I worked on my lessons until a little after five o'clock. I'd spent the last three hours being a good student. Mostly. I might've snuck in a video or six between subjects. Mom hadn't noticed, or if she did, she hadn't said anything. I'd completed my schoolwork for the day, and that was all that mattered.

Business at The Radiated Roach was picking up quickly. Tables became scarce as mugs of ale and pitchers of beer left the bar. Plates of food were coming out of the kitchen almost as often. The swinging door behind me was in constant motion as servers and busboys crossed paths.

Nearer to the door, the take-out line was growing too. Some patrons had been forced into it by a lack of seating while others were following their nightly routine. A pair of employees, dressed in red tavern t-shirts, took orders and retrieved plastic boxes from a small chute connected to the kitchen. The line moved steadily as patrons got their food and left to consume it elsewhere.

Liv came in around half past five. I waved at her and she waved back. She looked away quickly, her face taking on a look of concentration as she approached the front of the line. My best friend was grabbing her father's nightly order - probably with a ridiculous list of additions - and I knew she couldn't stop to talk. He was very particular about his meals being punctual. And having his order exactly the way he wanted. The tavern staff knew her too and had most of the order ready for her before she reached the register. They added a few extra items to the bag as she rattled them off, and then passed it to her. Liv hurried out the door, not even glancing back at me.

I went back to people-watching.

The dinner crowd flowed in and out, like a steady set of waves on a beach. (Not that I'd ever seen a beach in person, but the videos made it something I wanted to experience for myself. Such a large amount of water existing in one place felt like a fantasy.) Tables turned over and servers greeted the new diners without delay. Besides my mom, six others were moving around the room. On one trip out from the kitchen, my mom set a large, steaming plate in front of me and winked. She was gone just as quickly, delivering dishes to hungry diners.

I reached across the table for my roll of utensils as I looked down at my plate. The round gray dish itself was free from any form of decoration. On it were three piles of food and four tiny tomatoes set to the side. Mom must've grabbed them from the fridge as a treat. I recognized two piles of the food immediately - one was bright yellow stewed summer squash, and the other was green beans. I wasn't a big fan of green beans, but I'd take them over an unidentifiable vegetable any day.

The last remaining pile was a little harder to identify. There were three thin slices of something grayish brown, with small flecks of red and green. The skewed stack was covered in a thick brown sauce with the slightest tinge of red. Cautiously. I stabbed the top slice with my fork. It went right through with little resistance. I lifted my fork to eye level and the entire piece followed without too much trouble. I wiggled my fork, and the mystery slice wiggled too. Most of the sauce slid off the piece and thick drops landed on my plate as it jiggled.

It wasn't a slice of ration loaf, at least. Those never had this much flexibility, no matter how you tried to cook them. (Not that they required cooking in the first place.) I hadn't expected Ms. Martha to serve a dish with ration loaf unless times were extra hard, but I had been her test subject for experimental dishes before. Usually, she brought them to me herself so she could watch my reaction. It was a safe bet that this was a tried-and-true recipe. But there was always a chance...

I lightly sniffed the strange cutlet. It smelled like meat, but I couldn't tell from which animal. I carefully nibbled on a corner. Part of it was strange, but there was something I'd tasted before underneath. The entree was much tastier than I'd expected. I lifted my fork even higher until it was above my head. I leaned forward to take a full bite from the bottom edge and caught a few drops of savory sauce on my tongue. Tangy.

Naturally, Mom was returning to the kitchen at that exact moment. She stopped at the corner of my table, placed a hand on her hip, and cleared her throat.

I froze. My eyes were the only part of my body that moved as I carefully rolled them to meet my mother's gaze.

It wasn't pretty.

My teeth were firmly on both sides of the slab of ground meat but I hadn't completed the bite. I tried to smile without moving. It was just an innocent bite of mystery loaf. Eating with gusto was a compliment to the chef, right?

Mom was not impressed.

Crap. The smile hadn't worked and I was in trouble.

She lifted an eyebrow.

I finished biting through the slice, but I didn't dare chew. I returned my fork (and the rest of the slice) to my plate ever so slowly as I tilted my head back to a normal angle. I smiled again, teeth fully on display as I hid the food behind them. I put on my most innocent expression.

Mom sighed and closed her eyes for a long moment to compose her thoughts. "Manners." She reminded me, half sighing as she said it. "Use your fork and knife like a civilized person, please."

I nodded my acknowledgment and presented a knife and fork to her, raising them above my plate, one in either hand. After a final sigh, Mom continued to the kitchen. Knowing her, she was probably shaking her head as she went. She loved me.

I was glad I'd escaped a lecture. I chewed the food in my mouth and cut the other slices into bite-size pieces. Like a civilized person.

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It wasn't long before I'd cleaned my plate. Even the sauce had been mopped up. I popped the last tomato into my mouth and savored the squish of juice as I crushed it between my molars. I pushed the pre-cleaned plate to the side of the table along with my sturdy black cutlery. One of the busboys would swing by and grab it eventually. I held on to my spoon, of course. I had a feeling Ms. Martha would bring me dessert after the dinner rush settled down. Some manner of cobbler had passed me several times that night, going to those with an appetite and credits left for a sweet treat. I kept my fingers crossed that a bowl would end up in front of me soon.

