Chapter Sixty-Five – Reckless

Chapter Sixty-Five – Reckless

“Once a commodity’s price has reached the lowest it can possibly go without becoming unprofitable to sell, the focus of the market becomes less the price of the commodity, but the methods around the sale of the commodity.

That means shipping cost and speed, packaging, and things like customer support and additional sale incentives.”

–Memo to Amazon subsidiary retailers, 2028

***

I sat on my hoverbike, helmet in hand, and just… took a few minutes to breathe.

I was hovering a couple of kilometres above the city, sitting in the sky in a way that would have been a huge waste of kerosene if my bike was even a little more normal than it was.

“Not too sure what the next step is,” I admitted with a yawn.

Something about the thinness of the air was making me tired. Or maybe it was just shortness of breath, from all the smog in the air this high up.

Your itinerary is rather empty at the moment. Perhaps you might consider returning to the floor you purchased? The renovations should be underway as we speak.

“I could check on Rac too,” I said. Poor girl; probably thought I’d run off. Though I bet she was still worshipping that machine. “Yeah, not a bad way to waste an afternoon. Let’s go pick up Lucy first though.”

I gave you ninety-nine percent odds that you’d want to do that.

“You know, when people call out the odds they gave something, it’s not usually so high,” I said as I tugged on my helmet.

Most people aren’t as certain of things as I am.

“Fair enough,” I said. I leaned down, rooted around with my augs to find the controls that took the bike off of its hovering mode, then I glanced around until I found the glowing path leading all the way back to the hotel.

I gunned it, grinning as I tried to push the hoverbike to its limits and see just how fast the thing could really move. As it turned out, that was ‘pretty damned’ fast.

“Oh shit, shit!” I said as I steered up and rolled over a line of traffic that I probably would have had more time to react to had I not been moving so fast.

Reckless as ever. Do you want to know the odds I give you of crashing?

“No, I don’t think I do,” I said. I took her advice and slowed down as I slid into the next curve.

The hotel wasn’t all that far, so after a couple of minutes of cruising along at a reasonable and entirely safe speed, we swung around and into the parking level I had gotten used to using when entering the hotel.

I slid my bike close to the entrance, then swung off of it while flagging down the nearest valet. “Can you park this thing somewhere close?” I asked.

“Certainly, ma’am,” they said. From the smug look they shot back to the other valets, they’d just hit the equivalent of the bragging-rights jackpot.

I waved them off before heading into the lobby.

Almost as soon as I stepped inside, one of the workers behind the counters at the far end of the room went around and jogged over to me. “Miss Stray Cat,” She said. She was a cute twenty-something, in a stylish burgundy uniform that hugged her in nice ways. “Forgive me, ma’am, we received an urgent-sent package for you, but it flagged our security.”

“Oh?” I asked.

She nodded. “We only just received it. We were going to send a letter to your suite, but seeing as how you’re here now, I thought it wise to inform you in person, ma’am.” She smiled, all big and proud.

“Oh, well thanks,” I said. “I don’t recall ordering anything. What’s in the box? How big a gift are we talking here?”

“It’s just a small package, ma’am,” she said while making some gestures about a foot across. “Our in-house security scans flagged it as potentially dangerous material. Did you want to see it?”

“Sure,” I said. “Where’s it from?”

“The offices of Mister Burringham. Sent express, via private courier.”

A gift from Burringham?

I opened my augs and sent him a quick text. “Hey, Jeff, did you send me anything?”

I got a reply before the cute lobby worker and I had even reached the nearest sidedoor. “Yes! Hope you enjoy it!”

Reassured, I let the lobby girl step up ahead of me and lead me through a couple of long corridors. They lacked the opulence that the rest of the hotel had, but were clean and someone had still made an effort to decorate.

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“So, what’s your name?” I asked.

“I’m Eleanor, Miss Stray Cat,” she said.

Using my full name. Or at least my title. She was being all professional. “You work here long?”

“Since I was sixteen. My parents both worked here too. It’s becoming something of a generational thing.”

“That’s cool,” I said.