The Traveler

Maya walked along the strip to another hotel and saw gondoliers rowing tourists down a canal that went nowhere. Although each hotel had a different theme, they were all basically the same. None of the gambling rooms had clocks or windows. You were there and nowhere at the same time. When Maya first entered a casino, her acute sense of balance helped her realize something most tourists would never understand. The ground floor was slightly tilted so that gravity would pull visitors in an imperceptible manner from the hotel section to the slot machines and blackjack tables.

For most people Las Vegas was a happy destination, where you could drink too much and gamble and watch strange women take off their clothes. But this city of pleasure was a three-dimensional illusion. Surveillance cameras watched constantly, computers monitored the gambling, and a legion of security guards with American flags sewn on the sleeves of their uniforms made sure nothing truly unusual would ever occur. This was the goal of the Tabula: the appearance of freedom with the reality of control.

In such an ordered environment, it would be difficult to trick the authorities. Maya had spent her life avoiding the Vast Machine, but now she had to trigger all their sensors and escape without being captured. She was sure the Tabula computer programs were searching the Vast Machine for a variety of data-including the use of Michael’s credit card. If the card was reported as stolen, then she might have to deal with security guards who knew nothing about the Tabula. Harlequins avoided injuring citizens or drones, but sometimes it was necessary for survival.

After checking out the rest of the hotels on the strip, she decided that the New York-New York Hotel gave her the most options for escape. Maya spent the afternoon at a shop run by the Salvation Army where she acquired two used suitcases and men’s clothes. She bought a toiletry kit and filled it with a can of shaving cream, a half-used tube of toothpaste, and a toothbrush, which she rubbed on the concrete outside her cabin. The final detail was the most important: road maps with pencil marks indicating a coast-to-coast trip with New York City as the final destination.

Gabriel had left his helmet, gloves, and motorcycle jacket in the van. Back at the tourist cabin, Maya pulled on the riding gear. It felt as if Gabriel’s skin, his presence, surrounded her. Maya had owned a motor scooter when she lived in London, but the Italian-made motorcycle was a large and powerful machine. It was difficult to steer the bike, and whenever she shifted gears she heard a grinding sound.

That evening she left the motorcycle in the New York-New York Hotel parking lot and used a pay phone to reserve a suite. Twenty minutes later she entered the hotel’s massive atrium and approached the front desk carrying her suitcases.

“My husband made the reservation,” she explained to the desk clerk. “He’s flying in later tonight.”

The clerk was a muscular young man with a blond haze of close-cropped hair. He looked as if he should be running a summer sports camp in Switzerland. “Hope you two have a fun weekend,” he said, and then asked for some form of identification.

Maya handed over her fake passport and Michael Corrigan’s credit card. Numbers flowed from the desk computer to a master computer and then onward to a mainframe somewhere in the world. Maya watched the clerk’s face intently, looking for a slight tension if the words stolen card appeared on the monitor screen. She was ready to lie, to run, to kill if necessary-but the clerk smiled and gave her a plastic card key. When Maya entered the elevator she was required to slide the card into a slot and punch the correct floor number. Now the hotel computer knew exactly where she was: in the elevator going up to the fourteenth floor.

The two-room suite had a huge television. The furniture and bathroom fixtures were larger than anything to be found in a British hotel. Americans were fairly big people, Maya thought. But it was more than that-this was a conscious desire to feel overwhelmed by grand furnishings.