A troop of performing artists cut a swathe along the sidewalk, catching Steiner’s eye. Their outlandish garb accentuated the rhythmic beat of their percussion instruments, which they played with a flamboyant vigour to the delight of the onlookers swept up in their wake. It seemed everyone here was trying to escape the dark, dull and often terrifying existence of the outside world. The sheer volume of people was staggering. Yet another symptom of the dust cloud, Steiner assumed. It was strange, though; getting into the city had been surprisingly easy, checkpoints lax and almost non-existent in places. It was if the GMRC protocols had been universally ignored by general consent. Las Vegas had always courted the impression of having laws unto itself and the arrival of AG5 had apparently done little to alter the tradition laid down in decades past.
Samson turned a corner, the bright lights reflecting in the highly polished, lustrous red paintwork of the Dodge Ram pick-up truck. They drove down the side street, the exhaust burbling a deep growl. Steiner noticed some admiring glances aimed their way. He felt a spark of annoyance that he wasn’t driving, then suppressed the feeling. I have far more important things to think about than showing off, Steiner chided himself, sending his suitably chastened ego to sulk in the deeper recesses of his mind.
‘Are we there yet?’ Steiner asked, his role of tormentor a pleasing distraction from the immense stresses he was under.
Samson didn’t reply, most likely as he didn’t have to. Pulling the car into an underground car park, the colonel found a suitable spot and turned the engine off, the keys rattling as he did so. Opening the door, he climbed out and Steiner did likewise.
Samson glared at Steiner and slammed his door shut, the noise echoing through the low ceilinged concrete structure. ‘I didn’t say you could come.’
Steiner shut his own door. ‘I’m not some child, Colonel, whom you can boss around. I go where I please.’
Samson muttered an obscenity and picked a large, army issue overcoat out of the rear seat – something he must have sourced back at the depot – and stalked away, pulling it on over his armour as he went. Steiner trotted to catch up. He’d decided he needed to stretch his legs; hours stuck in the vehicle had made them begin to cramp up. Secretly, something he didn’t want to admit even to himself, he’d also been seduced by the sights and sounds on their journey into the city, his previously held beliefs conveniently forgotten.
Samson pressed a button to call an elevator. ‘Just keep your mouth shut. The man I’m meeting does not suffer fools.’
Steiner followed Samson into the lift. ‘And yet he will suffer you,’ he said as the shiny gold doors closed behind him.
Samson ignored him and Steiner, not for the first time, questioned his own sanity at goading such a man. He couldn’t help himself, it seemed, he was hard-wired to mock and poke fun at the mean and the wicked. He abhorred bullies and Samson was a bully like no other. Perhaps it had something to do with being on the GMRC Directorate for so many years and the power that came with it, an invulnerability he’d grown accustomed to, perhaps? Whatever the reason, it was frightfully enjoyable, almost addictively so.
The music in the lift, a jaunty little number, seemed quite ridiculous with Samson standing there looking larger than life and as wicked as the skies were dark. A smile crept onto Steiner’s lips as he imagined Samson dancing to the tune.
‘Having fun?’ Samson asked querulously, looking down at him.
‘I am actually.’ Steiner’s smile broadened. ‘It’s been quite some time since I’ve had some R&R.’
At those words the doors opened and the two men walked from the lift, a wave of noise sweeping over them from the huge casino floor now in full view. Suspended over row upon row of gambling machines, magnificent gold chandeliers sparkled and shone, shinning down their bright light on everything and everyone beneath. Further away, various games of chance played out on tables of various shapes, colours and forms.
They paced down an aisle of luscious red carpet and people pressed in around them on all sides. Samson, who found it hard to keep his temper in check at the best of times, barged people out of his way like an ogre with a toothache.
Steiner slowed while Samson pressed ahead. ‘Why don’t I wait here?’
‘Fine,’ Samson said, barely looking back before being swallowed up by the human sea.
