We were stopped at the entrance, mounted guns pointed at us, guards stationed in towers and behind barricades watching our approach, barricades placed in the road.

A man in, what I assumed to be, a police uniform exited a small building that was set off to the side of the road.

He approached my rolled down window, a faint smirk on his face.

“We don’t get many people coming in by car anymore....” his voice trailed off as he saw me, his grin faltering, “Oh, you’re a bot?”

“Yes sir, I am here as an escort for this girl,” I motioned to Paris sitting next to me, “I am delivering her to her father.”

The man looked into the vehicle, making eye contact with Paris, “Is this true ma’am?”

Paris nodded her head. The man turned back to me.

“Well then, I'm just gonna need to see some I.D. and I’ll let you be on your way.”

I hesitated, the officer cocking his head slightly as he noticed, his grin coming back.

“Or,” he leaned against my door, discreetly placing his hand in the cabin, “You could just pay the entrance fee.”

I looked at the man’s hand then back to his face, searching for a clue.

Ah, a bribe.

“Of course, officer, thank you.” I replied, the mechanical noise rumbling out softly.

Reaching down, I slipped a small handful of chips out of their box, placing them in the man’s hand.

The man’s grin grew wide, “Enjoy Vegas.”

He turned his back on us, motioning us forward and yelling out for a path to be cleared. The road’s various barricades raising themselves up or sliding to the side.

I crept forward, waving politely at the numerous armed guards. Paris sat with her face against the window, making funny faces at the officers.

We passed the spotlights completely and traveled through the gap in the wall, the city completely open to us. We drove in, finding ourselves driving down the city’s streets.

The streets were laid out into weaving mazes of asphalt, the roads layering upon each other or passing underground and through buildings. Cars of various makes crowded the streets, the exhaust creating a fine haze. Not to mention the people, the sidewalks held thousands upon thousands of people, most with masks covering their mouths, blocking out toxic fumes.

Color and light. That was the overriding theme, not a single square foot of space lacking the warm glow of fluorescence, the various colors shading the world with hundreds of different hues. Glowing advertisements boarding the sides of buildings, projecting thousands of products, from drugs and liquors to hotels and clubs. My god the confetti, Confetti fell at a near constant rate from seemingly nowhere, piling in the streets like freshly fallen snow, small robots vacuuming up the material and shooting it into a pipe system.

The skyscrapers themselves cut into the sky, a layer of smoke blocking the view of their peak. The smoke was constantly shifting color, the neon lights providing a false cloud to light the sky. The effect being both mesmerizing and disorienting.

HONK! HONK!

I broke my view of the artificial cloud, pulling the truck off to the side of the road, an angered driver gesturing rudely at me as he drove past. His SUV bearing insane modifications, the car itself lifted and backlit with LEDs, his paint job a reflective purple with gold inlay.

“Fuck you, you spanner!” The man shouted as he drove past.

I waved an apology, my head tilted in confusion, spanner?

I looked over at Paris, her eyes were wide, attempting to take ieverything in.

“You doing okay?” I asked.

She shook herself from her stupor, looking at me a moment before her face suddenly lit up, words exploding out of her mouth, “THIS PLACE IS AWESOME! THERE ARE SO MANY COLORS!”

I chuckled at the little girl who was currently bouncing up and down in her seat.

“It’s pretty cool,” I responded, a bit less enthusiastic than her.

The city was not a very nice place, at least in the area where we found ourselves. Sure, the glowing lights, confetti, and color clouds were awesome, but they hid some sort of darkness. It could have been the bribe to the officer, the artificial glowing cloud of smog, or being called a ‘spanner’, but this city just felt... dirty.

“We should go do drugs!” Paris shot out quickly, tugging at my duster as she did so.

I looked at her in shock, stumbling over my response, “What! No! Why?... What?”

Her massive grin unfaltering, she pointed to an electronic sign. The sign played a video of a woman shooting up a syringe of a glittering chemical before having a brightly colored path light up leading off into the distance, text wrapping the video.

I read the text,

“Vegas Strip’s Hardcore PIP, lighting the path to your destination.”

I looked at Paris incredulously, my mechanical voice laden with suspicion, “You’re joking, right?”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

She started giggling and in a mechanical mockery of my voice responded, “WHaT?! Nooo! Beep beep boooop.”

I stared at her, contemplating strapping her to the roof of the car... I thought better of it.

“Ha ha ha, let's make fun of the bot,” I scolded her, “very funny.”

“You should have seen your face!” She cackled.

I didn’t have expressions, so I don’t know what she thought was so funny.

I started to drive again.

After calming herself down, which took far longer than I thought reasonable, Paris finally spoke.

“Where are we going now?”

I pulled off an exit, “I don’t know, I thought we were just going to get high.”

“I was kidding, mleh,” she stuck her tongue out at me, “My mom said not to do drugs anyways... at least not any from anyone who wasn’t her.”

I’m not sure how I felt about that.

“Really though, where are we going?” Paris asked again.

“I don’t know,” I responded, “I was just looking a place to stop for the night, but I can't find anything.”

It was true, I had no clue where to go. I had no clue where to even start looking for Tom, I simply lacked too much information. I needed a place to gather some info, and Paris needed a place to sleep, the truck wasn’t really going to cut it for me. I tried finding hotels or apartments that seemed safe and affordable, but everything here was just so... seedy.

“We could go to where my mom stayed,” Paris offered up, “I think it was called Stepha’s Club, she said they had comfy beds.”

I wasn’t sure that going to the place Paris’s mom stayed when she came here to pick up drugs was the best idea, but I couldn’t really think of anything else.

“Sure, let's see if we can get some directions.”

