Two

 

I had no idea what case Carol had been working for the Gambling Gods to take her to a Silicon Suckers city. But Stan had told me to look here first, and I had found her shoes at the second entrance I checked.

I stopped at the entrance to the city, bowed once exactly as prescribed for any visitor to the city, and then stepped through the slight magic spell that hid the entrance from normal humans.

Inside the dry, brown cave, two Silicon Suckers bowed in return and then indicated I should follow them.

My nose was assaulted by the smell of sand and an intense dryness to the air. My skin felt suddenly tight as if the air was trying to suck every ounce of moisture from my body.

Actually, it was.

They led me down toward the city in what looked like nothing more than a cave carved out of the desert sand and rock. It was lit faintly by soft lights hidden along the ceiling. The more we walked, the raspier my throat felt. It had happened every time to me, but no water was allowed in their cities, so I hadn’t dared bring anything to help with the dryness and intense thirst that would soon hit me.

And drinking any of the hot chocolate I had with me while in their city was considered a terminal offence.

I worried a lot about Carol being able to survive three days without water in this environment. I know I would have a hard time.

It wasn’t until we had walked downward for almost a half hour that we finally emerged into the vast central chamber of the Silicon Suckers city.

The first time I had seen the massive city with the teaming thousands of Suckers moving about their daily lives, I had been stunned. This time was no different.

Towers of sand-colored round buildings shot from the cavern floor at least thirty stories into the air, elevated walkways spanned the open spaces between the buildings, and the entire cavern hummed with a distant ocean sound that I had been told was nothing more than the sound of a lot of Silicon Suckers moving around at once.

The cavern was lit by an intense, sun-like light, right in the middle and thousands of other lights on the buildings and along the wide streets. No carriages or any type of transportation moved inside the city. Silicon Suckers walked everywhere they went.

And the huge chamber felt even drier than the tunnels, if that was possible. It smelled of lightly burned wood, and I found myself blinking a lot more than normal to keep some hint of moisture in my eyes.

Thousands and thousands of openings went into the dirt all the way around the cavern. We had come out of one such opening about twenty stories in the air, and immediately started down a fairly wide path along the wall.

There was no guardrail on the edge of the path, so I stayed to the inside, hugging the wall. I might be a superhero in the gambling world, but I was fairly certain that none of my superpowers included flying. Flying just didn’t seem to be of much use at a poker table.

Without ever asking me what I wanted or who I wanted to see, my two guides led me down to the ground level of the city, then into a building that had to be twenty stories tall and was fairly close to the center of the city. I couldn’t tell one tall, brown tower from another, but for some reason this one felt special to me.

Inside they lead me into another tunnel that continued down for another two or three stories, finally opening into a large chamber with four Silicon Suckers sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor in a circle.

Carol sat cross-legged with them, nodding at something.

She glanced up and saw me, then burst into a huge smile that must have hurt her extremely chapped and dry lips.

“Poker Boy,” she said without standing. “Thanks for coming.”

“Laverne sent me,” I said, moving toward the circle.

“I know,” Carol said, a twinkle in her eyes.

I had no idea how she could know that. But asking at that moment just seemed very, very wrong.