Is Ignition Poker Rigged? - Fliptroniks - top100.playrealmoneytopgame.xyz

[A/N: As usual, leave any comment, questions, criticism, feedback, etc]
Link: 1. 2. 3. 4.
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Saint Louis opens her eyes and looks around. She sees her hands nailed into her spear.
“Not again.” She has seen this scene before. She was crucified again. *Woosh* She hears a flame ignite in the distance. She looks up and sees the flames illuminate a figure. A recognizable maid. Bloodfast. The twisted maid stands there with a torch in hand and a hand holding a shirt collar. Bloodfast tosses the torch at the base of where Saint Louis hangs, igniting a pile of wood. With the light, Saint could see that the maid held the collar of the Commander’s unconscious body. Saint Louis softly cries as the maid laughs.
“Weak.” She hears her say as she drags the body of the commander into the darkness. Tears stream down her cheek.
“I am sorry, Commander.” She whispers as the flame engulfed her. “I am sorry that I am weak.”“Saint.” she hears around her. “Saint Louis. Comrade!”
---
“Argh.” Saint Louis slowly opens her eyes, blinded by the room light. She could make out someone looming over her. “Azuma?”
“Нет. [A/T: Pronounce Nyet. Means No].” The cold apathetic voice answers her. “Take another guess.” Saint blinks, wiping the sleep out of her eyes. Her head still hurts from last night's drink, but she manages to clean her vision and lookup. Her red eyes stare into the grey eyes of Sovetsky Soyuz, the faction leader of the Northern Parliament.
“Ummm…” Saint Louis’s face burned red, embarrassed, realizing that she slept on the faction leader’s lap. “Désolée.” She sits up, a cold sweat across her body. There was an awkward silence between the both of them as they sat on the couch.
“Umm…” she clutches her spear. “What time is it?”
“It’s morning.” Soyuz answers, her arms crossed against her chest. Saint turns into a tomato, now realizing that she slept the whole night on her lap.
“I am so sorry about using your lap.” She tells her, burying her heads in her hands, hiding the embarrassment.
“Don’t worry about it, Comrade.” Soyuz nonchalantly tells her, pulling out a box of cigarettes. She pulls a stick and lights it. “Only the people on this ship know, as well as the Comrade Commander.”
“He knows!?” Saint jumps to her feet.
Soyuz lets out a puff of smoke, crossing her legs. “Yup.” The french cruiser sits back on the couch and curls into a ball, wanting to hide. The northern leader leans back and looks at her.
“Did you have a nightmare?” she asks her. “You were tossing and turning in your sleep.” Her cheeks fade away as she remembers her nightmare. “You were also talking in your sleep.”
“Grrrr.” Saint groans. “Why do I have that habit?” she sighs and sits properly. “Yes. I had a nightmare.”
“What was it about?” Soyuz pressed onward with her questions.
“Bloodfast.” *Crack* *Crack* *Shimmer* She feels the temperature drop to below zero as ice crystals float in the air around them. She turns to Soyuz and sees a frustrated expression on her face, her hands turning into fists.
The faction leader glances at her and lets out a deep breath, calming herself. “Sorry.” The room warms up, the ice disappearing. She continues to smoke, while Saint Louis stares at her, confused at what just happened. The awkward silence continues for minutes until Avrora walks into the room.
“Hmmmm~” Arvora stretches her arms. “Oh! Good morning Comrade Saint and Comrade Leader Soyuz.”
“Bonjour Avrora.” Saint Louis greets her, standing up.
“Had a good sleep?” Avrora asks her.
The French cruiser nervously chuckled, looking over to Soyuz. “Comme ci comme ça.”
“That’s good.” she laughs. “I was worried when I saw you drunkenly stumbling before falling asleep on the couch. I was about to take you to your room, but Soyuz said not to disturb her.”
“Heheheheeee…” Saint sigh heavily, leaning against her spear as Soyuz lets out a puff.
“Making breakfast?” she asks Avrora.
The light cruiser nod. “Yes.” She turns to the sad Saint. “I was hoping if it could be possible you would help me with making breakfast. I heard from Seattle that you make good chocolate pancakes. ”
Saint sighs as she stands up straight. “There are called crêpe, but yes, I could make some for the group. I just need some ingredients...” She follows her to the kitchen and takes inventory.
“We got flour and eggs… and water.” Saint rolls her shoulders as she takes off her gauntlets. She ties her grey hair into a short ponytail. She starts to put cups of flours into a mixing bowl. She then starts cracking eggs. “I would prefer milk instead of water, but this can do.” She comments as she pours water into the mix. She grabs a whisk and begins to stir like hell. Arvora and Soyuz fascinating watch as she whips up a crêpe batter in mere seconds.
“That is quick.” Avrora comments, taking out some dried sausages. She watches Saint take out two frying pans and some oil. Heating up the pans, she coats each of them with oil. She pours the mixture into the pans and beings to cook it. In one minute, she flips both crepes in the air, catching both of them in the pan. After forty seconds, she takes the cooked pancakes and lays it flat on a plate. She repeats the process until all the batter she made is gone. A stack of about fifty crêpes stands before her as she looks into cabinets and fridge.
“There we go.” She pulls out a jar of honey and a variety of berries. She lays out one of the crepes and pulls a row of berries in the middle with a little bit of honey. She then rolls it up and drizzles more honey on it. “Bon appetit.” She smiles as she serves it to Soyuz. Soyuz looks at the dish and nods in approval.
“Looks good.” She comments as she takes a bite. “Taste good.”
“Merci.” Saint Louis smiles.
“Mmmm… Crêpes~” From the entrance, Roon comes waltzing in, entranced by the smell of crêpes. Roon quickly makes one and eats it. “Mmmmm~” she cutely moans, savoring the taste.
“Now Roon,” Saint walks over to her, stopping her from making another one. “Don’t eat all of them. This is for everyone.”
“Okay.” Roon nods. “Thank you for making sweets~” She bearhugs her. Saint could feel the air escaping from her lungs as her grip tightened.
“Roon.” Saint mutters. “L-loosen your grip. Can’t breathe.” The Iron Blood cruiser lets go of her. “Thank you Roon.” She takes a breath before head patting her. Roon brightly smiles as breakfast preparation finishes and everyone slowly comes in.
“MMMmmmmm~ Thank you for the food,” Tashkent tells Saint as she enjoys the crêpe.
“No worries.” Saint smiles as everyone enjoys her creation. Well, almost everyone. Monarch walks into the common quarter with heavy footfall, her combat heels clicking against the cold steel as she takes a crêpe and some dried sausage slices and sulks at a table. Her resting bitch face looked more annoyed than usual. Sitting next to her was Izumo, who looked more grief-stricken like her pride was destroyed. Saint Louis grabs some food and walks over to them, sitting across from them.
“Good morning.” Saint greets them.
“Urgh.” Monarch groans
“Good morning Saint-san.” Izumo slightly bows. Silence follows the group as they eat. Both Monarch and Izumo ate as it was their last meal. Their minds were on something else.
“Ahem,” Saint coughs to get both of their attention. “Everything okay? You guys seem to be… out of it.”
Monarch sneers, looking away from her. “It’s nothing.”
Izumo sighs and shifts uncomfortably in her seat. “Hehehe… don’t worry about her. We just… have to do something for Northern Parliament later…”
“Okay.” Saint Louis nods before a loud banging sound grabs the attention of everyone in the room. Everyone turns to see Sovetsky Soyuz and Kirov standing in front of a projected map of the arctic.
“Alright,” Kirov begins. “Hope everyone is enjoying the cruise so far, but it is time for business.” She clicks a button and a picture of a huge iceberg glowing purple appears. “From our observation and patrols around the arctic, we found another secret Siren base floating around. It appears to be some sort of outpost or supply depot, nonetheless, we are here to destroy it. It is heavily guarded with several drone ships and shipgirls.”
“In addition,” Soyuz chimes in. “It is being run by,” The slide changes to a small siren girl with a black shark rigging with blue highlights. “The Siren battleship Omitter. She is a dangerous enemy and knows how these waters are; however, with aid from the Siren Killers, we will be able to destroy this base.” The slides change back to the arctic map, with a circle of where the base is located.
“We will be arriving at the base within the next few days, so be prepared to fight on icy cold waters and within the corridors of the ice fortress,” Kirov adds. “Any questions?” Nope of the shipgirls said a thing, knowing this is a straightforward job. “Good, now…” She looks over to Monarch and Izumo. “From what Gronzy and Pamiat told me, you two lost in a game of Strip poker…”
Monarch slams her hands on the table, standing up, fuming with anger. “Let’s get this over with!!” she grinds her teeth as she marches out of the room. Izumo sighs heavily, seeming defeated, and follows suit.
“What’s going on?” Saint Louis asks.
Kirov chuckles. “You’ll see.”
---
“Oh dear.” Neptune looks concerned as Saint Louis has a hand on her forehead. Everyone was outside in the cold. Monarch and Izumo stand near the gangway point, both of them naked. Monarch still had her black cap on. Both of them were feverishly shaking, from head to toe as they stood at the edge, and looking down at the icy water below.
“So,” Saint Louis looks toward their Northern Parliament friends. “Because they lost everything in strip poker, they have to jump into the icy sea. Am I understanding this correctly?”
“You got it!” Pamiat smugs answers. “It is a Northern tradition here! If you lose in Strip poker here, you jump into the water naked! Started out by the leader and her sisters! We have been through it, but only one person never had to do this!”
“And that person would be?” FdG asks, shivering herself.
“Ukrania.” Rossiya answers. “She was a lucky girl, never having to take the northern plunge.”
“Are they going to be okay?” Azuma asks, looking down at the water. Gascogne looks down at the water and does some calculations, before answering the questions.
“Surface water temperature is exactly -1 degrees Celsuis.” Gascogne explains. “High probability of getting hypothermia if entering the water. Higher probability if entering naked.”
“Grgh! Shut it Gascogne!” Monarch growls at the vichya battleship. She stands at the edge, her whole body shaking, as she looks down at the icy depths. “This is bollocks.”
“Hehehe~” Minsk laughs as she pulls out her phone, ready to record a video of it. Monarch looks over and sees the phone.
“Don’t you dare record this!!” She yells as Minsk gives a smug smile, sticking her tongue out. “You!!”
“Just jump into the sea already!” Soyuz orders the stubborn PR ship. Monarch looks back down at the icy waves and hesitates, biting her lips as she second-guessing jumping. Soyuz rolls her eyes and gestures towards Gangut and Rossiya. They both nod and walk up towards the hesitant redhead.
“Hey! What are you-! Get your hands up off me!” Monarch argues as the two battleships grab her wrist and ankles and lift her into the air. They start to swing her like a pendulum, swinging her off the side and bringing back in, building momentum.
“AHHHH!!! Stop this madness!!” Monarch screams as they swing.
Gangut laughs. “You heard the brit! Time to stop this~”
“W-wait! Don’t use- AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!” Monarch cries out as Rossiya and Gangut release her at the apex of the swing outward. She flies into her air, stumbling through, flailing her arms and legs around, and falls headfirst into the arctic ocean. There was a huge splash as the PR battleship emerged, steaming with anger.
“Y-Y-Y-Y-YOU ARSEHOLE C-C-C-C-CCUNT-T-T-TS!!!!” She screams, her teeth chattering against one another. Minsk smiles as she stops recording and shows it to Georgia and Seattle.
“Oh boy.” Georgia giggles. “That’s a keeper.”
“Yup.” She saves the video. “Should I send it to her half-sister Wales?”
“D-D-D-D-DON’T Y-Y-Y-YOU D-D-D-DARE S-S-S-S-SEND-D-D-D-D T-T-T-T-THAT-T-T-T-T V-V-VID-D-D-DEO T-T-T-TO W-W-W-W-WALES!!!” Monarch yells.
Minsk looks at her best friend. “How can she hear us?” she asks.
“Who knows?” Georgia shrugs, drinking her cola. Monarch quickly swims back to the boat and climbs the net back up. Some people were laughing, while others were concerned about her wellbeing. Izumo gulps and looks at Soyuz. The silver hair leader gives her the look and Izumo swallows her pride.
“This was a bad idea.” She says before jumping. She keeps her body straight, crossing her arms across her chest, as she hits the cold water. The arctic water shocks her body as she emerges to the surface.
“Ohohohohohohohohohohohoh!” Izumo cries out as she quickly swims to the net and climbs back up. Once aboard, she runs to Ibuki and Azuma, who has her cloth and a towel ready. Monarch huddles up against FdG and Neptune as the PR ships try to warm them up.
“G-g-g-great start to the op-p-p-p-per-r-r-ration.” Monarch growls as Kirov chuckles.
“We will start the training skirmish tomorrow,” Kirov informs them as Avrora comes back with hot tea.
“Here,” Arvora hands them a warm cup. “This should warm you up.” Monarch and Izumo feel relief after drinking the warm brew. Saint Louis sighs and looks out at the icy sea. This is going to be a journey.
--Next Day--
The PR ships and the Northern Parliament ship glide on the arctic waters. This was a training session since the PR ships have not fought in icy waters before. Monarcha and Izumo did not join them, as they were still recovering from yesterday’s ice bath.
“Enjoying the cold, Comrade Saint?” Arvora asks as she glides aside her.
“Chilly,” Saint answers as she twirls her spear. “But I think this will be a learning experience.”
“Of course.” Avrora glides back to her side. Kirov moves between the two groups, acting as a mediator for the training skirmish.
“Alright,” Kirov looks at the two groups. “This is only a training session, but go all out.” She flashes a smile as everyone’s rigging roars to life. “Радоваться, веселиться! [A/T, Pronounce: Radovat'sya, veselit'sya. Means: Have fun!]
“Rasputin!” Rossiya sends her ice dragon rigging towards the PR fleet.
“Catherine!” Chapayev sends her dragon rigging at them. The two ice dragons tear through the ice and water, sending waves of cold water across the battlefield.
“FdG!!” Saint calls the Iron Blood Battleship.
“I understand,” FdG flicks her black hair as she brings out her music baton. She taps her rigging as she is prepared to perform. “Frederick. Beethoven. Sympony of Destruction.” Symphony No.9 begins to play as the two Iron Blood dragons attack the Northern Parliament ones. They coil around the cold rigging. Fire and ice mix against one another.
Neptune and Kitakaze unleash salvos as Grozny surfs the waves, avoiding the on-coming fire. One of the shots creates a wave that Grozny enters, surfing the wake. She appears right in front of them with her torpedo launching.
“кролик, грызть! [A/T: Sic' em, Królik!]” Grozny burps as a large water shout appears.
“Neptune! Kitakaze!” Saint calls on them on the radio as she zips between the turret fire.
“We are okay!” Neptune informs them as Kitakaze unsheaths her sword, charging the northern bunny. “We are keeping Grozny busy! But she is very fast!”
“Okay!” Saint cuts comms as she speeds across the battlefield, observing the other fights. Another fight was brewing with Pamiat Merkuria and Gascogne.
“Hehehe~” Pamiat smugly laughs as she toys with the vichya battleship. “Can you really aim those cannons of yours? You can’t even hit an ice cube!” She fires a round of shots at Gascogne.
Gascogne spins her spear around, deflecting the shots into the water. Large water columns shoot up next to her as she takes aim.
“Armaments Activated. Engaging at maximum output.” She coldy states as her cannon unleashed her Precision Salvo Protocol. A rain of shots litters the sky as they arc towards Pamiat, who looks worrying onward at the oncoming shots.
Across the iceberg battlefield, Gangut and Roon push against one another, their hands and dragons locked in combat.
“Who knew I stood equal with the infamous ‘Ruthless Roon’?” Gangut smirks as Roon gently smiles.
“Should I escalate this?” Roon politely asked.
“Bring it!” Gangut agrees with a wild smile across her face. She would soon regret it as Roon’s rigging legs stomped the ground, breaking the ice, and sending the both of them into the air. Still hand-holding, Gangut sees her opponent smile as the Iron Blood Dragon unleashes an All-Out Assault.
“Don’t look down on me~” Roon says before sending the old Northern Battleship back down, crashing into the iceberg, and into the icy water. Roon graceful lands, seeing the icy crater that she created.
“Roon,” FdG calls her with her radio. “Don’t overdo it.”
“I know FdG.” Roon pouts. “I am only using a quarter of my rigging power.”
“Quarter?” Roon turns her attention back to the crater and sees Gangut stumbling back up. “I would like to taste full power.” She states as she reaches into her bosom and pulls out a bottle of vodka. She twists the top off and begins to down the bottle. “Shall we?” Roon gracefully smiles as her rigging intimately glows a deep red. A pillar of ice and water flies into the air, Saint Louis sighs as she knows that Roon went full bloodlust.
“I will get her.” FdG radios in. Saint nods and speeds through the battlefield, heading towards the enemy flagship, Rossiya. She sees the imposing battleship with her sword cane drawn. She activates her Engine Boost and rocket towards her, spear at the ready. Once she gets close enough, she thrusts her spear at her.
“Argh!” Rossiya parries the thrust with her sword and jumps back, creating some distance between the two of them. “Comrade Saint, enjoying the cool waters?”
“A bit too cold for my liking.” Saint chuckles as she rolls her neck. “Shall we?”
“Oui.” Battleship fire erupts from her turrets, causing columns of water to spit upward around the french cruiser. Saint shields her as she charges Rossiya, shooting HE rounds at her. As the rounds flew in the air, the cold air steamed, as the hot rounds traveled through the arctic winds. The shots impact Rossiya, leaving scorch marks on her coat.
“Impressive Comrade!” Rossiya praises Saint. “But you need more than heat to survive the north!” Large ice crystals surround her, aimed right at Saint. She points her sword at her. “Commence Bombardment! Blow her away!” The ice crystals launch towards the on-coming cruiser. Saint Louis activates her Engine Boost again, using the burst of speed to dodge the oncoming ice. An ice crystal hits the water, bursting on contact, and sends an explosion of water and ice shards into the air. Saint shields herself from the debris and continues the assault. Two ice crystals come flying towards her. She aims her turrets at them and unleashes rounds of HE shots. The heated shots impact the crystal bursting into a heavy fog. Rossiya tries to peer into the mist, but it provides cover. Then, from the mist, Saint Louis emerges, leaping into the air, with her spear aimed at Rossiya’s head, and her turrets lighting up, ready to fire.
Everything around them slowed down as their eyes met. Saint Louis could see the fear across her opponent’s face, as she is about to strike her. Consciously, she sees herself in Rossiya. The fear of a powerful foe overwhelming her. She powers down her turret and shifts her spear to the right of her head. In a split second, Saint Louis lands right next to Rossiya, with her spears millimeters away from her neck. Silence engulfs them as they both take deep breaths, their eyes meeting one another.
*BANG* *BANG* Large cannon fire rocks the battlefield. Everyone stops and looks up to see Soyuz standing on the gangway opening. She watched the training skirmish from her ship and saw the whole thing.
“Enough.” She coldly states. “Return to the ship.” Soyuz turns to where Rossiya and Saint were and stares at them for a brief moment, before walking off. During that brief moment, Saint thought she saw Soyuz and Rossiya exchange looks, but she kept it out of mind. Saint withdraws her spear and sighs.
“That was interesting,” Saint comments as Rossiya puts her hand out.
“Nicely done.” The northern battleship compliments.
“Same to you as well.” Saint shakes her hand. “Your mastery of ice really is something.”
“It is an inherited ability of our class,” Rossiya explains. “Comrade-Leader Soyuz has true mastery over лед [A/T: Pronounce: Led. Ice]. I am only partially good at it.”
“Don’t sell yourself short.” The French cruiser tells her. “But why don’t say sister? It is a bit formal to say Leader.”
Rossiya disappointedly sighs. “It’s a… personal issue.”
“D’accord. I won’t question it.” Saint backs off the subject as they climb aboard.
---
Over the next few days, the PR ships and Northern Parliament trained against each other, understanding the environment and the cold. As Saint Louis trained with them, she notices that Rossiya seems to be detracted after each session, always looking over to where Soyuz was. Rossiya looks disheartened or disappointed after each skirmish when Soyuz walks off. Saint Louis knew it wasn’t her place to ask what is going on between them, but this could affect the operation.
--Night Time--
Saint Louis walks the cold corridors alone. She sees her breath become crystals as she approaches the command bridge. She grabs the handle and feels the cold creep down her arm.
“C’est ford. [A/T: This is cold]” Saint comments as she enters the bridge. Her eyes went wide as a sudden rush of fridge air hit her. Her whole body shakes uncontrollably as she around the bridge. She notices that the whole area from the command console to the window had a thick layer of frost on it. She was amazed that the ship moved with this type of command bridge.
“Need something, Comrade Saint?” She turns her head and sees Soyuz, lounging on an icy chair. Her silver eyes met her and Saint Louis felt intimated. It was like confronting a queen about some trivial matter. *Puff* Soyuz blows smoke out, holding a cigarette between her fingers. Saint Louis snaps back into reality and walks in.
“Sorry to disturb you tonight, Soyuz.” Saint apologizes. “But I came to ask you a question.”
“Then ask away?” Soyuz leans back in her chair, smoking her cigarette.
“I notice after every training skirmish, Rossiya and you exchange glances.” Saint Louis begins. “And that every time you two interaction, it is always a superior role. Is there something between you two or-” *Shimmer* Before Saint Louis could finish her question, blades of ice appeared and surrounded her. The temperature drops to what seems like below zero. She looks towards the leader and sees her put out her cigarette.
“This is none of your concern, Comrade.” Soyuz declares, standing up from her seat. She pushes aside the floating blade of ice and towers before the PR ship. “Why do you ask about how we address one another?”
The French cruiser gulps, intimidated by the leader’s actions, but she has faced worse… mainly Roon. “I am curious as this could affect the operation. That is all.” They both stare at one another for a couple of seconds before Soyuz sighs, dismissing the blades, and ‘warming up’ the bridge.
“Sorry about that.” Soyuz apologizes, walking back to her chair. “I am known to be ‘temperamental’.”
“It’s fine,” Saint Louis waves it off. “When Roon awoke… well, you read the report.”
“Northern Parliament wasn’t a part of Azur Lane during PR1 time, but I hear tales from the other in High Command about it.”
“Yeah,” Saint Louis wonders over to the control console and leans against it, facing her. “So why do you and your sister address each other in formal terms?”
“It is not even that,” Soyuz sighs. “We are… pretty distant.”
“Why is that?”
“Well,” The leader takes out a flask and takes a swig of it. “It is because of one operation. Operation Tunguska. It was me, Belorossiya, Ukraina, and Rossiya. We were supposed to eliminate a Siren Threat in the arctic. Simple task, right? Well, it's far from simple. We were met by one Siren. One. No model we've ever seen before. It wasn’t a Strategist, Oceania, or Explorer. It was something different. The model had gold and naval blue metal plating, mainly on her legs, with a black skinsuit underneath. Her legs had metal spikes in them and she had a visor on. We tried to eliminate her, and… we were nearly killed.” Soyuz takes a drink. “We were outgunned that operation. The Siren fought like nothing we have seen before. She used her legs like jaws, snapping, and locking in place. She tore apart Belorossiya, ripped her arm and leg off. Then her rigging, a monster of the ancient sea, destroyed Ukrania. Rossiya tried to fight, but that Rusalka had more armaments. She had these mechanical nautilus drones that she kicked. It had the force of a torpedo when in contact. She knocked out, nearly dead. I was the only one left. I gave it my all, tearing the Siren’s arms off and sending her to the bottom of the arctic.” She wipes the sweat off her brow.
“After that, I returned to port, half of what I was. Belorossiya and Ukrania were dead, but Rossiya was barely alive. Her wisdom cube was faintly glowing, near death’s door. I decided to give her half of my life, transfer a part of my wisdom cube to her. This rejuvenates her but renders me without my rigging. After that event, we have been distant. I hear from Avrora that she blames herself for being weak. That I had to sacrifice my rigging to save her.” Soyuz leans back into her chair as Saint processes what she has listened to.
“Do you believe that she is weak?”
“No.” The silver hair leader shakes her head. “No. She is strong like the northern bears. Tough to survive the winters, it is just we don’t see eye to eye after Tunguska.” She looks back at her. “Saint, may I ask something.”
“Of course, ask away.”
“Why did you power down your turret during the first combat skirmish?” Soyuz asks. “I notice you had a clear shot at her, but you power your shot. Why?”
Saint Louis sighs, her finger drawing on the cold ice. “I guess I had remorse for her. I saw the fear in her eyes when I was about to strike her. It reminded me of myself when Bloodfast defeated me.”
“Then how do you feel after the Commander made the decision to spare Belfast?” Soyuz follows up.
“Why do you ask?” Saint nervously asks.
“Because you were one of the victims.” Soyuz states. “And that you had a nightmare on the first night.” Saint Louis rubs the back of her head.
“Honest, I came to terms with his decision,” she answers. “From my teaching, it is better to forgive those who wrong you then to punish them. Belfast is a part of the fleet and it wouldn’t be right to court marshaled her.”
“I see,” Soyuz sighs. “When I read those reports and saw the pictures. I wanted her dead.” Her hands make a fist as small ice crystals surround her, shaking violently in response to her emotions. “I wanted to personally kill her for harming Rossiya, for torturing her, but I couldn’t.” She relaxes, dismissing the crystals. “After all, it is his fleet, not mine.”
Saint Louis sees the leader relax into her chair, sighing as the arctic hollow outside. “You care about her.”
“I do,” she admits. “But with our cold demeanor and my position, we don’t really talk about our feelings.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to talk to her about this?” Saint suggested.
“I could, but we don’t seem to have time for it.”
“Then maybe make time for it.” Saint smiles as Soyuz sighs.
“Possible.” They stood there in silence, hearing the crush of ice and breaking of waves as the ship moved. Saint Louis wanted to help her, but this dynamic is hard to break overnight. Then suddenly, the alarm flashes as the radar pings something in the distance. Soyuz rushes over to the console and nods.
“Sirens.” She rolls her neck. “Get ready to deploy, Comrade.” Saint nods and heads back to the fleet. She takes one look at Soyuz before activating her rigging.
---
--Siren Depot--
Omitter flies through the icy hallways in a panic.
“Crap!” she cries out, zipping past Scavenger and Explorer model sirens. “I didn’t think they would be here this quickly!” She flies into a room with a big open hole to the icy water. She goes to a console and activates the comms.
“Lurker team!” she yells into the mic. “Have you found her yet!?”
“Negative Omitter.” She hears back. “We have not found the Siren Kronos.”
“Well hurry up! Azur Lane is here and if they find out about what we are doing, Arbiter’s plan will be ruined!”
“Affirmative. Speeding up the search.” The comms ends as Omitter grits her teeth.
“Hurry up.” Omitter gulps as she flies to the entrance.

