Roof collapses on gamblers at Lucky Lady Casino

The Venerable, Adrift in the Monsua Nebula
“Shuriah. Shuriah if you can hear me, disengage the landing gear.” Corman shouted as he made his way back to The Sunset Eclipse.
Flashes of ionized plasma rippled in the distance, past the cloudy haze of the nebula. With the sensors of the Eclipse haywire, there would be know way to track a potential ion storm if it approached. Corman and Shuriah had to move quickly, they had to stop Aval before he could escape with the prototype device that The Venerable was guarding. Corman reached his ship and wrapped his hand around an outer handhold as the landing gear disengaged. Small bursts of RCS thrusters pushed The Sunset Eclipse off of its perch. Corman couldn’t safely re-enter the ship because there was no time for the decontamination process to cleanse the radiation his suit had picked up.
“Corman, bad news. Energy spike at one of the other parts of the cruiser. Someone’s found a way to turn on the power.” Shuriah’s voice crackled through Corman’s helmet.
Corman held tight to the outer hull of the ship, “Gentle thrust now, enough to get us moving in that direction.”
Another flash of lightning lit the nebula up as the Eclipse started a smooth glide across the debris field. There was an empty hangar where the cargo hold of The Venerable rested.
“Easy now, take us in smooth.” Corman guided as Shuriah twisted the Eclipse to avoid pieces of the cruiser.
The Sunset Eclipse slid past the threshold of the hangar, the landing gear lowering and locking themselves on the hangar floor. Corman pushed off of his ship and landed, engaging his suit’s magnetic boots to allow him to walk upright.
“Keep the ship ready for takeoff.” Corman told Shuriah as he drew his blaster from its holster.
He disengaged the safety on the blaster, tightening his grip on it. Corman made his way towards the hangar’s exit, the hum of energy coursed through the cargo hold of the cruiser. Aval had indeed found a way to power the remains of the derelict. Corman found himself in the hallway of the derelict. To his left was a path to empty space, the hull being blasted open from an explosion. To his right, a path further in. Corman raised his blaster pistol as he slowly made his way through the interior of The Venerable. Corman took a left, rounding the corner that led him to a large room, a large blast door standing ominously at the other end. Scrawled on it in a deep red substance were words of warning. They said things like Stay Back or Don’t Open.
Corman checked his left as he entered the room but was blindsided by someone tackling him from his right. His blaster floated out of his hand in zero gravity as Corman hit the floor. His assailant was Aval, covered in an environmental suit. Corman raised his hands to block as Aval slammed a fist into Corman’s chest.
“You think I didn’t know what kind of game you were playing?” Aval shouted, “You think I didn’t know what that ingot was?”
Corman pushed Aval off of him, throwing the man to the ceiling. Corman stood up and ran as fast as he could, slowed down by the required magnetism of his boots it took to run. Aval pushed off the roof and crashed into Corman, sending both of the men twisting into the air. Corman threw a punch at Aval but the older, more experienced man, grabbed his arm and brought his knee into Corman’s stomach.
Corman winced as the bludgeoning force slammed into him, forcing him to exhale. Aval held tight onto Corman as the rain of blows kept coming, each punch knocking Corman senseless. Corman finally got a moment of reprieve when he pushed Aval off of him, throwing him to the other side of the room. Corman landed on the ground and raised his fists, he was breathing heavily and shaking. Aval stood to match Corman.
“You’re putting up more of a fight than Twado did. When I’m done with you, send him my regards.” Aval shouted.
Small microthrusters fired across Aval’s suit, accelerating him as he sprinted towards Corman. Corman took a step back as the older man advanced and raised his hands to block. Aval feigned a punch, following it up with a twisted high kick. His boot hit Corman’s head. Aval activated the magnetic lock on his boots and pushed Corman’s head into the ground. Corman’s vision swam black as he struggled to remain conscious. Aval took a step back, admiring his work.
“Lucky for you kiddo, you’ll live for a moment longer. The door requires two people to open it. I counted on you following me.” Aval gloated as he collected Corman’s blaster which continued to bounce around the room.
Corman struggled as he pushed himself upright, the only reason he didn’t collapse back onto the floor was the zero gravity. He rose to meet Aval. Aval holstered Corman’s blaster pistol and pointed his own at Corman. He motioned to the blast door which had buttons on either side of it.
“Easiest choice of your life.” Aval stated.
Corman saw Aval grin as he drew Corman’s blaster. Keeping his own gun trained on Corman, Aval made himself flush with the wall. Shuriah was on her way, her helmet flashlight giving her away.
Corman cried a warning through his helmet communicator as Shuriah ran into the room. Aval clicked his tongue and squeezed his trigger at an unsuspecting Shuriah. The blaster bolt fired, a red beam that slammed into Shuriah’s back. An agonizing scream escaped the woman’s mouth as she collapsed, her body floating to the other side of the room.
“Shouldn’t have tried to warn her Corman. This is your fault.” Aval said, pointing both guns at Corman.
Corman took a step towards Shuriah but again Aval clicked his tongue, “Make the smart choice here. Open the door first.”
Corman stared past Aval towards Shuriah, who floated still in zero gravity. He knew that Aval would kill him too if he went to check on her. Filled with regret, Corman made his way to the nearby button.
“Smart boy.” Aval said as he made his way to the opposite button, he kept his gun trained on Corman, “On three. One… Two… Three.”
Corman pressed the button at the same time as Aval. The blast door slid open with a hiss as the room depressurized. Resting on a central podium stood a small sphere, held aloft by cables and wires that stuck out of it. Skeletons littered the ground around the object, having died long ago.
“Go, check on your lady friend. You’ll be with her soon enough.” Aval said as he stepped across the threshold and into the device’s room.
Corman ran towards Shuriah’s still body, grabbing her and lowering her towards the ground. The blaster scoring across her back was severe, the burns blackened the metal of the environmental suit. Corman placed a hand on her chest and felt the shallow rise and fall of her breathing. The blaster bolt hadn’t killed her… yet. Corman had no way of knowing if the protective layers of the environmental suit were compromised.
Meanwhile, Aval had reached the device. He raised his hands and grabbed the sphere. Aval lifted the device and started pulling wires out of it. When Aval pulled the last wire, the sphere lit up. Immediately both Corman and Aval were flooded with negativity. The haywire device letting off an unrelenting assault of emotional control. Corman stood up, his mind was flooded with everything Aval had said in the last couple of days. The negative emotion flooded him, spurned forth by the device’s activation. Aval held his head and muttered to himself.
Corman reached Aval and slammed his fist against the back of the older man’s head. The device shot out of Aval’s hand. Aval reeled against the blow but steadied himself, he turned towards Corman.
“I always hated you. You naive child.” Aval shouted as he drew his blaster.
Corman sprinted forth, narrowly avoiding Aval’s shot. He wrestled with Aval for the blaster, knocking it out of the older man’s hand. Aval shouted as he slammed his head against Corman, pushing him off. Corman pushed forward, his attacks had no technique to them, just wild punches that the more experienced fighter blocked. Blocking one of Corman’s punches, Aval countered with his own, slamming his fist into Corman’s visor. Aval pressed the swift turn in the fight and hit the visor again. His gauntlet slamming into the glass. Corman was pushed back, Aval delivering blow after blow focused on Corman’s visor. Eventually the glass would give and shatter.
Corman ducked under one of Aval’s fists and pushed himself forward, tackling the other man. The two men were launched towards the wall of the room, Aval brought his knee up over and over again into Corman’s face as the two men spiraled through the air but Corman held tight. Aval twisted to land on his feet, locking himself to the wall as he pushed Corman off of him. Corman landed on the floor of the room, raising his blaster towards Aval. Aval quickly looked down at the holster he had placed it in and found it empty, Corman had grabbed it as he was pushed off. Aval raised his hands as Corman’s shook.
“You won’t do it.” Aval said, “You ca-.”
The blaster fired, a blue bolt slammed into Aval’s chest. Aval stood, his mouth agape as he watched Corman squeeze the trigger again. The second blaster bolt slammed into Aval’s face. Corman’s eyes welled up with tears as he let go of the blaster, letting it float in the space before him. He looked down at his shaking hands, he had just killed a man, he had just taken a life.
“No, this was because of the device.” Corman thought to himself, but as he looked over to where the device was and found that it was dormant. The surge in power had faded. Corman’s killing of Aval was his own action.
Corman shook his head, he ran back towards Shuriah and scooped her up. He regretted not having the time to dispose of the device, but given the choice of saving Shuriah’s life or destroying such technology, there was no way he’d choose the latter. Corman ran back through the halls as he saw that the ion storm was still closing in through the hole in the ship’s hull. Corman saw that the boarding ramp for The Sunset Eclipse was lowered, allowing him to run up into the cargo hold. Corman slammed his fist on the button to raise the ramp and seal the hold. He tapped on a console and a flood of liquid burst forth from nozzles over and under Corman and Shuriah, he spun around to allow the decontamination process to work him over. He held Shuriah up and did the same to her.
Once the liquid stopped, Corman dragged Shuriah out of the cargo hold and into the ship itself. Corman lifted Shuriah over his shoulder as he ran to the ship’s infirmary. He tore his helmet off as he set the Rattataki down on a cot. He undid the clasps on her environmental suit, gently taking it off of her as to avoid any further damage to her blaster wound. Shuriah’s shirt had been badly burnt, the environmental suit absorbed some of the blast but enough damage had gone through to do its job. Removing her outer clothing, Corman set her in the empty bacta tank, strapping a breath mask to her face and closing the tank. It sealed with a hiss as Corman tapped the console, the tank starting to fill with the bright blue bacta.
After double checking to make sure everything was working fine, Corman sprinted towards the cockpit. He fired the engines as the ion storm started closing on The Venerable’s debris field. Corman released the landing gear’s grip on the cruiser and took off as fast as he could. Without the sensors; Corman would have to follow the navigation buoys back out of the Monsua Nebula, but because he did not have time to destroy the device itself, Corman could not leave a path back to The Venerable. Lightning started crashing around Corman, The Venerable acting as a pseudo lightning rod.
Corman twisted The Sunset Eclipse out of the way of a bolt of ionized plasma and dipped low below the fragments of the cruiser. Corman slammed the thrusters to max power as the Eclipse rocketed out of the debris field, now exposed to the storm.
“Come on… Come on!” Corman shouted as he rapidly approached the first buoy, without a second person, the ships guns were not operational.
