Richie's eyes fluttered open. Something was swishing into them. He realized he was pinned down by something soft and furry, laying parallel atop him. It was the wampus cat, and its twin tails were flitting irritably about Richie's face as it slept, going through some kind of stress dream. Richie had a good long look at its twin, star-shaped puckering assholes, one at the base of each tail.
"...why…" Richie grimaced.
Cuppy's bedroll was perpendicular to Richie's, at the foot, and the oblivious little puppeteer was so thoroughly passed out that he didn't notice the shoddy mountain lion's jaws clamping down on his skull. Presumably, proximity to the Alpha Predator's scent was the cause of the wampus cat's unconscious distress.
"You need a name." Richie realized. Saying 'the wampus cat' or 'shitty cougar' was getting old, and the latter was confusing on account of the other shitty cougar.
Speaking of which,
Oh dear god where is Chikita? Richie's eyes scanned the room, head turning as much as he could. The wampus cat inadvertently had Richie's arms pinned at his sides inside the snug sleeping bag.
"Freyja. Freyja!" Richie whispered urgently to the couch. "Wake up, help me out of this cocoon!"
He heard only canine snoring.
Damn you Freyja! Damn you to Hell!
Holly stood over Richie, a steaming cup of coffee in her hand. "What are you doing?"
Richie startled. "Where's ice-thot? Actually, never mind, just move the cat, please."
Holly blinked a few times. "Alright, since you asked nicely." she downed her mug in one swig and placed the cup aside.
She then nonchalantly folded the wampus cat over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes, walked over to the couch, and laid him on Freyja instead. Meanwhile, the jaws had not opened to release Cuppy, literally dragging him along for the ride. Remarkably, all three affected parties hardly shifted in their sleep.
"What did I miss? Chikita spike the water supply after I went to bed or something?" Richie asked.
"While I can't speak for the dog and cat, I was up most of the night with Cuppy, teaching him about the internet, common casino games, and how to read about common casino games on the internet. I'm trying to book a room today, on the subject. Cuppy will likely sleep the morning and noon away. Just as well. The casino comes to life after dark, so he'll be nice and rested for our little scheme. I took the liberty of doctoring your fake IDs as well. You may grovel at my secretary goddess feet for doing all the legwork in advance whenever you like."
"Thanks." Richie said.
"Say what you will about his fanaticism, the Director knew talent when he saw it." Holly smiled, proud of herself.
"So what are you going to do with yourself now?" Richie asked.
"Probably read. It will be nice to have the apartment to myself for a while." Holly said.
"You aren't coming with us then?" Richie asked.
"I'm not much of a gambler. Rather continue my research. Besides, someone has to monitor the tracers while you kids are busy with scamming Carnival Top. I'll babysit the bitch in your absence, last thing we need is our link to the Institute making a scene somewhere highly public and exposing everyone." Holly yawned.
Speak of the devil, and she shall throw a fit.
They heard crashing from the kitchen.
"Come on!" Chikita whined. She sat on the linoleum in front of the cupboards, Cuppet perched on the counter between them. The arena was littered with the fragments of shattered dishes.
"I just want one! Don't be so stingy!" Chikita protested.
Cuppet shook his head, his neck creaking, and stabbed his scissor blades into the counter in an emphatic gesture of immovable guardianship.
"I think the top shelf is where Cuppy stores his cookies." Holly notified Richie.
Chikita turned to them. "Holly! Cuppet is bullying me!"
Holly's face twisted in distaste. "What are you, a child?"
Richie eyed the cabinet. He had seen Cuppet guarding it before, and his dragons thought they smelled sweets in there as well. He briefly considered a ceasefire with the subzero sex offender in the interest of getting past the living cabinet lock. As if sensing his conspiracy, Cuppet looked at Richie in silent warning.
Richie averted his gaze, fingers laced behind his back, and pawed bashfully at the ground with his foot. When he looked back, Cuppet was still staring at him accusingly, while also holding Chikita back in one hand, grabbing her by the face while she repeatedly swatted like a cat. Holly smiled a bit.
"Fuck you, Holly!" Chikita growled through Cuppet's palm.
Holly blinked. Apparently Chikita could sense whenever Holly was enjoying Chikita's misfortune. That, or she just made the very safe bet that everything that put a damper on Chiki's day was guaranteed to bring a smile to the alien's face.
"Nice to see you get along so well." Richie chuckled.
Holly put a hand on her hip. "Like you have room to talk. You know there are more interchanges of dialogue available to you in a friendly convo than an avalanche of profanity-laden abuse, right?"
"No, I don't know that." Richie said.
"Oh my god." Holly pushed up her glasses, sighing.
Her mother hen instincts were kicking in, which she only realized when she found herself sitting with Richie at the table, having made him a mug of hot chocolate, giving him some socialization pro tips, and not sure what happened to the time in between these points.
Richie was startled as Cuppy drew up behind him.
"Morning." Cuppy yawned.
"Where did you come from?" Richie asked.
"Who knows?" he mused.
"You're up sooner than expected. Shouldn't you get some sleep?" Holly prodded.