Steiner peeled away from the thoroughfare towards a row of slot machines. All were taken except one and Steiner positioned himself in front of it to watch those alongside play their respective games. Coin after coin disappeared from a plastic bucket held by a grey haired woman, ten years his senior, sitting on a stool to his right. As she fed in her money, pressing the transparent brightly lit plastic buttons with an unerring frequency, she glanced over to see him watching her.
‘Run out of money, honey?’ she asked in a Texan drawl.
‘Never had any to start with.’
The woman, dressed in a gaudy cardigan and a pair of mustard yellow corduroy trousers, dug into her stash and placed a handful of coins into Steiner’s hurriedly outstretched palms. He looked at her in surprise, her generosity unexpected.
The woman laughed happily. ‘Don’t worry, sweetie, I’ve got plenty more where this came from. Knock yourself out.’
Steiner gave her a nod of his head, his smile wide. ‘Much obliged.’
‘You’re welcome, honey,’ she said, already continuing her game.
Turning his attention to the machine Steiner inserted a coin and watched the small, different coloured fruits spin round and round until the four adjacent wheels each came to a stop in turn, accompanied by a small bleep. Steiner assessed the games functions and the various buttons that went with it. Feeding in some more coins one at a time, his money rapidly disappearing, it became apparent that he wasn’t about to win anytime soon. He now had two coins left and felt cheated and depressed at having lost it all, despite the fact it was not hard-earned, merely a kindly donation. ‘It’s the principle of the thing,’ he said to himself. The machines were clearly rigged to rinse a person of every dollar they possessed. He glanced back along the lines at the people playing, their static stare zombie-like in its addiction.
Looking at the machine, Steiner had an idea. He recalled a news story he’d heard when he’d been lecturing at the California Institute of Technology, thirty years earlier. Was it that long? he thought, never ceasing to be astounded by the ephemeral nature of time. The tale, if he remembered it correctly, told of a man hacking into the NSA database using an antiquated dial-up modem. The simplicity of the idea had amazed Steiner at the time, such a wonderfully constructed theory utilising outdated techniques to crack a high-tech and supposedly ultra-secure network – pure genius.
The machine at which he stood had dual controls, button or voice activated. Switching to voice control, Steiner withdrew his small pocket computer and brought up an audio application. After some moments of trial and error he’d accessed the machine’s internal system, the hold and nudge buttons lighting up on his command, the simple tones omitted from his computer acting like keys on a keyboard. Figuring out the code to induce a jackpot was now a formality, with a final tap of his index finger the wheels spun round once more. Round and round, until, one by one, they displayed the same image of a bunch of red cherries. Sirens blared and flashing lights erupted from the top of the machine, which flashed and shook itself as coins spewed forth.
‘Oh my God, you did it!’ His female benefactor looked overjoyed at his success. ‘You won!’
Steiner grinned at her and slid his computer back into his pocket, the enemy vanquished. His pleasure at defeating the house was shorted-lived, however, when two pairs of hands clamped down on his arms to escort him away from the confused onlookers as the coins, still ejecting from the machine, now cascaded onto the floor itself.
Steiner soon found himself descending in an elevator. ‘Have I done something wrong, gentlemen?’ he asked, knowing all too well his own guilt.
The two bald-headed burly men, dresse
d in matching black suits, remained silent, their grip on him undiminished. On the breast pocket of each, the word ‘security’ had been embroidered in bold white lettering. Steiner was led down a cold, white-walled, basement corridor and into an area filled with a huge wallscreen, divided into scores of separate streams, all showing various parts of the casino, inside and out.
A man in a shirt and tie approached and addressed the two gorillas either side of Steiner, ‘Put him in holding room five.’
‘Yes, sir,’ one of the apes said, his cruel beady eyes looking at Steiner like a crocodile eyeing up its next gazelle at the watering hole.
Steiner was shoved into a grey, empty room, but rather than being left alone, ape one, the no-necked wonder that seemed to have some capacity for speech, remained with him.
Steiner raised an eyebrow. ‘Any chance of a drink?’
The man didn’t respond.
