It was an absurdly easy process. Far easier than Scratch had ever thought it would be. Literally all she said was “did you know there’s a permanent Bonasecci exhibit at the Birds of Paradise casino?” and Mrs. Vandersnoot immediately suggested a gala. Before Scratch had even planted the next seeds. To the point where a phone call was made, and their departure schedule was pushed back three days, which was probably definitely nothing to do with the fact that all of the superyachts were currently undergoing “routine” maintenance, and all the Friends of the Sea volunteers had mysteriously gone to ground. Just a coincidence.
Mrs. Vandersnoot fucking loved galas. In the three weeks or so that Scratch had known her, this was her second one. The first had been the night before the runabout set sail, and had been in aid of a cause that Scratch had, in all honesty, completely forgotten. Might have been the endangered bees on Trinmion, but it was so hard to remember.
Scratch felt a little bad for using a woman that had been nothing but kind to her, and in a few cases, overly generous. But, if everything went according to plan, then no-one would even notice that the painting had been stolen, and even if they did, they certainly wouldn’t expect the family that could outright buy a dozen Bonaseccis without even thinking about it, or indeed, any of the other filthy rich people in this city.
There was a small part of Scratch that was a little disappointed about this, because half the fun of stealing was seeing it in the news for three weeks after the fact. Maybe, in a few months when she didn’t have to worry about her job anymore, she could try for something a little bigger. Or they could, seeing as she now apparently had a partner. Though, whether that partner would fuck her over like so many previous ones had was another question altogether.
It was always so hard to tell. If they did, though, well, that was life. No hard feelings, etcetera, etcetera. Scratch was sure that she had fucked over no small number of people in her life, and she didn’t waste time trying to feel guilty about it.
Truth told, Scratch’s eyes had gotten a little bigger than her brain. She’d halfway planned out which of her clothes she was going to wear, and all the fancy canapes that she might try, before realising that she was the one on snatch and grab duty. Which meant that she would barely even get to be at the gala. Mrs Vandersnoot had almost immediately decided that the event was going to be a masquerade ball, and then got on the phone to her on-call events planner, and told them.
If Scratch had been told that she had to cater a party for an unknown number of people in a fancy casino with a single day’s notice, she would have just about gone postal. Well, okay, maybe that was an exaggeration. She wasn’t exactly one for conflict. She would have smiled and nodded in the moment, and then snuck out the back door in the middle of the night, never to be seen again. That was the great thing about being a drifter, when things got boring or difficult, it was easy to leave. Fortunately, when she learned that in addition to the casino, the Bird of Paradise also had excellent restaurants, Mrs. Vandersnoot decided that she only needed Scratch’s help for the menu planning.
Somehow, “only for the menu planning” turned into “making sure the restaurant has all the right ingredients” and “coordinating with my events planner to make sure that everything is on theme” and “liaise with the head chef to make sure they know what they’re doing,” and Scratch knew exactly which one of these she was least looking forward to. She had interacted with Mrs. Vandersnoot’s events coordinator a grand total of once, and that had been more than enough.
He was a portly man, a little younger than Scratch, even, but holding himself with a countenance of someone that was trying desperately for people to think that he was older. His hair (curled and receding) was a strawberry-blonde colour that seemed strangely out of place.
‘This is Carbrey,’ Damaris said, introducing the man as though he was here to fix the plumbing, rather than to help plan for one of the most anticipated events of the season, and as though Scratch had not already met him before. Scratch assumed that the gala was highly anticipated, at least, she did not keep up to date with the “rich socialite” rumour mill. It worked better for their plan if it was highly anticipated. Maybe they had enough time to get the word out to ensure that it was highly anticipated.
‘Being a masquerade, the theme of the evening, is of course, mystery,’ Carbrey told her, like she was a child. ‘So, if you can handle it, the menus should incorporate some of those elements.’
Some of what elements? Scratch wanted to ask. There were not a whole lot of ways that you could make food mysterious. Blending it into a smoothie was one way…baking it into a pie with a lid was another way, but Scratch had been to far too many events where people had gone into anaphylaxis to think that “mysterious” food was even close to a good idea.
‘Will the decor also be mysterious?’ Scratch asked. ‘You know, so I can make sure it matches?’
