Matter Over Mind

Prologue to The Triple World

She watches them on the CCTV: bartering. She makes a mental note to reposition the camera — the sun glares, even through the glassy screen. But perhaps it is just her. Perhaps she is the one glaring. She had chosen Timta for management material because he had claimed to drive a hard bargain. But now she is sitting in the back office, reclining at his desk, recording him cave in to some low-life street-slicker.

“Come on, man — it’s a good one. Worth at least 50 pangols.” The desperation in his voice is pitiful.

Timta draws his eyebrows together, pauses. “30,” he offers.

“For a street fight? I killed a man and you want to give me 30 pangols?”

She watches Timta struggle. Flounder. His mouth opens and closes like a fish. Some hard bargain, she thinks.

“I’ve got plenty of deaths in stock,” Timta tarries.

“But in this one, right, I litera-” the street-slicker seems to be stifling a laugh. Or at least attempting to.

She curls her lip as she looks. The lower classes of Skyreen could be so crass. But she waits and watches.

“I literally punched the life outta this fuck.”

She listens to the man boast and drums her nails on her desk. Timta’s desk. Her desk. Everything…