The waitress’s eyes brighten. “Very good, I’ll go ahead and start a tab for that order. I’ll just ping you… ”
Of course they don’t want someone ducking out without paying for a drink that pricey. The security cameras and ID sensors might put out a name after the fact, but that doesn’t guarantee payment, and anyway why go to the effort? “I don’t have my phone on me,” I answer. “Can I pay cash?”
That surprises her. “Of course. It’ll be eighty-eight point two units.”
“Taryn, you don’t have to,” Myra interjects. “That’s too much. It’s crazy.”
“I’ve got it, Myra.” I pull a thick hundred-unit chip from my pocket and hand it to the waitress.
She turns it in her hand, eyeing the hologram, then smiles. “Wonderful. I’ll be right back with those drinks and your change.”
She walks away, but the person that comes back a minute or so later is not her. Instead, it’s an elderly male bartender, face lined and weathered, head completely bald but for a few white wisps in the back, dressed in an old-style white button-down with a tucked red tie. He parks an elegant little cart tableside, on top of which are a number of bartending items, then places an iced tea in front of me along with my change, a handful of thinner chips which I pocket without counting. Myra and I watch as he places two little fifty milliliter bottles on the cart-top, the one with squared edges decorated with a fancily dressed old Earth soldier and labeled “Beefeater London Dry Gin,” the round, curvy one labeled “Rossi Extra Dry.” Motioning to the gin, he asks, “Would the lady be so kind as to open?”
Letting the customer break the cap seal is classy way of showing that the product is not counterfeit or watered-down. I nod to Myra. “Go ahead.”
She does, and the metal makes a barely audible cracking sound as the seal separates. The bartender takes the Beefeater back and pours it into a metal cylinder, then places the empty bottle in a waste bucket, smashes it with a ballpeen hammer, and tilts it forward to show us the broken remains, an act meant to demonstrate that the restaurant won’t sell the empties to black-market dealers to be filled with some lower-priced alcohol and resealed. The old man does not go to quite those lengths with the vermouth, which looks to have already been opened and partly emptied. He simply uncaps it, pours a small bit into a measuring spoon, and pours that into the metal cylinder with the gin. Using a metal scoop, he removes a few perfect cubes of crystal-clear ice from a bucket and drops those into the mixer as well. Holding a metal cap over the cylinder, he lifts it up beside his ear, angles it slightly, and shakes it seven times. He places a stemmed, triangular glass on the table in front of Myra, and with stiff, measured movements removes the cap from the mixing cylinder and pours its contents into the glass. He pokes a toothpick into a tin, skewering a single green olive stuffed with a bright red pimento, and places it into the cold, clear liquid in the glass. With the tiniest bow he walks away, pushing his cart in front of him, leaving Myra staring at the beverage like tourists sometimes stare at the sand fountain outside, as though it’s interesting and impressive and constructed with surprisingly tight precision, but not something you’d ever consider drinking.
“What are you waiting for?” I take a sip of my iced tea, my nose catching hints of the fresh, crisp, piney scent of the martini. “Now you can be one of those people who speak with authority on what a real one tastes like.”
She lifts it to her lips nervously and takes a tiny sip, holding the liquid on her tongue to savor for a second before she swallows it down.
“Well?”
“It is different than what I’m used to, though I can’t really say how.” She takes another sip, then slides the glass across the table. “Try it.”
Unable to resist my curiosity, I take a tiny little sip, just enough to taste it. It’s good. Bright, very herbal, not as sweet as I expected. I slide the glass back to her, wordless. In the case on the wall, the creature slides its false money slowly down the glass like some kind of lure. I lean a bit closer, trying to get a better look. Remarkably, the text on it is sharply defined enough that some of it is legible.
“One dollar,” I say out loud.
“Dollar?” Myra responds, “I’ve heard of that.” She breaks into song, “The sun will come out, tomorrow. You can bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there’ll be sun.”
I stifle a chuckle. “What is that?”
“A really old song. From some musical about a poor orphan.”
“Why would there be any doubt that the sun would come up?”
“I think that was the point?” she guesses.
“What’s it mean, ‘bottom dollar?’”
“I think it means your last one.” She takes another delicate sip from her martini.
Bottom dollar, I ponder silently. In the coming days, I may just have to put mine on the line.
10
The door opens silently for us, and I step into Kearns’s apartment, onto a soft and velvety floor of carpet moss. The rest of the place is just as luxurious as the biologically engineered flooring. Fine furniture, top-of-the-line electronics, a window-wall that looks like it opens to an amazing view when it’s not set to frosted translucent. All of it tasteful, all of it clean and new. I agreed to stay here only grudgingly, knowing that my own place wouldn’t be safe after the guards were pulled off, but it doesn’t look like it’ll be too much of a hardship crashing here.
“Damn, Kearns.”
He kicks off his shoes and leans against the moss-topped bar separating the living room from the kitchen. “Welcome. Make yourself at home.” Awkwardly, he asks, “You need anything?”
Dropping my bag next to the sofa, I reach my arms above my head and stretch, working a kink out of my shoulder. “I could use a shower.” It’s been a long day, even though I haven’t accomplished much. “And a washing machine? The only uniform I brought is still dusty.”
“Yeah, be my guest. Both are at the end of the hall. Towels are under the sink.”
I go down the hall and enter the bathroom. It’s spacious and surfaced entirely in scored white stone. The door closes automatically behind me, and I’m in silence, staring at my image in the wide, full-wall mirror behind the sink. My dark hair is matted down, my clothes are dusty, and my skin is dry and rough. I’m a mess. I turn away from the mirror as I pull off the khaki wind pants and jacket, then remove my uniform gear one piece at a time, placing my sidearm and holster on the countertop, slipping out of the skintight armored top and sleeves, and finally sliding off the padded, form-fitting pants. As I drop my plain-Jane gray-and-white bra and panties along with the dusty uniform, I feel a slight blush of embarrassment, scared for some reason that Brady might see them. I know that’s stupid, and I push the thought aside. I may have reconciled to thinking of him as “Brady” now, but he’s never going to see my undergarments, and even if he did, who cares what he thinks?
The shower is hot from the second I set it running. Stepping underneath the thin, angled jets of water as the steam rises up around me, I let myself relax, the muscles in my shoulders and legs and back softening. This water’s on Brady’s bill, not mine, and I’m going to enjoy it. He’s got a fancy soap in here, scented with some sort of botanical I don’t recognize, which I lather myself liberally with and wash myself clean. As the hot water runs through my hair and over my head and body, I picture the vast high cities of Earth, the luxury towers of Tokyo, the open gardens of Denver. I imagine myself in some western city, just one single woman among twenty billion people, with most of her life ahead of her and no one out to kill her, strolling through crowded, bustling streets in the shadows of massive arcologies until I arrive at a little, everyday corner store, where I go inside, peruse a whole shelf of dairy products, and pick out a half-liter of chocolate milk. The weather is warm, and water beads on the outer surface of the smooth little bottle as I pay for it and walk away, out again into the big, full world on a day like any other on Earth.