[2.4] You And All Your Friends

The fortress had changed overnight. Parties had broken out on every floor, all the house restaurants were packed, and already more pilots and mech teams were flying in from the mainland. The phones and commspheres were in constant use, with people spreading the news and upping their investments on the Efferis. Camilla had her hands full keeping the place from collapsing into a drunken, blissful mess.

Conlan had been able to avoid it all by not leaving his offices and keeping his phone disconnected. This didn't stop Graham though, who burst in a few minutes before noon, sucking fruit smoothie through a curly straw and still humming some drinking song that had been going for three straight hours downstairs. 

"Did you call the guy - Corvenieto or whatever - yet? You were supposed to call me up here before you called the guy so I could coach you-"

"I already called," Conlan said, from where was laying on the floor beside the couch (he had missed, didn't see the point in correcting situation).

"Aw, man." Graham settled on the coffee table. "Well, did you at least say what I told you to say? You know, 'I'm going to make an offer you can't-'"

"Did you get the information I asked for?"

"Dude, what do you take me for? Here."

He scraped around in his jacket pocket for a while before retrieving a small square of paper and dropping it on Conlan's head. "You've gotta call before you get there, though. There's a couple of other buyers."

He would have to move fast then. It would be just like fate to give him the money and then make the purchase impossible. Pulling himself to his feet, Conlan walked back over to his desk and added the paper to the quickly thickening folder on his desk. 

"When are you leaving, anyway?" Graham asked.

"This afternoon. Loteara's still transferring funds, and I want to make sure Cam's got a handle on this . . . "

"She was on the phone with Hauke earlier."

Conlan looked up sharply. "What?"

Graham put his smoothie down and laid back on the table. "Yep. He already knew about your whole jackpot deal, too. Someone in Loteara told him about it."

"Why is it any of his business?"

Graham shrugged."Maybe it's not. Maybe it's the government's business. He's all up in that spook business lately, anyway. He was calling from Mountova, and when a guy like Hauke goes to Mountova you know it's to blow something away."

"You think he's coming here?"

"Why don't you just ask Cam?"

"We don't talk about him."

"Because they're best friends and you think he's a-"

"I've gotta pack. Isn't your bar open right now? Shouldn't you be down there?"

"Yeah, yeah. Cam's looking for you though. Better talk to her soon."

Conlan turned to the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up the back wall of his office and sighed. No matter how much he worked, things never got easy.