Time and again, p.9
Time & Again, page 9
Vivienne giggled at that, and it was all Ruby could do not to climb back in the bed and tease her for it. As it was, she shook her head and let herself smile.
"I mean it," Ruby said. "Try and get some more sleep. I'll see what I can do to get rid of him, but he could very well draw this out long enough to run into my regular workday. There's no guarantee I'll get back up here before you have to leave."
Vivienne nodded as Ruby turned and headed into her bathroom. She made quick work of brushing her teeth, then stepped into the closet where she pulled on a simple black cap-sleeve dress and fastened its rhinestone belt buckle at her waist. She slipped on a pair of black round-toe pumps and pulled her hair into a clip at the nape of her neck. She then plied her face with enough magic to take care of any dark circles left behind from not having slept enough, and a little more just for good measure.
Normally she preferred a meticulous hand-application of high-end cosmetics, but she'd learned to fix her face with magic as a teenager, and it was a skill that had proven itself worth being kept up. Less than five minutes had passed between hanging up the phone and heading out the door to the elevator.
"Tell that asshole I'm voting for the other guy," Vivienne called after her.
"I'll try to work it into the conversation," Ruby said back over her shoulder.
The elevator ride down one floor was almost too quick. Ruby was only just getting her perturbed expression under control when the door opened to her inner office. An assistant whose name she wasn't sure she'd ever heard was setting a tall mug of coffee on her desk. He seemed startled to see her, the tray of drinks in his hand almost falling victim to his surprise. Quietly, Ruby cast an enchantment to keep them from spilling. There were very few ways this morning could get worse, but that much coffee pooled on her floor was one of them.
"Oh, Miss Killingsworth," the young man said. "Your coffee is on your desk."
"I saw. Thank you." She couldn't help but appreciate the assistant's choice to leave her coffee on her desk even in her absence before handing drinks over to the President or his retinue. He nodded once, smiling nervously, before turning to deliver the rest of the drinks. Ruby let him get out the door far enough ahead of her that it fully closed before she cast it open again.
She strode out of her office and looked straight at the President, her eyes narrowed and her hands on her hips.
Prather took his coffee and then a step in Ruby's direction.
"You know," she said, as he sipped his drink, "I don't usually see people without an appointment."
"Yes," he said, "but I'm--"
"Standing in my outer office uninvited, bothering my staff before business hours," she interrupted him before he had a chance to declare himself "special" or "a VIP". "So I'm going to presume this is urgent."
"It is," Prather said back to her. "It is."
"All right. Bridget," she said, turning to her receptionist with an expression that clearly communicated what she was about to say was not a suggestion. "If you could have these two fine legal professionals seen to the conference room. Mr. President, you and I can step into my office."
"But I need my lawyer!" Prather whined, waving a manilla envelope he'd been holding vaguely in her direction.
"I don't think you will," she told him frankly. "And even if I'm wrong, he's not going anywhere. He'll be right down the hall with Miss Milan. They can drink their coffee and speak legalese at each other while you and I talk turkey. If you really need him, we can have him here in a moment. But again, I tell you, you won't."
Prather frowned but relented--a good thing as far as Ruby was concerned. She was far from alert enough to have reliably used magic to make him agreeable. But she'd have tried if it had come to that. In her estimation, anyone who dared demand her attention at such an hour as to have gotten her out of bed deserved whatever they got. And that included any possibly botched magical influence.
"Look at this!" Prather demanded, shoving his envelope toward Ruby as soon as the door was closed behind them.
"We're in my office, Prather," Ruby scolded. "You don't get to make demands in here."
Prather scrunched his face into a wholly unattractive frown. But Ruby was sure he understood her meaning. Ever since it had come to light that she was the only sure way to communicate with Loki he had left, after his immortal patron had so unceremoniously ghosted him upon his inauguration, he'd done his best to mind his Ps and Qs around Miss Killingsworth.
Not that it had done him a whole lot of good.
