Stung 3: The Lounge
#3 of Stung
The next morning, the three left their apartment and walked over to the bar that Logic had found. AJ was still sulking after yesterday, and having drunk most of the beer, had a hangover as well. These two factors together meant that, all in all, AJ was in a pretty foul mood. He walked with the other two down the dirty streets, which had not been improved by the sunlight that now flooded them, and penetrated all the dark alleyways. Every inch of dirt and, in some cases, vomit that would normally have been hidden by darkness was revealed and highlighted. Empty beer bottles and cans shone in the sunlight.
As soon as Diago had got his hands on AJ's chips, it had really been all over. Every time Logic tried to raise or bet, in order to retake some advantage, Diago simply raised him back to whatever number of chips he currently had, meaning that he had to go all in on every hand. Slowly but surely, Logic's pile of chips had slowly dwindled to nothing, until with two hundred points left, he had tried to go all in, and had been beaten on the showdown.
As the three continued walking, it became clear that Logic was leading them in a different direction to the one that they were usually used to, into the more affluent district of the city. Pretty soon, their noses started to pick up the smell of humans, and all of them tensed. The district was not only clean; it was positively polished. Shop windows, completely smooth and undamaged, were difficult to look at as they reflected the bright sunlight. Buildings, too, were free of grime and muck, and stood glowing a faint orange from their bricks.
A disheveled-looking anthro wearing a janitors outfit hurried by them, sweeping the street and trying to avoid making eye contact. Logic, AJ and Diago all looked at each other, sharing a look of discontent. Of course. It was too much to expect the humans to clean their own buildings. They winced as the sickly sweet scent of the district enclosed them, smelling of privilege, luxury and wealth.
It was a scent almost all anthros had learned to hate. It reminded them of the human invasions, which, no matter how far into the past they were, still burned in each and every anthros racial memory, the spirits of their long-since dead crying out for revenge. It inspired many different emotions; anger, defiance, aggression, paranoia, but deep down inside, it also created a little spark of fear, fear of what had been done, and what could be done if you stepped out of line. This was what made it so difficult for an anthro to be around a human. An angry wolf is one thing, but a cornered wolf is a very different thing altogether, and about eight different kinds of more dangerous.
Logic and the other two stopped for a while, looking around, trying to bring their thumping hearts under control. After they had seen as much as he had wanted (which didn't take long), and had got themselves back under control (which took much longer), Logic led the other two down a side street, and stopped at the door of the bar that they had been looking for.
The door was tinted dark and made of glass, so that it was impossible to see what lay beyond it. It was large, with a strong frame, quite like the door of a club, with floor-length silver rails for door handles. The area around the door, like everywhere else, was completely clean, and it would have been difficult to guess that the building was a bar, if it weren't for the large sign over the entrance. The sign read: 'THE LOUNGE BAR' in big white capital letters, and, like everything else, was spotlessly clean. All three of them paused before they entered the bar, unsettled in the foreign environment. Even Logic, who had already been through the doors once before, hesitated. He wondered if he had made a mistake in bringing his friends to the human district, and was about to suggest they turn back, when AJ spoke.
"Dude, why? Why here? What the hell were you thinking? It's all I can do to keep my claws in. I hate this stench, and I hate the people who cause it. If you don't have a reason for coming to this place, I say we go back and try and find another bar at our place."
Faced with the sudden opposition, Logic thought fast. Why had he instantly decided to look for a bar in the human district, as soon as he had thought about the problem? He knew that he must have had a reason, but he couldn't instantly think of it. Privately though, he was sympathetic to AJ's plight. Even having got himself back under control, he was still getting urges to turn around and run as far away from the district as possible. He thought fast.
"Because? Because the barman is bound to have associates in the bartending business around the anthro district. Even though I know he didn't recognize us, I'm sure he will be looking for us all around the district, since we cleaned him out. He won't be able to find us here though; it's too upmarket for him. Besides, I've been here before. It's very friendly to us, the only thing we should have to worry about is the other knuckleheads that come in here."
"So you're saying we can't go to any of the bars round our house? Man, if you'd told me that before, I'd have thought about this whole thing a bit differently..."
