Imposters

[Jeryd Redsun]

Jeryd gave a lazy shrug at Rayner’s question, and revisited his choice on the menu:

“Golden fries and a…” he gasped, eyes wide with false surprise, “And a sunset salad!”

It was commonly known that a sunset salad was just a mixed leaf salad arranged in a garish display of yellows, oranges, reds, and purples. At least this place attempted to make their food sound fancy. It was cute, which was more than can be said for Rayner’s description of a baked meat brick. The best thing you’ll ever eat, he said. Poor poor deluded Kyle Rayner; left to his own devices, he’d be sure to start waxing lyrical about the baked tuber and why it is the height of gourmet cuisine. As such, he neglected to return the question in kind.

“There’s a nice place on the Azure Promenade called The Nimbus Pools. Incredible food. They serve you with floating dishes of glass. In fact, everything is made out of this hazy kind of glass, and there are water features everywhere - pools, fountains, waterfalls. They even pump a fine vapour into the air which is good for your skin. If you go during the right time of day, it’s like you’re dining in the clouds. You’d lose your mind.”

While he spoke, he allowed his gaze to drift and inspect the rest of the patrons littered about the establishment. There was a feeble grey-skinned old man who nursed a steaming cup and muttered to himself while he stared intently through the window. He was no threat. At another table, a couple of young Rodians, sharing some kind of towering cold dessert with another young human, maybe a year younger than he was - they were probably students. If things got ugly, he could handle them: the Rodians were small and wiry, and the human looked scrawny under the layers of dull blues and washed-out browns he was wearing. In the far corner though, sat a Trandoshan. He’d been warned about that species. It wasn’t possible to make much out from where he was sitting, not without turning around and making it obvious he was staring. So he had to assume that, if there was trouble, he (or she) was the one who needed to be neutralised first. And, other than the Quarrens and the Aqualish - he could take them - there was just him and his furry companion, Kyle. No, Hal.

Rayner was right: they didn’t stand out, at all.

A sigh snapped him out of his tactical appraisal of the situation, to discover they had been ambushed by a short and stocky woman in a creased blue uniform and tiny white apron. From beneath heavy, violet-dusted lids, her hollow gaze found a well-worn spot on the wall, and there it remained.

“Welcome to Olga’s Hot and Snappy Diner,” she croaked, dead-to-the-world, “You won’t find a hotter and snappier dish this side of Level 83. Hoo-boy… that’s good eatin’. What’ll it be, boys?”

“Good evening, ma’am,” Jeryd said at once, infusing his military prep boy accent with extra lashings of jovial plumminess, “I will have the Olga’s Classic Nerfburger, please.”

“Regular buns or Olga’s Special Buns?”

“Well, I say- Who can say ‘No’ to Olga’s Special Buns?”

“Beautiful. Wet ya whistle?”

“...excuse me?” Owlish with surprise, Jeryd spotted Rayner miming a drink across the table, “Oh, I see. Uh. What’s popular with the regulars here at Olga’s Diner?”

“Stimcaf. Or chocolate milk, for the kids.”

“Then it will be the chocolate milk for me! We’re all children at heart, after all. Don’t you agree?”

From behind her ear, the waitress plucked a smoking stim, took a drag, then huffed, “Like a spring chicken, honey.”

She flicked some ash Rayner’s way, “What about you, handsome?”

[Halajiin Rabeak]

He is going to get us killed. He's just gonna get us killed. What is he doing?

Pretty sure he's ordering dinner.

No, I mean with this attitude. Whatever it is.

He has an attitude?

Yes! All peppy and cheerful! You didn't notice?

I dunno, once he started talking about eating in a pool, I thought about the last time we were in a Cizerack tea house, and the eating we did there.

Eating out.

Yeah, at a Cizerack tea house.

No, I mean, you were eating out, not eating. I just... nevermind, I better answer, here.

"Nuna and waffles, hot and spicy on the nuna. Greens, dirty rice. Unsweet tea," Hal replied, his voice mercifully flatter and to the point than whatever Jeryd was doing. Though he couldn't help but smirk and slip in, "After all, you're all the sweetness I need, tonight, darlin'."