"Look at this, please," he said.
Ruby inclined her head toward her desk in a gesture she was sure he'd understand as an invitation to set the thing down. She took her time getting behind her desk and took a moment to enjoy a first sip of coffee--that is, as much as a person can enjoy a first sip of coffee when in the presence of a pernicious gnat of a politician whose unexpected presence had roused her from her bed and the arms of a lover. It was only after she was settled in her chair and satisfied with the preparation of her coffee that she reached across the desk to pick up Prather's parcel.
She'd barely gotten the pages out of the envelope when she set it back down. "It's a standard C&D, Prather. What do you want?"
"What do you think I want?" he asked, flopping down in one of the Moroccan leather chairs facing her desk. "I want you to cancel it."
"No," she replied. "Now, if that will be all--"
"What do you mean, 'no'?"
"I mean, no," she replied. "I mean I won't do it."
"Well why not?"
"Because MerMeg Gilal has every right to tell you not to use her music."
"But can't you override that?" he asked. "Don't you own
her--?"
"Newsflash, Mr. President," Ruby interrupted him. "It hasn't been legal to own people in this country for more than a century and a half."
"I just mean--"
"You just mean you think I'm the boss and can issue some order from on high that any artist under contract has to follow."
"Yes," he replied. "I think you can, and I think you should."
"You think I should?"
"You should," he replied. "Really."
Ruby shook her head and picked up the paper again. She doubted that, but she was just curious enough as to what had brought the President to her office at this unbearable hour to at least have a proper look at the thing that had his knickers in a knot.
"Well, let's see, it says here--" She stopped herself and looked up at her guest, a little horrified. "You want to use that song?" she asked, wide-eyed as she took another sip of her coffee.
"Yeah. It's a hit."
"That it is," Ruby allowed. "And I can't say I hate to break this to you, but it appears your advertising person is either woefully out of touch or you have a saboteur among your ranks."
"Why do you say that?" Prather asked, scooting forward to sit on the edge of his chair.
"Do you have any idea what 'Get Ready for It' is about?" she asked.
Prather shook his head as he sipped his coffee. "Just what the words say. Just that something big and powerful is coming."
"Yeah," she said, shaking her head in turn. "That's not it."
"Well, what is it then?"
Ruby pursed her lips and folded her hands on her desk. Was she really about to say these words out loud? And to a sitting United States president?
"Lyle," she said softly. "The song is about double penetration." She looked over at him and waited for those words to sink in. "That whole album is a tribute to tentacle porn. MerMeg Gilal is a scion of consensual kink and fat positivity, and it's no wonder she wants nothing to do with your re-election campaign."
Prather sat still for a moment. Then he shook his head. "She still shouldn't be able to tell me I can't use her song."
"Prather." Ruby leaned forward against her desk as she took a deep breath. "It doesn't matter a hill of beans to me that you decided to skate atop the frozen lake of fascism in order to win votes. But I'm not going to blame anyone who refuses to dive in after you when the spring thaw comes. Something, something, wind up all wet; the metaphor tracks. Now, I don't care if you want to keep in touch with me in hopes of keeping in touch with Loki, but the fact of the matter is you're a despicable human being, and you've done an abysmal job as president. And I'm certainly not going to punish any of my artists who refuse to have their work associated with you."
"But it's free speech!" Prather exclaimed. "Shouldn't I be able to use any music I like?"
"Tell me you know nothing about this business without telling me," she snarked in reply. "The short answer is no."
"But you could make her if you wanted to. You could tell her she had to or else."
"You're right." Ruby picked up her coffee again and eased back to recline in her chair. "I could. But I won't."
"Why not?" he asked, the whine from earlier returning to his voice. "You know there's a lot I can do for you when I get re-elected."
Ruby rolled her eyes. "Lady Vengeance told me to tell you she's voting for the other guy."
That stopped him for a moment. He sputtered audibly and then frowned back at her. "And what has that got to do with anything?"