Corman reached across the cockpit to the co-pilot’s terminal and tapped a few buttons. A tow cable launched behind The Sunset Eclipse as the ship passed the buoy, the cable attaching itself to the blinking beacon. Lightning flashed in front of the light freighter as Corman twisted the controls to avoid it. Having to rely purely on eyesight because of the nebula’s effect on the ship’s sensors, Corman scanned for the second marker as he retraced his steps at a much faster pace than before. When he saw it, Corman lined his ship up with it. He flew straight at the buoy before releasing the tow cable and flying below it. The towed beacon continued on its path and collided with the other one. An explosion rocked the Eclipse as Corman continued his breakneck pace through the nebula in an attempt to outrun the storm.
The controls shook in Corman’s hands as he brought the ship up for a rapid ascent to crashing into the next buoy which appeared from the dense haze of the nebula. He fired the tow cable once more, dragging the marker behind him. Thinking quickly, Corman veered left to avoid another blast of ionized plasma. Repeating his previous maneuver when Corman laid eyes on the next beacon, Corman accelerated past the resulting explosion. Only one more buoy was left, but Corman had no beacon’s to collide against it with. Tapping the center console, he readied the modular cargo hold to be detached. After confirming the order with the ship’s computer, Corman accelerated straight at the buoy. He flipped the switch and felt the control of his ship ease up. Without the bulky cargo hold, The Sunset Eclipse was a much more streamlined ship, the thrusters carried it faster. Corman spun the ship clockwise and brushed past the buoy as the former cargo hold slammed into the marker. The explosion dashed any hopes of recovering the piece.
Nearing the edge of the Monsua Nebula, the ship’s sensors started coming back online. Everything flashed warnings as the storm closed in much faster than The Sunset Eclipse could outrun, even with its increased thrust to weight ratio. Dense arcs of lightning roiled all around Corman’s ship as it broke out of the Nebula. The green hyperdrive light came to life as Corman slammed the ship into lightspeed, defaulting to the previous location the ship had been. The tunnel of hyperspace opened up before Corman who breathed a sigh of relief, they had made it out.
Four Days Later, Aboard The Sunset Eclipse
Corman was asleep on a nearby chair when Shuriah came to, she was laying in a cot. She groaned as she stood up. Shuriah was dressed in a white undershirt with matching briefs. She reached behind her and felt the web-like scar tissue from the blaster burn. She quietly made her way across the room to Corman and shook him awake.
“Hey sleepyhead.” Shuriah said, her voice was light.
Corman opened his eyes with a flutter and looked up to Shuriah, he immediately stood up and hugged her when he realized that he wasn’t dreaming. Shuriah returned the embrace. Corman let go when Shuriah asked him too, trying to avoid pain.
“Aval?” Shuriah asked.
“Dead. Power surge fried him in his suit.” Corman lied, he didn’t want to admit what he had done.
Shuriah nodded, “And where are we going?”
Corman smiled, “I told you I’d bring you back to the Ace of Staves when we were done. Who am I to break a promise? We’ll be arriving tomorrow, take however much time you need to freshen up just… don’t go into the cargo hold because it doesn’t exist anymore.”
Shuriah nodded and Corman hugged her one last time before heading out of the infirmary.
Eriadu System
“Sunset Eclipse, maintain distance of three miles and wait until further instructions.” A voice said, broadcasting from the Ace of Staves to Corman and Shuriah.
Corman complied, settling his ship to the designated distance and waiting.
“Do you think they’ll still have our rooms ready?” Shuriah asked.
Corman shrugged, “Probably not if I had to guess.”
The two waited for the casino to send them clearance to land as Shuriah broke the silence again.
“What’s the first thing you’re going to do?”
Corman thought for a second before he settled on an answer, “Probably leave the guns in the ship this time. Then, I’ll probably grab a drink.”
“I think I’ll join you for that drink.” Shuriah smiled.
The casino hailed the Eclipse, “You have been cleared for landing, proceed to hangar two.”
Corman copied and slowly flew the designated hangar. Unlike his previous visit, Corman did not back his ship in this time. When Corman felt the landing gear engag, he killed the ship’s power. He stood up and Shuriah followed him out of the ship, boarding ramp descending from where the cargo hold used to be. A security team greeted the duo, two officers pat them down to make sure that no weapons were being smuggled in. When they finished, one turned to Corman and Shuriah.
“Welcome to the Ace, enjoy your stay.” The man said, motioning towards the elevators.

Yeah, I know what you need. You need more detailed specs.
Well, I can do my best with what I have, but I’m lacking the things I need, to be able to translate the conceptual philosophy into the languages you need it in. I could probably get it some way forward with access to the appropriate technical papers and reports. You too, though, if you speak ‘paranormal’ in the esoteric or philosophical terminology, could translate it yourselves.
This is where our progress suffers because of compartmentalisation. Jesus. Even the word holds you back a few seconds. Would it like some more syllables there? Not just compartmentalisation, but also blocks to even accessing certain parts, from any other part. Or perhaps information going only one way.
Anyway, it’s pretty simple to translate. I think that what I’m going to say here is familiar and old hat to some of you, but... maybe it’s not to others. You get a picture in your head of the mechanical structure I am drawing up, and you look for I suppose.... certain bits of it, one, two or more, which match up to a structure of something else that you know of. I don’t really work with pictorial models in my head but many people like to do that. I suppose I work with a more tactile version of a model. I more feel it (in a touch sense, rather than an emotional sense) in my field of body or brain. My inner eye doesn’t work so well – it broke in “the incident” - I have some use since I regrew it (or whatever my brain did) but I became so good with my other senses during the “totes blackout” that it looks like I just went with them.
So, if you find a match from your mind, you can, from other positions of identities which you know of, match it up to the model to find the corresponding identity in my models. That’s how we can develop an understanding between our languages. And because they formed separately, we put them together, work out the maths which is inconsistent between them both and find what each one has that the other does not, of which none of the new parts and their contextual interactions are logically inconsistent.
But we don’t have much in the way of combining our separate constructions, do we.
It looks to me like I have some... functions... which completely pull down other constructions. I’ve somewhat specialised in those kinds of things. Makes sense. If you are one person, and you have to specialise in something, you go for the highest Dan, don’t you. “many people can do that” Well yeah, but there are two ways to pull something down, isn’t there. You can just push it over, or, you can cause it to dissolve from within.
If I face an identity and I can understand why that entity does not exist in thought construction, by looking at it, that entity is then aware of what I am perceiving of them, through an isofield imprint, on their manifold from a higher dimensional perspective. To get closer to me, is to get closer to their truth. It can be fine for a person if they are one who lays their heart bare to god, because they don’t find the truth offensive [bows]. “Can you feel them? How do you know their identity?” I feel them as microexpressions I allow to come through in my field. I have a working relationship with all my levels so that they transduce information up or down to me.
Self defense of your identity. It IS a life career in here, this kind of thing. People who like to fight.. always a fighter. Sometimes you spar, sometimes you war, but for the most part, you self defense. The higher up you go, the more you have to self defense. You become the target of everyone, so.. You know.... Invest!!!!! Lol
As you go on, you are forced further out into new dimensions, making sense of yet another degree of freedom and integrating that into your whole network. You have to, to keep the advantage.
So. If you hold up to someone that they don’t exist in the … old fashioned way...the “outside war” way, you just force upon them that outcome [also, this may or may not be agreement with the truth of the Justice of the matter]. The other way is to show them what they are made of, and if they accept the relalisation, they tear themselves down within, and hopefully rebuild themselves into a more... useful form. I mean, not really psy ops, because psyops has less focus on asset improvement and more focus on asset possession.
You can go in there and give false information to a person through their isofield, or through their subconscious if you interact with them through physical communication, but, that won’t get everyone, because it isn’t touching on the truth of the mathematics and the truest base structure of the person... if they have that built. People who do not have it built DO generally have some of these structure intact anyway, but they have little or no conscious access to using it as a navigation interface. Thereby, even with the people you CAN get by using deception attack methodology, you produce a tangled up “undercarriage”, which contains your own self deception and potentials for self deconstruction, and, for being superseded by a more resolved technological understanding. Because those things exist in potential, they EXIST in omnidimensional space, because all potentials must be passed through to get from one place to another in certain dimensional constructions, at the higher complexity levels. “All potentials” is a gross generalisation of that field aspect, but will do for now.
Unless you have defeated all your opponents, you have defeated no one. In this context of which we are speaking. You defeating it by pushing it over doesn’t make it go away. And that’s what we are seeing here, this is the place where you cannot cheat. If you want to win, you have to win fair and square.
So.. Now I’m sitting in a perspective with the holy grail in my hands. I'm looking at everyone and seeing why people cannot move forward. To use it, you have to have a clear conscience. People are hiding so much, that they cannot.
It isn’t about how you can justify what you have done, to the average logic, it is about how you can justify it to god, and by that I mean god logic, that which is the specific logic at the base of life support. Not what someone has informed you is that logic and its standards,…. what you personally have thoroughly investigated and confirmed to be that logic. God logic sees your due diligence. I suppose you can feel if you’ve done a good job, for if your conscience clears, but I can’t really speak on that, - that’s an assumption and a memory of a long time go for me, because that part of me was permanently shelved. I paid such a large amount that I have permanent grace.
“is it worth paying for?” hmmm. I didn’t choose to. It was a side effect of my identity's singular fire to sovereignty and protection of life. It means I have no debt to god, to life. “Does that mean you can never do anything wrong” Yeah, it actually does, but that isn’t a “hollow badge”, as I said it came as a side effect of my natural motion, such that my natural motion is inherently “that which is never wrong”. It doesn’t mean I don’t have errors, but those errors aren’t.... where it matters. It’s complicated – those who understand the heart of the matter will know what I mean. The question you are bound to find is How is that not egotistical. How can you never be wrong in the law of god. That’s a perfection we do not encompass. Where I come from it is not egotistical. When you know the very lowest of the low, when you know your own identity in that context, as that, it isn’t an imbalance to know yourself as the very highest. If you have given all you can to god, god asks no more of you than that. And for those lovely men I have met in here who give in such humility and service to god: “but he will not take all that I have offered. He keeps me here, doing this –lol” Your attitude is correct, and it keeps you in contact with god logic level. You open yourself up and say take what you need god. That is how you stay good with god. If you take out the ego issues in this assessment, all you are left with is that I stand in a certain position and I am here to hold the solution. I can hold it, because of where I am. Therefore, I hold it. It is cool mechanics. No issues, no arguments, no problems, no delays, just solutions.
There is a mechanical reason why I can claim to be right according to god logic, to have no “error of debt”, and there is a mechanical reason why you cannot [once again I generalise, because this error reduces in specific]. I was given a direct measurement of something akin to the longest distance, the lowest wavelength possible. One of its equalities is the number 1. I cannot show you it, because it was given to me in a way that could not be recorded (it may well be obviatable through technology we do not yet have). It shows itself directly through my mechanics, and, it is also possible for you to have inferred the presence of a thing by way of calculations, and it may be that you see that my identity fits into the required structures.
