Mukhtar’s Bazaar of Rare and Exotic Machines was a modest three-story building on Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi Avenue in District Three. The area was similarly modest and well-kept, far from the beach and the resorts. District Three was a serious place, for serious people. Its coffee rooms were cool and dark and were a place for private conversations, and the district’s services were unglamorous yet necessary, in the fields of finance, hosting, data mining, heavy machinery, Drift and off-world transportation logistics and other mundane things of that nature.

Of all the businesses in District Three, Mukhtar’s Bazaar stood out as something of an anomaly. It respected the traditions in most ways. It was a conservative establishment, of chrome and glass and information shielding and expensive yet mute Persian carpets and Israeli air-conditioning. Its collection paralleled no other in the world beside Shenzhen, but was less garishly displayed, if at all. Yet all manner of clientele, both buyers and sellers, came through the doors of the bazaar, and none were ever turned away. It was not unknown for the otherwise staid dwellers of the district to turn from a game of backgammon or a conferenced avatared-in secure discussion with the Outer System (the simulacrum proxy anticipating the one point five hour light speed delay from Titan or the forty-three minutes from Io, and so on) to see, coming down the street, some grizzled Martian Re-Born warrior with four surgically implanted arms, or a tentacle junkie in a mobility bath, or some old robotnik drunk on vodka and gasoline, wheeling a cart full of junk.

But it was unavoidable, and none were ever turned away by old Mukhtar, who welcomed them in, and offered them tea, and the visitors often came out lighter of earthly possession but heavier in transportable currency.

The reason Mariam knew all this was because, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, she worked for Mukhtar as a receptionist, because the bazaar was a world-class establishment and a world-class establishment did things the old-fashioned way, which meant having a human in front of house, and this was right and proper for District Three. It was one of several jobs Mariam had, because Neom was a city for the rich and the rich needed the poor in order to be rich. So Mariam took any job she could, but this was one of the better ones.

Mukhtar was in today, and he was in a good mood. He was an old Persian Zoroastrian, who regularly visited the local fire temple, whose flame was brought directly from the Udvada temple, and had never gone out, and he cheerfully followed the Zoroastrian tenets of working hard, making money, enjoying the proceeds and giving generously.

“Look at this one,” he said. He held a small plastic rectangle in his palm. “It’s a Pac-Man.”

“What’s a Pac-Man?” Mariam said.