Mikaela wanted to breed snakes for a living, and she needed a real home to do it. Her ship could not hold a proper rack of terrariums. It could barely hold her. The station had handed her a fourteen-page debt notice she disputed line by line, and until she cleared it, she could not buy the small cottage she had found and priced. She had counted every group that tried to ground her. This station was the newest name on that list. She stood in the empty cottage now, keys borrowed from the seller for one hour. Wooden shelves lined the walls. Carved lizards climbed the porch posts outside. It was built for exactly what she wanted. The seller would take a deposit today or move on to the next buyer tomorrow. Mikaela had the cash for the deposit. She did not have the cash for the deposit and the disputed debt both. A voice called from the doorway. "Okay so, this place is very you." Luna Chen leaned against the frame, teal and pink hair pushed off her face, ankle bracelets clicking as she stepped inside. She was Mikaela's client. Mikaela had agreed to fly her to a decommissioned orbital station before a corporation wiped a file with Luna's mother's name on it. Luna picked up hard skills without being taught, and she had four backup plans she had never bothered to read. "You can't afford it," Luna said. It was not a question. "Not with the debt hanging on my dock clearance," Mikaela said. "They freeze my ship, I fly nobody. Not you either." Luna crossed to the wall of shelves. She ran a finger along a mounting bracket, then crouched and studied the power ports near the floor. "So the station's billing system," she said. "It runs on the same old corporate framework as the one I'm trying to reach. Same junk. I've been reading it for weeks." "You said you didn't read your backup plans." "Different thing." Luna smiled. "Your fourteen pages. Show me." Mikaela pulled up the notice on her handset. Luna scrolled, thumb moving fast. She stopped twice, then tapped a line. "Here. They're billing you docking fees under a contract number that closed before you arrived. It's an autofill error. It repeats on nine of your pages." She looked up. "File one dispute against that number and the whole stack collapses." Mikaela read the line. Luna was right. She had disputed every page as separate. She had never seen the single thread holding them together. She filed it there, standing in the cottage. The station cleared her dock hold within the hour. She paid the seller the deposit before he reached the door. The cottage was hers. But the seller warned her the roof would not survive the next storm, and Luna's station data wipe was now three days out. Mikaela had a home and no time to fix it.

The roof held. Mikaela had climbed the cottage the day before and nailed down the loose panels herself. Now the storm was gone, the shelves were mounted, and the terrariums stood empty. She had built the whole home for snakes she could not yet buy. A good breeding pair cost more than she had left. The deposit had taken almost everything. Luna Chen let herself in without knocking. Her ankle bracelets clicked across the wood floor. She dropped a plastic bag on the couch and looked at the empty shelves. "So you built a whole snake house with no snakes," she said. "That's very sad, actually." "I need money," Mikaela said. "A pair runs four hundred. I don't have four hundred." Luna pulled a compact desktop computer from her bag. A small webcam sat clipped to the top. She set it on the table and started plugging in cables. "Okay so, I do this thing," she said. "Online. People pay. A little chatting, some cute outfit stuff. It's easy money and it's fast." She dumped a second bag beside the couch. Skimpy clothing spilled out, straps and short hems tangled together. "I need someone to run the camera and hand me stuff. One night. Split it with you." Mikaela stared at the pile of clothes. "That's your plan." "It's a plan that works." Luna dropped onto the velvet couch and stretched out. "You want the snakes or not?" Mikaela thought about the empty shelves. She thought about the count in her head, every group that had tried to ground her. This was not that. This was a night behind a camera and money by morning. She picked up the computer and checked the cable ends. Mikaela caves. She participates with Luna. Both of them showing off their feet and their arms for the viewers. Once Mikaela sees the money start rolling in, she loosens up and becomes more into it.