"Tills, I wasn't joking. I'm really cold."
"Almost there. It's down the block, just around the corner."
It wasn't because of some misplaced sense of modesty why the length of the borrowed skirt bothered Ashkhen so much. Nautolans, even those living in an urban setting, spent roughly equal time in functional beachwear and street clothes, and as to the latter, they generally preferred form-fitting apparel for the sake of hydrodynamics. Sometimes there simply wasn't enough time to jump out of them before jumping in the water.
Walking in the crisp night air, however, made Ashkhen reevaluate the idea of putting on such a short skirt. The lack of practicality—as in, pockets—was another source of frustration. Tilla had flat out forbidden her to accessorize the outfit with her handy utility belt, which necessitated the carrying of a borrowed purse. The Twi'lek fashionista's glower also made her forgo wearing her trusty thermals; Ashkhen had no choice but resign to slowly losing feeling in her legs.
She wondered if Tilla ever made the connection between the Nautolan boyfriend moving in, the thermostat being mysteriously turned up, the Nautolan boyfriend disappearing from the scene, and the energy bill going down again. Mammals would never understand the struggle of being ectothermic on a planet practically without a sun.
They turned the corner, leaving the Diamal Boulevard behind, and continued their way on a smaller road. A wide variety of shops, restaurants, cafés, travel agencies, speeder showrooms and the odd cakeshop lined the streets in the area—the walkways were well lit, wider and cleaner than the ones three thousand levels beneath. Residents of Level 4854 didn't have to scuttle along the duracrete walls, constantly looking over their shoulders. So close to Topside, and with such a strong CSF presence, purse-snatchings and stickups happened at the same frequency as almsgiving did in the Underworld.
The long awaited weekend was just around the corner, anticipation vibrated in the air. Parties had to be attended, substances to be consumed, inhibitions to be cast off, and mistakes to be made. Stories of what happened—or totes didn't happen—kept people abuzz even after returning to the drudgery of the workdays.
Weekend, as a concept, held a sense of a novelty for Ashkhen. Jedi never followed the ever-rotating five days on, two days off pattern in their lives—peacekeeping, Council mandated missions and training rarely took the calendar into consideration.
The Jedi routine was gone now however, and Ashkhen was more than happy to take regular breaks from flipping pancakes on the weekends. Coincidently, the Jedi discipline was also eroding fast. More often than not, she spent her free time reading news about the front and browsing tangentially related content on the HoloNet—mindless scrolling, Master Balian would have said with a disapproving frown; on meditative walks around the upper level neighbourhoods—loitering, Master Balian would have claimed, shaking his head; and hanging out at a recently discovered, trendy tumbledown ruincafé, drinking ethically sourced speciality caf from the Colonies and spending whole afternoons people watching—Training sabers. Dojo. Now! Master Balian's yellow eyes would have thus spoken for him.
They came up on a striking entrance. Three wide steps led to the massive double doors, closed at present, basking in the light of the white neon sign—Irigo's. Tilla walked past without as much as a glance.
"Hey, wasn't that the…"
"That's where guests go in," Tilla said, turning left and leading her down a narrow alleyway. "This"—she stopped in front of an inconspicuous black door—"is the VIP entrance."
An enormous Klatooinian bouncer manned the door. Ashkhen wondered whether the strange hoodie he wore was sleeveless by design, or he had cut off the fabric at the shoulders because his arms wouldn't fit anyways. He took a long drag from his t'bac stick and gave them a tiny nod.
"Pinky."
Judging by his voice, he had been a pack-a-day smoker since around the time Ashkhen's lungs had fully developed and she first toddled ashore.
"Hey, Bust!" Tilla waved at him. "Imos in his office?"
The sound of his exhaling had Ashkhen believe he was trying to hock up soot. "When is he not?"
"Stars in Heaven align!" She clapped her hands, face lighting up, then took a step towards the door. "Thanks, see you inside!"