"Sleep is for the dead and Freyja. What are we doing?" Cuppy asked.
"Well, I was just going to kill time until we head to the casino. Holly's trying to book a room for us." Richie said.
"Let's kill time together. Easier if we gang up on it." Cuppy suggested.
"...right…" Richie blinked.
"Go on, kids, I'll take care of it." Holly waved them away, disappearing into her phone.
Richie and Cuppy prostrated themselves before the great god TV, and flipped through the channels. Apparently they had international channel access as well. Richie happened upon a televised sumo match.
"Ooh!" Richie said excitedly.
A raised square platform made of clay, encircled with a straw ring, served as the battleground for a pair of fat Japanese men with top knots, tossing salt about the arena and stomping around, flexing massive thighs, as they prepared themselves physically and mentally for a full throttle shoving match.
Freyja fluttered a groggy eye open.
"You seem excited." she said.
"I am!" Richie nodded. "I'm Japanese on my mom's side, remember? I got homeschooled to hole up against our occult pursuers, so the TV was my main window into the wider world outside. I was raised with traditional arts like calligraphy and bonsai, so naturally I gravitated toward other scraps of my heritage I could gobble up and chisel an identity out of. I've always wanted to see a sumo match in person." he chirped.
The wrestlers' breaths synchronized, and they charged each other, deadlocking, grips squeezing deep tracts in each other's flab as they tried to find leverage. An elaborately dressed third party on the outskirts of the ring held a strangely-shaped fan.
Cuppy cocked his head. "Why are large fellas in diapers pushing each other while a guy in a dress watches?"
Richie chuckled. "The goal is to force your opponent outside the ring, or get him to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of his feet. Unlike in boxing or mixed martial arts, there aren't any weight divisions in sumo, so they try to pack on as many pounds as they can to get more mass to throw around, and be harder to push. Kinda makes me think of continental plates grinding against each other when the earth shifts, each plate trying to subduct the other."
"And the salt?" Cuppy asked.
"Tradition." Richie said. "The sport has its roots in Shinto, and the salt is supposed to purify the ring before a match."
"Interesting." Cuppy said. "Salt is a recurring element in lots of other mythos too. Often as a purification tool."
"More trippy primal knowledge distribution?" Freyja asked the both of them.
"It would fit with what we know so far." Cuppy nodded. "Holly said already that the Backyards are more likely to unfurl from spaces that seem universally familiar or touch the subconscious. In Jungian psychology, it falls under the idea of the collective unconscious and the archetypes."
"As in, the recurring symbols in the human psyche that transcend culture and era?" Richie asked.
Cuppy and Freyja blinked at him.
"What?" Richie asked. "I said I was homeschooled extensively. I'm not dumb. You try studying when libraries take one look at you and issue a shoot on sight order."
"But yes," Cuppy said, "something like that. Mother nature, the great flood, the world tree, legendary warriors - the classifications and categories vary depending on who you ask, but the idea goes that we inherit a kind of ancestral memory of universal concepts buried in our past. Begs the question which came first - do they exist because we believe in them, or do they have a true form beyond us or our awareness of them?" Cuppy asked.
"Like the Theory of Forms?" Richie asked.
They both stared at him again.
"Stop that!" Richie growled.
Cuppy held his chin. "I thunk up something like that earlier too, that the critters coming out of the fog were enabled by waking belief, but now I'm not so sure. We come from different worlds, everything is up for grabs. Is there a definite true world from which all possibility sprouts? Or are they all as mutually hypothetical and dependent on each other as any other? Is the real world only real because we're in it and we agree it is? And that near death experience…"
"The what?" Richie asked.
Cuppy smiled awkwardly, sweating. "Nothing. Just rambling."
Freyja folded her ears. The blood she identified on his cloak earlier, and now this slip of the tongue - that confirmed it. Someone tried to kill Cuppy. She had a good idea who.
Cuppy smiled at Richie. "Let's have a match, that looks fun." he pointed to the TV.
"This work for the ring?" Chikita asked from outside, having frozen a raised square platform on the lawn, encircled with a perimeter of lighter-colored ice. The whole of the construct had soil frozen into the top to negate the slippery surface of the ice.
Freyja whistled. "Someone had foresight."
"Yeah, that's good!" Richie said, stepping off the back porch.
He and Cuppy squared off against each other on the platform as Chikita and Freyja watched. Cuppy had a salt shaker, and sprinkled the ring.
"Begin!" Chikita declared.
Richie rose out of a sumo squat and rushed Cuppy. In response, Cuppy swung his fishing pole at Richie.
"Jesus!" Richie sidestepped the float ball, which dented a tree. "Time!"
Chikita was laughing helplessly on her back.
"You can't use weapons, you little bastard!" Richie said.
"Oh. Ok!" Cuppy smiled.
Richie held his forehead. "Right, forgot to explain further. It's a grappling sport, the only striking techniques permitted are open-handed slaps and thrusts, no punching or kicking. The idea is to use leverage and superior technique to force the other guy out of the ring. You must be both an unstoppable force, and an immovable object."
Round two began.
