Market Value
The numbers floating above Maya's head possessed that peculiar combination of cheerfulness and menace that only a computer could achieve:
Market Value: 847,932
Her number, the number rather, pulsed in friendly green digits, as if congratulating her on being worth nearly a million credits. Pretty good. Whether this was something to celebrate depended on one's views regarding slavery with excellent dental coverage.
"Nexus Corp opens at eight-forty," declared the auctioneer with the kind of professional enthusiasm generally reserved for cattle shows, though cattle, one imagined, were treated with considerably more sentiment.
Maya's bio-cuffs purred against her wrists like mechanical pets, measuring everything from her resting heart rate to yesterday's fiber intake. The amphitheater spread before them in magnificent corporate splendor - tier upon tier of polished executives clutching tablets, their eyes bright with the particular hunger that comes from shopping for other people's children. Progress, they called it, though the ancients might have used a different word entirely.
"DataFlow Industries, eight-fifty-five thousand."
Poor Marcus to her left sniffled softly, his 312,000 valuation blinking like a distress signal. Mining colonies beckoned for boys like Marcus - places where the air tasted of copper and dreams went to die quietly. Meanwhile Jin, blessed with the sort of genetic lottery that made biotech executives weep tears of joy, stood radiating the calm of the naturally valuable. His 1.2 million glowed like a halo.
"Nexus at eight-seventy."
Maya had spent three years of her life becoming precisely the sort of commodity these people desired - learning Mandarin at four AM, perfecting her neural response times, consuming nutrients with the dedication of a monk pursuing enlightenment. All to avoid the gray sprawls where workers forgot their names with remarkable efficiency. One did what one must, even when what one must was fundamentally absurd.
"DataFlow, nine hundred thousand."
The algorithms found something delicious in her biometrics - perhaps her carefully controlled terror, or that stubborn flicker of hope that humans carried even to their own executions. The corps did so appreciate fresh data, especially when it came wrapped in flesh that could think and suffer in interesting ways.
"Going once-"
Then, with the dramatic timing that suggested either divine intervention or very sophisticated planning, the lights expired.
Maya's bio-cuffs died with them, which felt rather like having one's pulse suddenly declared non-existent by bureaucratic decree. Delightful chaos ensued- sirens wailing their electronic anguish, distinguished executives bumping into furniture.
Something cold and precise kissed her neck.
Not a hand, her increasingly detached mind observed, but metal of the medical variety. The sort of thing designed by people who understood that the human body for what it truly was - a mere collection of systems to be efficiently managed. The paralytic worked with the quiet competence of good engineering, folding her legs beneath her as neatly as closing a book.
Strong arms gathered her up before gravity could claim its due - no speeches, no revolutionary rhetoric, just the sort of professional courtesy one might show a valuable package requiring careful handling.
When the emergency lighting finally decided to cooperate, the assembled buyers found themselves contemplating empty air where 847,932 credits of meticulously cultivated human potential had recently stood.
What a rather shame. One imagined they found this development less than satisfactory. After all, even the most carefully calculated market occasionally experiences what economists, in their absolute-and-infinite wisdom, call "unexpected volatility."
And this was it’s black swan event.