“They just need to pat you down, I’m afraid,” Chaney said, turning to her.
“Oh,” Salvi smiled. “The fun starts here.” She stepped her legs apart and held her hands out while they quickly frisked her.
“And check your purse,” Chaney said.
“Go for it,” She slid her slinky bag off her shoulder and handed it to him.
He took it and passed it to the security, all the while not taking his eyes of hers.
“All clear,” the lead guard eventually said. “Have a good evening, and enjoy your member tour, Ms. Parson.”
“Thank you,” she said as Chaney handed back her purse, then ushered her forward into another capsule elevator.
This one was much smaller than the other, and there was barely enough room for two inside, but she figured not as many people would head to where they were going. She looked for the control panel to see how many floors it serviced, but there were no buttons at all. Chaney looked up to a security camera in the roof and nodded. Salvi felt the sudden sensation of a downward movement and thrust one hand out against the wall, while the other grabbed onto Chaney’s upper arm. He smiled and took hold of her arm gently in response. She smiled back, noticing the firmness of his bicep. Lance Chaney worked out.
She released her grip on him as they continued to descend. It seemed ‘the basement’ wasn’t metaphorical at all.
She pictured Caine standing where she was, wondered whether Chaney had been the one to take him down to the basement. Wondered whether Chaney had been the one to order his death. If he’d found out Caine was a cop, surely Chaney wasn’t stupid enough to kill two of them?
He looked at her and smiled.
“You seem nervous.”
She smiled back. “I’d call it nervous excitement… you taking me on this little magical mystery tour.”
“The journey’s not important. The destination is.”
“So if there’s a fire, I’ll be able to find my way out?”
His lips curved with amusement. “I thought you came here for the fire.”
She chuckled.
“It’s not too late to pull out,” he said, eyeing her carefully. “I don’t want you doing anything you’re not ready for.”
“Are you kidding?” she said. “Try and stop me.”
He smiled.
The elevator came to a stop and the doors opened. Two more security guards ushered them out.
“Mr. Chaney, Ms. Parson,” they said.
Salvi looked at the guard surprised, then noticed an earpiece and monitors showing the two security guards topside.
“Good evening,” she said, then looked past them to see some kind of underground cavern, like a disused train tunnel. They stepped around the guards and she saw more candles and red carpet leading the way forward. Chaney looked at her, then held out his bent arm for her to hold. She slid her hand through and they began to follow the red carpet.
Salvi figured they’d walked a good city block or two before they came to their destination: another set of what looked like silver elevator doors, though these looked flat, not curved.
“Welcome to Diabolique,” he waved his arm, ushering her forward, past another two guards who waited out front. They wore the same comms pieces and based on the bulges underneath their jackets, weapons of some kind too, which she hoped were only tasers.
“Mr. Chaney, Ms. Parson,” they greeted them, opening the doors.
A tiny reception room awaited them and a coat check girl, covered in metallic tech, gave her a welcome smile. Salvi wasn’t sure if the tech was ornamental or not, but from where she stood it looked very real, and very attached to her skin. Like, permanently attached. Salvi shrugged off her jacket and handed it to the woman, who passed back a square token made of black glass. Salvi smiled and slipped it into her purse.
Taking Chaney’s arm again, they moved toward another set of doors, controlled by two more security. That made eight so far. The guards, like all the others, greeted them by name, then opened the doors allowing them passage through.
Salvi stepped inside Diabolique. Before her was a lounge even dimmer than the Ceiling, decorated with candles and red velvet and veils of glittery curtains. And tech. Lots of tech. There were screens and data panes and holographic faces and bodies, and even sculptures meshed with tech. She recognized a replica of the Venus de Milo embellished with android arms. She saw the Winged Victory of Samothrace with a holographic head bearing neural devices. She saw other statues of gods, both Greek and Roman, adorned with tech or holographic additions, or covered in strands of glowing light or bathed in digital projections.
She glanced at the patrons in the lounge and saw one man openly snorting a substance off a hand-held mirror, another gray-haired man with a very young woman on his lap, a couple laying back wearing VR headsets and haptic gloves doing god knows what with their hands.
And she understood the meaning of this place, then, of what Diabolique was all about. It was a place harking back to centuries gone by when the rich and powerful lived lives of decadence and revelry, where slaves served their every desire, and that lifestyle was meshed with the modern day; with technology and excess access. This was the perfect place for a drug-tech experience like Flyte to exist.
She felt Chaney’s hand brush down her bare arm.
“Do you want a drink first, or would you like to start playing with your tech?”
She smiled. “I’d like a drink and a look around first. This place has me intrigued. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I thought I’d seen everything.”
“I know how to host a good party,” he said.
They walked toward the corner of the lounge and to the right she saw the main bar and a dance floor where people of all ages wore their neural tech or VR headsets, dancing together but alone in their own realities, some energetically, some looking like they were very drunk, some staring up at the ceiling like zombies.
To her