"Flattery'll get you everywhere, honey," the waitress answered, her long, acrylic fingernails tak-tak'ing against an ancient datapad as she took their order. There was no more need for words as she turned and scuttled toward the window to the kitchen. Once there, her grating voice calling out, "I need you to burn one, drag it through the garden and pin a rose on it, frog sticks and dried leaves in the alley, hot yard birds on a checkerboard, squeal in the swamp, laundry grains, sweet brown Alice, and a cup of dishwater that ain't got no yum-yum."

It was all Hal could do to keep from chuckling. Diner lingo, it seemed, was universal, and had formed organically on each and every civilized world independent of each other, with exactly the same terms. If he had a glass of water to sip from, the Nehantite would have done so. As it was, he drummed his clawtips on the table, and quietly spoke. "Trandoshan in the corner, big gal. She doesn't have a plate, just a cup of stimcaff which hasn't been topped up since we've been in. Definitely not a customer. Could either be someone we need to get the attention of, or they're undercover security. Rodians and the human kid probably just celebrating a birthday or something. You don't eat that much sweet stuff outside of a celebration. And dining in a pool might be all well and good for humans, but now imagine doing so with fur. I'll stick with good, honest food over fancy experiences, any day."

Times like these, Hal would have expected a sudden rush of sound from an exceptionally heavy gut of rain upon the awning and windows outside, but with Coruscant - er, Imperial Center's - weather on a controlled grid, there were no such luxuries as being surprised by any form of weather. The rain mostly existed to wash things off, and regulate temperature, as there was precious little grow on what was effectively a massive city block. But still, Hal's eyes turned to the window, hoping for it. and in doing so he looked like he belonged in such a place even more than before. There was no hint of Imperial Knight about him. "Do you see a back door?" he asked, voice still low as he looked to the windows.

[Jeryd Redsun]

“Hm? Oh, no. I don’t.” Jeryd surfaced from the depths of a murky thought to consider Rayner’s question. There was nothing obvious in sight. “Maybe it’s in the kitchen.”

It was a smart move, to identify all available exits. If they were serious about this, they needed to know from which directions to anticipate any sudden threats, and to execute a swift getaway. Truth be told, Jeryd had been too distracted by the newness of his surroundings to spot a back door - a failing, on his part.

As it was, however, he was more interested in the toady waitress with the saggy jowls and an unnatural tower of ginger hair. With her kitchen staff, she spoke in riddles, which meant she was well-versed at communicating in code. And her demeanour was altogether off.

His eyes followed her as she shuffled to one of the tables with a fresh round of stimcaf, droning like a low-powered droid. Once she was out of earshot, he said, “It’s her. I know it.”

He leaned in, and proceeded in an undertone, “No eye contact. No customer service. She clearly has no interest in her job. She has to be involved.”

[Halajiin Rabeak]

"It's her job," Hal replied, doing his very best to hold in laughter. "Most people don't like their jobs, but they do them for the money. I bet she works ten hour shifts, six days a week, and rakes in better tips than those Twi'lek bikini baristas you see at stimcaff stands."

He leaned back a bit, smiling to their craggy, disinterested waitress as she returned, setting a pair of thick-walled drinking glasses on the table. "Tea and chocolate milk," she groused, then turned and trundled back toward the kitchen without allowing for any sort of word in edgewise. Hal slipped a plastic straw into his glass and took a sip, a sigh of contentment following.

"Places like this, it's not about service, it's about dependability. She does her job, no more, no less. We get what we ordered, things run smooth," he explained, then took another drink. "You're right, by the way. The only other door is through the kitchen. I looked up planning permission and building records back at the Citadel. This place is so old, it predates some modern safety code. So if people are booking off-world passage, here, this isn't the point of departure, and that does mean someone here is in on it. Maybe she's in on it, but I doubt she's alone, nor would she be primary contact with that attitude. And all that said, I've had worse waitresses."

Hal's eyes moved to scan the room as he took another drink. "When I was here last, one of the 'freshers was out of order. Wonder if they've fixed it by now. That'll be something to check out later; might be an exit in disguise. Either that or someone dropped a thermonuclear deuce and fragged the plumbing."