The Man between my crosshairs (girl X assassin)

Chapter 14/Ryder in the elevator

A/N Waring this chapter get's just slightly smutty near the end. You have been warned. 

Zoe walked into the hotel. Zoe knew about hotels. For every hour Zoe slept she lay in a strange bed for forty minutes. This was not the lobby of five star hotel. If it was a five start hotel then at least three stars had been swallowed up in a black hole caused when the second star end nova. The entrance space was quite compact for a five star hotel but perhaps this was a Archigram thing.

She had chosen the hotel for two reasons. Firstly it was the kind of hotel an organisation with a huge amount of investment money would choose. This suited Mother's rule number one 'stay in character until the moment of the hit'. Secondly, room 404 in the hotel, had a perfect view of the Styles penthouse apartment. Perfect from a sniper rifle point of view. The previous occupant of room 404 was leaving today so this set the clock for the scouting mission. The problem was in this retro-hotel humans allocated rooms so hacking the software wasn't an option.

There were now, two short queues leading to the check-in desk. From the screens behind the two check-in clerks, Zoe could see that room 404 had not been taken. She was standing next to a tall man, he was lean, from the glimpse that she got he seemed quite good-looking. He was blond , young with a lean physique, large hands. From the way he stood he looked at home, comfortable, confident like he naturally stayed in high class hotels. Of all the men in the room Zoe noticed he was the only one who didn't leave his eyes on her ,while pretending not do to so.

"I haven't queued for such a long time since apple announced there was an in-store way to remove the free U2 album from your music collection," Zoe said to the tall man.

"It is a Monday. A lot of executives arrive on Monday. They stay in hotels during the week. This leaves them time to go home to their families over the weekend and spend time with the important things in life. Like queuing outside Supreme. Lack of digital check-in is one of those five-star touches a retro hotel like this prides itself on. So is this your first time on the planet?" The tall man said. Zoe recognised his voice it was the voice of the planetary genius who had sat behind her on the shuttle.

"Yeah," Zoe said "commuting like that is hard. What do they even do in the evenings to keep themselves occupied?"

"They generally do things they wouldn't like to explain to their wife or husbands," said the tall man.

"Really? Like what? Quantum theory or the plot of Primer? Or do you mean the lyrics to Taylor Swift's Blank Space level of difficulty?" said Zoe.

Taylor Swift was one of those music legends who had taken gold early and pretty much was still alive and touring. As known space got bigger, distances longer, tours tended to get longer and longer. Her last tour 'Next time I say I would be delighted to do a gig in your planet remember to shoot me' was still going after thirty years. At the end some of the singers for her tour included grand children of the singers of the original line up.

"Level of difficult? I was thinking more the delay-of-game penalty rule in football" said the tall man looking forward, he was clearly smiling.

"I could see why it could keep the evenings occupied. Do the partners ever come down and find executives explaining why, the removal of ten seconds from the clock takes place only if the game is tied or the the team in possession of the ball is losing, to someone?"

"Only when they are actively seeking court divorce against said executive." said the tall man.

Zoe pulled "I guess that level of certainty would spoil the sport in the matter."

Zoe looked at the time on her watch. "I have problems sleeping after flipping time zones. Why everywhere isn't on Earth time is beyond me. What do you do to handle getting to sleep?"