful," she says. "Mariel moves in organized pockets. She's more dangerous than the loose brokers—cleaner, less sentimental."
"I don't like being watched," I say, and that's not entirely true. I don't like being cataloged like an asset.
Hae‑In nods. "You will have offers. You will have people who say they can help find what you lost. They will use words like 'partner' and 'client' and 'facilitate.' They mean commerce. They mean transactions."
I put my hand over the ledger and feel the paper's ridges under my palm. It is a map and a promise and a problem. "We keep names with names," I tell her again.
She smiles, thin and tired. "Good answer."
The System pings me a late‑night congratulation and I pretend not to hear it. I sleep with Mariel's name in my head and the broker's clean card in my pocket, and with the ledger open to the page where I've written, in heavy letters: NO DEALS. NO MIDDLEMEN.