Snake Eyes
Chapter One: My Name Is...
Hi, world. I'm Bobby Drake, and I love Las Vegas.
That's my first thought as I wake up next to Emma in our expensive hotel room after our first night out here in Vegas. We spent most of last evening throwing money and chips at slot machines and card dealers – well, I did, anyway. Emma just used her telepathy to work out what cards the other poker players had, and making lots of money to go with it. She never went so far as to make them suspicious, of course, because that wouldn't have gone very well for anybody, least of all us. I'd hate to have come out here for a holiday and ended up buried up to my neck in the middle of the Nevada desert. For one thing, it would have ruined my suit, and that would have annoyed Emma – and that's something I think is a lot scarier than Mafia Wise Guys Dumb and Dumber threatening to break my legs. Trust me, you don't know frightening until you've seen Emma in full flow. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, and that's saying something.
Rolling over to her, I gently kiss her on the forehead, and she opens her brilliantly ice-blue eyes sleepily, giving me a half-awake scowl as she does so. "You know, I was still dreaming, Drake," she says sourly. "It was a rather nice dream about strawberry shortcake and cream, and it didn't involve you. Thank you for ruining it by waking me up." She leans closer to me and kisses me on the lips, drawing me closer to her as she does so, her hand laying itself provocatively on my hip. "Then again... reality does have its perks. Perhaps I'll stay a while." She sits up and puts on her glasses so that she can see me a bit more clearly, and then folds her arms, waiting for me to get up to her eye-level. "So how did you like your first night in Vegas? Was it everything you'd hoped it would be?"
"Yeah, it's a great town," I say, truthfully, "but I'm real glad that we didn't get jumped on by the casino security, the way you were raking in all that money."
"Oh, relax, Robert," she replies, waving a hand dismissively, "nobody was ever in danger. Remember who you're talking to – I have friends in high places here, who owe me plenty of favours." Sensing my next question before it even finds its way to my lips, she continues "And yes, they were old Hellfire Club visitors who I used to see regularly at parties. Let's just say I made an impression on them, shall we?" She raises an eyebrow. "And that's all the explanation you're going to get, so put those bad thoughts out of your mind before I have to scrub them out."
"Oh, they're all gone," I say hastily, sticking the little finger of my left hand into my ear and twisting it twice quickly. "No scrubbing necessary, believe me."
Emma smiles crookedly. "Good boy. Now are we going to order breakfast, or should we put it off for a little while? I'm sure we could find something to occupy us in the meantime." Just to illustrate her point (which never needs illustrating, really. Emma's subtle like that), she presses her naked body against me, her leg snaking across mine and her hand cupping my jaw delicately as she kisses me. "Ooh," she says, smiling again as she rubs against my hip. "I think I just got your answer... breakfast can definitely wait."
Two hours later, we're sitting up in bed again, eating the breakfast that room service brought up to us a few minutes ago. Emma sips her orange juice and takes a bite of her toast, wiping some stray crumbs off the side of her mouth with one finger and opening the paper that came with the food. "Hmm," she says, more to herself than anybody else. "Nothing much is happening today – how very disappointing. Oh well, I suppose I shall have to have some fun instead. What do you say, Drake? Shall we go and drink our body weight in alcohol and make this town regret ever letting us stay?"
"Sounds like a good plan to me," I say, grinning broadly. "Say – should I wear the tuxedo this evening, or just go for the tourist shorts and Hawaiian shirt?"
"Oh, the tuxedo, naturally," Emma replies. "The shorts and the shirt just aren't proper evening wear. Maybe when you're forty and developing a gut they'll suit you better, but for now you should try looking as smart as possible. Some of those casinos won't let you in otherwise."
"Thanks a lot, Emma – it's nice to know you think I'm so respectable," I say, getting up out of bed and picking up a freshly-folded towel from the chair set against the table across the room. "I'm going for a shower. You want to share?"
"Not today, Robert," Emma chuckles. "You only get to get lucky once this morning, I'm afraid. Besides, I want to wash my hair, and you've never been all that good with applying shampoo, have you?" She swings her feet out of bed and pads over to the door, where her shower robe is hanging off a hook. Slipping her naked body into it in one single fluid movement, she continues "I'll be watching the news until you decide to trade places." Picking up the TV remote, she flicks it on as she sits back down on the bed, settling herself back into her nest of pillows. "Don't use up all the hot water, now."
