Novels2Search
A Meal at the End of a World
Chapter 1: Space Bar

Chapter 1: Space Bar

“So, what’ll it be today, Sam?” Emily asked me.

“The usual,” I replied as I sat down at the bar stool.

“A Violet Beer; got it,” Emily replied as she got a glass from below the bar top, “James coming today?”

“He hasn’t said otherwise, so I assume so.”

Today, like every other day, I found myself at the Violet Space Bar for my usual afterwork beer. The bartender, a close friend of mine named Emily, always served me the same drinks in the same dark corner of the bar with the same bored expression and the same glowing purple hair.

What can I say though? The beer is good and Emily is one of my closest friends other than James.

Please note that I, the narrator, have never had any alcohol, let alone beer and I am therefore extremely glad that Sam will be describing it for me.

Shut up you.

“Hey, you two, how are things?” James suddenly said making Emily drop a glass, “I’ll have a coffee.”

“This is a bar James, not a café,” Emily said while sliding a cup of coffee in James’ direction, “So here’s a cup of beer extracted from a coffee plant. I call it coffee.”

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“Alright then?” James laughed. James was a large man who was more computer than human. In fact, the only parts of him that were still human were his brain and the great amount of muscles that made up his arms, “Anyway, I’m glad you’re here Sam, me and Smith were fighting this ugly guy who called himself ‘CAPTCHA’. Quite tacky, but it seemed we couldn’t get near him without an actual CAPTCHA appearing on our AR goggles, know any solution?”

“Ah that, he’s just an idiot. That virus is really easy to cause. Heck, it’s technically not a virus,” I said before taking a sip of my Violet flavoured beer, “Okay, the best solution is to fight him again and log the IP that causes the CAPTCHAs to appear, I can then program your firewall to block them.”

“What did I tell you Emily, master of computers right here!” James said with a hearty laugh.

“Just because I passed a computer science course does not mean I know what I’m doing,” I sighed, “Heck, it feels like the more you know, the more you realise how little you know.”

“Bah, c’mon Sam, you’re just being pedantic,” Emily said, “Anyway, I’ve got a break coming up in a few minutes and I thought you guys might be interested in some leftovers…”

“Holy hell Emily, you’re truly the best,” James said after slamming the table with his nightmare of weapon that used to be known as his right hand.

“Oh, got some people calling for me,” Emily said disinterestedly as she walked away down the bar.

“So how was your work today?” James asked.

“We still know nothing about decryption and we still have no idea how management expects us to program a decryptor within two weeks,” I said with a laugh.

“Lucky for you, I looked for some other programming jobs for you like I said,” he said before pausing to take the last gulp of his coffee, “I think what I found might be a million times better than Marstech. Only problem is it isn’t close to this bar.”

“Eh, doesn’t matter. I’ve got a fast ship and I don’t mind going home later than normal, so go on tell me about it.”

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