"She told me to tell you."
"Answer my question!" he demanded.
"And which question was that?"
"Why won't you make MerMeg let me use her song? In fact, why don't you just make it a policy for all the acts you own to let me use their music if they want to keep their jobs?"
"Again, I tell you I don't own anyone."
"You know what I mean."
"I suppose I do," Ruby replied, taking another sip of her coffee. "Honest answer?"
"Yeah."
"Because I'm afraid a few of them might do the right thing. I'm afraid there are some of them who would walk--leaving the company out of all their future projects and making me look like a fascist asshole in the process. You want that song so bad?" she asked, half-rhetorically.
Prather nodded.
"Commission a cover. You'll still have to pay for it, but you'll have a version all your own that you can use whenever and wherever you damn well please. Don't want to do that? Then I suggest you find an artist who isn't repulsed by you and look through their catalog. You and your staff find someone who can stand the thought of having their music associated with your campaign, and I'll issue you unlimited license. Free of charge."
"You ... you will?"
"If it will keep you the hell out of my office at eight o'clock in the morning," she replied. "Yes. Either your own version of 'Get Ready for It' or anything by an artist who consents. Satisfied?"
Prather set down his coffee so he could cross his arms over his chest. "I guess."
"Good," Ruby said, standing from her seat and reaching across her desk for a handshake. "Then we have a deal."
"I guess we do." Prather stood as well and reached out to take her hand.
She gripped it a little too tightly. "And I'm not to hear of you or your goons harassing any of my artists to garner consent," she said, enough magic behind her words to know he not only heard but felt what she was telling him. "If it gets back to me that you've done anything stronger than saying 'please' to try and persuade anyone to let you have your way, you will regret it."
The feel of the magic as it passed over and settled on them was soothing to Ruby. It tingled on her tongue, spicing up the flavor of her coffee as she took another sip. She wondered if Prather could even feel it. But no matter, he was bound by it whether or not he was aware.
He wanted to dally and to chat, two things in which Ruby had absolutely no interest. What she wanted to do was head back up the elevator to her very warm bed where her very attractive lover was still tangled in her very soft sheets. But she couldn't very well tell the President that.
It had already been a long day, and it wasn't even nine o'clock yet.
CHAPTER NINE
Since borrowing the equipment from the University had been Kara's idea, all involved agreed she should take the lead on learning and using it. It didn't take her long to decide on a divide-and-conquer approach. After having their faces scanned and uploaded into the building's AI, the four women went through the documentation that had come with the machinery, divvying up the folios according to how esoteric and experimental each device appeared to be.
They'd agreed to read all they could overnight and meet back in the so-called war room after breakfast the next morning. Yumi, Lisa, and Friday were already buzzing around the room when Kara stumbled in just after ten.
"You're here early." Kara set her water bottle on an end table and moved to grab one of the chairs Ruby had gotten the staff to bring up on her departure the night before.
"The professor's way of writing is, um--" Yumi looked for the right word.
"Yeah," Kara agreed, not waiting for her to find it. "I understand."
"I only got so far into this documentation before my eyes crossed and I had to do something else," Lisa said.
"I got through all of mine okay," Friday added. "It reads like a scientist wrote it--I'm used to that. But this feels kind of like when I was learning to change the oil in the car; I need to be looking at what I'm doing while I'm reading the book, or my brain is never going to connect the things."
"Gotcha," Kara replied. "And yeah, it's a lot. Honestly, I'd rather we take our time and be sure we know what's what before trying to make all this stuff work. I'm not sure we're going to fully understand it even after we've read through all the paperwork, but I definitely think it's better we do our best to know as much as we can before we try to use it."
"So what do you think we should do now?" Yumi asked.
"I think we just start with the stacks we had last night," Kara answered her. "We'll start over, read them again, this time with the machinery right here in front of us so we can look at it and figure things out better as we go. Then, I think every time one of us gets through with one--feels like we're starting to understand it--we'll call everybody else over and see if we can explain it."
