To Light Us, To Guard Us (The Angel War Book 1)

by Sean M O'Connell

  Maintaining the interest of a fickle customer base required innovation, creativity, and a cutthroat business savvy. If developers could do just that, hold the attention of the people, the money would never run out.

  Big ideas had long since replaced real estate as the most valuable commodity in the world’s largest desert town. Potentially profitable notions were bought and sold, traded and stolen, and of course, gambled, in the constant and colossal game of king-of-the-hill that shaped Las Vegas business.

  Idea-men flocked to the heat of Nevada like silicone starlets to Hollywood. More often than not, these little fish were swallowed up by the sharks swimming in an ocean of money. The few who were cunning and ruthless enough to protect their ideas, and their own skins, made it.

  Made it big.

  “Fortune favors the bold” the saying went. In Las Vegas, a fortune was found only by those who possessed the correct combination of good luck, good looks, and greed. Casino owners and resort developers sought this formula in others like modern alchemists.

  Hunter Valdez was the most successful of these intellectual entrepreneurs, the Golden Child of Las Vegas.

  Hunter not only looked the part. He defined the part.

  His tall and lean frame, chiseled by early mornings at the gymnasium of his hyper-exclusive condominium, was forever draped in exquisitely tailored suits of Tibetan wool and Egyptian cottons.

  Jet black hair stayed trimmed, its natural gloss allowed to shine in the unforgiving desert sun. Coffee-colored eyes were set in a caramel face, never disgraced by stubble. Everything about the man’s bearing conveyed confidence and poise.

  The very picture of success.

  Hunter Valdez had battled his way to the top of the world’s most competitive and dangerous job market. Enduring the considerable risk garnered almost embarrassing reward. In less than ten years, he had accumulated a fortune that put him in that rare class occupied by captains of industry and old-money royalty.

  His face graced the cover of magazines nearly every month. Last year, he was named the sexiest man alive, Time interviewed him for a seventeen page spread, and he sat with the ancient Lisa Ling for her ‘ten most fascinating people’ episode. Nothing that could be bought or sold was beyond his reach and influence.

  Nothing.

  Not even this. He relished the thought with almost lurid satisfaction.

  The tower rising four-hundred stories above him served as crown jewel in an already impressive collection of ground-breaking projects. Upon completion, the super-resort would be the tallest building in the world. Greater than Burj Khalifa, more impressive than Japan’s Sony Structure, more massive even than the Pan-Bering Bridge. Twice as costly as any single construction project ever undertaken.

  Even visible from outer space.

  Valdez reflected proudly. Previously the Kennecott Copper Mine and Great Wall of China were the only man-made structures visible from orbit.

  Not anymore. Those decrepit projects would be an afterthought soon.

  Only a month from completion, his tower represented perhaps the greatest technological accomplishment in the history of mankind.

  Even the expected hitches in planning, finance, and construction had been smoothed out expediently. The realist in him expected disaster. So far, none had occurred.

  The base of the tower represented the largest architectural footprint on the face of the planet. In order to let the layperson understand the true immensity of this one building, advertised measurements were offered in city blocks rather than square footage. To milk money from the masses, Hunter knew, you had to impress them. To impress them, you needed to give them stupid stories to take home to their equally stupid friends.

  Three mirrored sides of the giant obelisk reflected the surrounding landscape in disdainful comparison to its own phallic glory. From his office near the top, Valdez had been pleased to note the distinct curvature of the horizon. On a clear morning, he would bet a considerable portion of his considerable fortune that one could see the Pacific haze hundreds of miles to the west.

  This monument to excess would solidify Hunter’s place in history. Money was insignificant. He already had more than he could spend in a thousand lifetimes.

  What mattered to Valdez now was that he never be forgotten, never be topped.

  He knew what everyone wanted, what they desired deep down but couldn’t or wouldn’t express. It was his gift. The gift that had made him his fortune.

  This tower, so much more than a tower for what it would contain, was what the world wanted.

  Really wanted.

  Hunter smiled as he calmly observed a Komatsu SkyScar620 tower crane raising one final letter, several stories tall, to the solar-powered sign on the side of the building.

  He’d chosen the moniker himself, having insisted upon naming rights even before pitching the project.

  To him, there could be no other name. It was perfect.

  He couldn’t help but laugh at this indulgence as the humongous ’L’ was seated in place by the crane. A subsonic thoom rattled the windows of inferior buildings and set off car alarms for blocks.

  Hunter Valdez turned, walking back several paces to get a better perspective and read the side of his pet project out loud, to nobody but himself.

  He liked… No... He loved the sound of it...

  “Babel.”

  With a dry-cold chuckle, he shook his head and walked back toward the building.

  Two bodyguards, ever watchful and always at a respectful distance, fell into step on either side of him. The quiet men had a presence about them, like statues coming to life.

  Julani, a house of a man from Detroit, sported dreadlocks meant to shroud his massive neck and the tattoo of a leering demon with the numbers ‘three-one-three’ on its forehead, an ink relic from the man’s frightening past. His boss insisted that the artwork be covered when the three were in public.

