Double doubled doubled (part one)
A little blog experiment: over the next few days, I'm going to be serialising a brand new Hard Luck detective story. Enjoy!
Part one.
Though it would turn out that I was not the only guydancing with Cassandra Corvette at Frederick's, neither was she the only girl dancingwith me. I was logged in twice at thejazz and swing nightclub, initially taking up both the middle bar stool and thespot at the railing three feet from the door, where hopefuls lounge in theirbest tuxedos and not-that-bothered poses. Meanwhile, I was logged in a third time back at my office, whereHoneycomb Crumbled was finishing off a story she could have summarised in atenth of the time it actually took her. Clients just love to think they're unusual.
"Mr Luck," she said from the seat on the other side of mydesk, the leather worn from the outpourings of her many, many predecessors,"are you going to take my case?"
"Let me get this straight," I said, pausing to whisper inCassandra's ear a sweet nothing about the route being taken by my fingers overher shoulder blades. "You think some ofthe visitors to your club are employed by a competitor to pick people up andtake them there instead?"
"Frederick's used to be the most popular Friday nightdestination on the grid," Honeycomb said. "The last few weeks, my numbers have dropped and dropped. Meanwhile, Dominoe's visitors - for example - have beengrowing at about the same rate. I canquite assure you that I'm doing nothing different. The same popular DJs and live artistsperform. The same standards of dress andbehaviour that established our reputation are enforced."
"Well maybe that's your problem, sugar," I pointed out,quickly typing in a comment about the neckline of my second dance partner,Burnished Oak, and how if it plunged any lower my zipper might get itselfconfused as her navel piercing (the dress code at Frederick's really wasn't that exacting). "People get fed up with same old sameold. Had it ever crossed your mind thatmaybe Dominoe's is just offering something new that the punters want to checkout?"
"But that's just it," she replied. "There's nothing whatsoever remarkable aboutthat place at all. The music's piped infrom an easy listening internet radio station. There's no dress code. The buildis a heap of badly scaled and misaligned textures, and the place is crawlingwith advertisements. If my guests aregoing there of their own accord, Mr Luck, then I am utterly at a loss as towhy."
Burnished Oak wrote back that my zipper was only anobstacle to what her navel actually wanted to feel pressing against it. Meanwhile, Cassandra Corvette mentionedgoosebumps rising across the skin on her back. Neither of them had made any suggestion yet about a change of location,but we'd only so far been dancing for a couple of songs. Halfway through Honeycomb's lengthyintroduction, I'd decided to set the meter running and check the joint outbefore anything became 'official'. Cassandra and Burnished were the only two unoccupied avatars when I'dgot there, but that wasn't to say any member of the four already dancingcouples hadn't snagged their partner earlier and weren't at this very moment whisperingabout alternate venues.
And right then is when it happened: as though by mutualprivate agreement with each other, bothof my dancing partners asked both of my representatives if we'd like torelocate to "somewhere a little livelier". Thirty seconds later, my alts where in a different place, waiting forthe greys to colour in.
But only one of them was Dominoe's.
Part two will be published on Thursday...
Part one.
Though it would turn out that I was not the only guydancing with Cassandra Corvette at Frederick's, neither was she the only girl dancingwith me. I was logged in twice at thejazz and swing nightclub, initially taking up both the middle bar stool and thespot at the railing three feet from the door, where hopefuls lounge in theirbest tuxedos and not-that-bothered poses. Meanwhile, I was logged in a third time back at my office, whereHoneycomb Crumbled was finishing off a story she could have summarised in atenth of the time it actually took her. Clients just love to think they're unusual.
"Mr Luck," she said from the seat on the other side of mydesk, the leather worn from the outpourings of her many, many predecessors,"are you going to take my case?"
"Let me get this straight," I said, pausing to whisper inCassandra's ear a sweet nothing about the route being taken by my fingers overher shoulder blades. "You think some ofthe visitors to your club are employed by a competitor to pick people up andtake them there instead?"
"Frederick's used to be the most popular Friday nightdestination on the grid," Honeycomb said. "The last few weeks, my numbers have dropped and dropped. Meanwhile, Dominoe's visitors - for example - have beengrowing at about the same rate. I canquite assure you that I'm doing nothing different. The same popular DJs and live artistsperform. The same standards of dress andbehaviour that established our reputation are enforced."
"Well maybe that's your problem, sugar," I pointed out,quickly typing in a comment about the neckline of my second dance partner,Burnished Oak, and how if it plunged any lower my zipper might get itselfconfused as her navel piercing (the dress code at Frederick's really wasn't that exacting). "People get fed up with same old sameold. Had it ever crossed your mind thatmaybe Dominoe's is just offering something new that the punters want to checkout?"
"But that's just it," she replied. "There's nothing whatsoever remarkable aboutthat place at all. The music's piped infrom an easy listening internet radio station. There's no dress code. The buildis a heap of badly scaled and misaligned textures, and the place is crawlingwith advertisements. If my guests aregoing there of their own accord, Mr Luck, then I am utterly at a loss as towhy."
Burnished Oak wrote back that my zipper was only anobstacle to what her navel actually wanted to feel pressing against it. Meanwhile, Cassandra Corvette mentionedgoosebumps rising across the skin on her back. Neither of them had made any suggestion yet about a change of location,but we'd only so far been dancing for a couple of songs. Halfway through Honeycomb's lengthyintroduction, I'd decided to set the meter running and check the joint outbefore anything became 'official'. Cassandra and Burnished were the only two unoccupied avatars when I'dgot there, but that wasn't to say any member of the four already dancingcouples hadn't snagged their partner earlier and weren't at this very moment whisperingabout alternate venues.
And right then is when it happened: as though by mutualprivate agreement with each other, bothof my dancing partners asked both of my representatives if we'd like torelocate to "somewhere a little livelier". Thirty seconds later, my alts where in a different place, waiting forthe greys to colour in.
But only one of them was Dominoe's.
Part two will be published on Thursday...
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