by Allen Steele
“D-d—don’t worry about me.” His wig had become dislodged; his close-cropped hair was slick with sweat. “I-I-I’ll just sit here.”
“Good man. Again, we thank you.”
He nodded, happy to be rid of us. Then it seemed as if he mustered a gram of courage. “Y-y-you know, of course, w-w-where you are.”
“Sure. Nueva Vegas.”
“Well, y-yes, of course, certainly, but…” His voice dropped. “This is…this is Mister Chicago’s casino. This place…I mean, it belongs to him.”
I raised an eyebrow before I remembered that he couldn’t see my expression behind my mask. “Yes? And…?”
“N-nothing.” He stared at me for a moment in bewilderment, then the corners of his mouth twitched upward, as if he was enjoying a private joke at our expense. “Nothing at all. Enjoy your visit.”
“Thank you. We will.” I looked at the others. “All right, let’s go.”
The corridor was vacant. I waited until Jen and JoJo had come out, then I closed the wine cellar door behind us. I could have scrambled the keypad, but the wine steward hadn’t given us any trouble. He deserved a chance to live. I left the door unlocked.
Our guns beneath our arms, we marched down the corridor, heading for a pair of double-doors at the end. The doors slid apart with barely a sound; light and noise rushed in.
The easy part was done. Now it was time for the tough stuff.
We came out into an open-air restaurant made to look like a Mediterranean cafe: plaster walls, watercolors of French street scenes, garden trellises cluttered with grapevine, tables covered with checkerboard cloths placed upon a red-brick terrace. Only a few diners noticed us as we quickly strode past them, and those who did were baffled for only a moment before knowing smiles crept across their faces. We had to be actors, on our way to a floor show somewhere in the casino. The guns? Obviously fakes. Even the waiters didn’t look at us twice. We exited the cafe without bringing any undue attention to ourselves, and now we were within the casino.
The floor of Collins Crater was nearly two kilometers in diameter, and the casino took up nearly every square meter of it. Thousands of slot machines binged and booped and clinked and clanged in a steady and omnipresent cacophony, while the holos that flickered above them—semi-nude women doing strip-tease, classic cartoon characters chasing each other with chainsaws, starships engaged in battle—were ignored by scores of middle-aged men and women hunched in front of the machines, slipping tokens into the slots, pushing buttons and yanking chrome handles, watching in single-minded fascination as apples and grapes and lemons scrolled past their sleepless eyes. Gamblers gathered around blackjack and poker tables watched as dealers slapped cards down on the green felt, collecting chips with smiles, surrendering them with muttered curses. Waitresses in skin-tight outfits and high-heel shoes circulated between the baccarat and roulette tables, delivering drinks and joints to players as they studied cards and tossed dice, collecting tips from winners and favoring those who’d just crapped out with disingenuous expressions of sympathy. Here and there, within small sunken amphitheaters, comedians went through their routines, magicians performed slight-of-the-hand tricks; applause greeted Frank, Dean, and Sammy as they took to the stage for another sold-out show. Hookers and tricks negotiated with one another, card-sharps tried out their systems for beating the odds, drunks bemoaned their bad luck, and a few hundred dumbasses parted with their money and loved every moment of it, while smoke and sweat and liquor fumes rose to the opaque sky of the pressure dome far above, obscuring the security flycams that prowled above the gaming areas, their lenses watchful for any unusual activity.
We qualified. Even in the middle of all this, it was hard to miss Lizard Boy, Fly Girl, and JoJo the Robot as they made their way across the gaming area, rifles slung beneath their shoulders. By the time we reached the raised island near the center of the casino, three flycams were on us and a couple of plainclothes security guys moving into position. No alarms, or at least not yet; everyone was still trying to figure out who we were and what we were doing.
I ignored the heat as I approached casino control. A bouncer in a white tux moved in to block my way.
“May I help you, sir?” he asked, raising a hand to stop me.
“Yes, you can,” I replied, and then I casually laid my gloved left hand against his wrist. A 10,000-volt charge dropped him. He’d barely hit the floor when Jen turned her taser upon the plainclothes guys. Four shots and they went down.