"How are you not moving?!" Richie grunted, low like a goat, pushing into Cuppy with his entire upper body as his straining legs lost traction on the ice, his soles rubbing the platform free of dirt. He slipped and fell on his face.
"Winner - Cuppy." Chikita slashed her sword down into the lawn, declaring the end of the match.
Cuppy pointed to his feet, sutured into the ice with surgical threads. "Immovable object." he smiled dopily.
"Foul!" Richie growled. "Ref, do something!" he pointed at Chikita.
Chikita looked away, whistling.
Freyja got a cheeky look and surmounted the ring. She faced off against Cuppy, and the moment the match began, engaged her wolf-like quads, leaping high. She upchucked a hellish ball of flame into the ring, piercing into the ice construct so quickly the ice creaked and cracked as its interior turned to high-pressure steam, racing to escape. The square shattered to bits, dissolving into a puddle of lukewarm bathwater and dropping Cuppy on his insubstantial butt.
Freyja's jump reached its peak and she descended back to the lawn with a graceful, catlike poise.
"So I'm a yokozuna now, right?" Freyja smiled.
Chikita cackled. "Sure, why not!"
Richie grimaced. "Shameless cheaters, the lot of you."
Cuppy squeezed the hem of his cloak free of water as he regarded Richie curiously. "Your heartbeat had the enamored rhythm when you found the channel. Thinking of something nostalgic?"
Richie smiled, looking skyward. "Yeah. I was a big fan of one wrestler in particular. He took the ring name Dai Funka - Great Eruption - and he lives up to it. He was a scrawny kid according to his biopic, but he set his mind to rising through the ranks and becoming the youngest to attain the rank of Yokozuna in years. He attained that goal, and remains unrivaled. As a kid, I wanted to be someone just like him."
Freyja scratched her head. "You want to be several hundred pounds?"
Richie went bright pink and rapidly shook his head. "No, you dingbat, that's not the point! I wanted to be a great warrior who stuck to his path and achieved his goals through blood sweat and tears. I guess, I just…" his head fell. "got lost…"
Holly poked her head out the back. "Good news, kiddo!"
They gathered inside, hovering around the computer desk.
"Booked the room for you. It's a one week stay, so make the most of it. And Richie, you'll like this,"
Richie cocked his head.
"You've got some predictive banter, you know that? Your rotund idol is making a guest appearance at Carnival Top, in an exhibition fight with Leon Valentine." Holly said.
Richie went stiff. "Dai Funka's coming here?!"
"What were the odds?" Freyja scratched her head.
"Odds has nothing to do with it." Cuppy mumbled. "Richie, didn't you say the name Sparta earlier?"
"Huh?" Richie gaped. "Oh, yeah, I guess I did."
"That's the name of Leon's pet lion." Cuppy said.
Richie didn't know what to say. What did this mean? Whatever world he passed into on the brink of drowning, drawn by his guardian dragons, had he met the Lion Tamer there?
Quietly, his dragons pondered the right time to tell him.
"You have your tickets waiting for pick up. Ask for them when you check into the hotel." Holly said.
"For real?!" Richie grinned.
"Yep." Holly smirked.
"Thanks, Holly!" Richie gave a cheerful, radiant smile that stretched across a boyish face that finally looked innocent and earnest once again, if only for a few moments.
Holly's heart skipped a beat. "Uh, sure, you're welcome…"
"Come on guys, let's go pack!" Richie extended his dragons after Cuppy and Freyja, biting them by the scruffs of their necks, and dragged them after him.
Holly felt a blush spreading across her face.
Chikita lightly bonked the side of her head with Yukihana's sheath.
"Hypocrite." Chikita grumbled.
"Shut your face." Holly said.
An hour of packing later, the crew were all astride their respective bikes, salvaged from the junkyard nearby some weeks prior. Cuppy's, still with training wheels, was towing the rest of the gang's rolling suitcases behind his own, tied off by strings to the stalk of his seat. Richie led the crew ahead of Cup with a wrinkled map of station bay in his lap for navigation, and Freyja lazed around in the back of the formation as the potato caboose, her bike's frame laden with grunge band stickers.
"Is that it up ahead?" Freyja asked, looking toward the sunset.
The skyscrapers dwindled to nothing as the cityscape tapered to a corner facing the bay, sides guarded by rails. Within that corner where the rails met was a tall stark white building that looked like a smaller version of the towering hotel beyond it, within Carnival Top proper. They had passed a massive covered parking lot earlier, prowled by chauffeurs and bellhops.
"I think so." Richie said. "That's the lobby. The parking spaces in this area are reserved for guests, and vehicles get moved to a secure underground parking garage after getting checked in, to prevent theft or vandalism. The district is a cluster of mini islands separated from the rest of the city and encircled by a giant saltwater moat. It looks cool, for sure, but it's probably a deterrent to anyone trying to rip off the casinos."
"Like a fortified stronghold, where you're cut off from quick escape." Freyja whistled.
"I take it as a challenge." Richie grinned.
They came to the foot of the lobby building, a drop off cul de sac in front of the gate decorated by a huge marble fountain of leaping dolphins.
