‘Huh. Maybe. I’d be jealous of me if I were watching this.’
Mitsuko smiled. ‘Funny, I was thinking more or less exactly the same thing.’
Alliance City.
The Trentons’ ‘townhouse’ was the entire upper floor of a twenty-storey apartment building which had a helipad on top. Mitsuko’s father had sent a tiltrotor to pick up the symposium team from the school and fly them to Alliance City, so it landed on top of the building and all they had to do was take the elevator down one floor. The elevator went all the way to the ground, but it would only stop on the top floor if presented with appropriate identification. Mitsuko had, of course, appropriate identification.
Mitsuko stepped out of the elevator and into a reception room. ‘Father,’ she said in a mildly surprised tone.
Zackery Trenton smiled at her from across the room. ‘I was in town on business and I decided to delay my departure a little to provide a suitable welcome. Your pilot will be taking me back to the mansion shortly, so you don’t need to worry about me scuppering your plans for wild parties.’
‘Oh yes,’ Mitsuko said, raising an eyebrow, ‘the wild parties. When did we schedule the orgy for, Nava?’
‘Next Friday, after the conference,’ Nava replied. There was a squeak from Melissa who had apparently not noticed they were joking yet.
Zackery nodded seriously. ‘Just be sure to inform the cleaning robots that they need to sterilise everything afterward.’ He smiled again. ‘Anyway, welcome to the Trentons’ business home. Make yourselves at home. How are the preparations going?’
‘I have a battle plan worked out,’ Mitsuko replied. ‘We’ll get the details organised this week. You know Courtney and Kyle are arriving later?’ Zackery nodded. ‘We’ll get the final finalisations sorted then, but we’re hoping to have all the data ready to be quoted or presented before then. Mel is quite the wizard at finding things in the school databases and Chess can handle any programming we need done.’
‘You seem to have everything covered. This place has ultrafast, secure networking, so there shouldn’t be any problems, but you know who to contact if there are.’ Mitsuko nodded that she did. ‘Good. Your mother and I will try to get our hands on a recording of your panel. I’ll leave you to it. Good luck, all of you.’
‘Love to Mother!’ Mitsuko called out as the elevator doors closed behind him. Then she turned and headed for the inner door. ‘He was checking up on me. I swear, sometimes they seem to think I’m still twelve. I’m two metres tall in heels!’
‘I think it’s sweet,’ Melissa said.
‘You’re just saying that because your parents are light years away and can’t drop by for a visit.’
‘Yes. That would probably be annoying. And embarrassing. I already get emails telling me I just have to bring my “young man” to see them.’
‘You do?!’ Rochester asked, his cheeks reddening even as the rest of his skin went paler.
‘Don’t worry. It’s not like we can afford that many flights to Avorna and back. And they suggested I bring Nava to see them too.’ Melissa frowned. ‘I have this weird suspicion that they think I’ve made up friends so they won’t worry about me.’ She came to a grinding halt as the room they had walked into impinged upon her senses. ‘This room is bigger than my house on Avorna!’
‘I’m sure that’s an exaggeration,’ Mitsuko replied.
The room in question was very large. Apparently, the designers had decided to make the entire central portion of the floor into one big room with a kitchen in one portion, dining area in another, and much of the rest arranged for sitting down and entertainment. There were various doors leading off into other parts of the house and one window – at the side of the dining area – through which the Clan Assembly complex could be seen in the middle distance.
‘Okay,’ Mitsuko went on. ‘We’re going to need to get all your ketcoms registered with the security system and such. Uh, that door on the left is the master bedroom, which I hereby claim as the resident Trenton. Those two doors over there lead to the four smaller bedrooms. Just pick one. They all have their own bathrooms and there’s a sento-like setup with a sauna over through the door at the back there that we can use if we want.’
‘There’s a sauna?’ Melissa asked.
‘As Father said, this place is basically here for family members who need a place to conduct business from, so it has a sauna for relaxing after a stressful day.’
‘The door on the right?’ Nava asked.
‘Leads to the meeting room and offices. We’ll be setting up in there, but that can wait until tomorrow. Mel and I haven’t had a real chance to stand still in the last two weeks, so tonight we’re going to relax. Possibly in the sauna.’
Nava wandered over to a cabinet which was nearby and peered at it. ‘Drinks cabinet,’ she said. ‘Locked.’
‘That’s not actually because of us being here. If it’s not locked, Uncle Spencer gets in here and it all has to be restocked.’
‘Ah. Yeah.’
‘Okay, let’s get settled in and I’ll check the kitchen for supplies.’
‘You’re going to cook?’ Melissa asked.
‘If there’s something to cook. Father doesn’t, so we should be good.’
‘You don’t have–’
Mitsuko shook her head. ‘Cooking is relaxing, especially when it’s for friends. And I never get to do it at school. We’ll have a nice meal and forget about all the work we’re going to have to do in the morning.’
‘When you put it like that… Come on, Chess, let’s go find a room. I can’t wait to get on with the forgetting.’
~~~
Rochester had his eyes closed. It looked like they were closed because he was relaxed and enjoying the steam, and he had not objected when Mitsuko suggested that they use the sauna after dinner, but he did have a towel in his lap and no one had made any comments about any lewd thoughts