“JoJo,” I said, “kill the flyers.”
“You got it, chief.” A double-beep from his chest, and every flycam in the casino fell from the air. They crashed into poker tables and slot machines, plummeted into cafes, smashed to pieces next to the Rat Pack. Throughout the casino, we could hear people screaming. As attention-getters go, this one rated a solid ten, and we hadn’t even started yet.
A Superior was on duty as floor boss. His long-fingered hands were already darting across the wrap-around console as I dashed up the stairs onto the platform. “Get away from that,” I said, pointing my rifle at him. The floor boss obediently moved away, the angel-wings tattooed across his face flexing slightly as his overlarge eyes stared at me in astonishment. Behind him, a red light flashed on a panel.
“What button did you push?” I asked.
“Locked down, we are. All exits blocked. Access to the cashiers, denied.” He smiled at me. “Surrender now, if you’re smart. Otherwise, assured your death shall be.”
Something else I’d expected. “JoJo, the google’s hit the panic button,” I murmured, speaking into my throat mike. “Do something about it, okay?”
“I’m on it.” A brief pause. “They’re onto us, chief.”
Looking around, I saw what he meant. All the slot-machines had gone silent. Chrome shutters had automatically rolled down across the windows of the cashier booths. Even the service ’bots had become motionless. Patrons milled about in confusion, still unaware of what was happening in their midst, yet from my vantage point on the platform, I could see recessed floor panels irising open all around us.
“Jen, cover us!” I snapped. “JoJo, link up with the security system!”
Elevators ascended from beneath the casino floor, each one bearing a combot. Big mothers, too: two-and-a-half meters tall, heavily armored, with guns built into their forearms and 360-degree vision in their spade-shaped heads. Tourists shrieked and ran for cover, dropping tokens and chips as they made way for the behemoths stamping through the aisles. Nasty toys. Mister Chicago had spared no expense making his customers feel safe.
Jen’s multifaceted eyes turned toward me. “This could be a problem.”
“Bad idea, was it not?” The floor boss calmly watched as the ’bots advanced toward us, his right hand hovering above the console. “Give up, and live you still may.”
“Think not, I do.” I looked down at JoJo. “Got it?”
“Twenty-eight seconds ago.” JoJo didn’t budge. “Do you want me to…?”
“Yes. Please. By all means.” Damn literal-minded machine…
A moment later, the ’bots froze in place. I heard a brief buzz from the nearest one just before it went inert. I looked around at the floor boss just in time to see his mouth drop open. “You were saying?”
“How did…how could you have…?”
I always knew Superiors could speak plain English when they wanted to. “That’s my secret,” I said, then I reached into my hip pocket and pulled out my pad. “Okay, now that you’re all out of tricks, show me how to link up with cash control.”
Still not convinced I meant business, he stared at me. I planted my rifle barrel against his chest. “Look, I can do this without your help. You saw what I did to the ’bots. The only difference is that it’ll make my job a little easier, and you’ll get to breathe through your mouth instead of through a chest wound. So what do you say?”
He was about to reply when I heard a sudden fizz! from behind me. Looking around, I saw Jen holding her r
ifle in firing position. Not far away, a small mob people was backing away from a slot machine she’d just killed.
“Too many heroes in this place, Sammy” she said quietly, for my ears only. “We need to get a move on.” Then she gazed back at the mob. “Anyone else want to try it?” she said loudly.
They stayed where they were. We didn’t want to kill anyone, but it was only a matter of time before she wouldn’t be about to control the crowd any longer. I looked back at the floor boss; his expression told me that he’d finally realized how serious we were. “Ready to play along?”
“Certainly.” Taking a keycard from his pocket, he unlocked a panel on the console, swung it open to reveal a serial port. “Here it is. All you have to do is…”
“I know.” I attached my pad to the port, tapped in a code I’d memorized. Nueva Vegas held very little in the way of hard currency. Most of its transactions were electronic, in the form of funds transferred from the bank accounts of its visitors, which in turn became Pax Astra lox payable as tokens and chips from the cashier booths. A secure system, so long as you didn’t have direct access to casino control and knowledge of the code numbers that would allow you to tap into the funds stored within the central DNAI.
