Chapter Forty-Five – 57,646,075,230,342,400,000

Chapter Forty-Five – 57,646,075,230,342,400,000

“Respect is complicated.

Then you meet a Samurai, and suddenly you’re respecting them because they’re the combination of all three. A wild animal with a badge, one that somehow still sees people as people… as long as they’re respected.”

–Most Popular Rumbler Post of July 2038

***

The inside of the Velvet Wheel was… okay, I had to admit it, the place was impressive. The lobby opened up to a narrow room with a tall ceiling leading to a long desk. There were X-ray scanners and luggage checking machines, like some sort of airport, but spruced up a little to look a bit fancier and less industrial.

Past those machines–which we sidestepped because there was no way that Nya and I wouldn’t set them all off–was a corridor that opened up into the actual main lobby.

The space was… I think the word is ‘palatial?’ It was a massive room, with golden pillars rising up to a ceiling several floors above ringed by balconies. Thick carpet on the ground, with a complicated pattern woven into it. There was an arched ceiling above that opened up to a bright blue sky, with just a few fluffy clouds scrolling by.

There was enough marble to outmass a megabuilding, it looked like. Mostly white or some creamy beige, but there were some areas with wooden floors. I blinked up at a chandelier that had to be as large around as the Bastion and covered in long crystal spires.

“Pretty,” I said.

“Bit much,” Nya said.

That was true. There was some attempt to make the space tasteful, but the sheer amount of wealthiness oozing off of everything made that attempt… kind of a massive failure.

My eye was drawn to one side. The room looked like it continued to both sides, actually, curving slightly. So maybe it went all the way around? A huge tunnel through the main part of the ‘wheel’ of the casino. There were tables to the side, and people sitting behind them with cards in hands and chips in front of them. They were playing against silver-and-gold skinned androids.

Probably droids that were several generations younger than the nanny bots we had at the orphanage.

“This way,” the guard who’d greeted us said.

I jumped a bit, then followed after him. He led us right across the room, then up to an escalator to the side. We were followed by some twenty-odd dudes from security who formed a cordon around us.

“Nice place,” I said as we rode the escalator up. It has glass sides, so I got a nice view of the sprawling floor filled with rows and rows of slot machines. “How many people are here?”

“That’s not something we advertise,” the guard said.

“Nya counted!” Nya said. “There’s sixteen thousand people playing with the machines, and about half as many at the card tables. And there’s shows going on, movies… there’s a pool on the roof too.”

“That’s a lot of folk,” I said.

“Yup,” Nya said. “A lot of people doing drugs, oh, and there’s a whorehouse on the entire top floor ring. It’s mostly sexbots though.” She made a face. “Nya wonders if the non-bot workers are all legal?”

The guard was starting to look a bit sweaty, which was strange, the escalator didn’t require any effort to climb. “The Velvet Wheel is a well-regarded and legally operated establishment,” he said.

“I’ve seen shit you wouldn’t believe, and it was all legal,” I said. “That tends to mean less than jack shit when you can pay enough to change what is and ain’t legal.”

“I’m afraid that philosophy is above my pay-grade,” he said. Nya snorted at that, but it did seem like it was the end of that particular line of discussion.

I did note, as he led us along, that the amount of security wasn’t nearly as insane deeper in. There were cameras all over, and they were designed to be obvious, but there wasn’t an armed guard at every corner. So, the tighter security was meant for the exterior of the wheel?

I supposed that the people here liked feeling safe.

We passed a few rows of slot machines, and I was impressed and a little disturbed to see that there were so many people using them. There was definitely some weird age-skewing going on, however. The only people playing slots were super old.

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The people that weren’t quite ancient yet? They were playing other kinds of games. I saw old-timers sitting in booths playing old-school FPSs, rhythm games, and what looked like really expensive gacha games.

I supposed that slot machines were going the way of the dodo, but people were still willing to throw their credits away on other shit.

The place didn’t look like it was having a hard time extracting money out of people’s pockets, basically.