The only movement Bust made was drawing his heavy brows further together. "Who's your friend?"
"Oh, this is Ash."
"And why would Ash, Alleged Friend of Tilla, want to slip in an hour before gate opening?"
Ashkhen stepped forward, placing one hand on her hip. "Because she's working here!"
"Hm." He leaned forward to get to her eye level. Ashkhen had spent her entire life watching the world from a flightless bird's-eye view, she was long inured to such intimidation tactics.
"Okay, well, not yet." Tilla gave a tiny shrug then put on her most charming smile, twirling a lekku around her fingers. "But Gee Gee is AWOL again, and some guests, umm, don't like Dottie all that much, so that's why we're here."
"You know he hates it when you call him that," Bust said.
Tilla threw the lekku over her shoulder. "He can tell me in person when he turns up!"
Bust turned back to Ashkhen. "Grazz hits a rough patch once in a while, but he hasn't stepped down yet."
"I hear he hits the bottle a lot more often than that," Ashkhen said, staring down the bouncer two and a half times her size.
"You're a live one." He hmpfed. "All right, don't let me stop you. See you inside, Pinky."
Tilla, followed closely by her new recruit, headed for the elevator at the end of the narrow corridor. She pressed the up button, then turned to Ashkhen.
"Ash, can you, maybe, dial back a bit on the head-bobbing and finger-snapping? It's weird when you do that."
Ashkhen adjusted the strap of the purse—it was pressing against the cybernetic arm's interface in the crease of her elbow, disrupting the signals. She didn't want to accidentally flip someone off in case the circuitry shorted out.
"I was just trying to acclimate," she muttered.
Tilla arched one masterfully tattooed eyebrow. "You were trying to appropriate Twi'leki feistiness."
"Look, I can't turn off intuiting people." Ashkhen stepped inside the cab behind Tilla. "And the constant struggle against unconscious mirroring is the bane of every Nautolan's existence, so yeah, my control slips from time to time."
The doors closed. Ashkhen glanced up, but the display only changed by every ten floors they ascended. Someone had slap tagged the rightmost digit with a colorful ad sticker featuring barely legal girls of three different species in outfits that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.
GET OFF NOW!!! Hot babes are waiting!
Tilla looked at her friend, then asked with a tentative smile, "Have you ever been to a nightclub before?"
"There was a hostage situation on Mon Gazza—"
"Okay, let's not mention that to Imos." Tilla pulled down on her top, draped her right lekku around her neck and licked her lips. "Let me do the talking first."
Coming up on the management floor, the elevator doors opened to a corridor brightly lit with two rows of recessed lights, white walls and a dark crimson hallway runner installed. Ashkhen followed Tilla down the corridor, passing identical storage room doors to the left, and an unusual set of pictures to the right.
Each of the holoframes showed two little boys—two shock-heads of sandy hair and two pairs of green eyes, spitting image of each other. The twins rode matching rocking dewbacks, played hoverball on a lakeshore, pulled funny faces in private school uniforms, blew out eighteen candles on one giant cake, took turns on riding the vintage SkyRocket Ambassador-class swoop bike, and held champagne flutes dressed as bridegroom and best man. On the next-to last, four hands grabbed a grey tarp and pulled it down to reveal a brand new podracer gleaming in the sunlight. The last holoframe showed one of the brothers, roughly five years later but fifteen years older, standing on the very same steps Ashkhen and Tilla had just passed, cutting the ribbon by himself.
Fragments of a heated argument grew louder as they approached Imos's headquarters—an irritating, nasal female tone that ended every sentence in a vocal fry, alternating with a tight, enervated male voice.
"And private events? I'm working twice the hours, on the stage, then in the booth!"
"And you get paid for each and every performance," the man said.
"But it's never the same! Is my wage gendered? I'm doing both the guy and the girl act!"
"We've already had the same conversation this week, Rix. You don't remember?'
"I want a raise!"
