Chapter 23 #2
She checked her social feeds again. Hawk grinned at her from the latest GreenField post, their nearly constructed booth in the background.
Their graphic design was better than hers, probably because Gisele had only been available to help with Brad’s presentation and their shell-shocked freelancer had not been able to keep up with Brad’s endless changes.
Not that Morgan herself could keep up. She’d have suspected of Brad keeping her running with too little sleep to prevent her from thinking of an effective plan to stop his scheme, but she was pretty sure he really was just that indecisive. She closed the app angrily.
Her phone buzzed anyway, reminding her that she’d never canceled the meeting with Carter to finalize the demo.
She had no idea how they were going to do a demo of a juicer that didn’t exist. Although if the juicer didn’t exist, then at least the demo would fail and the world might be safe from Brad’s shenanigans. Where was Carter, anyway?
She followed the scent of vinegar into the kitchen.
Carter and Luke stood next to the communal table along with a guy wearing a faded They Might Be Giants t-shirt who she had never met before.
The stranger’s hands were ombre gray, darkened toward the fingertips with blackened cuticles, as if oil had worked its way so thoroughly into the lines in his skin that it could never be soaked free.
The table was covered in oddly-shaped arcs of plastic and a handful of tiny metal gears and springs.
Carter compulsively sprayed down each piece with his little spritz bottle of vinegar.
Her eyes slid to the counter to confirm her suspicions. The pieces on the table were the disassembled corpse of the Keurig machine.
“Won’t the Keurig people notice we used their parts?” she said. Would that be so bad? Maybe a patent suit would slow Brad down.
“Not when I’m done with it,” the stranger said. “I’ve got a 3D printer working on a new casing, should be done tonight.”
“Where did you find him?” She debated asking for an intro and decided she didn’t want to know.
“Fiverr,” Carter said, continuing to spritz.
She thought about the chances of finding a mechanical engineer on Fiverr who happened to be able to reassemble a Keurig into an unrecognizable kale juicer. She raised her eyebrows at Luke. He shrugged helplessly. Of course Brad had asked him.
“Will it actually work?” she asked, gently poking a spring with her finger.
“Well enough for a demo,” Luke said. He winced, able to tell how much she wanted the answer to be “no.” Maybe they could sabotage it? But then, Brad would simply wish it fixed, just like the Ravenfell presentation.
“As long as no one tries to double-load it,” the engineer cautioned in a tone that suggested he’d said this several times already.
“What happens if you double-load it?” Morgan asked.
“I mean, in a production model, we’ll build in some safeguards,” the guy responded, continuing to fiddle with a piece of plastic.
Not that mechanical safeguards were anything compared to demonic ones.
“But for what I’m going to have to do to make this look convincing, if you don’t make sure you manually clear the old packet, it’s going to get jammed. ”
“And then what?”
“I dunno, explode or something. I put a lot of tension on the spring, it’ll be messy. So don’t jam it. Make sure you don’t let any non-employees touch it.”
“How is the rest going?” Carter asked.
“The rest?” she said blankly.
“The software part,” he answered. “Brad’s been really insistent that the software part needs to also be ready.”
“What software part? It’s a juicer,” she said. But she already had a sinking feeling she knew the answer.
“He wants to run through the subscription mockup,” Carter said, shrugging.
He clearly thought it was stupid. Poor guy: without context, it must be completely incomprehensible.
There had been a time when he’d been an important part of the leadership team; now he was acting like an assistant to the intern.
“I had Vijay build out the backend of the terms and conditions page this morning.”
Did Brad truly intend to capture a fraction of a soul on the show floor? He must. Was it to impress Ravenfell? Bel’aliol? Just to stick it to House Valefar? Her head hurt.
“OK,” she said. Their web design guy would have to turn around a mockup and string it together to look like it worked.
It would work. That was the joy of demon-driven luck.
She was on a train she couldn’t jump off.
She’d call the designer. After she found out what happened to the napkin order with the custom company logo, which was supposed to have arrived at the office by eleven, and still hadn’t shown up.
“I know you’re busy, but something else has come up,” Luke murmured, glancing at the mechanical engineer who had likely had something better to do with his time two days ago and now was dripping epoxy on the table. The table had seen worse.
Her stomach plummeted.
“The booth babes that Ronaldo ordered fell through,” he said in an undertone as they started toward the back phone room. Apparently, privacy would be necessary.
“Great, so maybe we can ditch the entire idea,” she said. Was that all? That wasn’t so bad.
“But Ronaldo told Brad,” he continued. “And Brad wants them.”
She groaned.
“It’s OK, I handled it,” Luke was quick to assure her.
She nearly groaned again. She didn’t want him to handle it.
She wished he’d stop handling things. But that was his purpose in being on this plane and unless they found some way to protect him from Bel’aliol, he didn’t have a lot of choice.
He continued, “I called in a few favors.”
“People owe you favors?” The door shut behind them.
“People owe Bel’aliol favors,” he said, looking uncomfortable.
“So now you owe Bel’aliol favors,” she pointed out, her heart sinking.
“It’s for a client, it’s not the same,” he said. He didn’t sound confident.
“What kind of favor?” she said, trying to relent.
“… Succubi?” he said.
“You have succubi coming to be booth babes,” she said flatly. “In the Javits Center.”
“They’re very enthusiastic,” he said, holding his hands up. “They don’t usually get to sell things. They liked the outfits Hayley picked out.”
Better Hayley than Ronaldo; most of the tech conferences had banned the super-revealing stuff years ago. “How are they even allowed on this plane?”
“They’ve got their own rules,” Luke said. “They can’t make Deals but they can collect life energy by… you know. Humans seem a lot more willing to break their circles. I guess they don’t do enough long-term damage for people to think it’s not worth the price.”
“Are they going to seduce any reporters?”
“Probably not?” He looked as flustered as she felt.
“Make sure they don’t try to seduce Stavrula,” she sighed. She could fix everything but the real problem.
He gave her an uneven smile. She stepped into his arms and they held each other for a moment. His back was ramrod straight.
She pulled back. “There’s something else, isn’t there.”
He nodded and twitched in the way that meant his tail was lashing. “I bought us a few minutes, but now we’re out of time. Bel’aliol wants to see us.”
“Can this just be a wrist-mail? We’re really busy,” she said, perfectly aware how stupid that sounded.
He gave her the look she deserved.
“But all the chicken hearts are back at the apartment!”
“Not a call. He wants to see us in person. Now.”