Friends in high places. Part 2

The bar was designed in the style of the upscale bars of Japan, more specifically Roppongi, which I have visited in my past world. Wood, leather, marble and a minimum of modern: high-tech elements in the form of chrome and other things. Very authentic feeling of antiquity. Just a real gentlemen's club of Old England with a slight influence of Japanese culture.

Sitting down at one of the free tables, I began to look at the menu and the list of available cocktails. What can I say... Some of the drinks were familiar to me, but others were not. And the names were in the style of cyberpunk. Sighing from such a discrepancy, the style of the bar and drinks, as if I had installed a sound system à la Fast and Furious into a retrocar, I ordered a cognac and got out my cigarettes.

Within a minute a glass of cognac was placed next to me. Smoking my favorite cherry cigarette, I prepared to enjoy the forgotten taste of cognac and the atmosphere of private club-bar.

Only the reality turned out to be a little different than I had expected. I almost spit back all the cognac I drank. Seeing my reaction, one of the waiters came up to me and asked what was wrong.

"Are you sure you served me Courvoisier XO Imperial and not some other cognac?"

"Yes, I remember that's the one you chose. You didn't like it?"

"To put it mildly, I didn't like it very much. It seemed to me that you served me some cheap cognac or diluted it with water. Please call the manager and the bartender with the bottle."

"But..."

"I said please get the manager and bartender and bring the bottle you poured the cognac from."

The waiter turned pale and, with a nod of his head, ran off to find the manager. And my behavior caused a bit of a stir among the audience. But I didn't care. I don't like it when someone interferes with my recreation, and even more so if they try to ruin it completely.

The damn cognac tasted like someone had mixed cheap whiskey, oil, and dye for extra tinge. For those who hadn't tasted a real Courvoisier, it might have tasted like a retro or exotic feature, but to me, who knew what the aroma and taste was supposed to be, it was like tasting sewage water off the street.

Finally, the manager came over with the bartender holding a bottle of cognac. Informing me in advance that it was the same bottle and not a switcheroo, as proof they could provide me with the camera footage, the manager asked me what the reason for my indignation was.

Asked to hand me the bottle, I proceeded to inspect it. The label, the bottle and the cap were practically identical to those in my past world. Hmm, what can I say, all original, and now it's time for the simplest and most effective test of the drink itself. Abruptly turning the bottle over like an hourglass several times, I began to watch the bubbles and drops.

Well what can I say, there is good news and bad news. Let's start with the good news, my intuition has not failed me. The bad news is that it is a fake after all. Real high-end cognac should be oily, you can tell by the number of drops left after several turns and the distance between them. The more drops and the less distance between them, the better, but here all the drops are small and sparse, and flow down very quickly. Even looking at which bubbles rise first, you can tell, at the very least, that the quality of the drink is very low, or that it is just a good knockoff.

After expressing all my observations, it turned out to put the manager and the bartender in a state of shock. To my surprise they were both, based on their experience of reading emotions, surprised and not frightened, which usually happens with all sorts of crooks when you uncover their deception.

For the sake of additional verification, I asked the bartender to bring a bottle of another high-end cognac. Being persuaded by the manager he brought Martell XO, and after the usual check for any external discrepancies, having made sure of the originality, I asked him to pour the cognac into the glasses. He twirled the glass, on the walls of which a lot of slowly dripping drops formed. This one is definitely not a fake, and the aroma tells me that this is a real Martell, and not a tinted vodka with the aroma of burnt sawdust.

Towards the end of the show I asked the manager and the bartender to taste the drinks and feel the difference. For fun, I offered to try the real cognac first and the fake after. If the real cognac made them smile, the fake made them frown.

Yes, that's the difference between the long tradition of creating alcoholic masterpieces and counterfeits. The aftertaste is pretty shitty after trying a good, real cognac.

The manager thanked me and, taking the fake, left with the bartender, leaving me alone with the Martell. After paying for it, I began to enjoy a cherry cigarette, alcohol and a good read.

Only my rest didn't last long, the manager came over, apologized and returned the money, and then surprised me by telling me that the owner of Kanpeki Plaza, Yorinobu Arasaka, wanted to see me. I wonder why the celestial heir of Arasaka would want to see me.

Well, I'll go and find out, I doubt that something really shitty is waiting for me there, and I can't refuse such an invitation so easily: I might make him angry. And the wrath of one of the richest men in the world is the last thing I want to get.

I had to get up from the chair that had become so soft and comfortable and walk toward the elevator. Before I was allowed to get to the penthouse, I had to go through a security check and a scan. Finding nothing dangerous, except that my implants caused a little bewilderment, but after reading the information about my place of work, they allowed me to take the elevator up to Yorinobu's private quarters.

Except when I stepped out of the elevator, a huge cyborg came at me. Holy shit, that's Adam Smasher! The famous bogeyman, though, even at first glance, he was more iron than flesh. So many people had died at his hands, enough to fill a big cemetery, and two smaller ones, too. Do they want to kill me after all?

Practically on pure instinct, I readied myself for one hell of a fight, and even activated my implants. My movements did not go unnoticed, and Smasher also switched to combat mode. So that was it, I didn't manage to become a legend myself, but I was going to die at the hands of a legend. Crappy ending to my life.

Just at the last moment, as we were getting ready to lash out at each other, someone yelled out, "Adam, stop! Now!"

It was as if someone had pulled the switch, and Smasher went into a more passive mode, or what I might call passive mode for a heavily armed cyborg sociopath. Deciding not to take unnecessary risks, I, too, took a more peaceful pose.