"I'll try not to, boss," I say, stepping into the bathroom and starting to run the shower, the water pattering against the sides of the shower stall quietly as steam starts to fog the glass. When I'm sure the water is warm enough, I step in and quickly scrub away my troubles, singing some Def Leppard just for good measure. I'm only a few bars into the first song when Emma makes her objections clear.
"I can still hear you, you know," she calls sourly as she turns the volume up on the TV to an almost deafening degree. "If you're going to sing, you could at least try to sing something a little less... dated – for the sake of my sanity, if nothing else."
"Oh, you're just jealous of my awesome musical talents," I say as I step out of the shower and start towelling myself off. I walk back out into the bedroom and bend over the bed, nuzzling Emma on the neck and making her twist away in annoyance as my wet hair drips onto the pale skin of her chest.
"Being cute won't save you, Drake," she says as she pushes herself to her feet and starts walking towards the shower. She turns back towards me for a moment, looking thoughtfully evil. "I may have to inflict some Eurhythmics on you as payback."
"You wouldn't dare," I say, mock-horror filling my voice (I actually like them, but our little games always go like this. It's one of the things that make this whole deal fun, you see).
Emma grins. "I would. And let me warn you now... Annie Lennox I'm not."
"Well, just as long as you're not that guy out of Slipknot either, we're all good," I say, pulling on some clean underwear and then dressing myself in a fresh white shirt, some comfortable jeans and a clean pair of smart shoes. After all, despite what I said to Emma... I might be a tourist, but there's absolutely no reason to look like one.
When Emma has emerged from the shower and dressed herself in an expensive white suit (one of the five that she brought with her), we leave the hotel room and make our way to the nearest casino. Without the benefit of the hotel's air-conditioning, the heat of the desert around us is pretty stifling, so while we're walking we have to take turns drinking from a bottle of water that we took from the hotel room. It's not much, but it keeps us from being totally overwhelmed by the environment, so that's a blessing. "What I wouldn't give for some decent rain right now," Emma says wistfully. "I wonder how these people cope, year in and year out."
"I don't know, but I'm guessing it involves ceiling fans and sun-shades," I say, coating my fingertips in ice and brushing them across my forehead before offering them to Emma. "It's not much, but it'll help cool you down a little." Emma closes her eyes and then inclines her head towards me so that I can run my fingers over the flawless skin of her cheeks and forehead, letting out an expression of relief as she does so.
"Oh, that's wonderful, Drake," she says, smiling as trickles of water course down towards her lips. "I think you have your uses after all."
"A simple 'thank you' would have been enough, you know," I say, trying my best to look as hurt as possible. "But you're welcome, anyway."
Emma smiles thinly and then walks on ahead of me. "I thought you'd feel that way." She points at the nearest casino with one porcelain-skinned hand, and says "How about we start the day there? I have a few friends in the management – perhaps we can win big there without any interference. I promise not to throw you to the security guards if they start annoying me."
"Emma, you're the most reassuring person I know," I say, rolling my eyes.
We make our way over to the doors of the casino, and walk through the entrance into the beautiful coolness of the building's lobby. I sigh with relief as I feel the cool breeze of the air-conditioning sweeping over me, and then I follow Emma out onto the floor of the casino itself. She walks confidently towards the roulette wheel after having picked up a large stack of chips from the cashier (It's almost a foot tall, which means it should last her until about lunchtime; she's not really one for small bets). When she reaches the wheel, she settles in at the side of the table and pushes out a large chunk of her stash onto the board. "Ten thousand on thirty-two black, please," she says, drawing a collective gasp of surprise from everybody around her. Prior to her little wager, everybody else had apparently just been pushing out pocket change. The croupier shrugs and spins the wheel, the little white ball rattling around as loudly as if it's the only sound in the entire room. The wheel slows and the ball stops moving, and when both have come to a complete stop, the croupier checks where the ball has landed.
"Thirty-two black," he says. I take a look at it myself before he scoops it back up again, and it has fallen nowhere near that number. In fact, it's in a red slot, which can only mean that Emma has started using her powers pretty early in the day. I'd like to say that that's unusual for her, but then I'd be lying. Smiling, Emma rakes in her winnings and leaves the table after tossing the croupier a pile of chips for himself. She moves towards a blackjack table, her hips swaying slowly as she walks and drawing the eyes of almost every man in the room. I have to wonder, though, how much of that is down to her looking hotter than hell, and how much of it is down to her using her telepathy to fuel her ego. I mean, I don't need any incentive to look, but I can be sure that at least a few of the men here have better things to worry about than a woman angling for attention.
