Chapter Seventy-Nine – Gosh Golly Gracious

Chapter Seventy-Nine – Gosh Golly Gracious

“‘Our products just haven’t been selling.’

‘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.