Security personnel at the door, sharply dressed in gold-toned metallic formal suits, stood sentinel on either side, eyes obscured by their blocky shades as they scanned for any approaching troublemakers. They weren't visibly armed, but the relaxed fit of their ostentatious slacks certainly allowed for a concealed handgun. One of the two was regarding the trio with a raised brow. These certainly didn't look like gamblers, after all. His counterpart on the opposite side of the doors was more laid back. If some young and dumb bunch wanted to blow their savings on the strip, that was no skin off his ass, long as they didn't roughhouse anyone. It was the more relaxed guard to speak up. "Welcome to Carnival Top." he said, propping open the tinted glass door.
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The revealed interior dripped with glammed-up decor, lots of gold plated accouterments, a clear epoxy floor that looked to be filled with poker chips beneath the glossy, transparent surface, and a sharply dressed desk attendant perched behind a black marble counter.
Richie's eyes sparkled.
What the crap is this room?! It's so glossy! his body tingled with rising excitement. He could smell adventure and flashiness beyond the entryway.
Freyja's ears perked up. "Nice lobby." she mumbled to no one in particular.
Cuppy strode up to the desk. His tiny little mit surmounted the sheer cliff and rang the help bell. The well-dressed attendant peered over the table.
"Oh, hello there." he regarded the puppeteer. The man was a mild-mannered looking redhead with handsome features and a spiffy tie.
Freyja joined Cuppy at the counter while Richie rooted around, taking in the taste of grandeur to come. He raided a stand of fliers and brochures, stuffing bunches of them in his pockets. The bouncers outside peaked in and looked at each other. The lax one shrugged - the kid wasn't breaking any rules.
"Reservation for three, under the name Holly." Freyja said.
"Here for the circus, I imagine?" the clerk said, opening his name book.
"You could say that." Freyja grinned.
"IDs, please." the man said, smiling politely.
Freyja gathered the boys and presented everyone's cards.
"Eighteen? All of you?" he asked, smile strained and weighed down by awkwardness.
"He's a munchkin." Freyja whispered to the man, leaning conspicuously close so that he could smell her soapy fragrance and feel her hair tickle his nose. Her lips looked very red and moist.
"Uh, understood, ma'am." the clerk stumbled, face flushing. "Carry on through the doors to the left, and enjoy your stay!" he continued, offering a nervous smile as he regarded the dopey Cuppy. The doors mentioned took the shape of a massive ace of spades cards, with ludicrously oversized golden handles. "Spared no expense, did they." Freyja muttered, heading in first. The scent of churros and pretzels filled the air, wafting down from the various snack carts that lined the sides of the broad, roulette table-themed walkways. Bright neon displays overlaying vibrantly colored poker chip-shaped signage offered easy navigation, and the question remained where to go first.
That question would be more easily answered at the prominent map display thirty feet down, which was marked on all sides by slots which freely dispensed smaller, foldable paper versions of the map. It went into greater detail on the private district's layout and features than had the main city map, on which Carnival Top in its entirety had been a single illustration.
As they walked, they realized that they stood on what was essentially a bridge, the artificial ground connecting the check-in lobby to the central island where the hotel stood like a towering monolith. The hotel itself was a gold and white patterned hexagonal building with what looked like gigantic marble columns framing each corner.
At the base of the tower was a glitzy plaza with walkways evocative of the Las Vegas Strip, including animated neon signs with mechanical moving parts, including a cowboy tipping his hat. Winding, yellow brick roads wove in and out of the circular plaza, crowded bike lanes running alongside bustling throngs of jam packed tourists and service carts. A trolley service fulfilled the role of public transport between parks, in the absence of cars. According to the map, there were five sub areas corresponding each to a different theme, and which each housed casino floors, bars and restaurants, stages, and in-door amusement park attractions. The trio could see each of these locales sitting abreast their islands, branching off in the distance and connected by way of raised trolley rails spanning the seawater river encircling the main island. These were a sprawling medieval European castle, a pagoda-like feudal stronghold, an Atlantis-fashioned combination aquarium, a neon-lit cyberpunk city, and a titanic red and yellow circus tent flanked by hokey fairgrounds. The entirety of Carnival Top's six islands were perfectly surrounded and cut-off from a crescent crest of land and the sea beyond by a tall perimeter of iron fencing that plunged straight down into the seabed.
"Almost feels like we stepped into another world." Richie gaped, in awe.
Cuppy whistled, sharing in his friend's subdued excitement.
"Let's get checked into our room and get these bags off our hands first." Richie said. "Frey?" he looked around.
Freyja was at a vendor's cart.
"All of your churros, please." her tail's outline against her concealing skirt indicated it was wagging.
"Eh?!" the vendor looked startled. "A-All of them?!"
-
Freyja's face was dusted with cinnamon and sugar as though she had dove nose-first into a gigantic mountain of festive cocaine. Her cheery bugged-out eyes and little smile looked the part too.
Richie's and Cuppy's hands reached for the remaining churro in the bucket and clashed. Sparks arced between them as they locked eyes, growling in the backs of their throats. As they began to grapple for the elongated donut, Richie's dragon lunged off his wrist and snapped up the prize, swallowing it instantly like a snake on fast forward.
