The Last Apothecary

Chapter 19.

The digital tone of the doorbell rang through the shop, followed by a voice."Hey Crow! Working again?"

I paused stocking the box of trading cards in my hand for a moment, trying to put together who it was. It sounded familiar: Calm, reasonable, that quiet, thoughtful touch to it. Dustin? But it was deeper than usual. I glanced up from the box.

Sure enough, it was Dustin... just with his hood down for once, and a strange, confident smile on his face I didn't tend to see him with.

Still, I shot him a grin, sliding the box beneath the counter and walking towards him. "Man, I barely recognized you without half your face hidden in that hoodie. Finally came out of your shell today?"

A laugh snorted out of his nose. "You could say that. Anyways, do you get off soon? I brought the whole squad to play."

"Squad?" I turned as the bell sounded again, finding Blyke holding open the glass door for none other than... "Liesel?" I asked, eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

She gave a short wave from behind Blyke's back. "Hi!" Seconds later, she was hiking up the lacy edge of her black skirts off the ground, running over to greet me. "I knew Dustin was talking about you the other day on SpellSlay. After all, not like I'm going to forget about you, not after my dog is healthier than she's ever been in her life!"

"Yeah, I guess that's pretty hard to forget." Sure, just announce it to the whole cafe, why don't you? I thought with a grimace. Dekoran was going to be so mad when he found out the amount of people who knew about me. To be fair, if it was going to be that much of an issue, maybe he should have mentioned the whole 'had to be a secret thing' sooner.

"Anyways, Dustin wanted to invite me here, and I've never been, so how does it work? Do we just sit down and play?" she asked, smoothing down the wrinkles in her flouncy black skirt.

"No. I have to check you in first," I replied, moving behind the counter. For some reason, I actually felt a pang in my chest as they walked up. I guess it would've been nice to play a round with them, even with Liesel. But I was at work, so they'd just have to have fun without me. "Party of three, right?"

They nodded, and since I had nothing better to do, and Liesel did ask how it worked... "So this computer in front of me has an 'add party' button, and from there, tells me what computers are on today."

"Can't we just turn on any of them? There's computers and seats all over," Blyke pointed out.

"Yeah, but they're closed. They apparently used to run gaming cafes like that back in the day, but it was a huge waste of energy. Same generation that almost clogged up the sky too much to get the solar power we need. It's a lot smarter to have just enough computers to support all the customers we'll probably get, and only turn on more as needed," I explained. It was a nice change of pace, being able to explain rather than dealing with the occasional jerk demanding to sit in 'their spot'.

"Makes sense. So, where we headed?" Blyke asked, handing me his clip card.

I glanced at the photo id listed on the card out of curiosity, even though I didn't need to for borrowing a computer. "Last three seats in the back row. Don't worry, I'll lead you there." I looked up from the card, walking along the wall until I found the last three square panels. "You're all paying together, right?"

They nodded, and in turn I tapped the clicker on the card to connect the payment to the panels, which then flashed from a plain white to green. From there I watched the light travel along the wires, through the transparent floor until it flowed to a single table. Sure, I still had to walk them there, being the professional and all, but really anyone could follow the lit-up path.