The Sleeping Army Awakes

Part 16 The point

"What is the point Perseus?" Sir Gilbert asked pointedly.

"The point my dear Gilly," Sir Percy said, with all the condescension that he could muster, "which may I state, is flying above your intellectual paucity, like an eagle spotting its rodent prey far below." Sir Percy had read this somewhere and had been dying to use the phrase.

"What are you talking about Perseus?" Sir Gilbert slurred.

"I am saying that it is such a bold engineering feat... that the Aquarium Apartment is a demonstration of prowess, in an otherwise impotent world, because no-one has ever had the audacity to try do this before. It will be a triumph of man's ingenuity over mother nature!" Sir Percy Mac-ham Dodds replied defiantly. "The Zeli Corporation will be making a statement, we will be leaving a lasting legacy to later generations of just how great modern methods can be."

"Admit it Perseus. Your little secretary fellow over there wrote that little speech for you!" Sir Gilbert laughed and he knew that he had hit the nail on the head because Sir Percy couldn't look him in the eye. "Even so its a statement that you are barking bloody bonkers old man!"

The two competing huddles of twitchy body guards looked on from their respective sides of the table, silently salivating at the sight of so much food. They would not get fed for hours and when they were they were expected to eat sandwiches or left overs.

Sir Percy's guards, led by Honza Malik, wore the yellow and black livery of the Zeli Corporation. They looked smart in their striking uniforms looking reminiscent of rather aggressive mid twentieth century stock market traders. Their jackets were black with herringbone yellow pinstripes and there was yellow piping around the edges and lapels. Their black and yellow shirts were finished off with black silk ties with the Zeli Corporation's logo, a single green cabbage. The trousers also echoed the yellow pinstripe of the jacket, with the exception of yellow vertical piping down the outside seams in the style of a Victorian bandmaster. 

In fact it was only the polarised sunglasses and ear pieces that really gave it away that they were bodyguards at all and these were coloured back and yellow too. Body guards always wear sunglasses, like some unwritten law, even in dimly lit restaurants and discotheques. This is so that no-one can tell which way they are looking, which becomes entirely irrelevant, because no matter what they look at, the images are so polarised and dark that the recipients could barely see any useful detail.

Sir Gilbert's men, opposite, wore the blood and custard uniform of the Scriveners, in much the same pattern as Sir Percy's crew wore the Zeli one. They also wore mirror like black glasses and earpieces, predictably with blood and custard coloured frames. Their ties sported stylised depiction of a quill. 

They were alert and waiting for any sign of trouble. Each huddle was at a respectful distance from their masters hands behind their backs.

As tradition dictated, the two rivals patriarchs would only eat a token amount from each dish, if they deigned to touch the dish at all, leaving the rest to be disposed of in whatever manner the restaurant saw fit. The lavish spread of food was more a demonstration of their power and wealth than it was a meal. Each had vied with the other to order the most expensive dishes on the menu and the restaurant was the perfect venue to display their buying power to the world.

Despite the chances of being called upon to annihilate each other, or any assailants, at a moments notice, the two teams of bodyguards actually got on quite well. The two leaders had known each other since childhood and agreed long ago that the excess food would be packed into plastic snap fit boxes and divided between the two camps and anything that they couldn't eat would be divided later amongst the servants.

"But how do the tenants get to their apartment?" Sir Gilbert mocked, "you can't have a bridge. It would spoil the effect. You really do think up the silliest of schemes Perseus."

"Don't be silly Gilly. We have it all planned already. There will be a cable car!" Sir Percy boasted. "You have no vision."