The Global Priority Class Stand-By Lounge—that's what the nameplate on the door identified it as—looked like a cross between a gentleman's club in Edwardian London (or, at least, the BBC rendition thereof), and a high-tone computer dealer's showroom. Heavy wood paneling, burgundy plush carpets, wingback leather chairs, crystal decanters on mahogany sideboards ... and everywhere, suit-clad travelers tapping away on palmtop computers, babbling into cel phones, or staring off into space with fiber-optic spiderwebs trailing from their temples. Of the fifteen or so people in the lounge, the only people who weren't engaged in some form of electronic or verbal intercourse were me, the flack—who, with one final unctuous comment, made himself scarce—and a particularly shapely bartender (bartendress? bartendrix?) whose smile hinted she really needed my patronage to make her day complete. Out of the goodness of my heart I obliged her, and spent the next ten minutes savoring the best of all possible lands of single-malt Scotch whiskey—free singlemalt Scotch whiskey.