False Start

Posted on Wed 3rd Feb, 2021 @ 9:19am by Yuliette Marayan Dr.

609 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Denouement
Location: Brown Sector: Zodiac. The Gemini Hotel

The linens stacked in the luxury suite were piled tall and plush. The bathrobe was silken, subtly printed like a watermark with the Gemini Hotel’s icon over the breast pocket and the whole things was lined and set off with a fine black trim. It had been a little prettier though, the evening prior, before Yuliette had slept in it. Now it was pressed and rumpled some with the overnight wear, but was still more attractive than any of the clothing she had to her name. Yuliette moved to the window and parted the curtains just a little to peek through. She was flummoxed momentarily by an expansive ocean view and it made her second guess everything she thought she knew about being on a space station and talking to Yarime and checking into the Hotel room… Had it all been a bad dream? Running for her life? Traveling in a hold with a batch of live spawning fish tanks? Smuggling herself into a place that rivaled an outlaw’s paradise holovid dystopia? She rubbed some sleep out of her eye and a tear with it. Maybe she was on Risa, one of the beaches on the southern continent…. Wanting to convince herself, she tried to remember how she’d come to be there but couldn’t quite. Yuliette moved to touch the glass—

— and the image warped ever so slightly. A holoframe. Of course. The depth of field and the quality of light was so convincing. She looked for a control slider in the frame and discovered it, switching to one-way glass. Now she was peering from the third floor over a dazzling hotel pool and bar, the icon of the Gemini hotel printed into the floor of the turquoise pool and gilded onto the columns of the structure. It was hard to believe this largess was built into the Brown sector, but the illusion of the holoframe was truly off and there it was. And so her reality came back into focus. Everything was just as she remembered it.

But what was keeping her from feigning her denial of the situation while she could afford it? Still gazing over the atrium below, she contemplated requesting swimwear from guest services and lounging all day in the hot spa. Oh, with a book and some warm broth— how she could just relish...

Yuliette heard a knock on her door and perked instantly as if caught at her imagined indulgence. She hadn’t told anyone she would be at the Gemini. How could there be anyone asking after her? She didn’t answer, not immediately, instead remaining frozen until any reasonable person would have continued on. At last she padded silently to her bolted door and peered through the spy hole. There was no one there—

— only a service cart. It was laid out with a white linen cloth, a napkin tented elegantly over some flatware, a glass of some purplish juice, a hot beverage carafe, a bud vase proffering an exotic bloom, a bowl with a doily over it, and a silvery plate, lidded. Of course. Room-service.

Timidly, she opened the door to the softly lit hall, being sure that there was no one ready to pounce her from either side, then inspected the cart up and down and, like a bird stealing away with its food, gathered up the offering. As soon as she had ducked back inside and eased the tray onto the sideboard, she worked the bolt closed again and leaned against the door in the near dark. Internally, she laughed at her nerve wracked self. Who in the seven heavens was paranoid of breakfast?

 

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