by John Zakour
“A casino actually lets her preach about the evils of greed and the material world under their roof?”
“They welcomed it,” HARV replied. “People would be so depressed after hearing Foraa speak, they’d actually enjoy losing money at the gaming tables. The Oblivion is nearby, just two kilometers to the north.”
“You mean the south,” I said.
“No, I’m quite certain it’s to the north,” HARV corrected.
“HARV, I’ve been to Vegas before. The Oblivion is south of here.”
“You’re thinking of the Desperation,” HARV said. “It has a similar décor and design.”
“I know the difference between the Desperation and the Oblivion,” I said, leaning forward and calling up the hover’s dash computer. “Where’s the map?”
“Boss, I’m interfaced with over one hundred global positioning systems. I can give you the exact location of every establishment in the northern hemisphere. I’m telling you that the Oblivion Casino is one-point seven-eight kilometers north, north-east of our current location.”
I slid into the driver’s seat to get better access to the controls and called up the Vegas map on the computer.
“You’re wrong,” I said, “and I’m going to prove it.”
“Fine,” HARV said. “Just point the wrist interface toward the police station so I can monitor something useful.”
I slipped the interface off my wrist and positioned it on the dashboard facing the police station. Then I turned back to the hover’s navigational computer map as it came to life at my touch
“Oh look,” HARV said. “Captain Rickey is coming out of the station house. He seems excited.”
“Great,” I said, still studying at the computer map. “Now we’re currently…here.”
“And he has some police officers with him,” HARV continued. “It looks like they’ll be helping us after all.”
“And the Oblivion casino is located, here,” I said. “No, wait, it’s here. HARV how do you get this thing out of 3D-mode? It’s confusing.”
“Interesting,” HARV continued. “Captain Rickey seems to be in a tremendous hurry now. He’s running toward us.”
“Ah-hah. The Oblivion is exactly one and seven-eight kilometers north of us. See I told you…wait…”
“Captain Rickey seems to be yelling something,” HARV said. “I’m going to zoom in on him and try to read his lips.”
“I could have sworn that the Oblivion was south of here. They didn’t move the police station did they?”
“Start the engine,” HARV said.
“What?”
“That’s what Captain Rickey seems to be yelling,” HARV said. “’Start the engine.’ I wonder what he means by that.”
I looked up from the map and followed HARV’s gaze. Sure enough, Tony was running, full speed from the station house back to the hover. A dozen angry Vegas cops were hot on his heels, waving their blasters.
“Oh DOS. HARV, how do you start the engine?”
“Use the ignition chip on the steering column.”
I touched the chip and fired up the engines. The hover lurched forward like a spasming frog as I switched off the parking brake. Tony was close now, waving his arms and signaling for help. The police officers behind him had stopped and were now aiming their blasters at us.
“I think you better open the door for him,” HARV said.
“Good idea. How do I do that?”
HARV rolled his eyes and disappeared into the dash computer.
“Honestly,” he said. “You’d be lost without me.”
The hover smoothly rose a meter off the ground and pivoted gently, turning the passenger door toward the mad-dashing Tony. The door popped open just as Tony leapt to avoid the barrage of blaster fire from the police. His hands caught the door frame and he pulled himself inside as HARV took the hover into the air.
“Get us out of here now,” he shouted.
“HARV?”
“I got it, boss,” HARV said. “We’re as good as gone.”
The hover-thrusters fired and we shot straight up into the Vegas sky, blaster fire following us every meter of the way.
“Preparing to take evasive action,” HARV said. “Hold on.”
He banked the craft hard to the right as we rose, rolling it onto its side and pulling us away from the pursuing police officers.
“I guess the police code of honor doesn’t extend all the way to Vegas,” I said.
“I don’t get it,” Tony stuttered, still gasping for breath, “they seemed so normal at first. Then they all turned on me.”
“I know the feeling,” I said.
“All I did was mention Foraa.”
