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I put my glass down and look at my sad plate of watermelon and cucumber slices. “Couldn’t even get bananas here?”
Margot doesn’t bother to look up from the article that’s hovering in the middle of the table between us, and I refuse to read what’s on the screen. I’m already in a bad mood. No sense in making it worse by reading the tabloids “They don’t import bananas here. But secondly, you can’t eat banana, remember? Only water foods before interviews. They’re going to photograph you.”
I roll my eyes, but Margot adds, “We don’t want a repeat of what happened in Spain, remember? You had too much paella the night before and you bloated so much they said you were pregnant with Lance Lancelot’s love child.”
Wincing, I stab a cucumber slice with my fork and stuff it into my mouth. The cool, crisp, blandness of the vegetable would be refreshing if I was on a warmer planet. But despite the sun, it’s freezing outside as well as inside the hotel.
I know better than to argue with Margot over breakfast, so I don’t. Instead, I pull out a blue raspberry plasma pack and slurp it down in one go. At least that will keep me awake so I don’t pass out on the journalist.
Margot runs her perfectly manicured nails through her bob and smiles at me, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Done?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer before chirping, “Good. Now, let’s get you into your wardrobe. We don’t want to be late!”
I don’t think Margot has ever been late in her entire life, and she’s not going to start now. Scraping my chair along the balcony floor, I escape into the hotel room, hoping to find a moment of peace alone in the bathroom.
* * *
The hotel’s café is dead quiet at this time of day, with the breakfast rush already come and gone. Like the rest of the hotel, the café itself is sleek and modern, with dark fixtures and curved furniture. The lights overhead glow an ominous blue shade, which is an odd choice for a place that serves caffeine. The patrons who do linger are on their terminals, quietly reading the news and sipping their coffees. Barista bots roll across the floor with trays stacked high with dirty dishes or fancy looking drinks for the few people in here with us.
Despite my protests—because I’m nothing if not insecure in these situations—Margot perches on a stool near the bar. When I whisper-plead into her ear to come sit in the booth with me, she ignores me completely, instead chatting up the friendly cyborg wiping down the counter.
She’s throwing me to the wolves this morning, and I’m not sure why. It’s probably her way of punishing me for my little escapade last night. I don’t regret sneaking out. It just sucks I got caught.
My thoughts of last night are still jumbled thanks to the stress and adrenaline, but I definitely remember the Terran who tried to block Margot from taking me out of the bar. As pissed as I was by his interruption, I can’t deny that it was noble of him to intervene. Margot’s always banging on about me not going anywhere alone for fear I’ll get kidnapped.
I slide into the sterile black booth and drill my fingernails on the table. The journalist is running late. Hit late morning traffic, evidently. I pull up my terminal and open my Weave app, then check myself in the mirror. Flawless, of course. As if you could ever be anything else when you’re using this tech. This morning I opted for my go-to: blond hair with lilac ends tied back in a sleek ponytail and a flowing white blouse. Margot didn’t approve of my clothing choice, but when I gave her some bullshit excuse about how it made me seem more fun and approachable, she let up.
“Hiiiii!” A shrill voice blasts my eardrums just as a woman slides into the booth with me. The journalist, wearing an enormous fake smile plastered across her face. I can already tell this is going to be a long hour and a half.
She’s cute, with her Weave set to give her thick, long lashes and an amazing smoky eye. She’s also dressed in a T-shirt with Lacie’s face on it. My heart drops. Well … that’s an obvious power move on her part, but I can’t figure out her motivation. If she’s trying to intimidate me, it’s sort of working. Lacie Calbert, the second runner up during the Universe’s Top Talent television series, season 99. The season I won and landed myself a five-record deal with Gabbor. She’s been my supposed rival ever since. Supposedly, because I’ve never had anything against her, but she has an axe to grind with me.
“I’m Dionne from HAHA Entertainment. So excited to meet you, Kallista! Oh, did you already order something?” Dionne wastes no time with the pleasantries, giving me absolutely zero recovery time as she reaches across the table and grabs my hand to shake it.
I smile sweetly back at her and force myself to go into meet and greet mode. “Hi,” I say as I tilt my head to the side. I’m vaguely aware of Margot’s gaze on the back of my head. Examining me. Watching me for any missteps. “It’s good to meet you, too. And no, I just got here, actually.” A lie. I’ve been sitting here for over twenty minutes.
A barista bot rolls toward our table and beeps at us before displaying the menu on a screen set in its cylindrical body. The screen shuffles through drink after drink so quickly I don’t have a chance to read what’s on the screen.
“I’ll take a large mocha moondust no whipped cream with extra dust and a sprinkling of the cranium dirt, if you please,” she says primly and taps the bot on the top of its … head? The little bots don’t really have Human extremities; they’re overgrown soda cans with screens. But that doesn’t stop Dionne from caressing its silver body like it’s a puppy.
“They’re so cute! Aren’t they so cute? I just love them. I have three bots at home, but they’re not nearly this cute!” She taps the metal again like an elderly woman pinching her grandson’s cheeks. What the hell? I smile and nod, because what else can I do?
Then the bot beeps at me, and I realize I haven’t ordered yet. Margot’s piercing gaze practically burns a hole in the back of my head as I scan the drink menu again.
“Uh, I’ll have … a sparkling water, please?”
The barista bot beeps in acknowledgement, then rolls away to take our orders to the cyborg.
Dionne’s eyes are on me again, and she’s smirking. “So, no caffeine, hm?”
I shrug. “Already had a coffee this morning. Good choice with the moondust, though. I love that stuff.”
Dionne laughs as she pulls up her terminal, already jotting things down. The screen on my side is purposely opaque, though, so I can’t see what she’s writing. A knot forms in my stomach.Yeah, that’s not foreboding or anything.
“Yeah, I need moondust just to function in the morning, I swear!” Dionne says as she tosses her long black hair over her shoulder. Her entire look is the antithesis to mine, the dark grunge look at war with my bubblegum pink. The thing is … I really love her look, sans the Lacie tee. The folks at heavy metal concerts always fill me with envy, because they all look so hot and carefree.
The barista bot rolls back to our table with our drinks. Dionne touches the poor thing’s head one more time before it rolls away.
“Okay, so let’s dive right into it, shall we?” Dionne takes a sip of her drink and sneers at the glass. “Okay, I definitely said I wanted non-fat milk in this. You heard me, right? I said non-fat. My lord.”
She didn’t, but I’m not going to argue with her. I twist my mouth into something I hope looks like sympathy and shrug. “I guess technology isn’t flawless yet, sadly.”
