Page 11 of Captain Santiago and the Sky Dome Waitress (Interspace Origins)

Lucie wouldn’t let Olivette scramble a second day without her. She made herself turn up for work and today the city’s rotation worked out so that New Cathay’s sun, Ji Xiu, was rising over the dome as Lucie stepped through the glass doors about thirty minutes before opening, smothering a yawn.

Olivette was on her knees on the carpet by the kitchen door, picking up pieces of broken crockery. There was a lot of plate fragments on the floor around her knees.

Lucie hurried over. “Stars, Olivette! Here, let me help. What on earth happened?”

Olivette kept her chin down, sweeping the fragments onto the tray beside her. “I bumped into the stacker, that’s all. It’s nothing.”

“Nothing?” Lucie looked at the plate stacker and warmer. “A whole stack , Ollie? How hard did you bump it?” She picked up the bigger pieces and dropped them on the tray with unmusical plinking sounds.

Olivette didn’t answer.

“Ollie?” Lucie repeated. “What’s going on? What really happened?”

“Nothing. It was an accident.” Olivette’s voice was muffled and thick.

“Ollie.” Lucie gripped the older woman’s arm. “Look at me.”

Olivette shook her head.

Lucie did what Elijah had done to her. She lifted Olivette’s chin. As her face came into view, Lucie sucked in her breath. Olivette’s eyes were red, and fresh tears stained her cheeks. The deep bruises under her eyes were darker than ever.

“Oh, Ollie! What’s going on?” Lucie whispered.

Olivette wiped her cheeks with her sleeve. “There’s nothing you can do about it, Lucie. Don’t worry about it.”

“It looks like you’re doing more than enough worrying for everyone. Is the restaurant in trouble, Ollie?”

Olivette gave a great sniff and tried to laugh.

“I mean…we’re always so busy. Are you charging enough?”

Olivette sat back and looked at Lucie with a fondness that made Lucie feel both small and warm at the same time. “You don’t get it, do you? Of course we’re busy all the time. Everyone wants to eat here. The view, the food, the coffee and the friendly waitresses. How do you think I can pay you so much? Any eatery down on the plaza level pays next to nothing.”

“I know,” Lucie said. “I still can’t figure out why you hired me. You could have your pick of wait staff. Anyone would work for the wage you pay.”

“I picked you because you’re sweet and kind and everyone just wants to hug you on sight,” Olivette said. “Everyone can see you’re fresh as a daisy, with that blush of yours and your earnest need to make everyone happy. Who cares if you mix up the orders a few times until you figure it out? And you did figure out it, really fast, which I knew you would. It’s that digital side of your brain.” Olivette dropped more shards on the tray.

Lucie sat back on her heels, flummoxed. “I don’t understand,” she said at last.

Olivette shook her head. “Of course you don’t. You might remember it from when you were running a city, but it’s purely intellectual. Or maybe you just didn’t bring that memory over. It’s not fun stuff.” Olivette waved her hand around. “This is prime real estate, Lucie. Any business operating up at this level is guaranteed to make money.”

“Okay?” Lucie said.

“So someone else wants the spot.” Olivette said. She reached for another big chunk of white porcelain. “They made me an offer through intermediaries, six months ago. It was paltry and I refused. Since then, they’ve upped the offer every month until last month, when they said it was their final offer. It still wasn’t enough for me to walk away from the revenue this place brings in.”

Lucie was beginning to see the shape of it. “They’re trying to force you to sell.”

“At the original price,” Olivette said.

“Sona Shearer!” Lucie cried. “That’s why she tried to trash the joint!”

Olivette sighed.

“And why you wouldn’t press charges!” Lucie added. She looked around at the small ocean’s worth of broken plates. “They came here again this morning.”

Olivette got to her feet. “They won’t hurt you. They won’t hurt any of us. But they’re doing their best to ruin the reputation of the restaurant. Make sure no one wants to come here, so that revenue drops, and I’m forced to sell. If people are too scared to eat here, I will have to sell.” She brushed her hands on her apron. “I’ll get the big vacuum. It should be able to pick up what’s left.”

●

Lucie worked and worried. And each morning Elijah was in the city, she would chat as she served him breakfast, and would linger while he finished his coffee. At the same time, she tried to make sure every customer was happy and stuffed full, and urged them to return tomorrow.

The forty-day lease on her apartment was three days away from ending and the tension in her middle never seemed to go away. The slightly ill feeling lingered like a cloud, which she tried to ignore so that she could be the sunny, happy waitress Olivette needed.

But when she got home after her shift, she couldn’t eat. There were rocks in her stomach, ruining her appetite.

