“How much did we cost?”

She raises an eyebrow at him, but he doesn’t shrink from the question. He lets his feet down to the floor and spreads his hands out on his lap. “We may be cons, but we three are premium.” He nods at me. “I’ve only bumped into NorCol S&R once before, but they flew my ass off. Made me work for my supper.” He clicks a finger at Salt. “And you got a survivor of the Third-Christs-damn–Expeditionary itself, lost to fucking aliens or something. I mean, fuck, we’re hot stuff, aren’t we? Gotta be expensive.”

“I don’t have a number.”

Lear looks her up and down. “But you’ve got an inkling.”

Hail doesn’t blink. “Sales come up by the block, and the Authority mixes it up so the corps don’t get to cherry-pick. An engineer eats as much as a jockey does, and about as much as a dock-hand or a driver or anything else. Breathes the same, just for good measure.” She rolls a shrug. “We paid more than the usual.”

“You mean, you bribed someone.”

“We added a little gravy, and increased the chances we’d get something worth keeping. The fee was for everyone on the line, though.”

“You must end up with a lot of cheap meat.”

Hail glowers at him, and he matches it.

“What? I saw the rest of that gang. Hell, I lived and breathed with ’em. A lot of human waste in there.” He snorts. “Is this how NorCol keeps the furnaces running? Just stack a bunch of no-names together, grind ’em up for fuel?”

“It could be…” I say.

“…if you keep this up,” says Salt, finishing the thought.

Hail cuts through it. “How much did they tell you?”

“The same thing they tell everyone else, as far as I can tell.” I roll my head back, feel the kinks clicking loose in my neck. “Recruiters get us out on the yard for an hour, give us all the same lecture. We sign up, they say, and do some dirty work for one of the corps. In return, we get to stretch our legs, and the Authority knocks a little time off our sentences.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“Economics. We’re cheap.”

“Speak for yourself,” grumbles Lear.

But Hail is shaking her head. “Why do you think they take cons, specifically?”

“Because the deeds are dirty,” says Salt, stretching arms out on either side. “And we’re in jail already.”

But Hail’s look pulls me short. “Mercs do most of that stuff already, don’t they?” I ask. “Mercs and Werewolves and Dagger Chaks.”