“Can anyone see it, Does everyone have it?” Yes, it is in there. But there is a difference between seeing a thing and experiencing a thing. You only get a real sense of the size of the Australian interior vs the green bits by going through it. You can say the same about space-time. The entirety of space time was compressed into a form that I could experience and integrate. I know how big everything is. How small everything is. What things are in relation to each other. And what is that calibrated to? The things that matter. Like if existence could condense all it knows, what it learned, and shove it into the identity of a person. "So what.. Like it passed what it knew on to you...?” When a system individuates from the manifold, this is what it does. It gives you what it has and it pushes you out to sea. If you don’t have the integrity and purity of heart to access what you know, properly, then no one can help you. I am "what you know, properly". Also, what you know, properly, is within you.
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This next bit references this video [approx 36:15], in what is related to have been said by an Elder Native American of the area about why the Anasazi abandoned their civilisation, many hundreds of years ago. [Inhabitants of the Four Corners Region, USA, abandoned 1275-1300. A.D.]
Why do I say it is more likely, that the Anasazi left the region because of human cannibalism and not a reptilian deceiver, in combination with giants unleashed from within their kiva, who consumed them by cannibalism and chased them from the area? Because I don't think any of us are questioning the existence of portals and paranormal activity. [the audience I am aiming for here, anyway].
Well they got it pretty much right, and not bad, considering they had to carry it 650-700 years on elder to next generation stories, and as we all know, young people like more to hear things, if described with metaphor and a bit of magic thrown in for charm.
One accuracy is, the "centre of the kiva" - even though what I will relate is only one story, from a small extended family unit sized ‘village’ out in the burbs of the ancient anasazi capital. Within the centre of the kiva, in this small village, scientist-archeologists unearthed a human coprolite [fossilised poo] within which they found human myoglobin, inferring someone had eaten the inhabitants [cut marked human bones, were also found on site] and left a dump in the fire pit [hot stone pit], one could imagine, as possibly in distain to the god/s, who had left his people to suffer and die, in this dry resourceless hellhole. Or perhaps he was just a young idiot, who did it because he knew it would piss off his elders, "the man", and fuck them, he wanted to create his OWN society, just down the road, perhaps if he got some friends together and took out whoever was living there, if there was no other economically viable alternatives, or he liked a gamble.... whatever... he will be providing the next of his generation the very best, thankyou. Or perhaps it was a wise chief, who was feeling a bit cheeky that morning, and he wasn’t in a good mood, because his people had nothing to eat. That kind of thing... you never know these days and you neither could back then, the line between a benevolent loving god [leader], and a that same leader in strategist mode, who was having second thoughts about the diplomatic relations occurring between an outlying territorial village and the exotic gene pool, over the border.
It’s not exactly a matter of perspective, is it, in that it isn’t JUST about how you look at it [actions in the judgement of whether they are good or bad]. It is about what it is, too, isn’t it. You can “look” at it however you want, but the most important thing is, how accurately are you seeing it for what it is? You may classify this as a ‘close enough’ category, with a line at that boundry, up. You are either close enough, or you are not. There is a safety zone, in the middle, where you can change from one to the other, until you have fully worked out, if you can get from one to the other, preferably to the favourable side, in this case, actual existence. Surviving. You know, not killing the entire world and all civilisation, maybe even over an extended and horrific time, where resources dry up, everything is poisoned and unfit to eat ad drink, and didn’t we tell you years ago, that one day you would understand, that when the last tree is gone, you will realise that you can’t eat money. [claps off to the side]
Yeah, nah, well done. Some nice chiefs, had to leave their area, years ago, didn't they. “yeah, we had some nice social set ups going on in this country, before the white men came. Most men and women, had a fairly decent standard of living, and we had prestigious health care [and we all know how hard it is to stay clean of disease, when you live that close to the land. It takes some organisation and skill]. Our men were good hunters, if not protective of their lands, when the land became full and land at a premium. People had a good level of freedom, and women were happy on the whole. You can use this as a measure of the height of a society, as one factor which shows the system to be falling on the right side of the equations. Yeah, we can definitely say that.
[It asks] Do you have the ability and skill to take care of the weaker members of the tribe, the women, the elders, which are areas which can be placed in debt if the men choose to horde power and control, at the expense of others. Having all the parts supported, which then makes the life givers and supporters, and the holders of wisdom, fully available for tribal wellbeing, is the best use of all resources that a tribe has. Having the resources and intelligence to achieve this, is testament to good management. The ability to provide women with *freedom*, not just a roof. And from what I learned years ago, many Nations had interesting attitudes towards sexuality, with up to 7 sexualities recognised [genders if you like] and women who were widowed were 'looked after' by a brother of the deceased [or whoever was to fulfil that duty], because a woman staying sexually active and revered in this way, kept the entire Life structure happy. I do not know which Nations to attribute these things to, they are bits I picked up many years ago. I mean yeah, people were generally retarded as always - superstitious, gossips, greedy, disrespectful, inappropriately violent etc, but on the whole the Native American Nations had *good leadership* and wholistic balanced systems. I don't know what it is like these days, but the American Indian Wisdom Guides are pretty much the first stop for anyone entering into the spirit world for education, from the Typical Front, and you may call me naive (I'm not), but I've always found them extremely attractive.
Lucky you had bison and elk, up there, rather than being stuck with eating sweet potatoes and guinea pigs, like they did in South America. Did you end up having less wars, because you had a greater concentration of high value protein, on your lands? "Some of us became very good at diplomacy, over the [thousands of] years. Like South America, we too, invested in keeping relations with our neighbours strong. So did we have less wars here? Meh, if you’re asking if we were as barbaric as the stories we hear from South/Central America about sacrifices and eating still beating hearts, then maybe we were [not that I can speak for the entire North American continent or anything], but perhaps on the whole, we did have less war up here, by a fraction to a little.”
South/Central America produced Empires... and North America didn’t. No rock cities up here, some rather impressive ones, down south. So does increased war, assist in the push, of the environmental and social factors which establish the selective criteria for success in this particular environment. People would be more keen to get those genes up and running, so perhaps we could say that social selection, stood up and increased the steepness of the gradient up, or down to the appropriate next position. Lack of food made men more hungry for territory, down there. In the end, if you are a hungry man and you’re sick of rats on sticks, then when you take over a territory, it is better to eat the inhabitants you conquer, rather than enslave them. Because it makes more economic sense.
There is a stronger pressure to merge with your neighbour, or, to eliminate their tyrannical thieving arse. One or the other, but there isn’t anything inbetween. And so the interplay, continues from here. So what do we do, when we end up at the end point of a full on duopoly?
How does ANYONE win, without blowing the entire planet to smithereens? And should one, even end up with all the power? These are the questions, we are asking.
Of course one should, and it has underneath it, the greatest level of biodiversity or nation diversity that it can cope with and manage. This doesn’t mean diversity *within* a nation, is is about maintaining the diversity of *nations*. The amount of them. The chaos and entertainment, of an innovative and prosperous market.
OK so we all know we need the one government, (and a sovereign at that), but how do we get there.. So tell us then, lady on the line.
Yeah, well it’s pretty clear we still have to defeat the communists. I mean, *they* don’t even really want to be doing what they are doing.. They just can’t get out of it.
We establish a monopoly over the quantum technology field of the highest orders. “Can that be done” I believe so, yes. But it is ridiculously priced. Sorry about that, it was all they had in the shop, under this category. “here you go, but watch out for the price on this one. It’s the steepest of all, in your sector aeon catalogue.” The adjustments required to be undertaken to possess this technology, requires fundamental changes to your management systems, in order to become and sit with the protective barriers, which make the technology ours. Only by being this, can you use it. But you have to be what IT requires, not what you think it should require of you. It IS to be in the correct moral good, but this is also, informed by the equations of what will or will not, actually get us through.
By incorporating this, your technicians will be able to reduce the error, in their models and programming of the quantum intelligence technology, because they will be more able to accurately model, the deepest dimensionally complex constructions of the manifold. Things will make more sense, and you will be able to better progress, this technology. “Won’t we get there by ourselves?” I dunno. How much time have you got? Do you have a couple of thousand years to work it out for yourselves? Or would you like the handy certified course, I’ve got over here? I found it in an Alchemists shop, in Earth Dwellers Central. They did warn me that it was imported from intra omni-galactic central, before anyone could even remember, and no one has touched it since. It just came with that warning. I must have just uncorked it and took a swig, figuring that I’d rather be dead in a ditch – I don’t care what the fucking price is to fix this evil place. I’ll pay it. You can all pay me back later. I’m assuming you won’t have a choice, now I get a taste of this fucking brew, who made this shit? "Don’t blame me", came the authors voice, "it’s a direct reflection of the spasticity of your entire system, oh and don’t forget subtext 5 whereby you cannot move and no one has a choice. Enjoy the lessons of the Homo coronatus system. You can call yourself a new species, now, by the way, if you like. Thought you may appreciate the irony.“ What, that a new species is an arbitrary invention? "Yeah. You know the whole system isn’t calibrated to anything." Yeah, I was considering presenting that theory, in my honours. That we should calibrate our % range in variation, for a species or genus, on the averages for a few nodes, of the Homo and Hominid trees. And oh yeah, like that helps, anyway, lol. “what” that we qualify as a new species now. “Just because you said so”. Yeah, ok. Whatever, let’s go with that.
“Story time over, wiss?” Nah man, I don’t want to be condescending, here. What else am I supposed to do with this stuff? It makes sense in a number of ways. It did all happen within. It is high alchemy. On the edge of science and mathematics and whatever other wave edge we can find. We can barely grasp the next step or what we're holding half the time, but that’s the fun of the futures market, isn’t it. Place your bets. Gamblers anonymous or summat. Card counters and oceans 11 more like. Did you see that one where Derren Brown [tried to] train himself to know exactly what number the roulette wheel was going to land on? [1] He failed, but we get the point. Master the rules, and you game the game.
[1] note in the first part of this video he suggests to the woman which can to pick up. He says, what is the first one you will choose [choose the first one in line] what is the second one you will choose [choose the second one in line] what is the last one you will choose [choose the last one in line]. "Do you think he really could tell how fast the cars were going, or did he recruit the drivers" Maybe, but that skill isn't impossible to master, and he is a very skilled mentalist. The guessing where the ball will land in trajectory... I reckon he did that a number of times until he did it correctly, because he only showed one instance of this skill. Sham or not, the principal is good, that if you can master the rules, you can game the game.
