[Lower Promenade]
This wasn't quite the seedy end of the Promenade, but it was getting close. It fell under civilian maintenance,where latinum still rulled, and so the lights flickered and far off in the distance water dripped steadily onto the scuffed up deck. Someone wasn't greasing the right palm.
This wasn't an entirely civilian area, either. Lower enlisted personnel also lived here, side by side with non-Starfleet citizens. Adeyemi found that with his head hunched low and being out of uniform helped out quite a bit. Few people glanced his way. It seemed that no one wanted to catch another's eye and invite questions or words. That suited the captain just fine.
The lack of etiquette that proliferated on the Starbase always confused him. Back home, men and women ate separately, usually in the home, and men ate first. Women didn't drink at all. In England,when dining formally, men and women sat in alternating seats and the most important guests of honor were seated at the host's right and left.
Nothing like this existed on the Columbus. Here all, alien, human, female and male, all mingled together. The crowds were sparse but they were there, all drinking and eating if they so chose, even while standing or walking.
A trio of enlisted personnel clustered around the open door of their quarters, firing down homemade glasses of what could only be real alcohol. Adeyemi was silent as he approached them.
"...Glazer in Ops makes it, ferments it in an old torpedo casing. Good stuff, but strong." One man was saying.
"Good for one thing," Agreed a woman, sinking her glass and shuddering. Her body was wracked with coughs, prompting laughter from the group.
"Here, it takes the edge off." Another friend passed her a crude metal device. The woman eagerly put it to her mouth and exhaled a cloud of orange, skunk smelling smoke.
"Euphoria." One of the men said learnedly. "The only way to go warp nine when you're standing still."
Adeyemi noted the location of the quarters as he passed. Now was not the time, but those three wouldn't be quite so jolly when that time did come.
Park was right where he always was at this time of day, seated in a self-serve restaurant with a long untouched glass of synthehol at his elbow. Euphoria was addictive, and made consumption of replicated food and alcohol unpleasant. Adeyemi had heard that it caused artificial food and drink sit in the stomach for an unpleasant amount of time, sitting there like a stone in one's guts. If someone was smoking Euphoria, they'd be drinking real booze or water and eating homemade cooking.
Adeyemi leaned against a table but didn't sit, observing the other man. Park had a long, gangly frame, greasy hair and sat as if someone had stolen his bones: he was like a puddle of sentient flesh in his chair. Euphoria did that to you, relaxed everything in your body, including your airways.
A metal bowl full of noxious smelling food and a glass of water appeared at his table. Startled, Adeyemi turned.
"What's this?" He asked.
At the sound of his voice, Park stirred slowly in his chair.
"Only thing on the menu." The waitress replied. She had her thumb in his stew and absently sucked it clean. Her eyes were all pupil, and her skin slick looking and sweaty. The captain wondered how she came to work so intoxicated. She drifted away in a zombie-like shuffle.
"Like some company?" Adeyemi said in a voice that just carried to the other table.
"Ehhh, no...no, captain." Park said. That was too bad, because Adeyemi was already walking over to his table.
"Call me 'captain' one more time and you'll have plenty of company in the drunk tank," He said casually as he sat. The 'drunk tank' was an outdated term, but he figured Park would get it.
"Right, mate." Park said in a working class English accent.
"I'm not your mate, your partner, your captain, or your friend. I am your complete and total stranger." Adeyemi replied.
"Noted. What can I do for you?"
"Still slinging, Park?"
"No, ca--Malcolm. Not at all." The truth was stitched all over Park's glossy face. The synthehol, the burnt out look in his almond eyes. The man was wired like a jury-rigged power converter.
"Bullshit," Adeyemi said affably, shedding some grace but not regretting it. "I have eyes, Park. Now tell me where you get the stuff."
"I don't have to tell you shit, man. Never forget that you owe me. I could--"
The glass didn't cut Park, sadly. It shattered upon impact with his head but only sliced Adeyemi somehow. It still had the desired effect, though: in a moment the other man was crumpled back in his seat, dazed.
"Hey!" The waitress yelled, and started forward ,but thought the better of it.
"See this, Park?" Adeyemi showed the other man his hand, which was throbbing and dripping blood. "Plenty more where that came from, 'mate.'"
To demonstrate, the captain wiped his bloody hand all over Park's sweaty face. He squealed and tried to fend it off. Adeyemi responded by grabbing his shoulder, hard.
"I'm going to need to go to sickbay now!" Park whined. "Isn't a crime to get your blood on someone else?"
"Drug dealing is a bigger crime. Now, spill, or I'll drag you out of here and you'll get it twice as bad."
"You killed a man," Park said, blood flying from his lips as he hyperventilated. "We killed him, both of us, when we were kids, and when I wanted to set up shop here you said--"
"I know what I said," Adeyemi snapped, who wasn't eager to have the entire Promenade know it. "Deal still stands, Park. We're old schoolyard chums, aren't we? So do your chum a favor."
"Her name is 'Calibana.' She's an Orion. Habitat Ring, level 6. Got a string of some alien spices outside of her quarters." Park said rapidly.
It was the location that Hawke had given him, but now Adeyemi had a name. Suddenly he pulled his hand away, causing Park to flinch, but the captain only wiped his hand on the other man's shirt.
"Remember who runs this Station. You're only here because I allow you to be. And if I should get any communiques from Starfleet Command or the JAG corps we'll see who falls harder: a Starfleet captain or a football hooligan turned drug dealer." Adeyemi said roughly. "Now get yourself cleaned up. You've got a business to run."
