Cyberpunk: 2075.

Chapter 396 9. Doubt

"I used to think that hotel food would not be too strong because they wanted to cater to the tastes of the general public, and the hotel meals I had eaten were generally like this, but now it seems that I was wrong."

Sitting by the window in the restaurant on the fourth floor of the hotel, Carl admired the night view outside the window while saying to Jack who was following him: "I forgot that the restaurants in the hotel are not all buffet-style. Some of the hotel restaurants allow you to order meals."

"So are you satisfied with today's dinner? You didn't eat anything at the bar before."

Jack had a glass of lemonade in front of him. He looked at the empty bowl in front of Carl and asked, "Would you like another serving? I think this bowl of beef rice is a little small."

"It's just to fill my stomach."

To be honest, it is quite normal to have the standard Japanese meal gyudon in the territory of military technology. After all, when it comes to food, even the vendor downstairs of the apartment where Carl and his friends live in Night City can make eighteen kinds of dishes by himself. It would be strange for a hotel that receives foreign guests from all over the world not to order foreign food. But don't expect it to taste authentic and delicious.

"Forget about having another serving. This beef bowl has too much sauce and it's too greasy."

"How about some pizza?"

"I only see Hawaiian pizza that would make Italians furious. Are you sure that's what I, an Italian, should order?"

"Ok."

Jack thought about it and asked tentatively: "Are you hungry?"

"I've already filled my stomach, so I won't be hungry. And if I really want to eat, there are other things I can order. But forget it. The food in this hotel tastes so-so."

Carl sighed. The people at Military Technology were not British, so the food would not be too extreme. However, he had thought that the food at this hotel would be delicious, and he had planned to go to the restaurant to enjoy it. However, when he arrived, he found that the food was not delicious at all, which dashed his expectations.

"V and Oliver should be gathering information now. Let's sit down and order some drinks and pretend to chat. We can also listen to what the guests around us are discussing."

Eavesdropping on conversations in restaurants is a common and widespread practice as a means of intelligence gathering. However, precisely because of its prevalence, the important information obtained through this method is often very limited.

As far as Carl could remember, there were indeed a few cases in history where key intelligence was inadvertently heard during meals, which led to major events. However, compared with the countless meals taking place in the world every moment, the probability of hearing important information by chance was extremely small.

In comparison, the possibility of being struck by lightning might be even greater. Moreover, there were only a few guests dining around Carl and Jack, so the probability was extremely small.

"Wait till I order a drink and then leave."

Carl chose to sit down in the restaurant, on the one hand because it was almost dinner time and he hoped to get some useful information from other guests' chats; on the other hand, he was indeed hungry. However, the reality was obviously not as he wished, and it was not so easy to get valuable information from these casual conversations.

Carl and Jack were already trying to listen to the conversations of the guests around them, but the guests around them were not big mouths. People who could enter this hotel still had basic vigilance. Carl and Jack listened to the conversations of the guests around them in low voices for a long time, and at most they heard some small comments about the restaurant food. What information did they contain?
It’s roughly the same amount of beef as the steak Jack and his friends ate today.

"Okay, dinner is over."

After ordering another after-meal drink and drinking it, Carl, who still hadn't heard any valuable information, was ready to leave. Generally speaking, there weren't many people coming to the restaurant to eat, even at mealtime. Carl suspected that most of the guests might choose to have the hotel waiters deliver the meals to their suites. Seeing that mealtime was almost over, there was no point in staying any longer.

Seeing Carl stand up, Jack, as a bodyguard, naturally stood up and followed. Just when the two of them walked to the door of the restaurant, Carl noticed that the restaurant's delivery elevator was open, and a male waiter who seemed to have just delivered food walked out.

With just a quick glance, Carl noticed a lot of things.

The waiter was pushing a food cart downstairs. There was still some food soup left on the cart. Perhaps it was accidentally tilted a little while carrying the food. Considering that the waiters in this hotel are generally professionally trained, such a mistake obviously requires them to carry a large amount of food at one time, and pay attention to not letting the food on top fall over while ignoring the dripping of the soup below.

The waiter did not have any prosthetics on his hands, which meant that such an accident was not impossible. The color of the few drops of soup on his wrist that seeped into his cuffs was similar to the color of the soup on the dining cart, which meant that it was indeed the traces left over from carrying a large amount of food at one time.

What information can be obtained from moving large amounts of food at one time?
To put it simply, there are two points that can be analyzed.

All the food on the table is for the guests in one suite. If the table is for individual guests, the waiter only needs to move the food one by one, and there will be no dripping marks from the cuffs that would only be left when the hands are underneath and the food is held with both hands.

The second point is that the guest in the suite must be very familiar with the waiter, and may even be a guest who has lived there for a while. If a hotel waiter is not familiar with the guest, even if he needs to carry a large amount of food, he will not be able to move it so quickly and leave it at that;

This behavior would give people a feeling of perfunctory or inadequate service attitude, but the waiter did so, which shows that his action was tacitly approved by the customer, or that the customer asked him to do so.

'Just put all your things over there and leave.'

or.

"It's you, put the things over there."

No matter what the attitude is, the waiter and the customer must have more than one level of familiarity, because they are not witnessed in person and a large amount of food is placed at one time, but they can do a lot of things, and only after establishing basic familiarity can they do such things.

Long-term stay, with an unknown number of guests eating a lot of food at one time in the suite.

'Write it down first.'

After a glance, Karl walked out of the restaurant.

'Put it on the suspect list.'

Although there are still many details to be considered, when it comes to speculating on this kind of thing, only a suspicion is enough.

Carl is not handling a case, he does not talk about evidence, only suspicion.

(End of this chapter)