Chương 707: Chapter Seventy-Nine - Gosh Golly Gracious

"'Our products just haven't been selling.'

'Just up the sex appeal. People will buy anything with some tits on them.'

'I... what?'" --Overheard conversation from a ToasterCorp meeting, 2034

"Oh, thank fuck, you're here," Lucy said. She turned to me, shifted some hair back out of her face, then smiled. She looked good, because it was Lucy and it was impossible for her not to, but she also looked like she was on the bad end of frazzled.

"What's up?" I asked. I'd found her not too far from the elevators. A short walk--accompanied by two strutting cats--to the front of the casino where she was in the centre of a small storm. Fortunately, my arrival pushed some of the people hanging around away, at least a little.

"Everything's up," Lucy said.

"We had rehearsals, but of the thirty badge-hand-off people that were supposed to show up, only twenty-two did. The other eight have some bullshit excuses. I mean, one's in the hospital, so they get a pass, but the other seven? Kinda lowkey hate them right now."

"Okay," I said. She wasn't done.

"I had this one chick quit on the spot this morning. Too much stress or whatever. As if we're not all feeling it," Lucy continued.

"Now I'm stuck finding a replacement for her at the last minute. And that's not it. I had three morons forget their badges at home, even though I told them it was no entry without, and that's just my people issues."

"People issues?" I asked.

"Oh yeah. The Kittens have been alright. I mean, I'm annoyed, and a bit stressed, but this is all within... margin of error, or whatever the right term is. Urgh. No, the bigger issue is outside of that. I have three catering companies that are late. The badges are here, but the lanyards aren't installed, so I have two people clipping them together instead of doing what they're supposed to."

"Can't you give people both the badge and lanyard when they grab their badge?" I asked.

"Do you think I didn't think of that?" she asked.

"No, I can't, it needs this little... screwing thing because it's overengineered bullshit. The internet for the casino has some sort of security system in place, top of the line, and it's denying most of us access so I'm stuck handing out orders via paper. Paper!"

"That sounds... annoying."

"Yeah! No shit. Do you know how much of a pain in the ass it is to set up a printer last-minute like this? Then there's the AC problem."

"The AC problem?" I repeated.

"That's on the casino. The AC for the back sections is screwed up. Something about a water line? I don't care, it's hot back there and it's only getting worse and there's no ventilation without the AC working, so now I have Kittens complaining about sweating and whatever." Lucy took a deep breath, and I readied myself for more.

"And then there are the cancellations. A bunch of mid-level gangs have all made a big show of burning their invites. Burning them! Cat, we sent them those invites by email. They had to... fucking print them first! So now that's happening, and in the meantime, we can't get the casino staff to get us coffee, the casino is complaining that the gangsters that booked rooms in their hotel are being assholes, which...

no shit, they're gangsters, and a bunch of attendees have been arriving already, even though we very specifically told people to only show up around twelve." Lucy took another breath, it was calmer this time.

"Otherwise, things are going pretty well."

"Uh-huh," I said.

"So, on a scale of one to ten, how bad are things right now?" She opened her mouth to reply, closed it, thought about it for a while, then shrugged.

"I'd say a high three."

"Oh, that's not bad," I said.

"Well, I just found out that two morons tried to bomb the event from the basement because someone kicked them in the nuts."

"Pft. Men," Lucy muttered. I shrugged.

"They're dead. Actually killed themselves by accident, so all's well and all that. Anything I can do to help?" Lucy rubbed at the bridge of her nose. She should get glasses, I realized. Nice round ones that she could fiddle with. Or maybe not. That might be too cute, and Lucy didn't need to be more powerful.

"Sure, you can... what are you thinking about?" Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"Huh?"

"Just now. You had a look. What were you thinking?"

"Nothing?" I said, raising my hands in defence. She didn't believe me.

"Fine, whatever. If you want to help... Paul! Yeah, you, c'mere!" Paul was some twenty-something guy, probably recruited at the university or something. He jogged over and gave me a quick and sloppy salute, then looked to Lucy for instructions.

"Cat, Paul here can show you the sign-in area. It's where we're funnelling all the gangsters. Can you loiter around there?"

"Loiter?" I asked.

"Like, just stand around and look tough?"

"Exactly," she said with a quick nod.

"It'll give the gangsters reason to pause and think twice before pulling any shit. There are weapons lockers and a place for a big line. We're trying to make it so that even at maximum capacity, there's still room so that no one feels crowded, and ideally the badge pick-up will move quickly and we can push people into the main lobby."

"You don't want them all bunched up?" I guessed.

"A few hundred hot-headed morons all stuck in one big stuffy room? Yeah, that'll end well. We have detectors for weapons, but you just know some moron will manage to sneak a knife through. We just want to keep bloodshed to a minimum."

"Fantastic," I said. I leaned in, gave Lucy's cheek a peck, then gestured to Paul.

"Lead on?" He started a bit at the sudden attention, then hurried along while I followed a few steps back, my bomb-disposal cats on my heels. The badge check-in place was to one side of the casino. Basically just past the main entrance lobby. A few Kittens were out, placing down some of those fancy chrome posts with the little red velvety ropes between them to create a zig-zagging barrier. Behind them were five counters, four of them occupied with more Kittens obviously rushing to get things organized.

Since Paul and I came in from the front, I got to see what it would look like from the gangster's point of view and... yeah, it looked a bit like one of those old-timey banks, before they mostly went pure-digital and stopped having walk-in places. The front was nice, organized, with little dividers between the stalls, an electronic display showing people where to go, and a clearly marked exit to one side. No turrets, no guards, no obvious security. I supposed that that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

It'd maybe reassure people that this wasn't a trap. There was a temporary locker room just before the entrance, manned by a few more Kittens with a large board that had instructions--with graphics! --in multiple languages showing people how to stow their guns inside of a password-protected locker. Crossing around and through a staff-only door, I got to see the back of the operation, and it was a lot less organized and pretty.

Boxes of badges, with hundreds of them laid out on tables along the edges of the room and more on shelves, people running around, setting more down and trying to keep it all somewhat tidy. I caught on to the problem soon enough. Each badge was a custom piece. Gang logo, image of the holder's face, personal ID. We couldn't just hand out anything to anyone. Obviously that meant a huge mess back here because now the Kittens needed to find the right badge for the right person, and before anyone in line grew impatient.

"We, uh, have cameras," Paul said as I looked around.

"To see who's in line, and get their badge before they reach the front. Miss Lucy's idea."

"That's clever," I said.

"So, uh, I'm gonna go... patrol, I guess. Looks like some people are arriving already." There were a handful of gangsters outside already. They couldn't look more out of place if they tried. They were in denims and leather and off-the-shelf clothes worn down to nothing and covered in patches. At least their hair was on point. A few other groups were starting to make their way over, and it was interesting to see. Someone like Emoscythe could probably write a thesis on the fashion choices on display here.

From plain folk that could have been just anyone, to out-and-out punks with the spikest hair and the coolest drip their lack of money could buy. A few further back looked like they were fresh out of a boardroom, which made for a rather hard contrast to the rest. Yeah, if attitudes matched clothes, then we were definitely going to see some heads butting together.