“You have to eat something , Luce,” Barney urged her, as she headed listlessly for the bedroom.

“I don’t, actually. The human body can go three weeks without calories.”

“You’ll go into autophagy before then!” Barney cried. “You’ll start consuming your own organs! And you paid ransom money for that body!”

“It’s just one day, Barney. I just need a complete day of rest, or something.” She curled up under the covers.

Barney’s voice came from the screen emitter by her bed, which made it sound like he was right next to her, crouched down and examining her face. “Do you want to watch that video again? The transit hall one?”

Tears formed in the corners of her eyes, making her eyes ache. “No, Barney, I don’t.” Elijah had done nothing but chat with her for ten days. The hope she’d clung to had evaporated. “In three days’ time I’ll be on the liner for Nicia.” It was the only choice she had.

Perhaps Barney guessed, in the way an AI could string together algorithms and make hypotheses, what was going through her mind. “He didn’t say anything, Luce?”

She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth until she could speak without blubbering. “No.”

“Couldn’t you…you know…talk to him?”

“And say what, Barney? Please love me, because I’m a pathetic echo of the woman you loved desperately, and I’ll never be like her?”

“Well, don’t you have to try , at least?”

“He knows his own mind, Barney. And he didn’t say anything. I already have my answer.”

She thought Barney had gone away, for the silence stretched on long enough for her to feel the sleep she craved beginning to take hold of her, when it was safe to let her thoughts drift aimlessly.

“Luce…?” Barney said, very softly.

She blinked and stirred. “What, Barney?”

“There’s something in the printer. You need to read it.”

“What is it?” She was so comfortable here!

“It’s a copy of the report that Captain Santiago’s men filed on the death of Blake Bloodwood.”

“You printed it?”

“It’s how he got the report. For security reasons. No network transmissions allowed.”

Lucie was awake, now. Sleep had fled far away. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. “I don’t want to read it.”

“You should.”

“No, Barney.”

“Then I’ll read it to you.”

“No!” She waved her finger at the lens she knew Barney was using to monitor her. “This is not nice. This is not what a friend does. I don’t want to know anything more about Elijah Santiago. There’s no point.”

“There’s one point. It’s right there in the summary.”

Lucie slumped. “I just can’t, Barney. Not anymore.”

“This investigation concluded that the so-called Big Showdown on Van Andel’s equatorial icefield, when Investigator E. Santiago and his team were forced to a standing battle of gunfire with Bloodworth and her associates, was not where Bloodworth died, as is commonly believed. She in fact managed to escape off-planet, and made her way to Ey’Liv, where she lived for eleven standard months with no trace of criminal activity during that period. It has been established by this investigation that Bloodworth was lying low, in order to avoid detection by the many enemies she had made as a natural result of her criminal activities. She was found in the small house she had purchased on the outskirts of Ey’Liv City, with her throat cut three times, which is a trademark of the Montema Cartel. At the time, no one associated the body with Bloodworth, as she was presumed already dead, and she had been living on Ey’Liv under the name of Lake Sang. Biomarker analysis has now confirmed that it was Bloodworth.”

Lucie wiped her eyes. “Oh, Barney! Why did you read that to me? I don’t need to know that!” She wiped again, for her eyes would not stop dripping tears. “He had to read that! Probably in front of his men!”

Barney appeared abruptly on a screen that formed in front of her. “Don’t you see , Lucie? He made a mistake . He spent two years risking his neck, trying to throttle his squad’s pursuit of her, while looking like he was chasing her with all due diligence. Something slipped. He screwed up. The Big Showdown happened because he let his team get too close on her heels.”

“And he paid for that mistake, Barney! He thought she died on the icefield. Then he had to read about how she really died, all over again, when this report was handed to him!”

Not only that, but now Lucie understood why Elijah had reacted so strongly when he had spotted her in the docking bay, the day she had arrived here. He must have thought that Blake had defied death a second time, and had been hiding, all these years. For a few short moments, until Lucie had explained she wasn’t who he thought she was, the hope that would have rushed through him must have been overwhelming.

And she had killed it dead.

Barney clapped his hands together. Sharply.

Lucie jumped a little. “What is it I don’t get, then?”

Barney leaned forward. “Don’t you think, Luce, that after something like this, having to go through her death twice, and pretend that he didn’t give a damn about anything but his mission…don’t you think he might be just a little bit afraid of fucking up again? And getting someone else killed?”

Lucie felt her jaw sag. She couldn’t think of anything to say.

She closed her mouth. “If he’s too afraid to say something, then that says, everything, doesn’t it? He doesn’t want a relationship. He doesn’t want…” She hung her head.

Me. He doesn’t want me.