“It would appear that Ms. Thompson already has her mental hooks deep into the police,” HARV noted.
“So what do we do now?” Tony asked.
“We’re in Vegas, Tony, what else, can we do?” I said. “We’re going to the nearest casino and hope we get lucky.”
48
The Oblivion Hotel & Casino isn’t the most popular place on the New Vegas strip. Truth to tell it’s one of the bottom links on the slot-junkie food chain, just above the Desperation, the Delusion and the Impaled Iguana Gambling Emporium and Waffle House. Admittedly though, it wasn’t always this way.
The casino’s owner is a now-infamous billionaire named Heinrich Schwipe, who earned his money the old fashioned way (his over-bearing father died and left it to him). Shortly after his father’s death Schwipe came to New Vegas with a billion credits in his pocket and a dream to build the world’s greatest casino. He wanted to create something dark and hopeless that would fly in the face of the typical Vegas glitz and glitter. The result was the Oblivion. It was big and black on the outside, and shaped like a warped hourglass, with a wide base that tapered inward as it rose and then widened again for the uppermost twenty floors. It was completely free of all lighted signs, which caused a stir in the community because, at the time, not having neon on a building was illegal in Vegas. But Schwipe eventually got a waiver from the Vegas Board of Edifice Rules & Standards and his neon-less project got built, just as he planned.
When it was finished, it stood out on the strip like a missing tooth in a beauty queen’s smile. The only way you could tell that the casino was even there was by the big void its dark form created in the Vegas cityscape, like a black hole in the middle of a crowded field of stars.
Inside, the place was about as cheery as a tar pit; dark and cavernous and a little damp. The rooms were spacious but gloomy. The decor was bland and the gaming rooms were so dark, it was sometimes hard to read the dice. Vegas veterans were aghast at the depressing audacity of the Oblivion and they all declared that the monstrosity wouldn’t last a year.
But it did. For some reason the whole dark and dreary look came into vogue with the east coast art crowd and the casino became a hot spot. Cultural critics said that its atmosphere of hopelessness was a master stroke of marketing and design, its brutal honesty flying in the face of the empty smiles of its competitors. The casino’s gloom also attracted the hardened gambler (who felt right at home in its dour air) as well as the directionless youngsters of “Generation Y-Me.” So for many years, the casino prospered, and the mysterious Schwipe was hailed as the gloomy genius of Vegas.
It was learned a few years later, however, that Schwipe wasn’t a genius. He was instead just a very, very unhappy guy. The official diagnosis was severe manic depression with suicidal tendencies and it turns out that he’d been that way since childhood. His dark and hopeless design for the casino didn’t come from any hip nihilist philosophy or innate brilliance but rather from his own depressed soul. He had created the casino as a reflection of himself, not as a genius, but as a sad man and that sort of blew the illusion. You’ve heard the phrase “the emperor has no clothes.” Well, in this case, it’s “the casino owner had no Prozac.”
The casino was no longer hip. It was simply pathetic. And the customers left in droves. Popularity dwindled, as
did the profits. This of course, made Schwipe even more depressed and he made the casino even gloomier than before. It’s a hideous circle that continues to this day. The casino is still dark and gloomy, the owner is still depressed and suicidal. The only thing that still draws real numbers of people to the casino these days is the spectacularly bizarre fountain (but I’ll get to that later).
In any event Foraa had preached her gospel in a basement meeting room at the Casino for a number of years so we figured that this was the best place to start searching for her.
The storm was less intense at the Oblivion. The wind was strong but the rain was barely a drizzle, for which I was thankful. It felt ominous though, like the relative calm at the eye of a storm (although I tried not to think about that).
The bouncers working the casino door were Elvis-enhanced (surgically altered with a synthesized version of Elvis Presley DNA, which allows them to take on Elvis-like physical qualities). Not surprisingly, it’s very popular in Vegas. One bouncer was the fat Elvis of early 70’s (circa the concert in Hawaii), the other was the Love-Me-Tender period; thin and good-looking.