WARING DO NOT PLAY ON POKERBROS

Ignition Whine Rant

Our Ritual Is The Mystic Cement.

We are people of a brood which likely you have not heard of. We are hard to come by. Still, you may have seen us in various places at various times. You may have passed us at the grocery store, on the street, in your schools and in your houses of worship, in your houses of law and your neighborhoods, we are there. We look like anyone else. We have no quirks, no tells, to use poker jargon. We are among you, integrated into your lives as much as your cells are integrated into your body. You never see us, but we are there. Watching. Waiting.
Smell of old wooden oak and ancient stone on this new continent, dusty lecture halls filled with metal chairs of synthetic material, set up to view the speaker. Spindly hollow steel legs, staples in the upholstery, frizzy texture to them. This is a far cry from the elegant and grand marble exterior and the oaken wood panel doors. We enter, the doors swing open. At the entrance is a man in whose ear we whisper, and with this we are permitted entry. This is our America, one of cheap chairs and massive lecture halls. We are here to learn, to grow, and to bond with our brethren. Gray walls, brown walls, very little color. Stark yet rustic. These is the aesthetic of our breed. Our buildings are grand because our land is flat and empty, the whir of a faraway tractor of an empty steam whistle chugging away over endless hills in the black night. We remain inside and sit, pamphlets and literature in hand, turn toward the speaker, and we pay close attention, for if we don’t who knows what knowledge we might miss. This is the power of a fraternal bond. Our ritual is the mystic cement.
Our Ritual Is The Mystic Cement.
We are people of a brood which likely you have not heard of. We are hard to come by. Still, you may have seen us in various places at various times. You may have passed us at the grocery store, on the street, in your schools and in your houses of worship, in your houses of law and your neighborhoods, we are there. We look like anyone else. We have no quirks, no tells, to use poker jargon. We are among you, integrated into your lives as much as your cells are integrated into your body. You never see us, but we are there. Watching. Waiting.
Smell of old wooden oak and ancient stone on this new continent, dusty lecture halls filled with metal chairs of synthetic material, set up to view the speaker. Spindly hollow steel legs, staples in the upholstery, frizzy texture to them. This is a far cry from the elegant and grand marble exterior and the oaken wood panel doors. We enter, the doors swing open. At the entrance is a man in whose ear we whisper, and with this we are permitted entry. This is our America, one of cheap chairs and massive lecture halls. We are here to learn, to grow, and to bond with our brethren. Gray walls, brown walls, very little color. Stark yet rustic. These is the aesthetic of our breed. Our buildings are grand because our land is flat and empty, the whir of a faraway tractor of an empty steam whistle chugging away over endless hills in the black night. We remain inside and sit, pamphlets and literature in hand, turn toward the speaker, and we pay close attention, for if we don’t who knows what knowledge we might miss. This is the power of a fraternal bond. Our ritual is the mystic cement.
You Will Want to Give One To A Prospect.
There are times when a new brother feels our souls calling out towards him, and in the hot summer day when the air is still and the humidity is muggy he will stagger along forgotten country roads and weave his way through fields of corn to our temple. He will hear our voices calling out, see our mission, and he will be drawn towards us. And while he may maintain a bond with the other s for a while, while he may tell you that he goes out to plow his fields or find a fortune is there, with us, in the lecture hall with the synthetic chairs, looking at the speaker and waiting.
A prospect sits on the concrete before his house and looks out into the night, flips through pages of our literature and watches naught but our media, he combs his hair and brushes his teeth and then goes to work, but after hours, late at night, locks will be opened and doors will be shut and the car engine will start up once again and he will go zooming off into the night and find us. We will be waiting in the massive room with the gray walls, guarded always by the man in whose ear you must whisper to gain passage, and then the muffled noises of the speaker’s voice will become more prominent as they echo off the gray walls. Our prospect will sit down silently, quietly, making not a single noise. He may take off his hat or coat, drape them over the chair. There will be no idle chatter. The lights will buzz, casting a pale glow onto our faces. They are old lights with new wiring.
A prospect will bow to us in the ritual. He will enter through the doors. On the day of the ritual, the man in whose ear you whisper will be absent. No member will show their face, we hide behind veils and the prospect will say nothing and walk forward. His mind will be filled with the hot summer sun and the very aura of the frontier. The frontier with which we filled thousands with the love of God. We are brothers, and we hide our faces in this room where there are steps and rigging hidden behind dark velvet curtains. The prospect is your son, your grandson, your nephew, your brother. We keep them in the circle, chant and trod and sing old songs from the old times. And we sing and hold candles, old red candles which burn into small golden wax receptacles which receive the wax, which goes into new candles in hidden rooms where nimble fingers work. Closets, smaller lecture halls, halls into halls into doors into rooms where men sit at tables and eat slowly and thoughtfully. Mass bought products in mass capacity coolers, ladles and spoons holding out meager portions of food to the underfed, and near the entrance a decrepit bulletin board with no more than ten scraps of paper hanging from it with colored thumbtacks. Staircases leading down to a flat and empty basement, hollow and spacious, near infinite with the lights turned off. Grass and dust and the sun streaming in through small windows. And above the wax drips. We chant, and circle, and say: You will want to give one to a prospect. And the prospect thanks us.
Lighting The Pathway To Tomorrow.
Rusted cars sit in the parking lot where paint peels from the lines. Insufficient cracked traffic cones line the edges, signifying long forgotten processions, while in the rear the empty field of the dead sits. Stones upon stones stretching in an incessant and alluring promenade to a fuzzy haze of trees which at twilight when the sun is a deep orange and the fireflies rise from their spectral bushes is nearly indiscernable to the naked eye. Woods are unimportant to our breed, we enjoy the stones jutting like crooked teeth from the long forgotten earth, which grows grass but nothing else. To the left is an old oak tree which has weathered a hundred years and nigh saw the prairie schooners rounding the bend in the old time. Bearded men with muskets and young children and women with checkered bonnets came down this dirt road, now covered in asphalt and which bears not the wooden wagon wheel but the souped-up tire of the Camaro.
Within the trunk of this tree are stores our records, which must be given the utmost respect and secrecy, for they date back countless eldritch years to long before those men with muskets. The papers are weathered and old, and not held with things so crude and clips or pins, but rather held in a briefcase belonging to the speaker. At night when the crickets chirp and breed by the thousands far above in the leaves of the ancient tree, we light candles within the interior, where words are more ambient than usual, and carry them, with delicate hands, clad in full regalia, to the tree. And it is then that we remove the papers. We look them over to assure that their state has not been altered. We can feel the wet grass beneath our shoes and the mildew of the darkness surrounding us, and we can see the stones jutting out like crooked teeth from the malnourished ground, yet we feel no fear. Our robes protect us from the night.
The speaker produces a blade from an interior pocket of his robe, which bears the insignia of a speaker. He is old and wizened, and speaks like gravel that has been rained upon. He smiles. The soft steel glints in contrast with the dark skies. Though we live on grass, the stars are obscured. Lights weave their way in and out of the woods on the horizon, but we pay them no mind as they pay us no mind. They are empty and forlorn, and caused not by anything corporeal. Rather, they are the souls returning to their place, back down under so much soil, each one to their respective slab.
We grin and pass the blade, set the briefcase down upon the soil and lay the records out bare for all to see. Flesh is punctured, given no thought, for we are of another breed. We feel the soft steel, and the juice of life flows from hidden veins which twist and weave their way through our being, to out pumping and audibly throbbing hearts. The juice flows down to the records. It nourishes them, keeps them safe and secure and keeps us paid to the debt we swore our ancestors. The lights in the distance cease. For a while, we can only hear our breathing and then even our breathing ceases and we lie clad in full regalia in the grass and stare without flinching into the abyss of the cosmos as your wrists collectively drain themselves into the greater good.
Ignitions are twisted, lights flash, tires squeal and motors roar as we return to our homes, each lit and happy. They do not know what we do there, but they will never know, as they are not of the brethren. We are lighting the pathway to tomorrow.
Our Ritual Is The Mystic Cement.
It like the broken parking lot, it like the gray walls and the oaken doors, are what bonds us. We are of a breed which you do not know. You may see us. We are old and yet will perhaps never know what we want. We have had our lifeblood sucked from us but will continue to do so.
For this is our role. We walk and breathe and live and know that one day our questions will be answered and we will be those lights beyond sight bobbing in the forest faraway past the jutting slabs and the wicked grass, on past the slanted picket fences and the forgotten cairns. We will join our brethren in the schooners of old, and move with them over bright hot grain for all eternity. Our ritual is the mystic cement.
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That’s not the way a blow job is supposed to work…

