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The client looks slightly out of place, younger, more good-looking, and more casually dressed in his worn jeans and leather jacket than the average middle-aged men in eye-searing suits that make up the usual demographic for VIPs booking the luxury viewing stations. He also ordered a single beer instead of the usual bottles of 200,000-credits champagne, and unlike the usual clients, he's actually interested in the race. Leonard McCoy notes all of it dispassionately, because he is here for one job, and it's not to psychoanalyze clients.
He sets a coaster down on the touch-screen glass table and cracks the cap off the chilled bottle with a practiced twist of his wrist. At his back, the stadium cheers are loud enough to reverberate through his bones, but Leonard doesn’t turn around to see it; he’s seen the tracks enough to be sick of seeing it through the reinforced glass of the luxury boxes. Not that the riveted client in front of him would be able to know.
Leonard takes a surreptitious peek at the stats displayed on the table as he pours the beer into the glass mug; the hoverbikes are about to deploy, and it seems the jockey for Blue Neon is leading the chart in being the smuggest asshole of the lot before pulling the visor down.
Leonard sets the mug onto the coaster.
“Hey, thanks,” says the client.
“No problem,” Leonard answers automatically, giving the client a bland smile.
“You a jockey fan?” The client nods at the stadium. “Saw you look at the stats.”
Leonard tries to make his teeth-grinding at the kid subtle. Nosy, entitled twenty-somethings are the worst. “Not particularly. Just used to ride a bike. Is there anything else you’d like,” he checks the VIP name on the table, “Mr Kirk?”
“Yeah,” Kirk says sunnily, “I want to know what you think of Blue Neon.”
Leonard snorts. “What, you planning on betting on him? Bad idea.”
Kirk’s eyebrows fly up and flexes the lean lines of his body, lounging back onto the couch. Leonard looks on with dry-throated annoyance as Kirk swings his feet up onto the table like a heathen, beer already forgotten. “Why? Blue Neon’s the best bike in the race.”
“Jockey leans too much during turns and his speed regulation makes me want to cry. No amount of mechanical razzle dazzle can win a race if the damn jockey can’t bike.”
“Mechanical razzle dazzle,” Kirk repeats, amused.
Leonard scowls. “You got a hearing problem or something?”
“Nah,” Kirk says, “It’s just that the ‘razzle dazzle’ are my designs.”
“Blue Neon’s designed by Gemini.”
“Who ripped off of my blueprints.”
“Why, give me a moment. I gotta go get the world’s tiniest violin,” Leonard drawls.
“I don’t think this is good customer service,” Kirk smirks, then his charm melts away into seriousness. “Why are you even here? You clearly know what you’re talking about. You could be out there on the tracks.”
Leonard stills, then remembers exactly why he is here in the first place: to serve a client a beer. Nothing more. “None of your business," he schools his face. "Anything else, Mr Kirk?” Leonard’s already walking away.
“Wait. I want a hotdog.”
Leonard turns back around, menu PADD and stylus already in his hands. “What kind,” he says dully, tapping the order in.
“Chilli.”
“Size?”
“Large.”
“Okay. Drinks?”
“Race on the tracks on my bike.”
“No problem,” Leonard stops tapping, then looks up scowling: “Now wait a goddamn second—”
“Hear me out. I’ll secure the funding, easy. The new design, the Enterprise, it’s already finished. All she needs is assembly.”
“What kind of hare-brained— no, I’m not racing,” Leonard sputters.
Kirk had put his feet down and is now leaning forward, elbows on the table. “Blue Neon was my old design and it’s the current best on the tracks. Imagine what we can do with a cutting-edge bike and the old reigning champion,” Kirk pauses, “Leonard McCoy.”
“How did you—” Leonard glances down at the tablescreen, then curses. His face and name are plastered all over to the blaring headlines of his humiliating divorce and subsequent retreat from the industry.
When he looks back up again, the blue, earnest eyes on Kirk’s face spell nothing but trouble.
“No,” Leonard snaps.
He’s about to turn and leave until: “I’ll split you half of all earnings.”
Leonard freezes.
Half of all earnings. That’s a lot of money. Enough money to hire a good lawyer, appeal for child custody.
“So,” Jim says, low and knowing. “What do you say? Partners?”
If they win… Leonard can see Joanna again.
Kirk’s face is infuriatingly smug. Behind Leonard, the stadium bursts into thunderous renewed vigor. Leonard’s bones vibrate with it.
“Half,” Leonard grits his teeth. “And it better be a fucking unbelievable bike.”
“The best mechanical razzle dazzling you’ll ever see,” Kirk promises, and toasts Leonard with his beer. His boyish grin is cat-like, canary firmly under his paw. Leonard can’t bring himself to regret it.