Invisible Threads--Chapter 21

Writer's Note: Please read the previous chapters and prologue of Invisible Threads before reading this.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

When they were back at the hotel room, Cherie opted to take a bath. This allowed Gary time to lie down and let his mind wander back to his dream of the night before.

He had not had problems with vivid dreaming since right after his father died. The doctors had said the dreams were an offshoot of him subconsciously processing the loss. To this day, he wondered how much they were paid to state the obvious. But the dream with the anomaly was more than just vivid. The part where he had awoken with his arm around Cherie had felt completely real and yet been imaginary.

His thoughts poked at the idea of two alternate realities - with the dream being a crossover from one to another. Every quantum physics student played around with alternate realities or dimensions. But the science fiction version of stepping out of one reality into another where everything was almost the same was a mathematical impossibility. In his dream, the reality was similar enough that Gary and Cherie knew each other and were sharing the same bed in the same hotel. But dissimilar enough that their relationship was such that they would cuddle in their sleep. But what changes would have had to occur in Gary and Cherie's past to make such a relationship possible? And if those changes had been made then what were the chances that they would not have affected Gary or Cherie's life enough that they never met? It was the epitome of chaos theory.

But the dream was not the real issue. The real issue was whether he should tell Cherie about the anomaly. The answer to that was an obvious yes. Less obvious was the when. Every day that passed increased the ferocity of the anger he would face when he finally did tell her. But facing possible future anger was preferable to facing certain anger in the present. While his motivations were entirely selfish, he needed to think up some good rationalizations for his delay when he ultimately let her in on it.

What he came up with was unimpressive. There is no proof of anything. It was nothing but guesses and conjecture. And she needed all of her energy to get through the show. She did not need a distraction by something that was probably nothing.

As weak as it was, it would have to do until he came up with something better. It was that argument that convinced him to delay telling her. He needed the time to come up with a better rationalization.

It seemed logical-ish.

She suddenly came barreling out of the bathroom wearing the hotel bathrobe and rubbing at her short hair with a towel. "Get in there and take a shower.r5"

"Do I smell?"

"No, I'm bored. I've never been in Las Vegas before and we don't have to do anything tomorrow. This is our night to paint the town red."

That didn't sound good. "Can we maybe paint it a light pink?"

He heard her laugh so he pressed his advantage: "Maybe get something to eat and then come back here so I can get some work done?"

The laughing stopped. "You're not listening. I repeat. I am bored. We are in Las Vegas. We are going out and partying tonight."

Going out and partying. Like that was a normal part of Gary's lifestyle. "What do you mean by partying?"

"We are going to drink... and we are going to gamble... and we might even dance."

Dance?

Oh.

My.

God.

"I'm not much of a dancer."

"I'll teach you."

"I don't think you can teach me how to not hate it."

"Okay, we'll skip dancing. Just drinking and gambling."

Gary mumbled under his breath: "Sure. And maybe I'll get a tattoo and a motorcycle."

"What was that?"

"We'll get dinner first. Right?"

"Sure. Where do you want to go?"

"We passed an IHOP."

"Seriously?"

"Yes. Pancakes for dinner." At least part of the evening could be salvaged.

"You are so... you. Okay. IHOP but then we're adults for the rest of the evening."

Gary went into the bathroom and showered. When he stepped out wearing his blue jeans and a t-shirt, he found a shirt and socks laid out for him.

Cherie looked up from her phone a leapt to her feet. "At last! Let's party!"

This was going to be a long night.

Gary attempted to return the smile. "Whee?"

One concept he had never understood was infectious excitement. Cherie was excited. And he appreciated the fact that she was neither angry nor sullen as that made his life easier. Her non-stop flow of words allowed him to retire into his own thoughts without putting much effort into listening.

In that way, they passed through the lobby without noticing someone rise from their seat and begin to follow them. However, the person did not know that they, in turn, were also being followed.

By the time, they reached the restaurant, Cherie had punched Gary in the arm twice. It seemed like things were going well. Gary's hopes of drawing the dinner out and possibly convincing Cherie to forego the remainder of her plans were dashed by his tendency to eat quickly. Dinner was wordless and fast.

Their tail did not go into the restaurant but waited across the street and watched them enter. He continued to follow when they left the restaurant and headed down The Strip. Subterfuge was unnecessary. The primary thing on Gary's radar was the overly bright lights, overly loud sounds, and enochlophobia-inducing crowds of revelers bumping and jostling him as they made their way down the sidewalk.

As Cherie dragged him into a casino bar, he looked down at her, "Is this fun to you?"

Cherie punched him in the arm yet again. "Vegas has to grow on you."

There was no shortage of foul tasting or uncomfortable things that people wanted to let grow on them. Fungus was something that grew on you.

