The crowd swarmed to the two buildings, almost evenly split between starting the night with drinks and dancing and starting the night with coffee after work. It had been a long shift for everyone, but tomorrow was the start of their weekend, and they weren't planning to hold back.
The party had clearly already started before everyone was even in the building, with some of the staff singing and dancing in the street, while others bought small bottles of liquor from the shops along the walk and quickly drank them before reaching the club, where the drinks were more expensive.
Those bottles were not on the inventory list of the stalls, but with so many of the shops being run by Reavers, it was somewhat inevitable that there would be off the books liquor vendors here.
He was hanging at the back of the crowd with Nico so that they could take care of the bill for the coffees and the first round of drinks, and the crowd was rapidly moving out of the street while the five overworked baristas finished pouring dozens of lattes for the crowd of Innu that Max's announcement had attracted.
The woman working the counter sighed as he approached and signalled the end of the swarming event that they had just endured, then frowned at his clothing, not recognizing him as one of the regular workers.
"That will be two hundred and fifty-five credits, unless you both want one as well?" She informed him as he came forward.
Max brought up his arm to pay with the linked account in his smartwatch, and the shopkeeper's exhausted attitude suddenly changed to a nearly fawning level of idol worship.
"Commander Keres Max? Oh-Em-Gee. It is incredible to see you here. Are you here to visit and see what the next big thing will be?" She asked as the payment processed.
"I'm actually here to help build it. You see, the Terminus Trading Company has plenty of weapons research specialists on staff, and we're working together with the Rae 5 Moon Base on this project." Max replied with a smile.
"It is so wonderful to meet you. I remember your first ad campaign as a Kepler Pilot. Do you have a second, I would love to get a signature, but my bag is in the back."
"Take your time, we've got a few minutes."
The mention of 'we' caught her attention, and the barista moved, so she could see past the baked goods trays to where Nico was standing.
The short cyborg gave her a sarcastic wave, and the woman looked mortified.
"I am so sorry, Commander Tarith, I didn't see you there at all. Is there anything I can get you? It's on the house."
"Don't worry about it. It's one of the hazards of being short. Besides, I'm a full conversion Cyborg, I don't actually need coffee." Nico laughed.
"But it still tastes good." Max added, relieving some of the worker's tension.
One of her coworkers brought out her bag, and Max saw that she had a bunch of trading cards inside, all in protective sleeves.
"Would it be possible to get both of you to sign the back of this card?" She asked hopefully.
It was a picture of the Thunder Pattern Super Heavy Mecha, the X109. It was the first that they had helped produce with Uncle Lu, and the Mecha had since become the face of the human forces, as every Reaver Group and Military force wanted to get their hands on them.
"If you have the X104, that was us as well, or the Fusion Flamer equipped Fast Attack version." Max suggested.
The other workers hurried to bring out their cards as well, and Max noticed that all of them were collectors of the Mecha trading cards. There were many other patterns there as well, from all aspects of human society, and some historical ones too.
The workers set them out on the table and Nico joined Max in putting her signature on the backs of them until finally, they got to one shy young man, a Reaver boy in his early teens, who must be working here part-time while training for a career.
Even if you couldn't find a job in the field, everyone took some sort of job skills training course or higher education. Not doing it would just be an embarrassment to your family and the Company you grew up in.
He placed out his copy of the X109 and then reverently took out a locked metal box and pressed the fingerprint ID to open it.
Inside was a shiny foil trimmed card, and on the front was Tarith's Rage.
Max smiled and nudged Nico, who cheered a little and made a grabby motion to be handed the card.
He reluctantly handed it over, and Nico took out a silver paint pen from her flat space to write, instead of using the plain black sharpie marker.
"What's your name?" She asked.
"Travis Borden, Lady Tarith." He replied politely.
The Borden family worked for her mother, so he must be kin to one of the household staff from the Tarith Family house, which made him part of the Tarith Reaver Companies.
[Travis, Never Hesitate to take what is yours, Nico Tarith] she signed, then gently blew on the paint to dry the last letters and placed the card back in its clear protective case.
"There you go, one autographed, limited edition personal Mecha card." Nico told him with a wink, while the others looked at him with jealousy in their eyes.
Max searched through their thoughts and found that the limited edition foil cards were not easy to come by. There were only a few dozen of them, and they were spread between everyone who had bought the collectible cards on Rae 5, so that Tarith's Rage really was a one in a million find.
"It's been a pleasure, everyone, but we should get across the street before they start thinking that we ditched out on our promise to pay for the first round." Max laughed, then tapped his wrist device and sent a fifty credit transfer to each of the workers in the coffee shop.
They had earned it after getting slammed like that today.
