retainer (meredith, leander, ruth)
When you were waiting on a meeting everything was slow time. Skandra wanted to sit in his office and pretend that he had nothing better to do than play cards, but the truth was he did. They were supposed to be meeting with some rich writer today about an AIA problem she was having. Probably her robot butler went AWOL with her bank account information. It wouldn't be the first time a rich snob had come into Skandra's place of business and looked down on him just long enough to underpay for his services, but somehow the haughty women were always worse than the haughty men. Men wanted to be like Skandra, run a business like this and fuck people up like he did. Women were just annoyed that their husbands were less manly than Skandra or Leander, so they treated both like shit to make up for it. Skandra didn't know how that logic processed, but there it was. All morning he'd been bugging Meredith, paging her desk phone with their two-way intercom to ask if the guest was here yet. So far she hadn't showed up, but that could change any time. Meredith had stopped pointing out a long time ago that she could call him, so if the lady got here, she'd page him.

It didn't do any good.

"She here yet?" Skandra demanded in an annoyed voice.

"No sir, Mr. Skandra sir."

The line clicked off. She was being a bitch today, wasn't she? Taking a day off after the incident in Manhattan was still the right thing to do, even if it hadn't done much to improve Meredith's mood. Sooner or later Skandra was going to figure out why she was such a hag, and the day he did, he was going to tell her that he knew her secret while he fucked her brains out. Meredith wanted it, just didn't realize it yet. This was her way of compensating for those unconscious desires. Sexual harassment law being what it was prevented Skandra from saying any of that out loud, but if anybody in this office wanted a piece of him Skandra hoped it was her. Since the alternative was, y'know, Leander. And... somehow he just had a hard time picturing that scenario playing out in his head. Thank God. Cheating at Solitaire was great because it wasn't really cheating. You were playing alone, and if you agreed with yourself that a particular rule needed to be discarded, you could do so at any time without penalty. That was part of the reason he never lost a game of solitaire.

Ever.

One newspaper after another had been calling them. All wanted to know what happened to those trannies in Manhattan. He'd also received some fan mail. A few pieces from some guys who not only worshiped the Raging Bull but wanted one of their own and asked where to get it - the rest were death threats from black transvestite hookers, who apparently had some sort of information network. When the cops offered to run them down, Skandra had jokingly informed them that his gun had a '+2 against black transvestite hookers'. Nobody got the joke anymore, which was too fucking bad in his personal opinion. Could be pretty fun if you just paid attention to what was being said and when. Ruth something. He'd never read any of her books. Probably one of those that wrote about women have sex with AIAs who developed feelings. It was startling how often it happened in fiction, AIA or robots developing feelings and sentience. They were machines built for one thing.

Just one.

And if you denied it you wound up dead.

After the fourth or fifth "He say you Brade Runnahhh" joke - which Meredith and Leander were apparently too young to understand - Skandra had just gone back to his office and stopped asking questions about this writer woman. Soon she'd be there, and Skandra would have free rein to ask whatever he wanted. Maybe she would be old enough to get the 'Brade Runnah' joke, but probably not. Skandra was just kind of annoyed that he was old enough to remember a grim movie's vision of the future as he was living in a future that had too many eerie similarities to the fictional future for his personal comfort. AIAs seemed easier to kill than the bullshit in the movie, though. At least, for now they did. So that was nice. Something to be pleased with.

Skandra pressed the intercom button.

"Meredith! She here yet?"