That reminds me of a story.
“Doop diddy doop, doop diddy doop…DOOP DOOP DOOP!” warbles the portable telecommunications device on the nightstand.
“Jesus Helvetica Christ. It’s 0330 in the fucking AM. Who’s calling me now?” I swear as I grab that bane of modern existence and growl my morning pre-coffee greeting:
“WHAT?!?”
“Hey, Rock”, some absurdly chipper idiot on the other side of the phone and the globe utters, “Sure hope I didn’t wake you.”
“No, I’m often just sitting around at 0330 waiting for the phone to ring…” I snarl.
“Sheesh. Whatta grouch...It’s Murphy from Houston.”
Murphy Muldoon is the president of a world-renowned oilfield specialty service company and a friend I’ve known and for whom I occasionally worked for many, many years.
“That information does not make me feel any less irritable, Murph…”
“Tell you what. Go get a coffee, a smoke and a shot of bourbon. I’ll call back with some news you’ll like in an hour.” Murphy continues.
“Calling me in the wee hours to give me orders now? I don’t work for you right now… ”
Murph knows me too well.
Murphy is a man of his word. Exactly one hour, one cup of coffee, a half of a cigar and several shots of Wild Turkey Rye later, the phone rings from a familiar 713 area code number.
“Hello, Murph. What’s the word?” I ask.
“Hey, Rock. You sound slightly more human. Good. How're things out your way?” Murph asks.
“Hot, boring and dull. The usual.” I reply.
“OK, great. Up for a bit of a trip?” Murph inquires.
“What’s the deal, Murph? What’s up? Another local boondoggle?” I wonder aloud.
“You never did read the papers or watch CNN.” Murph comments, “There’s been a bit of a fracas out your way and things are a bloody mess. We need boots on the ground ASAP and since you’re already in the neighborhood…”
“Yeah, but these type of messes aren’t my bailiwick. I’m more E&P [Exploration & Production], you know that.” I remind him.
“Yeah, but they had 5 drilling rigs go FOOM as well. It’s a real mess out there, and since you’ve got a Ph.D. in Mess, Herr Doctor, I figured you’d be a natural…” Murph continued.
“OK, you have awakened my interest. What’s the job?” I ask.
“Get your ass in-country as soon as you can. You’ve already got a visa, so that’s one reason why I called you first. Visas there are a pain in the ass, even in an emergency”, Murph explains.
“You’re telling Noah about the flood with that”, I agree. “OK, just an assessment run or do I get to blow shit up as well?”
“Whatever you can muster. It’s up to the locals who are footing your bill , but we need to know what we’re up against.” Said Murph, as I realize how hard it is to wink over the phone, but I got his drift.
“So, you’ve got the contract already to fix their little problem?” I asked.
“We were the first ones called. I guess our Gulf Wars experiences with them are well remembered.” Murph explained, somewhat proudly.
They were one of the first companies in after the shooting died down in that little Gulf country that got smote back in the ’90s and was the last to leave. They remediated many, many oil well fires as well as rebuilt considerable infrastructure. They had a solid reputation in the region, so they got the first calls when things go south.
Which means I get calls since I’m already in the vicinity, being relatively mobile, and as I tend to not care about hierarchy nor take shit from anyone; I get the job done.
I also hold several legal passports, including a diplomatic passport which my company got for me from that big red country when the wall fell, as well as keep a supply of valid visas for just such opportunities. So, I’m readily mobile, but not cheap.
“Murph, yeah, I can be there in about 6 hours, how’s that?” I ask.
“Damn, that’s great Rock. How can you get there so quickly?” Murph questions.
“Well, since I’m now seconded to your company, I’m using your name to charter a flight there. Of course, all this is covered in my standard contract. I think you should still have a copy of one floating around from the last job I did for you, right?” I inquire.
“Oh, holy fuck. I knew this was going to cost me an arm and a leg. Standard contract, you say? You mean your ‘Take-or-pay, Force Majeure, here’s my ridiculous Per Diem and All Expenses Included” legal piracy document?”
“Yeah, that’s the one,” I reply.
“OK, I thought we might have to go this route to get boots on the ground fast. OK, you pirate, go for it.” Murph accedes.
“That’s what you get for waking me up, Murph. Expect my first report in 12 hours. Talk to you then.” I say as I sign off.
This isn’t my first experience in such a situation, so I have many of the necessary numbers on speed dial. My dear wife, trouper she is, already has my well box and Halliburton travel pack ready to go.
“You sure two boxes of cigars are enough?” she asks.
“Not going bush this time. They actually have cigar stores there. I’ll pick up some extras at duty-free on my way in.” I explain.
“No booze this time? Let me guess where you’re going…” she asks.
“Yah. They get all nervous about that stuff at customs. I’ll just pick some up from one of the service companies once I’m there.” I reply.
“Any idea how long you’ll be gone this time?”
“No idea. Depends on what they want me to do. I’ll take my PPEs, just in case, though. There’s no way I’d be able to source them in my size once I’m there.” I reply as my hardhat sombrero is stuffed into one of my traveling cases.
A few speedy phone calls later and I have a cab waiting for me outside my villa just as dawn breaks. I have Hakmed’s Charters and Camel-Tow Service break a Gulfstream G600 out of mothballs and have it waiting for me on the tarmac at the local aerodrome. That way, I can scoot through the local version of TSA, avoid the crowds, and head north to my destination with a minimum of puling and fuss.
Murph wired a package of necessary documents to the airport and they were waiting for my arrival. All the normal legal bullshit, the signed back page of my ‘pirate’ contract, my authorizations to basically do what I want, go where I need, and do what’s necessary for the job at hand. There’s also some press clippings and info on the situation as it stands.
Murph also sent along a brief explanation of what I’m supposed to do once I’m on site.
“Find out what’s going on. Give damage assessment. Suggest remediation procedures. Assist in any way to restore working order. Focus on drilling wells, infrastructure will be implemented later.”
Basically carte blanche to do what I think necessary to sort out all this disarray. At least, from the contractor’s side. Dealing with the local authorities will take tact, diplomacy and subtly; three qualities which I lack and actively encourage their exclusion.
This is not a time for glad-handing, kowtowing to customs, or sycophancy; it is a time for action. Quick, decisive, well-designed action. We’ll shake hands and make nice once things are back to subnormal around here.
The Gulfstream flew like a dream. I was the only passenger and had my own private pilots and cabin crew. Since I was, in essence, paying for the damn thing, I could call the shots.
I was ‘allowed’ to smoke during the flight and put a considerable dent in the onboard liquor supply. It was going to be a dry, dazzlingly white season once I land, at least for a while, so I needed to stock up before I hit customs.
Call it ‘social lubrication’.
They don’t drink, or so they claim, but I do and as long as one of us is being reasonable…
Once we were cleared to land, they cleaned up the cabin of all the empties and the remains of the poker game that had broken out; just in case the local authorities decided to give us the once over before we deplaned. I also told the pilot that he was on-call as I had no idea how l long I’d be in country, so he could head back to base. He could also replenish the plane’s stocks as I’m certain I’d need them for the return trip.
We touch down light as feather and taxi over to a cadre of local oil company cars waiting for my arrival. They had a customs agent come on board; a formality. I wasn’t allowed off until my visa was checked and the proper bribes were paid; all expensed-deductible, of course, and he stamped all my papers. My luggage was taken from the hold and just stuffed into a waiting Land Cruiser, unchecked.
I could have brought that bottle, I mused…
Though I’m a world traveler, speak several languages, and can order a beer in more than 70, I don’t sprechen the local lingo; so I have an interpreter assigned. Now, this is odd, as the chaps with whom I’m discussing the matter all speak perfectly passable English.
“Interpreter?” my dimpled ass. This character is a member of the local equivalent of the intelligence community, though completely less subtle.
Hell, I’m used to this. I was one of the first Western scientists allowed into Eastern Siberia way back even before the wall fell. I still have friends in the KGB (now NKVD). I’ve worked in all the ‘Stans in Central Asia and even now, live in a country that’s a dictatorship. Sure, it’s a benevolent, highly-praised and forward-thinking ruler of the country who’s done wonders during his reign, but it’s still a dictatorship.
My response? “Smile and wave.” Works a treat if they think they’re putting one over on the wily Westerner.
Apart from all the infrastructure that’s taken a beating, there were currently five drilling rigs in various stages of meltdown. I don’t use that term evocatively, I mean it quite literally.
Here’s the scene: fields here have been drilled rather haphazardly over the last 60 or so years. However, when you have as much oil as these places, you worry more about the bottom-line rather than sensible drilling and production procedures. It’s “Drill, baby, drill” exemplified. Prudent production practices is not just a closed book here, it’s a closed, burnt, and buried book.
So, they don’t really think too far ahead into what we would call well and field planning. They don’t adhere to drilling practices to prevent one well interfering with another or stick to any sort of field planning of a certain separation distance like we do in the US.
We drill on a spacing, say 160, 80 or 40-acre ‘units’. That means, one well per said acreage plot. That way, each well can be independently monitored, and determine its drainage radius. If more wells are needed to efficiently drain the area, wells can be added.
Here, it’s what’s called ‘campaign’ drilling. Nothing wrong with that. Bring in one shallow capacity rig to drill the ‘top-holes’, down to a certain level to protect water horizons, and case them off. The little rig leaves and then the bigger, more expensive rig shows up to finish off the rest of the well through completion and hook-up.
However, typically one big rig is used and skidded from top-hole to top-hole.
But not here, where money flows like the crude exported; well, until recently.
They had five huge 3,500 horsepower top-drive rigs drilling simultaneously. Each of these rigs go for about US$350,000 or more per day, and these holes take 45-60 days per hole, depending on depth and complexity. Most companies would balk at these types of day rates and just contract one rig for all five holes; spreading out the costs over time.
Nope, all five were drilling at the same time and all were started at the same time. So that critical junctures like casing points, logging runs, and drilling into target zones all happen at the same time.
It’s a logistical nightmare for one deep rig. Now, multiply that by five.
All these wells were testing their respective target zones, which means flowing the wells to the surface, either flaring the gas, condensate, and oil produced; or tanking it if the volumes are too high. Typically, everything flows to surface, goes through a nightmarish Rube Goldberg assembly of surface valves, pipes, three-phase meters, and other engineering doohickeys straight into storage tanks. Often the gas, as I noted, is flared; but some of these wells produce gas at such rates it’s all metered single-phase and dumped into huge 50,000-barrel capacity stock tanks on site.
Now, natural gas, condensate, and oil tend to be readily combustible when on their own. Mixed into a foaming, frothing, fulminating frenzy in a stock tank and you’ve got a huge conflagration just lusting after an ignition source.
And an ignition source was surreptitiously supplied.
The stock tanks exploded like virtual volcanoes, one after another and that lead to the current situation of five drilling rigs in various stages of meltdown; quite literally.
In each case, the flames were so intense the rig superstructure collapsed and the subsea safety valves and blowout preventers under each rig, which were supposed to prevent the calamity I was now witnessing, were destroyed.
They are all hydraulically operated and once you boil hydraulic fluid, it tends to explode and take whatever machinery it’s supposed to be working with to that land of spirits and wind.
In short, I had five wells; three oil and two natural gas, closely packed, some no more than 250 meters apart, all merrily burning away like there was no tomorrow. And one hell of a lot of iron junk lying around, glowing cherry-red.
“So, Doctor. What are your initial impressions?” Colonel Diyab asked over the roar of the fires.
“Colonel, you’ve got a right mess on your hands here. It’s going to take some serious work to just control the fires. But first, there’s a lot of groundwork that needs to be done.” I replied, as non-committedly as I could until I had some further Intel on the situation.
Major Dijaj speaks up: “No, no. We need to kill the fires first before any more coke builds up.” The wells deposit thick layers of smoldering carbon around the wellheads due to the haphazard and unfettered combustion of the oil and gas. “Then we can worry about the ground clutter.”
“Major. How many well fires have you worked?” I asked.
“These are some of my first. But I know many, many engineers and they say to kill the wells and then clear the area.” He replies.
“Major, all due respect, but you’re listening to the wrong people…” I began to explain.
I’m cut off brusquely, “You are a contractor, and you would say that to maximize the time spent fixing the problem. More time is more money for you people.” He continued rudely.
“Major”, I continue as calmly as I could muster, “I don’t give a happy rat’s ass how damn long it takes. I get paid in any case. My job here is to assess the fucking situation and either suggest or implement remediation procedures that will safely, sanely and surely remedy the situation.”
Colonel Diyab just stands there, apparently bored with the entire state of affairs. I can see he’ll be no help.
“Doctor”, the Major continues, “I do not appreciate your attitude…”
“Major, I do not appreciate your ignorance,” I reply.
“Doctor”, he sputters, “I can have you removed if you’re going to be insolent…”
“INSOLENT? Listen up, Scooter. You haven’t even begun to see my insolence, much less my arrogance or impudence. I’m here to do a job, not make friends nor be threatened. You run me off and have a good time finding anyone else on this planet that’d work under your conditions. Emails can’t be censored.” I growled back.
Colonel Diyab finally sees that his underling was sabotaging any opportunity to move this project along in any form that resembled rapidity.
“Major”, the Colonel intervenes, “Doctor Rocknocker is a world-renowned expert at this sort of problem. I suggest you listen first and ask valid questions later.”
“Sir, but what makes him such an expert?” The Major foolishly asks.
“Because I’m the motherfucking Pro from Dover, Chuckles. I’ve more degrees than a thermometer factory; I’ve got more years in the oil business than you’ve had hot dinners. I’ve worked in 45 countries and drilled and produced oil and gas on every continent save Antarctica. I’m also a fully licensed expert blaster, cat-skinner and worked fires from Baytown to Baghdad to Bada Barabil. Plus, you called me, not the other way around. That’s why.” I forcefully explained.
The Major physically withered under my onslaught.
“But that’s all secondary right now. Right now, we need to have you quit yer’ bitchin’ and get down to business. As we say, its nut cuttin’ time, and I’m the hookin’ bull here. If you’re not happy with that, either deal with it or I’m off on the next Gulfstream south and you waste more time trying to find someone to fix your little problems. We green?” I snarled.
“Green?” he asks.
“In agreement,” I reply.
The Major sheepishly looks to the Colonel for guidance. The Colonel’s raised eyebrows say more non-verbally than he could ever put into words.
“Yes, sir. We’re green.” Major pain-in-the-ass finally admits.
I spend the next few hours snapping pictures with a real camera and gathering my thoughts. This one’s going to take no small degree of cunning and cuteness to pull off.
One of the first things though is getting all that iron the fuck out of the way. If not, the hot metal will re-ignite the well after we blow it out. The Major’s plans were seriously fuckered from the get-go. We need to get the water situation sorted first and get the grounds cooled down so the heavy equipment can get in there to remove the smoldering iron and not cook the operators.
Then cut and doze the debris off location. Logistics. We need a stout water supply, high-pressure pumps, all the jewelry needed to connect the pumps to the water supply, water cannons… aw, shit. Logistics out the ass.
I make my initial report back to Murphy, who has already heard of my run-in with the Major.
“Making friends and influencing people again, ‘eh Rock?” Murph chuckles.
“That’s me, Mr. Diplomacy.”
‘Be reasonable, do it my way’, is my method of management.
“So, did you get my initial report?” I ask Murph.
“Oh, yeah. Nothing like overkill. Three or four Athey wagons? Seven or eight dozers? Fifteen control heads? What the fuck, Rock?” Murphy asks.
“Well, we’re going to need to kill several wells at once. They’re so tightly packed, they’ll light one another off if we don’t. Need extra boom arms for chimneys (long length of large vertical pipe to divert the fires above the wellhead) if we’re going to keep everyone from melting. Need the dozers to clear out all the hot ground schmoo and dig out the cellars once we’ve killed the fire. Need the wellheads as I don’t know what size we’ll need once we’re at that point.” I continued.
“Don’t they have the well schematics? “ Murph asks, “That’ll tell you what size wellheads they’re using.”
“Of course, but with the fires and explosions, no telling what shape they’re in. Need the original size plus one on either side. I want to get this job done, not sit around waiting on parts.” I explained further.
“OK, you’re the pro…” Murph says.
“Yeah. The motherfucking Pro from Dover.” I corrected him.
“And ambassador of international amity…” Murph chuckles.
“We greenlit? “ I ask.
“Go for it. Just keep me informed. Crews will be arriving as we speak. I’ve got a group of hands flying out in 5 or 6 hours. They already have theirs on site, and they are sourcing more locally. Get after its wild ass.” Murph advises.
“Will do. Just keep the fucking newsies out of here. They’re the last thing with which I need to deal with all the other shit hitting the fan around here.” I note.
“I’ll do what I can. Keep me informed. Later, Rock.” Murph says.
“Da svidonya, Murph. Just keep an ear out for any more shenanigans in the area. I don’t plan on doing much of anything if it starts raining steel around here.” I remark.
The day was pretty much shot at this point. I was physically tired, trooping around well fires that are generating their own microclimate can be very taxing. With several tens of thousands of barrels of oil and millions of cubic feet of gas burning off at Mach-level velocities, they tend to suck in all the ground air, actually creating a palpable vacuum drawing in the unwary observer into the conflagration. They also make it paradoxically very cool, some say almost cold, especially in these desert conditions.
Weird, but that’s the way thermodynamics work sometimes.
I spent the night in a very nice and well-appointed 5-star hotel; although without the obligatory mini-bar. Even had dinner with some of the crowd here responsible for getting this mess under control and back into production. Colonel Diyab was present, my new bestie Major Dijaj was not.
“Colonel, I need you to make certain we get the water situation sorted. That’s the absolute first order of business.” I note.
“What you want done will be done.” He assures me.
“Plus, I need to know the explosives situation. This is going to be trickier than copulating in a canoe. I’m going to need at 600 or 700 kilos per shot, perhaps more. I need to know what’s readily available and what I’ll need to order.” I reply.
The Colonel bristles slightly. “I’m not certain about that. They are very carefully controlled and might be considered state secrets.”
“Secret or not, I’m going to need to know what’s available. Surely, the oil’s more important than my knowledge you have stockpiled bottle rockets for the holidays” I replied.
“As you say, what you require will be made available. I will have a manifest in the morning.” He adds.
“I’m going to have to see them and check for exact mixture. With his kind of shooting, I want absolute certainty in every aspect of the job.” I reply.
[Uneasily] “I will see what I can do…” He grudgingly adds.
The next morning, I’m on-site supervising the ragtag agglomeration of cobbled together workers as we endeavor to get the water situation sorted and cool off the grounds.
Several truck convoys arrived during the night and have deposited several large Caterpillar dozers. There are two D-8s, a couple more D-9 and two, fresh from the factory, D-10’s.
I almost drool. I can’t wait to commandeer a D-10 and start clearing the glowing iron from around the wells.
However, I am waylaid by Colonel Diyab.
“Doctor Rock”, he says, “We have operators for the heavy equipment. We need you to draw up the plans to handle the fires, let them clear the area.”
I really couldn’t argue much, he was correct. However, in order to make my plans, I need to get up close and personal with the burning wells. Can’t do that in a Land Cruiser, so I persuaded him to let me take a D-10 for a spin around the job site.
Damn, what a machine. 850 turbodiesel horsepower, controls that react like a sports car and more power at one's fingertips than most people will ever experience. Still, after an hour of mucking about the wells, I was ready to relinquish the controls.
I gave orders for the water cannon placements and with that, I was done for the day. Until they got the area cooled down some, there’s no use doing anything on the ground. Cutting and moving iron would just have to wait.
I retired to my hotel room and see that my favorite service company, in their efforts to curry favor, had left several bottles of virgin olive oil in my room.
“Virgin olive oil” being code for scotch, vodka, and bourbon removed from their original containers and secreted into liter olive oil bottles.
The old schemes are sometimes the best.
Room service was slightly perplexed as I order a cooler full of ice. I explained it was for the samples I had taken that needed chilling. The room already came fully stocked with glasses.
I had several visitors that evening. Representatives from various service companies, Colonel Diyab’s flunkies delivered the explosives manifest and a couple of geologists and geophysicists I knew were working in-country. There was a brace of engineers from the state company that showed up as well to help me out with some of the logistics.
Luckily, another service company made a late night delivery so I was stocked again after all my visitors.
I had the plans well in hand the next day and called a meeting with all concerned as to our plan of attack. It was going to be a real test of mettle, both man and machine, but it was capable of being done. I spent almost eight full hours in the hotel conference room detailing our combined plans of attack.
I spent a full 2 hours going over my design of the explosive barrels that were going to be used to snuff out the fires. These were 55-gallon oil drums, filled, very carefully, with explosives in just the right orientation to effect that of a large 600 kilogram shaped charge.
They would be positioned in just such a manner that they would not destroy any ground equipment, like the wellhead nor the Athey Wagon used to back the charge in; but into the oil or gas-fire stream to blow out the oxygen and snuff the fire.
I was not just a ‘blow and go’ situation where one stuffs 600 kilos of C-4 into a drum, shoves it into the fire and hopes for the best.
Out on location, the water supply problems were being sorted and we were pumping some 25,000 gallons per minute onto the blazes and surrounding areas. I retired to my room for a smoke, a nosh via room service, and an early night since I hadn’t had a minute of downtime since my arrival.
I awoke to a window-rattling KABOOM at around 0430.
“What the fuck was that?” I groggily asked myself.
We were some 15 or 20 kilometers from the well fires and the noise had originated from that general direction.
I get on the phone and call the company responsible for the field. No one was there, so I decided to get dressed and head over to the job site to see if anyone there knew anything.
I drive up to location to see a cockeyed fire stream emitting from the center oil well. There was a wrecked Athey Wagon parked some half kilometer from the conflagration, as well as loads of still unmoved and very hot indeed, oilfield iron lying about.
I go over to the company man trailer, fling open the door and growl “What the fuck’s going on around here?”
“Who are you?” asks some gomer I’ve never seen before.
“I’m Doc Rock, the US expert sent here to deal with the fires, that’s who.” I seethed.
“Oh?” he replies calmly and without much interest.
“Who authorized that shot? What the hell’s going on around here?” I growled louder.
“The shot was authorized by those with authorization. Is there a problem?” he blearily asks.
“Yes, there’s a problem. No, scratch that. There are PROBLEMS! Great big bleeding ochen minoga fucking problems! You get off your dead ass and get the person responsible on the phone or better yet, over here on the fucking double. You diggin’ me, Beaumont?” I yell.
Half an hour later, in saunters Major Dijaj.
“It figures. Just can’t take my word for things, can you?” I sneer.
The Major yawns, and seeing I’m a bit miffed, asks what the problem might be.
“I’ll tell you, Major. The iron’s not cleared, you’ve wrecked one of the main items I need to kill these fires and someone has been fucking around with very dangerous high explosives that had no idea what the fuck they were doing. How’s that for starters?” I roar.
The Major yawns again and informs me that their own explosives experts from the military packed the drum, following my explicit instructions.
“That doesn’t make one bit of difference to the result. You’ve wrecked a key piece of kit I need and I have no idea how long it’ll take to source another. There’s still all that iron out there that probably reignited the fire if the neighboring wells didn’t. Plus you fuckered a perfectly good wellhead with your idiocy!” I yelled some more. “With your witlessness, you’ve just added weeks to the project and probably millions of dollars in lost resources as well as the bill for wasting my time!”
“Well, Doctor, if you feel that way…” He intones.
“Yeah, Buckwheat, I feel just that way. I wonder what Colonel Diyab is going to say…” I sneer.
“Oh, Colonel Diyab has been temporarily reassigned.” The major, thinking he’s won the argument, informs me.
“Let me guess: you’re now in charge? “ I ask, already knowing the answer.
“That is correct. Since we have your detailed plans to contain the fires…” he tries to continue.
“OK, I get the picture.”
“OK, Major. If that’s the case, I’m gone. Have fun with the fires. I’m off for a shower, breakfast and a flight out of here. I’d wish you luck, but I don’t believe that’s going to help your situation.” I tell him as I make it for the door.
“Your attitude has been noted, Doctor” He smarmily tells me.
“Works both ways, Major. Works both ways.” I inform him.
I pull out my phone and order up a nice, clean Gulfstream.
After pounding the dashboard of my rental, and realizing that if this is the way they want to do business, I really haven’t any recourse but to tell them to get stuffed. I drive back to my hotel and after a long, hot shower and a couple of cold shower bourbons, I’m feeling much better.
They’re making their bed, let them lie in it…
My rental is returned to the hotel and I settle back to await the arrival of my flight and ride to the airport. I field the few phone calls I receive after sending out some well-chosen Emails. Good luck sourcing personnel or material now, Major Dickhead.
It wasn’t out of malice I sent the Emails, but rather as a warning to my colleagues as to the shoddy business practices here. A caution, as it were; mere due diligence to my comrades in the Oil Patch.
Murph calls and we have a calm, detached conversation. This isn’t a first for this part of the world, and certainly won’t be the last. All in a day’s works and all part of doing business.
Murph asks if I’ll be available in a couple of months to come back and try to fix what they’re about to fucker into oblivion.
“As long as the price is right, not a problem, Murph.” I tell him. “I’m in it not for the culture, climate, or cuisine; I’m in it for the cash.”
I’m nothing if not an unrepentant mercenary. At last, I admit it.
Three-quarters of a bottle of bourbon later, my rides arrive; my cab at the hotel and my flight home.
I actually won 30 or 40 rials in the poker game on the flight home, which I promptly tipped the flight crew as they saw to it that my glass never wanted for ice nor filling. It was a very nice flying charter, as I arrived home at a decent, well lighted hour and was able to take my significant other out to a very nice dinner as I hadn’t yet set foot in my villa; what with contracts being contracts and all…
My spies in the industry tell me that the iron still hasn’t been cleared away from the fires, they’ve wrecked another wellhead and another Athey Wagon. The fires are still burning merrily along.
It’s going to be a cast-iron bitch to fix all the fuckery that’s happening over there.
But, no matter, you either pay me some now or pay me a whole lot later…

