195 Troubles

"Yes, book it. The entire thing. And decorate it exactly as I instructed."

As Will hung up the phone to look out of the window of his office in the brief moment of respite that he had between his meetings that spanned the entire day, he sighed, sorely missing his girlfriend who had completely immersed herself in work and hadn't even messaged or called him since the morning.

Deciding to at least find out how she was doing, he called her, but the call went straight to voice mail.

Yep, when Liz focused on something, she would zone everything else out.

Here he was carefully planning how they were going to continue their 'activity' finally, while his girlfriend was so absorbed in work that she seemed to have forgotten that he even existed.

Letting out a deep breath, Will struck away that thought as he knew it wasn't true, but he couldn't help but curse whoever it was that was responsible for the leak.

If it weren't for that complication, Liz would definitely not be working this hard.

Picking up the phone to order that the efforts to find the culprit had to be redoubled, Will once again resumed his meeting, but he couldn't get the thought of her out of his head, which led to a very interesting day where he had to hesitate and check downstairs every time he was about to get up to do anything.

…

Meanwhile, Liz had indeed placed her phone on silent and was currently in a meeting with the 53 people who had been assigned to her.

One of them, who was the leader of the core software and hardware implementations in the diner, was speaking while gesturing at a presentation on the screen.

"-this way, we will leverage hidden technology to deliver a smooth experience, right from the moment a customer enters the restaurant. Inside the kitchen, too, everything will be monitored using our custom designed software which will definitely be in high demand after we demonstrate it successfully using this case. Thank you."

As the woman took her seat, Liz stood up and said, "Good job. Construction is going on smoothly, and we should be ready to implement by this weekend. That's still on schedule, right?"

"Yes, ma'am. Good. Get back to work, people. We still have a lot on our plate."

It was the next day after that dirty move by Larry, and while Keren was using her contacts in the government to overthrow the sealing of Luke's Diner, Liz had busied herself with the specifics of the software and hardware and the implementations after spending the whole day yesterday with Luke and Keren drawing up new plans.

She had just gotten an update, and next, she was going to return to the site of construction.

She had packed her schedule completely, and except for occasional meals with Will whenever she had time, she was working her ass off.

Lenny was a big help: whenever she didn't understand anything, he would be there, albeit grudgingly. With his assistance, she had completely settled into her role, and everything was going smoothly.

One week later, the construction was done, and everyone began to gear up for the big reveal, to which all the top foodies in the city along with critics and the press were invited.

However, here, they hit another snag: almost all of the critics declined the invitation, which led to the trio meeting again.

"What is it now?", Liz asked, to which Luke replied, "Bribes, of course. One guy even told me blatantly that his absence had been bought. Should we bribe them in return?"

Keren seemed to be in deep thought, but after a moment, she shook her head.

"No, that's not the right strategy. Let them be absent. We are already on the backfoot. We should let them get confident. Don't do anything special."

Liz bit her lips for a few moments, but finally, she nodded.

Hence, the restaurant opened to lackluster response, as many of the press had also been bribed to be absent.

The only ones who turned up were a few magazines, who noticed the minimal number of people attending and reported the same: that it was a very ambitious venture, but it had failed to garner enough attention, probably due to the bad rep of the original restaurant, which had been closed recently due to an infestation of rats.

Indeed: that news report had worked out brilliantly for their competitors, and although Keren had later had it repealed, the damage had been done.

Luke seemed to have a permanent expression of frustration on his face, and the only reason he wasn't flipping out was that he trusted Liz and Keren when they said that they had to wait.

Yet, as time passed, he started to wonder more and more whether it was all going to fail.

A week after the diner's opening, it was still very low-profile, and it was even running in losses.

Some critics had even been bribed to eat and leave bad reviews, and this had led to the score on social media plummeting.

Ad campaigns had been carried out by Happle while advertising their shiny new revolutionary technologies such as personal customizations, preference selection, and in-kitchen inventory management, but all of them failed too, as the people in the city were just not ready to visit a place which did not have much acclaim.

Tens of thousands of dollars were being burned every day, and it seemed that Larry had succeeded. Hell, Liz even got the report that Larry had thrown a party, commemorating his 'victory' during which he apparently spoke about her and mocked the way she had threatened them, before failing miserably in all of her efforts.

Finally, 10 days after the opening of the diner, Larry and the others finally decreased their efforts, convinced that the story of Luke's Diner was over.

However, this was when Liz's eyes shone, as she knew that it was finally time for them to strike.

And this strike- was going to make that Larry eat his words, and choke on them.