‘That’s a no, then.’ He sighed and removed his spectacles to clean the lenses.
Steiner didn’t have long to wait before a commotion outside the room lured the security guard away, the door opening and closing behind him. He heard people yelling, followed by loud thuds and crashes. Then silence. The door to the room opened again and Samson stood there glowering, before moving out of sight of the now vacant doorway. Steiner emerged from the small cell, his brief stay over, and looked around the room. The orderly office he’d glimpsed on his way in now looked like a raging bull had swept through it. The main screen was shattered and desks had been upended. The two security guards lay comatose on the floor, while three of their colleagues, equally prone, moved weakly, the occasional moan escaping their lips. Samson, meanwhile, ripped a piece of hardware from a server in the corner of the room and then stalked out, with Steiner following close behind.
‘I take it that’s the security footage from the casino?’ Steiner said as they made their way back down to the car park.
Samson stopped walking and held the hard drive up to Steiner’s face, his pent up fury making the device shake in his hand. ‘Are you trying to get us caught?’
It was Steiner’s turn to keep his thoughts to himself, much to Samson’s further disgust. Steiner knew he’d made a mistake; he needed to keep out of the limelight, not jump into it. Unfortunately he was used to having a team of people surrounding him, guiding his hand almost every step of the way. This was the first time in thirty years he‘d been effectively working alone, the conductor of his own music, so to speak. His enthusiasm, usually carefully directed, had been unleashed. He’d always known he possessed what bordered on a split personality; deadly serious, calm and in control while at work, and almost juvenile when at play. Now that Samson had put saving those in Steadfast on hiatus, Steiner found himself adrift; that was until the colonel had completed whatever business he felt compelled to undertake.
The two men got back into the pick-up and Samson drove them out onto the neon splashed streets. Steiner rubbed his tired eyes, the urgency to free those in Steadfast reasserting itself in the forefront of his mind. He knew it was easy to blame Samson for his own shortcomings; while the SFSD commander had derailed Steiner’s plan, he knew he couldn’t afford to let the gravitas of the situation escape him again, no matter how much he wished to temporarily unburden himself of his responsibilities.
Steiner, unwilling to even bother striking up a conversation with his unwanted companion, took it upon himself to inspect the communications equipment Samson had retrieved from the military outpost. Engrossed in the task, he suddenly became aware that they’d stopped moving and the truck was now parked just down from a nightclub where revellers queued up outside, waiting to gain entry. The large building bore a huge sign, the letters lit up in deep shades of purple and blue, proclaiming it to be The Asteroid Club.
Steiner glanced at Samson. ‘I take it your man at the casino didn’t have what you were looking for?’
The colonel slipped the vehicle out of gear and switched off the engine. ‘He did – information. The owner of this club has what I need.’ Samson made to get out of the car, but paused when Steiner stayed in his seat. ‘I need you with me this time.’ Samson’s words were spoken as if they’d been dragged out of him by means of torture.
‘No, I think I’ve caused us enough trouble for one day. I’ll stay here.’
Samson made a strangled noise, exhaled and looked down at the floor, fighting hard to keep control of his temper. ‘You come when you’re not wanted and stay when you are. You’re testing my limits, old man. Now get out of the damn truck!’
Steiner shook his head but did as requested. This time he put on a plain green baseball cap that had been poking out of one of the sacks on the back seat. Pulling it down low to hide his face, Steiner followed the tails of Samson’s overcoat as he took the lead, walking past the line of young folks looking to dance their troubles away.
The entrance to the club boasted four huge searchlights, their intense ice blue light tracing great circular patches of illumination on the dark clouds above. A deep thumping beat pounded from inside the building, the energy of the sound waves palpable through the pavement – even outside. Eight enormous bouncers stood guard on the door, herding people in and out two at a time. Samson approached one of the men, leaning forwards and speaking into the man’s ear to be heard over the noise of the music. The bouncer shook his head. Undeterred, Samson continued his verbal barrage, his stance becoming aggressive, which only served to bring four of the bouncer’s colleagues to his aid. The five doormen arranged themselves in a formidable semi–circle around the marginally smaller figure of the colonel, the breadth of whose shoulders were accentuated by the armour cladding he wore under his coat, making him appear even more powerfully built than he was. The fact that the bouncers thought they needed five of them to quell one man showed how seriously they took Samson’s physical threat.
