CALLA WALKS CALMLY TOWARD THE closed nightclub doors. It’s strange to see the place shut down when every other business on the street is open and enjoying increased business—not only from the sudden lack of competition, but from the mystery of it all. What could possibly lead Ubialla to close down at mid-cycle, when there’s drinking to be done and the casinos and racetrack are churning out their endless stream of newly minted rich, each of them dying to drink to their success at the fabled Ubialla’s? Every minute those doors are closed costs her more than simply credits. She’s losing reputation, losing cachet, and while no one doubts her ability to win it back, it seems beyond strange for her to take the risk at all.
The walkways are well lit and reasonably safe, especially here, with merchants hawking their wares and criers for the various clubs waving discount slips and shouting promises to try to entice this sudden windfall of free custom their way. If she were to tread into the shadows, she would quickly find herself in substantially more danger, and so she will not do that.
She wears a long silver cloak over her resort uniform. She carries a bottle in one hand. She knows she should be afraid, but everything that has happened since she made—and lost—her unwise bet with the Grammus sisters has happened so fast that there hasn’t been time for fear. She’s been so busy reacting to everything that there simply hasn’t been an opportunity to stop and really think about what she’s been doing.
That’s good. As far as she’s concerned, this specific brand of thoughtlessness can last all the way to the moment when she gets either released or carted off to some alien dimension where she won’t know anyone and won’t have any way of escaping. Right now she has a job to do, and she needs to be as calm and clearheaded as possible if she’s hoping to achieve it.
There are no guards outside the door. That’s fine. If anything, that makes what comes next slightly easier. She steps up into the sheltered alcove that protects Ubialla’s guests from the ruffians on the street, and pauses to adjust her cloak and knock the dust from her shoes. She must look better than she is if she’s to play this part. She must look like she belongs here and not behind a resort counter.
It’s hard to suppress the small thrill that runs through her as she finally raises her hand to knock. Ubialla Gheal and people like her are the reason that the honest citizens of Canto Bight—the ones who came for a weekend and found themselves staying for a lifetime, whether intentionally or not—can never break even, much less get ahead. Their grift and graft is small-time, designed for survival, not for counting coup. They are small predators in a dangerous jungle, and Ubialla and her kind are so much higher up the food chain that even the thought of getting one over on her is deliciously intoxicating, sweeter than any wine.
Calla knocks. There is no answer, so she knocks again, and again, until it becomes almost a game, until she’s hammering out the tempo of a song she heard once, played by a strange little band in a strange little bar that she’s never been able to find again, no matter how hard she’s looked. Canto Bight is like that. It gives and it takes, and it never slows down enough to let you figure out whether the books balance after all. She’s fairly sure they don’t. For the books to balance, the city would have to occasionally lose.
Sometimes she feels like she’s standing in the belly of a great machine designed to grind people up and spit them out, over and over again, with loaded dice and marked cards and poisoned drinks and honeyed lies. She loves it here, she honestly does. She wants to be a creature born to this environment, capable of breathing this air without feeling it stinging the bottom of her lungs—a feeling born of failure to thrive, not any toxin or pollutant. There has never been a city as clean and as filthy at the same time as Canto Bight, where everything is planned, everything is controlled, and nothing is free.
She keeps knocking until the side of her hand goes numb, and then she keeps knocking after that, hit after hit after hit, and every strike is another wrong that Canto Bight has done to her, another hand that didn’t play her way, another customer who didn’t tip, another manager who thought she needed to learn humility, or at least learn to play the game of flesh and favors. Every time she knocks, she sees another reason the city set her up for this, another card played toward this eventual outcome. She never had a choice. She never had a chance.
She keeps knocking.
The door opens.
At first she’s so surprised that she raises her hand to knock again anyway, ready to slap flesh against open air and see what happens. Then she catches herself, lowering hand and head in the same instant, and says, “I apologize for disturbing you, but my mistresses instructed me to come meet them here, and I would have to do far more than apologize if I failed to meet their expectations. I know you’re closed for the night, but please, may I come in?”
The sound of shouting, shrill laughter, and loud protests drifts out from behind the weary, wary guard. He looks her up and down, expression barely shy of a scowl, and asks, “Who are your mistresses?”
“Rhomby and Parallela Grammus.”
The change in the guard is gratifying. He straightens, weariness replaced by shock, wariness replaced by something that looks very much like greed. “The sisters,” he says. “You belong to the sisters.”