Diago's voice interrupted AJ's complaints.
"Look. This place is only about ten minutes walk from the flat. Logic has a point; the barman will be looking for you, and I'd rather we didn't make it easier for him to find us. We can just go in, see if we like the look of it, and then leave. No problem. It's either this, or no booze until the whole thing dies down, and we have no idea how long that will take."
AJ still looked unhappy, but obviously the appeal to his inner drinker had won through.
"All right then, but can we go in quickly? I swear, if I'm out here for one more second, I'm gonna throw up, and I'd rather one of us didn't have to clean it up."
As one, they stepped forwards, AJ opened the door, and they all went in.
The first thing they noticed was that the hated scent, which they had been plagued by for almost the whole duration of their walk, completely disappeared as soon as they stepped through the door. All three of them sighed in relief, taking great gulps of clean, pure air, which had obviously been filtered.
"Thank God for air conditioning." Logic said, relieved.
"And amen to that. I feel like I could actually down a drink now."
They looked around. The bar itself was a collection of taps and boxes of high-quality brands of snacks, surrounded by a counter that went all the way round in a circle. Around the edge of the room were small seating areas, with a pair of cushioned seats, one on either side, instead of chairs, and tables in the middle of each pair, so that groups of people could sit and talk in privacy over a drink, away from the bar.
"I'll get the drinks, you go grab us a seat." said Diago, already heading over to the bar.
Since it was still the day, the bar was quite empty, and so Logic and AJ had a good choice of where to sit. They chose a seat opposite the door, and sat down. Logic leaned against the wall and relaxed, while AJ put his legs up on the seat, put his arms behind his head, and started to go to sleep. Logic thought about telling AJ off, but decided to give his hungover friend a break and instead to look around the bar a bit more.
There was only one other person sitting in the bar.
He was human, middle aged, with a grizzled beard that suggested its owner cared little for appearances. The man wore dark sunglasses, and a stick rested on his lap as he sat there. From these clues, Logic suspected he was blind, but he didn't go over and check more thoroughly. The man was wearing a grey jumper with long sleeves, rather out of place on the warm, sunny morning, and wore tattered jeans.
Eventually, Diago walked over to their table, holding two beers and an orange juice. He passed one of the beers to Logic and the orange juice to AJ, before sitting down next to Logic and taking a glance around the bar.
"Nice place, I could actually get used to this. The barman was nice enough, didn't stare. It seems like this place is actually quite popular with anthros, you get all sorts in here."
AJ was still staring at his orange juice in a kind of stunned disbelief, "Why the hell have you got me this?"
Diago grinned, and leaned in close to AJ, "Because you're hungover", he said making AJ wince.
"Jeez man, lay off! I swear, I'm gonna make your life hell the next time you've had a couple of drinks."
Diago chuckled, "You'll have to wait a while then. I never have more than one drink a night."
AJ looked moodily into his orange juice, as though it were somehow the cause of all the wrongs that had befallen him, then looked across the room. His expression changed almost instantly. From moody and annoyed, he suddenly looked very worried, "Oh, shit."
Logic followed his friend's gaze, and found himself looking at a group of five people who had just walked in.
There were two enormous dogs; one a husky, the other a German shepherd, both easily over seven feet tall, bulging with muscle. There was a grey sergal, small compared to the dogs, but lithe as well as muscular. A red eye looked out from either side of his slender, pointed head, looking, almost searching around the bar. There was a female there too, some sort of wolf, with a sleeveless tank top and longer versions of Diago's combat trousers. At the front of the group was a dark panther, slightly older than the rest, with a large scar under one of his amber eyes. Unlike the rest of the group, who were all dressed casually, the panther wore a dark suit, which seemed to blend in seamlessly with his fur, so that the transition from hair to material was difficult to see.
Logic didn't know who the panther and the wolf were, but he instantly knew the reason for AJ's expletive. The two dogs and the sergal were the exact same three he had seen sitting playing poker that night before in the bar. There was only one possible reason that they could now be here.
They were following him and AJ.