Chapter 8 – A Day Later Plus a Couple Flashbacks
It’s around 8 A.M. and the only person awake at the moment is Marvin. He is on the balcony doing his morning calisthenics with his phone on the floor, blasting music. Carol wakes up to this, hung over and irritated. She takes the form of a certain famous baseball pitcher and grabs one of the cans from yesterday. She rips the tab off and heads out to the balcony. As Marvin turned to her direction, Carol threw the tab at his throat and the can at his abdomen. The hit was clean, as it knocked the air out of Marvin and he fell to the ground, choking. Carol changes to her usual form and reaches over to turn off the phone. She heads back inside to sleep.
That was Carol, right? thought Marvin on his way down. He stays on the ground for a few minutes gasping for air, eventually crawling inside to the bathroom to vomit.
At 9:17 A.M., Allen wakes up, his wounds healed and bandages dissolved (They were a special brand that dissolves after the wound it covers finishes healing). He can hear Marvin vomiting in the bathroom and also takes note of Damian not being in the room. Wonder where that guy went… He puts the thought aside and goes downstairs to explore the mall more.
Alex’s morning starts slow, with her waking up at 10 or somewhere along those lines. She mutters to herself, “Damn yesterday was confusing…” She looks around and sees Carol, sleeping in her human form. Alex ponders about it, but doesn’t think it’s important. “Let sleeping dogs lie I guess…” She laughs to herself a little then heads to the bathroom to freshen up. After a shower, Alex comes out of the bathroom still brushing her teeth, fairly dry and wearing only a towel. She checks through the hotel guidebook and calls room service for a change of clothes and brunch. I wonder how the guys’ morning went.
Damian is dressed as a waiter, holding a silver tray to his side. He is working at the first floor food court, in a moderately fancy restaurant.
“Sir! We’re ready to order!” yelled a customer from a table nearby. Damian briskly walks over and asks what they want. “I’ll have the house special and she’ll be having the salad,” the customer answered while looking through the holo-screen on his side of the table and gesturing to the girl sitting across from him.
“And for drinks?” asked Damian as he jotted down the orders on a digital pad he had in his pocket.
“Two cups of coffee.”
“Will that be all?”
The customer nods.
“Ok then, your order will be ready shortly,” Damian says while passing the pad over the holoscreens. The screens disappear and are replaced by a number stand on the table from either end. Damian also brings over two glasses to the table then walks over to another table with a cart to clear it.
“So this is where you’ve been,” says Allen, jumping out from the cart.
“How long have were you under there?” asked Damian, crouching down close to Allen’s level, “By the way, why are you here?”
“Just here to get a couple of drinks.”
“You could have just ordered room service.”
“I like the bar setting.”
“I can agree with you on that,” Damian’s pad rings, “Ah, gotta go, orders ready, uh, the bar down to table 9 then make a left.”
Damian hops up and goes to pick up the order. Allen leaves according to the directions given.
It’s now 11:15, right on the dot, Carol is still out cold, while Alex is fully dressed in her new outfit, a white blouse and a below the knee skirt with a floral prints here and there. I suppose dressing in this style isn’t too bad, it fits the time period. She leaves the room and knocks on the boys’ room. “Are you guys ready yet?” she asked loudly.
Marvin opened the door, looking pale, and answers, “Damian and Allen left hours ago…”
“What happened to you?”
“Carol happened, I think.”
After a short pause, in a clearly disbelieving tone, “Okay then…”
“Anyway… I’ll catch up with you after my stomach settles…” Marvin shuts the door.
“Wait! Where’d everyone go?!”
“I dunno! Allen said something about drinks.”
Hmm… I think I remember a sign mentioning a bar or something… Alex leaves Marvin and takes the elevator (a normal one, not the secret one), to the first floor and heads to the food court to search. The search was easy, since there was a clearly labeled directory. In about five minutes, Alex already found Allen, who is drunk apparently after two shot glasses. Alex chastises, “Really Allen? Really? Two glasses of—“ She stops to sniff a glass, “Vodka! This early in the day!?”
Slow to react and slow to answer, Allen mutters, “Trying to forget…” Then, he falls asleep and dreams of what he was trying to forget:
Allen is on the counter trying to sleep, Marvin is out like a light, and Damian is out on the balcony. Allen raises his head and looks around; he notices Damian pull a small object from his pocket and looks at it. The object shines in Allen’s eyes because of the lights from the girl’s room. Allen leaps from the counter and goes outside. “Hey, what is that?” asked Allen.
Thinking that no one was watching, Damian is a little startled and drops what he is holding. Luckily, it was saved by a string tied to Damian’s belt loop. He sighs in relief, grabs the object, and moves away from the railing to sit down against the sliding door. Allen gets a better view of the object. It is a small silver ring with an etching on it. Allen can faintly see the phrase, “For my beloved—“. The rest is cut off because of Damian’s fingers. “It’s… a promise,” Damian finally answered.
“She must be very important to you.”
“Yeah. Hey, promise me to not tell anybody about it.”
“Only if you promise to buy me a round of liquor tomorrow.”
“Sure, c’mon, it’s getting late.”
Allen regains consciousness. He notices that he is back in the hotel room, not sure of which one though. A glance at the clock tells him that he was knocked out for about three to four hours. Huh, shortest alcohol-induced coma I had in a while, at least I forgot what I was supposed to forget, I think. Allen shrugs it off and goes back to sleep.
What had happened during the time Allen was comatose was: Alex was shaking Allen in an attempt to keep him awake, but to no avail. “Shit…” Alex cursed, “Why does this always happen whenever I’m about to ask him something…” She sits down and sighs. The bartender, in her thirties and her name being Nikki according to the name plate, leaves a cocktail in front of Alex. “I didn’t order this.”
“On the house,” Nikki replied, “You look like you could use a pick-me-up.”
“I don’t drink during the day.”
“Relax, it’s a Cinderella”
After a short pause, “Are you calling me poor!?”
“How’d you get that idea!? It was meant to be a compliment, Cinderella is very beautiful but deals with a terrible home life.”
“Uh,huh…” Alex sips from the cocktail. After the drink, Alex picks up Allen and heads to her room to drop off Allen. When that’s done, she heads back down to find Damian, but runs into him, still in his waiter outfit, at the elevator. “Hey there,” says a surprised Alex.
“Hey,” replied Damian as he stepped out of the elevator, “So… are you just leaving or did you come back to get something?”
“Neither, I came back to drop of Allen,” The drunk bastard… “Can you believe it? A cat getting drunk this early in the day? Unbelievable.”
“Yeah… Unbelievable…” Damian said while avoiding eye contact.
“Do you know something I don’t?”
“No… not at all”
“Hmm… fine I won’t prod any further,” Alex pauses, “What’s the suit for?”
“Oh, it’s for work, my shift just ended though.”
“At the restaurant with the bar?”
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“I was just there. I guess we passed each other.”
“I tend to stay away from the bar. I’m weak with alcohol. Besides, I heard the bartender there was bi.”
“That explains a lot...”
“So you met her… So, are you free later? I wanted to try the virtual reality chamber, but most of the people in my contacts are busy.”
“Oh, sure~”
“Great, I’ll meet you there in a bit, gotta get out of this suit.”