HAWK

CHAPTER THREE: HAWKED (3/6)

Kas took her usual seat at the top of the stadium. It didn't offer the best view, but she only needed to slip on her high-range goggles and it'd be as good as the front row. Barely a quarter of the 100 thousand seats available were occupied, but that was still the busiest she'd seen it for a couple of years. While she waited for proceedings to begin, she looked down and saw a trader openly selling knock-off artifibre out of a push-cart. She slipped on her goggles and saw he was mostly offering t-shirts. She zoomed in and also saw a box labelled jeans and an open one filled with jackets.

Artifibre had transformed clothing decades before. Stranded into fabric, it could precisely track a person's heartbeat, analyse sweat, pheromones and temperature and relay that information to the wearer's monitor of choice. It was like a second skin. But artifibre could even go one step further and actually alter its own physical properties to affect its wearer.

Part photosynthetic, artifibre absorbed not just light but chemicals in the wearer's sweat which it then altered to create a reserve of useful substances. If someone suffered a stroke, for example, it could detect, diagnose and respond to it within seconds by administering a blood thinning agent that would be released into the wearer's skin and then into their bloodstream where it would seek and destroy brain clots. It was a revolutionary invention back in its day, but as with all technology, competition made it affordable and affordable made it poor.

Cheap artifibre was illegal because it could be hacked, and hacked artifibre could be used to do more than offer health benefits.

Kas briefly considered informing a staff member, but she decided Jedd probably already knew. He had few enough customers as it was, and she wouldn't be surprised if the trader was another one of his tactics for keeping people coming back. Knowing Jedd, he probably had an agreement with local police.

Kas forgot about the trader and took in the crowd, breathing in the atmosphere like a Belvan cigar. It was at the Artisseum that Kas had bought the Calista. It had cost her all of her savings and forced her to sell off a stash of possessions she'd been hoping to hang on to, but she'd never regretted it. She couldn't have bought it without Jedd, though. He'd been the one to tell her about it, and he even gave her some of his own money to buy it on the agreement that Kas would bring him her future hauls. He had similar arrangements with other more experienced bounty hunters, but he seemed to take a particular shine to Kas, perhaps because he saw her potential.

Kas was stolen from her memories when a voice boomed throughout the stadium and announced the start of the auctions. Kas sat back and awaited the first item.