Calla wants to bristle at the idea that she belongs to anyone apart from herself. She does no such thing, bowing shallowly instead as she replies, “They are my mistresses, and they have bid me to meet them here.”
“Why?”
Her instructions have prepared her for this possibility. She draws her cloak aside, revealing the bottle she clutches by the neck. The glass is dark, concealing the contents, but it is a wine bottle connected, if only tenuously, to the Grammus sisters; it is as good as any bribe, as valuable as any promissory note.
“I am to deliver this,” she says.
“Come with me,” says the guard, and grabs her by the wrist, hauling her into the club. The door slams as soon as she’s inside the dimly lit antechamber. More guards are present, holding back agitated patrons who have just been teased with freedom.
“Ubialla will want to see you immediately,” snaps the guard.
“Please,” says Calla, summoning every scrap of humility she’s learned from working at the resorts. There’s a surprising amount of it, coupled with a less surprising amount of scorn. They think they know her so well. They don’t know her at all. “My mistresses are expecting me. I’ll be in trouble if I don’t come. You have to let me go to them.”
“I don’t have to do anything but take you to Ubialla,” says the guard. “She’ll decide when you see your mistresses. If you see them.”
Calla allows herself to stumble, as if shocked by his blatant implication that she’ll never see the sisters again, as if pulled off balance by his hand. His response to the motion is, predictably, to yank her back onto her feet, keeping her from breaking free. That’s what she was hoping for. Using the momentum of the guard’s pull for cover, she lets her hand come open.
She lets the bottle fall.
It strikes the marble floor of the club and shatters into a million shards, too broken to ever be pieced back together. Dark-purple liquid splashes outward like a bruise, staining everything it touches. Patrons close enough to be in range step back, crying out in disgust and dismay.
Calla starts to cry, small, hitching sobs, and feels the sympathy of the crowd shift. Yes, she dropped the bottle, but only because that brute of a guard pulled on her. The guard who has, in tandem with his fellows, been keeping them locked in all night, refusing to let them leave as they deserve. He’s the one to blame here, not her.
The mutters swell to grumbles to open-voiced complaints. The guard, still struck silent and motionless by the destruction of the greatest treasure his employer has ever pursued, finds himself surrounded in an instant, hemmed in by a wall of angry bodies. He tries to take a step. They’re making motion—making flight—impossible.
He raises his hands to ward them off, releasing Calla in the process. Her tears stop immediately. She ducks low, making herself a smaller target, and pushes through the crowd, finding the natural holes among their bodies as they move in and she moves out.
The smell of the spilled liquid fills the air, sweet and cloying and passably believable as an unfamiliar vintage of wine. It’s not wine, of course, was never fermented, never aged, never put through any process more elaborate than a single woman in a resort bathroom crushing flower petals into a funnel, but it can pass for the stuff in the right light, under the right circumstances.
There is a screech of fury behind her. Calla turns. Ubialla stands at the edge of the antechamber, staring at the spill with horror. Ubialla’s eyes flick upward, and widen as she sees Calla.
“You,” she says, voice trembling, and raises her hand to point. “What was…was this…?”
“My mistresses contacted me and asked me to bring it after the bottle they carried with them was stolen,” says Calla. She doesn’t have to work to make her voice shake. Part of her is still pleased by the chaos she’s helped to create, by the understanding that the strange women who plucked her from her safe resort job are well on their way to beating the house for once. They’re going to win. For Ubialla to be this angry, for the club to be this restless…
They’re going to win. But there’s a blaster in Ubialla’s hand, and Calla has been on Canto Bight too long to believe that any victory comes without a cost. Someone has to pay when the cards are marked and the dice are loaded, when the edges of the tiles are dusted with pheromone pollen. Someone has to pay. Always, it’s been people like her. Why should tonight be any different?
“You dropped the wine?” Ubialla’s voice is low and dangerous.
Calla takes a step back, prepared to run. A hand closes on her shoulder, stopping her where she is. She glances back, sure she’ll see the face of another one of Ubialla’s goons, some hulking bruiser with the strength to pull her head off her shoulders for her offenses against the house—
—and finds herself looking at the calm, even solemn face of one of the Grammus sisters. She still can’t tell them apart, may never be able to tell them apart, and that doesn’t matter, because in this moment she loves them both with a bright, fierce devotion that will never fade away. No one has ever taken the time to save her before, no matter how much she’s needed it.