What is your Longest/biggest downswing on Ignition

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Unordinary amount of royal flushes on ignition zone

[Bartleby and James] Maiden Voyage of the Rio Grande 2

Previously, James was wrongfully accused of murder aboard a luxury airship, and set out to find the real killer.
With the Chief Engineer's blessing I passed through the hatch into the engine room proper. Beyond the control room the Rio Grande's engineering section was a vast chamber of steam turbines, furnaces, and auxiliary units. What little lighting the room afforded was provided by the furnaces, low ambient glows amongst towering black iron colossi and the glass and steel steam turbines. Automated stokers kept the furnaces fuelled, drawing from from long low coal bins, articulated spades shovelling fuel into the furnaces at a steady pace.
The hot dry air, choked with smoke and engine fumes, raised sweat from my skin as soon as I'd entered. I could practically feel the thrumming from their operation against my skin. I stood for a moment in the threshold in a quasi-religious awe, just taking it in, feeling the almost electric pull of the technological marvel before me.
I closed the control room hatch behind me and shut my eyes, listening, trying to track down the source of the whine I'd heard earlier. I could still hear it when I concentrated, among the sliding of the turbines and the dull roar of the furnaces. And something else, something soft, a scrabbling stealthy movement among the dark metal structures. It was rhythmic, something slapping against metal in a regular fashion.
The whining seemed to be coming from the turbines – they were labouring harder and harder to function. The slapping sound emanated from behind a two by two panel set into a bulkhead. It was slightly ajar, tool-marks evident near its popped lock. I opened it, and found a fist-sized fat-diamond shaped cavity in which a series of pistons spun freely. Leather connective straps attached to the pistons flailed uselessly against the steel casing, whatever they had secured now absent.
I took a quick look around the immediate area, but couldn't find anything that looked like it might have fallen from the compartment. Unfortunately I'm unschooled in the mechanics of areonautical engineering and had no idea what might have been removed from the ship's workings. I returned to the control room to put the question to the Chief Engineer.
***
I described the empty panel to the best of my ability, and the Chief Engineer's face paled. I followed Miller as he raced, without a word, into the engine room, stopping in front of the open hatch and its empty cavity. He gave out a groan of mixed frustration and terror, grabbing handfuls of his hair and stumbling back a from the hatch, sliding down to the ground when he hit the wall opposite.
"What is it, man?" I asked.
"We are dead." The Engineer's voice was flat. Hollow.
"Bad then, is it?"
"Can you even conceive -- do you have any idea how difficult it is to keep an airship this size balanced upright?"
He pulled small fluid-filled level out of his breast pocket, lay it on the floor, then dropped prone next to it, eyeing it carefully. I crouched for a look myself, and saw that we were listing a few tenths of a degree. The Chief let out another hopeless moan and rolled over onto his back.
"The movement of the turbines, the mixture of gas in the air bags, the balance of the ballast – it's all precisely calibrated to keep the Rio Grande from listing," he said, "and it's the job of the gyroscopic stabiliser to control the analytical engine that calibrates it. Without it those oscillations you've been hearing are going to intensify at a prodigious rate, the ship is going to flip over, and we're going to go tumbling out of the sky."
"We'll hit London," I said. "Hundreds will die."
"Hundreds?" He scoffed. "Mr. Wainwright, do you have any idea how much hydrogen we're carrying? We're an enormous bomb. If we crash, there won't be enough London left to fill a rubbish bin."
***
We reconvened in the Captain's stateroom with Bartleby and Mr. Herbert.
"It's sabotage, then," Bartleby said. "I've spoken to some of the crew about Henderson – he was well regarded and personable. Organized weekly poker games."
"Yeah, I played with him several times," the Chief said. "He was good enough."
"Pity his luck ran out."
"It wasn't a matter of luck," the Chief said. "Henderson was a professional gambler. Played the long game. He won some, lost some, but always came out ahead. Patient. Calculating. Compare that to passionate men like the First Mate, they'll bid big on every hand. They might win a pot or two they end up losing entire months' wages in the long run."
"Speaking of, where is Dewit?" I asked.
"Overseeing the clean-up in Engineering," Nussbaum said.
"Regardless," Bartleby said, "nobody seemed to have a personal issue with Henderson – he was most likely simply unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Given that James found the body so shortly after the engineer was killed and that the room hasn't been left unoccupied since, we can surmise that the... gyrostabic... scopilizer–"
"Gyroscopic Stabilizer," I said.
"–device was taken first, and the thief encountered Henderson on his way out. And given that the weapon used was an improvisational one and the murder so inconveniently messy, it is most likely that our murderer killed Henderson out of panic, and simply ran off afterwards."
"Who would gain from sabotaging the Rio Grande?" I asked.
"Mr. Herbert." Bartleby turned towards the industrialist. "A man of your status has his share of enemies, doesn't he?"
"I've stepped on more than a few petty men on my way to the top," Mr. Herbert replied. "Business rivals that would love to see me fail. The Luddites hate the technology I employ in my factories. My own son, fat lout that he is, can't wait until I die so he can inherit what he's too incompetent to earn."
"Luddite fanatics might well sacrifice themselves to take down the ship," I hazarded, "but would your rivals? And your son – he's aboard himself, isn't he?"
"So a fanatic or dupe is most likely," Bartleby said. "Unless the saboteur intends to steal one of the ship's aeroboats and escape the fate selected for the rest of us."
"You've no spare aboard?" I asked.
"The stabilizer is highly guarded proprietary technology, created using advanced alloys and manufacturing techniques." Mr. Herbert said. "The only other prototype is in our Dallas airshipyards. We of course plan to manufacture more, but it was imperative that we launch the maiden voyage in a timely fashion."
"Your impatience may have killed us all, Herr Herbert," Captain Nussbaum said. "Chief, how long do we have until the ship destabilizes?"
"Given the rate of oscillation and the current tilt," the Chief said, "a matter of hours."
"I might be able to rig up a temporary solution," I said. "With the Chief's assistance."
Mr. Herbert looked relieved. "I cannot begin to thank you, Mr. Wainwright."
"I don't mean to bestow upon you false hope. With the limited spare parts and scant knowledge of what I'm doing, I can stave off disaster for another few hours at best. We still can't leave the city's skies."
Captain Nussbaum reached for the ship's intercom. "I'll order evacuation proceedings immediately."
"An evacuation won't save London," Bartleby said. "Give us time to try and find the culprit before you give that order – if he believes that James is still the primary suspect, his guard will be lowered and he may not hurry his escape. If we evacuate, he could melt through our fingers and off into the countryside, laughing all the way. Laughing at the dead, laughing at Mr. Herbert, and laughing at you, Captain."
Captain Nussbaum's face tightened. "I will not risk the passengers and my crew–"
"Listen." Mr. Herbert raised a sweaty palm. "I will not be made a fool of. I won't have it! A disaster of this scale would ruin my name, ruin my business. We have to try and bring this devil to justice and find the gyroscopic device to save the city below."
Nussbaum set his face into a grimace. "Herr Herbert, you may have financed the Rio Grande, but I am her Captain, and in the air my word is law. I can allot Herr Bartleby two hours to find the gyroscope, perhaps three if Herr Wainwright can create a temporary fix. After that, the ship will be evacuated. Am I understood?"
"Quite." Mr. Herbert nodded. "I would expect no less concern from you."
"Very well. I suggest we waste no more time. I will tell Herr Dewit to place a guard on the ship's aeroboat."
"The aeroboat?" Bartleby asked.
"Yes. We cannot have this scoundrel escaping."
"No, I mean you only have one aeroboat? For the entire vessel?"
"Well, the chances of needing it were slim to none," Mr. Herbert said. "It's hardly likely that we'd ever use it. Mostly for show."
"That doesn't seem very–"
"No, he's right, Bartleby," I interrupted. "In almost any disaster scenario the Rio Grande's hydrogen would ignite, killing all hands almost instantly."
The information was apparently unsettling to the others, for they simply stared at me for several moments.
"I strongly suggest we limit the spread of this information, lest we cause a panic and alert our quarry," Bartleby said. "I'll question your son, Mr. Herbert."
"Better... better question my wife, too," Mr. Herbert said. "And Tolby Ives is one of the guests – he's one of my competitors, and he'd love to see me fail. If he's behind it he's had his Pinkerton bodyguard do the dirty work."
"Why would you invite one of your rivals?" I asked.
"The better to rub his face in it," Bartleby grabbed me by the shoulders and steered me towards the door. "Now get to work saving our lives, James. That's a good lad."
***
Chief Miller endeavored, to the best of his ability, to walk me through the construction and functioning of the gyroscopic stabilizer. His terrible fright at the spectre of our impending fiery doom was a bit of a hindrance – he'd stop mid-lecture to wail or bemoan his fate, and his crying jags were starting to get on my nerves. When he started taking nips from his hip-flask I sent him out of his engine room and, with the help of his hastily scribed notes, continued on my own. A state of affairs that I found quite acceptable.
After a half-hour's labour I managed to cobble together a small gyroscope from the engine room's spare copper wire and mouldings, using the heat of the furnaces to solder it all together. It was an ugly kludge but if luck was on our side would buy us another hour or two.
Next Time: The results of Bartleby's interrogations.