Yorinobu Arasaka walked into the room, and after casting a scowl at his bodyguard-fighting dog, approached me, allowing me to get a better look at him. At first glance, you wouldn't think he was in his 30s or 40s, though he's actually lived over 70 years. There weren't a huge amount of wrinkles or age pigmentation, no signs of senile infirmity. There it is, the true power of money and power-a long and fulsome life. As these thoughts rushed through my head like a jet stream, he spoke.

"I owe you an apology. He is my bodyguard, but sometimes shows excessive zeal."

"I can understand him, after all, your safety is his job. So no need to apologize. Now, if you could tell me what the reason for your invitation is."

"It's simple enough. A strange report from the bar manager caught my attention. Instead of a scandal or some drunken shenanigan, he told me about a customer who was able to identify a fake, and the way in which you did it. So, the reason for the invitation was only my personal interest. And a chance to check the originality of some of the drinks in my stock. Your knowledge is not limited to cognac, am I right?"

"Yes, I think I can help you with that." - I answered him with a slight smile, causing him to smile back. Inviting me to follow him, he led me into the living room, where we sat down on the couch. Opposite the couch was a table where there were bottles of different kinds of alcohol. But they had something in common - a very high price, as well as rarity.

We began the tasting. I tried to remember interesting stories about the drinks. He was especially amused by the story of Absolut vodka: a vintage apothecary bottle from a Swedish pharmacy had been used for marketing purposes and it looked elegant and very Swede-like.

Even though we weren't planning on getting drunk, we just wanted to try different flavors, but the amount of alcohol in our blood began to take its toll. We began to have conversations on various topics: politics, weapons, culture and art. At one point, being a little intoxicated, I told my story: about how I had broken free from my grandfather's chains, under the guise of a book I had read long ago, the name of which I could not even remember.

The story evidently awakened some memories in Yorinobu, and he began to talk about his rebellious youth. Yeah, I thought I had a rough childhood and adolescence, but his was much worse. The boy was almost killed by his own brother, and his father hunted him down for rebelling and refusing to obey. Only his own sister was the beam of light in this nightmare.

At the harshest and most unpleasant parts of his narrative, I simply emptied my glass or sipped a little from it. Yorinobu also wanted to numb the pain from his old wounds, so at a certain point he ordered Smasher to leave us alone, and with his wiretap protection on, he began to spout everything he had accumulated inside, emptying bottle after bottle along the way. The way he tried to change Arasaka, how all his attempts failed, how he lost allies, until he finally realized that simple rebellions and appeals cannot kill this hydra.

He is simply a prisoner in a golden cage. Expensive women, weapons, or chrome. He could have it all, but not freedom. And all the people around him are not his people, but his father's. Even fucking Smasher, thanks to the chips and programs implanted in his head, would easily give back control to his father if Yorinobu thought of organizing a revolution or a coup. No, of course there are people who share his views, and even a formed faction, but when you have a watchdog bodyguard around you, you have to be careful.

He's got a lot of stuff laid out for me. He really does have a lot on his shoulders, and that stuff is weighing on him like the skies on Atlas. Suddenly the thought popped into my head that a free night ride was just what he needed right now.

"You know, let's take a ride through the city at night. Just us, the car, and the highway at night. What do you think?"

"You know what?! I don't mind. Let's follow me to the garage. I may be drunk, but I've been able to drive a motorcycle when I was in a worse state. I'll manage the car somehow."

After somehow making it to his personal parking lot and chasing away the guards and drivers, we started to pick out a car for the night ride. Without even glancing at the modern supercars and other cars, we started looking at some older cars. And that's when we found it! 1971 Plymouth Hemi Barracuda with folding roof. Without thinking twice, we got in it. My God, that's the indescribable aura of the old Muscle car.

" There's still something different about these voracious but powerful cars of the past. I expected to see a Porsche or a Lamborghini, but not this beast. Heck, the last time I felt this way was when I rode in an old-model Ford Mustang GT 500 from the 1960s." - My words brought a smirk to Yorinobu's face, and the engine roared as he sped through the streets of Night City.

We just enjoyed the ride, with the night wind blowing and the powerful engine roaring. The streets whizzed by one after another, and at one point we were out of the city, speeding down an empty highway.

And so we drove until morning came. After stopping and getting out of the car, we decided to smoke some cigarettes. Breathing in the pleasant scent of cherries, we enjoyed the beauty of dawn until Yorinobu spoke first.

"That story. That's your story, isn't it?"

Turning to him, I nodded and said, "Yes. How did you guess?"

I had no desire to lie to him. There were too many lies in both of my present and previous lives. Can I at least tell the truth now.

"Your eyes. They are mirrors of your soul. When I listened to your story, I could see that it was the truth, your truth. Plus some reservations and knowledge that an ordinary person cannot have: upbringing, education, peculiarities of speech. No matter how hard you try to hide it, to someone who's been through something similar, like me, it's noticeable." - Toward the end of his speech he smiled softly.

"Now what?" - I didn't really care anymore. Some sort of apathy set in.

"Nothing. How can I, having a desire for freedom, cut the wings of someone who was able to achieve what I wish for myself."

A long silence ensued. Everyone was thinking about his own thing. Finally the cigarette came to an end. I looked at Yorinobu and decided to make an odd decision.

"Friend?" - I held out my hand to him.

Yorinobu looked at my extended hand for a long time. With a grin and an exhale, like a man dropping some weight from his heart, he shook my hand.

"Friend."

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