The music in the room below was loud enough to make the small particles of debris dance around on the smooth lino floor of the upstairs bar. The noise was felt more than heard as the bar had sufficient sound suppression systems, but the vibrations still passed through the ceiling.
The patrons of the bar didn’t seem to care so much as it at least kept the insects away from scavenging the scraps of food that inevitably ended up mixed with the various pools of sticky liquids. The bar was washed about once a year and was the only time it closed.
There were a number of booths secreted around the wall, most had privacy screens in place to keep the denizens secluded in their own affairs. There was a lot of business that was conducted in the seclusion of the bar’s private booths. It was a safe place if you were a fully paid up Union member, and if you weren’t then you could buy the same status on an hourly premium.
The rest of the bar was a mix of large and small tables and the long expanse of a bartop. The patrons liked an organic to serve them when they sat on barstools. It was tradition. You needed to sometimes chew the world to rights with a fellow sufferer. Other times all you wanted to look at a pretty face who was moderately happy to see you. The bar, like most of the planet, didn’t judge you based on your preferences and the staff came in a variety of shapes and choices. Beauty was thoroughly a preference that could be selected if so desired based on criteria you set yourself, gathered from others or assumed from a social grouping.
There was a vending machine complex in the corner where you could purchase a variety of legal narcotics and sat next to that a small collection of droids and organics who could sell you just about anything else. The sale was backed by a Union promise of quality and retribution, and the dealers were regulated by the force of retaliation.
The club was called Zwei Köpfiger Tod a name in a language mostly forgotten. The locals called in the Tod or the Double-Head. A few others who liked to think of themselves as regulars called it the Dead-Head. It was situated in Union territory between level one and level two of the lower city. The region was a neutral place for most of the gangers and organised groups, with the Union providing the enforcement of that rule. The Justice department was content to let the Union police the area as long as a level of cooperation on serious crimes was experienced.
The watcher had arrived almost three hours after Xavier Minch had taken up residence in a booth by the corner. They had been informed by the Union that Minch was there, though the stealth drone had made it a seventy percent likelihood anyway. The area was filled with clubs and bars, and very paranoid organics, so the drone had kept far back to avoid accidental detection.
The watcher didn’t want to spook Minch. If need be they could take out Minch and break them. But they were hoping to use Minch as bait to catch a much bigger fish.