can't make money because unlucky

Possible bots on Ignition Jackpot

The Golden King

(With apologies to Uncle Steve)
Jay Everett stared up at the towering Twin Pines Hotel, one of the largest buildings this side of the Las Vegas gambling strip. It was a jutting structure built entirely out of steel beams and black glass. The Hotel was surrounded on all sides by the flashing neon lights of Casino Row, which danced across its glossy surface like the ghostly imprints of colored flames. Apparently this place offered some of the swankiest penthouses in the entire city, but Jay wasn’t here for a room. He’d only come here to gamble.
He pushed through the front doors and entered the lobby, a spacious room with potted plants crawling up the walls like ivy. The place was packed with men in tuxedos and women in loose evening dresses. Jay felt smothered in his own suit, and he tried easing up the collar with one finger. It didn’t help much. He still felt like he was being throttled by his tie.
Most of the crowd was moving toward the check-in desk, but Jay snuck his way through until he could see the flashing lights of the casino. A large metal beam stretched across the entrance. Beneath it was a sign that proclaimed TWIN PINES CASINO in bold, electric blue letters. A bear and a turtle and various other forest animals gamboled across either side.
He managed to slip through the bustle without being too pushy, and then he was in. Light background jazz swept across him as he stepped into a world lit up by colored bulbs and strips of eerie black light. The casino actually wasn’t too crowded this early in the night. He almost had the entire place to himself.
He stopped before a large, circular game machine emblazoned with the words GOLD KING. The game itself was nothing more than a large spinning disc divided into colored slices. Most of the sections were given small monetary values, but there was one tiny sliver that had been painted a solid gold.
The game itself didn’t get too much activity, but the large statue perched above it could be seen from anywhere in the casino. It was a cartoony sculpture of a king wearing red robes and a golden crown. In his hand he held a royal scepter, which would flash brightly and let off a chorus of clanging bells whenever anyone hit the jackpot. Right now he was silent. His blank eyes stared out at the crowd, his mouth open in a creepy cartoon smile.
You have until the Gold King goes off to make $19,000. Otherwise…
Jay shivered. He couldn’t get Farrow’s threat out of his head; it echoed in his ears like the growl of a distant animal. Farrow himself was nowhere to be found, but Jay knew he’d stationed his cronies in every corner of this place. Some were probably disguised as security guards, others as bartenders or casino patrons. He couldn’t trust anybody. Any one of these people could be waiting to turn him in to Farrow the moment he backed out of this job.
So he did what he was told to do. He took a deep breath, let his eyes sweep over the casino, and strode over to the game that stood out to him the most. He had a lot of money to win and not much time to do it. This was a world ruled by chance, where the simple roll of a die could decide a person’s fate, and any ordinary man would have been sweating in his suit by now.
But Jay Everett was no ordinary man.
Jay had always known how different he was, even as a kid. It wasn’t that he looked or acted stranger than other people. He was just perceptive. He knew the answers in class before his teacher even finished speaking, although he quickly learned to keep this to himself. He could find things too. When little things went missing around the house, Jay always knew just where to look. He couldn’t explain how. He just did.
He also had an uncanny skill with numbers. He’d never used a calculator in his entire life and he couldn’t understand why his classmates were so helpless without it. By the time he’d reached 9th grade, he was already taking the highest level math courses his high school could offer. It wasn’t long before he caught the eye of several prestigious business schools, which practically tripped over themselves getting him to apply. He never had to worry about his future. Jay ended up leaving high school early and heading to Stanford, where he started down the fast track to a career in finance.
He was snatched up by Tony Salvatore right after graduation. Salvatore was a business tycoon who’d left his footprint in every major city across the country, and he was eager to take Jay on board as his new head of finance. “I’ve been waiting for a kid like you,” he’d said, clapping Jay on the shoulder. “Someone who knows how to crunch the numbers and keep his mouth shut.”
It was true that Jay hardly ever talked; it was a habit from his youth that he hadn’t yet outgrown. He just didn’t trust himself to speak. He knew things about Salvatore, things he couldn’t possibly know – like how he came in late on Mondays because he’d spent the night before drinking and hitting his wife, or how he’d gotten bite marks under his collar from a violent fling with his receptionist. Tony would walk into the room and the knowledge would hit Jay in the face like a foul stench. He valued his job, so he kept quiet.
He discovered Salvatore’s biggest scandal completely by accident. Jay had stayed late at the office that night to finish up one of his revenue forms, which kept coming up $100 short. It was baffling to him. He’d never had an issue with numbers before, not even a minor issue like this, and he didn’t understand why he kept finding the same inconsistency. So he pulled up some other forms to see if he could trace the cause of the missing hundred.
It would have been a cold trail for anyone else, but Jay was good at finding things, and he managed to dig up an encrypted file with a bunch of forms that had never made it into the system. He set up a program to decode the files and discovered that they were all bank deposits – deposits of exactly $100. The missing money was being funneled into an account under the name “Enrico Balazar.”
At first Jay didn’t know what to do with the info he’d dug up. This was fraud, fraud of the highest degree, and Salvatore had to be turned in. Jay had no desire to defend the crooked son of a bitch. But he wasn’t stupid – he knew Salvatore had connections in low places, and if Jay made this information public, he’d have a target on his head. He sat in the dark for a while and cycled through his options.
When Salvatore showed up for work the next day, Jay intercepted him right outside his office. “Sorry to bother you, sir,” he said. “I was just about to send the tax forms to our Boston division when my computer crashed. Is there any way you could send them out for me?” The bit about the computer was true; he’d just neglected to mention that he’d crashed it himself.
Salvatore stared at the papers in Jay’s hand with bleary, reddened eyes. He just had a shot of whiskey in his car. As usual, the thought hit Jay completely out of the blue. Salvatore eventually reached out and took the papers, crumpling them a bit in his fist.
“Hold on a sec,” he grunted. He took the papers into his office and set them on the desk, then leaned over to type his password on the computer. Jay’s eyes followed him carefully. Then Salvatore placed the forms in his scanner and began the uploading process.
Jay stayed late again, waiting until the last of the workers had left the office before typing a quick command on his keyboard. There was a brief popping sound. The power in his part of the building flickered for a moment, and Jay knew the cameras were disabled. He had a good hour or so before they came back on again.
He’d kept a pair of gloves in his briefcase all day, and he slipped them on now as he headed to Salvatore’s office. The tycoon’s personal computer sat in the corner, its screen flashing with an insistent message: PASSWORD?
Jay leaned forward and typed it in, his fingers copying the same pattern Salvatore had used this morning. A quiet beep, a loading bar, and he was in. He got to work immediately.
When Jay arrived at work the next day, a police car was parked outside the building, lights flashing and everything. He arrived just in time to watch the cops shoving a handcuffed Salvatore into the backseat. Jay made sure to keep his face hidden, just in case, but Salvatore had his eyes turned to the ground.
“What happened?” Jay asked one of his coworkers.
“You’ll never believe it, man. Some kind of virus got into Salvatore’s computer and made all of his private files go public. It turns he was channeling a big chunk of his clients’ cash to this mob boss in New York. Balthazar or something.”
“No kidding,” Jay replied. He watched as the car carrying Tony Salvatore turned the corner and disappeared down 5th Avenue.
It was then that he noticed a figure who was standing at the edge of the crowd, his face hidden by the brim of a dark baseball cap. Everyone else was staring down the street, but this man was facing Jay instead. He had his hands tucked into the pockets of a black leather jacket and a thin layer of dark stubble on his face. As soon as Jay noticed him, he lifted a hand from his pocket and gestured for Jay to come over.
Jay was hesitant, but it was broad daylight and he was surrounded on all sides by people. It was safe. He circled around the crowd and approached the dark stranger.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
The man didn’t answer right away. Instead, he reached out and slapped something small and square into the palm of Jay’s hand. Then Jay finally got a glimpse of his eyes beneath the cap. They were shrewd and calculating, a glassy blue that made Jay think of the surface of a frozen pond.
“I saw,” he said. “And if you’re interested, I could use your kind of expertise.”
Jay glanced at the object in his hand. It was a business card, nothing but a name and a set of digits. He frowned. “I’m sorry, I don’t –” But when he looked up, the man had already disappeared.
That was the first time Jay met Rick Farrow.
Jay sipped from his wine glass and watched as people tried their luck on the Twin Pines slot machines. In theory, the outcome of these games was completely random. But Jay knew that most of these machines cycled through a random number sequence, and unless it had been rigged to prevent this issue, one could theoretically spot a pattern. The casino owners needed to make sure that some people walked away winners, after all. Not everyone. Just enough to keep people playing.
There was a pattern, but it was so subtle that the average person would never have noticed it. 19 pulls got you three cherries and a decent amount of cash. 95 pulls got you a row of three gold coins. And after 171 pulls of the lever, three 7s would plunk into place, bells would go off, and the ring of bulbs around the game would burst into life. Jay watched the colored lights dance across the face of each excited winner.
So he sat at the bar, ordered another wine, and waited. He made a mental check mark every time someone new stepped up to play the game. And when the 170th person walked away, he set down his glass, strode over to the machine, and played.
The wheels whirled for a good few seconds before settling on the jackpot. The lights flashed, the bells rang, and a flood of coins spilled out of the machine.
He collected his winnings without a smile.
Now that Tony Salvatore had been removed from his position as CEO, his offices in New York got shuttered. Jay suddenly found himself jobless and in desperate need of cash, as Salvatore had been paying for him to live in a nice apartment on the east side of town. Despite his impressive work history, he seemed to carry with him a kind of stigma for being even somewhat associated with the Salvatore name.
So, with no other options, Jay contacted Rick Farrow. The mysterious man arranged to meet with him at once. He conducted Jay’s interview in a rented office space not too far from the old Salvatore building. Farrow asked most of the questions, and he nodded along pleasantly as Jay talked about his passion for numbers and his experiences studying at Stanford.
Farrow was a curious character. He never seemed to take off his black leather jacket, which looked slightly too big for his slender frame. His cheeks were sharp and bony and his facial hair was carefully trimmed. It was a fairly imposing look, but when he smiled it completely transformed his character. He was a charismatic individual. One way or another, he seemed capable of winning anybody over.
Farrow was impressed by Jay’s experiences, especially by the way he had so cleverly exposed Salvatore, although he refused to tell Jay how he’d seen that particular bit of espionage. In any case, Farrow thought Jay’s skills were perfect for the job, and he told Jay he would take him on immediately. Housing would be provided in one of the apartment complexes near their base of operations. Payment was substantial and would come in on a monthly basis. Jay hardly heard any of this; he was just excited to be welcomed into such a secretive underworld.
The weeks passed by quickly as Jay got initiated into his new life. Farrow explained to him that Salvatore had just been the tip of a very large and very dangerous iceberg. CEOs all over the state were funneling illicit cash to various crime bosses in the city, and Farrow had made it his goal to cut off the head of the snake. Multiple snakes, in this case. That was where Jay and the rest of the tech specialists came in. They had an eye for the little details that could bring a corrupt CEO down from the inside.
To accomplish this, Farrow and several of his associates went around the city and placed cameras in strategic locations. Sometimes they even hacked into company networks so the tech-heads back at the base could break through any encrypted files. It was tireless work, but Jay loved it. He had never felt more in his element. It gave him a thrill to think that he was doing something with his life, that he was using his knowledge to make the world a slightly better place.
Most of the time they operated out of an abandoned warehouse in one of the emptier sections of the city. Farrow had the whole place rigged up with state of the art security systems and a few dozen computers. Jay and the other tech-heads spent most of the time cracking codes and analyzing the footage from Farrow’s secret cameras. If they found any incriminating evidence, they were to report it right away. Then Farrow would take some of his cronies and disappear into the city for a few days.
In very rare cases, Farrow would ask one of the tech-heads to come with him on an assignment. This only ever happened if the job required hacking skills that Farrow himself didn’t possess. Jay was fairly new to the whole game, so Farrow usually passed him up for one of the more experienced techies. He didn’t mind; in fact, he was nervous about returning the field. The Salvatore affair seemed like it had happened ages ago. He wasn’t quite sure he was ready to sneak around in gloves and a ski-mask again.
Jay was busy scanning footage one evening when he heard the slam of a door and the sound of muffled shouting from below. He frowned and took off his headphones. It was definitely Farrow shouting – Jay would have recognized that gravelly voice anywhere. He just couldn’t make out any of the words. Placing the headphones gingerly on the monitor, he got out of his seat and tiptoed over to the door.
The main operations room was on the second floor, so Jay peered over the railing on the catwalk to see what was happening below. Farrow and a few of his masked associates were gathered around one of the other tech-heads. Jay thought it looked like Bruno, the guy who worked with him on Tuesdays. He had his back against a drainage pipe and was holding his hands up helplessly.
“You took off your fucking mask! Do you know how serious this is?” Farrow was yelling. Even from this high up, Jay could see the angry crease in his eyebrows. “They’ve got your face now. It’ll be all over their security cameras. Your stupid slip-up could have put our entire operation at risk!”
“I-I-I’m sorry,” Bruno stammered. “It won’t happen again, I promise!”
“You’re damn right it won’t,” Farrow growled. Then he drew a gun from inside his jacket and shot Bruno in the head.
Jay clapped a hand to his mouth to stifle a scream. Half of the techie’s face was missing, bits of his skin and brain tissue spraying out onto the warehouse floor. His blood splattered across the drainage pipe and trickled to the ground. Jay could hear the steady drip all the way from the catwalk.
He ducked back inside the operations room before Farrow could look up and see him there. His heart was pounding out an erratic beat on his ribcage. As quickly as he could, he slid into his seat and stuck the headphones back over his ears. He hummed a senseless little tune under his breath, trying to make himself look as carefree and oblivious as possible. If Farrow knew what he had just seen… he held back a shudder.
Farrow appeared in the doorway a few minutes later, the specks of blood completely wiped from his face. He’d changed into a cleaner jacket too. As Farrow walked past the row of flashing computer screens, Jay tried to calm his racing pulse.
“Any good news?” Farrow asked. He placed a hand on Jay’s shoulder, peering down at the monitor.
They shoved his body in the wood chipper. The knowledge hit him like a jolt of lightning, clear and strong. It took every ounce of his willpower to force a smile.
“Nothing so far,” he said. “It’s pretty quiet tonight.” He was amazed he could keep his voice from trembling.
Farrow stared at the screen for a few painfully long moments, then coughed. “Keep up the good work,” he said. He let go of Jay’s shoulder and drifted toward the exit. The masked associates followed him like obedient dogs.
When Jay was finally sure he could breathe easy again, he wiped a line of sweat from his brow. He was badly shaken, and not just because he’d seen his coworker shot in cold blood. He was questioning himself now, questioning the whole purpose of this assignment. If Farrow could do something so cruel and violent in the walls of his own compound, what was he doing out in the real world?
After making sure the coast was clear, Jay opened up a web browser and began searching for names. He’d been so busy working this job that he’d never bothered to check the papers, to see what was really going on outside the compound. All the news about the crooks they’d toppled had come through Farrow himself. But the search results Jay found online painted a very different story.
Farrow had said that the elderly Mitch Cullum had been arrested for siphoning funds to a New York crime syndicate, but Jay managed to dig up the old man’s obituary. Cause of death: gunshot wound. Nancy Deepneau, a leading member of a dental corporation in New York City, had gone missing three months ago. And David Tassenbaum, a prominent figure in the computer business, had been mugged to death in an alley, his body so beaten it had been almost impossible to identify. Jay found a dozen more examples of the “corrupt CEOs” Farrow had supposedly brought to justice. The only thing they had in common was that they’d all been very rich, and there had been discrepancies in their corporate funding following each death or disappearance. The police were unable to track down any leads.
His fingers trembling, Jay shut down the browser. For a moment he could only stare at the screen in front of him. What the hell could he do? It wasn’t like he could play dumb forever. He was an expert at staying strategically silent, but a secret this huge would find its way out eventually. His body language would betray him first. The moment he started fidgeting too much, Farrow would know the truth.
So he did the only thing he could think of. He disappeared.
Erasing yourself from existence is next to impossible. You would have to delete every record of your birth, your social security, your education, your medical insurance, your credit card accounts – any and all places where your name could be found in writing. But Jay was persistent, and he knew things. He accessed every database he possibly could and systematically wiped himself off the map. There were some records he knew he could never touch, but if they were out of his reach, the chances of Farrow finding them were slim to none. He was an invisible man now.
Once he was done, he put down the headphones, shut off the monitor, and strode out the front door of the warehouse. It was only a matter of time until Farrow noticed his absence, but he planned to put a few thousand miles between them before that happened.
He was free. He’d been shaken to his core, but he was free, and that was all that mattered. He’d have plenty of time later to think about the horrors he’d seen. And who knows? Maybe this was it. Maybe this whole affair was behind him, and one day it would just become a ghastly dream, a nightmare from someone else’s reality.
But deep down, he knew it wouldn’t be that easy.
“Red 38,” Jay stated. He handed his chips to the croupier, who stacked them on the side of the table with the bets from the other players. Then he gave the roulette wheel a spin. Jay watched as the colors bled together, streaking in an ugly smear of crimson gray. After a few seconds, the croupier tossed the ball down the spinning track. It bounced and rolled every which way before coming to rest in one of the 38 slots. Red 38 exactly.
“Damn, you’re on a roll,” the croupier said. He handed Jay his original chips plus the payout. “Sure you want to keep going? This luck of yours can’t last forever.”
“I’m sure,” Jay answered. He took a deep breath, waiting for the answer to wash over him like it always did. Then he placed his chips back down on the table and stated, “Black 13. Last bet.”
The croupier shrugged and took the chips. They went through the same routine. The roulette wheel spun in its blurry circle, and the ball bounced around for a while before plunking into its final slot. Black 13.
Jay ignored the astonished remarks of the croupier and accepted his winnings silently. He couldn’t stay at this table forever, so he turned away from the Rose Bowl Roulette and cast his eyes across the casino. The night was lengthening and the room was filling up with players, most of them clutching thin glasses of cognac and laughing with their friends. He searched for any sign of Farrow’s men, but it was useless – he’d never find them in this crowd.
He didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t help glancing at the Gold King’s looming statue. It was still dark and silent. Now that the place was getting busy, though, the chances of someone winning the jackpot had risen significantly. Time was running out.
Jay hated using what he knew to win games. It was one thing to find the pattern of outcomes for a slot machine; anyone with half a brain and enough time on their hands could do the same. But what he could do was cheating. No one could ever catch him at it, which somehow made it worse. He’d decided a long time ago that he’d never do exactly what he was doing now.
But he didn’t have a choice. He was over halfway to his goal, closer to three-fourths, really, and he couldn’t afford to waste time now. If he had to cheat, then so be it. Too much was at stake tonight.
The years following Jay’s escape passed in a dreamlike sort of blur. He moved out west, hopping briefly from town to town and spending his nights in cheap hotel rooms. He had to pay in cash, of course, since his credit card account had recently ceased to exist. Luckily he had plenty to go around. He had a natural talent for hustling, and he won most of his money by playing pool games or dealing hands of poker in the back of shady bars.
He never stayed with the same car for too long. He always knew when some idiot driver had left their keys in the ignition, and he took every opportunity to hop in a new vehicle and continue the journey west. He felt a little guilty about hijacking so many rides, but it never bothered him for long. He was far more afraid of Farrow catching up to him.
Occasionally he would seek out some underground sources who had a reputation for forging documents. He needed a new identity, which meant a new birth certificate and social security card and everything. He eventually settled on the name Jay Everett – “Jay” after the first letter of his old name, and “Everett” after a small saloon he’d passed through in Denver. He didn’t get all his documents forged in one location. He staggered them, picking up a new one every few stops to try and throw Farrow off his trail.
By the time he reached Nevada, he figured he’d placed enough distance between himself and Farrow to finally settle down. He got a low-level office job and rented out a tiny apartment at the edge of Boulder City. As the years passed and his stint with Farrow faded from his memory, he finally began to live a normal life again.
He fell in love. He married a beautiful girl named Marcia Thorne who knew nothing about his past, and they had a son together. Trace Everett. He grew up like any ordinary boy, kicking soccer balls around the yard and playing hide-and-seek with the other kids in the neighborhood. When he turned seven they even bought him a small black-and-white dachshund that he affectionately dubbed “Billy.” From that point on the boy and the dog were inseparable; they often went on walks together before his parents called them in for dinner.
Jay was happy. He’d gotten away from his past; he’d moved on from a life he thought would haunt him forever. He made love to his beautiful wife and watched cartoons with Trace on Saturdays. It was a perfect routine, and he never wanted it to end.
Then one night, ten years after Jay had made his escape from Farrow’s compound, a power surge went through their entire house. The Everetts had been enjoying their Sunday dinner when it happened. The bulb above the kitchen table gave a loud sputter before dying out completely. Billy gave a loud bark and began running in circles around the table.
“Calm down boy, it’s just a blackout,” Trace said. He got out of his chair and restrained the dog before he could knock into any of the table legs.
“That’s funny,” Marcy said, peering out the window. “The neighbors’ houses still have power.” Jay joined her by the window, frowning.
“Hmm. Must be something wrong with our circuit breaker,” he said. “You two go look for some flashlights. I’ll see if I can fix the problem.”
The three of them wandered off, stumbling their way through the dark. Jay found the door to the basement and began climbing downward, clinging carefully to the railing. He knew the breaker was located at the bottom of the steps, right next to the garage. He reached the end of the stairs and fumbled in the gloom for the circuit box.
To his surprise, the door to the box was already wide open. As Jay’s eyes adjusted somewhat to the darkness, he saw that every single wire in the box had been snipped cleanly in half. Shit, he thought, oh shit, I should have known. But it was too late now. He felt the muzzle of a gun dig into his shoulder blades.
“I’ve been looking a long time for you,” Farrow said. His voice floated through the darkness in a soft, amused sort of growl. “You’re the one that got away. Isn’t that cute? You wouldn’t believe how many goddamn hoops I had to jump through just to track you down. But now I’ve got you.”
“It’s been ten years,” Jay hissed. “Ten fucking years. What could you possibly want?”
Farrow made a disapproving sound with his tongue. “We’ll get to that in a moment,” he said. “First, we have some introductions to make.”
Right on cue, Billy began barking furiously in the kitchen. Jay could hear Trace’s high-pitched voice trying to shout over him. “No, no, what are you doing, stop, he’s just a dog HE’S JUST A DOG STOP IT –”
Then a gunshot, a muffled whimper, and a shriek that could only have been Marcy. “Jay!” she screamed. “Oh god, oh god, there’s men in the house, they’ve got guns! They shot Billy!”
“Time for our big entrance,” Farrow laughed. He shoved Jay in the back with his pistol, forcing him up the basement steps. Jay plodded forward, hardly able to feel his feet. This must be a nightmare, he thought. I’m going to wake up any second now. But he knew that wasn’t true, the same way he knew so many other impossible things.
When Farrow pushed him into the kitchen, four dark shapes were waiting for him there. Two of them were Trace and Marcy, their hands behind their heads, their entire upper bodies trembling. The other two were some of Farrow’s masked associates. Each one held a pistol to the head of the prisoner beside them.
Marcy let out a sob when she saw Jay climbing up the steps. “Oh god, Jay, not you too?”
“Quiet,” one of the masked figures ordered. His voice sounded strangely distorted, like he was speaking through a filter. Marcy drew in a shuddery breath but stayed quiet.
“So, the gang’s all here!” Farrow exclaimed. “Wonderful.” He performed an exaggerated bow, his gun still nestled in the small of Jay’s back. “I’m Rick Farrow, a man of many trades. Right now I’m a man with a gun. Funny how that gives you so much power, doesn’t it?”
Jay said nothing. In his mind’s eye he could see the gun Farrow was holding, a thin barreled pistol that looked like something out of a Western. A Colt Paterson revolver, his brain spat out uselessly. As if it mattered. It would put a large hole in his chest no matter what type of gun it was.
“It appears you folks have already met my men,” Farrow went on. “They’re pretty low on the corporate ladder, but they do what they’re told, and what more could a man ask for?” He lifted the gun from Jay’s back to do a mock sort of clap with both hands. Jay wasn’t fooled; he didn’t move an inch. He was still Farrow’s prisoner, even if he was no longer at gunpoint.
“What do you want with us?” Marcy asked. Her face was damp with tears, but she’d managed to steady her breathing. Trace leaned against his mother’s legs with a scrunched up expression of anger in his eyes. He was trying so hard not to cry. Jay did his best to look away from the furry mass on the floor that used to be Trace’s beloved dog.
“What do I want?” Farrow said. “Ah, therein lies the question.” He turned his attention back to Jay, his eyes still bright and glassy blue in the darkness.
“So, you go by ‘Jay’ now, do you?” He said it again, slowly this time, as if to savor its taste. “Jay. I like it. Nice and low-key. It suits you well.” He gave Jay a casual tap on the shoulder with his pistol. A toothless smile appeared on his face when he saw Jay wince.
“You were good, Jay,” Farrow said quietly. “You were one of my best, actually. When you took off like that, I knew it wouldn’t be easy to find you. But I kept trying. The other tech-heads made stupid mistakes, botched their missions; they were disposable. But you. You were the grand prize, the golden fleece. I needed you back. You did stuff with numbers that could make a fella’s heart sing.”
Here Farrow paused. His glassy eyes were staring more intently at Jay this time, a careful sort of scrutiny that made his skin grow cold.
“But it’s not just numbers, is it? You see things. Patterns, clues, tiny details other people would miss. That’s what makes you so special. That’s why I need you.”
“Just tell me,” Jay spat through clenched teeth. “Tell me what you want to do. I’ll do anything.”
This time the smile that creased Farrow’s bony cheeks was wide and toothy. “Now that’s more like it,” he said. “Have I got a job for you, big boy. This one’ll be right up your alley.”
Jay said nothing, waiting for Farrow to break the silence first.
“Here’s the thing,” Farrow said at last. “There’s a man out in Las Vegas by the name of Jonas Carver. He runs a big casino in the heart of the city called Twin Pines. My men and I have been eyeing the place for years and we’re just about ready to strike him where it hurts.” He pointed an enthusiastic finger at Jay. “What I want you to do is take a hefty chunk out of this man’s wallet. Let’s say… $19,000. Enough to make him question the security in his casino. Afterwards, when he’s checking for cracks, we’ll sneak in and do our part.”
“Are you going to kill him?” Jay said. His voice came out hoarse and weak.
Farrow grinned. “Don’t worry about Mr. Jonas Carver. He’ll be in good hands. You just focus on playing the right games and making the most moolah.”
Jay’s neck felt stiff as a board, but he nodded. “I’ll do it,” he insisted. “Just let them go.”
“Ah,” Farrow said. “We’ve reached that little snag.” He began pacing the kitchen floor in front of Jay, swinging his revolver like a baseball bat. “See, the thing is, I can’t do that. I need a little insurance here. If I let them go, what’s stopping you from running off to the West Indies for another ten years or so?”
“I won’t,” Jay managed to choke out. “Listen to me, goddammit. I won’t run. Just let them go.”
Farrow pretended to think about it for a second. “Nah,” he decided. “Tell you what. Let’s play a game instead. Inside the Twin Pines Casino, there’s a wheel-of-fortune type game called Gold King. You can’t miss it. It’s got this ugly fucking statue of a cartoon king on top. Every night, without fail, someone wins the jackpot and bells go off and that statue waves its flashing staff at everyone. But only once. For the rest of the night it’s just a statue.”
When Farrow turned to Jay again, his eyes were icy. “Tomorrow night,” he said. “You have until the Gold King goes off to make $19,000. Otherwise your family gets it.” He made a careless gesture at them with his pistol. “One shot each, right in the head. Boom. Boom. And you have to watch.”
“I’ll do it,” Jay repeated. “I’ll play your goddamn game the way you want. But unless I fail, you’d better not lay a finger on them.”
Farrow was examining something under one of his fingernails. “Done,” he stated. He waved his hand absently toward the door. “Take them away, men. You know where to go.”
The two masked men dragged Marcy and Trace out the back door, both of them crying out and struggling to get free. “Be quiet,” the first masked figure said in his distorted voice. “If you don’t shut up, we’ll make you shut up.”
Both of them immediately quieted down, but they couldn’t hide the expressions of pure fear that were plastered across their faces. Jay felt blood pumping furiously through his veins as he watched his family getting dragged away. Farrow lifted his hand and gave them a pleasant wave as they disappeared out the back door.
In the side window of the kitchen, Jay managed to catch a glimpse of Marcy’s face for what he hoped wasn’t the last time ever. He blew her a kiss with trembling lips, but the masked men shoved her and Trace into a waiting van before she could see it. Then the two of them were gone.
Jay was in the middle of a poker game when the Gold King bells went off.
He’d managed to keep his cool throughout the entire night, but the blood drained from his face when he heard the loud clanging noise echoing through the casino. He turned to see the cartoon statue gamboling in place, flashing its toothy smile at the surrounding players. The scepter in its hand was dancing with flecks of neon light.
No, he thought in disbelief. No, not yet! I was almost there!
He’d been so close to the $19,000 mark that this poker game would probably have pushed him over the edge. The Gold King had gone off just as he was about to play his final hand. Now he watched the statue spin in lazy circles, its hideous bells still ringing in his eardrums.
“Hey,” a voice said suddenly. It was the dealer, trying to get Jay’s attention. “Hey buddy, this is the last hand. Are you calling or folding?”
Jay looked at him in surprise, then down at the cards in his shaky fingers. He hadn’t even bothered to look at them yet. What was even stranger, his usual powers of perception were failing him. He knew what all the other hands looked like, he knew who was bluffing through their teeth and who posed a legitimate threat, but he didn’t even know what cards he was holding.
He wondered how long it would take for Farrow’s men to cut through the crowd and take him away. He figured he had about thirty seconds, a minute at most. Was it possible? Could he make enough off this hand to complete Farrow’s sick challenge? The Gold King hadn’t finished its death knoll yet when the final hand was dealt. It was a technicality, but he was banking on it. It might just save Marcy and Trace’s lives. Now it was up to these last five cards to decide if they saw the light of another day.
He offered a quick prayer to a God he never believed in. Then he turned the cards over and stared down at the hand he’d been dealt.

