Geneva was following up on some noise complaints. It was fairly rare that anyone heard anything through the walls of the Washington Hotel. These walls were reinforced for atmospheric containment in case of a hull breach. The Washington was earthstation's only five-star hotel, and it took customer satisfaction very seriously. This particular room had been singled out twice, by different patrons, so whatever was happening behind these doors had to be loud.
She knocked politely on the door.
The man who answered the door was a vampire. It wasn't just the red eyes and pointed teeth that gave it away. He was quite stereotypically dressed as a vampire, in a long black cape with pointed collar and a white ruffled shirt. He had incredibly long fingernails. But the real clinchers were the bite marks on his neck, and the trickle of blood that led from the corner of his mouth to his chin.
Geneva didn't let it faze her. As a night manager at a large hotel, she'd dealt with plenty of weirdos. "Sir, we've had some complaints about the level of noise coming from your room. Are you Dr. Eula?"
"Ah," he sighed, "we were just doing the Time Warp."
"Yes, of course." That made complete sense. "Well, I'm afraid you'll have to do it at a more reasonable volume at this hour, as we have other guests in the hotel. Thank you."
"Would you like to come in, Miss? You may well enjoy the games we play in here." The vampire waved his hand through the door invitingly. Geneva could see the room was draped with black and red candles. She could also see a gene infusion vat laying in the middle of the floor. Loud music erupted suddenly into the hallway, the source was likely a vid that was playing on one wall.
"No thank you. Did you know it's illegal to perform gene infusions in a public place, Dr. Eula? And you'll have to please turn that vid down."
"Of course." The vampire walked into the room, adjusted the volume, and returned to the door. "I don't think you want to report this tiny little gene tank to the authorities, Miss..." This time the vampire looked at the nametag placed prominently on Geneva's upper chest. "Geneva. It wouldn't be good for you, or the Hotel."
"This hotel is not about to bend the law for you, Dr. Eula." Geneva resolved, "I'm afraid I'll definitely have to report your tank, so you might want to pack it up for the evening. I'm sorry."
Geneva turned, fully intending to walk back to her office and report the vampirism and illegal gene therapy happening in her guest's hotel room to the police hotline, but before she got very far, Dr. Eula snapped. He began screaming at the top of his lungs. At first it was a completely incoherent howl, but as Geneva backed slowly away from the crazy, she began to understand some of his meaning. "I am not of this world!" He screamed. "Your laws do not affect me. I will live forever while your puny minds die in but moments to me!"
Despite his craziness, the vampire did not seem threatening to Geneva. Merely deranged. On drugs, perhaps. He stopped yelling, and bowed his head. Geneva took another step back. When he looked up again, he appeared much more in control of his facilities. He spoke softly, but not to her. He was retreating into his hotel room, but he obviously didn't care that she heard him. "I will have to destroy the hotel room." he muttered. "...and the coffin. She has cost me much this night."
The hotel room door slammed behind him, and Geneva walked rather briskly back towards her office. Half an hour later, she had lost all sense of urgency and was on the phone with the chief of the volunteer police for her sector of earth station. Yes, he would dispatch a crew to the hotel, and yes they would have a bio-expert on hand to check Dr. Eula's paperwork and authenticity, but it would take a couple of hours.
Geneva hung up the phone. She would probably be off duty by the time the police arrived. She wrote up an incident report, and left a note on it about the police crew that would be arriving. She positioned the report and note prominently on the desk for the morning manager; glad she wouldn't have to deal with that freak again.
She was due to meet her partner Jasper for breakfast. He was almost always late, so she got on the elevator without him. They were dining in the observation lounge, a revolving restaurant hundreds of meters above the dome of earthstation. It was a magnificent view, especially when the light from the sun was reflecting off the earth.
The elevators for the observation lounge had windows open to space as well. She watched as the hotel lobby fell off below her. She imagined she could see a map of the hotel laid over the metal struts and ducts and vents and windows below. Every few hundred meters there was an emergency airlock, corresponding to the locations of stairwells in the hotel.
Geneva was looking down as a puff of air blew into the dark nothingness of space. It was a plosion! And it had come from somewhere in the hotel! She saw that there were flames in the vented air, and it appeared a whole section of metal was ripping away from the top of the station. She had just enough time to see that there were pieces of metal flying towards the observation lounge. Then she saw nothing.
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