RavensDagger

  Chapter Fifty-Four - Fancy Foods

  "I never asked, but what sort of food do you like?" Ivil asked as she walked o Twenty-Six.

  The younger woman ushing her dolly along with a look of tration on her face. It was currently loaded up with her haul of goodies. Or at least, scrap that Twenty-Six seemed to think were goodies. "That seems like a pretty broad question," Twenty-Six said. "Um... I don't really know. I guess I'm a little picky?"

  "Picky?" Ivil asked.

  Twenty-Six nodded. "On Saturn, in the rings, we had six fvours of dehydrated food to pick from. My favourite was red. Purple was gross, and I didn't like blue very much."

  "I... see, and what about after you left the rings?" Ivil asked.

  "Well, then I ate whatever Hawke makes on the Held Together. We actually got into an argument ohat was back when I was newer on the ship. Hawke noticed that I wasing enough and so he sat me down and ran through all of the ingredients I liked and those I didn't. From then on he made sure to include enough stuff that I'd like so I'd always get my fill."

  "That's actually quite kind of him," Ivil replied. "So what sorts of foods do you dislike?"

  "Hmm, well, anything green, spicy, chy, or too sweet," Twenty-Six said.

  Ivil ran through a list of every food she could think of that fit those criteria. It was a long list. "Wouldn't that at freat number of meals?"

  "Huh? No, there's plenty of shipfood that pass! Red, pink, green ironically, yellow, all three of the metallics. That's if you buy from Shipfarors United Food. If you buy Mars Agricrop food packs, they use numbers. I like meals two, three, seven and nine from them. 't stand four. Jupiter has, like, four different food brands, and their naming stuff is all over, so it's a bit trickier to tell what's good or not."

  Ivil blinked a few times, then shook her head. "What about real food?"

  "How are the things I'm talking about not real food?" Twenty-Six asked.

  "I sincerely doubt that a human ied with them in any meaningful way from the growth of whatever pnt started it all to the moment they're packaged."

  "That doesn't make them not food," Twenty-Six said. "They have calories."

  "I don't think having calories is enough," Ivil replied.

  She wasn't a oisseur of fine-dining and excellent food. Not to say that Mars mistreated her when it came to diets, she always had excellent meals waiting for her on whichever ship or station she occupied. It was just that she didn't require sustenance. In fact, eating was often a chore. Anything she ate o be digested, and that led to waste and she really wasn't fond of that entire process. More often than not she just burned any food she ate within herself until nothing but subatomic particutes remained. It was much er that way.

  Still, she enjoyed a nice meal for the sake of panionship and for her tastebuds. "We're going to a nice food pce," Ivil replied.

  "There's stands in some of the corridors we passed," Twenty-Six said.

  "No, I said nibsp;And I don't mean some dinghy bar, either," Ivil decided. She stopped by a map-s at a nearby interse and sed through it until she found an appropriate enough diniablishment.

  It was two stations away, but that wasn't all that far. "I 't bring my dolly all the way there," Twenty-Six said. "That's one of the ations."

  "They won't pin," Ivil said. She'd make sure of it. "Trust me?"

  Twenty-Six eyed her, then nodded. "Okay," she said.

  Ivil grihen walked by Twenty-Six's side. While she did so, she tugged out her pager and tapped into it with one of her powers. It sent a small encrypted message to one of the first tacts on her list. It wasn't a very plex message. I need a reservation at the Beau Manoir on Driftwood Station.

  There, nid simple.

  It took them twenty mio arrive at the restaurant, a trip made somewhat more plicated by having to push the dolly around and stuff it into some elevators meant for pedestrian traffic as opposed to more industrial work. Still, no one pined. Ivil did overhear some muttering about maintenance, which she supposed was a logical clusion to jump to.

  "A-are you sure about this?" Twenty-Six asked as they came up to the front of the Beau Manoir.

  The restaurant was desigo fit that particur aesthetic that the rid somewhat iial enjoyed. Private eating spaces, small rooms with singur tables. A human waiter and staff dressed in formal attire. They even had old-Earth cssical musi before the first intersystem ying softly throughout the room.

  "I'm positive," Ivil said. She held the door open for Twenty-Six and her dolly whily barely fit into the small lobby area at the front.

  A man stepped up to them, looking rather frazzled despite his elegant suit. "You that in here," he said.

  "We did already," Ivil replied. "Reservation for two, uhe name Evelyn Ville."

  The man made a passable impression of a fish while Twenty-Six abandoned her dolly and slid in behind Ivil, using the taller woman as a shield. "Is this okay?" Twenty-Six asked.

  "It's fine," Ivil replied. "This is merely an application of power."

  The man stiffehen bowed. "We, we have the VIP suite ready for you and your panion, ma'am," he replied. "pliments of the owner? You knoaul?"

  "Never heard of him," Ivil admitted. Had MINT twisted the poor owner's arm for this? She supposed it usible enough.

  Unfortunately it was currently evening station-time and the restaurant was quite full. As she walked across it with Twenty-Six shufflio her, she discovered several eyes on her, and when they arrived at the VIP suite it was to find it beiied of its previous octs.

  They were not pleased about this. "Do you have any idea who I am?" a rotund man was saying. His jowls wobbled dangerously in the dire of a young serving woman who was trying her hardest to pcate him. "I'm the goddamn mayor of Driftwood! You 't kick me out!"

  "Twenty-Six, go take a seat, I'll just be a moment," Ivil replied. She reached out and grabbed the rge man blog their path by the upper arm and moved him aside.

  Twenty-Six squeaked and slipped by and into the safety of the VIP suite.

  "Who are you?" the mayor snapped. "Unha once!"

  "You're making a se," Ivil said calmly. She met his eyes. "The se will be far worse if you don't settle down. I'm certain the Beau Manoir is being reasonable about all of this. Unfortunately I have a propensity not to be overly reasonable. So don't ruin my date or I'll ruin this fiablishment by spreading your remains across it. That might upset the serving staff who won't do their job as easily, which would in turn upset me. I might have to restitute you, cw your soul out of hell, then show you a world of torment the likes of which your fat-addled mind ot prehend."

  The mayor stared sck-jawed for a moment befring. "Who in the fuck do you think you are?" he asked.

  She sighed. Would Twenty-Six be upset if she caused a small political disturband interrupted their meal? MIainly would be, but she didn't make much of a fuss about what they wanted.

  The mayor started to fuss and whine, so she removed his ability to make noise. He had bodyguards, she noticed. One of them had been trying to reach her from the moment she had approached him, but his attempts were so ughably weak that she didn't really care. He was currently pushing against a stant and unstoppable pressure that reventing him from reag her. "Majordomo?" she asked.

  "Y-yes ma'am?" the man who'd greeted her at the door asked.

  "Please relocate the mayor to your sed best rooms. His meal and drink be put on my tab."

  "Yes ma'am, thank you, ma'am," the major domo said.

  Ivil let go of the mayor and eyed him. "Do not seek revehis wasn't a slight. This was a merow, I have a young dy to woo, so shoo."

  Ivil slipped into the VIP suite where Twenty-Six was sitting. The young woman was shifting from side to side nervously, and seemed afraid to touything. Possibly because any one of the utensils oable before her were worth more thay-Six made in a year.

  Still, Twenty-Six screwed together her ce a Ivil's eyes. "... we talk?" she asked. "I think that maybe we're, uh, not on the same wavelength about some things."

  ***

  RavensDagger

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