by Mike Luoma
BC and Fiza cross a spacious walkway from their ship to Wentworth Station. BC marvels at the opulence already apparent.
This walkway and the airlocks are larger than most I've seen. The transparent top panels let you see the whole station as you approach. Designed to stun and overwhelm, no doubt. Nice digs. Nicer than Fortune Station by a mile.
Fortune Station was one of the earliest built private orbital stations. Wentworth Station is a newer construct, started around fifty years ago, BC figures, because the main cylinder of the station rotates to create gravity.
It had to have been built before artificial gravity was feasible. Course, the rest of it was built afterwards, clearly.
The airlock in front of them, their entranceway into Wentworth Station, leads into a stationary section of the structure. The facade of this boxy part is constructed to look like an office building back on earth, like one of the skyscrapers in New York City. Artificial gravity reinforces the effect. The rotating main cylinder sits on top of the boxy section.
"Looks like a big metal dick, I've always thought," Fiza says. "Just like Richard himself. A big Dick," she starts giggling at her own joke. She looks at BC for a reaction but he ignores her. She stops laughing. "Fine. Be like that."
They reach the airlock doors. Armed guards stand on both sides of the doors, dressed in a gold, red and black station uniform, a variation on the standard green uniforms of regular UTZ troops. The guard on the right motions them to head in through the airlock. BC notices the guards have UTZ insignia on their uniforms as well as Wentworth Station logos. After BC and Fiza walk past them, they fall in step behind BC and Fiza.
"No going back now, huh, BC?" Fiza asks, trying to lighten the mood.
"Just play nice, and let's try to get out of this alive, 'kay?" BC doesn't hide his growing anger over being played by Fiza yet again.
Can't hide this headache I'm feeling come on now, either. Just hope it's not a bad one… like before. Not now!
The airlock shushes shut behind their escorts. BC looks around a massive reception area.
Must be nice to be able to live like this, even out here. Place looks like a mansion in a movie. All business outside, all pleasure inside. Nice.
"If you can afford it."
"What?" Fiza says.
"Huh?" BC asks.
"I asked you first. What did you just say?"
Did I say that out loud?
"Nothing. I was just appreciating the lovely black marble floor."
"Only the finest for Richard Wentworth, baby," Fiza says with sarcasm.
"Correct, Fiza," says an older man entering the reception area. He's dressed in a red and gold smoking jacket and dark pressed pants. His slippers let him approach BC and Fiza without their hearing. His dark hair is gray at the temples, set off in stark contrast to his light caramel skin. His features have the sort of generic, too perfect look BC's always noticed among those wealthy enough to have themselves cosmetically enhanced.
Gotta be Richard Wentworth. One of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the UTZ, right here. Since the OPO works with the UTZ hierarchy, I gotta figure he knows something about our operation. Wonder if he's an ally?
"Hello Fiza. Hello, Father. Welcome to my home. Won't you come with me?" He asks, then turns and walks across the room and down a corridor on the left.
BC notices Wentworth never looks back to make sure BC and Fiza are coming.
Clearly a man who expects to be followed. Might as well...
They follow Wentworth along a series of turns and corridors, finally arriving at what looks like an elevator door. He presses a button in the wall to the right side of the doors and they open, revealing a small room with four chairs.
"Come, sit down, and strap yourselves in. We're going up into the main section. The elevator has independent artificial g, so we won't feel it rise, turn, and match the cylinder's rotation. Quite ingenious. My father's top engineers designed it ages ago, still works. Go ahead, sit down."
Wentworth sits and buckles himself in.
"The straps are just a precaution. Just in case the g lets go or something else goes wrong. Here we go."
Wentworth taps the controls built in to the arm of his chair. The doors close. The small room has no windows.
It feels like an elevator. A weird, big, sit down, strap in elevator. Can't be the only way up there, too cumbersome for workers and anybody with any real business to take care of. Just the luxurious way, I'd bet. And escorted by the man himself. Red carpet treatment!
After a minute, the doors open again. A new corridor opens up in front of them, this one with a plush red carpet running down the middle of a black marble floor.
Wentworth undoes his chair's straps and gets up first. BC and Fiza undo their seat belts and follow him out.
"You see? No sense of weirdness, vertigo or free fall! Just like an elevator ride! Now please wait here," he says.
As BC watches Richard Wentworth walks away down the corridor. BC notices again he never looks back.
Fiza says something under her breath that BC can't make out.
"What?"
"Nothing. Just those stupid androids of Richard's. They always creep me out."
"That was an android?"
"You thought that was him?" Fiza starts laughing at BC. "Man, you do have delusions of grandeur, don't you? You think he'd come see us in like that himself? I thought you'd been places, Campion? Don't tell me you've never seen a mechanical manservant?" She laughs again.