  A shoulder holster underneath his mohair blazer held an immaculate Israeli Arms .50 caliber pistol specially modified to allow for semi-automatic or fully automatic firing.

  Julani’s physical size and power had thus far been sufficient for his Las Vegas employment. He rarely even handled the gun, much less fired it. The young man had never cared for the impersonal nature of a firearm anyway.

  His counterpart, known simply as Brown, was slightly smaller in stature, but perhaps even more dangerous. Head shaved clean, a pencil-line mustache and goatee framing the hard line of his mouth.

  This mouth almost never opened.

  He was a man of few words and decisive action.

  Hunter valued his private nature as much his effective security. The two shared an unspoken past, one that none of their living peers was aware of, but an important one nonetheless.

  The legacy of this past was written in a scarred script on Brown’s knuckles. His dark, subdued appearance offset only by a pinky ring on his left hand. The ring itself appeared less than extraordinary, set with a horseshoe of tiny diamonds.

  Its true purpose was to draw attention to the stub of a finger that it rested on. The digit terminated in a blackish nub after the first knuckle. For some reason, the man called by only a single name drew satisfaction from the ill-concealed looks of revulsion that the finger gave rise to. Brown was a sinister looking man. Sometimes so much so that Valdez had to leave him behind for gala events and film openings.

  The tandem functioned perfectly, never needing instruction. Their employer seldom spoke to either of them in public. Non-verbal signals for the times when an unfamiliar individual approached were pre-determined, rehearsed. Often it was just another hungry shark, looking to make a business connection with the king of Las Vegas. Of course there was a fair share of hangers-on and ladies looking to make another sort of connection altogether.

  The latter variety had a much higher rate of success with Hunter Valdez.

  As the intimidating trio approached the bank of mirror-polished black doors, each man gave himself an appraising look, as all
people are wont to do when presented with their own reflection.

  Julani turned his head slightly, ruffling his chorded hair with a gnarled hand.

  Brown’s chin lifted imperceptibly as he adjusted the double-Windsor at his neck. The tie looked typically elegant to even a trained eye, but the bodyguard had a heavy piano wire sewn into the seam, in case the need for an impromptu restraining device should arise.

  One could never be too prepared in his line of work.

  Only Valdez’s manicured hands remained idle.

  His self-appraisal met, as always, with approval. He knew that his hair, skin, suit, and polished shoes were arranged as they should be. Every mannerism and angle of his bearing out here, in the public eye, was carefully rehearsed.

  Hunter Valdez was always prepared, always put together, and at all times implacable.

  The perfect billionaire.

  Julani stepped forward, drawing a magnetic key card out of his pocket. The card was equipped

  with an internal code to allow access to all areas of the building, save one. Scanners had been incorporated into all sides of the door frame. The typical hotel pause-and-slide motion that should have long ago been abandoned was not needed at Babel.

  Every guest of the resort, still a few weeks away from the grand opening, would receive one of these key cards by mail immediately after finalizing a reservation.

  In order to even gain access through the behemoth obsidian doors, patrons would need to be a paying guest of the hotel. The public-access casino-style resort was an outdated idea that Valdez had dismissed outright in the planning of his masterpiece.

  By creating an air of exclusivity, the resort would appeal to the curiosity of tourists and locals alike.

  Of course the more concrete function of this method of admittance was financial. It would cost thousands of dollars just to cross the threshold of his decadent kingdom.

  An entirely new and extremely well-trained security staff would uphold resort standards of entry, which included an age limit excluding children and a dress code banning t-shirts, tennis shoes, and a plethora of other fashions that Valdez and his imaging group had deemed undesirable. Each ascending level of the hotel would impose increasingly demanding requirements and separate security access cards. Naturally, gaining access to the higher, more luxurious clubs and casinos would cost more. The top floors, directly beneath his own personal suite of rooms and offices, were reserved for the uber-rich and famous.

  Everything about the resort, from the security and climate control systems down to the bathroom toilets represented luxury and cost. Even the lowliest accommodations in the tower put other luxury properties to shame.

  There was to be no trash in Babel.

  The surety that poor, tired, huddled masses would never taint his grandest dream filled Hunter Valdez with an unspeakable satisfaction that in anyone else may have given rise to a guilty dissonance. His calculating mind simply accepted this choice as the way things had to be.

  The poor had their places, but that didn’t mean he should accommodate them in his place.

  He pushed the pictures of his true home out of his mind even as he thought of the contrast.

  That was a time and place in his life he would never return to. Indeed, he’d been running from it for a very long while. But his escape earned him the right to demand the same of others. There had been no helping hands on his journey out of the slums.

  “Welcome to Babel.” a coolly suggestive female voice cooed at them as the weighty obsidian door opened upward.

  The voiceover had been provided by the latest internet smut queen, and had cost the hotel a small fortune. But, with no expense to be spared, Hunter thought it a nice touch. When guests arrived and opened the doors with their own security systems, the message would be personalized. Voice manipulation software would add a “Mr. John Doe” to the end of the message and send it through speakers localized to the door by which each person entered.

  Don Blackhurst -the IT coordinator of the project- had even tested this small touch out on the contractors granted security cards to work on the building’s interior. The grunts of appreciative surprise and laughing responses indicated that the schmaltzy greeting set the tone nicely for what visitors expected and paid for.

