LOGAN
Logan swirled the amber liquid, watching how it spun in the low light. Bourbon. Neat. Woodford his usual.
It burned less tonight, or maybe he just felt too numb to notice. The mild hint of vanilla oak still was tantalizing against his nostrils despite its lack of wanted heat.
Some Elvis song was playing in the bar - one of those old classics that outlived the man by half a century. He may be a long-gone has-been now, but he built something that lasted. "Sun lights up the daytime, moon lights up the night," Logan hummed, not giving a damn who might hear. Cataloging faces across the bar floor until it locked on one in particular.
Carson. That smug bastard from Crylonis Tech. Golden boy of R&D who practically radiated contempt during last month's tech conference panel.
Tonight, though, Carson was five drinks in and looking considerably less composed, tie loose and lonely eyes. Logan's lips curled into something wolfish.
Amazing what company secrets could slip between the sheets after the right combination of flattery, liquor, and a bit of body language and charm. Besides he looked pathetic, if anything it could be a therapeutic experience for the rigid near unforgettable, Though perhaps one of the finer Cylonis higher-ups was around as well... what he wouldn't give for even a night with Kyla.
He was already calculating his approach when Juliet's voice and that twisted grin flashed in his mind slicing the beginnings of a buzz: "If recklessness was a stock, you'd be a blue-chip asset." He could practically see her—crossed arms now, that gaze that cut through his bullshit with terror.
Logan tossed back the rest of his drink, slamming it just a bit louder than needed. When the hell had his sister's disapproval started following him into bars? And more disturbingly—when had he started listening?
What did she know about legacies anyway? Real impact wasn't about carefully preserved systems and balanced spreadsheets. It was about those moments that burned like top-shelf whiskey - memories like a song reaching through decades to fill an overpriced bar, making even the most mundane feel something for just a few goddamn minutes. That was power. That was the point.
"You didn't have to take over in there." His words played in his head, the ones he hadn't quite managed to fully articulate.
Instead, Jules had done what she always did stepped in, smoothed things over, and left.
The worst part? She wasn't entirely wrong. But that didn't make it easier.
He recalled her philosophy on business viability, it had merit. But Juliet was so focused on planning ahead she missed the opportunities in between. The best experiences are those of temperance, not that which was ground steady.
Jules wasn't Dad, not exactly, but sometimes she came damn close. The way she looked at him in that boardroom.
And wasn't that the kicker? Juliet, for all her razor-sharp brilliance, still saw him as a liability to be managed, contained rather than unleashed. Like he couldn't see the bigger picture she was so obsessed with protecting.
Logan cherished the last few drops of warm amber. "The perfect daughter," he muttered, signaling for another drink. "The perfect executive. The perfect..." He laughed softly. "Well, the perfect everything."
He kept up with the boring fucking numbers too! Even if people tended to forget. No, what made Juliet different was how she wielded those boring figures.
The fond memory of that day came back to him. Logan wasn't sure what he had been expecting when he pitched the Argos Initiative to the Delos board, but it wasn't a slaughter.
He had been excited. Practically bouncing in his chair, barely keeping his grin in check as the old fucks on the board started to tear into the project.
"It's an amusement park, Logan. A glorified tech demo."
"The cost alone—"
"Not to mention the ethical complications. You're asking us to greenlight a project with fully autonomous artificial life forms, programmed with suffering as a fundamental function?"
He had been prepared to fight. He wanted to fight. It was what he did best—barrel through objections with the force of his personality, bend them to his will.
But Juliet had beaten him to it that day.
She had stood up—slowly, precisely, her tablet may as well have a revolver with how effectively she wielded that thing.
"Gentlemen."
Just one simple word. Yet, It made every painfully predictable dullard at that table shut the fuck up she rarely spoke at pitches at least back then.
"You're not looking at a theme park attraction. You're looking at the future of human engineering."
Logan still remembered how casually she dismantled them.
Every financial concern? Answered, with projected revenue streams so airtight that even the old man himself hadn't raised an eyebrow.
Every ethical concern reframed.