"I gave you a raise two days ago. You really don't remember anything?"
"You're lying! You're… you're gaslighting me! But I can play dirty too!"
"I never had any doubts about that."
"Don't make me do it!"
"Let's talk about this when you're a little less worked up."
"You're really going to make me do it? Fine!"
There was a pause in the argument just as Tilla and Ashkhen reached the door. The Twi'lek raised a hand to knock, but froze mid-air as her boss spoke again.
"Oh, God have mercy!" He sounded genuinely skeeved out. "Rix, please, let's stay civil."
"Mesa no get mui mula, mesa doen nutten!"
Tilla ripped the door open without knocking, rushing to her boss's rescue.
"Hey there," she said. "Imos, is this a good time?"
"Come in, please, do come in," the manager said to the Twi'lek standing in the middle of the room.
Ashkhen followed Tilla inside. The office was furnished with run-of-the-mill cabinets, a sofa and a few chairs. Two sentients sat and stood in the room, respectively: Imos, presumably, and a—she had to do a double take—Gungan stripper in front of his desk, arms folded tight across her chest, clad in a rhinestone-studded slingshot bikini.
Great. One more image that'll haunt me till the day I die.
Imos leaned with both elbows on his desk, massaging his greying temples. He fixed his employee with a hard stare.
"Rix, I love you, but the drinking has to stop. You're not yourself. Go downstairs, drink a big cup of caf and for the love of God, make yourself decent!"
His firm voice brought the exotic dancer's hysterical outburst to an end. With a loud sniff, Rix wiped her snout and peeped, "Mmkeeday."
As she turned to leave, her eyes lingered on Tilla for a short while, face contorting into a grimace of anguish. By the time she trailed out the door, her eyestalks retracted into her skull, her skin turned baby blue, and she looked markedly more Twi'lek than Gungan.
"That was the third time she's pulled that, and it still shakes me to the core," Imos said, green eyes turning heavenward. "Irigo, if you're listening, Clawdites were a terrible kriffing idea!"
His gaze shifted to Ashkhen, staring pointedly at her gills. His entrepreneurial spirit took over. "Any chances that might appeal to your male community?"
"There's a joke about this," Ashkhen said, eyes crinkling with humour. "Nautolan guy goes a night out, gets blackout wasted. Next morning, he wakes up to find a bunch of Gungan eggs in his bathtub, and says—"
She looked from Tilla to Imos, then back to Tilla. Her left lekku curled inwards and up twice in rapid succession—knock it off. Ashkhen rubbed her nose, dropping her gaze at the floor.
"The Mon Cal girls were howling long before I got to the punchline," she mumbled.
Imos leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. "Pinky, my one and only. What can I do for you?"
"I've been thinking, you know, about our little problem," she started, leaning against his desk.
Imos let out a long sigh. "Which one, Bubblegum?"
"Gee Gee. And the bar," Tilla continued, shuffling until she was sitting on the edge of his desk. "He's off on a bender again and the guests are complaining about the droid."
"Baby Dottie? Guests are turning up their noses at a rose gold BD-3000?"
"Imos, we're surrounded by droids all our lives! Droids raise and teach our children, droids do our jobs, droids serve us in restaurants and shops and banks, droids take care of the elderly, droids go to war instead of us—"
"They are clones, Tills. People. Droids are the other side," Ashkhen interjected, but she waved her silent.
"People crave interaction. And let's admit it, Gee Gee wasn't much of a people's person."
"I'm quite ready for your big idea," Imos said, rubbing his temples with renewed vigour. A headache was coming on again, and with vengeance. He blamed the stuffy, artificial air of Level 4854, but all that glitterstim he habitually mainlined likely wasn't helping, either.
Tilla bounced off the edge of his desk, spun around and pushed Ashkhen forward by the shoulders. "Ta-daa!"
"What am I looking at?"
"Well, your new bartender!" Tilla peeked at him over Ashkhen's shoulder.
