Her nose is-a beautiful, as Pavi would say. It still has the little downward, sloping tip, but it's not as long and sharp. She touches it. She feels a little tingle under the pressure of her fingers, which the genterns assure her would be mind-searing pain if it weren't for the zydrate buzz. Since she was going to be under the knife anyways, she also had her lips reshaped.
Amber looks perfect, in her opinion. An absolute, stunning beauty, a new face for a new step in her life. The genterns coo and hold up mirrors at different positions around her, to see herself from different angles. From the left. The right. In profile. It's flawless work from every degree.
"Take me to daddy," she says, stumbling to her feet. She can't feel her legs at all, and she giggles as her valets prop her up between them. She can tell she's moving forward but she can't feel the steps. In contrast, the feeling in her shoulders is heightened, and the valet's gentle support feels like it will rip her arms out of the sockets.
"Not so hard," she whines, but the valets just look confused as they continue guiding her to Rotti Largo's office. Amber can't wait for him to see her new face. She knows he'll love it.
Time slows as they walk down the hallway. To Amber, every ringing footstep seems to be ages apart, and she asks nobody in particular why it's taking so long. When they finally get inside the elevator, things speed up, and she's standing inside Rotti's office before she knows it. She suddenly feels silly, buzzed and standing before her father with an unfamiliar face, like some random zydrate whore pulled off the street.
"It's me, daddy. Do you like my nose?" she asks.
"It's lovely, dear. Now go get some rest, you have another press conference tomorrow and I have paperwork to do," he said with a sweeping gesture towards the piles all over his desk.
"Can't you have an assistant do that?" Amber asks.
"If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. Run along now. Max, Dirk, please see Amber to her room safely."
This is the first time Amber's heard the valet's names, and she laughs at how manly they sound. They're exactly the kind of names she would have expected, if she'd thought about it at all. She laughs and laughs, until she's at the edge of hysteria, doubled over and still not stopping.
"It's the zydrate, sir," one of the valets says apologetically.
"Shut up," Amber says, but she's still laughing.
Rotti growls, "I know that. Just get her out of here. And don't let the press see this. She's obviously been over-dosed."
After that, the world fades out. When she comes around she's in the hallway, approximately two inches from Luigi's face. "We have to stop meeting like this," she says, giggling.
"...What?" he asks, perplexed. Fine wrinkles scrunch up all around his eyebrows and forehead, and Amber giggles again. She wonders, why doesn't anyone notice how goddamn hilarious everything is? Luigi flicks her in the nose and she stops laughing.
"Owie," she pouts, even thought she barely feels it.
"We were just talking about your new nose. What are you on, anyways? I've never seen anyone get so fucked up on zydrate," Luigi says.
"Well, it is my first time under the knife, y'know?" She stumbles forward. Luigi catches her, and pushes her back into the arms of her valet.
"Sorry. Reflex. If I thought about it, I would have let you fall."
Amber sticks out her tongue and bats her long eyelashes. "You say that, but I bet you'd catch me again."
"Try me," Luigi says, grinning. Amber lets herself fall forward, and...
The next thing she knows, she's waking up in an unfamiliar room. Her nose throbs with pain and she resists the urge to touch it. The room is very dim, maybe because the person who put her here expected her to wake up with a migraine. (They would be right.) She wants to sit up but her muscles ache as if she's just run a triathlon. She wants to fall back asleep, but the pain in her head and nose keeps her from drifting off. Amber groans.
"Hurts like a bitch, huh?" says a figure beside the bed. She squints, and the figure comes into focus. It's Luigi, a clipboard in his lap and a pen in his hand. On the side-table beside him is a lamp with a low-watt bulb, barely enough to see by and not bright enough to aggravate her migraine.
"Yeah... what happened?"
"You blacked out. I told your manservants they could take you to my room since it's closer."
"This... this is your room?" she asks, gazing around. It isn't much to look at. There's a big, oak canopy bed, which she's laying in. Her valets had been thoughtful enough to tuck her under the comforter rather than tossing her on the bed like a ragdoll, although she obviously wouldn't have objected. An oak armoire sits pushed up against one wall, with a standing mirror beside it. The room is wallpapered with a striped pattern but she can't make out the color in this light.
Her gaze falls back on Luigi, sitting in a big plush armchair beside the bed.
"Did you catch me when I fell?" she asks.
"Ha! Of course not. One of your valets caught you just before you hit the ground, luckily for you. They're really fucking slow."
Amber stares at the ceiling for awhile. "Well, thanks for letting me sleep here, I guess. But it's pretty creepy that you're just sitting there, looking at me."
"I'm not looking at you. I'm helping pop with paperwork. See?" he says, holding up the clipboard.
"Oh."
She returns her attention to the ceiling. After a few minutes a gentern comes to bring her some pills and a glass of water. She takes them, and falls into a deep sleep.
When she wakes up again, her clock says it's ten o'clock in the morning, and she's in her own bed. The valets with names that she's already forgotten are sitting obediently in chairs by the door. Disoriented, Amber tries to recall the events of the previous day. Her nose hardly hurts anymore, so she reaches up and tentatively runs her fingers along it. Yep, beautiful new nose.
But waking up in Luigi's room, did that really happen? Everything from the time she was injected with zydrate until waking up now has a dreamlike quality, and she can't discern what's real and what isn't.
A genterns comes and asks if she wants anything. Something to drink, perhaps?
"No, I'm fine. But can you tell me... did someone carry me here? I mean, from Luigi's room?" Amber asks, feeling ridiculous.
"Yes, Dirk carried you here after you fell asleep again. You were pretty out of it yesterday. The genterns who did your surgery must have given you too much zydrate, I think."
"Oh, alright. Hey, um... you guys. Dirk, and the other guy."
"Max," says the other valet.
"Yeah. Whichever one of you caught me in the hallway, thanks. I just got this nose, I didn't wanna fuck it up yet, or anything."
The valets exchanged looks behind their sunglasses. "Neither of us caught you, miss," one of them says. "Luigi did."