Situated at the crest of a skyscraper, the Apex Lounge boasted unrivalled views of the city spread out like a great blanket beyond each of its floor-to-ceiling reinforced glass walls. In the arms of evening the buildings far below sparkled like a kingdom of fallen stars, but it was the man opposite that currently demanded Zhenya’s attention. A glass of vodka floated at the tips of her fingers, the liquid within swirling as she listened to him talk.
In the chaise opposite, Ephraim was dressed in burgundy and shadows. Tonight his angel’s curls were swept away from his face, though they belied the chiselled features beneath anyway; his had always been a grin more sinful than angelic. He had already inquired over her family with an easy charm that cared little for the answer, and Zhenya was inclined to skirt over those details anyway. She usually kept those delineations quite clear. They had some mild acquaintance, as she did with much of the city’s elite gentry, and occasionally Paragon chose to invite her for a pitch on the practical uses of their augmentations. Pervaya did not generally go in for such enhancements; it fit neither the brand or the ethos. But Zhenya rarely turned down the opportunity to stay current with the shifting trends of technology, particularly the sorts that might be employed by rival firms. Ascendancy’s announcement had rather changed the playing field, after all.
They’d yet to get to the business, of course; the night was young, and though the lounge was abuzz with the clink of crystal glasses, the pop of champagne, and the hum of conversation, it was still the quiet hours before the city roused to its nighttime proclivities. Soft, trance-like music drifted from the oval-shaped bar at the room’s centre; lowlit, and cycling through a flux of colours. She signalled to one of the servers, and received a quick nod of acknowledgement.
Ephraim was talking about the earthquake; most people were. That and the wings of the Custody’s imminent expansion into the untouched treasure of the United States. Tonight, rumour abounded.