Ash Sailstorm's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

The clerk stamped a red word across Ash Sailstorm's deed: VOID. She had ridden two days to buy that empty block, one strange cluster of alien houses she meant to fill with women like herself, women the city had thrown out. Now a stranger's stamp erased it all. "Women can't hold property in Mindrot," the clerk said. He slid her money back without looking up. "Says so in the code. A man has to sign for you." Ash leaned on his counter. She was nineteen, tall, all lean muscle and hard edges. Her gray eyes caught the lamplight and held it. "I paid full price. Cash." "Then find a husband." He waved her off. Outside, her deep red motorcycle waited, flames glittering down its sides. Ash sat on it and stared at the block across the road. The houses climbed in wild colors and shapes, roofs like nothing built on Earth. Empty. Waiting. She could see the rooms already, full of women who had nowhere else. The city would seize any claim she signed. That was the wall. But walls had cracks. The clerk needed a man's name, not a man. Ash kicked the engine to life and rode to the tall willow at the block's edge. Its branches burned every color, and everyone knew the sap was poison. Nobody camped under it. That was why she went there. A tinker slept in its shade most nights, an old drunk with no home and less to lose. She found him curled in the glowing roots. "I need a name," Ash said. She crouched and set coins in the dirt. "Yours. You sign my deed as the owner. Then you sign it straight over to a company. I run the company." He squinted at her. "They'll come after me." "They'll come after a man who owns nothing and sleeps under a poison tree." Ash pushed the coins closer. "Take the money. Sign twice. Walk away." He took the money. At dawn they stood before the clerk again. The tinker scratched his name where the law demanded a man. Then he signed a second page, handing the block to a company Ash had named that morning. Her name sat at the top as manager. The clerk read it twice. His mouth pinched, but the code had no answer for it. He stamped the deed real. Ash walked out holding paper the city could not tear up. The alien houses were hers to fill. Then a boy ran up with a folded note. The company registry required a witness to confirm the tinker was sound of mind and freely acting. He had already vanished with her coins. And the witness the city assigned was the same magistrate who wrote the law barring women like her. Ash read the note twice. She had beaten one wall and built herself a taller one.