Having finished my meal, I found myself scanning the room again. I was looking for anything interesting that might be happening when my attention was drawn to the front door. A group of six people - five men and a woman - dressed identically in gray coveralls and black grav boots were poking fun at one another. Very loudly. The attention of the entire restaurant was soon on the group as they headed for one of the large round barrel-style booths. It happened to be the one closest to me, which meant I'd be able to eavesdrop on their conversation and find interesting things to look up on my terminal. It was going to be a good night.

The booth they chose hadn't been bussed yet, but the group sat down anyway. Other open seats were available at clean tables, but none would allow them all to sit together.

The backs of their coveralls shared the same logo. Three black gears of increasing size lay next to a silver crescent wrench on a triangular field of blue. The field pointed upwards and was bordered by a riveted bulkhead. There weren't any words on or immediately below the logo, which meant it didn't belong to a company.

That meant it had to be a guild's emblem but I couldn't remember which guild. It wasn't one of the Big Twelve like the Titans. I knew all those by heart. I tapped at my terminal's screen and ran a search. Rows of small images appeared on my screen and I found the one that matched. The text under it identified the emblem as belonging to The Midstone Mechanics. I clicked their name to get more information.

Loud calls for cleaning from the guildsmen began almost immediately after they seated themselves.

Eric, the frazzled busboy, was a few years older than me. He hurried over. He had been making his way towards the table before, but there were smaller tables that needed to be cleared first. His partner had gone missing part way through the dinner rush and poor Eric was doing the best he could. The servers had been taking dirty plates to the dish pit for him, but he was still behind. He arrived at the barrel with a mumbled "Sorry, sorry." He didn't look up at the guildsmen, instead focusing on his job. That might have been a mistake.

The second the lanky brown-haired boy pressed the edge of his bus tray to the table, two guildsmen swept half a dozen plates (and at least as many glasses) into the tray. Eric scrambled to support the sudden increase in weight. His knees bent and he strained his lanky arms to bring the tray level with the table again. The glasses the guildsmen had so unceremoniously dumped in his bin weren't all empty, either. Liquid sloshed into his face and dripped onto his yellow shirt.

He sputtered and blinked. I saw his chest heave in a sigh. "Please, let me clear the dishes. I'll have the table ready in a jiffy." He said, in a small voice as politely as he could manage. I could just barely hear him over the ambient noise of the dining room.

A round of bawdy laughter came from the table. More glasses were swept into the tray by the guildsman on the right. Sweepy, I named him. They clinked loudly as they hit the dishes already there. It sounded like at least one of the pint glasses had broken. More half-consumed alcohol splashed over the busboy's chest. He wasn't going to be wearing that shirt to work again.

Sweepy stared directly at Eric, daring him to say something else. There weren't any more plates for him to burden the busboy with.

The boy gritted his teeth and tried to quickly clear the used napkins and remaining cutlery from the table.

The guildsman near the middle of the group spoke up then, wiping his fingers across the pools of liquid on the table and holding them up. "Hurry up and wipe the table down." He demanded. "It's filthy!"

This drew more laughter from his companions. They all clearly ignored the fact that the majority of the "filth" on the table was there because they'd been impatient.

Eric turned away from the table with his now overflowing bus tray. He motored through the dining room and pushed through the swinging doors to the dish pit using his back.

I could see his arms shaking with strain as he hurried past. He hadn't been doing manual labor long enough to develop the associated muscle tone. I didn't hear a massive crash or a yelled swear, so I assumed he'd made it to the long sink in time.

A moment later he reappeared with a damp white towel in one hand, and a fresh brown bus tray in the other. He returned to the table and wiped it with wide sweeping strokes, carefully directing any debris into his tray. He moved with the utmost urgency.

The man on the table's far side snatched the towel from Eric's hand. The same man had demanded he wipe the table in the first place. He ran it across the table without rhyme or reason, flinging scraps of food and paper toward Eric and onto the floor. Apparently, the busboy hadn't been doing it fast enough for the guildsman. "That's how it's done." The man growled. He threw the towel at Eric, hitting him right in the face.

This drew a reaction from the bar. "Oi!"

The guildsmen all snapped their heads towards the shout. Sweepy might have jumped a little.

Most of the bar had fallen silent at the call. It did not come often.

Vincent was filling a mug from a tap on the front side of the bar. "Settle down or move on." He ordered, staring directly at the table. He said it loudly but without any aggression in his tone. The calmness of his voice made even the bravest man hesitate before challenging him.

"It's the quiet ones you have to be wary of." Ms. Reba had told me, one afternoon when we'd stopped in for a light meal. She'd always maintained a bit of distance from Vincent. Polite, but never friendly.

A couple of the guildsmen raised their hands in acknowledgment of the barkeep's statement, believing the discussion concluded.

"And apologize to Eric," Vincent added. The calm slipped for a fraction of a second.

The Towel Man inhaled to begin a protest, but the Old Guy on his left smacked him in the stomach before shaking his head. He gestured towards the guild crest behind the bar.

The color seemed to drain from Towel Man's face as he identified it and registered the meaning. He looked between Vincent and the crest a few times. Realizing non-compliance would be a massive mistake, he chuckled nervously. "Sorry, man." He said to Eric. He held up his hands, signaling he didn't want any trouble.

Eric had already pulled the towel from his face and offered a weak smile. He knew the apology wasn't sincere. He wiped the table down properly and brushed his shirt off into his bus tray. Not that it did much, since the smaller crumbs and shreds of paper were stuck to the spilled beer. "Your server will be right over." Eric said, as a way of excusing himself. He offered the smallest bow before he disappeared behind the kitchen's swinging doors.

Vincent returned his attention to the drinks before him without another word.