The cowboy’s slot machine hit again in the corner. “Yahoooo!” he bellowed. “I’m poppin’ more cherries than a high-school senior!” Then the machine next to his came up a winner as well.
It wasn’t just the slot machines, Radio Joe had noted. The odds on the table games had somehow changed as well; the random order of dice thrown and cards turned was now less random than before. These events had divided Las Vegas into three factions: those who swarmed the Mirage; those who swarmed the casinos; and those who watched from a numb, plastered distance.
“Have one with me,” said the slovenly gambler, then he called out to the bartender. “One for the chief, here.”
Radio Joe graciously accepted, but didn’t drink it. He needed his wits about him.
“When I was a kid,” said the drunk, “I once thought I saw the Virgin Mary in a pancake—but my damn brother ate it.” He took a swig of his scotch. “My dad died of a heart attack the next week. Totally unrelated, of course, but you never stop wondering.”
The cowboy came up with three oranges, and security arrived to shut down all the machines on the lounge level—and probably the entire hotel.
“Some people think it’s the Second Coming,” the bartender said, breaking the cardinal law of barkeeping, and pouring a drink for himself. “Other folks say it’s the end of the world.”
The slovenly man clinked glasses with him. “Yeah. Too bad nobody’s taking bets.”
It was sunset when Radio Joe pushed his way through the anxious crowds around the Mirage, determined to see for himself the sight that had arrested the attention of the city. The rumor was that federal agents were about to close the whole place down, until they could either discover or fabricate a rational explanation for the wall of water. But Radio Joe suspected that no amount of government intervention could close this Pandora’s box.
He shouldered his way through, creating his own right-of-way, against the disapproval of those around him, until he was finally in the lobby. Police in riot gear fought a losing battle to peacefully disperse the crowd, but they were outnumbered, and their strategies were all geared toward angry mobs, not joyous ones.
With so many children present in the arms of their parents, no one dared authorized the use of tear gas or lethal force, and so Radio Joe watched as the line of police gave way. The eager hundreds funneled forward, leaping over the reception desk, toward the shark tank. Radio Joe became just one among many pressing their palms forward into the wall of water, wanting not just to see the miracle, but to feel it as well.
As he reached his hand forward, Joe’s fingers went from air into cool salt water, without any hint of a barrier between. A bright yellow fish swam between his fingers. Tiny bubbles dislodged from the hair on his wrists and floated up, out of sight.
Around him the wide-eyed throng was being dragged away one at a time by police officers, but still more kept coming. Radio Joe wondered if these people understood what they were witnessing. That this place, this moment in time, marked the end of the Age of Reason. A new time was coming, and Joe feared what this new age might be. He now knew that the devouring spirit he had pursued was just one of many players in a dark and bewildering pageant. There would be hundreds of souls by now that the Quíkadi had devoured, and there was no hope of Radio Joe ever cleansing the world of its waste, much less fighting it. Who knew what other mystic acts had taken root in the world as well?
He pulled his hand out of the water-wall, knowing there was only one thing for him to do now. He would leave here, go to the place where life began, and wait there for it to end.
It was as he turned that a woman in the crowd made eye contact. He read her quizzical look, and although he shielded his face, he wasn’t quick enough.
“Shiprock!” she said under her breath.
He turned and ran, but was met by the crowd pressing in, pushing their way toward the water-wall.
“The Shiprock Slayer!” screamed the woman. “It’s the Shiprock Slayer!”
More eyes turned to Radio Joe. He heard more voices now, seconding the accusation. One of the riot policemen turned his way.
He knew if he was to escape, he would have to use the crowd to his advantage, and so he dropped down on all fours, serpentining an unpredictable path through the forest of legs.
“That way!” he heard a voice shout. “He’s over there!”
But the farther away he got, the less interested the crowd was in his identity. The only thought in their mind was getting to the water-wall before the whole lobby was shut down. He battered his way through them, and out of the lobby. Once outside, the crowd wasn’t quite as dense, and he could move more quickly, but so could the ones pursuing him. To his left and right were more crowds, more police, and up ahead was a railing that guarded an oasis of palms and ferns. In the center of the Oasis stood a mock volcano that erupted with precise regularity on the hour, twenty-four hours a day. Once a highlight of the Strip, it was now just part of the scenery. The five o’clock eruption had already begun, gas jets spreading fire over waterfalls and into the dark lagoon. Tongues of flame licked out, covering the surface of the water.
“Stop him!”
He felt a hand grab for his collar, and miss. There was only one route for him now, and no time to linger on the decision. He climbed the railing and leapt into the flaming lagoon, leaving his destiny to the fires of the volcano.
Dillon needed some time alone that afternoon—some time to prepare.
The other Shards had spent much of their hour-long ride from Las Vegas riding the high of the glorious day. Dillon had to admit, he got caught up in it, too.
He had watched the news on the bus’s TV screen and had enjoyed the sight of his own face. Locally, their little show had supplanted the Shiprock Massacres as the leading news stories. If the bloodbath in Shiprock was a sign of the coming chaos, then Dillon was already stealing focus and seizing control. He relished the expert attempts to explain his windowless wall of water, which, like the pool at Hearst Castle, would remain until someone chose to drain the water out. It made Dillon feel big—so much larger than life, he felt he might burst out of his own skin and swell until he stood taller than the mountains.
“Keep your eye on the big picture,” he had told the others. " We’re not doing this for ourselves”—but it was something he had to keep reminding himself. Elevating himself into broader public view was just a means to an end. Still, he couldn’t deny the glorious feeling it gave him.
Once their campsite was established, Dillon wasted no further time in idle talk. He had left the circle of buses, and headed toward a craggy ridge a mile away.
He made his way up the rocks that reddened in the late-afternoon sun. Winston had said he was playing Jesus and Moses wrapped together, and it did feel as if he were climbing the face of Sinai as he scaled the jagged rocks.
Dillon was slowly becoming used to such comparisons, feeling more at home in the company of prophets and saviors—and he dared to wonder, when this was all over, where his name would fall in the records of the divinely touched.
These were heady thoughts. Thoughts he had caged, ever since he had found his powers—but now, on the eve of his ascension into the limelight, he needed to ponder them, for his confidence needed to grow large enough to blanket the world.
He reached the top of the bluff, and stared down at the magnificent man-made wonder that lay on the other side, still swarmed by tourists. Even from a distance, its concrete expanse was breathtaking.
Okoya arrived some time later. Dillon didn’t hear him until he spoke.