The Circle of Mota’s temporary marketce differed remarkably from the other ck markets Ves visited.
While a surprisinglyrge amount of people managed to gain entry here, almost everyone kept to themselves. Even the figures who seemed to be nobles by the way they put on airs underneath their disguises mostly remained discreet.
No one trusted each other. No one wanted to poke into other people’s business. Transactions dominated the marketce as most people just wanted to obtain the goods and services they required before heading out as fast as possible.
One of the threats looming over their heads was the risk of discovery by the authorities. While the Circle of Mota insisted on numerous requirements that made it extremely difficult for theary Guard to track them down, nothing was fool proof.
Raids had happened in the past. Those instances usually spelled disaster to the people visiting the marketces because they usually got caught up between opposing mechs!
No matter how august they were underneath their robes, the authorities did not have the time nor the inclination to pay attention to their wellbeing! Every person trading with pirates was scum in their book!
Everyone who took part in the Circle of Mota’s trading activities knew the risks. Ves sensed a permanent tenseness in the air as everyone remained on guard. They not only guarded against each other, but also against external threats.
Apanied by the hulking form of Nitaa, Ves passed through a peculiar quarter in the underground city.
"Starship engineer for sale! 35,000 firthrals! He’s young, but he’s healthy and vigorous! He’llst a long time under your care! His brains arepletely untouched and ready to be brainwashed under your specifications! We offer a fifty percent discount if you make use of our brainwashing services!"
"Are you lonely in your lives? Do you require somepany? High-ss pleasure madames for sale here! They arepletely organic and unsoiled. We promise!"
"No one offers cheaperbor than us! Our clones have been grown to bepletely pliable to yourmands! Our products are smarter than bots, cheaper to maintain and more amusing to torture! Don’t let your bots do the cleaning. Use our clones instead! Buy one, get one free, starting at just 4,999 firthals!"
Ves grimaced underneath his helmet as he saw how prolific the trade of ves turned out to be. While he always knew that ve trade happened in the murkier corners of the gxy, to witness human products being hawked around like cabbages left a foul taste in his mouth.
At least the Kinner Tribe managed to dress up their ve trade with a veneer of civility and mutual benefit.
Not so for the ve traders associated with the Circle of Mota. They unabashedly sold humans kidnapped from various ces without any reserve.
What Ves found even more disturbing was that they sold a lot of clones as well. Cultivated and grown under abominably inhuman circumstances, their mentalities werepletely deficient.
Of course, this also made them ideal for jobs that required dumbbor.
As for why someone preferred to use clones over bots? It was all about reducing maintenance requirements!
Clones were especially useful in the Nyxian Gap because bots required frequent maintenance while their human counterparts would just make do with nutrient packs and water.
Due to the scarcity of technical services in the deprived regions of the Nyxian Gap, clones or brainwashed humans were much easier to deal with for pirates who didn’t know the right end of a wrench!
Numerous disguised visitors approached the shops and stalls of the ve traders. Lots of people desired ves for various purposes, and they weren’t very bothered by the implications of exploiting those who had no choice in their lot in life.
Different from the expensive human products sold by the Kinners, the ves offered under the auspices of the Circle of Mota were cheap. Unimaginably cheap.
The Circle of Mota mainly transacted in firthals, the predominant currency of the Nyxian Gap.
Just like the frontier’s K-coins, the firthal was based around firthal ore, one of the most prevalent low-grade exotics from the Nyxian Gap. With varied applications, the demand for firthal was constant and stable, thereby making it suitable to be used as a reliable form of hard currency in the notoriously anarchical and chaotic region.
Right now, 1 firthal was worth 24 bright credits, so even if Ves mentally tranted the prices for ves to his most familiar currency, they still seemed unimaginably cheap!
"What do you think?" Ves asked softly.
"Poor quality. Unreliable. Defective.
"Of course you’d say something like that."
Whereas the Kinner Tribe emphasized quality, the ve traders were not so discerning. Their human products were generally low quality. Those with valuable skills were usually kidnapped and subject to extensive brainwashing.
While the brainwashing ensured their obedience, the rough and pervasive treatment also affected their otherpetences.
The customers didn’t mind. Those that wanted to purchase Kinners mostly consisted of the upper echelons of society. They had the money to afford to buy a number of permanent Kinner bondsmen.
Ves guessed that the people that purchased ves here mostly consisted of Nyxian pirates or various underground outfits. These types of unsavory organizations always struggled to acquire skilled or highly-educatedbor.
"Mech designers for sale! Whether you need them to repair, modify or upgrade your mechs, our mech designers can do it all! Some of our more premier ves can even designpletely new mech designs that are perfectly suited for your outfits! We sell Novices starting at 3 million firthals! Our Apprentices can be yours starting at 8 million firthals! You won’t get a better deal than ours!"
His mood dropped considerably as he brushed past the enved mech designers. The poor sods who had fallen into the clutches of the ve traders had been subjected to the same brainwashing regimes as most of the other ves.