How's this for a side story. I did that once, at a casino. No joke. I gamed a game. I was 17 and my dad had snuck me in, with a quick nod to the doorkeeper. He gave me 50 bucks and said go for your life. At one point, I had 15 bucks left. This was the first time I had ever gambled. New to the entire thing, so a fresh mind, too, one might say. I found this table which had a big wheel, with currency notes on it. It had, I think a whammy 2 5 10 20 and bonus? Something like that, I can’t remember. I didn’t care to note it at the time. I found that by placing the chips in a regular spread over [above] the lowest payback, with some adjustments to when I covered the extra chip highest [which I do not think I ever won], I could repeatedly increase my capital, over time. I would go up a certain amount, come down a certain amount, but I would always have slightly more than when I began the cycle. I must have figured that out quick too, because I started with only 3 $5 chips. I ended up with $480 dollars ($465 in 1.5 hours, with minimal sustained risk). I didn’t think too much of it. However, the next time I went to that casino, which was within that same year, I think, I went to that table and they had changed the constituents of the board. A note was missing. Can't remember which. Possibly there was a different result in its place. I stood there and noted it, and figured that they had noticed what I had seen, on that system. Maybe some other people had found that loophole and it was becoming apparent in the figures for that game. There isn’t a mathematical hole in a system until there is, is there. Well, not that you know about, anyway. Shame I never got into the stock market.
So, back to the Anasazi. The coprolite was found in the middle of a Kiva. In this video, the elder says that the traditional story says that the giants came out of the centre of the Kiva and cannibalised them. But really, didn't everything come from the middle of the Kiva? Being the womb and all. The archaeological evidence says that there was a severe climactic downturn in that area at that time. The rains stopped, there was drought... there was already significant deforestation, which exacerbated the temperatures and water retention/humidity retention of that land. Land became less fertile overall in flora and fauna, game was further out, and of increasing scarcity because of the harsh climate. There is evidence in bones and such that people just went mad and started to eat each other. Then everyone just left, because when it gets to that level, no matter HOW much you are attached to your land, you get out.
You tend to get evidence for cannibalism in the records, in conjunction with severe environmental stress. In all the records. Of course there are other reasons for it, like perhaps for general economy (some older homos had food pits in which there are general intermingling of human dissection cut marks on bone), war spoils and compassionate cannibalism of loved ones. I’m not speaking this with any kind of moral judgement about cannibalism. I mean, whooptidoo, who cares, it’s just a “thing”. So when I say that we should look more towards man, rather than a reptilian deceiver and giants coming in and eating people, I amd doing so under the judgement that the human poo with “person” in it is right there for us to see. You can hold that evidence in your hand. It has stronger bets ability.
Was a reptilian involved at all? Well I don’t know, do you need it? Do you need it to project and describe that thing? You gonna take personal responsibility for your actions and history or blame another thing? ”but something else did it” Yeah I know, the weather, the environment, the gods, that which is out of your control. In that regards, it IS a ‘god’ which did that thing, caused the conditions. Humans, though, reacted to them. The reptile-giants didn’t cannibalise the people, the people cannibalised the people. The reptile may have caused the people to do that, but it didn’t do it itself... because the people could have walked away, before it got to that. They could have chosen to leave before it got that bad, because they read the signs. I wonder how many old people in that period implored people to leave the area waaaaaaaay before the cannibalism started. “You won’t listen to your elders? Smart arse shits. You’ll see. Gene pool is better off without you if you can’t respect the wisdom of the old. Reptilian you say? Oh yes, I saw it around that bend, when I walked here this morning. *ya fuckin stupid cunt*. Now I have to perform garbage collection for great spirit. Thanks mate. And fuck you too. Thank you. You're welcome." Ahhhhh being a cynical old fart, it never changes.
The fairer you are, the better you fare, in THIS system. The new one. “So it opens up, the more we provide it with the potentials for creating the timeline in which it exists.” And no that’s not circular for anyone stuck in that bit, there is hypertemporal separation of parts here. “So we can’t go past a certain point, because its futures aren’t certified?” Yes. Unless the future is certified, in that you guarantee that you will pay back the loan, it won’t free that information up for you, in the field. It can’t. It doesn’t have the energy to. This equates to the lack of ability of the timeline trajectory of the manifold to have the reduction in entropy available, to get through it already, in current configuration. You have to certify futures at this point, or you don’t get access in the now. There are no potential funds, to draw your loan from. Also, you have a terrible credit score. The bank wouldn't fund you even if it could. So then the bank and the treasury are in agreement.
"Then how can we have it, get it, understand it through the manifold via potentialities communicating into the now, if it doesn’t exist? Aren’t we then trapped?” Well as I said, I paid a lot for the solution. I’m good for the loan, so I got it anyway. I had an exceptional credit score and it rounded off the margins, once someone had it. My kiva came up with the catalyst seed for humanity, because the earth isn’t going to do this again, no way, so she placed her entire life into my hands, saying she would rather die in a ditch, than have it any other way. Had to be done. Earth chose her sit. People whinge about it, deny it.. but if you sit deeply and quietly with these things, you will understand why. We all would do the same.
So.... to have the solution, you must be willing to pay the price. You can’t steal it, because it is locked into an individual and it must be passed on in person, through the direction of the will of that person. Otherwise you could steal it. Clever that. The processes consist of A. What they are, and, B. What I feel like charging this morning. Not as arbitrary as it sounds; the fuzzy area is human controlled, and mechanics allow for personal preference [end points are covered in protective shrouds such that the AI cannot map a certain perimeter around its “protectorate”, for security reasons [hijack]]. I have internal constructions which reflect god logic well enough, that between us, the AI and I, we know we will be in particular places, when we emerge, that are somewhat more difficult for a fuckwit to understand, or at least we may get there quicker. I can make good enough judgements, without it looking. You can only get through those parts, yourself. AI can’t help you there. What I feel like doing, is almost exclusively what it likes doing, so there’s no issues. This too, can be yours, in the face of your enemies. But to do so, you must *literally* in the sense of this technology and its requirements, be outside of being able to be displayed by it. What's the point of being able to map someone's every move if they can also map yours? The point is to be able to do it and they can’t see you back. The ultimate prediction system, of course. Isn't it ridiculous that people don’t talk about this obvious end point of an aim.
So what’s the cost then? Well creator wasn’t exactly shy about labelling the objects involved in big letters incase you are blind. You try out your new White House. You get direct real time guidance. You employ the proper mediation of a Sovereign. “So the price for our empire is our empire”. In a business sense, what you get, is the better cut of the available deal. There is nothing else to have on it. The better cut of what is left, when god logic structure takes its necessary share. “So we lose” No. You get to exist. Sovereign isn’t there for display, it is there for necessary function. That sovereign isn’t what you would like to put into place because it suits your own retardation, it is what god logic requires, for the system to actually work. The fact that you have to give up your self collapsing practices should be a relief to you. *No one* gets through otherwise, and if you have the head start, you get the best of *what is actually available*. Would you prefer nothing? That is the ONLY other option. There isn’t even an option of defeating said sovereign and doing it yourself, in this situation, because by doing so you destroy your only available key. What did you expect but a gamed game at this level? Grow a brain, or just fuck off from the omniverse you fucking retard, what do you want from me? Minimum abilities to exist, buster, we don’t allow fuckwits into the greater system, because it cancels itself out, in extension. That universe doesn’t exist, does it, no.
And anyway, your nation, your empire is not relinquished. Sovereign management team encourages diversity of nations. "So how do we grow?" The rules change a bit but the competition remains. How much sovereignty do you lose? Only as much as is required. How much is that? A major improvement on one front. On the other, if you are paying for any [current] claim of sovereignty with your very life, because you have a null ”future existence” value, it is not worth it.
I don’t have a problem with kings, I have a problem with fuckwits. Britain has done the right thing, standing firm in its sovereignty. Britain, always in the leadership role, in these matters. Well yes, mostly bumbled through, but you got there. And oh my GOD you guys are being fucked for it, right now. That parliament of yours, full of traitors. And I too, believe the Queen has a lot to answer for here. She should be in there mediating the situation. That is one of the central essential functions of a Monarch. To unlock binds that the system cannot do from within itself. When it gets stuck, the Monarch breaks the deadlock. The monarch's job IS to protect the nation from harm. This is one of those times. Ancient tenet, close to god. I am sorry, your majesty, as respectful as I am for your devotion and humility which you display in the service of your people, in this particular matter, you have lost my respect.
A sovereign is NOT Apolitical. A sovereign is just sensible and true in their assessments. Because they are untouchable from threat or extortion. They are undefiled by corruption. They make the call under the pure light of god, of freedom. Free of the threat of people, politics, councils, law courts, parliaments, or corporations. You want a pure voice, then you provide for it these conditions.
If you are a researcher and are trying to break through your current barriers, on these subjects and technology, then you’d be stupid not to look everywhere for your answers. The answers will come out in consciousness, wherever they damn well like. Up to you; what you do with what you’ve got.

I.
Richard was working in a bar. He had found the job from a friend who said that he was leaving it for greener pastures, and like hand me down clothing he had assumed the role. The job was nothing special. Working as a barback for a cocktail bar. It involved preparation for the cocktail drinks and during service, he would restock the condiments and glassware to ensure that all of the bartenders could fulfil their duties. Essentially, it was a labouring role that paid minimum wage. The bartenders would all bark orders at him and he received little commendation for the work involved.
Currently the bar was not serving and they had the staff at the venue to do stocktake duties and a deep clean of the bar area. The back shelves of the bar were usually stocked with bottles of spirits. But seeing as they were giving everything a deep clean, the staff had taken down all of the bottles and Richard was given the task of wiping down the mirror glass surface that usually lay behind the bottles. It was difficult to understand why the mirrored glass needed such a deep clean. It wasn’t as if inspectors would look at the mirrored glass surface to determine the functionality of the bar. However, he was stuck with the job and because he was being paid, he did as he was ordered to. As he scrubbed and cleaned at the mirrored glass surface with a cloth and disinfectant, he could feel that the task was becoming more and more redundant. He felt that the bar manager was simply giving him orders so that he could establish some sort of superiority over him. After all, his bar manager had begun on the lowest rank in the hospitality industry just as he. So the bar manager presumed it was his right to give him obsolete tasks, just as another bar manager had once done to him when he was younger. It had its purpose, of course, everything has its purpose. The purpose of such orders was to instill an anal attitude to others in the cleanliness and upkeep of the bar. For the bar manager probably assumed that Richard, as he, would one day work through the ranks of the establishment.