The Grief Process

They say each person handles grief in their own unique way. There is no right or wrong way, just whatever works best for you. Sure, some ways are healthier than others, but eventually you will cross the Rubicon and find yourself somewhere on the emotional spectrum between fine and totally broken. I’m currently on the “this shit sucks” phase of grieving, which I think is the 3rd according to the headshrinkers.
“Those bastards will do anything to delay and give you as little money as possible,” I said out loud to an empty room as I ended the call and threw my phone on the couch with a thud.
I used to think lawyers were the worst, but they were the easy part of this whole mess compared to those soulless drones at the insurance company. What’s the point of life insurance if you don’t pay it out when someone dies from natural causes! I could understand if the circumstances were suspicious but I have folder upon folder of medical charts and reports and treatment plans that highlight exactly what was sucking the life out of her. Sitting here in the room that she loved, I could still picture her in that bed. The beep… beep… beep… of the machines and hiss of the ventilator as it echoed off the high ceilings is permanently drilled into my brain. I’m amazed how many songs have the same tempo as my wife’s heart as she was dying. I’ll be listening to a song and that damn beeping will just appear, unannounced and certainly uninvited. I’d say this experience had settled in and bought plenty of real estate in my mind. The prices must be pretty reasonable at this point. The autumn sun was shining in through the bay windows at the back of the house that overlooked the sloping lawn stretching off towards our neighbor’s house about 100 yards away. Dust particles fluttered in the rays that came through the gaps in the blinds in an otherwise somber room. The light bounced off the ashen, hardwood floor where you could still make out the scratch marks that the hospice bed had made. Celia would have had the blinds wide open as part of her morning ritual… after the coffee was made of course. I couldn’t bear to open them as gloom seemed to match my mood this morning.
The dust particles seemed to be almost fog like which was apropos for how my head felt. There is a fog that settles on your mind after someone very close to you dies. I often found myself wandering into rooms and forgetting why I came there. I'd be in conversations with friends and family and suddenly lose the thread on the exchange completely. My brain may as well be a sieve at that point because nothing is finding purchase on the way through. According to the book I read on the grief process, this is totally normal and I should expect it to get better with time. One day, at some point on some day, I’ll come to accept where I am in life and what has happened. I wasn’t sure if I would notice that the grieving process was over and experience a transition or whether it would just be the new normal I felt.
My vacant contemplation was interrupted by the jarring sound of the door bell. I opened it to find a familiar face smiling at me. “Hi Seth. How are you holding up?” she asked as I moved out of the way to let her into the foyer as she brushed the red hair out of her eye line.
“Hi Maggie. As well as can be expected I guess. The sleeping pills are really making a difference and I’m trying to take more baths to just clear my mind and relax. How are you holding up? She was your best friend after all.”
As she responded, her voice seemed to quiver the slightest bit as she seemingly fought back emotions, “I probably miss her as much as you do. At least I have Hugo and the boys to spend time with. I worry about you all by yourself over here. Hopefully you aren’t just sitting alone except for a bottle of whiskey and your thoughts.”
“Really, I’m doing fine,” I attempted to reassure her, “I’ve just been sorting through some estate stuff and fighting with the goddamn insurance company. It’s really sweet of you to check in on me though.”
“I’d be a terrible friend if I didn't. You guys are family to me,” she replied, her voice cracking just a little before recovering and continuing. “Listen, I’m getting things together for the memorial fundraiser down at the pet shelter. I have a ton of photos, but I don’t really have any of her with Tracey. You know how much she loved that dog. They also want to add her to the photo wall with other past directors, so make sure that it’s a really nice photo and she’s not making one of her stupid faces she used to love to make.”
I faked a understated chuckle and nodded. “Certainly. I’m sure that I have some photos printed out in a closet upstairs with the dog and I’ll find one of her professional looking photos from her healthcare days. That should do the trick for the wall.”
Our old dog, Tracey, was the reason that Celia left her corporate gig and went to work at the shelter as the director full-time. After rescuing her personally on the side of the road and all of our failures trying to have kids, she just needed a higher purpose in life than managing a surgical department for a bunch of doctors. Celia had always been a bleeding heart and a champion for the underdog. It’s a trait that I both admired and lambasted her for since I was anything but on most days. Tracey had died last year from old age and with Celia being sick, it wasn’t time to get a new dog.
“That’s wonderful and I’m really sorry to bother you with this. I’ll stop by tomorrow to pick them up if that’s OK with you,” Maggie enthused.
“No bother at all. The pet shelter was a big part of her and she left an indelible mark there, I’m sure. What you’re doing is wonderful. Thank you.”
“Ok, try to get some sleep. No offense, but you look like shit.”
We both forced a chuckle after that one. I shut the door behind Maggie and locked it as she left. Maggie had been so helpful since Celia died. A godsend really in so many ways. Mostly she handled the external stuff that I just couldn’t face yet. I tried to not leave the house. It was safe in my cocoon of grief, except when I emerge I expect to resemble a moth more than a butterfly. I hadn't been to work in weeks and the only contact I had with clients has been condolence flowers and the like. It was quite the contrast to my normal busy travel schedule, schmoozing people out of their money.
Later that evening, I checked that all the doors were locked and made my way up the wooden stairs, the gentle creaking of wood and loose nails following me as I went. I slipped into some pajama pants and sat down, dejected and drained, at the foot of the king-size bed in our bedroom. “It’s a very large bed for only one person but at least I don’t get smacked in my sleep for stealing the sheets anymore,” I tried to joke to myself.
I looked over at the dresser and saw the picture of Celia and myself next to her jewelry box. I had my arm draped around her shoulders, bare chested, her in a swimsuit with her long blonde hair blowing in the ocean wind. She had an oversized pair of sunglasses on that always reminded me of something Kim Jong Ill would have worn. I shouldn’t really talk though since I have the fashion sense of a gorilla on my good days. Barbados. 3 years ago before this whole mess. You would have never known she was 40 at the time. She was a lifelong swimmer and it showed spectacularly when she would bust out the bikini. It was such a great vacation and probably the last time I can remember us being truly happy and carefree together as a couple.
As I remembered the trip, the wave of despair hit me and engulfed every fiber of my being. I melted into a blubbering mess of snot and tears on the bed -- the not-so-pretty part of the process. After a good five minutes, I finally stopped and crawled under the covers, emotionally exhausted. As I closed my eyes, I could have sworn I felt the mattress shift, almost as if someone had gotten into bed. I quickly rationalized the sensation away as a figment of my overtired mind and passed out quickly into a dreamless, deep sleep.
I awoke to what felt like someone pulling the covers off of me, but it must have just been me moving the covers as I dozed in that warm, fuzzy area between asleep and awake. I lied there for a moment more, just looking around the room as the sunlight broke through the edges of the curtains. Something looked out of place on my dresser when I glanced at it. The picture of Celia and me was on the other side of the dresser from where it was last night and there was something in front of it, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was from my prone position. I got up and walked over hesitantly, looking around the room for anything else that seemed odd. Nothing immediately caught my eye. As I got closer, I saw Celia’s smiling face looking up at me from a photo next to the jewelry box. It was a photo from when she worked with Maggie at the University hospital in Baltimore. One of those professional looking ones that they like to post on the website for the departments at the hospital. I picked up the small stack of about 10 photos and thumbed through. There were also a bunch with Tracey, our collie. Once I processed what I was looking at and replayed what I remembered from the night before, a sense of shock and panic took over me. “Where in the hell did these come from?”
I sat dumbfounded looking at the pictures for a moment, trying to rationalize how the pictures could possibly have gotten there. The fear in my brain shot into overdrive and I could feel my heart pounding in my throat. Surely I must have gotten up in the night and got them together but was so exhausted that I didn’t remember. As I was working out scenarios in my head frantically, I had the distinct feeling of two hands that seemed to grab my shoulders between the joints and my neck with a solid squeeze, sending a pressure and warmth down into my chest and back. Was this Celia? I absorbed the strange feeling and realization, experiencing my body relax and my breathing slowing down. Even in death, on whatever other plane of existence she was still standing besides me, helping with the little things like she always has. God, she was so good to me. I would give anything to have her back right now. I looked up into the mirror and there was nothing behind me of course, but I could swear that I saw the faintest change in the corner of the mirror near the pictures. It was almost as if someone had exhaled, producing brief condensation on the cool mirror. I collected the pictures and hesitantly worked my way downstairs, ultra vigilant of any other anomalies I could find.
The rest of the morning and into the afternoon didn’t bring any new weirdness. I went into my office to grab my laptop so I could do some paperwork with my afternoon coffee. I glanced at my bookcase behind my oak desk and immediately noticed something was off. I look at it every time I walk by or into the room so I would notice any change immediately. My eyes instinctively hone in on it and the pleasant memories that it brings me, providing little bits of joy when I need them the most. I lifted the wooden box, turning it over slowly and looking at all sides. It was open and it shouldn’t be. I couldn’t fathom how it was left open since I certainly would not have left it open so carelessly like that. Was it possible I did and just forgot? I quickly looked inside, my heart pounding as I realized the gold butterfly earrings were gone. I thumbed the hidden mechanism on the side of the puzzle box to secure the lid shut. The red oak box had a wood burned image of a zydeco band in the French Quarter of New Orleans. It had been a little curiosity that caught my eye when I was there on business so many years ago and it had resided on the same spot of my bookshelf ever since.
I dropped to my knees, pawing around frantically on the carpet and swinging my head from side to side looking for the missing butterflies. I grabbed my phone and shone the light under my desk with nothing but dust bunnies in sight. As I was looking behind the books that were next to the box, the doorbell rang and interrupted my fervent search. “Son of a bitch!” I intoned to myself as I made my way to the door.
I opened it to find Maggie there again. “Sorry to bother you so early, but I was about to head into town and wanted to see if you had the pictures ready since I’ll be driving past the shelter.”
“Of course. Come on in and no bother at all. I was just looking for some important tax papers in my office and not having any luck,” I replied, attempting to provide some cover for my probable frantic-looking state, “I’ll be right back with the photos.”
My mind raced, “Where the hell could those damn earrings be? Keep your shit together until Maggie leaves. You can look more later.”
I retrieved the stack of photos from my bedroom and returned to the foyer to see Maggie standing by my office door and holding something small up towards her face, looking intently at it. My heart nearly stopped once I realized what she was holding. “These were lying on the floor by the door to your office. They are really pretty earrings,” Maggie said, opening her hand towards me to reveal a pair of gold earrings, “Were they Celia’s? I don’t remember ever seeing her wearing them. Monarchs are beautiful.”
I was stunned for a second as my mind grasped for the right thing to say and I hesitantly replied, “Ohh yeah. She had picked those up in North Carolina a few years back. I must have dropped them when I was cleaning up some things.”
I reached out and took the earrings, quickly squirreling them away in my pocket. “I’m sorry. I’m sure every little momento like that is a painful memory for you emotionally,” Maggie replied with that poor puppy dog look people give you when a loved one dies, afraid the slightest tap on your fragile mental state will send it shattered all over the room.
“You’re sweet as always but it’s fine, really. I’m doing OK,” I reassured her. “Here are the photos. There are some great ones in there that I think Celia would have loved.”
I thought to myself, “I’m pretty sure she picked them out herself,” but I wasn’t about to tell Maggie what had happened. She'd had thought I was crazy.
Maggie flipped through briefly, stuck them in her purse, then embraced me with a hug. “Hang in there, OK? I’ll check on you in a few days.”
As I watched her walk to her truck from out of the side window next to the front door, my head felt like it was going to explode as an awful migraine took hold behind my eyes. “How the hell did those get there?”
I fought against the oncoming flashes of pain in my vision and hurried to my office. I worked open the puzzle box and gingerly placed the earrings in it. As I closed it, I could feel my blood pressure returning to normal levels and my heart no longer felt like a timpani in my chest. I stood clutching the box for a minute or so before returning it to its place on the shelf. The migraine was coming on stronger and I knew it was inevitable that it would debilitate me shortly. It seemed like the perfect time to take a nice hot bath and hope it would put me on the mend.
I drew the bath in my master suite and set up my bluetooth speaker on the sink, back about 6 inches from the edge. I flipped through my music streaming favorites and settled on some Counting Crows, which I put on ‘all shuffle’. They had always been a go-to band for Celia and myself. We’d seen them in concert half a dozen times during their heyday and it was always a wonderful show. The lead singer loved to change the lyrics just slightly during his live shows, but the entire meaning of a song could change by only tweaking a few words. Celia’s favorite song by them was “Mr. Jones.” She would always belt out the chorus at the top of her lungs everytime it was on and give her best impression of what spanish dancing would look like to the uninitiated. She liked the song so much that I would catch her tapping out the beat with her wedding ring when she was thinking hard or was nervous. It was a distinct, syncopated beat with each set corresponding to a chord change. Dun-nah-nana. Dun-nah-nana.
I smiled a sad smile, reminiscing about Celia for a moment, then I hit play and lowered myself into the bath. The water was scalding hot at first but I quickly acclimated and settled in, placing a wet, hot washcloth on my eyes and forehead. After 10 minutes or so, the pain above my eyes, under my brow had become less acute and more of a dull ache compared to the searing pain from earlier. I was focusing on my breathing and attempted to mentally relax every muscle in my body one-by-one to relieve some of the stress that I’d been under these last few weeks. A few songs from Counting Crow’s newer stuff had played, as well as one of my favorites of theirs, “Mrs. Potter’s Lullabye.” I always loved the line that “if dreams are like movies, then memories are just films about ghosts.” I realized that these films in my head were on repeat nearly nonstop. Almost on cue, the singer sang the line, “The price of a memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings.” I let that quip bounce around in my head for the rest of the song, ruminating on memories and sorrow and everything in between.
I certainly wasn’t at the beginning of my grief. That had started as soon as the diagnosis was confirmed - Stage 4. I’m not sure if it’s common knowledge or not, but you actually start grieving well before someone dies from a terminal illness. It’s not like the shock of someone dying suddenly from an accident or a heart attack. You’re stuck in this kind of terminal grieving along with the person who’s stuck just waiting to die. I guess it’s theoretically possible to make it all the way to the acceptance stage before they die, but I was pretty much confined to the anger and depression. I spent my days and nights caring for Celia when I was home, and working my ass off to afford all of the expenses when I wasn’t. Dying can get expensive as shit. One silver lining was that it did free up some time for hobbies I used to enjoy before she got sick while on the road or when Celia was out of town. Since she was bedridden, I could make the time without too many questions. This was a welcome stress relief. After Celia died, I essentially started the grieving process over, but nowhere near as intense as the first time around. The biggest thing is the emptiness. It’s jarring as shit to go from something being there, this core part of your being and life, to nothing being there. Mix that all up with the guilt from your relief. Yes, she’s gone and that’s terrible but you’re done with the purgatory of waiting so it makes you feel relieved in a way.
Through the fog of my introspective clouded thoughts, I made out the ending chords of the previous song and a very familiar beat started out of the speaker. Dun-nah-nana. Dun-nah-nana. The beginning chords of “Mr. Jones” reverberated off the tile that lined the bathroom. A vision of Celia dancing around immediately came into my mind - a bittersweet film about a ghost. I suddenly felt what I can only describe as a pair of hands on my shoulders, much like before, but I didn’t really react in the moment. Almost at the same time, I heard something crash loudly onto the tile floor and the music cut off. In perfect timing with what would have been sung if the music had continued, a hoarse whisper, light but weighty at the same time, choked out ,“Cut up, Maria. Show me some of that Spanish dancing.” I involuntarily jerked forward, realizing I just heard the voice of my dead wife in my ear. I threw off the washcloth on my face and jumped out of the tub, nearly slipping when I missed the rug. What I can only describe as a miasma seemed to hover in the doorway. Grey, formed and defined yet impossibly fluid and nebulous at the same time. Was I looking at a ghost of my dead wife or was I going crazy?