The quality of their work left much to be desired, especially since much of their profession relied heavily on creativity and inspiration. Ves did not believe a single brainwashed mech designer would ever be able to match the design prowess of a willing mech designer.
Nheless, as Ves observed the types who eyed the mech designers for sale, he figured that most buyers simply wanted to obtain them to service their existing mechs. The clientele mostly appeared to consist of dark mercenaries and hidden forces.
Reflecting their nature, they demanded a certain level of quality without costing them too much. The human products also had to be expendable. The mech designers sold at the Circle of Mota fell exactly within their demands.
Ves shooks his head underneath his helmet as he saw these poor fellows who studied so hard to be a mech designer meet such a poor end.
From listening to the brief exchanges between the buyers and sellers, most of the mech designers who lost their freedom only had themselves to me.
They borrowed heavily in order to fund their startups. When their businesses failed to take off, they eventually drowned in their debt.
In regr cases, mech designers who failed to start their own businesses simply dered bankruptcy and moved on while leaving the lenders on the hook for the unpaid debt.
To some mech designers, funding was very difficult toe by. They approached gangs and other loan sharks for money, and this was where they fell into trouble.
Mech designers that had to resort to unconventional funding sources weren’t very good to begin with! When they eventually failed, the loan sharks immediately seized the assets of thepany as well as the mech designer themselves!
Most of the mech designers already went through mental reprogramming, rendering them unattractive to Ves.
Who knew what kind of hidden instructions the brainwashers seared into their minds. Perhaps they had been programmed to transmit information about their buyers to the ve traders.
A number of imprisoned mech designers still looked fresh, though. Unlike their poorer colleagues who had been subjected to crude brainwashing, the untouched mech designers were still mentally sound.
Ves observed a variety of expressions behind the transparent cages that showed their dejected forms. He spotted anger, helplessness, despair, self-recrimination and more from their faces.
Though he sympathised with their fates, he did not feelpelled to help out his fellow kind. Most of them willingly yed with fire and got burned. If they epted that they weren’t good enough to attract seed money from legitimate investors, then they shouldn’t have insisted on founding their startups.
The mech market was toopetitive to tolerate trash!
What really dampened his mood was that some mech designers had fallen in the clutches of the ve traders through no fault of their own!
Perhaps the passenger ship they boarded had been waid by pirates.
Perhaps their business rivals engineered an ambush on the streets.
Perhaps their bodyguards betrayed them when they were at their most vulnerable.
Whatever the case, Ves could have easily suffered the fate of these innocent and unwilling mech designers if he wasn’t so thorough about his protective detail!
He thanked his paranoia for keeping him on his toes. Coming across so many mech designers who had their futures cut off made him more resolved than ever to invest in his Avatars of Myth.
"You are staring a lot. Are you interested?" Nitaa gruffly asked.
"No."
Though Ves deeplycked design talent, he knew better than to purchase an enved mech designer! Whether brainwashed or not, the mech designers were already tainted the moment they fell into the clutches of the ve traders.
Though it took some effort, Ves strongly believed he could fill up his design teams through legitimate hiring practices. Unlike some of the other organizations that frequented the Circle of Mota, there was no need for him to resort to ves to address hisck of mech designers.
As Ves and Nitaa both marched through the ve trade quarter, they continued to pass by ve traders hawking their mech designers.
As much as Ves tried to steel his heart against these sights, his mood nheless grew worse and worse. As someone who loved to design mechs, he hated the sight of others sharing the same passion sumbing to such awful fates.
Not even his empowered mask was capable of holding back his inner thoughts! As a mech designer, some sights were simply too abominable for him to remain quiet!
"Mech designers deserve better." He muttered, venting his frustration.
"Mech designers are just as vulnerable as other humans." Nitaa calmly replied. She shared none of his feelings concerning mech designers. "The strong prosper and the weak suffer under their yoke. This has always been the nature of the gxy."
"In the many millennia since our species have risen up, we’ve advanced our civilization by an incredible degree. Yet sometimes I question how much we’ve really progressed when we still engage in barbaric practices such as enving our own race."
A part of him hoped the MTA woulde and smash apart the entire marketce. The former expectations he held for the Circle of Mota had almostpletely evaporated now that he witnessed the depths of their depravity.
To Ves, it was one thing to sell regr people. It was another thing to sell mech designers! Thetter firmly crossed his bottom line!
He only rxed a bit after they finally passed through the ve trade quarter and entered a section devoted to the sale of rare materials.
The sight of samples of exotics on disy brought a smile on his face. This was familiar territory for him. The bounty of the Nyxian Gap was fully on disy here! Already he spotted plenty of rare and expensive exotics that he hadn’t encountered at the Peacekeepers branch on Cinach XII.
Best of all, due to his constantly-improving knowledge on Metallurgy, he understood a lot more about the properties of metallic exotics for sale here. Some of them were really useful for certain applications!
"Let’s browse the wares carefully."
Not only was the selection of goods wider here, but their prices were considerably cheaper as well!