“I could use your help,” I say to High Glider and Gambles Mightily after talking things out with my comrades and dropping the private chat.

“Anything interesting?” asks Glider.

“Anything lucrative?” Is Gamblers question.

“Yes and yes. At least a pair of marks, my buddies have set it all up. They’re ripe for the taking, but I need you two to do it.”

Never admit incompetence on the Market — unless you’re feigning it in preparation for a grift. My ‘buddies’ set this up by being swindled out of 15k credits. As you must have noticed, the invisible hand of this Market actually exists, and it is the always to stab you on the back. The one supposed to regulate the market I believe to be more mythical than Nessie — no we did not have colossal creatures around, though there were a few giant mythics on remote places like our neighboring Quinametzin.

My associates for this venture and I start talking shop, and Santos gets a shellshocked expression, her jaw dropping as she hears our planning. I reckon I shouldn’t assume you folks have any idea how it all works inside a Market room — few people do as it’ll not open to Earthers for some years yet, so I’ll deign to explain something import to you, my oh so dear ignoramuses. On each sector of this room - and of a vast majority of the other rooms - has kind of those self-help kiosks, you know? But these help you throw your credits down the drain - we call them Bookies or gambling Kiosks. The bets and the bids here are often as important as the auctions themselves. As long as you don't do it often or in grand scale, the Cartel won't care if you bet less than ethically. The rooms often sub-contract the gambling and the risks to smaller companies that are trying to rise in the Cartel hierarchy.

My family does have a story with gambling, but not the typical one. My grandfather was a bookie himself in the olden days. He plied his trade at the high-society Jockey Club, a huge turf right in the middle of one of the noblest neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. Gramps saw great fortunes made, and even greater ones lost. He talked about it and I was an avid audience — I like to think that his lessons help me to this day. It was one of the worst moments of my life when I learned he had been shot down one day when returning from work. Bear in mind that this is an unfortunately common fate.

The police decided to raid Mangueira right when the its weary people were turning from a hard-day’s work, and all they achieved was shooting or getting my beloved grandparent and one local kid dead. I wish I could say the favela was shocked for either victim, but it just kept happening again and again. And they have the gall to besmirch the name of anyone they kill — our police has a big share of dirty officers. People from the favelas are sick and tired of being profiled and assaulted by the very men and women supposed to protect us. But such is life in the ‘Cidade Maravilhosa’ (Wonderful City).

My mother says things are changing under Unity’s supervision — they volunteered to take over the policing on the favelas, undeterred by the hostile factions opposing them on the grounds full of nooks, alleys, choke-points and rooftop passageways. I hear good things, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Still, a minimal universal (no pun intended) basic income is about to be implemented, so they make me somewhat hopeful for Earth’s situation going forward..

“Are you sure about… all this?” Santos asks me as our partners-in-crime split, going to fulfill their parts on the plan we agreed on.

“Pretty sure. What you think, Reader?”

“Taking previous experiences in consideration… 70% chance of it working.”

“You’re betting so many credits on a 70% chance?” shes asks, covering her eyes in disbelief.

“If it was certain, it wouldn’t be a bet, Santos. Keep up.”

“Fuck you.”

“Lieutenant Santos, I don’t believe it’s possible on the Market to fuck onesel—” begins Reader, earning a venomous glare. It gives me a conspiratorial look and I feel so proud inside: it’s learning.

“Should I do it now?” she asks, nervously smoothing her hair. She’s got the deer-in-the-headlights look locked in, I hope she can also do the shit-eating grin when we need it.

“Wait, give Glider and Gambler some time.”

“Who are these friends of yours, anyway? Why haven’t you reported them before, Barro?” The intelligence officer asks, glancing suspiciously at me wit one eyebrow nearly comically raised. They think they are so smooth trying to mask their nerves these James Bond projects. Pro-tip: don’t bullshit a bullshitter.

“Who told you these are my friends, Santos?”

“But…”

“No one is your friend here, Santos. Never forget that. The best you can do is create mutually lucrative relations and align interests the best you can. But nothing is certain around here. That’s why I never press my luck.”

“Fuck. I can’t believe this place is even worse than intelligence training.” She shakes her head, despondent.