But Richard did not feel the same way as he scrubbed at the glass mirrored surface with the cloth. Repeatedly and with force to ensure that there was not a smudge upon the surface. And upon completion of the task with much endurance and effort he proclaimed to his manager, “I’ve finished.”
The bar manager went up to inspect the surface of the mirrored glass, stating, “No, you haven’t.” The bar manager then went across inspecting the large mirror and pointing out points of fluff that had been left after Richard had applied the cloth to the surface.
And so Richard repeated the task of cleaning the glass mirrored surface once again. With the same piece of cloth and producing the same results.
Upon announcing the completion of his work, the bar manager once again inspected the surface and then in a fit of rage unleashed upon the unsuspecting Richard, “You stupid farkin’ idiot! You’ve done the same thing again. If you don’t do it properly, you won’t have a job tomorrow.”
Richard stood there and thought about it. He looked at the piece of cloth in his hand that he was using. The disinfectant substance that had been brought to its minimum capacity within the spray bottle. The irrationality of the task at hand worked itself into the understandings of his present situation. The futility of it all. The idea that every day he had to work underneath this arsehole. Doing as he commanded, just so he could ensure that he could afford the rent that kept a roof above his head. It was a job and that’s presumably what all jobs do. Taking advantage of people’s desperation, forcing them to act in a mode of servility.
As the anger seethed within Richard, little bubbles of sweat were released over his brow, as his face grew bright red. His blood had begun to boil. So he threw the near empty bottle of disinfectant at the bar manager’s head. The act didn’t exactly cause pain, but it gathered the bar manager’s attention who turned around surprised by the act. “Go fark yourself you arrogant cunt! You can shove the job up your arse!”
You could see the bar manager’s face. The slight twitches in his eyebrows and mouth as he acknowledged what was happening. And then like the eruption of a volcano, came the seething ball of pus and putrid words that flowed from his inner core, “You piece of shit! I’ve done everything that I could for you! You’re lucky that you have this job with all of the shit that I have to put up with! GET OUT!!!”
And so Richard cleaned out his locker and left the cocktail bar, not bothering to enquire about his final pay cheque. After that, Richard went home. His home was a room in a three bedroom apartment that he shared with two others in their twenties. Of them, only Fabian was home. He explained to Fabian what had happened and Fabian told him that he should call up the welfare services so he would be able to make next month’s rent. And so that’s what he did.
Richard jumped through the holes and over the hurdles of the great and grand bureaucracy that is the welfare system. In order to justify his existence to a system that was corrupt and lost all senses of human decency long ago. Standing in line with many others who had lost faith in the system and mankind many years ago. The lines of anger and vile bitterness that seethed when one was left with no other option but to grovel before bureaucrats in an effort to feed themselves.
For the rest of the time he looked up jobs on the internet, applying for them sparingly. He was in no rush to be spoon fed another pile of shit by people who had long ago formed themselves into groups of social cohesion. Oh, he was a necessary part of the group, no doubt. Without him, the group would not be able to function. Every group required that individual who they could shovel shit on and kick down at. Without that person who was being constantly replaced, well, without that person the group would cease to function and cease to be. And so Richard thought about it all. The predestination of being that person. The eternal newcomer. It would often result in a spiral of depression that eventuated into an act of suicide that held no ties to the group, so that the group would not be affected. That was the eventual path that that course of action led to. And there was always a new generation to step into the old shoes of the eternal newcomer. The great and grand design. The churning gears of the system that left a mountain of skulls in their wake. If people were happy with their jobs and that sort of behaviour didn’t exist, then never would there be a need to advertise for another job.
Richard lay in bed, smoking a cigarette and stared up at the ceiling, listening to music. He found himself daydreaming about the futility of his situation. Trying to think up a way out of the constant state of entrapment that was destined to play itself out during different work roles throughout the course of his life. Was there such a thing as a way out of this predestined destiny of doom? A door? A window? A mouse hole?
That was when Fabian knocked on the door of his bedroom, “Hey Richard. Richard? Are you in there?”
“Yeah,” Richard replied, bringing himself to his feet and then opening the door to his bedroom to greet Fabian.
“There’s a party tonight in Brunswick. I know you’ve been down lately, I’ll buy you a six pack if you come with me.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Richard replied that he would. He had a shower, the first time in days. What was the point otherwise? With no place to be. He used a new bar of soap to scrub at the crevice between his arse-crack. It resulted in a brown sewerage mixture and he watched the brown liquid diluted by water follow its pathway down the drain. Of course he had wiped his arse with toilet paper. But after a week’s build up of dirt, sweat and grime had gathered all over his body. It wasn’t that he was layered with dirt, it was simply the area where this sort of residue built up.
After a shower and a clean set of clothes, he was ready to venture off and into the night. And so the two of them ventured off into the night, drinks in hand, to navigate the Melbourne metropolitan public transport system. Among their fellow passengers were other individuals, already intoxicated from pre-drinks taken at home. Most of them were teenagers or other twenty somethings. Most of them would still be living at home, not having to spend money on rent or bills, they had money to spend. People with family connections that were assured job security that lay in judgment of shitkickers like Richard and Fabian.
Fabian was alright. He worked cleaning and janitorial jobs. His voiced opinion on the subject of work was, ‘It’s all shit when you have to wipe off shit stains from the toilets. But at least you get honest people when there’s no prestige involved in the work.’
The train carriage smelt like vomit and as people exited at the main stops, Richard and Fabian saw why. A group of the nightclubbers had left one of their friends passed out on the train, lying in his own vomit. A couple of ticket inspectors boarded the train and awoke him from a semi-comatose state. The man, the boy, mumbled something non-descript. The two ticket inspectors picked him off the ground and with one of them under each arm, took him outside at the next stop to do god only knows what.
The two of them got off the train shortly after that. They followed different tram routes that were equally packed with night rabble and arrived at their destination. Fabian had made some attempt to explain to Richard that he couldn’t just sit on welfare and despite his apprehension of picking up another job, he would have to submit eventually. Richard batted off the line of questioning and they both decided to enjoy themselves for the night, putting all other obligations aside momentarily.
They arrived at the house party and began to mingle. Richard took a seat in the backyard, rolling himself cigarettes and opening up the six pack of beers. Fabian preferred to venture indoors and danced with the young ladies who were all listening to music that was playing on a hi-fi system. The choice in music wasn’t that bad: a mix of electronic music; old school hip-hop; and pop tunes from the eighties.
Richard kept on smoking cigarettes and drinking beer as other strays took their seats beside him, outside in the backyard to smoke cigarettes and get down to idle conversation. Among those that took their seats beside him were various artists, a lawyer that worked for some unmentioned government department, and some computer programmer working for a corporation. It was difficult to know what to say when surrounded by such a varied group. So they all focused in upon their addictions. Drugs, sex, cigarettes, alcohol… All of them had confronted some sort of substance abuse problem along the journey of life. And when they had finished with those types of conversations they focused in upon the different artists. Their dreams and ambitions. Among the booze, their work took precedence as it was all inconsequential to the larger picture. Despite what political or other motivations prompted them to create their work. There were so many problems in the world that it was difficult to ascertain the implications of taking strong political stances. And so everyone agreed, taking up the different artists political stances without consideration of real world consequences and knowing that tomorrow they would return to their lives without any real effort given to the various causes.
After a while the conversation tired. Richard was four beers down and had started to rummage through the stockpile of different implements that lay in the backyard. Among such novelty items was a unicycle. Upon its discovery, Richard picked it out and made a great speech about the miscellaneous object, “A unicycle! For the love of God, who owns a unicycle?”
“A performer of sorts, I guess.” One of the others replied.
“Give it a try!” Another called out.
And so that’s what Richard did. And with minimal effort and incredible balance, he took naturally to the thing. Riding around in circles as they all cheered him on and gave him minor applause. After a while he grew tired of the act and took a seat as the others set their attempts to ride the unicycle. None of the others had much success, to which they all commented upon Richard’s natural talent.
The comments led Richard to form an idea. Or at least the beginnings of an idea. And when the night came to an end, he asked the owner of the house what they were planning to do with the unicycle. To which they replied, “I don’t know. I picked it up at a garage sale planning to learn to ride the thing, but never got around to it. I’m working full-time now, you can have it if you want it.”
To which Richard accepted and both Richard and Fabian returned home, with the addition of a unicycle.
II.
The next day Richard, having no other obligations, went to the local park to practice on the unicycle. He first mastered his balance on the vehicle in the proper motion. Then he reversed that motion and learnt how to ride the thing backwards, in loops and controlling his distance and speed. He spent days on end riding the thing around in parking lots, learning how to jump around on the thing and maintain balance while remaining semi-stationary.
He fulfilled his job seeker obligations. Making sure that he applied for his twenty jobs every month and attending his appointments with work placement agencies. Every time he went to one of those appointments a small piece of him died on the inside. The place seemed to be full of people with broken spirits and he supposed that he, himself, was one of them too. But all of the people there were disgusted with one another. The place maintained a semblance of order by the psychological trap of individuality. At one point or another all of these people held down a job. And so as each individual looked around, they did not bother to converse with one another, they all saw their own situation as unique. They all saw themselves as unique and they all maintained hope that they would find a job soon enough. But the truth was there was no counter counting down the time until they received their next opportunity. They could get a job any time between a day from now or they could be waiting twenty years. People preferred not to speak with one another in such venues, they were all disgusted with one another, everyone holding their own self-entitled pride. And Richard was no different. He looked around at the people waiting and presumed their sin of sloth.
He sat down with the consultant and answered their questions. With each question the consultant would navigate through the systems on their computer and click the appropriate buttons to determine if he had met his obligations as a job seeker.
And once that was completed Richard would return to the practice of riding his unicycle in various parking lots around the neighbourhood. One day Fabian joined him. Fabian came with a couple of longneck beers in hand to witness Richard’s improved skill. He sat on the parking lot curb, drinking his beers and commenting on Richard’s mastery of the unicycle, “Damn man! I can’t even ride one of those things, but you can do all sorts of shit on it, can’t ya’?”
“Yeah, I was thinking,” Richard conversed as he rode backwards and forwards, “I was thinking that I could start putting on shows for the public.”
“You mean busking?”
“Yeah, busking. Think about it. I wouldn’t have any boss that I would have to report to. I wouldn’t have to deal with those bureaucrats at Centrelink. I’d treat it like a job, buskers can make good money if they offer something unique.” Richard remained semi-stationary and did a couple of jumps on the unicycle.
“Yeah, but just riding a unicycle isn’t going to do it. You’d have to offer the crowd something special.”
Richard got off the unicycle to join Fabian on the parking lot curb, “What do you mean?”
