Naturally, my strolls were of the wee-hours variety, when I had a much less obstructed view of the treasures and minus human lower extremities in an odiferous array of vented and unvented footwear. That is to say, sandals and sweaty tennis shoes. It is hard to say which style is most repellent to the ankle-level nose.
Anyway, here I am now, making architectural connections and scaling this giant spiral shell under the cover of lots of canvas and plastic swaddling. I plan to reach the top and schuss down the unanchored billowing canvas so like a wooden ship’s sails.
I am pretty sure this act of derring-do will be the disruption that can break the spell of the stealth machine, which is the only real science fiction item on-site, and unveil the actual structure in one heroic, guaranteed viral media moment.
(I am miffed by my junior partner, Miss Midnight Louise, going viral first by hopping a ride on a Segway tour on the Las Vegas Strip not too long ago.)
This little stunt will put the V in “viral” and make the “Midnight” in “Midnight Investigations, Inc.,” a household name. Plus, it is a much better curtain-pulling-back act than any little black dog could manage. This is ten stories, folks, a small step for Las Vegas and mankind but a giant leap for Midnight Louie and catkind.
Like the movie stunt boys and girls do, I will land safely on several feet of piled canvas and plastic and my own legendary feet.
Uh-oh. I hear a strange whirring sound above. So does everyone present.
Great Bast’s Ghost! The entire doughnut-shaped revolving UFO restaurant is spiraling down on me like the head of a screw in the grip of a giant alien screwdriver.
Abandon mother ship!
I look down in horror as my nimble frame twists and plummets like Mr. Max Kinsella on a bungee cord.
I am not alone in this fall to earth.
A hitchhiking scene-stealer has crashed my act and is falling much less gracefully.
I am heading down at thirty miles an hour in the close company of some dude with a terminally dark George Hamilton tan who one-ups me as the main attraction, being both naked and dead.
Chapter 28
The Unusual Suspects
Molina stood with her back to Temple, boot-toed cowboy mules planted wide on the sandy soil, hands on hips. The stance reminded Temple of a gunfighter poised to draw, except, instead of carrying six-guns, she probably had a fancy foreign pistol stashed in a shoulder holster or tucked in the back of her pants or strapped to an ankle. Ruined the whole look.
Still, wearing her David Caruso CSI sunglasses as she turned sideways, Molina looked ready for a shoot-out in Miami, if not Las Vegas.
Temple saw another thing that ruined Molina’s whole Metro detective hard-nose look. She was interrogating the nervous dwarf at her side. Silas T. Farnum wore a gray-and-white-striped seersucker suit reminiscent of a convict’s outfit. His polka-dot tie also ruined the whole look.
“This has been a crime scene for more than forty-eight hours,” Temple heard Molina say, the words spit out like a Thompson submachine gun spraying bullets, actually. “You have had a concealed experimental scientific device on this site and did not report its presence? I don’t know how many charges an inspired assistant DA could string together, from violated city ordinances to one big mama of an illegal parking ticket.”
“But, Lieutenant. I’m an entrepren—”
“Now,” Molina went on at the same furious but controlled pace, “some poor soul who got caught up in your UFO fever scheme has plummeted to his death. Was it a construction worker? A tourist who glimpsed the shenanigans going on here and tried to climb his way to an answer? One of your so-called silent partners or fans or detractors? Homicide wants to know.”
Temple had been ordered to “Stand there.”
So she was kept mute five feet behind Molina and her victim but every word nailed her guilty conscience as well. She’d worn her dust-shedding red patent-leather pumps to the site, but she wasn’t comfortable.
“Explain yourself,” Molina barked at Farnum. By now Temple was envisioning the woman’s dark bobbed hair above a khaki pantsuit as the black-and-tan of a German shepherd guard dog on the attack. She really must rein in her imagination.
“I—I’m an entrepreneur, ma’am,” Farnum said.
“So was Bugsy Siegel,” came the icy response, “and look how he ended up. You’d be downtown getting your pinkies scanned for fingerprints if I didn’t need you to explain your science fiction device.”
“It’s not a device.”
Molina’s face donned an Are you contradicting me? glower.
Farnum continued his explanation. “I’m trying to explain the inexplicable here. It’s a process, actually. The structure employs metamaterials with a light-bending technology. You combine polymer substratas and gold and copper, which forcibly bend electromagnetic waves around an object. Light hitting the object is diverted around it. The light is not reflected nor refracted.”
Molina absorbed this cascade of technological terms, then shoved the sunglasses up onto her head and whirled to pin her gaze on Temple’s. Temple had always found the effect of intense blue eyes in an olive complexion like being hit by a blinding blue laser.
“You’re the PR whiz kid,” Molina said. “Explain what Farnum here has said in simple English.”
Temple tried. “From what I’ve found out, researchers have been working since the early 2000s to develop a material that can bend visible light around three-D objects. And it’s working. These metamaterials can conceal small objects, but are rapidly being applied to bigger projects. The implications for the military and, uh, police departments are enormous if this technology leaked into the wrong hands.”
“That’s an understatement.” This time Molina’s gaze snapped like heat lightning between Temple and Farnum, who shrugged at each other, hoping the other won the hot spot. “So the first commercial use of these ‘metamaterials’ shows up—or doesn’t show up—in Vegas? Tell me another fairy story.”
Temple directed her own steely look at her errant sorta client.
He caved. “It could only happen in Vegas, Lieutenant Mojito.”
“Molina!”
“Molina.” Farnum doffed his straw hat and wiped his sweat- beaded forehead with the back of his stubby hand at the same time. “The hotel consortium billionaires of the Strip are the only ones who could bankroll a weird science project like this.”
“Even they aren’t that crazy,” Molina said.
Farnum turned earnest, his huckster’s enthusiasm for his con coming forward. “Look at the space program. The U.S. government? Outta there. It’s up to the Russians and Chinese now. And to entrepreneurs, billionaire entrepreneurs from the U.S. and beyond, like Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Everything. Entrepreneurs are sending manned rockets into space. You don’t think one or more of them wouldn’t mind building a real Space Mountain in Vegas?”
“So,” Molina said. “You’ve been working on this secret construction under the cover of darkness and cutting-edge technology. What people saw was not really there. It was a … reflection of all the stalled projects around us?”
“Not exactly, but it’ll do.”
“And what exactly is the real construction I’m seeing now?” Molina sighed and turned to view the unveiled Disneyland structure of space ship top and residential tower. “It’s not much of a building.”
Farnum had the answer. “It’s the biggest building yet shielded from view.”
“Not now. Now it’s a crime scene. And how do these metamaterials turn off and on?”
“Trade secret,” Farnum answered promptly.