Swords and a robot buddy.

Elise cracked the suite's door to see two burly men wheeling two crates nearly as big as themselves.

"Hey Miss Hartmann," grunted the taller man. "How ya doin', nice weather, good luck at the con, whoop de fuckin' doo. Sign here for delivery." He thrust a clipboard through the door.

"Hello to you too, Luigi." Elise smiled at the men, signed the papers, and unlatched her door. At first it had been weird getting deliveries from the same people over and over, but when there were only so many companies who could be counted on to deliver packages securely, secretly, and understand the meaning of the word "fragile," it became a small world indeed.

Elise let the deliverymen in and closed the door behind them. They immediately broke down the two crates with a few well-placed thrusts of their crowbars. Elise gasped when she saw what was inside.

The long, skinny crate was carrying a sheathed sword almost tall as she was. The other held what looked like a robotic insect the size of a dog, with a computer screen attached to a box on its upper side. There were a few accessories in the crate with the robot, including something like a black blindfold.

Elise had gotten to demo a few high-tech pieces before, but robots usually had a crew to go with them. Did the company really expect her to work this herself? If so, she really needed to ask for a raise...

"Huh," the shorter, stockier deliveryman said curiously. "Wonder how they expect a girl like you to carry that sword around?"

Elise raised an eyebrow; this was the first time she'd heard a peep out of him. Compared to his partner, he was always the shy one. While Luigi looked to be in his late twenties, the shy delivery boy couldn't have been that far out of his teens. She didn't even know his name.

"Swords really are more Vera's thing," Elise agreed. She looked up from the sword to find that the deliveryman had his eyes on her, but he glanced away the instant she caught him. It was kinda cute, really.

"Not your problem, boys," Yasmin barked through the laptop. "Ellie's got this. Now scram!"

"Yasmin, don't be rude!" Ellie sighed in exasperation and gave the duo a smile. "Sorry. She's a little overprotective."

"Nah, she's right." Luigi jerked his thumb to the door. "Our work here's fuckin' done. Let's get gone."

The taller deliveryman went right out, but his stockier partner paused at the door. His partner groaned from the hallway.

"Come on, Mario," his partner said. "We fuckin' talked about this. We're busy and she's busy. Don't be a fuckin' idiot, you fucknut."

"We don't have any deliveries for hours," the shorter deliveryman protested, "And my name isn't Mario, it's Michael."

"Ellie, just get the fanboying Mario brothers out of your place," Yasmin's voice whispered. "We don't need someone seeing this and spreading it online."

Elise waved her hand at the laptop to shush her social media manager. Yasmin meant well, but she could get a little too zealous about controlling Ellie's online image, and as famous as she was, it was still hard to actually find time to talk to someone. If she could get just a few minutes of normal, out-of-character conversation, it would be like a breath of fresh air.