Transfixed, I watched the miasma go down the hallway towards the bed and seemingly dissipate. This was followed by knocking sounds on my window beyond the bed that I listened to in my frozen state. At first it just sounded like non-uniform knocking but after a moment it was unmistakable. Dun-nah-nana. Dun-nah-nana. Every muscle in my body refused to move and my breathing had nearly stopped. Celia was here and she was communicating with me. I’m not afraid to admit that I was terrified. Dead people aren’t supposed to be communicating with the living. That’s not how science works. What’s more, this didn’t feel like the warm feeling I had earlier with the pictures. This was colder and darker, yet still was unmistakably Celia. Either that or I’m going insane and hallucinating the whole thing. I pushed that out of my mind when I became aware of the speaker laying on the floor by the door about 3 feet from its original position on the sink. The back had busted off. After a moment the rapping stopped and it seemed to get less cold as I snapped out of my shocked stupor.
I quickly grabbed a towel, wrapped it around my waist, then hesitantly made my way toward my bed, calling out if anyone was there. Nothing but silence greeted me as I walked to the window. I looked outside but saw nothing out of the ordinary; it was getting dark. No kids with ladders banging on my window or some other plausible explanation to what was going on. My mind raced trying to rationalize the situation and reconcile what I knew about how the physical universe works and what I had just experienced. I came up wanting. Shaking, I made my way downstairs and poured a stiff drink. The rest of the night got a bit blurry as the alcohol took hold and did its job with panache.
I woke up in my bed the next morning to the sun streaming through the blinds in my bedroom. My mouth was as dry as the Sahara. I stumbled into the bathroom, poured a glass of water, popped some aspirin, and caught a glimpse of my bloodshot eyes. I made myself some eggs and corned beef hash. Grease and orange juice were the medicine that morning.
The phone rang and I answered to Maggie’s chipper voice. “Seth! Good morning! You sound like I woke you up.”
“Oh no worries. I’ve been awake for a bit. I’m just nursing the remnants of a wicked hangover.”
“Bad night huh? Were you thinking about Celia?” Maggie asked me as the memories of the night before came back in bits in pieces. The voice, the sensations, the miasma, and most of all the tapping. “Shit. Did that actually happen?” I thought to myself.
“Yeah. Something like that,” I replied a moment later, “So what’s up, Maggie?”
“I just wanted to say thank you for leaving Celia’s stuff for me last night. These are some really lovely pieces.”
“Pieces? Sorry but what are you talking about?”
I genuinely had no memory of taking anything to Celia last night. It was extremely fuzzy after I started in with the whiskey though.
“The butterfly earrings and some other nice jewelry that was Celia’s. There’s a gold necklace with a blue crab pendant and a ring with a pineapple inlaid with diamonds.”
Like a record scratch, my breath stopped short and I barely heard what Maggie was describing. I fought the dizziness and ran into my office, starting to hyperventilating. Shit! It was gone! My vision was narrowing and the edges were getting ragged. My puzzle box wasn’t there on the shelf.
“Seth? Is everything OK?”
I managed to regain my composure enough to respond and attempt to sound convincing, “I’m sorry Maggie. Those are very sentimental things for me. I had bought them in the hopes of giving them to Celia for upcoming anniversaries when she got better. I’d really like to have them back please. I’m sorry for all the confusion. I have no idea what I was thinking.”
Maggie seemed to understand. “Oh no worries hon. We’ve all been there and I can’t say I blame you given the situation. I’ll bring them over when I head to town in a few minutes. I need to make a post office run.”
I was starting to calm down at this point. I would have my collection back shortly.
“Ohh that’s sweet of you. Thanks you, Maggie. Actually, mind giving me a ride as well please? I have some certified mail I need to send for the life insurance stuff. I’m probably better off hitching a ride than driving myself with this headache.”
“Of course. I’ll be by in about 15 minutes. See you soon.”
I put the phone in my pocket and looked around the office. There was a feeling in the air. It felt like the electricity that seems to emanate from the atmosphere when a summer thunderstorm is rolling in. You can almost feel the lightning before it gets there. It also felt very cold all of a sudden. I shivered and said to the empty room, “I don’t think I did this when I was drunk. Drunk or sober, that box would never leave this house. It was you, wasn’t it Celia? Why are you doing this to me?”
As I finished my sentence, a photo on my desk tipped over and fell on the floor. It was our wedding picture.
“This has nothing to do with you! A man needs an outlet and I was always an amazing husband to you! I loved you and you never wanted for anything!”
I guess my outburst was enough to settle the discussion because the strange feeling in the air disappeared and it seemed to get warmer. I was convinced Celia was trying to communicate with me. This wasn’t a warm discourse though. It felt electric, raw, and cloudy with what she was trying to get across to me. I hurried upstairs, threw some clothes on, and cleaned myself up a bit just in time for Maggie to show up at the door, with the box open in her hand. “Hi Seth. Here’s the box back. Again, it’s not a problem and I totally understand.”
I thanked her and apologized again, quickly taking the box from her and closing it, ensuring the latch clicked in place tightly. I took it to my office and replaced it in the empty spot where it belonged. “Now leave my collection alone, damnit,” I said under my breath.
I grabbed the large manilla envelope with the insurance paperwork and hopped in the car with Maggie for an uneventful ride in her pickup. It was probably a decade old. One of those trucks that every horse person has for hauling things like hay around. She had various tools in the truck bed blanking around from her husband. The windy back roads were making me slightly nauseous from the hangover. I didn’t really have a chance to eat anything, which didn’t help the matter. We arrived at the post office and walked inside. “Damn, there’s a lot of people here today,” I remarked to Maggie as we headed to the line.
There was probably half a dozen people in front of us intently trying to act like they weren’t paying attention to anyone around them. The waiting area was small and the line had a single double back. At the front was an old lady telling some story to the clerk about the last time she shipped packages and how something had broken so she got the insurance every time from then on. Maggie and I chatted idly about nothing in particular. The weather and that sort of stuff. She told me about a new volunteer at the shelter who apparently just had to get a restraining order against her boyfriend because he got drunk and beat her up pretty bad.
We were moving by now and we came to the part of the line where it doubled back. There was a bulletin board with notices for missing kids. “Have You Seen Me?” was emblazoned across the top of it. I hadn’t been in the post office for probably 2 years and it was new to me. Maggie was looking at it nonchalantly, telling me about how the girl from the shelter had a fractured eye socket, but then she stopped talking and her posture seemed to change, like when you’re daydreaming in class and the teacher suddenly calls on you for an answer. She leaned closer at one picture and then the picture next to it. Her head was blocking that part of the board so I couldn’t really tell what she was looking at. She seemed to stiffen up though. “What’s up?” I asked her.
She responded, but was decidedly flustered. “Oh nothing. I thought I recognized the girl in this picture but I was wrong.”
She was almost falling over her words. A slight vibrato in her voice.
“Oh I’m sure it’s just one of those faces that lots of people have.”
“I’m sure,” She replied.
Maggie shuffled forward stiffly. As I moved to her previous spot, I looked at the board. Staring back at me was a blonde haired girl with the name “Jessica Chance - 15 years old” under her photo. My heart sank into my stomach and time seemed to stop again. She was smiling in the picture with her hair pulled back behind her ears, revealing a pair of butterfly earrings. Monarch butterflies to be exact. “Last seen November 15th, 2017 in Charleston, West Virginia after leaving school.”
I scanned to the next picture and it was another blonde girl. “Reilly O’Neill - 16 years old.” This girl was also smiling, sitting at a table with open birthday presents around, seemingly showing off one of her presents. It was a pineapple ring with what looked like diamonds. “Last seen December 18th, 2017 in Raleigh, North Carolina.” Excitement and panic were welling up in me in equal parts. The memories were flooding in.
I scanned a few more and saw another photo that caught my eye. “Melanie Jones - 14 years old. Last seen July 8th, 2014 in Towson, Maryland.” Melanie had been the first. I caught myself inadvertently being aroused. She was smiling back at me in a school photo, her black hair in a bun and a necklace with a Maryland blue crab hung around her neck. I snapped back to reality in a hurry once I got ahold of myself. “Shit. Shit. Shit. Act cool. Get through the line and don’t react.”
Maggie had turned to look at me and our eyes met as I looked away from the board. Just for a moment there was a connection and we both knew. I could see the realization in her eyes. “Shit. She noticed the god damned jewelry.”
The clerk called Maggie after that brief moment of realization and she hurried up to the front. You could tell she was shaken. My mind was spinning and it wasn’t from the hangover. “What is the move here?” I asked myself. “Just play it cool until we get out of the damn post office. You can certainly explain this away or something. You persuade people at work for a living.” I reassured myself that everything was going to be fine.
Maggie picked up the package she came for and it was my turn. My mind was racing as I gave the clerk my envelope and the address to mail it. “I’ll meet you at the car,” Maggie stammered out before hurrying outside.
“Shit. I can’t let her make a phone call before I talk to her. She’s liable to call the god damn police or something.” I grabbed a $20 out of my wallet, gave it to the clerk with the address for the envelope and said to keep the change. He attempted to protest but I had already turned and was hurrying after Maggie. I saw that she had the phone to her ear. Moving quickly, but shuffling to not look panicked, I came out the door and slid into the passenger seat next to her, catching the last part of her phone call, “Ok honey. You can meet me at my house. Yes, exactly. Here comes Seth now so we’re going to get going. Bye.”
She hung up and looked at me. I could see the fear in her eyes. “That was Hugo. He’s going to meet me at home soon after he picks the kids up so we should get going.”
I tried to make my demeanor as calm and collected as possible. In as reassuring a tone as I could muster I said, “Yeah. I think that’s a good idea.”
As she started back toward my house, we sat in silence. I was turning my brain over trying to think of what to say to make this situation stop. “She’s a smart lady. She suspects something and I need to fix this.”
I became aware that the tools in the back of the truck were clanging as we drove. It wasn’t nonsensical clanging though. There was a structure to it. My mind reeled as I realized what the pattern was: Duh-na-nana. Duh-na-nana. “Celia. This was all her fault. Why was she doing this to me? Did she want to punish me for what I’ve done?” I asked myself, trying to wrap my hungover brain around how pear shaped everything had gone over the last 24 hours.
“You’re dead. Leave well enough alone,” I thought as the clanging continued, drilling itself into my head over and over again. Duh-na-nana. Duh-na-nana. Was Celia, the woman I devoted my life to with undying love, going to be the reason my life fell apart even more?
In a sudden moment of clarity I knew what the best course of action was going to be. I turned to Maggie. I could see that sweat was beading on her brow and the nape of her hair on her neck even though it was very comfortable in the car. “I think I’m going to get out of town for a while. Some sun and beach may do me well so maybe something like Costa Rica. I’ve always wanted to see some sloths in their native habitat,” I told Maggie.
I could see her visibly relax as if her fight or flight mechanism was giving way to relief. She’d be an awful poker player but this was what I was hoping for. “That’s a great idea, Seth. I’m certain it would do you well. Life will be here when you get back.”
We pulled into my driveway and I got out, coming around to Maggie’s open window. “Say ‘Hi’ to Hugo for me. Tell him we will go play a round of golf when I get back. He still owes me a six pack from last time.”
“I will, Seth. I’m sure he’ll be happy to get together. I better get going though. He’s waiting for me.” She emphasized the last part, making it very clear that people knew where she was.
“How about a hug for the road?” I said as I leaned in the window with my arms open. I could see her tighten up but she let me hug her. I leaned over to her ear and said, “You really were a great friend to Celia and me. She always loved you so much. I’m sorry.”
I leaned back slightly, putting my hand on the back of her head and slammed it forward into the steering wheel, stunning her from the impact. I grabbed her by the hair and did it two more times with a thud each time. She was dazed but attempted to grab at me. I flung the door open and bashed her head into the steering wheel one more time. I jumped up, straddling her. I wrapped my hands around her neck and began choking her. After a moment her eyes opened and I could see the sheer terror reflecting back at me. “You can thank Celia for this. You’ll see her soon. It’s a shame that secrets can’t stay secret. Then people have to get hurt.”
Maggie was attempting to claw at me, flailing about. I squeezed harder. She fought less and less, eventually going limp after about a minute. It always takes longer to strangle someone than you see on TV and time slows down while you’re doing it. Normally, there’s nothing I like more than watching the life fade from their eyes, but there was no pleasure here. It was all wrong. Rushed. Sloppy. Survival. It was a necessity. I moved her body to the passenger side of the cab and put the car in drive. I needed to buy some time because I wasn’t sure if the Hugo thing was a ruse or if he was really waiting for her right now. I drove the truck about a mile down the road and turned off a dirt path that led back into the woods. I drove for another mile down the path to an old burned down house which was destroyed decades ago. Only teenagers came back here to get high or screw. The whole ride the tools clanged in the back. Duh-nah-nana. Duh-nah-nana. “If you would have stayed out of it then your friend would still be alive, Celia. This is your fault, not mine,” I yelled out.
I pulled over and got out of the cab. I grabbed a can of gasoline from the back of the truck and doused Maggie’s body. As luck would have it, the truck was old enough to have a cigarette lighter, so I heated it up, stepped back, and chucked it on Maggie. The gasoline ignited and after a few minutes, the truck was fully engulfed. The smell of burning plastic, meat, and hair wafted out and smoke billowed upwards. I can’t be sure but I thought I could see human figures in the smoke. One looked an awful lot like Celia’s silhouette. I took off towards home through the woods at as fast a clip I could muster. I arrived to find my driveway empty. “Good, so no one has come looking for her yet,” I thought to myself.
I hurried inside and grabbed a couple suitcases. I filled them with some clothes, important papers like my identity cards, the $1,000 cash I kept on hand just in case of emergencies, and of course the puzzle box. I threw them into the trunk of my Toyota Camry and took off, heading for the interstate. I stopped at a couple of ATM’s on the way and drew out as much cash as I could before hitting the daily limit. After about an hour, I was on I-70 heading west out of Maryland as the sun was beginning to set. I stayed slow to avoid any cops.
I didn’t have much of a plan except that I would find a quiet town where it’d be easy to blend in and no one would ask questions. Maybe something like Wyoming. I’m sure I could find some way to get my hands on some new identity documentation and lay low in the meantime. Maybe I could even get a passport and get out of the country if it was good enough. The cops would flag my current one before too long. This was a desperate situation but I had hope I could make it work. Celia figured prominently into my thoughts. This whole situation was her fault. Did my actions sicken her that much that she would go through all of this to try and get me caught? Me, her soul mater and love of her life? She always was a sucker for standing up for the defenseless like those girls. She didn’t understand though. It was an outlet I needed and it helped me be a better husband for her. Without that outlet, lord knows what I would have done to her. She certainly didn’t like when I got rough in bed.
After half a dozen hours, I found myself falling asleep as I was driving through Ohio. I knew I had to stop for the night but I didn’t want to risk staying at a motel. I pulled off the highway and found a truck stop. It looked pretty deserted except for a few truckers that were probably asleep in their rigs. I parked off the road next to the woods. The night was cold outside and my ambient body heat was causing the windows to fog up I noticed as I was drifting off to sleep. Just as I lost consciousness, I heard a very loud rapping on the window next to my ear. DUH-NAH-NANA. My eyes shot open and outside the window was the same miasma I saw in my bathroom, except I could distinctly see a face looking at me, illuminated by the overhead street light. It was unmistakably Celia, except her eyes were hollow and empty. Scrawled across the condensation on the windshield was the word “Justice.” I screamed as loud as my lungs could. The sounds that came out was guttural, fierce, and frightened. Animalistic. I’d never made that sound before in my life. In full retreat, I quickly started the car and jammed on the gas pedal, peeling out of the parking lot. I looked in the rear view to see not 1 figure, but 5 in the cloud of miasma where my car was just parked a moment ago.
Once I was back on the highway, my pulse began to slow and the fear lessened. “What if I turn myself in Celia? Will that make you leave me alone?” The radio suddenly turned on and Mr. Jones began blaring at full volume out of the speakers. Duh-nah-nana. Duh-nah-nana. Panic filled me as I quickly turned the radio off. After a few hours of driving and feeling myself slipping even further into a depressive state, It dawned on me that this was my life now. There was no escaping your dead wife when she’s hell bent on justice for the terrible things you’ve done. This was the state of things and I needed to accept it. An inner calm filled me as I resigned myself to the fate of trying to outrun a ghost. She would win eventually get me somehow but my will to stay alive was strong too. I turned the radio back on after hours of silence. Mr. Jones was still queued up. Duh-nah-nana. Duh-nah-nana. I set the cruise control to 65 and began to sing along.

