Blood Auction
The Sotheby's auctioneer's finger traced scarlet trails on the touch screen, and the dome of the Veronica Gallery shattered into a holographic nebula. Three hundred Venetian-masked bidders stared breathlessly at the booth where, in Cartier's customized, bulletproof display case, the synapses of A Perfect Husband were dancing a tango in liquid uranium -- living art cultivated from slices of Lucas's brain bridge.
"The starting bid is ninety million dollars, ten million dollars per increase." The auctioneer rips open the pearl neckline of a Dior couture gown to reveal an iris tattoo at the collarbone. Japanese energy tycoon Ryuichi Yamamoto was the first to raise his hand, and the Patek Philippe on his wrist suddenly chimed automatically, the dial surfacing with a diagram of the Graham Group's money-laundering path.
As the bidding soars to 300 million dollars, the display case suddenly leaks out the scent of absinthe. Lucas's synapses spasmed in the culture fluid and etched the Swiss bank code on the glass surface. Yamamoto saw this and frantically raised the price, but he didn't realize that the nanobots in Seat Fu's hand were diving under his skin along the lines of his palm -- a cutting-edge piece of equipment that Emma had purchased with the insurance money from that year's fire.
"Five hundred million for the third time!" The moment the auction gavel falls, blood rains down from the gallery dome. Guests are shocked to realize it's not performance art, but liquid nitrogen mixed with memory chips. Yamamoto's hand stroking the display case suddenly froze as his iris was activated by ultraviolet light, revealing the encrypted account of the "Emma Foundation."
The transfer beep exploded in dead silence. The CEO of Merrill Lynch's cell phone is the first to pop up with a nine-digit transfer record, followed by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia's cryptocurrency wallet emptying itself. Most ironic of all was Lucas's personal attorney -- the Bitcoin bribe he'd just received was being wired in bulk to the account of the funeral home that had issued Emma's "suicide certificate" that year.
"This is a robbery!" Yamamoto growls and pulls out his gun, only to find the trigger welded shut with liquid metal. The display case was slowly rising at that moment, revealing a running quantum computer at the bottom, the screen showing all the stolen money being laundered through the pulsing frequencies of the brain's synapses. The throbbing neurons suddenly burst into blue light, spelling out Emma's Revenge Fund logo in the air - a burning iris wrapped around a DNA strand.
The auctioneer's masquerade falls away at this moment. The clone, Leah, announces in Emma's voice, "Thank you all for your donations to the Human Removal Program." She crushes the auction gavel, and the nanobots hidden in the head of the gavel pour out, invading the bidders' brains along the ventilation system. The seventy-year-old media mogul suddenly convulses and recites a list of bribes from the Graham Group, whose private jet is currently being hijacked by AI and flown to FBI headquarters.
Yamamoto takes the opportunity to pounce on the display case, only to run into an even more horrifying image: the synapses in the liquid uranium are reorganizing, gradually forming the outline of a miniature Lucas. The ten-centimeter-tall clone opens its eyes and murmurs in the voice of Yamamoto's dead son, "Dad, the uranium you bought killed Mom." The inside of the display case suddenly reveals the actual medical records of the radiation sickness patients -- all top-secret files covered up by Yamamoto Heavy Industries.
The fire alarm went off. The gallery floor cracks open into countless hidden compartments, and the bidders' customized suits begin to spontaneously combust. The Armani gray, made of flame-retardant materials, is heated to reveal photographs of the fire scene from twenty years ago. Yamamoto sees the "sympathy basket" he sent to Emma in the fire, and the ribbons are imprinted with the very same secret code for the Winters Group arms deal.
When the Special Forces break the window, the entire gallery suddenly inverts. The display case for The Perfect Husband dissipates into a stream of data, and Yamamoto receives a video push on his cell phone -- his overseas assets are being transferred with thirty "Lucas" signatures. The deadliest egg is hidden in the transfer's memo field, "Thank you for funding the lab in 1998 that allowed me to learn neural editing techniques."
Three hours later, Emma was tasting the loot at a safe house in Chelsea. In the holographic projection, Yamamoto is carving quantum formulas into the wall with his fingernails in a mental hospital, while the real Perfect Husband is hovering in a meta-universe gallery. When one of the bidders tries to resell it on the NFT market, the smart contract is automatically triggered -- all proceeds are transferred to the Death Penalty Electric Chair fund that Emma booked for Lucas.
At the moment Lucas is in prison watching the auction replay when his retinas suddenly burn. With a sneer, the guard hands him an eye drop, and a blood-colored countdown appears: 23 hours and 59 minutes until the public auction of the brain's nerves. The diffuser in the warden's office is slowly exhaling the deadly top note of N°5.