Steiner hung back and watched, wondering what Samson would do as he held his ground against the overwhelming odds.
The sound of a high-powered sports car tore Steiner’s attention away to the road outside the venue. He recognised that sound; a V8 engine. A dual tone MKII Ford GT40, one of Steiner’s all-time favourite sports cars, came roaring into view. Iconic and timeless, the stunning black and chrome machine came to a stop adjacent to the entrance. Enclosed by super wide tyres, each sidewall displaying an immaculate white Goodyear logo, lavish, deep-dish alloys sparkled in the light. The front doors opened and out stepped two tall and incredibly beautiful brunettes, long, silky legs accentuated by revealing clothing which made Steiner feel chilly just to look at; and look he did, as did others in the queue. Cameras flashed from all directions as previously unseen photographers gathered around the two women, who glided up the steps and on into the club. Celebrities, Steiner assumed, his eyes drawn back to the car, which was now being attended to by a lucky valet.
Steiner felt a hand grab his arm. It was Samson, directing him back to the pick-up. Steiner looked back; two of the bouncers watched as they walked away. Inside the Dodge once more, Samson punched the dashboard, leaving a large dent.
‘Perhaps there’s a back way in?’ Steiner said, never thinking he’d ever be trying to give Samson any words resembling support.
Samson didn’t reply. Instead he delved once more into his supply of red pills, throwing a small handful into his mouth and chewing down with speed. Sticking the truck into gear, he reversed against the flow of traffic, sending other cars dodging out of his way and honking their horns in protest.
♦
Lucy Marshall had worked in the exclusive Asteroid nightclub for two years. She enjoyed her work. Free drinks were a perk, plus she got to know the DJs and the bouncers, which gave her a certain status amongst her peers as being part of the in-crowd. From time to time she even managed to get into the VIP area where all the top stars came to party on a regular basis. The Asteroid Club had been Vegas’ top nightlife venue for years now, attracting only the best clientele. It was the place to be, the only place to be if you
were someone of note. People who were somebody went to the Asteroid, and people who wanted to be somebody went to the Asteroid. That’s all you had to know.
Lucy worked in the VIP section on the front desk and cloakroom, and she’d just that moment received a pair of delicate and extremely expensive jackets from two of the world’s top models, Asilina Salerno and Atalanta Varushkin. The two women now waited for their special gift bags, provided to all such guests by the Asteroid’s owners. Chewing her gum in time to the thumping uplifting dance music, Lucy picked out two of the bags from underneath the counter and gave them to the picture-perfect brunettes.
A loud noise and shouting made the two models look round towards the entrance, and Lucy also peered with interest through the haze of the smoke that seeped down from the main part of the club, an effect laid on once a week for the Impact Night promotion. She heard screaming, and ten doormen came steaming out of the main building to rush outside. The noise seemed to go on for ages. Through the huge windows that made up the front of the foyer, Lucy saw the great floodlights blink out as if someone had turned the power off. A small crowd had gathered around the cloakroom and one of the models, Asilina, walked elegantly to the doors to see what was happening, at which point she screamed. Out of the haze a shadowy figure emerged, its glowing green eyes quite frightening to behold.
The man, if that’s what it was, shimmered and shifted as it moved, the smoke and light distorting around it in an abnormal way, making it appear to slip into the background from whence it walked. Heavy metallic footfalls clanked on the marble flooring as it passed by, the people parting like the sea before the prow of a mighty ship. Hushed cries and whimpers could be heard over the music. People shrank from its passing and Lucy stood transfixed when the ghostly eyes turned in her direction, before it was gone, only the disturbed smoke testament to its existence.
2041 Sanctuary (Dark Descent) Page 37