"You say it's dangerous? Everything profitable is."
"You say people will object? Perhaps. But they'll still pay for it."
"We're not asking them to believe in it. We're just asking them to want it."
It was a beautiful thing, watching Juliet work.
Not in the sentimental sense. No violins or piano concertos. Just the way she didn't flinch. Locking every board dead in the eye and using their own name like it was a scalpel.
They thought she was soft. Mistook her quiet calm and lack of interruptions as weakness.
Idiots.
When that old dinosaur Pierce —the biggest cynic of the lot whose stranglehold against company progress only was rivaled by James Delos himself, fucker had been around since before Logan was born— so of course he leaned forward, narrowed his eyes, and said:
"And what do you propose we do with this… 'future of human consciousness?'"
Logan had opened his mouth. Ready to talk about vice, excess, sin—the shit that made Westworld worth investing in.
Juliet had beat him to it.
"Data mining," she said smoothly as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Behavioral profiling. Surveillance."
The old cynic looked back at her nodding, "Spying?".
Logan nearly choked on his spit.
And the shift in the room was easy to feel.
"Every host is a potential information mine," she continued. "Every guest, an opportunity. Politicians. CEOs. Generals. Bankers. Investors. Everyone who steps into that park… trusts that what happens there stays there. Imagine if we knew everything they wanted to forget."
Logan hadn't even considered that angle.
But fuck if it didn't work.
By the time she was finished, the room was silent.
And James Delos the ever-judging, out of touch bastard that he was watching both of them with a look Logan had seen often grace his features.
Discomfort.
And yet, the board caved and the signatures went down, Logan still felt it—that deep, animal buzz humming in his blood.
The primal sense pulsed in his chest and curled his fingers like they were clawing away at the world itself. You won. You took it. You fought and they did not. Better, Always fucking better. Ad victoriam.
Because at the end of the day, it was his idea. Even if Juliet had sold it better, and a week later?
That board member Mr. Obstruction himself was gone. Golden parachute. Severance package with more zeroes than even James cared to give the man. Started some little boutique firm in Connecticut.
But end of the day he was out of their hair. Logan wasn't blind. He knew whose idea that was.
Jules hadn't raised her voice once… just slipped the knife in while smiling.
And once Pierce was out of the way. Everything got easier for the both of them.
The board. Even their father.
She knew how to pick her battles. And win every single one. But now?
Now, that sight - Jules outmaneuvering shareholders and steamrolling the board wasn't rare. It was expected, which burned a fuck ton more than this whiskey. For all the offense he brought to those unambitious penny pinchers. Juliet didn't even have to raise her voice. She was the eye of the storm.
Ironic really. His own sister. At times colder than the hosts walking around the South China sea.
Even El Lazo wouldn't be half as merciless as Jules on a bad day.
And fuck, that coldness worked to Logan's benefit... most of the time.
Didn't mean it didn't chill him too.
The new bourbon arrived, and Logan grabbed it eagerly. She's probably at the office again, even with it nearly being last call. Running scenarios, planning contingencies, thinking five moves ahead while those imbeciles are still clinging to step 1.
"Life isn't meant to be preserved under glass," he muttered, welcoming the deeper, smokier burn. This one was better. Different.
You can't treat every moment like a pin on a corkboard forever Jules, God was she good at it, But she missed the magic that came from chaos, from those unrepeatable moments when everything could either soar or crash. The park could be like that with just a bit of refinement. Every guest's story unique, every experience impossible to truly replicate. But Juliet wanted to control it, to sand down the edges until it was predictable. She didn't understand that the unknown made it real.
That was the thing about Juliet - she never just played the game. She dissected it, rebuilt it to suit her needs. Every conversation a strategic opportunity. Sometimes he wondered if she ever got tired of being so... precise.
He told her once that she was going to micromanage herself to an ealry grave.
She just gave him that chilling little smile, the one that made even the old man shut the hell up and said, "Better that than dying by your definition of freedom."
Whatever.
She could keep her spotless corner office and 10- year plans counting risks. He'd continue counting stories.