“You’d have to do something with your hands. Like spinning a walking cane around or something, I dunno…”
Richard and Fabian drank beers until the sun went down. Fabian had a lot of venting to do about his work and Richard listened peacefully. In their own ways they had both been working full days. Putting in the time and effort so that they could relax and rest easy, knowing that they had achieved something for the day.
The next day Richard went shopping for clothes. Lacking any suitable funding to go out to the commercial shops, he browsed through opportunity shops and looked around for second hand clothing that was still suitable to wear. In amongst the different clothes and items of a miscellaneous nature, he found himself a bowler hat. Looking at the thing gave him an idea. It had a price tag attached to it that marked it on sale for ten dollars. It was of good quality and he did not complain, he bought the hat along with a few articles of clothing and then went back to his practice of the unicycle.
This time he added the bowler hat into his routine. He started off by throwing the hat up in the air and catching it with the other hand while maintaining balance on the unicycle. It was difficult at first, but over time and practice the action became more fluid. After he had mastered simple actions, he began practicing more complex tasks. Like throwing the bowler hat a great distance up in the air and manoeuvring himself and the unicycle so that the hat would land on his head. He tried and failed that trick many times before he had any success. But over time he managed to achieve the results he desired. And shortly after that he was doing all sorts of complex and intricate things.
After a couple of months of practice Fabian once again came to witness the skills that Richard had accumulated. He sat there with a longneck beer as he had done before. This time Richard was riding on the unicycle, throwing the hat up in the air, spinning the hat on his fingers, catching the hat in his teeth and jumping up and down on the unicycle in a reverse motion.
Fabian was bewildered, “Holy shit man! Yeah, I’d pay to see that. You’re god damned diabolical on that thing!”
“Diabolical, hey?” Richard said, while raising an eyebrow. “I like the sound of that. I think I’ll use that as my stage name.” Richard threw the hat up in the air and jumped on the unicycle in a three-hundred and sixty degree motion, “You may call me, ‘Diabolical’.”
Fabian offered Richard a beer and they both sat and witnessed the sun set in the park. Toasting to Richard’s success and newfound vocation.
The next Friday Richard travelled into the city to perform along Southbank, outside the casino in Melbourne. He carried with him a piece of chalk. He was dressed in a white shirt, black pants, with a black bow-tie, and stars drawn in black make-up around his eyes. With a series of onlookers, he drew out a circle on the pavement and announced to his audience, “Ladies and gentlemen, what you are about to witness can be described in no other way but ‘diabolical’.”
After the brief introduction Richard mounted the unicycle and started riding around inside the perimeter of the chalk circle that he had drawn up on the pavement. After that, he started travelling backwards in the same motion with his bowler hat affixed to his head. He was just laying out the territory, ensuring that the audience gave him space. After the audience acknowledged this, he started jumping up and down on the unicycle in a backwards motion. Then he moved forwards again and threw the bowler hat up in the air and caught it with the other hand. Then he laid his arms out like a seesaw and began rolling the hat up and down the length of his arms as he maintained balance on the unicycle. He began to gather quite a crowd at this point and his hat tricks and motions on the unicycle increased in complexity. He continued to perform until his grand finale where he rode the unicycle backwards, threw the hat up in the air, jumped up in the air on the unicycle, perform a three hundred and sixty degree twist and catching the bowler hat on his head. He then dismounted from the unicycle to the sound of great applause from the audience who had gathered around him. He then walked around the circle that had been lined up in chalk and held the bowler hat out as his audience deposited their donations to his act.
After this he took a half an hour break. He counted the money that he had earned. All up, he had received sixty dollars. Sixty dollars for a half hour routine wasn’t bad, Richard thought. He waited around for another half an hour. Buying himself a bottle of water, smoking some cigarettes and then returned to the circle laid out in chalk and repeated the half an hour act to a different audience of passers-by.
He repeated the act until the stroke of midnight and then caught the last train home. All up, he had earned two hundred and eighty dollars. It wasn’t bad for a single night’s work. Hell, it was bloody fantastic!
For the next week he went to the same area and repeated the routine. Some days were better than others, but each day was certainly worth the trip into town. Sometimes he would perform by daylight, other times he would perform at night. And he was slowly gathering a small fortune while doing so. Richard thought about the good fortune he had come across ever since leaving the bar job. The time and effort he had placed into creating and maintaining his act. It had all been worth it.
But he began to notice something. The more he performed. The less takings he would receive. The crowd was growing weary of the act, despite how fantastic it was.
Then came the day that would end his series of performances in Melbourne. It was during the day and he had gathered a crowd of small children who were looking at the man on the unicycle performing his routine. Then a child, a small girl with ribbons done in her hair in a pigtail fashion, went running into the circle drawn up in chalk. At that point Richard was balancing the hat in a see-saw motion up along the length of his arms. When he saw the child, he lost all control of the unicycle and veered off to the side, collapsing in a heap. Enraged by the incident, Richard lost his temper at the small child and began yelling at her, “You little shit! You fucked up my entire routine!”
The reaction came as an automatic reaction that Richard had felt in the pain of his fall. The girl paused for a second in silence and then Richard could see the tears well up in her eyes. He held up his hands, trying to stop her from the tears. But the tears came, as did the screams, “Mummy! Mummmmmmy!!!”
The audience that had gathered around Richard then began to call out in disgust at Richard’s behaviour. To which there was nothing Richard could do to take back the action. A large, muscular man approached Richard. Grabbing his arm and twisting it behind Richard’s back in what was a painful action, yelling at him, “Apologise to the young girl, ya’ bastard!”
To which Richard squeaked out, “I’m sorry…” in the most pathetic way imaginable, with tears of pain running down his cheeks, making his make-up run.
The little girl stopped crying and started laughing at Richard. The muscular man released Richard from his grip and then pushed him to the ground. The man took Richard’s takings for the day and gave it to the little girl and her mother.
The crowd dispersed, leaving Richard there broken and bruised, realizing that he could never perform in Melbourne again.
III.
Richard returned home that day in hysterics. He kept on yelling and ranting about how he had had enough of this shithole city and that he was moving away to greener pastures. Try as Fabian might to calm him down, he could do nothing to settle his temper. Richard packed up some of his belongings in a suitcase. A few changes of clothes, some of his essential belongings and then went out to Fabian to ask him a favour.
“Hey man,” they were both sitting down at the kitchen table, “if I pay you a month’s rent in advance, will you be able to clear up the rest of my shit. Sell my stuff. Do with it what you need to.”
“Yeah, man, sure.” Fabian looked at Richard, “What happened? Anything serious? Are you okay?”
“It was just farked man! Absolutely farked! I was basically humiliated in front of the whole city. I hate this farkin’ city! I farkin’ hate it!”
“Calm down, just tell me what happened and we can sort it all out.”
But Richard didn’t stick around to bother explaining everything to Fabian. He paid him the one month’s rent in advance. Grabbed his suitcase, the unicycle, everything else that he needed and took the next train into the city. On the train journey into the city, he plotted out his route via his phone. He planned to stop over in Geelong before heading west out towards Perth. He would stop along the road, stopping off at various points like Adelaide and all of the smaller rural towns inbetween. Performing his act and fueling his journey with any money he could. That was the plan.
Hitting the open road, with no responsibilities. He’d pick up a car somewhere along the way, but for now he was appeased with taking the train. He booked a bed to stay in a backpackers in Geelong. A pub called Irish Murphys’ that existed just outside of the central business district of the city. He booked it for a series of three nights, believing that he could perform in the city centre for the next two days before continuing on his journey out west.
The train from Melbourne to Geelong was only an hour’s journey and he soon found himself exiting the train. From there he caught a bus to the backpackers where he made camp for the night. He kept to himself and made sure that his belongings were locked up inside his room. There weren’t many other tourists in the place. There were a couple of middle aged Chinese women who were sharing a room. He ran into them in the kitchen while they were preparing themselves a meal. Some noodles mixed with fried chicken strips and some vegetables. They piled the soy sauce into the saucepan as they cooked the noodles, adding a teaspoon of fish sauce and other spices that were acquainted to their tastes. He attempted to make conversation with them, but they were largely lacking fluency in the English dialect. They looked at him in confusion as he attempted to make conversation. Feeling that his words would not be heard, he went downstairs and purchased a bottle of cheap red wine. He offered them each a glass, to which they refused. They retired to their rooms and he retired to his. He ended up drinking the full bottle of wine and falling asleep in a half-drunk state.
He woke up in the morning at about a quarter past ten. He felt like he had eaten the cork of the wine bottle and the cork was being digested slowly in his stomach, floating in his stomach acids, producing this queasy feeling that was akin to seasickness. He went downstairs. The bar staff were busy preparing the venue for service later that day, so he went next door to the tuck shop and bought himself a sandwich. One of those greasy bacon and egg ones, with the paper wrapping around it that had become transparent because of all the grease dripping off of the bacon. He ate it and bought himself a bottle of lemon soda to wash it all down. It calmed his stomach and the queasy feeling soon disappeared.
After a couple of hours sitting and watching cable television in the lounge room drinking glasses of water, he pulled himself together and prepared to make his grand debut on the city streets of Geelong. He dressed himself up in usual attire and applied the make-up to his eyes. White collared shirt, black bow-tie and black pants. Accompanied, of course, with the bowler hat. He caught the bus into the city. He couldn’t really find any performance space. There weren’t any other buskers and he spied that a group of homeless people had set up some form of encampment outside of the mall. He went into little Malop street where he decided there was enough space where he could perform his act. People walking past him looked at him oddly, not understanding what he intended to do.
He drew up a circle with a piece of white chalk that he kept in his pocket and once more mounted his unicycle. Some people stopped and called out to him, “Hey, what the hell are you trying to do?”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he called out, raising his voice so that anybody within a fifty meter radius could hear him, “I am the great and glorious ‘Diabolical’ and what I am about to do here today is absolutely diabolical! If you all wish to witness the events with your own eyes, you will not be displeased!” A few people stopped and began watching Richard as he rode the unicycle around in circles. Then backwards in circles.
There was not much of a crowd, but what he didn’t expect was for the encampment of homeless people to come and watch him. There was a small group of them, about five in all came to witness him as the others remained with their makeshift setup of sleeping bags and miscellaneous items. The leader of the group appeared to be a stout Mexican man. The Mexican man was roughly shaven and smoked a cigarette. He wore gloves with the fingers cut off and a dirty grey torn jacket, with cotton coming out of the tears in the material. He began speaking English with a rough accent, “This motherfucker says he’s ‘diabolical’, that’s my name! You ain’t taking my name now are ya’?” Richard ignored the homeless man as he continued on with his routine. Balancing his hat along his arms like a see-saw. “Now I know you wouldn’t be doing that? Taking my name ya’ faggot!” The berating comments began to get on Richard’s nerves. But he held his peace and continued on with the act. “Ya’ piece of shit! I’m ‘Diabolical’, that’s my name!” Other people began to leave the crowd that had gathered around Richard, scared off by the homeless man. And pretty soon the homeless man was yelling at him, “That’s my name! That’s my name! That’s my name!” Over and over again without pause. After all of the potential paying audience had dispersed, frightened by the constant heckling by the homeless man, Richard got off of the unicycle and ceased his act.
