CHAPTER ONE
“YOU’VE GOTTA SEE this watch, Tommy. The inscription says ‘Property of Sanford Bloombury, 1865.’ Imagine that. Some guy was wearing this thing before we even had electricity.”
Tom slid off his virtual reality visor and blinked as his eyes adjusted to the dimness inside the bustling casino. The bright lights of the nearby video displays flashed over the smile cracking Neil’s worn face—and glinted across the gold watch dangling from his hand.
“Huh.” Tom didn’t really get why his dad was showing it to him. “Is this watch thing worth a lot or something?”
“Worth a lot? Tom, this watch has been passed down from father to son for generations. It’s a precious family heirloom, and it’s got a lot of sentimental value. Not to our family, of course, but definitely to that banker’s.” He jabbed his finger over his shoulder toward the bald man he’d beaten at poker a few minutes earlier. “So I hope it means something to you when I say that I want you to have it. Happy fifteenth birthday.”
It took Tom a moment to process his words. “You’re giving it to me?”
He couldn’t remember his dad giving him a present for his birthday . . . not on his birthday or anywhere near it, at least. He seized the watch eagerly. The VR visor slipped from his hand, and Neil caught it before it could clatter to the floor.
“This is fantastic, Dad!” Sure, he had absolutely no need for a watch, what with the precise, satellite-tuned chronometer in his brain that measured time down to one two-thousandths of a second. . . . It was one of the many perks of having a computer in his head. Getting a present was still awesome, though.
Neil clasped his shoulder. “Come on, let’s grab some steak.”
Steak. That was even more awesome.
Tom leaped up and followed Neil through the bustling crowd in the casino. They brushed past the vanquished banker, who greedily eyed the watch in Tom’s hand. Tom had no scruples about fastening it on in front of the guy, but it might’ve been a mistake being so brazen about it, because he swore he saw the banker’s face tighten into a mask of hostility—and Tom saw the banker wave over some large man who looked suspiciously like some sort of bodyguard or thug.
Tom darted a last glimpse over his shoulder before he and Neil swept around the corner. Then they plunged through the door into the enveloping, dry heat of the Nevada evening, the startling neon lights of the Las Vegas strip bombarding them from all sides.
Neil surveyed the casino they’d left. “Think the banker’s going to send his manservant after us?”
So he’d noticed the ominous gesture, too. Tom shook his head. “I dunno yet.”
“Walk fast.”
Tom didn’t need Neil to tell him that; Tom did still have some survival instincts from the first fourteen years of his life he’d spent following his dad from one casino to another. As soon as Neil got money, on the rare occasions when he won, keeping that money became the biggest task.
The question was, how alert was Neil right now? Tom threw a careful glance down at Neil’s legs, and he saw that his dad was moving steadily, no swaying or shuffling. Good. Sober. Or at least, as close to it as he ever got.
Tom turned his watch to and fro as they threaded through the crowd, the gleaming lights of the Las Vegas skyboards playing over its surface. The mile-wide screens in near-Earth orbit bombarded ads down at anyone within a hundred-mile radius below them—but their reflections in the watch shrank to tiny slivers of light. Then in the shiny surface, he spotted a figure weaving through the crowd behind them. One glance back confirmed it: the banker’s manservant was tailing them.
Great.
Tom’s eyes snapped back to the front. “Yeah, Dad. We’re being followed. Your banker’s a leecher.”
Neil gave a disgusted snort. “Figures. It’s always the Wall Street guys.”
There was this practice in the poker circuit now called “leeching,” where men would hire a few thugs and play the game to win, even if they lost. If they legitimately won, they kept the spoils of victory, and if they lost, they dispatched their thugs to take back the money they’d gambled away. It ruined the game for everyone, because leechers didn’t seem to understand the concept that gambling meant accepting your losses as well as your winnings. They seemed to think that win or lose, they were entitled to the spoils.
He elbowed Tom. “You remember how we deal with leechers?”
“I’ve only been gone six months,” Tom protested. He tugged off his watch and let the thug see him giving it back to Neil. “Back of the head?”
“Back of the head,” Neil agreed.
This was the sort of incident Tom hadn’t missed while living at the Pentagonal Spire, training to be an Intrasolar Combatant. There, life was about routine, abiding by regulations, and Tom generally knew what would happen one day to the next.
Life with his dad was like this: chaotic, unpredictable, sometimes dangerous. Tom was almost relieved they were running into trouble, because the first two weeks of his legally mandated time away from the military’s custody had been going so smoothly, he’d half expected a meteor to crash onto their hotel to make up for it. Getting pursued by a hired thug who was planning to rob them, take everything Neil had won tonight, and maybe beat them up, well . . . that was familiar enough. Tom knew how to handle it.
“Go in there,” Neil directed, jabbing his finger toward the storefront of the next restaurant.
Tom saluted him. “See you soon, Dad.” He veered from his father’s side and headed on into the restaurant, leaving Neil to continue down the street in the press of the crowd.
They’d done this enough to have a basic routine down. Tom waited as the thug trailed to a stop in the midst of the crowd streaming around him, considering which of them to follow. Then he made up his mind and began stalking after Neil again. Tom scanned the room to make sure no one was looking his way, then swiped a heavy napkin holder from a nearby table and plunged back out onto the sidewalk. He began tailing the thug, who was so busy tailing Neil, he didn’t notice. They never did.
Through the crush of the crowd, Tom saw the guy swerve after Neil into an alleyway. Tom broke into a flat run. He reached the lip of the alley as the thug closed in for the kill. “Hey! Hey, you!” the man bellowed at Neil.
Neil made a show of spinning around coolly, primed for a confrontation, his eyes glinting with challenge. He gave a small smile, seeing Tom drawing up on the man from behind. “What can I do for you, buddy?”
Tom raised the metal napkin holder for a devastating blow, waiting for the guy to make the first move and officially render it self-defense when Tom whacked him over the back of the head, and Neil jumped forward to pummel with his fists. Tom watched the man reach into his coat pocket, and he knew it was time. He lunged forward, but Neil must’ve seen something other than a gun in the thug’s hand, because his eyes shot wide open and he thrust up a splayed palm. “Tom, no! Don’t!”
The man spun around, and Tom saw what he’d taken out.
A police badge.
Tom felt a dropping sensation, realizing he’d almost clubbed a cop. The napkin holder danced out of his fingers and clattered to the ground. The cop tore out his gun and leveled it at Tom. Tom’s mouth went dry. He raised his hands and backed away. “Sorry. We thought you were . . . Sorry.”