Carbrey beamed, like he was watching his child take their first steps. ‘Well, it looks like they’ve got at least someone with brains here.’ Scratch tried not to look at Damaris’s expression, but then temptation got the better of her. That perfect jawline gave an apoplectic pulse. Scratch couldn’t help but grin a little, even though Carbrey was the kind of guy that annoyed her just on principle.
Carbrey then went on a ten minute or so spiel of the plans for the evening, from the colour of the curtains (dark red, flowing, sensual and mysterious), all the way down to the colour of the serviettes (black, folded moodily). Against all odds, it did give her some direction to go in; apparently collaboration was actually helpful, and not some dark, ominous things that she had just avoided her whole life for no reason.
The main problem was, “dark mysterious foods” were not something that had been taken into consideration when stocking the restaurant larders, and Scratch did not want to give them too impossible of a task. There were a great many interesting fruits from the deepest jungles of Favin moon, but they would not have been appropriate for a tropical breakfast, least of all because they had to be very carefully prepared to mitigate the risk of poisoning the entire guest list. Would have put a damper on the whole situation.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
But, she couldn’t exactly put a rush order on ten thousand stilbits worth of fruit for a party…Scratch paused. Could she put a rush order on ten thousand stilbits worth of fruit for a party? It wouldn’t even be close to the most expensive thing that she had requisitioned, partly for the fun of it, partly to see if Damaris, and by extension Mr. Vandersnoot would sign off on it, but mostly because she had always wanted to cook with obscure, expensive ingredients like Abernathy Abalone, and Tarvin Foie Gras. Rare fruit, especially for a theme party, she could probably get approved in a second. She still had a little positive clout from the pineapple debacle.
Since she was requisitioning anyway, Scratch made her way to Lucero’s quarters. ‘Do you need anything fancy?’
‘Sorry?’
‘I’m putting in a requisition for rare fruit from the jungles of Tarnath…Since I’m getting stuff anyway, is there anything you want? Food-wise, I mean. Or, anything from Tarnath I guess.’
‘Oh.’ Lucero’s expression shifted to one of comparative disappointment. ‘I thought you were here to offer me diamonds.’
‘Where exactly would I get diamonds?’
‘Uh, I can think of ten places in this casino, just off the top of my head. In the vault, in the jewellery box of every single rich white woman here, around your girlfriend’s neck, in watchband of that ugly-as-fuck knock-off watch that the Lithium billionaire, what’s-his-name is wearing.’
‘Steven, I think,’ said Scratch, who had no clue whatsoever. She had been introduced to a dozen people so far already today, and she wasn’t sure she had remembered a single name. ‘Why would you put real diamonds on a fake watch?’
‘I dunno, diamonds for the value, brand as a status symbol? I do know that they only ever made five of the Spacewalker, and none of them are owned by that guy whose name no-one can remember.’
‘Pretty sure it is Steven,’ Scratch said, but she wasn’t that sure about it. There was a very long pause. ‘She’s not my girlfriend.’ There had been about half of a conversation with Charlotte about this matter, and Scratch was hoping that they were now on the same page about things. In order to make sure she was free to leave halfway through the gala to do a quick-change into a janitor’s jumpsuit, Scratch had managed to convince Charlotte that this was a perfect opportunity to play the field.
‘Uh huh,’ Lucero said, in what Scratch could tell was their most sceptical voice. Thankfully, the subject was changed almost immediately, though she wasn’t sure that she liked what it was changed to. ‘Do you really think it’s wise to put a bunch of unapproved stuff on a requisition order for the same party we’re using as cover to commit crimes?’
Scratch suspected that the answer they were looking for was “no,” and she could see the wisdom in that. Maybe it would be a little too suspicious. But you know, it wasn’t like she was putting grappling hooks and lockpicks on the requisition order. ‘Fine. I will order just the fruit then.’
Lucero rolled their eyes, and Scratch didn’t need to ask why. As though she wasn’t allowed to have hobbies. ‘Don’t forget that we have a plan, Scratch. Don’t get distracted by all the glitz and glamour.’
I won’t, Scratch wanted to say, but she knew that it was a lie. She absolutely would get distracted. That was inevitable. But she knew she could mitigate the distraction. Probably. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t let it ruin the night,’ she said.
