Singularity Hunters: The Rigel Incident

[CCC]

Mr. Bates bows and leaves again. This time it's twenty minutes before he returns, bearing another, much larger plate with a hemispherical silver cover. This time, the cover is removed to display a large piece of meat. Unlike every steak that Wilshire has ever encountered, there seems to be no bone and little visible fat, and it is moreover perfectly round; Spot will recognise it as basically a larger version of a hamburger patty.

There is sauce, but it is in a little bowl on the side of the plate.

[Weremensh]

Spot examines the meat for a second, then comments "That's an interesting cut of meat, Bates."

[Stan Cold]

Wilshire takes a bite. "MMM! This is magnificent! Fine meat, fine meat indeed!"

[CCC]

"I felt that it would be appropriate, sir." says Bates, in response to Spot's observation. "Will there be anything further that you require?"

[Stan Cold]

"Not at all! Thank you, Master Bates, you may take the night off!" Wilshire continued to eat his glorious meat.

[Weremensh]

Spot contemplates how the management of the hotel would react if Bates were to simply take off for the night; but simply says "As His Highness says, Thank you Bates. I'll call when he's done."

When Bates goes, Spot intends to start filling one of the flash drives with books.

[CCC]

"As you wish, sir." says Bates, with a bow. He leaves the room, though whether he actually takes the night off or not is not immediately obvious.

Spot can use the network terminal in his room to download new books. They're stuffed full of anti-piracy and anti-copying code, and are heavily encrypted and only readable on the official CyberSolutions Novel Reader (which, in turn, seems to only work if it can contact the official CyberSolutions Security and Anti-Piracy Servers) as freely downloadable from the official CyberSolutions webpage, which suggests that somewhere in the hotel, someone's adding up costs and will present The Man with a bill at some point. It also makes the books substantially larger than they would otherwise be.

The news ticker at the top of the webpage has a list of headlines about a recent terrorist attack; the only name that appears in these headlines is that of prominent AI researcher Professor Maximillion Clarke, who is apparently still at large, not to mention armed and dangerous.

[Weremensh]

Spot considers for a moment, decides it's bad form to risk an entire star system simply to download some malware free books, and lets poor Backup sleep uninterrupted. It also decides that it's just not going to be replacing those books here in digital form. So it calls room service and orders a physical copy of the first of the books The Man suggested which it hasn't read. Then it forwards a couple of the news ticker headlines, including the one about the attack, to said The Man. Just in case.

[CCC]

The Man acknowledges reciept of Spot's message. Room Service offers immediate download of the book in (heavily encumbered) e-book form, and even offers a suitable ebook reader. Of course, if the valued guest insists, they will source the physical copy, but it will take some time...

It turns out that "some time" is about half an hour. Bates reappears with the book after that interval, indicating that he had not, in fact, taken the night off.

[Weremensh]

Spot takes the book. "Thank you, Bates. Please extend our gratitude to whoever found this."

[CCC]

"Indeed, sir. Will there be anything further?"

[Weremensh]

"Perhaps. If we were to order cash in the early morning hours, would you be the one disturbed to deliver it?"

[CCC]

"If such occurs in the hours in which I am on duty, sir, then I would deliver it, but it would not disturb me." says Bates, politely.

[Weremensh]

Spot can't smile, but it does sound amused. It's worked hard on learning how to make it's sonic emissions sound emotional, and it's moderately proud of it's progress so far.

"Which hours would those be, then?"

[CCC]

"Up until two in the morning, sir."