Chapter 34
Edward was chuckling at his own story, although his disappointment at his failure with Prentice Mill was still raw.
"He threw you out?" Sheridan laughed as he poured them both another glass of Arcadia Merlot. The El Dorado Lounge was lifeless, mid-afternoon between the lunch and dinner services.
"I offered him well over what I valued it at - and even offered him a position to stay on as a paid consultant. He wouldn't hear a word of it, started bawling at me and chased me back through the door with his cane!"
"He's a stubborn old boot. At our last council meeting, Ryan did let me in on a bit of Prentice's backstory, a failed railway director ousted from his original company in the South West of England. Came down to Rapture with that jip on his shoulder still in place. The man's loaded, sits on his family fortune like a mother hen, but he can't see how his Railway is becoming obsolete. The longer he sits on it though, the cheaper he'll sell it to us in the end!" Sheridan cheered.
"If someone like your regular pain in the arse Fontaine doesn't beat us to it." Edward whined, downing his entire glass of wine. "Still - we've secured Anton's stake in the company, it's completely ours now, lock stock and barrel." Edward announced halfheartedly. "I'll need your signature on the works contract for the Austen Showroom back in the Tower - it's going to take more than we first thought, after that quote to put in the re-fuelling station you wanted on the side of the building."
"You'll have it. Then I think we should do something to take our minds off Anton and Prentice Mill for the evening." Sheridan winked - meaning that he had already planned something.
"And what do you have in mind? out with it?" Edward suspiciously pressed him,
"Well when we were snooping around Fontaine's place, I happened to clap eyes on a new little place called 'Cupids Arrow'. Word is, that it is very 'broad minded' and that it caters for everyone!" He seemed rather flushed just thinking about it.
"What do you want a dirty film for? I can put on a good enough show can't I?" Edward poked him hard, slightly taken back by this more 'cheap' side of Sheridan he wasn't quite expecting.
"Of course you do, but its not a film. They do live shows - EVE's Garden doesn't cater for us, but this place does! We can watch something...together!" Edward gave him a disapproving look, but neither could he turn down the offer out of curiosity. "Ok, we'll go. But first - get your signature on that contract!" He finished his wine and stood up. "I'm off back now, I'll see you at home first around six."
Once Edward had left, Sheridan called over the waiter. "Excuse me lad, I was wondering if you had another waiter on duty I've noticed around here. Dark hair, looked slightly pasty?" Sheridan had wanted to speak to him about anything new Tenenbaum might have tested on him. The waiter looked back at him with a sorry face.
"Oh sir, I hope you weren't too friendly with young Fred?" He asked, sadly.
"No not friendly, it's just we spoke once before and I wanted to ask him something." The waiter made the dignified effort to put down the glasses he was carrying and came over. "Sir, Fred passed away not much over a month ago. He became...well lets say he became very ill, came to a lot of harm."
"Goodness...how? Was it some sort of disease?" Sheridan asked, more disappointed that he'd lost his only mole into Fontaine Futuristics.
"No sir. He'd been taking some cash on the side to trial some new Plasmids for Fontaine Futuristics. Dangerous stuff to meddle with if you ask me. I think by the end he had about seven or eight different Plasmids pumping through him! Well - between us, I think it drove him mad. His entire personality started to change! We barely knew him at work anymore. He was so easily enraged, damn near electrocuted a whole table of people who simply complained their steaks were undercooked. We'd find him wondering around in a daze, talking to himself and bursting into random cries of gibberish. Boss was about to give him the sack, when Fred just went entirely nuts and tried to teleport himself 'back home' as he put it. Ended up re-appearing just on the other side of that glass..." The waiter gestured to the window, and the deep sea beyond it. "Drowned in seconds, poor idiot."
Sheridan thanked the waiter for his time, and began to recall Edwards account of how he'd felt the morning after the accident with Anton. They'd both mentioned at least once in the last two days how they were struggling to comprehend how easy the entire affair had been to forget, and both recalled strange feelings and mental 'abnormalities' since ingesting their first shots of ADAM. If the waiter had been carrying seven different Plasmids in his blood, then perhaps it had simply been too much for him, but whatever the reason had been - the testing in Persephone needed to start sooner rather than later.