  Valdez and his bodyguards passed through the grand entrance and into a lobby that could only be described as spectacular. As big as a basketball arena, the expansive room had been designed to awe the guest and make them forget how much money they’d spent to get just this far. The floor, like the doors, was a deep, polished black. Broad pathways of marble in progressively lighter shades drew the eye to the central reception areas. Lancing beams of sunlight reached through a hundred skylights far overhead, giving the room an air of cathedral majesty. Each of the impressive entrances boasted its own heavy desk, to be manned by scantily-clad receptionists who would receive surgical “enhancements” as part of their employment benefits.

  Even in the ever changing world of Las Vegas resort concepts, the timeless adage “sex sells” held true.

  Beyond the desks, directly in the heart of the elegant space, stood an obelisk fountain, meant to replicate the shape of the outer structure.

  Of course, the fountain itself had to be truly unique in order to fit the grandeur of the project as a whole. Valdez had never been a fan of the understated style prized by so many luxury resorts. This was Babel, where every single detail was meant to impress.

  The artistic director of the building had commissioned a paleobotanist to find a petrified tree that could be converted for the purpose. Six years after birthing the idea, the man had stood beaming in front of Hunter as the monolith was raised to its final position. Delicate carving of the stone tree had exposed the ancient wood grain pattern beneath the petrified bark, complete with pockets of amber and two-hundred- million-year-old termite damage.

  When the water was finally turned on, it would flow directly from the tip, sixty feet above the floor, and glisten silently down the imperfect rock face into a still pool. The interplay of art and engineering required to pull off such a project was not lost on Valdez.

  His people were good.

  Whining of power tools and the distinctive hum hiss crack! of a plasma welder accompanied the trio of footfalls as the men approached the western bank of glass-fronted elevators. Workers swung back and forth on cables between hydraulic lifts several stories above, installing the final banks of lights that would illuminate the cavernous space. The acoustics of the room had been engineered to minimize echo and background noise, so the sounds were eerily muffled. The result was an almost dreamlike effect.

  Again, the security card materialized in Julani’s hand to open the elevator. Brown entered first, eyes darting from corner to floor to ceiling, making sure everything appeared as normal, he even sniffed the air.

  Inspection complete, Hunter stepped lightly forward, followed by the hulking Julani. All three men turned as the transparent doors close silently. Three sets of eyes affixed themselves on the obelisk fountain as the lift ascended rapidly to the top of the tower.

  The elevator afforded its occupants an impressive view of the secondary lobbies found on each floor. Lavish nightclubs and casinos branched off into the relative darkness of unoccupied spaces, waiting for the masses.

  Julani’s eyes lit up as the elevator zipped into the fifth major level of the hotel. The wall directly opposite them showed a colossal world map, complete with fiber-optic visual effects that, when powered up, would simulate variable cloud cover during the day and the twinkle of city lights at night. The technology accurately replicated of a view of Earth from orbit. A computer controlling these effects connected directly to real-time weather tracking satellites. Real-time feeds meant the imagery on the wall would actually match the global weather pattern on any given day.

  While the map was impressive, what really drew the man was the theme of this enormous level.

  In accordance with the map, the casinos, restaurants and nigh
tclubs all accurately represented different global regions. The Kingston Club, his favorite, was even floored with actual Jamaican sand and would be staffed by authentic Rastafarians.

  Surrounding the requisite eateries and banks of gambling machines were very large and elaborate animal habitats, some as yet to be occupied.

  This, Hunter knew, was another coup by his staff. Rare and exotic animals from all over the world would be allowed to roam about, separated from guests by nothing more than reinforced glass. The savannah portion of the exhibit served as centerpiece, particularly large and authentic. Mature baobab and acacia treas rose from several winding acres of red soil. Wild lions and leopards captured only a few weeks before from Botswana’s Chobe National Park roamed amongst Zebra, Wildebeest, and Cape Buffalo.

  Without the sensibilities of children to protect, the zoo level would bear witness to actual struggles for survival, predators would hunt their prey or starve, and of course visitors would see it all. There was even a ceiling-mounted irrigation system designed to rain down into the animal habitats. Nightclubs and gaming tables had all been equipped with sophisticated soundproofing so that the main area would be relatively quiet, allowing the animals to stay as wild as their modified captivity would allow. Valdez had even hired a game warden to monitor the beasts’ behavior. It would take a small army of staff to pull off the desired effect, but worth it.

  The elevator hissed upward and out of the zoo floors in seconds, but not before Julani made a mental note to return and ask Dr. Peel if he could feed the elephants again as soon as he had some free time. He and the veterinarian had actually had a great conversation during his previous visit. Typically, he didn’t find much interesting about white women, but she talked to him as an equal despite the obvious disparity in their station. With this thought, he rubbed the back of his burly neck where the tattoo grinned into the elevator‘s rear mirror.

  After passing the museum levels, the Broadway Level, the Nostalgia Stages, and several red-light districts sandwiched between, the elevators broke through into the higher floors, designated for the highest rollers and more permanent residents.