"Never one that good, evidently. And I've never met the real Wentworth," BC protests.
"You'll know it when you do. Trust me. He has a certain, I don't know… charisma, I guess," she says, losing herself in her own thoughts and memories as she trails off.
"Wonderful. Can't wait to meet the man."
"Here come his guards. Should be soon, now."
Two guards lead them down the long corridor to a large vaulted hall. A huge semicircular table dominates the center of the room, a giant "C" laid flat. The guards motion for BC and Fiza to enter the mouth of the "C" and they walk into the center.
Ten well-dressed, evidently powerful people sit along the outside edge of the table. Each has attendants hovering behind them. It is apparently dinnertime, as each of the ten has a plate of food in front of them. A personal guard stands directly behind each diner's chair to watch their backs.
Servants bring food and drink to the table through the center of the "C". There is a continual flow of servers passing by BC and Fiza on both sides as they stand in the center of the circle.
No one speaks to them at first.
Wow, hey, this is great, watching a bunch of rich fucks fill their faces. These folks dredge up all that hostility I thought I'd come to grips with. I hate ‘em just looking at ‘em. And I was doing so well at not judging.
BC sees the man who resembles the android sitting directly in front of them, at the center of the outside edge of the "C". He is busy eating some pinkish piece of meat, ripping chunks of it off the main slab on his plate and chomping them down.
He doesn't bother to notice them standing there until after the meat is gone and he's downed a glass of red wine. This takes about fifteen minutes. Then he looks up and speaks. His voice booms out, amplified by some hidden method not readily apparent to BC.
"Fiza. It really is you. You've got balls, girl. Sorry about the language, Father. If you really are a priest. You guys can fuck these days, huh?"
BC is caught off guard, no doubt Wentworth's intent. "What?"
"Purser on that ship you came here on had a camera on your room. You guys were the porno hit of the voyage, evidently. Fiza doing what she does best, as always. But I don't know you, Father. If you are a priest."
"I am. You Wentworth?"
"What do you think?
"You two hungry?"
Before they can answer, Wentworth is motioning for two people seated at his left to move over. They give Wentworth briefly indignant looks, and then slide their seats over. We
ntworth motions to someone and chairs are brought for BC and Fiza.
"Come around! Come around and sit down."
Wentworth gestures magnanimously with his right arm. He nods. One of the servers escorts them over and they are seated next to Wentworth, BC directly to Wentworth's left, Fiza next to BC on his left.
Clean plates are placed in front of each of them, and servers suddenly appear on the other side of the table with an assortment of dishes to choose from. BC picks a broccoli and cheese dish, while Fiza grabs her own pink slab of meat. BC then opts for a light white wine while Fiza sips a cabernet sauvignon.
This doesn't suck. Wonder if that meat is really beef? Broccoli must be grown on board. This is good! Haven't eaten like this since Rome.
And look at the other guests! That news guy, what's his name, from the UTZ network news. His date. Or maybe she's with that other guy. I think he's a CEO, another board member. DeMar or something like that. That woman over next to Fiza is Sabine something or other. A Pop singer on Wentworth's recording label. Must be a lesbian, looks like that young little fawn next to her is her date. Too bad, the little one is yummy.
Should have known something was up when the purser and his buddies acted so weird. How'd Wentworth know, though? Oh man, headache really coming on.
"So, Father, how do you know Fiza?" Wentworth is talking to him.
BC tries to focus.
"We, um, we go back. A long way. I hadn't seen her in years, until she showed up a few days ago." BC closes his eyes, trying to wish the headache away.
I do not need this headache shit right now...
"Are you all right, Father?" Wentworth asks.
BC opens his eyes. "I'm fine."
"You don't look well," Wentworth says with some hint of concern.
"I have a bad headache. That's all."
"And Fiza? How are you?" Wentworth smiles an unhealthy smile at Fiza.
That sounded almost sarcastic. He certainly didn't mean that at all.
And she's not answering?
BC turns and looks at Fiza, whose head is lolling back and forth as if she's about to pass out.
"Wha?" she says, trying to open and keep open her eyes.
Too much wine? That's not like Fiza.
What goes on here? Damn, my head!
"Whadyadotome?" Fiza slurs. "Icantmovemyarms! I... unh," she passes out, chin dropping to her chest. The guard behind her chair pulls her back from the table. He waves a second guard over and they lift Fiza, one on each side, and drag her out between them.
Wentworth watches them then turns to BC. "Miss Fiza appears to be tired. We'll put her to bed. She'll be fine. We'll give her a job here when she wakes up, make her useful. You can leave on the next ship back to the Moon, Father. Your work here is done.
"Father?"
What the fuck is going on here?!
"What..." is all BC gets out before he passes out, too.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