“This is ours,” says the sister. Her tone is calm, patient, the sort of voice best used for addressing a child. “You should not threaten what is ours, not when you still hope to benefit from us. Is this how business is done on this world? Perhaps this is not a good world for us to visit, if this is the way of things here. We are accustomed to more civilized spaces.”
The crowd grumbles. Ubialla glances around, sees her guard still hemmed in by angry bodies, sees the looks of loathing and disdain on the faces surrounding their little tableau. The top of her head pulses as the magnitude of the situation sinks in. She lowers the blaster, a smile painting her face. The night has taken its toll on her: The strain is visible around the edges of her lips, rendering the smile artificial and cloying. Repairing the damage already done will be the work of weeks—and in Canto Bight that might as well mean “years.” Time works differently here. It moves faster, both in destruction and creation.
“I didn’t threaten her,” says Ubialla. The blaster vanishes into her dress, somehow failing to break the lines of it at all. “I was merely concerned by all the noise, and wanted to be sure she found her way safely back to you. That’s all. Nothing more.”
“Then it is good that we have been found,” says the sister. She removes her hand from Calla’s shoulder, looking sadly at the mess on the floor. “A pity. It was a fine vintage.”
Laughter claws at the inside of Calla’s throat, threatening to break loose and overwhelm her. A “fine vintage” indeed. Squashed flower juice and mouthwash from the bathroom toiletries have been called many things, she’s sure, but this may be the first time anyone has tried to use that particular term.
Ubialla looks at the spill again, this time calculating, and Calla can’t help but wonder how long it will be before the cleaning droids are instructed to suction up every drop, filter out the glass, and serve the stuff as something too rare, too impossible to obtain to be sold for anything less than everything. And these people, these rich, glittering, terrible people, will pay. Oh, they’ll pay, and pay, and pay until there’s nothing left in their pockets, and then they’ll tell anyone who’ll listen about the time they sipped the rarest wine in the galaxy while sitting at Ubialla Gheal’s left hand, elevated by her very presence.
Even those who hold the power in Canto Bight aren’t immune to losing. Maybe it’s time to start trying in earnest to get out after all.
“The night is almost finished,” says the sister calmly. “If you will return with me to the place where this began, my sister and I are prepared to conclude negotiations. Unless you would prefer to remain here, guarding the exit from honest customers who may wish to return home and freshen themselves before a new day begins. It is important that it be said, however, that if you choose that path of the two available to you, the negotiation will be declared in the sommelier’s favor, and you will receive nothing more from us than you already have. Regardless of tonight’s outcome, we will not be returning to this place for a very long time. We do not care for your…hospitality. And if either of us is harmed, you will never see another of our kind.” The threat—not obtain their wine—does not need to be spoken to be heard.
“I will come with you,” says Ubialla.
The sister nods. “We suspected that you might,” she says, and turns, and walks away.
Derla looks away from her Wookiee guard—who is charming, in his way, for all that they have no language in common—at the sound of footsteps moving toward her booth. It is somehow unsurprising to see one of the Grammus sisters approaching, with Derla’s own valise in her hands. She thinks it may be the sister from the restroom. She has genuinely no idea how to be sure. That’s an art in and of itself. She has met identical twins before, has even met identical species, worlds where distinction between individuals has never been visual. Usually something will come to the surface following even a brief interaction, some quirk or twitch or otherwise distinctive attribute. Here…
There’s nothing. Either the two are so alike as to forget what it means to be individuals, or they are playing a role designed to obfuscate them for reasons of their own. Derla cannot say which might be true. She isn’t sure it matters. She’s here, and they’re here, and Ubialla, unfortunately enough, is here, and what happens is going to happen regardless of who wears which name.
“Where did you get that?” asks Derla.
“If enough confusion is created, almost any object can be moved,” says the sister, sliding into a seat and holding the valise out toward the Wookiee. “It might be best if you held this, for now. Your employer is likely to be quite angry when she realizes it has been moved.”
The Wookiee looks at Derla, uncertain. She decides to learn Shyriiwook at her first opportunity. It will come in useful when her new employee comes to find her.
“It would be a great favor to me,” she says. “If you feel the risk is worth taking.”
Slowly, he picks up the valise, making an inquiring noise.
The Grammus sister nods. “Precisely,” she says. “You may go, if you like. We are reaching the conclusion of our business. I expect it will be short, sharp, and potentially very violent. You did not enter these negotiations as a participant. We cannot require you to stay.”