It is inadvisable to strangle us in public.
"I will fucking shave you off with a potato peeler!" Richie rapidly poked his thieving tats.
Freyja rolled her eyes and dragged the boys to the monolithic hotel. The grand entryway was marble, glossy, and carpeted with long, velvet red rugs. Pretentious art lined the walls, and red-uniformed bellhops were lined up like perfectly-synchronized soldiers.
"Yo." Freyja greeted the lady at the counter. "Check-in for Holly's party."
Cuppy craned his neck up toward a huge gold-gilded chandelier, and resisted the urge to lasso himself up on top of it.
The woman confirmed their check-in, and motioned them to an elevator framed by more Greek-style columns.
"I'll attend your bags, ma'am." a bellhop bowed, taking the trio's suitcases and bicycles aboard a luggage rack and wheeling it around the bend. An attendant waited inside the mirrored, red-carpeted lift.
"Going up." he announced.
As the doors closed and the elevator glided up, Cuppy smiled and nodded back and forth - he'd never been in an elevator before.
Cuppy remained in awe as the anticlimactic elevator music ticked on for a few minutes, the ride eventually ending on the 20th floor, which provided an excellent vantage point to overlook the rest of the park. After a short stride down the hall, the bellhop opened a door and handed out the room keys as his colleagues rolled in the group's luggage. The room itself was a suite, with three separated bedrooms connecting to a central common area with couches, a small kitchen, and a TV. The floor was styled to resemble the green felt tops of card tables, and the framed art in the room was also all gambling themed.
"Thanks!" Cuppy handed the bellhop a deviled egg.
The gang got settled in, choosing what room went to who with surprising amicability. Once bags were stowed, they regrouped in the common room. "I smelled bagels downstairs. Might have to go steal some of those." Freyja said, speaking of the continental breakfast area most hotels had.
"It's evening. Your sniffer's probably smelling residual bagel pheromones from earlier today." Richie said.
Freyja's ears folded, and she grumbled.
"You just ate two pounds of churros, how are you still hungry?" Richie scratched his head.
"You ever try turning into a hellhound and spitting up lava? Eats up a lot of calories." Freyja rubbed her tummy as though she were a starving Ethiopian child in a donations commercial set to sad music.
"Here." Richie tossed her the room service menu.
Freyja grinned, bearing fangs.
"Uh uh." Richie tossed the wallet up and down.
"Huh?" Freyja checked her pockets.
"Don't spend everything on noms. We've got gambling to do." he took their allowance, and tossed the wallet back to a grumbling Freyja.
"Ciao." he waved, then scooped Cuppy up and headed for the doorway.
"Be careful!" Freyja waved goodbye.
The moment the door closed, Freyja did a perimeter check, closed the blinds after a final awestruck look out the window, then dove into her bed, rutting around like a dog, pressing her face into the luxurious blanket.
"So good." she said into the bedding.
Freyja's hackles went up as a rattling noise echoed from the room Cuppy had chosen, and she cut her frolic short, rolling off the bed and into wolf form to go investigate, sniffing at the ground for any potential intruders. Nothing was immediately obvious as being amiss, though Cuppy's suitcase appeared to have slid off his bed. Freyja narrowed her lupine eyes, cocking her head. Maybe a bird had whacked the window, blinded by the neon haze of the casinos, she thought to herself.
The suitcase faceplanted aggressively, spurring a surprised bark from Freyja. The sound of something scratching around inside it made Freyja think of horror movies, and her ears flattened against her head as she watched anxiously.
Within, Cuppet knocked and clicked in confusion. It was dark and cramped in here, and he had been folded for quite a while. Did they forget to bring him?
Cuppet moved as though silently sighing to itself, then went back to sleep, like a cat under a box who realizes that another cat is sitting on top of the box.
Freyja's curious snoot nommed onto one of the suitcase zippers and yanked it aside, poking in to see what was making the suitcase dance.
Cuppet stared blankly up at her. His eyes were ink dots, so they didn't and couldn't close when he went to sleep. The effect was that Freyja jumpscared the fuck out of herself on Cuppet's uncanny puppet face.
"Why?!" Freyja yelped.
-
"Where do you want to start, Cup?" Richie turned to where the puppeteer had just been, out in the vibrant night air.
The space was empty.
"Cuppy?" Richie asked.
Cuppy stood on top of a decorative statue of giant dominos piled atop each other like a tower of blocks, forty feet high. He whistled.
Richie balked. "Fuckin'- don't stand out already!"
Cuppy looked down. "Huh? Coming!"
The boy dropped down from the sculpture, landing in a deep crouch with his knees pronated awkwardly as though he were a puppet as well. He straightened himself out, evidently unharmed. Surprised gasps turned to oohs and ahhs, and some loose change and one dollar bills got tossed at Cuppy's feet.
Richie blinked. "Alright."
After scooping up the assorted donations, Cup and Richie made their way to the centralmost area of the park, where all six entrances to the various themed areas were visible at once. "My vote's on the medieval spot. Dunno that there'll be much to plunder there though..." Richie says.
