Jamaal Singh had been locked in a slow administrative and semi-legal struggle with EMI ever since his brother's death. Ty had died four months ago during an asteroid mining mission that the two of them had joined together.

  EMI's correspondence was wrapped in the usual corporate empathy -efficient condolences, artificial fruit basket, templated grief protocols -but none of it meant anything. The truth was brutal: they still hadn't released Ty's personal effects, and the life insurance payout had stalled in audit limbo. Not even a bag of dirty socks had made it back.

  Jamaal didn't know why. But he had a growing suspicion this meeting wasn't about his current mining claim. It was about Ty.

  He followed the navigator's route on the mag-shuttle, watching as the EMI Nucleus HQ pulsed on the display with a blinking ETA. He strapped in and waited for the zero-gravity alert that marked launch.

  Each minute tightened the anxiety in his chest.

  It wasn't the money that bothered him -though eight million units would've made his life easier. It was the feeling of being paid off instead of getting his brother back. He didn't want compensation. He wanted Ty's things. He wanted the case closed so he could grieve in peace.

  Through the small porthole, Jamaal glimpsed the sprawling new residential hub orbiting the EMI station -an entire village in space. Holo projections shimmered across the exterior, labelling zones: Living, Food Court, Transit Hall. Sculpted steel and concrete architecture -sleek, modern. Nothing like the tight steel-and-carbon shells he and Ty had lived in.

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  Now just him.

  The shuttle docked with a soft jolt. Gravity returned. Jamaal unbuckled, stepped out through the airlock, and walked quickly toward the entrance.

  The front steps were famous -built from refined compounds recovered from the KR-19 Kitsune, one of EMI's most valuable asteroid finds. Silver. Nickel. Possibly still generating revenue to this day.

  His throat tightened when the large EMI logo lit up above the doors. That same logo had been stamped on every letter refusing his requests, every stalled payment, every unanswered form tied to Ty's death.

  He still had a pending request for Ty's personal items. Maybe today's meeting would finally bring closure.

  Immediately after Ty's death, EMI had put Jamaal on medical leave. They had joined the company right out of school, signed over from Dr. Ohemah's orphanage. The thought of sitting down with an EMI rep now made his palms sweat.

  What twisted the knife was that EMI -not an independent party -was also handling the appraisal of Jamaal's first solo mining mission.

  Dammit.

  The glass doors slid open automatically. Made from some exotic extraterrestrial silicate -he couldn't remember which. He'd never been good with corporate trivia. The onboarding seminars he and Ty had sat through felt like another lifetime. Unmemorable. Forgettable. Buried beneath years spent on EMI vessels, sleeping between alloy walls and fuel conduits.

  They had grown up in this machine. And now, one of them was gone. And the machine kept going.

  The heavy silicate doors closed automatically behind him.