"Everybody, everybody?" Yumi asked. "Or just us?"
"If you're asking whether we need to wait until Miss Killingsworth is available," Kara replied.
"No," Yumi said. "I meant whether you think we should call Jaccob. He's a tech guy. This stuff is kind of his thing. He'll probably understand it all a lot better than anybody except for you."
"Yeah, he probably will," Kara replied. "But I don't care that much. We're here to work on this, and I think we keep things between the four of us. If Stardust starts asking, I don't care if anybody tells him stuff. I just don't think we're doing anybody--especially ourselves--any favors waiting for him to come get up to speed all the time. He doesn't work here. And I don't think we need to wait for him."
"Yeah, okay." Yumi looked at Lisa. "What?"
"You called him Jaccob," she said, scandalized. "Mr. Stevens. Stardust."
Yumi shrugged.
"Works for me," Friday added. "I'm all in favor of anything that gets us through and out of here as quickly as possible. And if that means not waiting for Stardust, then I'm good with that."
"All right," Kara said. "Let's get to work then."
"I'm going to get water before we get started," Yumi said. "Anybody want anything?"
"You can bring me one," Lisa replied. "The sparkling kind."
Yumi nodded.
When she'd checked in on them the night before, Miss Killingsworth's assistant had assured them they had the run of the small refrigerator in the sitting room. She'd also told them they were welcome to the wine rack and were allowed to call down for cocktails or snacks whenever they chose. None of them had quite had the courage to open a bottle of wine or call for room service, but the variety of strange and expensive-looking bottled waters had been too much to resist. Yumi, in particular, had made liberal use of the little fridge behind the bar.
So when she came scurrying back into the room empty handed, the others couldn't help but look up.
"Yumi--?" Lisa asked. "What's going on?"
Yumi's eyes were wide. She was shaking her head and gesturing vaguely with both hands in the direction of the sitting room. "Um ... guys?"
"What is it, Yumi?" Friday asked. "You look like you've seen a ghost, and I'm pretty sure our boss has this place on the kind of magical lockdown that would make that impossible, so--"
"Yeah," Lisa added. "What's up?"
"I--" Yumi shook her head as she ran her fingers through her hair. "Um--"
"Words, Yumi," Lisa said, "you know some."
Yumi, her hair now a comical mess, turned and pointed into the sitting room.
"Yumi," Friday said sternly. "For real. Spit it out."
Yumi's eyes got even wider as she took a deep breath. She folded her hands in front of her face and squeezed her eyelids shut. "I am, like, ninety percent certain Lady Vengeance is asleep on the sofa."
"What?" Lisa looked dubious but walked toward the sitting room anyway.
"I said--" Yumi shook her head again and gestured back over her shoulder. "--Lady Vengeance is asleep on the sofa. In there!"
"Okay, Yumi," Lisa said, as she continued across the room and into the vestibule. "I heard the words you said. But I don't think I actually understand what you're saying."
"Come with me," Yumi said, taking Lisa by the arm and yanking her forcibly across the vestibule and into the sitting room. Yumi moved on her tiptoes, flawless and graceful, and Lisa tried to do the same, albeit not as well. The two of them crossed the polished white floor toward the small congress of sofas in front of the TV.
They only stopped once they were able to see over the back of the couch facing the television.
"See!" Yumi pointed downward, and Lisa craned her neck to look where she was indicating. Sure enough, there was a woman sound asleep--or passed out maybe--on the sofa. She had lightly tanned skin, purple-streaked black hair, and she was wearing an oversized sweatshirt, faded black leggings, and slouched socks.
Lisa only knew Lady Vengeance from the comic books, but she agreed there was a definite resemblance. Older, maybe, but possibly not so much older as to account for the actual years between the comic's creation and the present day. Eyes wide, Lisa shook her head and gestured for Yumi to follow her back into the war room.
