"You have no original ideas. You endlessly reiterate your own body on others like some kind of navel-gazing cult leader. Pretty soon the candy-bimbo look will be stale, and you'll just fade away."
Broadmoore endured this wordlessly, her eyes glowing a vivid yellow-green.
Marius sneered. It made him more handsome. "What, you're gonna do your defcon eyes now? Five minutes to minimum safe distance? Whatever. Like you can do anything to me."
Broadmoore felt the glow shift to red-orange.
"See you never, one-hit loser."
Broadmoore ground her teeth, watching Marius go. Then pivoted on her heel and marched to the back of the club, to the considerable relief of witnesses.
She shoved her way past the wait line and crashed into the ladies' room. All heads turned. Broadmoore felt her eyes assume an intensity of warning red hitherto undiscovered in the science of optics. There was a beat as the restroom's inhabitants took her measure.
"OUT!!!" Broadmoore snarled, voice amplified and pitch-shifted, ringing in the confined chamber.
Everyone bolted for the door. Mascara, lipstick, eyeliner clattered to the marble countertop; a single roll of toilet paper skittered across the tile floor. The chuff of Broadmoore's steam-engine breathing and the straining of her seams filled the silence... then she bellowed a cyberbitch war cry and lunged for the nearest crushable object.
Muffled sounds of twisted metal, breaking glass, freely running water were heard by the queue crowd, who leaned in to eavesdrop. And screaming, enraged machine screaming. Some turned away, understanding the toilet was very much out of order. Others recorded with their phones. After an interval during which everything within Broadmoore's reach could be broken, there was a worrying silence.
Broadmoore emerged, greenlit and infinitely more calm. People sank back. The club's manager and its largest bouncer were waiting, and met her gaze. They were clearly afraid of her, but also unprepared to let such behavior go unchallenged. She heaved a brusque sigh.
"Frosti?"
Broadmoore extended her palm in a vague direction; an ice-blue hand deposited a champagne-colored mobile there. Broadmoore's fingers flicker-flicked the screen tersely.
"Two hundred thousand should cover it, I should think." The statement was enunciated as a not especially debatable question.
"Ah, that, that should be good," said the manager.
"Do let me know if you have a problem," Broadmoore said, her voice like glass ground underfoot. Her hosts only nodded uneasily. Broadmoore returned the phone to her assistant and slipped past them, into the thump and roar of the club proper. Frosti fell in beside her.
"We can ill-afford that sort of unexpected expense," Broadmoore said.
"I'm sorry, Doctor," said Frosti. "I was unable to pull you back from the brink."
"I'm simply lecturing myself. You are not responsible for quelling my every outburst," Broadmoore said. "Indeed I found it rather therapeutic."
Frosti smiled. "It's likely this incident will enhance your mystique as a celebrity," she said. "65 percent."
"I have sixty-seven," Broadmoore murmured. She gave up a faint smile herself. "Am I going to exact revenge upon Marius Martini, or will I be oh-so mature and let this slide?"
"I think..." Frosti pondered. "I think you're going to utterly crush him in a very enlightened and thoughtful fashion." Her pink eyes sparkled like raspberry sugar.
Broadmoore nodded. "You make me feel warm inside."