To get to the location of the meeting, we had to make our way through the main gambling floor of the hotel. The amazing display of sounds and sights of the slot machines, roulette wheels, video poker machines and gaming tables made this huge room seem like an adult version of a video arcade. Everywhere you looked there were lights flashing, alarms and screams of joy from happy (but temporary) winners, scantily dressed cocktail waitresses and costumed characters from the theme of the hotel itself to distract the unwary gambler.
It’s quite ingenious actually, to package the experience of losing one’s money in games chance as entertainment, so that when the majority of patrons walk away from the place lighter in the wallet, they often do so happily, thinking that at least they got their money’s worth of free alcohol, wondrous sights, and adrenaline rushes of temporary wins. Looking around at all of the poeple, from retired grandmothers and grandfathers, to blue collar factory workers, to single moms, to normally bright and fiscally conservative businessmen all lining up to have their chance to flush away some money that may or may not be extra in their budgets was very depressing.
I couldn’t help wondering if my detached attitude towards the sights and sounds that the resort owners were employing to detach theses folks from their money was related to my lack of hormones and the limited amount of stimuli that I could actually now experience. I remember having made trips before to Vegas, and that I was as enthralled by the experience as many of these poor, sleep deprived people now seemed to be.
I was walking with the Frau, Ravyn, Cerrydwen and Jim.
The Frau seemed to be her normal, happy self as she toddled through the maze of machines, tables and people. Smiling at some folks, pointing out machines that were celebrating winners, but otherwise unaffected by the hustle and bustle of activity. She used her cane artfully to clear a path without actually offending anyone with her gentle touch and her kind smile and easy laugh.
Ravyn seemed to be a bundle of energy, barely contained within her small frame. She smiled more than the Frau, and exclaimed for joy when a nearby older gentleman leaped from his stool in front of the machine he had been almost praying at before hitting his small jackpot of a couple of hundred dollars. She pranced through the crowd like someone who felt herself to be actively involved in the excitement of the moment, like she gained strength and energy from the underlying buzz of the room.
Cerrydwen, on the other hand, walked like she was shielding herself from a constant assault on overwhelming stimuli, like the same energy that boosted Ravyn actually brought her pain. Her eyes were squinted, she walked with one hand seemingly shielding her eyes and her temples from the bright light of the sun. When a nearby blackjack table exploded in laughter and joy as the dealer busted, she winced in pain and staggered in her step before I caught her elbow and steadied her.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
Without looking at me, she choked out, “I will be once we get out of this madness. Sometimes it sucks to be an empath.”
Jim towered over most of the crowd, easily using his bulk and strength to intimidate opennings in lines or crowds just before he reached them. People almost unconsciously moved out of his way as he approached. His eyes were darting everywhere, taking in probabilities of winning and losing and quickly assessing the losing odds at nearly every game we passed. Passing a completely full poker table, he nodded in the direction of a couple of young men sitting across from the dealer who was placing cards in front of them and said to me, quietly, “There’s a set-up, see those young men, they’re playing that drunk guy in the middle, he’ll likely never know what hit him and how he lost all of those chips before dusk.”
The gaming hall was immense, crowded with machines, tables and activities that had been artfully arranged to make passersby move through every conceivable type of gambling in order to get anywhere in the room. Just about everywhere you went, employees of the resort seemed to invite or even implore you to join in a simple little game or to sample some free drink. It was an orgy of activity clearly designed to overload the senses of even the savviest consumer into trying just one pull at this machine, or one hand at this table. Why not take one good roll of the dice? It might be your lucky day! You know, you can’t win in Vegas if you don’t play!
But beneath all of the happy, exciting buzz was an undetow of desperation and seriousness to the room that was also visible, if you were lucky (or unlucky-depending on your persepctive) enough to be immune to many of the other distractions. I could almost feel the desperate, nearly hopeless need of the single mother pushing in the last of her rent money, praying for the miracle that she was just due for to finally come through, and the despair she felt when the symbols aligned to reveal the loser that she knew in heart that she likely would always be.
I could feel the stares of the hard edged men and women looking out from the ‘pits’ as they watched everyone, assessing who was cheating and who needed to be stopped. Their faces betrayed the fact that they had long ago become immune to the ebb and flow of emotion stemming from glorious victory and crushing defeat. I felt in these stares, a strange sense of kindred with these last folks, knowing all too well how much that loss meant.
We reached the buffet-style restaurant that lay on the far edge of the room and made our way inside. The columns and artfully placed plants that formed the only wall between the seating area of the restaurant and the gaming hall beyond provided just enough relief from the sights and sounds of the gambling to allow Cerrydwen to emerge from her self-imposed cocoon, but allowed enough to get through to be a constant reminder of the seemingly endless bounty of winning that lay beyond this temporary respite.
Everyone got their trays and made their way through the buffet line, I stayed near Cerrydwen, grabbing her tray for her, making it look like we were a couple. I made sure to grab enough food and drink to maintain the appearance of a tray for two, so as to remain inconspicuous in the crowds of the restaurant. I paid for the both of us and we made our way from the line to the large table where there were a dozen other folks already waiting.
Even in this place, in this city, it was fairly easy to tell that the people waiting for us were other ORCs, marked in some strange way as special and talented in ways that most people only dreamed of. John was already there, with one of the young men from the attack on the canyon. The group was quite an eclectic mix, as diverse in apparent race and ethnicity as they were in talents. There was a small, older chinese man who easily could have played a character in any number of Hong Kong made martial arts movies. To his side was a younger woman with black, colorfully braided hair and the brown skin of latin american heritage. Dominating others near him was a large, african american man with a clean shaven head, a hearty laugh and large, gnarled hands. Herne and his wife, Moira, also were there, satisfied smiles on their faces.
My companions were greeted as friends who had returned as if gone from a long journey, I was introduced as ‘Randy’ a prospect from the Chicago area, which was the agreed upon disguise until the full, private meetings with the membership were to take place, probably tomorrow.
Everyone seemed genuinely happy to meet me, as they introdced themselves and indicated where they were from. (As they become important to the story, I will present their names and such so you can remember them as well.)
Everything was going fine, until a small, rather indistinct man to the left of the older chinese man (who had given his name as Wang and his home as Los Angeles) introduced himself as Agron, from Virginia, and said, “N-n-nice t-t-to m-m-meet you, R-Ru-Rus-Randy, I-I-I’m p-p-pleased t-t-to f-f-fin-finally m-m-m-meet you.” Something about his voice, his stutter, jarred something in my memory. It wasn’t after the dinner though, and after the plans for the meeting to take place the next day were laid, that I started to recall where I had heard that voice before.
Later that evening, after the others had gone to bed, or gone to gamble, I finally recalled what struck me about that Agron fellow. His voice, his stutter recalled a voice I had heard in the first few days of my awakening in the NecroLab, a voice that could only belong to another assistant of Drake’s who had helped Dr. Geek to get my Chakra embedded properly. I never saw his face, since at that time my Spirit had been forced back inside the Chakra for the transition. But his voice, and his damnable stutter, were unmistakably unique. He had been called the Tinker by Dr. Geek and his staff, who had spoken on him after he finished his work, with awe and with not just a little bit of fear.
I sat there, alone, meditating on just how to handle the situation. There was a traitor, or at least a double agent in our larger circle. This man knew of the plans for the corporate meeting, and had been told like all of the rest of those at the table to read my blog, that the importance of it would be revealed at the meeting. I can remember now how eager he was to take down that website address, and how the gleam in his eyes seemed to glow bright with understanding and anticipation.
I had that sinking feeling in my virtual stomach as a I knew for a certainty that tomorrow, everything would change....
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