ENFORCING CAPITALISM IN THE OUTER WORLDS

PART II

Every boy at business school dreams of Byzantium. The city where the space doors whoosh open instead of screech. Where you can see your own face in the floor, and the lifts are gilded with gold. Golly, do they need lifts! Some of those offices go all the way up to the 62nd floor, which is a handy shorthand for hierarchical rank. What use is status if others can’t see it?

Byzantium is the residence of The Board, unlike Edgewater, which is merely the residence of The Bored. That’s the joke I plan to make at the bar once I arrive. But first I need to prove myself to the consortium of corporations that run the Halcyon colony.

My current predicament is less than glamorous. I’m grounded on a docking station, my ship impounded by the same Board I’m seeking to impress. But the red flag on my passport has granted me one advantage: An urgent appointment with the Board’s local ambassador, Udom Bedford.

As I step through customs into the great rusty cavern called Groundbreaker,