“Wecan. Phantom just doesn’t offer it until you’ve been here long enough to get a feel for things. If you want to go out on the floor, just send them a request and they’ll make it happen.”
Maybe I will…
We finish our breakfast talking about the two completely different sides of the country we live on and make very loose plans to get together someday on Earth. I’ve never been to the redwoods and she’s never set foot in New York, let alone Brooklyn.
Kicker follows behind us at a decent distance and we wander back to the hotel. I don’t know what time checkout is, but I need to gather my small bag of things and head down to the locker room.
There’s plenty of time before my appointment, but I need to figure out what rules change in the ring-view rooms… and I can’t do that here.
Feather walks me all the way back to my door—with Kicker following far enough back that he’s not a part of the conversation, but I have no doubt he could grab Feather if he needed to. “Have fun today. Maybe I’ll see you next time!”
“I hope so.”
When I close the door behind me, I take a deep breath and then blink as the whole experience plays back… I managed to get through it without saying something that’s going to replay in my head for months.
Maybe there’s something in the station air.
CHAPTER 2
After I’ve checked all the rules, Phantom’s missive tells me to wear whatever I’m comfortable in, so I choose the familiarity of the booth uniform and then it directs me to the private elevator to the ring-view rooms.
You can only access them through Phantom’s, and as far as I know… half the people on the station don’t even know they exist.
They’re completely private rooms, separated from the rest of the club… Whoever Mooralan is, he’s passed all of Phantom’s checks and requirements.
I wasn’t aware thatIhad, too, but the sign-offs on the digital stack of paperwork have me cleared for thingsIdidn’t know exist.
The room is nice… but there’s no view.
I thought the name was literal.
Slipping through the door, I’m glad he’s not there yet, so I have time to explore.
The space is almost like a hotel room, but there are discreet tie down points and the thing I’ve always thought of as a strange sort of sofa is definitely made of a material that can be sprayed down.
The whole place probably has sanitization settings.
All the luxury vibes with added quick clean-up appeal.
“Welcome to Ring-View Room Number Two, Jade.”The bot here has a different voice than the one downstairs.“Your client is running just a little late, but that gives us more time to get through the preliminaries without rushing.”
“Cool.” I sit down on the floor and run through my normal stretching routine as the room bot talks.
“As always, your safety is a priority, here at Phantoms. Use any of your pre-approved code words at any time, and the interaction will cease. If the client does not respect the rules, we will make him.”
That sounds ominous, but I don’t say it, in case it takes it as a question and buffers, wasting time.
“Please confirm your identity by placing your hand on any one of the six bulkheads.”
I press one palm to the floor and wonder why it didn’t accept visual confirmation as secondary from the hand print I had to use to access the elevator.
“Thank you Jade.”There is a whirring sound.“Please vocalize your consent to participate in this interaction. And know that if anyone has coerced you into this private setting, we will cancel the appointment and Phantom will deal with the perpetrator by any means necessary. You arealwayssafe at Phantom’s.”
“Thank you, but no one is coercing me. I consent to this interaction in general. Please provide specifics.”
“General consent confirmed. Please view the list of possible activities and accept all, or deselect the ones you are not willing to participate in and then accept with changes.”
The list flares to life on the wall—not so different from the booth, after all—and I stand out of my stretch and go to it.
