City Street #38

"What's that?"   "Oh, that? That's number 38. Someone decided to build a nondescript multi-purpose building on the other side of City Ward's 'border' with dock ward. A year after, there's been a fire, explosives, and half the floors on one side are exposed. I fear it's only still upright because no one has gotten the gumption to tear it down yet."   "What, explosives? I pass by that road when I come back from visiting my uncle's place."   "Oh, an uncle with a city ward villa, must be nice."   "Look, us Ouranos are small fries, in the grand scheme of things, but two of my uncles ranked out at NFOF-09 Nessun, and one at GFOF-07 Vixen."   "Wasn't your dad also a Nessun?"   "No, he tapped out at Taimine."   "I still say Zim, when they come at number two."   "You're a Sun'ga, you say Zim to everyone, and they like it!"   "You're not wrong... It's not like anyone comes to the restaurant and asks to be talked rudely to..."   "No, but you've got enough of a reputation, I keep hearing rumbling they might make the relationship official..."   "Oh, there's a reason for that, and not for the reason you think..."   "What?"   "It has to do with procurement, if we ever became exclusive suppliers to the Navy, we'd get paid months after a bill gets produced, and at a much lower rate."   "Whereas now?"   "The Navy can choose to go elsewhere, but in exchange, we actually get paid as much as other restaurants, and they actually have to pay us net thirty, like any other business. I've heard of six months delays in payment for exclusive suppliers."   "Well, I understand you not wanting to be paid this much later, and the higher rates. Wouldn't the exclusivity counter it some?"   "I can't say, no one knows how much money the navy spends when they eat elsewhere, nor does it help them in cities where we don't have a restaurant, like Lavali or Lileath."   "Hmm."   "And keep in mind, Kannie's paid top dollar for location, to get that navy custom, if we got exclusive, they'd lower the rate they pay, because navy people can't go elsewhere anymore, but our rent won't go down because we're exclusive..."   "How much of your custom is the Navy?"   "Between 32 and 84 per cent, depending on season, and other variables."   "That's a huge variance, any idea why?"   "Rain, I'm sure going across the city for a nice bit of raw fish sounds like a better idea when you won't get drenched..."   "Thanks for explaining about #38 though, I'm going to avoid the area from now on..."   "Good idea, I heard part of the reason explosives were used is that there was gang-related activities going on..."   "Explosives, I still can't wrap my head around that... What kind of explosive was it?"   "Fuel-air."   "What? Someone diffused a fuel so thinly it became explosive?"   "Well, kinda, Cubic-Gauche Nitrogen doesn't really need much of an effort."   "But it's regulated!"   "Kinda, you still need it for your aircar, so it's not that hard to get..."