Chapter 320: I Was Sold to a Man Who Was Also Me

The opening bid for my capture was eight hundred, which felt insulting considering I had spent more than that on making a dog-shaped nightmare slightly less likely to eat a building.

I joined the viewing floor through the service side, where staff assumed the glowing snake belonged to the entertainment budget. The actual restraint crate stood beneath a cloth at the far end of the stage, looking far too small for the confidence of the people selling it.

Horass waited near the rear rail with his launcher case at his feet. He wasn’t pretending to be absent, and I wasn’t going to mistake a room full of buyers for a room full of people he would feel obliged to protect equally.

The collection boss stood beside the auctioneer. Seeing him smile beneath the sale lights made me want to do something much less tidy than simply retrieve my property.

[System: Easy, mate. First get the fish, then decide which bastard needs a personal review. Can’t spend the whole rescue mission sulking because your starting price barely covered a decent fucking sofa.]

I wasn’t sulking. I was identifying a serious weakness in their understanding of premium livestock.

I registered a bidding account through the public sale page under the name Definitely Not Matthew. It required a payment method for actual purchases, which I declined to attach, leaving the account unable to finalize a sale.

That was enough to post questions but not enough to spend imaginary money. I used the question field to ask whether the seller could prove the captive was physically inside the crate before anybody offered a deposit.

Other viewers asked the same thing once the question appeared. The auctioneer replied that the lot represented a collection guarantee, not immediate delivery, contradicting the live-capture wording still glowing behind his head.

I had never enjoyed reading a screen more. I posted a second question asking whether the guarantee covered the snake already standing beside the stage, then moved into the front light and gave the room my least respectable smile.

"I wanted to check the warranty, mate. If I bought myself, did I have to deliver me to myself, or could we all agree this was a fucking stupid way to spend an evening?"

The crowd laughed before the collector could tell them not to. A buyer asked whether the performance was part of the lot, and I told him the family had apparently priced the real thing below a decent night out.

Horass watched without moving. He recognized me immediately, but grabbing me in the middle of the stage would prove the crate had been empty and interrupt the collector’s attempt to explain the fraud.

The auctioneer ordered the cloth removed. The restraint crate was empty, exactly as the photograph suggested, and the seller’s claim lost the last bit of dramatic packaging protecting it from ordinary questions.

The collection boss said the guarantee remained valid. I asked the auctioneer to correct the actual listing before taking anybody’s money, then supplied the public clip showing me outside the gallery after the advertised capture time.

It proved only that I hadn’t been in their custody at that time, not that I was a saint. Fortunately, sainthood wasn’t one of the sale conditions.

The auctioneer suspended the lot pending verification. I watched the status change on the public page, saved the screen and resisted the urge to claim victory while my storage case still sat below a deck full of armed staff.

A small parcel passed through the side aisle on a porter’s trolley. Its label carried the anonymous buyer’s company contact from my casino message, and the clear inspection sleeve showed four matching rubber ducks waiting to be transferred ashore at the next stop.

That didn’t prove the buyer was aboard or secretly related to anyone. It proved that somebody had taken the duck condition seriously enough to organize shipping, which was already more commitment than I had expected from the conversation.

[System: There you go, champ. Your stupid joke’s entered the freight system. Once the ducks have tracking numbers, you’re legally required to admit the bit’s getting away from you.]

I refused to panic over bath toys while standing in a room that had recently tried to sell me without checking the box.

I left the stage through the staff passage while the collector argued with the auctioneer. Bridget confirmed through my phone that the public listing had changed to suspended, and she told me to finish the recovery before turning the evening into a revenge performance.

I promised to call when the case reached Lukas. The cargo route remained clear for the moment, and Horass hadn’t followed me down the visible stairs.

That was the part I trusted least. A clever enemy who let me move generally had a reason, and his earlier attack had given me enough evidence to stop calling reasonable caution cowardice.

At the lower passage, I found a little koala sticker pressed onto the cargo-lock panel. It hadn’t been there when the staff checked the case, which made the message considerably more personal than an ordinary decoration.

Old Mate swore at the sticker with impressive creativity. I looked along the ceiling, found the camera above the loading hatch and understood that Horass knew exactly which prize I had come to collect.

I told Lukas about the camera before touching the controls. He confirmed he could withdraw the tender immediately if the loading hatch became a firing point, and I told him to do it rather than wait for another brave idea from me.

The storage case remained inside, its fish tank lit and functioning. Beyond the hatch, Lukas’s tender waited at the agreed position, close enough to complete the recovery if I could open the cradle without triggering whatever welcome Horass had prepared.

Then the collection boss appeared at the far end of the passage, smiling as he told me the auctioneer had corrected the wording and would now happily sell a contract for my head instead.