It turns out that most people in this city are very open to helping others out, but that may just have been the alcohol poisoning the group we found were suffering from. A nice group of guys drinking on a corner told me the rough direction I had to go to get to ‘Stepha’s Club’. The smell of alcohol on their breath making Paris plug her nose and scrunch up her face.

The group’s direction took us off towards the north-western side of the city. The road offered a shortcut through the Vegas Strip, but the men warned us against it, saying it was best to keep the ‘little one’ out of a place like that. I listened to their advice, taking a slight detour around it.

Once in the general area we started looking for signs of the club, Paris was the first to spot one.

It was a small LED panel with a simple arrow pointing down an alley, ‘Stepha’s Club’ spray painted above it.

“I don’t know about this place Paris.” I said, a sketchy spraypainted sign pointing down an alley not exactly filling me with confidence.

“I think It should be fine,” She muttered, her own confidence in the place faltering slightly.

Everything in me was telling me to leave this place, but I really had no other options.

I did a loop of the block, taking note of how the streets seemed less crowded than the southern and central part of the city. I spotted a parking garage going underground, I pulled down into it, sliding a chip into a pay-machine, the barricade opening for me.

I pulled deeper in, lights flicking on at the sense of motion. I pulled into a random spot, careful not to scratch any of the other vehicles. I put the truck in park and looked over to Paris, the little girl still strapped into her seatbelt next to me.

Grabbing the sides of her face and looking her in the eye, I spoke.

“Okay Paris, I need you to stay close to my side. I don’t know what it is like in there, if anything happens, I want you to run back here as fast as you can.”

She nodded her head between my hands, her face squished slightly.

“I'm going to move the supplies into the cab, stay here until I'm done.”

I moved the majority of the supplies into the truck’s cab, mainly the guns and ammo. After which I packed my duffle bag with the money box and some basic necessities for Paris.

I slung my assault rifle, which Paris so kindly dubbed the ‘Pink-Popper’, across my back under my duster before retrieving the girl from the truck, locking the doors as we left.

If someone wanted to get in the truck, they could easily break into the unguarded vehicle, but something told me a converted diesel pickup wasn’t really the largest display of wealth.

Taking Paris’s hand, we walked out of the parking garage and towards the alley leading to the club, a faint blue glow coming from the back of the alley.

Waking down the alley I pulled Paris close to my side, my open hand floating near my holster.

We rounded a corner, being met with the club in question, a faint rhythmic thump echoing from inside the structure. The entrance held small tables set just outside, a few patrons sitting at them nursing drinks. A large collection of blue neon lights formed the establishment’s sign, ‘Stepha’s Club’.

We approached the door, a simple glass push-open, a few of the patrons sitting outside glancing at us before returning to their drinks.

Opening the door, a wave of heat and sound hit us, the interior lit with the same fluorescent blue lights as the entrance. The club was filled to the brim, people in various states of drunkenness danced close together as music was blasted out from hidden speakers. A bouncer stood off to my left, a large man with metalic plates lining his uncovered torso and small LEDs making some sort of psuedo-tattoo across his arms.

The man approached me, his eyebrow raised at the curious sight of a bot and a little girl in the club.

“This isn’t really the place for bots,” he looked at Paris, “or little kids for that matter.”

“I’m not little!” Paris spat out before I could stop her.

The bouncer leaned back into a soft chuckle, his face cracking into a sly grin, “What are you doing here kid? This bot your guard or something?”

“Yeah, and he can kick your ass!” Paris announced, a slight twinge of anger in her voice.

We are going to die.

“Is that so,” the man stood straight, looking down at me, his face darkening as he did so, his tattoo changing a violent red.

“Uh...” I muttered out, trying to think of a way out of this mess.

“Maybe I can convince him not to beat you up if you help us out.” Paris shot back.

The bouncer looked down at Paris again, his expression changing back to a grin at Paris’s bravado.

“Oh really? How nice of you, in that case, what can I do for you?” the man responded, he seemed to be enjoying the exchange.

“You're welcome,” Paris replied, “I am actually looking for a place to stay, my mom used to come here, and she said that you have comfy beds.”

The bouncer tilted his head at her, “What was your mommy’s name?”

“Sarah Jennings.”

The bouncer’s eyes lit up, “You gotta be kidding me, You’re Sarah’s little girl! You must be Paris!”

What.

“My name is Hank,” he scooped Paris up into a hug before placing her back on the ground, “I know your mom, me and her go way back! How is she doing? I thought you all moved out of the cities?”

Paris’s previous energy left her, tucking herself into my side once again.

I looked at the now confused Hank, “Her mother was killed just a day or so ago, we just need a place to stay.”

Hank looked up at me then back at Paris, his eyes saddened and full of pity, he muttered to himself, “Oh Sarah, what did you do.”

He turned to me, “I’ll help you out, I owed Sarah one anyways,” He rested his hand against Paris’s head, “I’m sorry baby, your mom was a good lady.”

He looked back at me, his gaze lingering on Paris, “We have rooms upstairs, I'll set you up in one for a bit.”

“Thank you.” I responded, following the man past the crowd up a set of stairs, Paris still glued to my side.

----------------------------------------

“I think I have a positive I.D. on that bot you were looking for, that little girl was still with it.”

The message appeared on Jane’s screen along with an image, a humanoid bot with a little girl sitting in an antiquated pickup truck, the constant confetti of Vegas falling in the background.

Jane put two and two together, they are in the city.

Jane typed back a message, shooting out an order, “That's the bot, they’re here in Vegas, find it and bring it back.”

A response, “The girl?”

Jane leaned back in her chair, thinking a moment before responding, “Alive.”