Cuppy looked at the castle with big round eyes. Something seemed familiar.
"Okie dokie." he nodded.
The path linking the main island to the sprawling mass of towers and battlements was stylized as a lowered drawbridge, complete with thick chains. Cuppy crouched over the side of the bridge, peering into the sea moat within the sea moat.
"What do you think they keep in there?" Cuppy asked.
"Seals." Richie said on instinct.
They passed through the mighty gate and surveyed the receiving chamber, done up like King Henry's heckin' court. A map on the wall divided the sections of the place by floors and features. Kid-friendly venues were to their right, marked by a friendly guiding arrow, and the adult attractions were to the left. Richie grabbed Cuppy by the hood when the little goober instinctively homed in on the play area, where a jousting horse on a spring sat, its saddle empty and beckoning him.
"Focus, we've got games to win before we play games." Richie reoriented the moppet.
They passed alongside a bar and grill stylized as a medieval mess hall or tavern of some kind, beer stains overflowing, and huge platters of meat and potatoes carried by corset-wearing tavern wenches. Braying laughter resounding through the chamber really sold the idea that a bunch of peasantry were having a special and privileged feast. Richie couldn't help himself, and snagged a drumstick from an inattentive patron's plate, stuffing it in his pocket. The man helplessly bit into a spring of parsley Richie had swapped out for the chicken leg. The man, face flushed with a shit ton of wine, looked almost tragically disappointed, and confused in equal measure.
"Richie..." Cuppy said, disapprovingly.
"There's plenty to go around." Richie shrugged.
They came to the casino floor itself, slot machines and video card game cabinets shrouded as miniature castles and fortresses, frames carved of deep auburn oak.
"Ah, here we go." Richie stepped toward the gaming den, lowered by a small series of wooden steps.
"Hold it!" an absolutely jacked bouncer in a tux that looked ready to burst blocked their way. He looked like Mike Tyson ate another Mike Tyson. "Now what the hell are you boys doing here on a school night?" he demanded.
Richie frowned for a moment, then gave a dismissive chuckle.
"What the hell are you laughing at?!" the man barked.
"We get this a lot." Richie said. "I know we look underage, but we're both twenty one." he flashed his ID.
"That's bullshit, give me that card!" he said.
Richie flashed a wad of hundreds. "We're in a hurry. Let's not make a hassle, yeah?" Richie asked, giving a fox smile.
Tyson Squared hesitated, then smiled, undoing the red rope to the stairway. He happily slipped the cash into his vest. "My apologies, sir, good luck!"
"That's more like it." Richie grinned. He scanned the game floor, echoing all about with clicks and clangs, like a gigantic pinball machine. The place was shrouded in a haze of smoke, and Richie pulled his scarf over his face after a moment. "Good thing they pump extra oxygen into this place."
"They what now?" Cuppy asked.
"Fun little life hack to keep compulsive gamblers awake and fixated. You'll also notice there aren't any clocks." Richie said.
A waitress in a bunny outfit and a tie, carrying a platter of drinks, glared at Richie.
"Tell me it's not true." Richie retorted to her silent accusation.
"It is, but please be more discreet about it." the server said. "Free drink?"
Richie shrugged. Fuck it, he'd need to be relaxed to pull this off. Too many eyes everywhere, his instincts would be screaming at him to hide once the momentary triumph of making it inside wore off.
"Thank you." Richie said, taking a - pina colada? - from the tray.
The waitress waited a moment.
"Oh, right." Richie handed her a tip - in the form of a deviled egg.
The waitress blinked, confused, but shrugged it off.
Cuppy checked his cloak.
"Dang it, Richie." he pouted.
Richie smiled sheepishly.
Richie found himself a repurposed bar stool to perch upon as he watched Cuppy take his awkward crisscross applesauce squat at a blackjack table, to the confusion of the attendant, and a few of the less disinterested members of the game. The dealer would have raised a complaint, but Super Tyson shook his head. "He's legal." he mouthed.
Whatever, it wasn't her job. The moppet was welcomed to the table.
-
Earlier
"Now remember, Cuppy, the worst case scenario is that we get outed. It's going to take trial and error determining if and how you can use your strings to turn the tide of fate. If you can sense the vibrations of others, or absorb the electric impulse of a twitching nerve in the face muscles of a falling poker face, if you can smell the sweat and hormones of a player backed into a corner - these will give you advantages to read the game table like a book, but only if you can intuit the signs as easily as reading or speaking. No, even further - you have to have total sensory awareness beyond the limits of the five kindergarten senses they cram down your throat as a tot. Feel yourself expand, taste the air, find the rhythm. All that hippie dippie shit Holly went on about with her psychometry, and finding the intent of objects and things. I'm sure you can do it." Richie had told him the night before.
