Luna Chen wanted to be the most famous model online, and she had picked her weapon: hairy armpits. She stood in a marble ballroom inside a rich man's mansion, arms raised, filming herself for a live stream. The mansion belonged to a collector who rented rooms to anyone with a camera. Luna's teal and pink hair caught the chandelier light. Her ankle bracelets clinked as she posed. The viewer count climbed past ten thousand. "Nobody's done this," she said to the camera. "That's why it works." She flexed one arm and grinned. The comments scrolled fast. Half loved it. Half hated it. Both counted the same to Luna. Becca walked in halfway through, barefoot, black nails, unimpressed. Luna knew her by reputation: the bikini model chasing the Void Sole cover, the foot magazine that collectors passed hand to hand across the Outer Rings. Becca was famous the slow way. Luna wanted famous now. "You're loud," Becca said. She named it flat, then moved. "That crowd isn't fame. It's a mob. They'll drop you by morning." "Ten thousand people," Luna said. "Watching me." "Watching you like a fire." Becca crossed her arms. "I built mine on one shot. One editor. It lasts because it's small." Luna kept filming. She wanted the argument on camera. But then a message flashed across her screen, pinned above the chaos. It came from a channel she had chased for weeks. The corporation that ran the decommissioned orbital station. The one holding a file with her mother's name. The message was short. Her stream had gone viral. Her face was everywhere. And now the corporation knew exactly who was trying to reach their station before the data wipe. Luna's stomach dropped. She lowered her arms. The viewer count kept climbing, but she stopped watching it. "What," Becca said. She read Luna's face and slowed down. "That's not a hater. That's worse." "I got famous," Luna said. Her voice came out thin. "They found me." She had spent months staying invisible. Four backup plans she never read, all built on nobody knowing her name. Now half the network knew her face and the exact station she wanted to board. The wipe was days away. She had a ship to find and no cover left. Becca picked up her own bag. "I know a pilot," she said. "Owns her ship. Fighting a debt notice, needs a job. Mikaela." She wrote a contact code on Luna's arm with a marker. "You wanted eyes. You got them. Now everyone's watching you run." Luna ended the stream. Ten thousand people vanished at once. The ballroom went quiet. Her name was out there, spreading, unstoppable. She had gotten exactly what she asked for. Now she had to reach that station before the corporation reached her first.

Two weeks after her viral stream, Luna sat inside Mikaela's ship, arms raised for the webcam. The armpit content had exploded. What started as a stunt now paid better than any real job. Money poured in every hour. Luna barely left the desk chair anymore. She flexed for the camera, grinned, and watched the tips climb. It felt easy. That was the problem. Mikaela came in from the cockpit, still in her red flannel, gray socks bunched at her ankles. She was the pilot Becca had connected Luna to, the one hauling a fourteen-page debt notice she read line by line. She stopped behind the couch and stared at the screen. "You've been in that chair three days," Mikaela said. Flat. "The wipe is in four." "I know." Luna didn't turn around. A new tip flashed. She smiled at it. "Look. Two hundred credits, just now. This pays your snake pair. This pays your ship." "It does." Mikaela crossed her arms. "And the corporation is watching this exact stream. Same face they flagged last time. You're not hiding. You're advertising." Luna's smile slipped. She glanced at the corner of the screen. The viewer count sat high, thousands of them, and somewhere in that crowd sat the people guarding her mother's file. She had gotten famous again. She was doing it on purpose now. "I'll stop soon," Luna said. "One more hour." "You said that yesterday." Mikaela reached past her and killed the stream. The screen went black. The tip counter froze. "There. Done." Luna spun the chair. "That was working. That was money." "It was a leash." Mikaela pulled the clothing off the pile on the couch and threw a jacket at Luna's chest. "You want the file or the followers. Pick one. You can't board a station from a webcam." Luna held the jacket. She thought about the number she'd walked away from. Then she thought about the file, her mother's name inside it, four days from gone. The webcam had made her fame the fast way, the way she wanted. It had also nailed her feet to this floor. "The file," Luna said. She stood. "Good." Mikaela handed her a data slate. "I did math while you posed. The station's dock still takes cargo shuttles. We come in as a delivery. But there's a hole." Luna read the slate. The docking system needed a corporate access key. They didn't have one. The stream had earned enough to buy almost anything, except the one code the corporation would never sell. "So we're rich and locked out," Luna said. "Rich and locked out," Mikaela agreed. "The money bought us fuel. It can't buy the door." Luna set the slate down. The easy income was over. She had traded the crowd for a shot at the station, and now the real problem stood plain in front of her. Four days. A dock she couldn't open. And a corporation waiting for her to try.