The Pawnbroker picked up the vial with spider-thin fingers. She tilted her headless face. “Joy is common. I offer you fifty creds.”
In the neon-drenched underbelly of Veridia City, there was a shop that didn't appear on any map. It existed in the wet gaps between alleys, behind a door that smelled of rust and regret. The sign above flickered: XXXPAWN . xxxpawn
Desperate, he unclasped the locket from his neck. Inside was no picture—just a tiny, dried shred of umbilical cord. His last link to his mother, who had sold him to a tech cartel when he was three. The Pawnbroker picked up the vial with spider-thin fingers
She had not bought his memory. She had bought the space behind his eyes . xxxpawn