‘If you falter, and I blow my perfect cover as the jilted ex-lover of famed galactic explorer Nova Steele, I will be incredibly disappointed.’ Lucero said this triumphantly, as if it was supposed to impress Scratch. Unfortunately…
‘Nova who?’
The look on Lucero’s face was not too far off from some of Damaris’s more memorable ones, and Scratch was certain that if she had not been a necessity for the plan, then Lucero might have killed her right then and there.
‘Nova Steele? You’ve seriously never heard of Nova Steele?’
‘Uh,’ Scratch said. She wasn’t sure if there was any possible answer other than “no, of course I’ve heard of Nova Steele” that could have gotten her out of this situation. ‘I don’t really keep up with pop culture trends.’ None of it made sense to her. Once, she’d gotten arrested because some kid had been filming a video doing some stupid dance, and there had been a single frame in the background showing her making off with a crystal vase.
‘She’s made first planetfall on like fifteen different worlds, and she has three different Guiness Galactic Records for the fastest ascent of a mountain. She’s written fifteen books about all her madcap space adventures. They made six movies, how have you never heard of her?’ Scratch could have sworn that the tone of Lucero’s voice was hero-worship, the closest Scratch had ever seen to anything that wasn’t disdain or put-on aloofness.
Scratch shrugged. She was pretty sure it was a rhetorical question, which was good, because she still didn’t have an answer for it. A very quick, under-the-table net search showed that Lucero was not even close to exaggerating. In fact, if anything, they had downplayed the situation. The pictures showed a heavyset woman in her late forties with a grizzled expression, and an eyepatch that apparently had come from fighting space pirates on the Havaltar Penal Colony, where she had gone on to liberate the entire asteroid. Every photo from some fancy event showed Nova with a different person on her arm, so Lucero’s planned cover of a jilted ex-lover was perhaps not too far off the mark.
‘What if she's at the party?’ Scratch asked. She had seen it happen before, people using some prominent person as part of their backstory, and that person coming along to ruin the day without even realising that they were doing it.
‘Well, then we're fucked,’ Lucero said, cheerfully. ‘But really, what are the chances of that happening?’
Scratch considered it. Low, but not impossible. From the pictures and the stories, Nova Steele didn’t seem the sort to be in Lightport, let alone at some fundraiser gala at an art gallery. She might have snorkelled with the endangered turtles, or climbed the single mountain (hill), but the only reason she would have been at an art gallery inside a casino was if the casino was in a volcano at the bottom of the ocean that she had to scuba dive to get to. There had been a casino like that once, and it had ended exactly the way that everyone expected it to.
‘Who do you think will be there?’ Scratch asked. It was a fair question, she thought. For example, if there were a bunch of people from the Bureau of Galactic Investigations, then they’d have to be a little more careful about committing crimes in front of people that could arrest them. BGI did not fuck around.
‘Oh, you know. Rich people. Your pal Mr. V has got a bunch of ex-colleagues that are in the arms manufacturing business, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they showed up, and when the arms guys show up, you get all sorts. Maybe some mercs or some spies. Definitely BGI.’
Well, shit. ‘You’re not worried about that?’
‘Why should I be? All they’re gonna care about is being able to get one of the other assholes on some Al Capone tax thing. They won’t give a shit about what’s going on two floors below.’ Scratch had no idea who Al Capone was, either. Some other explorer, probably. She wasn’t exactly sure about Lucero’s lack of fear about BGI, either.
‘What about Galastar?’
Lucero froze. They apparently had not considered that. It was bad enough that Herut Benedictus was going to be on the yacht, Scratch would have vastly preferred not to put herself in a position where she was inviting herself to get caught. They seemed to recover quickly. ‘Again,’ they said. ‘I don’t think anyone here is going to care about Galastar?’
‘You don’t think that people coming to a show at this art gallery might be concerned about recent instances of art crime?’
‘Of course not, you worry way too much.’ Lucero waved a hand. ‘The guy you stole that painting from isn’t going to want BGI involved, because they won’t let him torture and kill you. Let’s focus on the important things here, like what we’re going to wear.’
Scratch was not proud of how quickly she was distracted from that minor flaw in the plan.
She did want to talk about what she was going to wear, and she wasn’t going to let the prospect of being tortured and murdered stop herself from thinking about it.