"But it's going to take practice. You'll be learning on the field. We'll lose a lot. That's ok. Fall before you learn to fly. Failure will assuage suspicion when we turn the tables. Find the limits of what your strings can sense. Memorize every factor, every flip of the cards, the texture of every ink dot combining into the portrait of the king or jack. Feel the topography of the cards and chips. Breathe the nervousness of an opponent with a crap hand. The ultimate trial by fire will be if you can rig a slot machine. Tumblers and magnet cheats are a thing of the past. Levers are simply decorative. Modern slot machines are powered by motors and random number generators. No conventional tools can circumvent the calculated random chance of the AI. No conventional tools. But you aren't. You're the goddamn Cuppy. You ate the lawn and spewed roots, you rerouted your synaptic impulse electric signals into mighty arcs of Thor's wrath. Why stop at the glass ceiling? Let's take you and your strings to new heights, and not just cause we need the money." Richie said.
"Because Cuppy is Cuppy." he said.
"And because Cuppy can." Richie nodded.
-
In Tide Town, Wolfgang looked up at the pristine Sapphire in Silk. "Ubermensch. He who creates new values in a realm beyond notions of good and evil. Who determines what rules are? The outlaws and the marginalized are wrong? The entrenched elites and military forces are just? History will decide those things as it will."
Alicia approached the big German, her soulful white eyes set in that exquisite ebony skin.
"Daydreaming?" she asked.
"Uh, yeah. Something my grandfather used to say."
"The man over man, in the death of God. The true superman."
"A convenient narrative for my family." Wolfgang sulked.
"You are not a Nazi. Ubermensch was an ideal tacked on to a madman's ideology to vindicate his heartless evil. Let yourself go. And stop feeling awkward around me." Alicia pouted.
"Someone..." Wolfgang looked up. "Someone may uncover the true meaning. And what it means to be a child of the world."
"Want to fuck?" Alicia asked.
"What?" Wolfgang blushed.
"Come on," she took him by the hand. "Let's make your asshole family turn in their graves."
-
"Why endorse robbing the casino, miss goody two shoes?" Chikita asked Holly.
"Does a racket that takes in millions have a greater claim to survival than abused, lost children desperate to survive? I want to see the world free spirits will create. Mason's best intentions bring only chaos and suffering to Station Bay, and to the foreign bodies alike. Those who win wars write history. If we get outed as criminals and locked away, we're nobodies. But if we win and find the fight worth taking sides in - future, against oblivion - that must transcend 'right' and 'wrong'. I gave myself up for condemned when I betrayed the Institute. I want to see what kind of world children granted absolute freedom will create. Maybe it will be one where the very notion of rights and wrongs becomes meaningless."
"I don't follow." Chikita said.
"The existence of good and bad is an inherently self-disparaging social construct. There must be good to uphold, so that heroes can enjoy the righteousness of stomping villains. Mason thinks those monsters are ferals and anti-patriots. Crocus thinks it's all who live. Morality itself invites conflict. Hatred. War. If living beings could truly coexist, they wouldn't need to create laws and morals in the first place. Richie and Cuppy - they just do what they want. So I'm going to make a wager - and bet the future of the cosmos on the amoral purity of human children."
Chikita whistled.
"Got a problem?" Holly raised an eyebrow.
"No. I'm an assassin and want to ride someone you'd call a kid. Bit silly of me to say what's right and wrong. But, somehow -" she grinned. "You've got me all fired up. Come what may." she smirked.
-
Above, the rain cascaded echoing notes to the chosen children.
Follow your own beliefs to the end, children. Believe in your hearts. Smash these worldly illusions.
-
Cuppy sat at a poker table.
"Hey fellas." he waved, to a silent, confused crowd.
"This a joke?" some man in a bowler hat twitched his mustache.
Richie stretched out his legs, leaning against a golden banister. "It's no joke. Don't mind my little friend there."
After Cuppy crashed and burned, it seemed it was indeed a joke. The career gamblers snickered. Richie, however, only smirked.
-
"A suggestion," Holly had said. "Right now, Cuppy only has an edge in theory. Walking him through the workings of the games and extrapolating the known functions of his strings is one thing, actually pulling it all off in the field is another. We have enough money to spend that we won't go broke right away if you sacrifice a few hands or rounds. Gather data. Assess. Learn everything you can. Taste probability."
"How does your psycho stuff work?" Cuppy had tugged on her sleeve. "Can it be learned?"
-
Can it, indeed?
…
A whirlwind collage of sliding chips, shuffling cards, and tumbling dice. Cuppy's super thin, invisible threads spread out like a spiderweb array of twitch fibers and neurons, hardwired into a synesthetic mind that saw in echolocation and tasted the dance of molecules. These threads found purchase in the edges and surfaces of cards, in the ears, nostrils, wrists, and hearts of rival players. They felt the tiny displaced air currents as dice or pachinko balls fell through it.
Cuppy's keen eyes watched the backs of card hands in tandem with the licking taste buds of his strings. Textures, colors, static electricity - the air was alive with sensation.
He ate huge helpings of meat when he ate, in and out of the medieval gambling hall, lacing up his strings with as much protein and receptors as possible.
Another game, many rounds down - he felt his opponent's heart skip a beat.
He's nervous. His eye keeps twitching to the left. A dud in the mix?
Called bluffs. Folds.