“Training your people here isn’t a bad idea. Just don’t be stupid and ask for the Quartermasters’ assistance before you get a handle on it,” I advise her. Not that anyone ever hears my damn opinion. “Hey, Reader. Can you check on my auctions and give me a concise report?”

“Yes, Lieutenant. Hmmm, good choices… You’ve gone from 6700 credits to 8300 — and the special auctioneer you’ve hired hasn’t started yet.”

“Alright, and you’ve got 60k creds, right? Did you at least get anything for the 15k you’ve spent?”

“Only three crates of Minor Spying Wards - for 10k. At most they were worth 3k.” Reader tells on Santos without batting an optical visor. They wasted credits on disposable wards? They’ve gotta be fucking with me.

Minor Spying Wards

Activate on Buildings and Structures.

Scrambles sounds and sights from inside the ward’s limits.

“Why the hell were you buying consumables? You’re tired of knowing our doctrine, Reader: fabricator rights, schema, magical scrolls or get the fuck out!,” I say, cross at the waste.

“She insisted,” the vengeful AI holds Santos’ feet to the fire.

“Don’t stone me just yet! We’ve got spellcasters who think they can learn from these,” the lieutenant defends herself.

Well, that makes more sense. Scroll is often a misnomer, but that’s what we call any device capable of teaching magicians how to conjure a spell. People write and enchant many different kinds of things to create teaching Scrolls whereas wands, amulets, wards and such are made to only cast specific spells for as long as their materials hold up — yeah, arcane planned obsolescence is a thing. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Anyway, reverse engineering is a capability we sorely lack in the magical side of things and it’s good to hear we’re beginning to catch up on it. We also lack Enchanters outside very few, ancient ones from Earth. To practice their craft, the use either spells from Scrolls or ones they know intimately.

“And we wasted the other 5k entering other rooms and buying in reserved auctions we had scant chance of winning,” Reader mercilessly continues, and this charge she can’t deny, lowering her head in defeat. No need to bring her down if she already recognizes her fuck up.

“You paid far too much for those Amulets. A scroll would probably cost around 40k.”

She only grunts in response, not trying to refute my point.

That shows you how poor I was to come here with only 7300 credits. With that money I’d manage to buy at most a handful of exo-gears or crates of magical devices. If I were to go for the more permanent enhancements, I’d get maybe two or three biomechanical implants or the ingredients for a ritual or two. If we didn’t have to pay to suit most of these it would be a lot cheaper — but our technology and our magical tradition are still too far behind.

“Are you sure about your plan?” asks me Santos, holding her arms to avoid biting her nails.

“Yeah. Relax, what’s the worse that can happen? Slavery, serfdom, become a Gourmand’s newest exotic dish?”

She quivers at the thought. “You’re joking, right? There must be laws against something like that!”

“You’re on the Market, I’ve told you before: there are no laws.” I swear I’m not trying to scare the Chipper, there really is a group of xenos that delight on consuming sentient meat (or whatever). The Gourmand Galactic Association is otherwise a very upstanding group, but they have their outcasts. People call these ones Cannibals (they often get the taste eating their own species), but there also are the Last Dishers — a group of even sicker fucks who get off on eating threatened species into extinction. You know the worse thing? The groups aren’t mutually exclusive. That’s a red line on the galactic scenario if there is one though, and even the Market would be damned if it held those. Still, it’s known to happen on the fringes.

At the end of the day, we’re very lucky to have been inducted into the Multi-Unity Alliance - a mostly benevolent power whose main fault is being awful in naming things. Nefarious things happen to unaligned peoples. You didn’t still think the “I’ve been abducted” people were all lying after all we’ve been through, did you? The Greys do exist, and they’re part of the Rogue Systems — pirates and outlaws who band together. We were a free hunting ground for a long time — some of the fuckers actually goaded the Egyptians into making the pyramids and made nonsensical crop circles just to baffle us for shits and giggles. I don’t need to tell you we bear them a grudge after learning about all their bullshit. God knows how many of us they sold and abused throughout our history.

“Reader, please give me an analysis about the two sharks you’ve identified,” I say.

“Hrukupz and Nzeng, medium players on this room. Known to hunt newbies, often acting in collusion to swindle them. They started cornering the intelligence-oriented Scroll market since they’ve noticed our interest, marking up prices and setting deals with the vendors. That’s what I’ve gathered from info brokers and our contacts.” A

“I see, good job. The guys must be ready, let’s begin.” I nod to Reader as he activates a virtual hologram to list available goods in auction.