Imos raised his world-weary eyes to the tintless Nautolan. "What's your name?"
"Ash."
He ran a hand over his face. "Outstanding critical observation skills, Ash, we do call Pinky here Pinky because she's pink. But if I had to identify her body the police had found in one of our dumpsters, I'd call her Till'avahbidi. What's going to be written on your toe tag, sweethearts?"
"Oh! Uh, Ashkhen," she said. "You know, people called me Ash way before I—never mind."
Tilla launched into an animated sales pitch, conjuring up a fantastic upscale little bar in the Jrade District with the fancy, upper class clientele she wished she could have served. When she started reeling off the celebrities who had graced the establishment, Imos interrupted.
"What's it called?"
Ashkhen found herself in the crossfire of two pairs of eyes, rapidly blinking pink ones and greens that gleamed with shrewdness.
Really should have compared notes on the way up!
"It's called the, uh… Knight Club."
Imos's dismissive half-shrug succinctly expressed his interest in her imaginary workplace.
"Never heard of it," he said. "Why leave?"
"Management took a direction I didn't fully support."
"Fair enough."
He took out an exquisite case from his inner pocket, and offered it to the ladies. Ashkhen shook her head, Tilla picked out a superslim, and leaned over the desk so Imos could light it for her. The manager savored his t'bac in silence for a few moments, then looked Ashkhen up and down again.
"What's your signature drink?" he asked.
"Tea."
Two-thirds of Imos's t'bac stick burned up in a single, aggravated puff.
"Hardy-kriffing-har-har."
He skewered Ashkhen with a you-think-I-have-time-for-this-shit look. "Open mic comedy nights every Centaxday, across the street. I'm short on bartenders, not kriffing clownfish."
Ashkhen's left eye twitched. "You see, Mr. Imos, the main difference between fish and amphi—"
"Ash is super great with customers and got no problems being around alcohol," Tilla jerked her head towards the door, through which Rix had just left. Her left lekku behind her back conveyed a very strong message to Ashkhen. "Gee Gee is grumpy when sober, belligerent when drunk."
She mistook Imos's pensive silence for misgivings and decided to bring out the big guns.
"And, you're not gonna believe this, but she's like, a real Je—"
"—eeellyfish rehabilitator!" Ashkhen stomped on Tilla's right foot. "I volunteer to rescue and relocate aquatic animals whose natural habitat is endangered by overfishing, marine pollution and the tourism industry. I'll get you a bumper sticker. And a bracelet. Every little help counts."
Imos seemed unruffled. "Some of our cocktails are garnished with shrimp. Would that… trigger you?"
Ashkhen swallowed hard.
"Loosely monitored access to deveined and ready-to-serve shrimp would make me"—her breath hitched—"your most fiercely devoted employee."
Imos stubbed out his t'bac stick with a determined and precise thrust. "What the hell. You're on tonight. But Dottie stays switched on as backup. Now let's pray this day won't get any weirder," he said, then leaned back in his chair. "Pinky, get her a logo shirt. Ash, start preparing the welcome drinks. A hundred and fifty glasses of aurilian Mimosas. Every first Pentaday of the month is single ladies' night, so make it happy, make it snappy. I want to see that hand working faster than ketamine."
"This one's perfectly functional, too," she said, wiggling the prosthetic fingers. "I have two hands, just like everyone else."
Imos allowed himself a tight lipped smile. "Grazz sports four."
••• ••• •••
"What's your problem?"
Tilla pulled out a black crew-neck from a storage locker. It had the same cursive lettering as the neon sign above the main entrance. Ashkhen took the shirt, pulled it over her head and shook out her headtails, effectively covering up the print on its back.
"Look, Tills, this Jedi thing… it's very personal." She tucked the shirt in, then turned to Tilla with her arms folded. "I told you, because you're my friend, but not everyone needs to know that I'm a… I mean, being a Jedi is cool, flunking out is not."