“Sorry folks,” thin Elvis said as Tony and I tried to enter. “The casino’s closed to the public tonight.”
“But I have all this money,” I said. “And I’m very unlucky.”
“Come back tomorrow, Suh,” Fat Elvis replied. “We’ll be happy to take your way-juhs then.”
“You’re welcome to partake of the fountain though. It’s right around the corner.”
“What’s going on inside?” Tony asked.
“Private party.”
“Didn’t I mention that we were here for the party?” I said, cheerily.
“You said you were here to gamble,” Young Elvis said.
“Gamble, party, it’s all the same in Vegas, right?”
“Please move along, Suh,” Fat Elvis said with a scowl.
“Come on, Zach, let’s go,” Tony said, gently pulling me away.
“No, wait, we’re invited,” I said. “Really. We’re very close friends of Foraa.”
The Elvis clones’ gaze turned steely and their hands, very subtly went to the blaster-sized bulges of their coats.
“Who said anything about Foraa?” the fat one said.
“He didn’t say Foraa,” Tony said.
“Foraa? No, I didn’t say that. I said…I said…”
“Nora,” Tony quipped.
“Yeah, that’s it,” I said. “We’re friends of Nora. Nora Noyes.”
“We love Nora,” Tony said.
“It’s her birthday today and she’s having her party at the Desperation Casino.”
“This isn’t the Desperation,” young Elvis said.
“It’s not?”
“This is the Oblivion. The Desperation is south of here.”
“Are you sure? Because this really looks like the Desperation.”
“They’re sure,” Tony said, pulling me away. “Let’s go.”
“Well, if you say so,” I said. “Thanks for your help, guys. I’ll bring you back some cake from Nora’s party.”
The Elvis bouncers were silent as Tony finally pulled me away. We mixed in with a crowd of tourists and walked south for a bit, until we were comfortably away from the Oblivion.
“What now?” he asked.
“I think we’ve established that something odd is going on inside.”
“We’ll have to find another way in. There must be a service entrance.”
“There’s a hoverport for high rollers on thirty-third floor, we could try that.”
“Good idea.”
“HARV, bring the hover around back,” I said. “We’ll meet you there.”
“Got it, boss.”
We ducked into an alleyway and doubled back toward the casino. Vegas alleys are dark and relatively deserted. Mainstream traffic tends to stay on the well-lit strip. The alleyways, by design, are reserved for some of the city’s more illicit activities.
“Hey babies,” two good-looking women called to us from a doorway, “you looking for a date?”
“Some other time ladies,” I said as we passed.
“Hey dudes,” a ragged looking man yelled from another doorway, “got some stuff here that will alter your mind, expand your consciousness.”
“No thanks, pal,” I said, pulling Tony along with me (he was getting a little agitated).
“Gentleman,” a man in a suit called from yet another doorway, “care to purchase some untraceable weapons?”
“What is this crime alley?” Tony mumbled.
“Keep your cop instincts in check, Tony,” I said as we continued walking. “We’re here for bigger fish.”
“Cheat on your taxes for you, man?” a tiny man in a bow-tie whispered as we passed.
“They really cover all the bases here, don’t they?” I said.
“I don’t want to think about it,” Tony said. “By the way, how do we plan to find Foraa once we’re in the casino?”
“We’ll figure it out when we’re inside,” I replied.
“I’m not comfortable going into this without a plan, Zach.”
“Well, I’m not comfortable going into this at all, but we have to play the hand we’re dealt. The plan is fluid, Tony. It always is.”
Tony cast a glance behind us then did a quick double-take.
“Does the plan perhaps include some desperate running for our lives,” he whispered.
“What?”
I turned to follow his gaze and saw the two bouncers from the casino, blasters drawn, enter the alley and move toward us.
“Hey babies,” the hookers called as the Elvises passed, “want a date?”
“Sure, darlin,” fat Elvis said, pointing toward us. “But let’s kill those guys first.”
