The smell of food hit me with such power my knees buckled. The feast on Mars had sated my appetite, but I was hungry again, and the spicy scent of cooking meat made my mouth water. Familiar packages of freeze-dried food littered the area, but I also caught real vegetables in the mix. There must be hydroponics somewhere on Obsidian.

I forced myself to turn away from the booths of people hawking bowls of steaming broth. We had to find a way off this station first and foremost. Besides, I doubted anyone would give me a meal out of the goodness of their hearts, and I didn’t have to scan my omnicard to know Omnistellar had long since frozen my accounts.

We dodged around people, people everywhere, more than I’d ever seen in a single place. Some haggled, some hawked, some simply stretched along the ground, looking too weak and emaciated to move. If I’d thought a criminal-run space station would do better with equality than we did on Earth, I’d been mistaken. Just like everywhere, some people had power, and some had nothing. Cage ignored them all, even as my stomach twisted unpleasantly at the sight of a little girl and her mother huddled against a wall. I fumbled in my pockets, but I had nothing to offer them, not so much as an energy bar. Cage tugged me on. “Don’t give anyone anything.”

I blinked at him, surprised he’d caught my impulse. “That little girl—”

“Could have someone waiting around the corner to jump you.” He sighed impatiently. “This isn’t a corporate-run city, Kenz. The rules don’t apply.”

I bit my tongue to keep from arguing. He was probably right. I’d never set foot outside a corporate city except for a few months when we’d lived in a government slum, and even that had been in the transition process. My ignorance stung my pride. Another way Omnistellar had failed me.

At last we reached what, on Sanctuary, would be the work area. There was no reason to assume the same thing here, although logic dictated something similar. Two guards stood outside: a tall, lanky Chinese woman and a short, stocky man with skin and eyes so pale they almost glowed. They were a study in contrasts, except that they both held an impressive array of weaponry.

Cage inclined his head. “I have business with Géxià.”

“I know.” The man swept his gaze over us. “Cage, right? We heard you’d come on board.”

Wow. That news traveled fast. I wasn’t sure what else I expected on a station of criminals, though. Here, information was currency.

Cage sighed. “Do you really want to stand here and banter, or can we get to business?”

The woman shook her head. “You. Not her.”

“No deal. We stay together.”

She shrugged. “Then you don’t go in. You’re lucky Géxià is willing to see you at all. She’s certainly not letting your Omnistellar plaything inside.”