"For the record, I think you're cool," Tilla said, changing into her own waitress uniform. The black on her bright pink skin brought forth an even more striking contrast than Drosili's outfit. Ashkhen had no doubts that Tilla could dress in a mouse gray potato sack and still pull off the look.
Completing a short introductory tour of the facilities, they headed back towards the elevator to descend to the club area proper. As the doors closed, a sudden thought arrested Ashkhen.
"This might sound a little out of the blue, but if you're ever asked to identify my body someone's found in a dumpster, please know that I'd wish to be cremated."
••• ••• •••
Mesmerised by her own rose gold reflection, Ashkhen wondered if it was feasible to sustain a meditative trance long enough to have her entire body tattooed in such a warm, bright hue. Nautolans with cool blue, green or brownish cryptic coloration made more sense from an evolutional perspective, but in a modern society, the practicality of it was easily overshadowed by looking so kriffing divine.
The droid's servos whirred as she turned her head to the side.
"It's usually males of near-human species with moderate to high blood alcohol concentration who keep staring at my chest plate, but I can re-calibrate my coquetry settings for you if you wish so. Raise flirtatious behaviour to sixty-nine percent. Confirm?"
"Whoa!" Ashkhen's attention snapped back to the present moment. "No, thanks, I'm not that lonely." She cleared her throat. "I'm Ash, the new bartender. Do I call you Baby, Dottie or BD-3000? Which do you prefer?"
"Unusual question. It's usually me asking other people's preferences, not the other way around." The unit's processing capacity completed the pondering in a nanosecond. "Patrons address female staff members as hey baby. BD-3000 is a little depersonalised—if I called you Nautolan you would think it's a little curt, too. And we're not on a burned-in serial number basis yet."
Ashkhen nodded. "Dottie it is, then."
"I appreciate the courtesy."
Ashkhen started filling up a tray with champagne glasses. "Well, I just got hired, plus your series has been on the market since before I hatched, so you've got absolute seniority." She glanced around, noticed the champagne cooler, and grabbed a bottle by its neck. "Also, I wish to be on better terms with you than the with kitchen application at my other job. He would happily lock me in the walk-in freezer if he didn't get his regular security updates."
"The RC series? I've heard some rumours about the inferior user experience."
"Girl, you have no idea." Ashkhen unwound the muselet, then held on to the cork for dear life—she could feel the pressure building up inside the bottle, and had no idea how to make it look convincing that this wasn't the first bottle of champagne she had ever opened in her life.
"Twist the bottle, not the cork," the droid said quietly.
Ashkhen followed her instructions—the bottle opened with a soft pop. She muttered an equally surprised and embarrassed thank you.
Dottie strutted over to the undercounter bar fridge and took out two cartons of aurilian juice. Her lower appendages were hinged wide apart, making her movements oddly reminiscent of a wind-up doll. "Don't mention it, hun. I already like you better than the previous sentient bartender. You're almost two percent droid, after all!"
Ashkhen glanced at her left forearm, and nodded in agreement.
"Say, Dottie, how's your general personality matrix configured?" she asked.
"Based on extensive market research and customer satisfaction metrics, my vocabulator is set to a frequency of two hundred and fifty hertz, giving me a pleasant, high-pitched feminine voice." Dottie finished another two trays of cocktails while Ashkhen still fumbled with the first. "My general sultriness is set between sixty and sixty-five percent to avoid sounding too provocative—my main role is to be an active listener and be the most effective in selling beverages to customers."
"You have a compassion setting, too?"
"The default is fifty-five percent. Certain keywords and phrases, such as 'breakup', 'cheated on me' or 'cut that sneaky bitch' automatically increase the setting by three to five percent."
Ashkhen leaned down to grab another tray from under the counter. Doing so, she inadvertently tapped on its brim twice, switching on the bright white LED that lit up the whole platter. She tapped on it again to switch it off—it turned blue. She tapped again. Darker blue. Indigo. Violet. Magenta. Slightly panicking, she tapped twice—it started pulsating.