"I can hear what you're thinking quite well enough, Drake," she says with her back to me, "and I assure you, I'm not angling for anything. I'm not even using my powers right now." She looks back at me over her shoulder, her hair falling seductively over one of her eyes. "I suppose that means I must be naturally gorgeous, wouldn't you say?"
"I guess so," I say, admitting defeat before pointing to my right with my thumb. "I'm going to go feed the slot machines. You want to come with?"
"Why not?" Emma says, shrugging her shoulders. "It might be nice to play something that I can't influence, for once." She walks towards the machines, letting her hand trail across my cheek as she does so, and then settles herself down in one of the well-worn seats after having got herself a bucket of quarters, which she offers to me as I sit down next to her. "Would you like to share?" she asks. "I think I have more quarters to waste than you do, especially since I just won ten thousand dollars." She chuckles lightly, and then puts a quarter into the slot of the machine in front of her, pulling the handle and watching as the dials in front of her spin to a halt, mismatching spectacularly. "Oh well, I suppose I had better try again," she says, feeding another quarter in. My own machine is being just as uncooperative, but there is a way I can beat the system this time. Frowning as the dials spin around, I make a thin layer of ice inside the mechanism, slowing it down to a crawl so that I can see when to let each dial stop. As each dial hits "jackpot", I smile and wait for my reward. Piles of coins spill out, and I scoop them up and dump them into the bucket – just in time for Emma to grab a handful and start pushing them into her machine without even asking.
"Hey!" I say, annoyed. "Those are mine!"
"Hmm?" Emma says, sounding a little distracted, before she turns to me and looks at her hand clenching a fistful of my coins. "Oh. Sorry about that, Drake. Why don't you go and get those exchanged for chips, and I'll find some more quarters of my own while I wait for you?"
"I don't think that's a good idea," I reply. "I hit the jackpot once – best quit while I'm ahead, you know? I really don't want to be beaten to a pulp for cheating, after all."
"Oh, relax," Emma says, waving a hand dismissively. "I told you, I have friends in high places here. You won't get touched, I promise. Not unless you ask for it, of course." Leaning over, she bites my earlobe gently. "See?"
"I didn't ask for that!" I say loudly. I'm trying to sound shocked and appalled, but I can't really say it wasn't a nice experience. "Could you do it again?"
"Maybe later," Emma says, clearly enjoying the fact that she has me dangling on her hook again – but then again, that's nothing new, so I should hardly be surprised by that at this point... "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a fortune to win."
"Isn't one fortune enough?" I ask her, picking up my bucket of quarters and getting off my stool. "Look, while you're losing all that money you just made, I'll get us some drinks – you want anything?"
"Scotch on the rocks, please," Emma replies, clearly focused on the machine again. "And be quick about it; this is thirsty work, you know."
"I can see that," I mutter, rolling my eyes. "Sit tight, and don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"Wouldn't dream of it," Emma says, before she waves me away with one hand without looking at me. "Now shoo. I'm still waiting for that drink, you know."
Shaking my head at how Emma is turning into a gambling junkie before my very eyes, I turn around and make my way towards the bar, passing all kinds of people, old and young, men and women, as they sit doing exactly what Emma is doing – stuffing money into machines that won't ever give it back. Somehow I think the roulette wheel is better; at least that way you get to interact with real people, even if it's to do what Emma does and rewrite the script so that you always win. Machines just aren't the same. As I get to the bar, I call the bartender over. She is a young woman (perhaps only a few years younger than me), and is pretty, blonde and bright-faced. Kind of standard issue for this kind of establishment, really, but she looks friendly enough. "Hi!" she says, proving my judgement correct. "What can I get you, sir?"
"Don't call me 'sir'," I say, instinctively. "It makes me sound like my dad."
The bartender smiles. "I see. So what should I call you?"
"Bobby's good, I guess. What with it being my name and all," I reply, shrugging a little.
"That seems fair," the bartender replies, after thinking it over for a moment. "What can I get you, Bobby?"
"A diet Coke and a scotch on the rocks, please," I say, handing over a ten-dollar bill.
"Coming right up," she replies after taking the money and ringing up the change. "Here you go – one diet Coke and one scotch on the rocks. Enjoy!"
"I'm sure I will," I tell her. "Keep the change. I just won big on the slot machines, so I'm feeling pretty generous."
"Thank you, Bobby," the bartender says, putting the handful of coins back into the till as she does so. "My name's Debbie, by the way."
