Chapter 15 of 26 · Book 2, Carl's Doomsday Scenario

Chapter 15 — The Desperado Club

Book: Carl's Doomsday Scenario · Previous: Chapter 14 — The One-Eyed Narwhal · Next: Chapter 16 — The Silk Road · Floor: Floor 3 — The Over City · Series: the series

Opening

The first room of the loud, garish Desperado Club was open to the general public.

Summary

The Desperado Club: art deco outside, Vegas-Mardi Gras-disco inside, a crocodilian bouncer Mordecai kisses on both cheeks, privacy bubbles, bot dancers, nine doors — Bitches, Penis Parade, Jobs, the Silk Road and Restrooms lit; Guild-O-Rama, a Casino and the Hunting Grounds unlit; an unmarked one to the back room. Donut orders a Dirty Shirley in a bowl and is drunk on two licks.

Quint, the pharmacist, an opossum on a tornado and a former crawler, tells them not to make a deal on the tenth floor and sells Mordecai an alchemy starter kit for three jugs of moonshine, throwing in three Blitz Sticks that Carl pockets before Mordecai can object. Lucia Mar trashed the club last night. Mordecai, asked why the manager benefit upset him, says it's complicated and has nothing to do with them; managers are system-protected from the fourth floor and paid by Donut's survival.

Characters

• Quint — Introduced; the tenth-floor warning; the starter kit.
• Clarabelle — On the door.
• Mordecai — Old friends; the starter kit, a library for Carl; the protection package; 'It's complicated.'
• Princess Donut — Drunk; dances with an ogre.
• Lucia Mar — Her night at the club, reported.

Locations

• The Desperado Club — Entered at last.
• Club Vanquisher — Named by Mordecai: the Over City's other club, a country club of old clerics.

Motifs

• The Krakaren — Quint: 'That Krakaren bitch said no more of the stuff was being made this season.'
• The tenth floor — 'Don't bother trying to make a deal on the tenth floor.'
• The Manager benefit — What it does for Mordecai.