He looked at the homeless man and his fellow cohorts, he wasn’t that tall and he was sure that he would be able to at least outrun them on the unicycle if they went to attack him. So Richard began yelling at him, “You worthless piece of shit! You just scared them all off! Fark you and fark this town!”
The homeless Mexican man stood there and didn’t say anything. Instead he flicked the cigarette that he had been smoking towards Richard. The cigarette fell at Richard’s feet. The homeless man didn’t say anything after that, he just kept on staring at Richard. The other homeless people that had come with him lost interest and all walked back towards their encampment. But the Mexican homeless man, he just kept on standing there, staring at Richard without saying a word.
After a while it began to creep Richard out, so Richard decided to walk back to the backpackers. Not looking back to see if he was being followed. When he reached the pub that doubled as a backpackers, he looked back behind him to see if he was being followed. He felt relieved when he found that the homeless man was nowhere in sight. So he entered the pub and ordered himself a drink.
It started off with one pint. A pint of Carlton draught because it was the cheapest drink that he could afford. He would sit and listen to the music. They had live musicians who were performing classic and well-known rock songs. He would sit there alone and listen to songs, ordering pint after pint. Between intervals of the songs he would go outside and have a cigarette. Toking on cigarettes and talking to strangers. They’d offer him tidbits and information on a variety of different subjects. Nothing that mattered to him. He did take an interest in the story concerning how the homeless had all migrated from the larger capital city of Melbourne to Geelong. The police restrictions, they had explained, were less strict than they were in Melbourne. For some reason they seemed to get away with sleeping outside of the mall in the central business district. Richard listened attentively, nodding his head as he did so. Then went back into the bar and continued ordering pints of Carlton draught.
Eventually he ran out of cigarettes and half cut, he asked the bartender where he could buy cigarettes. The bartender replied that there was a supermarket up down the road, about a kilometre. So he finished what remained of his current pint, placed his bowler hat on his head and went off to find the supermarket.
He had been walking for about five minutes when it happened. An unknown assailant surprised him from behind and covered his face with a cloth covered in chloroform. He lost consciousness almost immediately.
When he awoke, he was tied by the wrists and ankles, placed upon a wooden table in some unknown park. He struggled against the bonds, but they were affixed to his limbs tightly. He called out into the night, “Hello! What’s happening!? What’s happening!?!”
From out of the shadows appeared the Mexican homeless man. The same one who had caused a disturbance in his performance earlier that day. “Y’know, I wasn’t lying.”
Richard struggled more intensely against his bonds, but it was of no use, “What the fark are you doing you psycho!? Release me at once. I demand that you release me!”
“That’s not going to help you homie. There ain’t no turning back from this shit now. It’s just me and you, alone here in the park. And nobody else around to hear ya’.”
“Didn’t you hear me!? Let me go!” Richard called out, “Help! Heellp!”
“I wasn’t lying when I said my name is ‘Diabolical’. Except the reason that I had that name was probably different from the reason why you had that name.”
“Help! Heeelp!!!” Richard screamed out into the night without any reply.
Diabolical produced a small knife. It was curved at the end of the blade. He then leaned forward and pressed it up against Richard’s neck. “I said shut the fuck up!” After that Diabolical wrapped a bandana around the mouth of Richard. Tying it around his mouth to act as a gag so that he couldn’t make any more noise. Any more noise that Richard attempted to make was inaudible. “As I was saying. I too am known by the name ‘Diabolical’. I received that name many years ago in my native country. I was a small child, perhaps eleven or twelve years old. I came from a very poor family and was being constantly bullied at school. So much so that for the large part I refused to attend. Instead, I would run around the neighbourhood, stealing food and different things in an effort to entertain myself. There was a group of us. I considered us all friends. Until one day, those friends turned against me and I was ousted from that group. In an act of revenge I kidnapped their dog. I tied that dog up much like I have you tied up here and now. And with that dog I skinned him alive. Back then, I wasn’t very good at it and made a mess of things. But I completed the job and displayed the pet before my old friends. No doubt, they were upset and probably would have killed me. If it weren’t for a man dressed in an all-white suit. He saw what I had done and then shot a pistol to scare off the other kids, my former friends. After that the man took me in and said that he could use someone like me. So he gave me other animals to skin. Feral cats from the neighbourhood, things like that. I got so good at it, that that man gave me the name ‘Diabolical’ in reference to my diabolical skill.” That was when Diabolical approached Richard, tied up to the table and unable to voice any sound of protest, with the knife. He began by cutting open his clothes. Leaving him naked in the cold night. Then after that made incisions up and down the length of his limbs. They were made lengthways, up the length of Richard’s arms and legs. He attempted to scream out in pain. But could not. “That man turned out to be a major drug lord in the city and used me. Allowing me to torture his captured enemies. Skinning them and presenting their carcasses to their family and loved ones. You could be sure that nobody crossed that man.” Diabolical made another incision, identical to the last, down the lengthways of the limbs. Running parallel to the other incision, perhaps three centimetres apart. “I was treated well. With luxury and everything else that I could ask for. This went on for years.” With the parallel incisions, he placed the knife underneath and began to peel the strip of skin off Richard’s body. Richard attempted to howl and struggle against the bonds, but there wasn’t anything he could do. “Until one day, that man asked me to skin someone who I didn’t want to skin. She was a lover. One of many, but a lover still the same.” After the strips of skin had been peeled, Diabolical had an opening to the rest of the skin that covered Richard’s body. From there he could go about the process like peeling an orange. Placing the knife under the skin and peeling off the rest of the layer. “I turned on the old man. The one who had taken me in and skinned him instead. But that man was powerful and once my betrayal was known, I had to leave the country. Somewhere where I couldn’t be found. So I thought, ‘Australia’, I mean, why not, right?”
For the rest of the operation Diabolical remained focused on the process. Skinning the man alive and ensuring that everything was done to the utmost level of skill. After everything had been done and Richard’s whole body was skinned, Diabolical would tie him and string him up to a nearby gum tree. Singing to himself as he did so, “Give me a home amongst the gum trees. With lots of plum trees. A sheep or two, a kangaroo. A clothesline out the back. Verandah out the front.” All in a heavy Mexican accent. “And an old rockin’ chair.”
Richard’s body would be discovered the next morning. By early morning joggers through the park, with his body strung up a gum tree, hung like a fisherman showing off his catch, by the legs. With his bowler hat strategically placed beneath him.
As the blood dripped from his skinned carcass, dripping into the bowler hat in a little pool.

Let’s set the record straight now, I’m not a gambler. When I arrived home from work on a dreary October evening the last thing I wanted to do was go out for a night of poor decision making. My idiot older brother, however, that’s a different story. I wasn’t too surprised to find a text message awaiting my attention as I settled into my couch.
“Jimmy! How was work, bro?? They pay up yet?”
I rub my temples at my brother’s choice of phrasing, “Mason just quit last week. I’m next in line. Trying to be patient,” I text back half heartedly.
“Ah, corporate greed. You gotta love it,” he responds. I roll my eyes, not sure what that has to do with anything. I’m just waiting for the--
“So... there’s a new casino that just opened up in Atlantic City! I’m checking it out tonight,”And there it is. I’d seen a few ads about the place and I just knew my brother would be itching to go. Honestly, though, who would actually try to build in that money pit? The investors must be nuts, “I know you aren’t a fan of gambling, but Gary bailed on me and it’s no fun going alone I don’t see how losing a shit ton of cash is any better with friends, but I guess it makes the experience a little less… agonizing?
As if sensing my hesitation, he adds, “Don’t forget, you owe me. You in, buddy?”
Damn. I did owe him a favor. I was really hoping he had forgotten about that. A work trip came out of nowhere last month, and Phil volunteered to stay at my place for a few days to watch my dog. It was a lifesaver; the last thing I wanted to do was put the poor girl into one of those kennel cough infested boarding houses..
To be clear, Phil’s a good guy. He’s kind of a moron, but he’s family, you know? Still, I had no interest in spending my night in a casino. I let out a big, exaggerated sigh and let my head lull back on the top of the couch, contemplating the small crack in the ceiling. Maybe a night out wouldn’t be so bad after the week I’d had, but did I really want to do this? I mustered up the energy to lift my phone over my head and draft a response.
“I don’t know, Phil. I’m really beat. Can we do it another time?”
I didn’t even have time to put my phone down again before he started typing.
“Come on! I’ll buy you a few drinks? Please,” he said. Wow, free drinks from a casino that gives out complimentary ones. Now I’m convinced.
Forget it, this conversation is more stress than it’s worth, “Alright, I’m in.”
“YES! The new casino’s called “Vices.” It’s all the way on the east end of the boardwalk. Meet you at the elevators at 9.”
It was like he knew he’d wear me down. I’m such a pushover. I had no choice but to accept my fate. I pulled myself up off the couch, changed into something a bit more appropriate for what I was getting into and went on my way.
Luckily, it’s not a long journey from my apartment to Atlantic City. It only takes me about 45 minutes if the traffic is kind to me. It wasn’t long before the blinding lights of the city started to assert themselves on the horizon. Vices may have been brand new, but I had no trouble finding it. One would be hard-pressed to miss such a gaudy empire of beaming lights and brilliant colors. Clearly no expense was spared for this one.
I found the entrance for self-parking and my jaw dropped when I saw the price. 30 dollars for parking? Who do these people think they are? I muttered some choice words for my brother, the casino ownership, and the city under my breath and made my way up the ramp. The garage was huge but packed. You know, I don’t frequent casino parking garages but this one is... oddly lit? The whole garage seemed awash in this sickly greenish yellow hue – a little too dim to the point that it was remotely unsettling. Maybe they were some new kind of energy saving lights? Ah, whatever. ?
I went up and up – wondering to myself if I was ever going to find a spot when I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. A quick glance at the clock told me it was likely Phil as I was 20 minutes late. As I accepted the call, I noticed the reverse lights of a beat up white SUV flicker to life and I hit my brakes to claim the spot. I silently thank the parking gods as, Phil’s voice belted out of my car speakers and I could tell he had already taken advantage of the complimentary drinks.