"Nice to meet you, Debbie," I say, taking a sip of my Coke. "I'll have to get all my drinks from you in the future... but first I'd better get back to my girlfriend before she spends her entire fortune in the slots."
Debbie laughs. "Yeah, I've heard that before. Sounds like she needs rescuing – so skedaddle, hero!"
Taking that as my cue, I turn around and head back to where Emma is sitting, still putting quarters into the slot machine in front of her as if she's almost in a trance. "Drinks, Emma," I say, almost afraid to disturb her.
"Thanks, Drake," Emma replies, taking the drink from me almost without looking and then taking a sip as she yanks on the machine's handle again. "I'm very grateful."
That tears it. "Hey, Emma, you want to go do something else now?" I ask her, desperately. "I mean, you can't just sit here all day, can you?"
Shaking herself free of the trance, Emma looks at me with almost bleary eyes. "You know, Drake, you might have something there. How about we go talk to that pretty bartender again?"
"What pretty bartender? The bartender was a three hundred pound gorilla with body odour," I say, trying to sound innocent but failing miserably.
"You know, maybe I go to the wrong kinds of bars," Emma says with pursed lips and a raised eyebrow, "but I don't know many three hundred pound gorillas called Debbie, do you?"
"You were watching me, weren't you?" I ask, redundantly.
"Exactly. I'm never as unaware as you think I am, Bobby. Don't ever forget that." She taps me on the nose as if I'm a dog being scolded. "But then again, I honestly don't blame you for being so friendly to her. If I'd been in your place, I'd have seriously tried talking her pants off." She raises her eyebrows and smiles wickedly. "Then again, maybe I still will. The touch of a woman is a pleasure I've not experienced in a while, after all."
There aren't many things that can make me speechless. This is one of them.
Emma chuckles at my open-mouthed silence. "Oh, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby... you are so naive. I was a member of the Hellfire Club, for goodness' sake! We had sex with anything and anybody, any time of the day." She sips her drink again, matter-of-factly. "You know, sometimes I miss those days." Then she leans forward and kisses me so hard that I can feel the burning taste of her drink on my tongue. "Then again, I have everything I want right here, so why would I need to revisit my past?"
Before I can answer, there is a loud burst of noise to our right, and once I've turned my head to look in its direction, I can see what that is – the wall of the casino has caved in, and through the gaping hole is pouring a horde of Brood. Their scuttling, chittering mass floods the bright neon innards of the casino, filling it with a mass of brown chitin and drool, the tide of alien bodies engulfing and tearing apart those people unlucky enough to be slow getting out of its way.
"Damn it!" I shout angrily, icing up and firing sharp bolts of ice at the invaders. "Can't I have a damn holiday without you creeps getting in my way?" Emma joins me in trying to fend off the monsters, shielding the two of us in a mental cocoon that will hopefully fry anything which tries to get through while she stabs at the Brood with long-range telepathic blades.
Just then, while we're busy trying to stay alive, a blue-suited, grey-skinned giant storms past us, his fists swinging at the Brood and pulverising them with every blow. "What are you idiots waiting for?" he bellows. "Get outta here – I'll keep these guys off you as long as I can!" As he finishes speaking, he lashes out with one designer boot and cracks open a Brood's skull, making it fall to the ground in a bloody heap, only to be devoured by its fellows as soon as it touches the floor.
"You heard the man," Emma says as she grabs my arm and drags me towards the nearest exit. "Time to make ourselves scarce." We scramble over to the door and bundle through it, slamming it shut behind us before starting to run down the corridor as fast as we can.
We've only gone a few steps before it shatters behind us and our grey-skinned saviour comes flying through it, skidding along the ground before kicking himself to his feet and running after us. "Change of plan," he says, charging towards us and scooping us both up in his arms. "Please keep your seat backs and tray tables in the upright position." Then he batters his way out of the building, hitting us with the scorching light of the Nevada sun as he does so, and leaps into the air, propelling us hundreds of metres away from the casino and into a rock formation outside the city. From here, I can see that the Brood have overwhelmed the casino – hundreds of them are crawling all over the building's exterior like cockroaches. "Well, ain't that something," the grey giant says. "Figures that I'd be the one unlucky enough to see an alien invasion – Big Green or Banner would have been the better choice, but no, it had to be me..."
"Excuse me?" Emma says. "Who exactly are you, again?"
The grey giant grins. "The name's Mr Fixit, but you can call me Joe..."