Chapter I
He could see from the monitor that it was a busy night at Arcadia. Lots of people with money they didn't really have to spend circulated the bar, flipping out credit cards so fast that the air smelled faintly of plastic. Interest rates were skyrocketing, and the good citizens of the financial district of Minneapolis were out to drown their sorrows by paying three times the asking price for a round of drinks and a few adult-oriented video games.
A bar graph appeared on the lower corner of the monitor. The mood of the room had moderate desperation and depression levels - nothing to result in a bar fight, but just enough to cause a little overdrinking and a little overspending. Jimmy nodded to himself. That was good - the projected good cheer of the patrons was just the right level of social mask and denial.
The monitor on the second-level door, the one that brought people in from inside Block E chirped. Someone did not read right.
Jimmy glanced upward at the monitor. Usually it was nothing, an angry wife appearing to march her husband out of the bar or a bored employee from the bookstore who had no money to spend. Unless it was something that could disrupt the mood he'd carefully cast over the bar with careful enchantment, subliminals and low-level chemicals, he had no reason for concern.
It was a woman, pretty by virtue of being young-looking, who paused on the threshold. Brown hair, brown eyes, and a skirt set that suggested life as someone's secretary. She was looking upward at the doorway, searching it for something.
This was not typical behavior. Jimmy leaned towards the monitor and clicked a few buttons.
Nothing happened.
He clicked again. A tiny little blip came on: "Non-entity in the building."
Jimmy shook his head. What the hell? He could see her. Other people could see her and were walking around her, practically whipping their wallets out in their rush to get to the gleaming bar past the pool tables against the back wall.
But this woman, who from all appearances was a trod-upon secretary for some self-important blowhard, continued to stand in the doorway looking up at it, and then looking around the room with sharp blue eyes. Perhaps she wasn't quite so downtrodden, and was one of those rare administrative assistants who wielded the real power in the relationship. Usually they came to that phase a little bit older, after all hope for promotion became thoroughly extinguished.
After a few more moments passed of observer observing observer, Jimmy suspected she cataloged and classified every person in the room. He almost radioed a bouncer, but just as he picked up the grey box, she turned on her sensible heels and walked away.
What was that about? Jimmy pushed a button to back up and save the footage of her that had just recorded. She was something new, something he'd never seen before. Jimmy literally couldn't get a read on her.
Jimmy would never have recognized her the second time if he hadn't set up an alarm flag on her image. The season had passed from late spring to early winter, and her costume changed more than that. She looked like a different class of woman, not the secretary but the sort who scared the hell out of the secretary. Clad in a long skirt and a long-sleeved velvet button down shirt, she looked like she was dressed for the kind of date where it was the date's job to impress her and not the other way around. Her dark hair was down this time, and a close up on the ends showed a recent, high quality professional cut. There was a definitive difference between the women who went to cost cutters and the women who went to John English in this city. Somehow this mysterious visitor had climbed a social class since last she cast her shadow in Jimmy's domain. You might get more money, but in Minnesota there is no social mobility. Yet this woman was showing all the hallmarks of a drastic change, and he did not notice any trace of a wedding band on her tapered fingers.
She also had four people following her in, all looking up and through the room in the same pattern that his mystery guest had on her first visit. One of them said something to her, and she shrugged, and they all forged over to a table. His guest got up and went to the bar…with cash.
Cash?
That went directly contrary to the subliminal programming. Jimmy performed a quick check. Yes, it was pumping out carefree credit card use at its strongest level.
As the woman waited for her drink, she cast a sidelong look at the camera. It was a very specific glare. Her lips moved.
Jimmy tapped a few keys to zoom in on her and to allow for sound.
"I don't use credit cards, asshole."
His eyes widened. He tapped a few more keys and zoned in on her. Usually he avoided target practice: he agreed with management it was more sporting to alter the general mood and energy of a room rather than to zone in on the specifically resistant. As long as Arcadia hit its profit goal, there was no problem - and no reason for anyone to investigate into the company's inner workings.
This was one occasion where he felt glad his job had virtually no oversight. Because what he did could only be described as "lock and load."
He saw her hands slide slowly along her thigh, down the outside of that long skirt, and then saw her hands pull up the hem of the skirt to reveal an ankle boot. She reached in and pulled out a plastic card. Yes, she did have a credit card - or at least a debit card. He typed in one message after another about how nice a drink would be, that she was here to forget her troubles, and so on.
The bartender, a petite dirty blonde with a swinging ponytail and tight black shorts, attempted to reach out and pluck it from the woman's hand while asking about her order. Jimmy had seen this maneuver work dozens of times when he zeroed in on a particularly resistant customer. In this case, the larger woman put her hand over the bartender's and yanked a little, forcing her fingers to overshoot card. "Do you have some scissors behind the bar there?" she asked.
The bartender, surprised, mutely handed her the scissors with her other hand, at which point the woman let her go. The woman turned on the stool to fully face the camera, and held up the card so that the silver hologram glittered in the ambient light of the bar. With a shit eating grin she snipped the card into a dozen tiny strips that fell to the floor, set the scissors down on the bar and lifted both hands to the camera in a two-fingered salute.
She then said something to her friends and stalked out of the bar, pausing momentarily at the doorway, her hand resting on the edge of the frame while she fuddled with a boot. As Jimmy watched her walk on into the semi-suburban mall, he heard a hiss and an electrical "bzzt!" Then every screen in the room went blank.
Jimmy sat back in his chair. Son of a bitch. It looked like he actually needed to meet a customer.