Closing Weight

The bar had no official name on any Civic Network listing. Regulars called it the Weight because the ceiling was low and the pressure doors still carried the old industrial ratings.

Jas wiped the same section of counter for the third time. The last three customers had left. Only one figure remained in the corner booth.

Liariel did not drink much. She sat with a single glass she had not touched in twenty minutes, reading something on a slate that gave off no public signal. The turquoise hair was tied back. Black lipstick. The room had already adjusted around her.

Jas did not approach until Liariel looked up.

“Closing,” Jas said.

“I know.”

“You usually leave before this.”

“Tonight I needed the room empty.”

Jas nodded. That was as much explanation as the Queen of the Undercity generally offered.

Liariel stood. The movement was economical. She left the untouched glass and a credit chip that was more than the night’s total take.

“If the man with the harbor accent returns and asks for me by any name,” she said, “you never saw me. If he asks for the channel, you tell him the channel is closed until the next cycle.”

“Understood.”

Liariel left through the pressure door that still required the old manual wheel. The bar felt larger without her in it.

Jas locked up, counted the chip twice, and did not ask what the harbor-accent man had done. In the Undercity some information was safer as absence.