The prostitutes looked at one another for a nano and shrugged, “okay,” they said, pulling blasters from their short skirts, “but it’ll cost you a little extra.”
The four of them fired in unison. Tony and I turned and ran as the energy blasts tore up the alley around us.
“HARV!”
“I’m on my way, boss but I can’t get the hover into that alley. You’ll have to get to the fountain.”
“Gates, not that stupid fountain.”
“It’s the nearest spot, boss,” HARV said. “And you’re headed in the right direction.”
“Fine,” I said, turning to Tony. “Keep running, buddy. And when we turn that corner up ahead, keep your head down.”
“What do you mean?”
I didn’t have a chance to answer because the two Elvises and the hookers were still hot on our tails, firing away like drunken gun lobbyists on a holiday. The crooked accountant had joined them as well, which was bad because he was the most blood thirsty of the lot. Their wild blaster barrage took another chunk out of the wall nearby, just missing us as we neared the corner.
I heard the noise ahead; the whir of heavy machinery, the cacophony of music, the squeal of delighted people, and the unmistakable sound of food, and I knew we were close.
“What’s that noise?” Tony said as we ran.
“Just keep your head down,” I yelled.
We rounded the corner out of the alley and into the courtyard. I looked around to quickly get my bearings and locate HARV and the hovercraft. That was my big mistake, because that’s when the blast hit me, point blank in the side of the head. Something thick and red splattered on the wall behind me and I staggered sideways before falling to the ground.
“Zach,” Tony yelled.
He knelt beside me and held my head in his arms, doing his best to wipe the wound.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Everything’s going to be fine. Everything’s going to be…”
He stopped and stared at his hand which was covered in red.
“Is this marinara sauce?”
“Must be pasta day,” I groaned.
And we were hit with another barrage of flying food.
49
The fountain at th
e Oblivion. I’ve already mentioned how…odd Heinrich Schwipe, the owner and designer of the Oblivion Casino, was, right? Well, you have to keep that in mind in order to fully understand and appreciate the Oblivion’s famous fountain.
Schwipe's depression drove him not to drugs, alcohol or sex (all of which are good choices) but rather to food. He was a binge-eater. A binge-eaters’ binge-eater. All kinds of food, all hours of the day, when the mood struck him (and it struck him often) he would eat. It was a convenient and all too common way of drowning one’s sorrows. Schwipe just took the destructive behavior to new lows.
So with that in mind, it’s not surprising that any casino Schwipe designed would have a 24/7 all-you-can-eat buffet. The problem was that the traditional buffets weren’t fast enough (or enormous enough) to meet Schwipe’s grandiose dreams. The delivery of the food had to be more immediate, the display had to be more dramatic, the scale of the project had to be more flamboyant.
The inspiration came to him during a visit to the old Caesars Casino, where he saw the throng of tourists taking pictures of one another beside the great fountain. Then he went to dinner where the three year old in the booth next to him threw lima beans at his shirt. Schwipe put two and two together and came up with the most disgusting four imaginable.
Thus was born the famous Fountain Buffet; a mammoth marble sculpture twenty five meters tall and elaborately carved by the world’s finest crafts-bots. And every nano of every day it spews forth from its elaborate system of tubing, a spectacular array of…food.
Yes, it’s a food-spewing fountain. Turkey breast, manicotti, fruit salad, egg salad, chocolate mousse, shrimp cocktail, bacon bits and those little cocktail weenies in that weird red sauce. Any food you’ve ever seen on a buffet table, salad bar or smorgasbord, at one time or another is pumped into the air by the Oblivion fountain. And every nano of every day, hungry people from all over the world dress themselves in rubber raincoats and goggles and make their way down to the courtyard to partake in the white trash Dionysian display. It is one of the icons of the New Vegas strip, a monument to excess and vulgarity, a testimony to the success of crass. I will say however that it has the best darn onion rings that I’ve ever tasted.
