The Dream Merchant

The neural jack slides in like a whisper. Kai's temple burns - a brief baptism of copper and salt. On the screen, his REM patterns bloom into currency: three hours of falling through his mother's hands worth forty-seven credits.

The buyer's avatar flickers - chrome smile, pixelated edges where the encryption frays. "Clean extraction," the voice purrs through static. "No trauma bleed, no ghost memories. Premium stock."

Kai's fingers find the counter's edge. Formica worn smooth by desperate palms. The clinic smells of ozone and borrowed time; fluorescents buzz like dying insects. Outside, acid rain drums the windows into percussion.

"Transfer complete." His skull echoes hollow now. The dream of her voice - come home, baby, come home - dissolves into ones and zeros, packaged for some insomniac executive who pays extra for maternal comfort.

Forty-seven credits. A week of synth-protein. Maybe two.

The jack withdraws with a soft click. Kai touches the port, feeling the heat, the tender bruise of commerce. His reflection wavers in the black screen: sixteen years old, eyes like burned circuits.

"Next extraction in seventy-two hours," the clinic's AI announces. "Neural pathways require recovery period for optimal harvest quality."

He nods. Always nodding in places like this.

The street swallows him - neon bleeding through smog, holographic advertisements promising dreams he no longer owns. His pocket buzzes: a text from Maya. Got food. Come over.

Three blocks through the Undergrid. Past the memory addicts huddled around illegal broadcasters, mainlining other people's joy. Past the dream-dealers hawking nightmares to the sleepless rich. Past the children whose eyes are already empty, their wonder sold before they learned to speak.

Maya's apartment: one room, walls that sweat condensation, a hotplate older than the war. She looks up from the pot - real noodles, not printed - and her smile breaks something in his chest.

"Sold another one?" she asks.

The question hangs between them like smoke. He wants to lie, to say he found work, that the credits came clean. Instead: "My mother's lullaby. The one from when I was seven."

Maya's face goes soft. She knows that lullaby. Heard it in his sleep when sleep still came natural.

"Kai - "

"I'm fine." The words taste like aluminum. "It's just data now."

She serves the noodles in cracked bowls. Steam rises between them, carrying the ghost of comfort. He tries to remember the melody - hush now, baby - but finds only static where the song should live.

"There's other work," Maya says. "Legal work."

"For kids from the Undergrid?" He laughs, and the sound scrapes. "With neural ports already installed?"

The noodles burn his tongue. Good pain - real pain. Not the phantom ache of extracted memory.

Later, she sleeps against his shoulder. Her breath patterns flutter on his neck, and for a moment he wants to dream her into code, to sell her peace to the highest bidder. The thought horrifies him.

His mother's voice: gone. His first kiss: sold last month for sixty credits. The taste of snow from a childhood winter: auctioned to a collector of seasonal nostalgia.

But Maya's warmth - this he keeps. This small rebellion against the hunger that eats cities, that turns children into commodity.

Outside, the city hums its digital lullaby. Somewhere in the Grid, an executive falls asleep to the sound of his mother's voice, never knowing it came with the shape of a boy's emptiness.

Kai closes his eyes. Dreams nothing. Holds everything.