"Three fingers, swipe towards the edge," Dottie supplied. To Ashkhen's relief, the tray went back to sleep.
"Thanks… again," she mumbled, clearing her throat. "So you're basically designed to be exactly what drunk people here are looking for?"
Dottie finished two-thirds of the Mimosas without a complaint. "The photoreceptors on my face plate are positioned rather wide apart, which gives me an innocent, trusting, somewhat dim-witted look. While my chassis design draws more on the principles of aesthetics than aerodynamics, it has proven to be remarkably well received among sentients. It makes them subconsciously recall the safety of a mother's nurturing embrace. More prominently in males, I might add, but I'm not programmed to be particular either way."
"You realize that's the least common method of feeding offsprings in the animalia kingdom, right?" Ashkhen crossed her arms. Perceived mammal supremacy always got her worked up. "We've been around for almost twice a long, and for the record, I'm glad that none of the very few memories I have of my mother are about her shoving any body parts in my face."
Dottie covered her vocabulator with her hands. "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that, my condolences! But look at you, hun, what a brave young woman you've become, I know your mother would be so proud!"
"Aw, that's so ni—" It hit her. "Pop the blowfish! Is this me tweaking your compassion settings?"
"Yes. 'Dead parent' and 'feeling unloved' come up in thirteen and twenty-one point four percent of all conversations, respectively. I'm programmed to express I feel sorry for you, but in an encouraging way, so you don't feel patronized. People don't like to be typecast as 'the Orphan'."
"My parents aren't dead!" Ashkhen huffed in indignance. "And I don't feel unloved!"
Dottie reached out and gently patted her cheek. The BD-3000 model had light-grade bronzium plating all over her body, hands included—being on the receiving end of her affection rather felt like getting slapped by a wind turbine blade. "And you shouldn't! I feel it in my motherboard there's a dashing young man out there waiting for you to open your hearts. Trust me, hun, true love is worth waiting for."
"Okay, Dottie, we're gonna need to set some boundaries. I appreciate the pep talk, but I really can't have you to go full shrink on me at work."
"Emotional support reduced to forty-eight percent." The light in her photoreceptors dimmed for a second. "Confirmed. Crazy weather we've been having this week, huh?"
Ashkhen burst out laughing. "Don't ever touch the humour setting."
The welcome drinks were all finished, the bar was all set, there were a few minutes left until gate opening, and Ashkhen's apprehension grew into full-blown dread. Never mind bartending, she had no idea about nightlife in general. She couldn't decide which was more stupid—Tilla's idea, or her, going along with it.
"Uh, Dottie…" She licked her lips. Oh, Force. Was there any right way to put this?
"Never once in your life have you ever tended bar and you have absolutely no idea what you're supposed to be doing."
Ashkhen ran her fingers through her headtails. It sounded much worse said out loud. "It's really that obvious, isn't it?"
"Nothing to be worried about. I am programmed with the recipes for the two hundred seventy-nine thousand most popular cocktails across the Galaxy," Dottie said. Ashkhen's face fell. "And a few more for the finicky customers."
The first few guests were already being led to their reserved tables, the resident DJ took over, fading out the canned background music, and Irigo's own beautiful fillers started gravitating towards the dancefloor to inspire others to join them and keep up the dynamic.
"It's all going to be fine, hun." Dottie said, amping up her succour settings by twelve percent. "Just do everything as I say."
Tilla strode up to the bar, an approving smile spreading on her face as she looked at the fifteen trays of cocktails lining up neatly on the bartop.
"Everything okay here, sweetie?"
Ashkhen gave her a tiny, non-committal head jerk that could have been interpreted in any ways. Tilla grabbed the nearest tray of Mimosas and thrummed her fingers along the brim to switch on her favourite pink lights.
"Then let's get this party started."