Chapter Fifty-One - Live Laugh Lobsters

"Some traditions, rooted in various cultural hang-ups that we find distasteful, still survive to this day.

A large part of that can be attributed to the prevalence of those traditional actions in the media we consume and the history and stories of our previous generations."

--Excerpt from 'The Ongoing Tradition' 2035

***

Lucy gasped. "Cat!" she said before leaning forwards and spinning the booklet she was holding around.

The restaurant was a pretty fancy place. It was set a floor above the zoo, along one of the walls. There were big glass panels between us and the zoo itself, angled so that the seats closest to the wall could look down into the jungle-y gardens below, or up and through the large dome just above.

The place was nice. With actual flesh-and-blood waitresses coming to the tables and paper menus to order from, like in an old-timey movie. The prices were not so old-timey, unfortunately. Not that I really minded too much.

"What is it?" I asked as I squinted at the menu. Lucy was too excited to hold it level, so the words were bouncing around and hard to read. The pictures helped a little. "Is it the seafood dish?"

"There's lobster," she said. "It says it's real lobster too."

"Yeah, I guess," I said. "Can't be that hard to grow some of those in captivity, right?"

There was no way it was actually fished. If the weather over land was wild most of the time, then I couldn't imagine how nasty it was over the ocean. And the ocean housed a lot of nasty alien bastards too. There was a constant move to cull them, but they'd come up to nibble on a fishing ship, I was sure.

Besides, I was pretty sure that wild lobster was extinct.

"This is rich people food," Lucy said.

At rich people prices too. "Order some," I said. "There's two claws, right? We can share one. Or is it the tail?"

Lucy turned the menu around. "I don't know. The picture is just a red thing. Oh, and it comes with brussel sprouts and a sauce and a salad!"

I grinned. It was impossible not to when Lucy was this excited over food. For my part, I stuck to something that looked a little more down to earth. They didn't have what I'd usually order at a restaurant, but that was probably for the best. Chicken nuggets and burgers didn't seem very fancy. So I stuck to the pasta section and hoped that I didn't make too much of a mess of my face while eating.

Our waitress came over. A twenty-something girl with a few piercings that clashed with her uniform. She took our orders and was very patient when Lucy asked about how to eat lobster.

"You do need to crack the shell. We serve the meal with some special cutlery to help."

"Oh," Lucy said. "That's cool! Cat, you're stronger than me, can you help if it's too hard?"

"Uh, sure," I said.

The waitress smiled, then left, and I found myself reaching a hand to the middle of the table. Lucy did the same, and our fingers entwined next to a very unnecessary scentless candle. "This is nice," Lucy said.

"It's better than some of the dining experiences I've had lately," I said.

Lucy nodded, then paused. "Have you eaten during an incursion? I mean, when you're out murdering things?"

"Huh, uh, yeah, once or twice? I mean, Myalis will let me order food. Snack bars and stuff to drink. Gomorrah actually has a mini-fridge in her car, so whenever I ride it around I make a point of stealing a drink."

"No!" Lucy said with a grin. "That's awful."

"Eh, she probably orders them by the dozen. Besides, they're tasty."

"Steal me one next time," Lucy said, and I laughed at the switch from condemning it to wanting to be in on the theft. "I wanna taste it!"

"I will," I promised. "You know. You could probably steal one yourself. Gom and Franny are basically neighbours now."

"That's super weird," Lucy said.

"The nuns living nearby?" I asked.

"Having neighbours. I mean, we've always had them, I guess. But usually it's... I don't know. People that we'll never meet or interact with, I guess. It's strange knowing that there's someone you know living two floors down. Makes it like the whole building might be full of people that it wouldn't suck to meet."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Wasn't that always the case?" I asked. The orphanage was on the lower floors of a pretty old mega building, one of those early ones that went up in the thirties or so. "We never lived in a place that didn't have others in the same building."

"This is different," Lucy said.

"How?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I don't know. But it feels different, so it's gotta be. Are you going to be inviting more samurai friends to live on the other floors?"

"Are they all empty? As far as I can tell there's still stuff going on in the lower floors, I think." One of the lower floors had those bridges connecting to the other buildings around ours, so there was definitely still foot traffic crossing through every day.

"Meh, if you ask nicely, businesses will scamper away. It would be cool to have a whole building that's nothing but samurai. Oh! I could become a... what do you call those people that specifically take care of one place?"

"A custodian?"

"No, no... a butler!"

I laughed. "You want to be a butler?"

"You don't like the idea?" Lucy asked with a pout.

"Well, you would look cute in a suit," I said. An all-black suit, with a white undershirt and... "Oh, maybe a little moustache? And you'd have to speak in a posh British accent."

Lucy chuckled. "I don't think anyone wants to see me with a moustache. Maybe a goatee?"

"Oh no," I said. "At that point, why not a full beard?"

"Have you seen what my hair is like? I don't think I could have a beard that tangly."

"Is this one of those 'would you love me if I were a worm' things, but it's about facial hair?" I asked.

Lucy cackled, leaning back so far that her hand almost let go of mine as she laughed. "No, sorry, it's not that. Uh, I don't know how we got onto the subject."

"It's okay," I said. "Looks like the food's coming."

The waitress came around with a tray, this one covered with our drinks and entrees. We'd both ordered something a little alcoholic. I went for something simple, Lucy went for the cocktail with the fanciest name and which looked prettiest in its picture. It came in a weird cup with several umbrellas and slices from six different fruit.

We, of course, sipped from each other's drinks. Hers, for all of its overly fancy presentation, did taste a little better.

I wasn't even sure what brandy was before I ordered it, but it sounded cool and I only had to work a little not to make a face as I sipped at it.

"Have you gotten any news from... what's her name?" Lucy asked.

"You'll have to be a bit more detailed than that," I said.

"Short, lasers, you said she had clones all over?"

"Oh. Deus Ex? No, I haven't heard back in a while. I don't know if I can hear back. It's not like there's internet between here and Mars. Why did you want to know?"

"Mild concern about the bigger picture stuff," Lucy said. "It's all way, way out of my control, but I'd rather see shit coming than not."

"Yeah, that's fair, I guess," I said.

The main course arrived just as we were finishing off our entrees, but I kept the conversation going throughout. "So, no news from here. Honestly, no news from the Martian front at all. I don't know if that's a bad thing or not."

"I think it's probably good," Lucy said. "Wouldn't the Family let you know to prepare if things were going really bad?"

"I hope so, yeah," I said. "Or things are going so bad that they won't tell us anything because that'll just make the last few days we have left all the more depressing."

"Hmm, so nothing new there," Lucy agreed.

"Nothing new," I repeated.

Lucy did end up having trouble with her lobster. Or maybe she just wanted to let me feel good by cracking it open for her. I, of course, stole a bite. It was... alright. Not as good as a fresh vat-meat burger, but alright.

"You know, if we're all going to die horrible deaths, then at least we'll get to die together," Lucy said.

"Hmm... yeah, I'd like that. There's no one I'd rather die with."

"Love you too," Lucy said. She waited for me to be halfway through a sip before asking her next question. "So, when are you going to propose?"

I, of course, gasped in a mouthful of brandy and proceeded to almost die.

***