Last Night
The city was quiet, but he wasnât.
Peter lay flat on his back, eyes wide open, staring at the black ceiling like it might finally give him an answer. It didnât. The only thing that stared back was the mission text still burned into his head.
[Mission: Acquire membership at the OnlyCeleb Club.]
He exhaled slow, heavy. The system wanted it simple. Swipe a card, pay the fee, step inside their velvet walls. On paper, it made sense. The OnlyCeleb Club was the holy grail of exclusivity â politicians, moguls, actors, royals, every untouchable name whispered in LA sat there behind gold doors.
So why did the idea feel like chains around his throat?
On either side of him, warmth pressed close. Sarahâs gentle breathing to his left, her hand resting soft against his chest. Emma curled to his right, auburn hair spilling across the pillow, one leg draped over his. Both slept peacefully, anchored to dreams while he drowned in wakefulness.
He didnât want to wake them. Didnât want to disturb the only peace in the room.
Instead, he lifted his left wrist slightly, the Quantum watch catching faint light from the city outside. A masterpiece of engineeringâsleek black titanium, no visible screen until activated, packed with tech that made smartwatches look like toys.
"ARIA," he whispered into the dark, barely a breath.
"...Iâm here..."
Her voice slid into his ears through the Quantum buds nestled invisibly in his ears, smooth, steady, alive.
"Show me."
The air above him shimmered. The Quantum watch projected upward, holographic light blooming from its face like a flower opening to the moon. The image expanded, growing, stretching until it filled the space above the bedâa massive 100-inch screen floating in the darkness, translucent and glowing with electric blue edges.
Sarah and Emma slept on, undisturbed. The light was soft enough not to wake them, bright enough to paint Peterâs face in neon.
He saw it all projected in crystalline detail: the clubâs golden halls, velvet-draped lounges, men in tuxedos sipping $30,000 champagne while plastic-perfect women leaned against them like furniture. Every angle screamed wealth. Every shadow whispered obedience.
It made his stomach tighten. Not with awe. With disgust.
"Looks like a cage," he said quietly.
"It is," she agreed without hesitation. "A table built by someone else. Rules written by someone else. Even if you bought in, youâd always be eating from their plate..."
[Pathetic.]
The second voice oozed up from the pit of his skull. Taboo. Darker, sharper, the devil curled under his ribs.
[You â paying millions â just to be a guest in someone elseâs house? You, Master? Thatâs weakness. Thatâs crawling.
Peter clenched his jaw, his fingers curling against the sheets. Sarah stirred slightly, her hand tightening on his chest before relaxing again. He forced his breathing steady.
"Yeah. I donât crawl," he whispered. Not for a long time, heâll do it for just much but while he paid OnlyCeleb membership for mission completion and the opportunities there, heâll be building something of his own. Not now but that did not hurt to make plans so soon.
"...Then alternatives,... ARIA purred. ...If membership is beneath you, then ownership is the next step..."
"Clubs for sale," he ordered, voice barely above a murmur.
The holographic display shifted. One by one, LAâs nightlife offerings rose before him like corpses lined for judgment, each building rendered in perfect 3D detail, rotating slowly in the glowing screen above.
A Koreatown neon dive materialized firstâceilings too low, sticky floors painted with old sins, the air thick with decades of cigarette smoke and regret.
Peter shook his head minutely. "Too small."
It dissolved.
A Beverly Hills lounge appeared next, polished to marble sheen but carrying ghosts of scandals and debts. The hologram peeled back layersâprevious owners, lawsuits, violations, a trail of financial rot hidden under champagne paint.
"Too tainted."
Gone.
A warehouse downtown turned nightspotâall noise and cheap neon, shallow, loud, forgettable. The kind of place that burned bright for six months then collapsed under its own hype.
"The location is too cheap and far from here"
Peterâs eyes never left the massive floating display. Each listing ARIA simulated in real time, the Quantum watchâs processors humming silently against his wrist. Walls stripped away, layouts expanded, ceilings stretched, dance floors doubled. She rebuilt them under his mental commands, her light bending architecture like clay.
He watched a Beverly Hills lounge gutted down to its steel bones. She remade itânew glass, new lines, sleek edges. And yet, even shiny, even "new," it felt wrong.
"Still bad," he muttered, mindful of Emmaâs sleeping form. "Still theirs."
"Exactly,...
" ARIAâs voice softened.
"Youâd always inherit their cracks. Their stains. Their bones werenât built for you, Master. Theyâd fight you the second you demanded more."
He rubbed his temple with his free hand, careful not to jostle Sarah. The systemâs mission was supposed to be easy, but nothing about it sat right.
"What if I gutted one?" he asked, almost to himself. "Tear it down to nothing. Rebuild it my way."
The simulation answered before she could. The lounge collapsed in the hologram, reformed, collapsed again. Each time, no matter how she stretched it, the shape was wrong. Too shallow. Too narrow. Too low. The holographic display made it painfully obviousâthese buildings had limitations written into their foundations.
ARIAâs hum deepened.
Silence pressed heavy. The city outside slept. His womenâSarahâs gentle breathing, Emmaâs soft warmthâanchored him to something real while his mind raced through impossible problems.
Taboo chuckled, low and taunting.
[So thatâs it then? Crawl into their cage, or buy their scraps? Two paths, and both are trash. Whereâs the fun in that, Master? Whereâs the power?]
He didnât answer. Not yet.
Instead, he lay there, watching as ARIAâs light burned through the darkness above him. The 100-inch holographic display showed clubs dissolving and reforming, only to collapse again. None of them fit. None of them could hold what he wanted.
And that hungerâthat restless gnaw just under his ribsâgrew sharper. Louder.
There had to be something more.
The holographic ceiling had never felt so heavy.
Peter hadnât moved in over an hour, sprawled across silk sheets with Sarah and Emma sleeping peacefully on either side. His eyes burned holes into ARIAâs projectionsâbroken simulations of gutted clubs, shattered layouts, neon dives collapsing under their own mediocrity, all displayed in perfect detail on the massive floating screen.