The morning sun stabbed through half-closed blinds like particularly vindictive daggers. Logan squinted at his phone - three missed calls- Juliet. Of course.
His head throbbed in protest as he sat up, taking in the aftermath of... whatever last night had become. Clothes scattered across designer furniture, empty bottles creating their own abstract art installation on his coffee table. There was something almost beautiful about the disarray of it all.
"Meeting in an hour," Juliet's latest text read. "Don't be late."
Logan considered his options with the kind of detached amusement that came with expensive hangovers. He'd been sober yesterday morning - insultingly sober. Wasn't life the freedom to be gloriously, alive?
His gaze drifted to the nightstand where a half-empty bottle of bourbon sat next to a familiar rolled note he cared to forget. The bourbon was warm, flat - nothing like last night's careful selection. But maybe that was the point. Nothing good lasted forever. That's what made even the worst of things appreciated.
As he reached for the bottle, his eyes caught his reflection in the mirror above the nightstand. Dark eyes, nearly bottomless stared back, blurred at the edges like they couldn't quite decide where the the iris ended and pupil began.
He held the stare a second too long sinking into it.
Then he smiled. That old, crooked smirk.
"Hair of the dog," he muttered, taking a deeper swig. "And maybe a little breakfast of champions."
After all, if his sister was going to spend her morning optimizing spreadsheets, the least he could do was optimize his mood. The fine white powder seemed to sparkle with morning light, just as fresh snow.
Benjamin Franklin's stern expression stared up at him from the crisp bill. Logan smirked. "Sorry, Ben. But you know what they say about time being money..."
In an hour, he'd walk into that meeting, focus turned up to eleven, ideas flowing like wine. Juliet would give him that look - the one that said she knew exactly what he'd been up to - but she was never one to argue with results.
Logan checked his reflection, adjusting his collar just the slightest bit. Time to face another day in the obnoxiously ordered world of Delos Incorporated.
The elevator doors had barely opened when Logan heard his father's distinctive brogue echoing down the hallway.
"There ye are Finally!" James Delos's face was already flushed with that particular shade of red it got when quarterly projections weren't met. Or when Logan enjoyed himself too loudly in his general vicinity. "Been looking all over for ye."
Logan adjusted his tie, grateful for the chemical courage coursing through his system. "Dad. Bit early for a family chat, isn't it?"
"Early? Some of us actually work for our money, boy." James's eyes narrowed, taking in Logan's appearance with that familiar mix of disappointment and disgust. "Though I suppose ye wouldn't know much about that, would you? Too busy obsessing about your fancy theme park robots?"
"They're not just robots, Dad." Logan kept his sharpened. "They're the future. If you actually bothered to listen yesterday—"
"Listen?" James barked out a laugh. "Aye, I listened plenty. Listened to you prattle on about consciousness and innovation while dear Juliet cleaned up after ye. Again." He stepped closer, jabbing a finger at Logan's chest. "Between you and those fucking tin men, and Juliet off with her bloody European interests, you two are running this company every which way but straight!"
Logan's smile tightened. "The world's changing, Dad. Maybe you should try it sometime."
"Changed?" James's accent thickened. "I didn't get rich by chasing every fancy that crossed my path like some shite-for-cash artist! We stick to what works. What's proven. What's—"
"Profitable?" Logan interrupted, feeling reckless. "Like the Argos Initiative. Which has been bringing us profits well above even the most generous projected ROI. Or are those numbers too 'fancy' for your taste too?"
For a moment, James looked like he might actually strike him. Instead, he just shook his head, disgust written across his features. "Yer mother would be ashamed," he muttered, turning away. "At least Juliet has some sense in that head of hers. When she's not enabling your nonsense."
Logan watched his father storm off, his blood turning bitter. "Love you too, Dad," he murmured to the empty hallway.
How could that man still not see the potential that has been realized, much less what is yet to come?
Well, fuck him. The park would continue to change everything. But first, he had a meeting to attend. Judging by the constant vibrating of his phone, Juliet was already counting the seconds until he was late.