The Wookiee looks at Derla again. She finds the strength to smile.
“I am pleased by your company, but I understand you work for Ubialla,” she says. “Don’t endanger yourself on my behalf.”
The Wookiee nods and moves the valise behind his broad back. It’s such a simple ruse that it may well work; after all, the cons here are so much more complicated. Derla turns her attention to the Grammus sister.
“Have you made your decisions, then?” she asks.
“We have,” says the sister.
“Will you share them with me?”
“In good time.” The sister looks thoughtfully at Derla. “We expected more concern from you.”
“Calmness serves me better, in my profession.”
“Indeed.” The sister’s gaze flicks to a point beyond Derla. The final act is beginning.
The second Grammus sister appears with a human woman by her side, Ubialla trailing angrily after them. The Wookiee makes an inquisitive growling sound. Ubialla barely even glances at him.
“Tell them to open the doors and release the trash,” she snaps. “I’m saving my life right now. I don’t have time to deal with you.”
Derla believes she sees sympathy in his eyes as he looks at her. Then he’s gone, and Ubialla is sliding into the booth by her side, as if none of the events of the night have changed anything. As if they, and the sisters, are still conducting a simple business deal.
“Calla, you are excused again,” says Parallela. “We thank you for your service—every part of it.”
“But…” Calla glances over her shoulder toward the door. “What about…”
“Think and you will understand,” says Rhomby.
“You have done well,” says Parallela. “Return to the resort.”
Calla bows quickly before she turns and goes. She does not look back. Her part in this show—and show it has absolutely been; Derla has no doubt of that—is done.
“Where is my wine?” Ubialla’s voice is low, calm, with an underlying layer of dangerous warning. She is a predator backed into a corner and pushed too far past where it is safe. Soon, she will strike.
Please, let them have listened, thinks Derla.
“It is not your wine until the deal is done,” says Rhomby chidingly. She reaches below the table and lifts a valise. Not Derla’s, which is safely away from here, nor the one the first bottle came from, which has been searched thoroughly: a new valise, distinguished by the reversed orientation of the latch. She opens it.
Her sister reaches inside and withdraws a bottle of wine identical to the first. Ubialla gasps, hunger apparent in the sound. The Grammus sisters exchange a glance.
“Where there is one of something, there must be two of the thing, or balance is not upheld,” Parallela says. “The exception lies with things that have been marked disposable. A bottle of wine whose twin has been consumed, for example, might be used as a tester, to allow potential clients to taste what we have to offer and see that it is good.”
Rhomby reaches into the sister’s valise and pulls out a second—no, a third—bottle of wine. It is in all ways identical to the two that have come before it. It is beautiful.
There has been some question in Derla’s mind, before this, as to the nature of the game the Grammus sisters play. This moment confirms her suspicions. They entered the club intending everything that has happened, from Ubialla’s involvement to the theft and the unfolding chaos that followed. This has all been an intricate performance, and she wants to laugh in delight. What a way to build a legend. What a terribly beautiful, terribly dangerous way.
“This is our decision,” says Rhomby. “One of you came in good faith and one of you came in poor faith, and these are such beautiful oppositions that you both should be rewarded. Here.” She extends her bottle toward Derla.
Parallela does the same with her bottle, holding it toward Ubialla. Ubialla snatches it from her hands.
“Fools,” she snarls. “Petty, thieving, conniving fools. I’d be within my rights to have you banished from the planet.” The blaster, once safely tucked away, is in her hand again, aimed squarely at the bottle Rhomby holds toward Derla.
Quick as a wink, Derla jerks her reaching hands away. Rhomby lets the bottle go. Before it can strike the table, where it might not break, Ubialla fires, and glass shatters, and the air is filled with the sweet, unique scent of the wine of dreams.
“One bottle,” says Ubialla. She stands, the blaster vanishing into her dress once more. Somehow, not a drop of wine has touched her. The veins on her cheeks pulse with pleasure as she says, “You brought one bottle. I secured one bottle. My patron will be pleased, and all of you will leave here alive. I trust that will be sufficient payment?”
She doesn’t wait for their reply, only turns and walks away. Derla looks at the shattered remains of the bottle with no small measure of regret.
“It was a pleasure doing business with you,” she says, rising. The sisters do not speak. They simply watch her go.