Which I did. Within seconds, 680.75 megalox was transferred into my pad. I detached the pad, tossed it down to JoJo. “Upload this, please,” I said.
“Roger dodger.” JoJo reattached the pad to his chest. In another moment, he transmitted the money to our friends in orbit. “All done, chief.”
“Thank you.” I turned to the floor boss one more. “Your cooperation has been appreciated, m’seur. One last piece of business, and we’ll be on our way.”
“Get away with this, surely you don’t expect.” He must have begun to feel safe again, because he’d returned to his lopsided manner of speech. “Owned by Mister Chicago, Nueva Vegas. An individual lacking in forgiveness, but not in resources.”
“So I’ve heard. But we have a few of our own.” I looked away from him. “JoJo, will you come up here, please?”
“Is it my turn? Oh, joy!” JoJo clanked up the steps, coming to a halt between us. “Thank you, thank you,” he said, raising his spindly arms and revolving his head to address everyone. “It’s certainly an honor to be here tonight. I’d like to thank my producer, my director, my publicist, my screenwriter, and all the little people who’ve done so much over the years to…”
“Thanks, JoJo. You can shut up now.” He obediently fell silent. I tapped a button on his chest; a panel slid open, and I entered a four-digit string into his CPU. The tiny LCD above it flashed to 15:00:00, then began to count back. I motioned the floor boss closer, then pointed to display. “See that? What do you think it is?”
He peered at it. “A timer?”
“That’s correct…with a fifteen-minute countdown that’s already started.” I walked behind JoJo, opened another panel to reveal a liter-sized cylinder within his back. “And this, my friend, is a nuke.”
Technically speaking, the nuke wasn’t a bomb, but rather a ten-kiloton nuclear device of the sort that asteroid miners use to excavate large c-type rocks. JoJo’s body had literally been built around it, so it was well-shielded from the security scanners.
The bystanders close enough to overhear this shrank back. Murmurs swept through the crowd; most people froze, but a few turned and bolted down the aisles. The floor boss stared at me in horror.
“You’re bluffing,” he said quietly.
I looked him straight in the eye. “No, I’m not,” I said, with utter sincerity. “In fifteen minutes…”
“Fourteen minutes, twenty-nine seconds,” JoJo corrected. “Whoops. Better make that fourteen seconds, twenty-seven seconds. Oh, dear, now it’s fourteen minutes, twenty-five…”
“Fourteen minutes and whatever. Thanks, JoJo, I’ll take it from here.” I shut the panel. “Anyway, you get the picture. You’ve got just that much time to evacuate the crater and get everyone to safe distance before…”
“I’m going to huff, and I’m going puff, and I’m going to blow your house down!” JoJo had been saving that line all night. It wasn’t part of his programming, but then again, neither was self-preservation.
“Thanks, JoJo. You said it better than I could have.” I handed JoJo my rifle. “And in case you’re wondering, he’s had all his Asimov protocols scrubbed from memory, so it wouldn’t be wise to try to disarm him.” I turned to the ’bot. “You know what to do now, right?”
JoJo hefted the rifle. “Any youse punks gets any wise ideas, you gets a belly-full of laser, see? I’m a desperate ’bot, see?”
It was a lousy Cagney impersonation, but it got the point across. The Superior was already backing away. “So if I were you…” I continued.
The floor boss was no longer listening. Bolting to the nearest console, his hands raced across various buttons as he jabbered orders in Superior patois. Within moments, red emergency beacons began to strobe throughout the casino as sirens started to wail. A Code Five blowout alarm, activated only when catastrophic loss of dome integrity was imminent.
