Chapter Fifty-Five – Dancing to the Music

Chapter Fifty-Five – Dancing to the Music

“Ain’t no bitch like a corpo bitch.”

–Common corporate idiom, origin dates back to early 2020s

***

I had to thank Burringham later. He found a pianist, some older guy with greying hair and a nice suit who sat behind the grand piano on the stage and started to play this nice, slow piece. The sound echoed across the hall, brilliant, upbeat notes that sounded happy.

Lucy loved it.

She was grinning ear to ear as I held her close and guided her around in little circles. We didn’t know how to dance, and neither of us gave a shit.

I raised an arm above Lucy’s head and she spun around before I pulled her in again. The pianist somehow managed to change the timing on the fly, so that it looked like we were dancing in sync with the music.

I didn’t know what Burringham was paying the guy, but it wasn’t enough.

For all that the dancing was fun, it didn’t last all that long. After five minutes, Lucy was huffing and puffing, face reddening around her cheeks, and our dance turned less energetic as she collapsed against my chest and I held her close so she could catch her breath.

“That was nice,” she said. “But, ah, I think I need a minute to breathe, and a drink.”

I chuckled. “We can dance more whenever you feel like it, you know. Big fancy gala or no.”

Lucy grinned up at me. “I wish you weren’t wearing that helmet, you deserve a kiss for that.”

“I think I deserve a lot of kisses,” I said.

Lucy laughed and pulled back. The pianist seamlessly moved into a piece that sounded a little more neutral, like expensive elevator music, and I found myself being tugged along towards a table next to some large vases that had punch bowls and bottles of wine and a man in a butler’s outfit pouring cups for people.

I realized then that I couldn’t really eat without taking my helmet off, which was going to be a problem later. For now, it was enough that Lucy could grab a cup of some fruity looking punch with ice in it that the butler poured for her.

“Okay, so, what kind of political bullshittery are we going to do here today?” Lucy asked.

“Political bullshittery?” I asked. “I’m mostly here to show you off and to eat free rich people food.”

Lucy giggled. “Well, I can’t say no to either of those, but I’m sure we can do more than that.” She gestured with her head to the rest of the hall, which had been steadily filling up as we danced. The event didn’t start for another hour, but it seemed like being early was pretty popular, and maybe a quarter of the seats were already filled.

“I don’t know, what more do you want to do?” I asked.

“Well, half the people here are celebrity sorts. I think I even recognize a couple of them. They’re not worth talking to. They’re probably live-streaming all of this, which is neat, but really I don’t see the point in chatting with them. A quarter of the people here are CEO and political types. They should have their fingers on the pulse of the city, you know? We might be able to get them to help with the sewer thing.”

“They’re the ones who stand to lose from the city going tits up,” I said.

“Yeah, exactly. Plus they’re easier to impress than the celebrity sorts.”

“What about the last quarter?” I asked. Maybe Lucy spending so much time watching soap operas was coming in handy after all.

“The last bit is a toss up. There’s some kids here that are obviously just being dragged along by their parents.” She gestured to one such group. A few younger boys and girls, mostly older teens and young adults, all looking like preppy corpo kids that had been forced to clean up and put on fancy clothes. “And then there’s our group, of course. Too awesome to fit in any of the other boxes. Some of the people here though, I bet that they’re the sort who just won, and now they go to galas because that’s all they really have left to do.”

“They won?” I asked.