The Bathrobe Knight: Volume 2 by Charles Dean Page A

have the meeting?”
                  Kass was sure she was supposed to stop Kerrigan from going on, but the second $2,000 had been mentioned for a single interview, her mouth promptly touched the floor. Her dad was bugging her over $500 dollars of rent a month, and, yes, she knew she was spoiled, so two grand was a really big number to her. That said, when the number grew to $5,000, she wasn’t really able to process it anymore. If the amount of drool that had escaped her gaping mouth over the course of a night was considered a puddle, then the drool pool under her dropped jaw was already collecting enough to be a veritable sea.
    “Hello?” Kerrigan said again after a long pause. “I didn’t lose you, did I? Ugh, I hate my cell phone provider. Why is there only one alternative? It’s like picking anything from banks to politicians has to always be the less stinky of two turds. Come on, don’t tell me I lost you, girl. My boss will kill me if I lost rights to the biggest exclusive in Tiqpa this month. Tell you what: I’ll talk to the boss, and we’ll see if we can get you $6,000. Just say something. Tell me you’re on board, and please don’t hang up to go see if you can get a better deal elsewhere. I’ll lose my job! Then how will I feed my zer . . . how will I pay rent?”
    “Were you about to say zerglings?”
    “No, why would I say that? Just to see if you were still listening? Me? Never.”
    “Okay, fine. I’ll come in. I think tomorrow or maybe even today is going to be good for me. Can I email you the best time?”
    “Sure, do what you have to do and shoot me an email. If today is good for you, the boss gets in around two, so any time after that, he’ll be able to organize the screening. I promise we’ll make this worth your while. Just put together some good clips so we can make a great deal.”
    “Alright, will do.”
    “Oh, and one last thing . . .”
    “Yeah?”
    “Do you know the guy in the bathrobe? Is he a player or an NPC?”
    “I . . . I’m not sure I can tell you that.”
    “Wow, cryptic much? Anyways, email me what time is good for you. I guess now I can say I look forward to seeing you.”
    Kass exchanged parting pleasantries with Kerrigan and went to go log on to Tiqpa. Now I just need to figure out how much more boat time I have, Kass thought, logging into the game against her better judgment. After all, every moment she was logged in while the ship was rocking meant she had to deal with the awful queasy feeling that came with the churning motion of a boat on the water. She stepped out of the cabin she had logged off in and was immediately greeted by Valerie and Mclean.
    “Oh! How are you doing, Lady Kass?” Valerie asked cheerfully with a smile so big Kass couldn’t tell if it was fake or not.
    “Ummm,” Kass held her stomach in the hope of putting off the inevitable vomit, “I’m . . . I’m okay. How much longer till we reach land?”
    “I don’t know. A few hours. Daniel went out to fly around and check on everything, but we haven’t heard back from him in an hour. Figured it was a good chance to catch up on girl time. Want to join?” Mclean sounded as chipper as Valerie did.
    How do people stay this cheery on such an awful contraption as a boat? Kass wondered, doing her best to choke down the inevitable upchuck. “No. No, I need to go do something.”
    “Ah, gonna join Darwin and Alex for spoon sparring?”
    “Spoon sparring?”
    “Yeah, Darwin was dual-wielding spoons and sparring with Alex all morning. I was honestly a little reluctant to log on just to wait on a boat, but then I saw Darwin sparring with cutlery. It was a mix between, ‘Wow that’s a magnificent sparring match’ and ‘How much more ridiculous could this guy get?’”
    “Uhh, no, I need to do something in the real world. Just wanted to see how much longer we had.”
    “You have until around mid afternoon if you want to be safe about it. I didn’t expect the trip to be this