“As I’ve told you, Santos, the first step will be to flush out the sharks that have been hounding you. Keep acting the Chipper, pick another thing you want and show it to us.”

“Something expensive or something cheap?”

“Cheap-ish to begin with. Hold off on bigger things for now.”

“Then, I want those Arcane Bugs,” she decides, pointing out the insectile-looking listening devices on the list.

Arcane Bugs

Magical Constructs.

Capable of Recording and Transmitting Ambient sounds.

Limited capacity of shape-shifting.

I suspect they don’t hold up well against wards, the things are listed with a very low initial asking price. They should probably be offered on Metacorp 2 or 3 to get more people interested; the room you pick to auction your goods has a really outsize influence on the results.

“Offer the minimum bid, 400 credits for the crate.”

I watch over her shoulder carefully as Reader keeps providing us with an up-to-date hologram focusing on the auctioneer — he’s not one of the best either, keeping up an irregular chant. Just as he’s about to punch the bell (they don’t have hammers on the Market), another bids come in. It’s a bid of 420 credits, just enough to accomplish the obligatory increment of 5% of the initial bid. I turn my look to Gazer.

“That was Hrukupz.”

“Very well. Wait until the auctioneers start the final chant and offer before the countdown,” I instruct, and Santos makes a new bid of 440 credits.

The same thing happens again — at the last opportunity, but it’s Nzeng that raises it to 460 credits.

“You thinking what I’m thinking, Reader?”

“I do not have a mind-reading function, Lieutenant—” the sass of the frying toaster **BZZZT** “—but I do believe so. They’re approaching the seller as they stall us.”

It happens once again and Santos has to raise to 500 credits. The auctioneer takes an appendage to his hearing cavity — kind of an universal gesture — and then announces: “The minimum increment has been upped to 10% of the current bid, 500 credits.”

This time, it’s Hrukupz that ups it to 550 credits. Before we react, the auctioneer calls out again. “The buyout prices has been set to 800 credits.”

Nzeng follows the announcement with another bid, making it 600 credits. It doesn’t seem like there’s a third shark so far.

“Buy it, now,” I instruct.

“But—” Santos reacts, but I cut her off.

“Just do it, quick-like!”

Grudgingly, she does it. “That was fucking obvious,” she complains.

“Yet, you fell for it on the last two auctions,” Reader rebukes her, probably still pissed at being ignored.

Grimacing, she closes her eyes as she apologizes: “I’m sorry, Reader. It just…”

“You make sure to include that on your report,” I say seriously to her. I swear that it is not with the intention to rub it in — well, mostly —, but to stop her colleagues from repeating her blunders.

“Fine,” she says through gritted teeth. “We have an overpriced Arcane Bug crate. Can we get back at these suckers already?”

“Not yet, pick something a little pricier and let’s do it again. Don’t hesitate to buy it out this time.

“I’ll make a 500 credit bet you’re buying out this time,” I let her know.

“Won’t they see through your manipulation?”

“Betting on trends is a common practice on the Market, so no, there’s a chance it might help.”

The Bookie doesn’t give me great odds as there are only three other people participating in Santos’ next bid and the value is not great. Still, I earn 20 credits for it when she buys out a set of ten Nazar Amulets for 1.2k creds, suffering the same hounding of her previous dealings. One of our superstitions was of the “mau olhado”, the evil eye people cast at each other, and it wasn’t without merit. The solutions against it were, however, being nearly always bereft of mana and actual protection. These Nazar Amulets she bought for twice their actual price would probably do the job though, deflecting attention — and keeping evil (or not) eyes away.

Nazar Amulet

Deflects attention from the wearer.

Grants immunity to mana marking.

I instruct her to do it twice more, and she spends 3.5k and 2.7k on the next two auctions, acquiring 4 Scrying Wards and 2 Illusion Wards. I hope they can figure out this stuff — it’s damn expensive. And we would need far too many of them to make all our facilities secure.

I’m placing small bets in all of the bids, and earn another modest 140 credits combined. Gambler has bet against me — using his fame for loosing bets in case anyone is watching — and Glider with me on the last two bets.

“Good, good,” I say as I approach them. “I think that’s enough throwing money down the drain. Tell me, Santos, do you like music?