The days went on like that until Osric showed up in front of her hammock in The Boiler Room. She looked at the private investigator with pursed lips. Even though she objected to his presence less than her father’s, she still had no desire to hear what he had to say.

“You’re here at the behest of my father?” she questioned—bored and uninterested in hiding it.

“Yeah. There are two things I’m supposed to talk to you about. The first one is about your sister, Tiffania.”

“Let me guess. My daddy managed to find a husband for her?” 

“Um… No,” Osric said like he wanted to deliver the news about as much as she wanted to hear it. 

Lisbet found that interesting. Why would he care?

“No. What happened is that she took a temporary contract with Sleeping Beauty Inc.,” Osric explained.

Lisbet struggled to see why that was a surprise. Obviously, she had. Wait. Had he said temporary? Lisbet had been sold for life.

“She sold herself for a two-year contract to a mining company executive as a public relations agent. Here on Mars. She’ll be here in two weeks,” Osric explained.

That meant that Tiffania had refused to sell herself for the benefit of their floundering father. She had refused to take a match as a gold model and sell herself for life. Instead, she realized that she could make money herself if she sold herself for a shorter contract. She was keeping the money. 

“How disgraceful,” Lisbet said with a bored click of her tongue.

“Is it disgraceful or is it something else?” Osric challenged lightly. Obviously, Lisbet had sold herself and her hypocrisy was showing.

Lisbet nodded in a way that should have let Osric know she was annoyed. “Question. Who’s her buyer?”

“Antar Williams. He wants her here quickly. She left two weeks ago and she’s on the fastest kind of ship they have. He probably wants to get her talking to you on his behalf as soon as possible. Probably something about his pleasure palace.”

“If he wants to talk to me so badly, why doesn’t he come and talk to me himself?” Lisbet questioned.

“Probably because he’s butted heads with your husband one time too many to just show up and look cute,” Osric answered.

Lisbet blew her hair out of her eyes. “Okay. I’ll keep an eye out for her. Thanks.”

Osric leaned forward. “Your father also wanted me to talk to you about something else. Are you aware of the rumor that’s going around about Vantz?”

“Aren’t there a hundred rumors going around about him? I can’t keep track of all of them.” At that moment, she wished she’d taken up smoking the rhubarb pie cigarette Vantz had sent her. It would have given her hands something to do rather than just grip her empty water glass uncomfortably.

“It’s the one about how he’s not a person at all. He’s an AI that’s orchestrating the terraforming of Mars,” Osric whispered.

Lisbet laughed. “That’s not possible.” 

“Are you sure? No one has actually seen him.”

“I’ve seen him!” She stressed the lie and kept her eye contact as sincere as possible. “I sleep with him every night.”

However, something in her head was tripping. Was such a thing possible? She had not seen Vantz when he kissed her. For all she knew, it could have been someone else who laid their lips on her. She hadn’t seen him in VR. If he was an AI that explained how well he played Emerald War. His voice, with the slight English accent, could be a generated voice. That could explain why he was never overly emotional when he spoke. The whole idea could easily explain why Vantz had been very clear that she could never have a real relationship with him and why he needed her as an alibi. Perhaps he needed her to tell people that he was human when he wasn’t.

However, Lisbet kept her face impassive as more possibilities rocketed through her skull.

If people thought he was an AI, that would let him slip from memory for the trouble he was about to cause with the mining companies on Mars. The rumor could save the real man’s life. After all, if everyone thought he wasn’t really a person, but a form of artificial intelligence, they couldn’t punish him—formally or informally.

Lisbet let her mind linger on that possibility. Vantz was a liar. He might have even spread the rumor himself.

Whatever the answer was, one thing was clear: Vantz had asked her to tell people he was honeymooning with her. She was a purchased woman and she had to do what she was told—convincingly.

She laughed again. “What a ridiculous idea,” she breathed with a patient smile. “People will say anything these days.”

Osric assessed her from head to foot. “Are you saying he’s ravishing you in the night when he’s also logging the completion of work tickets?”

“I’m not saying anything of the sort. He sets time aside for me. It’s not the same amount of time each day, nor is it at the same time, and sometimes he runs processes he doesn’t need to supervise, but surely I’m not expected to know his every move when I spend every day cultivating contacts at The Boiler Room.”

Osric suddenly put his face much closer to hers. He put one of his hands on one of the posts of her hammock and challenged her. “I’m going to call bull on you claiming you have a sexual relationship with him. If there’s one thing I know, it’s sex and you haven’t been having it with anyone.”

She laughed again, right in his face. “You can tell that? How? Am I holding my knees too close together?”

He licked his lips and spared a glance at her knees. “Something like that.”

She nodded. “Well, I’m going to call bull on my father asking you to mention that AI rumor to me. My father doesn’t care if Vantz is an AI or a computer text box or a monster ready to ravish me down to the bone. My father’s interest in me would be complete, except that he wants to make sure I stay on top, so he stays on top with his fabulous new son-in-law. I think you are working for someone else as well as my daddy and you’re using your contract with my dad to pump me for information for another client. What do you think of that?”

Osric took a step forward, which was astonishing because he was already quite close. Then, deliberately, he placed a hand on Lisbet’s throat. 

She knocked his hand away. “What are you doing?”

“I want to see how you react when a man touches you.”

She slapped him across the face. “Liar. You are touching me because you want to know if I’ll be electrocuted. Is that a little assignment from my daddy or someone else? Who wants to know if Vantz is a cruel owner? He’s not. We trust each other completely and he would never worry that I would cheat on him because I never would.”

She was a liar too. She would receive a shock for the touch Osric gave her later, but it was a hurdle she was going to have to cross later. She kicked Osric away and sent herself swinging backward in her hammock with the same motion. “Are you sure you aren’t a reporter? Who are you writing a story for? What private audience?”

He stepped back, looking confused and apologetic in a way that contradicted his seedy style choice. “Sorry. I suppose I could have just asked you.”

“No, you couldn’t have. Someone wants to know badly and they would not have taken me at my word,” she said sharply. “The next time you come here to talk to me, you’d better be ready to talk to me about your ‘other’ client. I will no longer speak to you on behalf of my father. If he wishes to contact me, he can do so through Vantz. I’m done with this nonsense. I have important work to do. Please go.”

Osric left with his shoulders up like a hurt dog. 

Lisbet huffed. He wasn’t the one who would be hurt.

When she got home to her suite that night she was awarded a vicious shock that fired through her body starting at her wrist. It dropped her to the floor at the foot of her bed. It made the fillings in her teeth hurt. Rating her pain, she gave it a solid nine. She lay on her back on the floor for some minutes after the shock and stared at the ceiling above her head. Her fingers tingled painfully. How long would it take for her to recover? 

Why hadn’t Vantz or Beck spoken to her about the touch, and the circumstances around it, even if they were still going to let her get shocked? Undoubtedly, a message had been sent to them both about Osric touching her. Why weren’t they asking her what happened? Beck had gone up to his room as though everything was normal when he greeted her.