Kaelen reached out. His virtual hand touched her blocky shoulder. “No,” he said. And for the first time in his career, he didn’t rig a joint or tweak a texture. He just stayed.
It was… nothing.
The Great Hall was packed. Holographic bidders from a dozen worlds, their avatars gleaming like gods. Jax stood on the auction block, holding The Witness in a glass data-cage. She looked terrified—a programmed fear, but real enough to make Kaelen’s chest ache. virt a mate hub
No, not nothing. It was a girl. Maybe fifteen. Plain. Dressed in a grey synth-fabric jumper. She had lank brown hair, a faint dusting of freckles across a blunt nose, and tired, asymmetrical eyes. One eyelid drooped slightly lower than the other. Her left pinky finger was crooked, as if broken and badly healed. Kaelen reached out