September 2024 – Bottle Service

“Bottle service, your drinks are here,” said a polite voice, accompanied by a gentle knock on the door of the private room at Blue Orchid Casino, just a few minutes away from the Averroes Hospital campus. The lights were set to a low, romantic glow and the two occupants were casually tangled together amongst the cushions on an expensive divan, embroidered with Haqqislamite scrollwork.

“Bring them in and leave them on the table,” said Samantha Ether Moneylady-Harboil, barely taking her focus off Cynthia Edgeworth’s face for the fraction of a second it took to check the casino waitress’s digital aura in her retinal display. Nearfield tags showed she was getting an authentic bottle of Beckmann’s VaVaVoom Vodka, and she never needed to check the price tag for a round of drinks. Whatever the price, she’d chosen it to get a laugh with the novelty bottle, shaped like a naked woman with bright red nipples.

Without looking up, she heard the server enter, the clink of ice cubes and drinks pouring. Sam coolly made a flicking gesture over her ComLog to send a huge Bitcred tip to the waitress without looking away from her crush. In some ways they were kindred spirits — the continuing success of Colonnade had given Cynthia a new brash confidence. It had always been cute how she wore those thick-rimmed glasses, despite the perfect vision that could be bought in minutes back home on NeoTerra. It was a contrived cliche, but somehow they made her look bookish and smart.

Sam and Cynthia had flirted and worked together for a couple of years, then finally hooked up a few months ago. Sam wasn’t sure if it was a great idea, but she was about to let Cynthia see through another layer or two of the FZX onion of secrets. The Dewey deal had been huge and exactly the excuse needed to bring FZX and Dewey into the public eye. Perhaps having another pair of hands who knew what was really at stake was exactly what she needed?

With a little annoyance, she registered that the waitress was pouring too many drinks. She should have stopped at two. A cigarette lighter sparked and a wave of strawberry-flavored smoke filled the small space.

“I rarely get to deliver one of these in person, girls, I hope you don’t mind if I join you,” said a tall, dark-haired woman with a distinctive German accent, as she slid into a seat opposite them. Her pneumatic physique was squeezed into a very revealing black leather outfit, and a heavy pair of golden crucifixes dangled in her cleavage. Obviously she wasn’t the tastefully dressed haqqislamite waitress she should have been. 

“I don’t know how you got past my security team, but whoever the fuck you are, you’re going to be live on Oxyd if you do anything I don’t like,” said Sam, and as the words “live on Oxyd” left her mouth a pair of small camera rems that had been sitting deactivated in the corner of the room buzzed to life and activated blinking red lights on conspicuous lens housings.

“Well, firstly, your security team are going to have some horrible memories of the evening, assuming their insurance contract includes a resurrection clause. Secondly, I’m shocked that you don’t recognize me from my adverts,” she said as she held the vodka bottle up by her face. “Oh, thirdly, some associates of mine are blocking any transmissions from this room. I don’t have to worry about your little threat.”

“Sam, this is Lisette Beckmann. We’re in deep shit.” whispered Cynthia, trembling and adjusting her clothes. She wondered how far she’d get if she just stood up and calmly tried to leave, but decided she should stay absolutely still where she was.

“So you’re some smutty Vodka entrepreneur?”, said Sam, trying to sound unimpressed. “This wouldn’t be the first time someone has wanted an exclusive investment chat. You wouldn’t have to hurt anyone to get in here, those assholes in my security team will always switch their ComLogs off and disappear for a few Oceanas,” she lied, buying a little time to think. She could see her repeater network was offline, but that just meant she had to fall back on plan C. “It’s cute you think you can knock out my connectivity, but I’m still getting four bars of reception through a tight beam quantronic crypto-mesh. Your bunch of half-rate hackers can’t even see my shit, let alone jam it. So I’ll repeat my threat. Lay a finger on us and you’ll be the highlight of the next Disasteroid! episode. We got amazing ratings with last night’s Digger tournament and half the sphere is watching my next move.”

“Well, I’d better watch exactly what I say then,” said Lisette. “I guess you don’t get all the celebrity news out here on these dusty rocks, but trust me: if I wanted to hurt you, you’d never see me coming. So yeah, I’m just a hardworking entrepreneur here to deliver a simple message from some very concerned investors. You’ve forgotten that your business on Dewey is supposed to be secret. You have 30 days to wind FZX down without a fuss and make sure everyone gets their money and you’ll be allowed to slip away quietly. Understood?”

Lisette turned and made to leave. Halfway out of the door, she turned back.

“And what’s more, everybody is already bored of fucking Diggers. If I clicked my fingers and half the Diggers in the Sphere disappeared, nobody would shed a tear. Your ratings are dogshit. If you don’t do exactly what I’ve told you, I will personally punch a hole through the middle of your cube. Nobody is watching and you will not be missed, Samantha.”

She left, somehow closing the door behind her and walking down the corridor without making a sound. The two women sat in stunned silence until they were sure Lisette wasn’t coming back.

“Jesus Sam, you know she was a fucking Hexa before her sex tape got out, right? FZX is toast,” Cynthia practically begged, “I’ll have to walk that Colonnade deal back or we’re both fucked.”

“No fucking way. FZX is already too important to fail. That money is already locked in some very high-yield investments”, said Sam, her brain already spinning ways to scramble out of the hole she knew she was in. “Trust me, I’ve got back up plans for every contingency, just like my crypto-mesh network. We’ve just got to raise our profile so everyone in the sphere is paying attention and they won’t dare touch us.”

Cynthia didn’t need to know that Sam had invented tight beam quantronic crypto-meshes on the spot. A bluff that good was worth using at least twice.