Richie watched through the night as their treasure hoard shrank and shrank, then, gradually, began to climb up and grow. The net gain was on a steep incline.
I remember what the scratched bit of ink on that Jack feels like.
Cuppy gave a big dopey grin.
At the roulette table - Called red three times in a row - and won. His strings subtly guided the ball to the desired slot each time.
Eventually, the gambling hall erupted into cheers, vicarious excitement at the hot streak this tiny underdog was on.
Richie sat himself at the bar to watch his savant from the sidelines.
Look at the little guy go. he smiled.
A dark mai tai slid itself in front of him.
"Huh?" Richie looked at the drink, then back to the bartender. "I didn't order anything yet."
"From the nice lady upstream." the server pointed down the bar. Someone's future blond trophy wife in a tight red dress smiled and waved flirtatiously at Richie.
Richie gulped, blushing. "Uh... thanks..."
It was joined by a white Russian.
Richie looked at the bartender - herself a looker in her mid-twenties - and made an inquisitive face.
"That one's from me." she winked.
Richie's eye twitched.
"Cuppy, hurry up!"
Cuppy made his final move, and watched cards and hopes fall out of his opponent's hands, before the cowboy-looking dude's head dropped to the table.
"I'm winner!" Cuppy said, proud of himself.
-
The slot machines would be exponentially harder to rig. Had they been old-fashioned gear-powered things, magnetic strings might have been the way to go. But modern one-armed bandits were powered by motors and random number generators, with the lever being purely ornamental. Manipulating the bars into a jackpot would be more akin to precise hacking than anything else.
A series of trial and error test runs for another day.
-
Freyja's eyes popped open as she felt the bed bounce, and she looked to find a giant sack of cash plopped on the covers beside her.
Cuppy and Richie were beaming.
Freyja's eyes turned to dollar signs.
"Woo! Burgers and blow!" she cheered, tail wagging.
Cuppet looked at Cuppy, knobby arms folded.
"Oh, hey, bro." Cuppy waved.
Cuppet looked unamused.
The lot of them, Cuppet clinging to Cuppy under his cloak like a koala, made their way down to the lobby floor of the hotel where they claimed a cushy table at a bustling diner decorated in chess board tiles and snazzy gold accents. Cuppy neatly unfolded his napkin and tucked it into his collar, before going on to clang his silverware together and drum the table. Under the table, Freyja's tail wagged.
"Made out like bandits?" Frey asked.
"Yep. Was touch and go, bit of a learning curve. But I think more hands-on field work will sensatize his strings more and more." Richie nodded.
Freyja clutched her fist, a single claw poking out just a touch. She recalled first mixing and matching her canine attributes, and layering her human and wolf muscle mass in targeted bundles to pull off great feats of strength. She remembered escalating her fire breath to a viscous flow of thick magma.
"We can still get stronger." Freyja smiled softly.
A strawberry blond waitress showed up to take their orders. Upon seeing Cuppy, she gave him a coloring page foldout with puzzles and a maze.
Ten minutes later, the kids sized up the huge plates full of rations, preparing for battle. Richie had a chicken tender basket with Tabasco, Cuppy's mouth stripped the surface of a stack of chocolate chip pancakes of their chocolate sauce and whipped cream, as though he were a bottom-feeding fish, and Freyja clenched a stacked rare bacon cheeseburger in her grasp, practically drooling.
A strawberry milkshake found its way to Richie.
"Huh? I didn't order this." Richie blinked.
"You've got a fan club, hon." the waitress said, thumbing to a table across from them. The table was occupied by half a dozen young women, among them the lady in the red dress from the bar. Some of them were giggling silently, while others simply stared with placid smiles, waiting for Richie to take a sip, as though watching a deer at the watering hole.
Richie pretended to look at the menu, then stole those of his friends and made a barricade on his side of the table.
"So you aren't going to drink that?" Cuppy asked, pointing to the milkshake.
Richie slammed the liquid ice cream concoction down his throat before Cuppy could launch his sneak attack. He then went to grab his last, succulent strip of white meat lovingly battered in golden brown breading. A dragon rose off his wrist to try to snag the meal.
Not this time. Richie smirked, grabbing the dragon by the throat with his other hand, and strangling him.
Freyja dunked half her remaining burger in a dish full of honey mustard sauce.
The ravenous sounds of the trio's unrefined gorging raised some eyebrows and attuned some ears around the diner. Someone in the booth directly behind theirs peaked cautiously over the back of the seat, like a soldier chancing a look over the wall of the trench. Mortified, they sank back down.
The kids were clearing out the kitchen though as the night went on, and money spoke louder than manners.
-
Richie had a dumb, pre-hibernation stuffed bear look on his face. How long had it been since he had truly eaten to his heart's content? The menus - his improvised screen between himself and thirsty cougars - had fallen. Distantly, with what energy he could divert from converting his fill into calories, he saw the booth of his admirers glaring disapprovingly at Freyja. Freyja, clueless from the get go, having been utterly preoccupied with stuffing her potato face, cocked her head at the jealous hussies, utterly unclear on what the issue was.