Jamaal stared into his empty coffee cup, dragging his thumbnail across the fading EMI logo printed on the recyclable paper. His foot had begun tapping against the synthetic wooden floor, the repetitive thud echoing his rising agitation. He was hungry now, which never helped his mood. He'd already postponed lunch with Tomoko. Just perfect. Effin' mess. Still, maybe the delay meant this meeting wasn't important. EMI couldn't be that pressed if they kept pushing the time. Jamaal leaned back in his cafeteria chair and let his gaze wander up to the ceiling.

  "Jamaal Singh?"

  He snapped forward, the chair clattering down too fast. "Yeah, that's me."

  A neatly dressed assistant held the glass door open for him. "Mr. Dauss is ready for you now. Please follow me."

  "About freakin' time," Jamaal muttered as he passed.

  "Yes, Trevor sends his apologies for the delay. We've had network disruptions the past several days, but things are stable now."

  They walked through a sterile corridor flanked by featureless grey doors. Between each one hung a high-resolution photo of an asteroid—close-ups of fractured surfaces, drill lines, and impact scars like surgical wounds. Jamaal recognized a few: Ceres. Vesta. Pallas. Proud portraits of cosmic wounds.

  Farther down were images of EROs—Easily Recoverable Objects. Spent comets looping near Earth's orbit. Ice bodies, mostly. Useful as old-school fuel, once split into liquid oxygen and hydrogen. Others were metal-rich. A few had that glassy shimmer of valuable silicates.

  "Are you enjoying your work, Jamaal?"

  He hadn't noticed the door open. A tall, lean man stood beside it, smiling with professional ease.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  "I'm Trevor," the man said, stepping aside. "Glad you could make it."

  Trevor wore the standard EMI grey suit, minus the jacket, with a low-collared vest and his name tag neatly pinned. Jamaal followed him inside.

  "I'm terribly sorry for the delay," Trevor said. "Please, have a seat. Can we get you anything? Water? Another coffee?"

  The meeting room was tastefully sparse—corporate minimalism in shades of grey. A white oval table floated in the center, three chairs clustered at one end. In the corner, a modular couch setup tried to look inviting. The floor and ceiling were lined with muted sand-colored acoustic panels. The far wall was a giant display screen, currently showing nothing but a dark, almost oceanic blue with the faintest tinge of red. It could project anything—holograms, visuals, recordings. It also recorded everything. Jamaal had worked with the same model on Harvester IX. It tracked who sat where, who spoke, when they spoke, and who they were speaking to.

  "Water's fine, thanks," Jamaal said.

  The assistant poured glasses, beginning with Trevor, then Jamaal, then herself. Jamaal watched every movement with quiet suspicion.

  "So," he said, finally, "maybe you can tell me why I'm here."

  Trevor's smile didn't flicker. "We just have a few questions about the rock you recovered. It's under evaluation." A ping on his digital pad caught his attention. Some kind of report had just arrived. Dauss squinted as he glanced over it quickly and handed the pad quickly off to Jenna.

  Jamaal set his glass down with a muted clack.

  "That rock is my claim. I've already submitted the evaluation to the harvesting committee, not EMI. I don't know why it ended up on your desk."

  Trevor's smile remained fixed. "We maintain an interest in all of our valued employees, Jamaal."