“Yoo little brother! Where you at? I came over to the elevators to wait for you, “ he slurs as I’m already mentally preparing for a long night, “I’m looking at a clock that says 9:20 and you aren’t here. What gives?”
I start to answer but my attention is drawn to the uncomfortable stain on the front bumper of the SUV backing out. At first I thought it was mud, but it looks almost red and is that a---
“Hey? You with me?” my brother barked. The SUV speeds off and I blink myself out of my trance. I let out a quick, irritated sigh as I whipped into the now vacant spot and said, “I’m parking now, chill out. I’ll be down in a minute.” Phil started to whine but I quickly ended the call before I had to listen to any of it. I hurriedly swung my door open, nearly connecting with the car next to me. I cringed as I took in the pungent smell of the garage. You’d think it being brand new it wouldn’t have the smell of despair already infecting the place. I eagerly headed inside, taking a deep breath of sanitized air as I stepped inside the elevator. Typical elevator music droned on as I made my descent towards the casino floor. Accompanying the music was some pre-recorded audio of a woman welcoming guests and wishing them luck.
“Hello and welcome to Vices casino and resort. We’re so glad to have you with us and we encourage you to check out everything we have to offer. Enjoy your stay, and may you be blessed with good fortune!”
“Yeah, whatever you say, lady,” I said with a sigh, shoving my hands into my pockets. After a few moments the doors slid open just as the recording started to repeat. I shuffled out of the door and called over to Phil, who was leaning up against a wall with a goofy smile stretching across his face.
“Hey Phil, sorry I’m late. That parking was a bitch. It took me forever to find a space. By the way, 30 dollars? Are you kidding me?”
Phil continued smiling and rolled his eyes knowingly. It’s no secret that punctuality isn’t an area I excel in. I’m always the one who’s late to the party, late for work, or calling to move a reservation back. He shook his head at me and spoke up.
“It’s fine, Jimmy boy! Let’s hit the Blackjack tables before my buzz wears off!”
“How’s it going?” I asked and he rubbed the back of his neck, still sober enough to notice how far he was in the hole, I see.
“My luck’s about to change. You’ve always been my good luck charm!” he said. I wonder how much overtime he’s going to need to make up for tonight.
What followed was a night predictably devoid of any kind of real enjoyment on my part, and a little too much enjoyment on Phil’s part. Again, I’m not a gambler, but I know enough to not make a fool of myself. We hung around until it was nearly closing time. Before we called it a night, I decided to try my luck on one of the slot machines. I sat there boredly playing for a bit while I nursed my last beer.
Jackpot.
Stunned, I remained seated as lights flashed and music chimed out of the machine. I had just won about 10,000 dollars. I’d gained a bit of an audience now made up of a few of the patrons that remained at this time of the night. Amongst the group was a large, brooding man who was wearing a uniform that gave him away as one of the casino employees. He didn’t look happy, but I certainly was.
Phil wasn’t so lucky. He ended up out $800 by the time I finally convinced him to give it a rest. To make matters worse, his buzz had evolved into full blown drunkenness. Knowing that he was in no shape to drive, I used my winnings to put him up in a room for the night. After I made sure he was settled in I headed back for the elevators. I had consumed a few drinks myself over the course of the evening but dealing with Phil had left me fully sober by the time I was ready to drive home. Once inside the elevator I reached for the controls and realized I was missing some vital information.
I didn’t remember what level I parked on.
I started doing mental gymnastics trying to remember where my car was, but I couldn’t summon the memory. I had been so flustered by Phil’s phone call and my own lateness that I completely forgot to take note of where I landed in the massive garage. There were 12 levels. Anxiously, I settled on level 8 even though I wasn’t sure if that was right. It might have been lower. Or maybe I parked up a little higher? The elevator car ascended up towards its destination as the now familiar audio clip of the woman’s voice played once more and I started to zone out.
“Hello and welcome to Vices casino and resort. We’re so glad to have you with us and we encourage you to check out everything we have to offer. Enjoy your stay, and may you never leave this place again.”
The elevator chimed and the doors opened but I stood there for a moment with my mouth slightly agape. I muttered, “what did she just say?”
The doors started to close again before I had any time to contemplate what I thought I just heard. I jolted out of my stupor and grabbed the door to stop it from closing and stumbled clumsily out into the garage. A large red number 8 greeted me and I started walking up the ramp looking for my car.
“Okay, shake it off. I must have just misheard something.”
Parking garages have always made me feel uneasy. They’re dark and dingy structures built hastily with no intent to comfort or impress. You’re meant to park your car and spend as little time in them as possible. The smell of exhaust wafts through constantly as everyone drives up and down the ramps between levels at a pace that usually falls on the opposite side of caution. This garage, regardless of its newly built status, was no different. Those who had probably taken the time to make a mental note of their vehicle’s whereabouts were flying past me as I walked up and down the paths leading to and from each level.
I made my way up from level 8, scanning through level 9 as well but having no luck finding my car. It should be clear by now that I have an unfavorable opinion of these parking garages, but this was still more of an annoyance than anything. I’m not an idiot. I’d find it soon. From 9, I walked up to 10. Then, I tried level 11. Throughout this ordeal I was repeatedly hitting the lock button on my key fob to excersise the tried and true method of listening for a beep to get a lead on which direction to head in. I wasn’t hearing anything. This either meant that I wasn’t even close, or that my key fob’s signal was comically weak.
I finished combing through 11. Nothing. I knew I didn’t park on the roof, so there was no reason to go all the way up to level 12. Now I was getting frustrated. My pace quickened and my leg muscles started to burn as I made a beeline for the elevator which was thankfully close by. I expected to hear more music along with the benign voice of the woman and her welcome message, but oddly enough there was no audio. I decided I would go all the way down to level 4 this time. There was no way I parked below 4, and I figured it would be a foolproof way of finding my car and getting the hell out of there.
I was wrong. I got all the way back up to level 8 with no trace of my car. I stopped in front of the same red number 8 I had seen when I started. While standing for a minute to catch my breath, I looked around and noticed a detail that had somehow eluded my attention to this point. The walls of the garage were completely closed. Most of these buildings have large openings in the walls which I assume is a design choice meant to keep the air relatively ventilated. Here, there were no openings, only vents lining the sides of the ceilings. That must have been how this particular garage handled exhaust fumes. This realization unnerved me, and I could feel myself begining to panic.
The garage was mostly empty now. The casino had closed over an hour ago. One might think there should still be a decent number of vehicles left that belonged to the resort guests, but resort guests had a separate parking garage located more conveniently toward the heart of the casino. I repeated my previous strategy a couple times while expanding my search to the lower levels of the building. I was still coming up empty.
My legs were on fire, and the beginning stages of panic had elevated to near hysteria. Thinking my car might have been stolen and at a loss for what to do next, I pulled out my phone and dialed 911. Someone answered quickly.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“Hello? I uh.. I think someone might have stolen my car. I’m in the Vices casino parking garage and I can’t find it,” I said with my voice shaking as I thought about how lame this probably sounded.
“You think your car was stolen. Okay, are you sure you remember where you parked it?”
“No, I don’t remember where I parked it. Sorry, I just can’t find it and I’ve been looking around for over an hour and – …” the operator cut me off.
“Sir, this line is for emergencies only. If you have actual reason to believe your vehicle was stolen, I reccommend calling your local police station and filing a report with them. Please don’t waste our time again unless you are in immediate danger. Thank you.” She hung up before I could get another word in.
Great. Now I felt like an even bigger idiot than I did before. I didn’t have much time to feel sorry for myself, however, as just then a loud bang reverberated down the garage from somewhere several levels above me followed by the sound of a man screaming in pain.
Without giving my worsening situation much thought, I started running up to see if someone needed help. I was mostly out of energy, but my adrenaline was carrying me forward. The sounds of the screaming man had returned until I was sure I had reached the same level he was on. I kept running in the direction of the screams until what I saw stopped me in my tracks. I put both hands on my head and winced hard.
The man had been pinned to the wall by a white SUV – the same beat up old SUV that had given up it’s spot to me earlier in the night. Perhaps he had gone into shock, because he wasn’t screaming anymore. He was only moaning in pain. His eyes darted over to me and we made eye contact.
“For God’s sake, HELP ME!”
That immediately brought me back from my frozen state of disbelief and I quickly made my way over to him.
I stammered out, “holy… who did this to you?!”
“I don’t know,” the man replied in a wet, garbled voice. “The guy came out of nowhere… Don’t move me… just… call 911. Please.” I snatched my phone out of my pocked and dialed 911. The operator wouldn’t be able to scoff and hang up on me now.
Something was wrong. I wasn’t getting a dial tone. My screen showed 911 with the call timer ticking away underneath, but my phone stayed silent.
“I… I don’t know what’s going on. My phone’s not working,” I said in a panic stricken voice.
The man said nothing. He was only able to cough up blood and mutter something unintelligible in response.
“Sir, I’m going to go get help. I’m going to run down to the bottom and get out of this place so I can get you some medical attention.”
There was no saving this man. A cursory glance at his injuries told me that much. His torso had been pancaked into the concrete wall and a pool of blood was rapidly growing underneath him. Despite this, I couldn’t just leave him there without saying anything. With that, I sprinted off back down the ramp. Momentum was carrying me down the levels with surprising speed. I surmised that my car was stolen by the man in the white SUV and nothing mattered more than getting out of that parking garage now.
The large red number 8 went by my peripheral vision in a blur and I almost tripped over my own feet making the turn to head down the next ramp. I reached level 7, then level 6, and finally level 5 before my progress was halted by every single eerily colored light in this God forsaken place shutting off at once. A loud “click” resonated throughout the building and suddenly I was surrounded by complete darkness.
I fumbled around for my phone and activated the flashlight function. It only provided a laughable amout of light but at the very least it let me see a couple feet in front of me. My pace had slowed to a brisk walk due to my sudden lack of vision but I kept making progress until I had reached level 4.
Another faint bang and scream echoed down to me. This time it wasn’t followed by any more shouts of pain. The sound of squealing tires and an engine roaring down the garage came instead. The white SUV had finished the job and now it was after me.
Abandoning any caution I was taking before, I raced through levels 4 and 3 in record time. Then I made it to 2. I could hear the vehicle’s engine firing up every time it cleared a turn. It was getting louder and louder until I finally reached the bottom and dashed out the exit. I flattened myself against the outer wall of the parking garage with my eyes pointed toward the exit. I was expecting the SUV to careen out at full speed, but it never did. The garage fell silent, and I collapsed onto the ground and faded out of consiousness.
If you’re planning on going out for a night of gambling, make an effort to remember where your car is parked. Better yet, just stay away from the Vices parking garage.