“Oh dear,” Salvi laughed. “He told me he runs his own business. Sounds like the poor boy’s in for hard life lessons.”
“He might as well live it up while daddy’s paying.”
Salvi watched as another pair of glamazonian women walked in, each with legs that seemed to travel from floor to ceiling. She sighed dramatically. “I feel so average among this company. I mean, artists are normally poor, right? I don’t suppose you get many here.”
“Your husband must be doing well.”
She smiled. “He works in finance. He’s good with his money, allows me to be the creative one. But it’s all my parents’ fault, you see. They had money and accustomed me to this lifestyle.”
“Poor baby,” Chaney laughed. She sipped her drink while he stared at her.
“So,” she said.
“So?” he said, in study.
“I slept on it.”
“Slept on what?” he said teasingly.
“On what we discussed.”
“Oh really? And?”
“And,” she said, “it was hard to sleep for thinking about it, to be honest.” She glanced over to the bartender. “Anamatrix tells me you can have a lot of fun with it.”
Chaney glanced over to the bar, then back to her. “She gave you specifics?”
“No.”
“So how do you know you want it? You don’t know what it is they do.”
“Not exactly, but I have an imagination. Besides, the way you’re teasing it, makes me want it more. Is this a sales tactic of yours? It is, isn’t it? It’s just like this club where people have to prove themselves in order to get to the Ceiling. You like watching people jump through your hoops. Like dangling a carrot before the horse. It is a sales tactic.”
“No. I’m not in sales. I’m merely a connoisseur of exclusive safe spaces.”
“Exclusive safe spaces… That, right there, is a sales pitch.”
Chaney grinned.
“Alright,” Salvi said. “You got me. I’m hooked. So what do I have to do to give it a try? Pay a large fee? I can afford that.”
“Can you?”
She shrugged, then laughed. “Hey, look, if you’re not comfortable, we can drop this. I don’t want to push you somewhere you’re not ready to go.”
“Oh, I’m very comfortable. But you’re right, it costs, and there are other technicalities that need to be addressed first.”
“Such as?”
“If you want to give it a try, you can’t do it here. There’s another… place, that very few know about. I could take you there as my guest, and if you liked it, we could arrange another membership. But, in order to visit that place, you need to sign this first.” He pulled out a small wafer-thin data pane and slid it across the table to her. She picked it up and scanned the document before her.
“What’s this? An NDA? I need to sign an NDA?”
Chaney nodded.
“Wow…”
He shrugged. “It’s an ultra-elite exclusive club. We take privacy very seriously. That’s why our guests pay what they do.” He paused and analyzed her. “I don’t normally tell people about this place so soon. I hardly know you… I’m not really sure what I’m doing here.”
Salvi stared at him, then gave him a sultry smile. “Yes, you do. You want to be the one to take me to the edge.” She glanced to the bartender again, then back to him. “You want to pop my neural tech cherry.”
Chaney laughed. “I’m a little classier than that.”
“However you want to word it. That’s the essence of what you want to do. To me.” She finished her drink. “Tell me I’m wrong?”
He stared at her through the dim light. He did not deny it.
“I’ll take your silence as confirmation,” she smiled. “So, where do I sign?” She looked back to the data pane, scrolled down to the signatory section and scrawled a fake signature for one Sarah Parson, then slid the pane back across the table to him.
Chaney took the pane, completed the deal, then pocketed the device. He analyzed her briefly, as though thinking things through one last time.
“Alright,” he said and stood. “Shall we?”
Salvi smiled, then raised her hand. “One moment.” She pulled out her powder compact and opened it. “If this place is exclusive, I want to look my best.” She moved her face around, eyeing herself in the mirror and smacked her lips together, then closed the compact and stood. “I’m ready.”
9: DIABOLIQUE
Salvi followed Chaney past the elevator capsule she’d used to reach the Ceiling, and around the dance floor where the hologrammed and tech-wearing dancers strutted their stuff alongside robo-pole dancers. He led her into the far corner of the room, to a doorway hidden behind a black velvet curtain, beside the wall of screens.
They stepped into a darkened corridor, lit here and there with candles that released a subtle scent of vanilla. She smiled to herself at the irony.
“Is this secret club of yours upstairs?” Salvi asked, hooking her arm through his. “I noticed there was another level to this place.”
Chaney shook his head, “No, that’s just my office.”
“I see,” she said, realizing he wasn’t going to tell her. “Mysterious.”
They walked in silence until they came to another red velvet curtain, which Chaney held aside for her. She smiled and stepped through, trying to keep her heartbeat steady, wondering where he was leading her, wondering if Caine had walked these very steps before her. Wondering if her fate would be the same.
On the other side of the curtain was a small room filled with two security guards, openly carrying tasers and batons. She flinched internally, remembering what a baton had done to her arm on her last case. She’d only just had the cast removed.
“Good evening Mr. Chaney,” one of the guards said, while the other gave a respectful nod.
“Evening gentlemen,” Chaney said. “This is Sarah Parson, my guest for this evening. We hope she will soon be a new member.”
“Ms. Parson,”
