Stormbringer: Book 2 of the Wyrd

One

It occurs to me Sigmund hasn't seen it. I should take him up there one day. We can skate around the floorboards in our socks. It'll be awesome.

One day, not today. Today, we're at Aldershot's local shops: a little ring of brick leftovers from the 1970s. Highlights include an organic produce store, a massage parlor, a gourmet butcher and delicatessen, a bookstore, a post office, and a restaurant.

It's called Umami, and it's the best in the city—one of the best in the country—serving Australian-Asian fusion cuisine to the nouveau riche and anyone else prepared to brave the four-hundred-dollar-a-head set menu and six-month waiting list.

As a local, Travis has a permanent reservation. Tonight, he's bequeathed it to his special guests.

Inside, Umami is all black lacquer screens and red lanterns and tasteful art pieces. A neat young man greets us with gracious obsequiousness at the door, before showing us to a table in a quiet corner. He goes through the ritual of laying our napkins on our laps, then hurries off to fetch water and amuse-bouche.

When he's gone, Sig leans toward me, eyes very wide. "Lain," he says, "this place is really posh."

I laugh. "Yeah. It's not bad. I like Jaques Raymond better, I think, but Melbourne's a long way to go right now." I could charter a plane, I guess. Maybe next time.

"You could've told me," Sigmund hisses. "I would've dressed up a bit."

"You look fine, man."

"How do you know? I thought you were supposed to be blind."

I rock my hand back and forth, indicating ambivalence. The Wyrdsight doesn't "see," exactly. But I'm not blind blind, either.

"I still feel . . . underdressed," Sigmund says, his words tasting of shame and inadequacy. He slumps back in his seat, pushes his glasses up his nose, and tries to hide behind the table, away from the stares of the other diners.

They are all pretty dressed up, now that I think about it. So I say, "Sig, look. The reality is, when you're coming in to pay a thousand dollars for a meal—"

"A thousand whats? Lain!"

"—then nobody gives a shit what you're wearing. This is Panda. Rich geeks in T-shirts and ripped jeans crop up here like single-use functions in bad code. Their money's just as plastic as everyone else's."

Sigmund slouches in his chair. "A thousand dollars?" he says. "Really? Man, I can't afford that."

"You're not," I point out. "Travis is. This is his table." I point, and Sigmund follows the gesture up the wall, to where a painting hangs above us. Abstract, but still obviously of the LB building, three-column statue-slash-logo-slash-prison and all. "We'll be fine."

Sigmund picks at the tablecloth, then picks up a fork and stares at it. It's a fancy fork, about $50 per piece to buy: the high price of "design," of the lifestyle, of the same principles LB is built on.

"Rich people," Sig says.

"Mortal gods," I agree, just as the waiter returns with all the discreet timing of the impeccably trained.

He pours the water and introduces the food; sesame-crusted salmon sashimi with ginger and wasabi, served in little handmade ceramic spoons. Then he explains the menu, all eight courses of it. With matching wines. I know the exact moment Sigmund realizes he doesn't get a choice—realizes that everything is dinner—by the taste of shock and panic in the air.

The waiter finishes with, "Are there any food allergies or requirements tonight I should tell the chef about?"

"We'll skip the oysters," I say.