One thing to be said for Nueva Vegas: the management made sure that the tourists were repetitively instructed about what do in case of a worst-case scenario. Those constant reminders on the room screens, in the elevators and restaurants and bars, even on the slot machines and above the game tables, got the point across to even the densest and most complacent of its patrons. All around us, everyone who hadn’t fled already were running for their lives, running for the clearly-marked emergency exits ringed around the crater floor. Within minutes, the first few escape pods would be automatically launched from their ports within the outer crater rim. I saw a few die-hards scrambling to gather their chips, but even they knew that it was time to run. The floor boss had already leaped over the consoles; he joined the stampede, getting out while the getting was good.
“Minus ten minutes, thirty seconds, and counting.” JoJo was no longer clowning around. “Um…Sammy? You’re not going to…”
“Easy, pal. I got you covered.” I pulled out my pad, rinsed its memory, then slapped it against his chest. A few seconds passed, then a light flashed on its panel: JoJo’s higher functions had been downloaded into the pad, leaving behind only the basic routines necessary for the ’bot to continue its primary mission.
“Bye-bye,” I said to the mindless automaton. Its head swiveled in my direction, but I wasn’t a threat and so it ignored me. I jumped off the platform and landed next to Jen.
“You could have just left him behind.” She was already headed for the restaurant where we’d come in.
“JoJo’s good. I’d like to work with him again.” No point in wasting a good AI for no reason. The casino floor was nearly empty; nothing stood between us and our escape route. “Clock’s ticking,” I said, slapping her behind. “Beat it, sugar mouth.”
“After you, lizard lips.”
The getaway was easy. Jen and I went back the way we came, through the service kitchen. By now the whole place was deserted, save for a few ’bots still carrying orders out to customers who had split without waiting for the check. All the same, I glanced inside the wine cellar to make sure the steward was no longer around. He was wise; he was gone. So we headed for the basement, skipping the slow-moving elevator and using the stairs instead.
The cargo hauler was right where we had left it. All the other vehicles had been taken, but no one had managed to break into our vehicle. Cab pressurization took ninety seconds—that was the only period in which I was truly scared, watching the atmosphere meter rise while the countdown ticked back at the same rate—and once it was done I put the hauler in reverse and put the pedal to the floor. No time to wait for the vehicle airlock to cycle through; I rammed the doors with the hauler’s back end, and let explosive decompression do the rest. Jen swore at me as she was thrown against her shoulder straps, but I paid little attention to her as I locked the brakes and twisted the yoke hard to the right, pulling a bootlegger-turn on th
e ramp. Then I floored it again and off we went, up the ramp and out into the cold blue earthlight.
I glanced at side-view mirror, giving Nueva Vegas one last look as the hauler raced across Mare Tranquillitatis, its steel-mesh tires throwing up fantails of moondust. Lights still gleamed through the crater windows, yet escape pods were rising from the outer wall, tiny ellipsoids heading for orbit. By now, the casino should be empty. Fifteen minutes is a long time when you’re running for your life.
The lunar freighter was right where it was supposed to be, two klicks due east of Collins Crater. Its cargo ramp was lowered; I drove the hauler up it as fast as I dared, then slammed the brakes once we were inside the hold. The pilot wasn’t taking any chances; he jettisoned the ramp, then shut the hatch and fired the main engines.
Jen and I were still in the hauler when the countdown reached zero, so we didn’t get to see the nuke go off. I’m told it was beautiful: a miniature protostar erupting within a lunar crater, rising upward as hemispherical shell of thermonuclear fire. All we experienced, though, was a faint tremor that passed through the lander’s hull as it raced ahead of the shockwave, heading for the stars.
After a while, the pilot repressurized the cargo bay. I unsealed the cab and we climbed out, carefully making our way through zero-gee until we reached the open interior hatch. The crewman waiting on the other side cracked up when we came through, and it was only then that I realized that we were still wearing our masks. I tore mine off, took a deep breath, and grinned at the silly lizard face I’d worn for the last hour or so. Jen shook out her hair, scowled briefly at her fly-head, then pitched it aside and let me give her a quick kiss.
I’d just made my way up to the command deck, with the intent of downloading JoJo into the nearest reliable comp I could find, when the pilot informed me that he had an incoming transmission. Mister Chicago wanted to talk to me.
