“Ugh,” I said, stumbling back. “What is that?”
It smelled like rotting meat left out on a hot day. Given that the temperature inside the apartment was over ninety (the AC was the first thing Collections cut off when an account went delinquent), my guess was that something had crawled in and died, but this didn’t smell like sewer rat or mana vole or any of the other usual suspects. It was also strong enough to get through my rebreather, which meant it was rank. A person without protective gear would probably have been gagging from the moment the door opened. Even with my mask, my stomach was still doing the twist as I swung my light around to find the source.
“Is there a kitchen?” I asked Sibyl. “Maybe the previous occupant abandoned twenty pounds of bacon in the fridge.”
“No kitchen,” my AI replied. “According to the blueprints, it’s just this room, the bedroom, and the bathroom.”
“Well, it’s gotta be coming from somewhere,” I said, breathing through my mouth, which actually made it worse since I could taste the stench now instead of just smelling it. “Let’s check the bedroom.”
According to Sibyl, the bedroom was to my left, but there were so many boxes in my way that I couldn’t even see the door. After much pushing and one really awful encounter with a spider web that I don’t want to talk about, I eventually spotted my target: a flimsy wooden door with yet another ward etched into its pressboard frame. Unlike the ward on the front door, though, this one was dark. No magic answered me when I poked it, which meant it was either not active or someone wanted me to think it wasn’t active so I’d go through and get fried.
Hoping it was the former rather than the latter, I squeezed through the last of the boxes and grabbed the doorknob, which turned easily. But while the door opened, it didn’t go more than a foot before hitting something. The obvious guess was more boxes, but this didn’t feel like a box. It had too much give, and it made a strange clunk when the door hit it. Curious, I pushed harder, shoving whatever it was back until the crack in the door was wide enough for me to squeeze my head through…
And see what was left of the dead body lying face down on the carpet.
***
“God dammit, Broker!” I yelled into my phone. I was stalking back and forth in the mysteriously wet stairwell, too mad to care that my boots were splashing the unknown liquid up onto my legs. “You sold me a coffin!”
“Calm down, Opal,” Broker said, his drawling voice soothing, like a rancher trying to sweet-talk a sheep off a cliff. “It’s not that big a deal.”
“Not a big deal? There’s a dead guy rotting in my unit! Collections is supposed to check for this sort of thing!”
“They did check,” Broker said. “It says right here on the unit’s record that they tried multiple times to contact the occupant. They even sent someone over to check in person, but he didn’t answer.”
“Of course he didn’t answer,” I snapped. “He’s dead! From the smell, I’d say he’s been dead the whole thirty days his account’s been delinquent. But that’s not my problem. My problem is that you sold me a unit full of stuff that I can’t sell. The DFZ might not have much in the way of laws, but inheritance is still a thing. I bid on that unit because it was small and I needed the money today. Now I can’t touch anything until the city makes three good-faith attempts to contact dead dude’s next of kin, which will take another month at least. Meanwhile, I’m stuck with a unit I can’t use, and it’s your fault!”
“No need to get snippy,” Broker grumbled. “We’ll refund your bid, of course. Just give it a week to get through accounting and another fifteen business days for processing, and the full amount will be transferred back to your bank account, no problem.”
My scowl deepened. “How is it that you can take my payment instantly, but when I need it back, it suddenly takes fifteen business days?”
“Hey, I just work here, sweetheart. I don’t make the rules. But if you don’t want to wait, you can go ahead and take your payment out of what’s in the apartment.”
I frowned. “Is that legal?”
“It’s legal-ish,” Broker said slyly. “Dead or not, he’s still delinquent on his rent. The city has a right to that money whatever his next of kin says, and since we already recouped it when we sold the unit to you, I don’t see why you couldn’t take your share of the debt out of his heir’s inheritance. We’ll just write the whole thing up as a property lien. It’s not like anyone’s going to challenge it. I mean, the guy’s been dead for a month and no one noticed. If he does have an heir, they clearly don’t care. The unit will probably be put right back up for sale next month when Collections fails to find the next of kin, so think of this as your chance to get the good stuff early. Or wait for the refund. Makes no difference to me.”
From the tone of his voice, it clearly made a huge difference to Broker which one I picked. Approving a refund meant formally admitting that someone had messed up. Collection officers were supposed to verify if a unit was still occupied—or had a dead body in it—before putting it up for auction. Obviously, whoever had checked this unit had dropped the ball, which meant Broker had dropped the ball since it was his job as auctioneer to guarantee the units he sold.
Sweeping those failures under the rug was undoubtedly why he was so willing to bend the usually intractable Cleaning rules into origami for me. A properly ruthless Cleaner would have held that over his head, but I had a debt payment due at the end of the week, and I needed my money. If Broker was going to let me pillage the best parts out of this unit without actually cleaning it for resale—the only work Cleaners were legally obligated to do after they won a unit—I was happy to oblige. I just hoped there was something in all those boxes that was worth the three hundred bucks I’d paid for the privilege of walking in on that horror show.
“All right,” I grumbled. “I’ll take the unit.”
“Glad you see it my way,” Broker said cheerfully. “I’m sending someone over to take care of the body right now. Go ahead and start digging through his stuff. Just do me a favor and don’t touch anything that looks personal. You know, just in case they do manage to find someone who cares.”
I shrugged. “Fine with me. Not like there’s a market for family photos.”
“You’re a gem, Opal. See you at the next auction.”
I rolled my eyes at the tired old “gem” compliment and hit the End Call button.
“So what now?” Sibyl asked as I lifted my poncho to slip my phone back into my jeans pocket. “Wait for the disposal team to come for the body?”
“That could take hours,” I said, walking back through the door I’d blown off on my way in. “If I had that kind of time to waste, I’d have made Broker give me a legit refund. No.” I pulled my gloves back on. “We’re going to get to work.”
Technically, AIs don’t have actual emotions, but Sibyl was a top-of-the-line social companion bot, and she did a good job of sounding legitimately horrified. “You can’t start digging through a dead guy’s stuff while he’s still lying on the floor!”