Marisa

[Escoryon]

A low murmur of voices and the quiet sound of silverware chiming against porcelain filled the restaurant.  The eternal backdrop of stars occasionally blinked out as a slowly tumbling asteroid drifted past the massive glasteel windows that lined the observation deck.  The people who lived and dined on this station represented a level of opulence that was shocking to Marisa.

As she watched her dining partner for the evening, an older Solitus, carefully select a tiny fork from the dizzying array of utensils laid out at the table, she felt a sinking feeling of despair.  Her evening dress, so expensive to her and so carefully selected for the occasion, had already betrayed her.  The maitre'd had taken one look at Marisa and refused to believe that she could afford a table here.  Only timely intervention by her late arriving partner, Mr. Aurelius, (a potential buyer!) kept her in the restaurant.  His suit looked like it could pay for a month's worth of her overhead costs all by itself.  She didn't even want to guess at how many of her employees' salaries his classically-geared watch could pay for. 

"What am I doing here," she thought, tapping her fingers on the underside of the table, looking for an outlet for her nerves.  Her companion looked up at her and smiled, offering a dry joke on the expense of the caviar.  His face was handsome, but the smile accentuated the lines where it was worn down with age and care. Everything about him spoke of class, elegance, and an easy acquaintance with power.  Even so...something felt off about him...some subtle intuition that made her think this man was much, much more dangerous than the bankers down at Newland Savings and Loan.  As she watched his smile fade away, she realized what it was.  His expressions never reached his eyes.  Through all his smiles and grins, laughs and grimaces, in the 30 minutes she had known him, his eyes had stayed hard and sharp and unfriendly as knives.

A little fear suddenly joined her anxiety in the pit of her stomach as Marisa, no stranger to rough characters in her line of work, quietly wondered just what it was that she had unwittingly stepped into.

[Escoryon]

The waiter was clearing the table when Mr. Aurelius pulled out a pair of cigars from inside his suit jacket.

"Would you care to join me?" he asked, holding one of the gold-wrapped parejos out towards her.

Marisa stammered out a response. "N..no, Mr. Aurelius, thank you, but I don't smoke."

He leaned back in his chair and sighed as he put one of the cigars away. "'S a pity, Ms. Marrosit...a pleasantly civilized vice, smoking."

Marisa raised a delicately designed eyebrow as she heard that. Not at the rationalization for his habit, she had heard worse, but at the raw edge of a carefully controlled accent in his words. Underneath his urbane way of speaking, she could hear something...familiar sounding, like listening to her tractor-rig operators in the break room.

He must have noticed the expression, because he stopped, with the tip of the cigar perched between the blades of a cutter.

"If you don't smoke, then neither will I," he said.

He paused for just a moment before starting again.

"Marisa...I invited you to dine with me tonight, because I would like to offer you a business proposal. I have 50 million credits which are...not usefully employed right now, and I plan to invest them in Trans-Ka Shipping."

Marisa's breath caught in her chest. The suit and tie bastards down at Savings and Loan were raking her over the coals for 5 million and here comes this stranger, offering 10 times that! She could buy new rigs...hire back the employees she'd had to let go...she could...

She stopped herself and looked him in the eyes. Shark's eyes, she thought.

"I...I'm interested to hear this...but why? Why so much? If you, if you've, you've looked at our public records, 50 million, that's over 6 months of revenue..." she said, trailing off into silence as she watched him.

Aurelius smiled again, the corners of his mouth rising, in an expression that died somewhere around his cheekbones.

"I would be an anonymous partner, Marisa. It's important to me that my rivals remain unaware of my investments. As a businesswoman yourself, I imagine you can appreciate the importance I place on...discretion."

He leaned back and set his hands on the table, idly drumming his fingers as he spoke.

"In exchange for the support of my capital, I will expect two things. First, a steady rate of profit. Second...there will be times when I require one or more of your vehicles and drivers for my own use. This is not to be questioned, under any circumstances."

She was starting to see the teeth of the trap as it closed down on her and her company. This offer was her best, maybe her only chance to save her pride and her worker's livelihoods, but no legitimate company had these kinds of requests. She pushed back from the table suddenly, grinding loudly against the floor of the restaurant. People at other tables looked at her, curious, and she felt heat rising on her cheeks.

"I can't...I can't accept these terms, Mr. Aurelius."

She took her napkin, some silk work of art that probably cost more than her heels and balled it up reflexively, clenching her fists before dropping it on the table. She took a breath to steady her nerves.

"It was a very nice dinner, thank you, but I can't be a part of what you're offering. I have to go...now...bye."

Mr. Aurelius continued in a hushed tone, just as she turned to go.

"I can offer you 24 hours to think this over, Marisa. During that time, you may consider yourself under my protection from your competitors. After that...well, the market will take its course."

He held his hands out in an almost apologetic gesture as he spoke, but his tone made her feel like the trap had already slammed shut around her, before she had even heard of this...Mr. Aurelius.

He went on, just barely above a whisper. She couldn't stop herself from leaning into hear.

"Marisa...I would pay attention to the news wires very carefully before you make any final decisions about turning down this opportunity. You may find an old rival weaker tomorrow than they are today."

He smiled, and she fled the restaurant, trying to keep her poise as she fast-walked back to the shuttle bays, far away from this spider's den in the stars.