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For anyone wondering if Ignition Poker is rigged you should know a little about there past. Right now Ignition has been operating for the last 3 plus years. They are backed by Bodog Gaming which has been around now for the last 20 years. Reputation is everything when your putting your hard earned dollars on the line. Fortunately Ignition offers fair play, and a great rewards program for players. They have a tiered VIP Program that allows you to get free tournament tickets, and convert points ... On Bovada(Ignition) what you're able to do is deposit and get a bonus. Example: Deposit $1,000 and get $1,000 bonus. You can sit with that $1,000 that you deposited at a Poker table. Let's say he ... can we trust online poker sites like ignition? I used to play at ACR, but stopped after Joey Ingram came out with those cheating/bot scandals. I want to start playing at Ignition, but I am not sure if that can be trusted either. how can we know if Ignition is a trustworthy site to play on? how would we know if there are BOTS or employees playing on the site who can see the whole cards? I just ... Is Ignition Legit or Rigged? Ignition is 100% legit. Today, this should not even be a consideration for a serious poker player. Ignition, and all other major poker sites now in operation, now have seen years and years of play, without a scandal of any sort. This leads me to have only one conclusion. Legal online poker is as safe to play, if not safer, than even live play. In fact, I have not read or heard of any legit incidents where someone was cheated in a hand or the software made an ... Ignition casino is a scam. After countless hours of cash games which is my specialty in Poker not casino games. I have finally come to the conclusion that no matter what you deposit or how good you may be you're always running to extreme amounts of bad beats and not just bad poker people real bad Beats. Is Ignition Poker Rigged or Legit & Legal? An arm of Ignition Casino set up in 2016, Ignition Poker was originally an American exclusive website but has recently started catering to Australian customers as well. It’s a Bodog brand, meaning players on Ignition Poker play against those on other Bodog websites (e.g. Bodog and Bodog88) that operate in countries other than American and Australia. Like Full Tilt and many other poker sites that went down after it was discovered that their were ROBOTS put into the game to steal your money, Ignition Poker is doing the exact same thing. In addition to the ROBOTS Ignition Poker is using in their game they are also not using a normal probablitily that a 52 card deck would adhere to. Finally, the system has glitches that make you lose money by ... Is Ignition Poker Rigged? Ignition Poker isn’t rigged. The website doesn’t have a license, but this hasn’t stopped the brand from establishing itself as a trusted operator in the USA. The card room is officially based in Costa Rica, which gives it some legal leeway to operate freely under current US laws in the majority of the states. Learn how play and win at online poker at Ignition Casino, incliding how to play the best poker hands, rules strategy and tips. Poker Games PLAY NOW. The Best Online Poker Styles that Win Real Money. Pai Gow Poker. Texas Hold’em Poker. The Best Online Poker Styles that Win Real Money. Pai Gow Poker. Texas Hold’em Poker. View All . Poker Strategy PLAY NOW. Caribbean Stud Poker: How to Play ... The short answer is that, no, I’ve played at the ancestors of Ignition Poker for more than a decade and it’s never struck my mind that the games could be rigged. I’ve won plenty of money here and cashed out plenty of times .

is ignition poker rigged top

(#3) I suspect Ignition is rigged

In today's video I explain why I withdrew the rest of my money of Ignition Casino and will no longer be playing poker there...which you may want to too!Free ... Ignition Poker is a Scam Do Not Play on their site. Make $20/Hour Playing Online Poker at Ignition Casino Starting With Just $10 (Slim Does It Again) - Duration: 30:09. Slum City Beats 21,044 views In this episode of Project Get Me Stackin', Evan discusses why online poker is NOT rigged, and why some people may think it is. If you believe online poker i... Ryan tries to keep his voice down as he streams a high stakes Pot Limit Omaha session, as it is late at night and there is a guest sleeping in an adjacent ro... Ignition Poker Scam *IGNITION SIGN UP: https://automaticpoker.com/visit/ignition-poker/*ALL US POKER SITES COMPARED: https://youtu.be/X75PWSY1yJA*GET $10 BITCOIN FREE ON COINBAS... Ignition poker: What do I like about it?should you play there? can you play if you live in usa? Do you recommend it? I will answer all these questions in thi... Decided im going to start posting bad beats of online poker. I dont understand this at all?

Is Ignition Poker Rigged? - Fliptroniks