Alexander Plansky - Arcadia

Off to his right stood a large map and directory of the casino on a large screen. He ran over to it, accidentally shoving a passerby aside. “Sorry,” he said, his eyes frantically taking in the image before him.

He was on the lower level’s southern concourse, which began with shops and led into an interactive exhibit on space exploration. On the main floor, one above him, was the casino, more expensive shops, spas, restaurants, and exits to the pool deck at the rear. There also appeared to be a nightclub called Solaria adjacent to the shopping area. It took up a sizable chunk of the first level. The upper floors were mostly conference and hotel rooms, and the first floor and subterranean level were definitely the largest.

Lewis moved on, not wanting to stay in one place for too long. Despite the pain in his head, he made his best effort to walk normally and to act as inconspicuous as possible as he headed toward the space exploration exhibit. He needed to find a payphone; most people thought they’d gone extinct, but he frequently noticed them all around cities. Especially in hotels. He figured he’d just walk around this level until he found one. If not, move one floor up. There had to be at least one nearby.

Up ahead, the concourse ended with the entranceway to a dark corridor with the sign “Spaceflight: The Exhibition” glowing white at the top. He followed a crowd of tourists in and began taking a look around. Projections of stars lined the ceiling above while timelines ran along both walls. The wide corridor curved to the right and downward. Ambient darkwave music played in the background, contributing to a sense of eeriness and wonder – much like outer space itself.

The timeline jumped back and forth between the walls, beginning with the launch of Sputnik in 1957. Tiny replicas of the satellite and America’s Explorer 1 were displayed in small glass cases on the left. Up ahead he saw a full-sized moon buggy from Apollo 11 surrounded by red rope off to the right. There appeared to be a space shuttle replica suspended from the ceiling up ahead, but the corridor curved out of sight for him to see the rest of it from where he was standing.

Lewis looked around at the crowd milling about. There were a number of parents here with their children, some wearing NASA shirts and holding toy shuttles. It reminded him of a cross-country trip his family once took to Florida just before he turned five, when they’d visited the Kennedy Space Center to witness one of Discovery ’s launches . He’d always been obsessed with space, but it was that moment at 10:41 AM on August 7, 1997, as the shuttle rocketed off into the atmosphere, that he decided he wanted to be an astronaut. Years later, he’d discovered he would’ve been too tall, but by then his interests had moved on.

However, that day he’d dragged his parents to go to the gift shop. And there, he’d found a plush space shuttle and decided he wanted it more than anything else in the world. It took a lot of begging to his mother and father, but eventually it was his dad who caved and bought him the toy. His mother was worried it wouldn’t fit in the luggage, but Lewis wound up keeping it in his backpack or in his hands. He never let it get far away from him.

Then one day he threw it away. It had become too painful to look at.

Lewis snapped out of his reverie. He was standing in the middle of the exhibit and people were saying “Excuse me” and trying to get around him. Putting a hand to his forehead, he continued deeper into the hall.

The corridor completed a semi-circle and ended in an area with elevators that opened into the stores on the level above. A short hallway jutted off to the left with restrooms, water fountains, and at the very back, an old payphone.

Making sure Blackwell, Jackson, or Caruso were nowhere in sight, he strode down the corridor and picked up the receiver. He should’ve known Jenna’s number by heart, but he’d always just called her from his Galaxy S9’s contacts. Lewis slid the device out of his pocket, found her information, and dialed it into the payphone. Then he retrieved two quarters from his wallet and inserted them into the slot.

He took several deep breaths while it rang. He wasn’t even sure she’d pick up, but calling was the only way he had of reaching her.

She answered on the fourth ring.

“Holy shit, Des! You were right! You were so fucking right, oh my God…”

Lewis normally liked being vindicated, but this time the gratification evaded him. “They came for Gonzalez and me too.”

“Gonzalez?”

“The FBI agent who talked to me on Tuesday. Turns out she’s in town investigating this too. We went to the room to try and find you when you didn’t come back, but you were already gone.”

“Jesus, who are these people Des?!” Her voice sounded understandably frantic. From the background noise, it seemed like she was in a crowded area.

“I don’t know exactly, they seem to be feds. But they mentioned Zhao, they’re definitely from Arcadia.”

“Fuck!” She paused for a moment, breathing heavily. “Where are you?”

“The Orbital Casino.”

“How the hell did you end up there?”

“They kidnapped me. I managed to get away and hid here. At least two of them are in the building, looking for me.”

“There’s some big accident at Vegas and Flamingo,” she said.

“Yeah, they caused that.”

“They killed a cop?”

“Right in front of me and about a dozen other people.”

“Holy shit, I thought conspiracies were supposed to be subtle.”

Lewis glanced behind him. “Clearly, they’ve become desperate. And they probably have the means to wipe themselves out of any camera footage. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d gotten their fingerprints removed.”

“I still can’t believe this is happening. I’ve been hiding out at Caesar’s Palace for the last twenty minutes. They chased me out of the Mirage, but I managed to get away and came here. This place is a fucking labyrinth, so good luck to them finding me.”

“Don’t tempt them. We need to meet up with Gonzalez and strategize. She’s the only one who can help us.”

“Can you reach her?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve got her business card. We need to pick a place to meet, but somewhere very public.” He thought for a moment. “There’s a nightclub here called Solaria. It’s dark and full of people. If we can find each other in there, we should be able to slip out through the crowd undetected.”

“Okay, I’ll start heading to it. And Des?”

“Yeah?”

She paused. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”

He chuckled bitterly. “I don’t blame you. I probably wouldn’t have, either.”

“Stay safe. I love you.”

“Love you too. I’ll see you soon.”

He hung up, took out Gonzalez’s business card and another two quarters, and input the number and the money. The FBI agent answered quickly.

“Jesus Lewis, it’s dangerous to call–”

“Don’t worry, I’m at a payphone.”

“They can still tap those, you know.” She lowered her voice. “I need you to listen very carefully.”

“Okay.”

“I saw them take you. I couldn’t stop it, but I took a photo of their rear license. Lewis… it was a G14 plate. Government.”

That didn’t surprise him. He remembered watching a documentary about alien conspiracies on the History Channel as a kid where they mentioned some mysterious men in black driving a Cadillac with a G14 license plate. When the investigators looked up the number, they’d found it registered to a Parks & Rec Jeep Wrangler in Texas.

“We can’t confirm it’s the CIA though,” he pointed out.