As the night went on, Cherie ordered a drink in each casino. After the third, she was noticeably tipsy. Given her normal personality, Gary had expected the drunk Cherie to be loud and boisterous. Instead, she seemed to get quieter. As they walked from the third casino to the fourth, Cherie was hanging onto Gary's arm and putting a good bit of her weight on him.

One part of his mind dallied with a fantasy that the alcohol was releasing her inhibitions and tonight might be the night back at the hotel, while the more realistic part of his mind understood that she was just using him to walk straight.

In the fourth casino, which was the least crowded yet, Cherie ordered her drink but instead of wandering around and looking at various statues, fountains, and ghastly wallpaper, she stopped next to a gaming table and silently swayed - creating a sine wave motion where she slightly bumped Gary with each repetition. She seemed mesmerized by the game. Or maybe she was drunkenly staring into space. Standing still was a lesser of evils so he stood next to her and received the light, rhythmic bumps as she swayed.

The game they were watching was blackjack. He knew the game from family game night before his father had died. They had quit playing because Gary could keep track of the cards and calculate percentages in his head. He had never learned the phrase 'card counting' and didn't understand why they changed to board games.

And suddenly, Gary was terrified.

He tensed and held in a scream. There was no cause and effect for the feeling. Nothing happening around him would create this level of emotion. It was identical to what he had felt in the lab when the anomaly had moved toward Phang. But he was not looking into the extraverse now. He focused his thoughts and saw the threads.

The anomaly was standing in an open area a few feet to Gary's left. It was tall and imposing as before but was not doing anything terrifying. But, his fear again felt real.

He distantly heard the dealer speaking to him, "Sir, are you alright?"

The anomaly seemed to sense when it had Gary's attention and then began to move through the casino. Its movement was the walking motion of the lab and not the sudden missile-like flying motion of the dream. Gary watched it walk through the casino until it stopped and... turned?... back toward him. It had positioned itself immediately behind a person...

...that Gary recognized.

With all of the new faces of the last few days, it took Gary a few seconds to remember that it was the interloper who had been trying to steal his ideas in the storage area earlier in the day. And he was looking directly at Gary with a shocked expression.

And then the interloper was gone. Not disappeared, but walking hurriedly through the casino toward the nearest doors and then out. The anomaly, on the other hand, just disappeared. When Gary turned back around, the entire table was staring at him, and Cherie was tugging at his arm. "I think maybe we should go somewhere else."

Walking away, Gary went for broke: "Maybe we can go back to the hotel, and you can sleep, and I can work?"

"Sleep! What kind of a lightweight do you take me for?! The night is young and those of us who are about to party, salute you!" Cherie could really be a theater major when she put her mind to it.

She steered him away from the tables and into a drinking joint named - unimaginatively enough - The Margarita Bar. It turned out that every so often a horn would blare and for five minutes margarita shots were served in little plastic cups for a dollar each. This made Cherie very happy.

***

Lacy had been able to squeeze in five minutes to speak with Mercurio and Maggie after Gary's performance. His take was that the show should keep Gary as a frontrunner, which was the last of the good news. Since then, her night had been a flood of problems.

Arriving back at the booth in the wee hours of the morning, Lacy found Al and Natalie Thompson, the Executive Producer, huddled around a computer screen. The EP looked up. "You're Lacy, right?"

Crap. The EP knew her name. That couldn't be good.

"Yes, ma'am."

"What's going on with the buttons? Everyone's telling me there's a problem."

Lacy looked to Al who had already turned away and was talking into her headset. She was alone. "Yes ma'am. There's a problem. It appears that the circuits we have available on the power panel don't have enough capacity for our system-"

"Why the hell not? We ran this same show in this same theater last year!"

"Yes, but the buttons were analog. This year, with the new touchscreens, local processors are required. The processors have to connect with network switches that use a lot of power. The circuits that worked for us last year don't have enough capacity. So, the electricians are going to have to work through the night setting up a subpanel off of the main distribution panel to get us some supplemental circuits.

Twelve hours earlier, Lacy would not have understood one word of what she had just said.

The EP ground her teeth together for a moment before speaking: "So, we're paying the electricians double time to work through the night."

"Yes ma'am. But they're working. No one's slacking."

"And you're an expert on electrical wiring?"

"No, but I know what slacking looks like and they're not doing it."

"Okay. I'll take you word for it. Now, get out of here and make sure that doesn't change."

Lacy had actually come to the booth to talk to Al about something completely different but she decided it could wait and left.

Natalie looked over at Al. "She's not bad. Reminds me of someone..."

Al looked at the door through which Lacy had just exited. "She's very good and has a future if we don't burn her out."

"One thing that helps with burn out is encouragement from your mentor."

Al knew she was getting advice and resented it. "You know I'm not good with that touchy-feely stuff."

"Do you think she's worth putting a toe outside of your comfort zone?"

"Yeah, probably. I'll speak with her. Now can we get back to work?"

And then they started working out the effect of the additional electrician hours on the budget reserve.