Hail stopped at a table in the center of the empty restaurant and pulled out a chair for Kara.
Kara looked around and sat down.
“There’s no one here,” she noticed.
“It’s about nine o’clock in the morning, Indonesian time. Not a popular time for an Italian restaurant.”
Kara kept looking around.
“But through the windows it’s dark. Oh my God, this place has windows,” Kara exclaimed, noticing them for the first time.
“They are fake windows of course,” Hail explained. “All three of the windows are the new 3-D 82 inch flat screens. We recorded a full day and night footage from an actual restaurant in Italy. Each monitor has its own video player and all the players are synchronized. We typically set the video to coincide with our local time, so its day on the screens when it is day on the ship. However, I called ahead and had them play the night time video instead. It’s seems more cozy in here with the flame burning lamps. Nice ambience as they say in the elite circles.”
Kara stared at one of the windows and watched Italian cars drive by. She wondered if Hail made cozy requests for all the guests he had on board, or if this ― if she ― was someone different. An older lady strolled by walking a fluffy white dog. As she passed the first window, she disappeared behind a broad wooden beam that separated the windows. Then the next window (the next video screen as Hail explained it) picked her up. As she passed by that window, she vanished behind the window separation; just as she would have done in real life and then appeared in the third window. There was a street corner at the end of the third window. The woman began to round then corner and then was lost to site.
“This is just amazing,” Kara said both excited and confused. “What is an Italian restaurant doing in a cargo ship?”
Hail smiled warmly. “The same thing the Asian, Mexican, French and American restaurants are doing on this same ship. They make people happy.”
“Well I can see why,” Kara said, returning the smile.
“Many of my crew members never leave this ship,” Hail explained. “Some, because they have nowhere to go and nobody to go home to. Others, because they feel safe on the ship or they are minors and don’t have much of a choice. But that’s still kind of the same thing as nowhere to go and nobody to go home to.”
Kara nodded her head but still didn’t fully understand.
Hail reached down and picked up a fake rose off the table and inserted it into an empty vase in the middle of the table. Back in the kitchen, a light went on and a bell rang.
“A server only comes out here if the flower is put in the vase,” Hail explained. “It makes things much more efficient than the servers continually checking all the restaurants.”
“One server works in all the restaurants?” Kara asked.
“Well, a couple during the slow time. But it’s functional. You see there’s only one kitchen for all the restaurants. Each restaurant is set up in a circular pattern on this deck. Like each restaurant is a piece of pie and the kitchen is located directly in the center of the pie. You might have noticed the curved hallway outside. It forms a large circle. As you walk around the circle you would eventually see the entrance to all the restaurants.”
“That’s amazing,” Kara said. “But why again would you go to all this trouble?”
“Like I said, most of my crew rarely leaves the ship. Therefore, I wanted to build the ship with all the comforts of home, so they feel like they are still part of the world. We also have all sorts of sports facilities set up around the ship. We have a real movie theater with a lobby and candy and popcorn and everything you would expect to see at the theater. Every once in a while, we will have a live Broadway play video-streamed into the theater.”
“I can’t believe all the time and expense that must have gone into all of this,” Kara said.
“It’s not really all that expensive if you consider how much the ship itself costs. And it’s a really small price to pay if I can get talented crew members who are happy and like their jobs. Turnover is something that I try to avoid. This concept is nothing new. Check out the Google campus.”
A young black woman entered from a door at the back of the restaurant and walked up to the table. Her hair had been straightened and tied in back, creating a long ponytail. Kara thought she was pretty, but not the type of pretty that got you in trouble. The woman was dressed in black pants and a button up starched white shirt. Around her neck was a colorful bandana that was knotted, making it look like a fluffy tie. The server was holding a small electronic notepad of some sort.
“Good morning, Marshall and ― a new person I have never seen before,” the server said, taking a moment to look over the new arrival.
“Good morning to you Sarah,” Hail replied. “This is Kara Ramey. She will be with us for a while.”
Sarah said, “It is very nice to meet you, Kara,” but the server didn’t offer Kara her hand. Instead she handed each of them a leather menu and placed a stylus pen on her tablet, ready to write.
“So what will it be for you this morning?”
Hail and Kara opened their menus and looked them over.
Sensing that Kara needed more time, Hail said, “I would like the lasagna, a house salad and a glass of whatever wine you recommend. As you know, I don’t know much about wine.”
“That you don’t,” Sarah said smartly as she jotted down Hail’s order.
“And for you, Kara,” Sarah asked.
“I would like the pasta e fagioli, please. And if possible, can you put some extra ditalini in it?”
“Sure,” Sarah said, writing down the order. “To drink?” she asked.
“I’ll have of glass of what he’s having,” Kara said.
“So you don’t know anything about wine either?” Sarah joked.
“I do, but I don’t want Mr. Hail to feel insecure,” Kara smiled devilishly.
The server winked at Kara and left.
Then a moment later, she came back and placed some bread and butter on the table before disappearing again.
Both Hail and Kara were quiet, neither knowing what to talk about. Kara looked out the window at the Italian cars driving by and the people taking their evening stroll. A group of six young professionals walked by gesturing and laughing.
Hail considered talking about the upcoming mission and then discarded the idea. There would be plenty of time to talk about that after breakfast, or whatever meal they were eating now.
The kitchen door swung open and Sarah brought out two glasses of dark wine. She set them down carefully in front of Hail and his guest and said, “Bon appetit.” The woman went back into the kitchen and the room was silent again.
Hail took a sip of wine and didn’t know if it was good or not. He figured there should be some sort of scientific test that should yield such a result, but he figured that wine connoisseurs would sneer at such technology.
Kara broke the silence and asked, “So all of this ― the ship, the restaurants, the movie theater; is it here because of Hail Industries or is it here because of your new line of work? You know? The retribution thing?”
Hail thought for a moment and said, “It started out as strictly Hail Industries. I really loved the idea of solving the world’s power problems, but then after The Five a lot changed.”