Dee covers her mouth. Reflex, probably. The light seeping in through the cracked sealing reveals the thick layer of dust now inhabiting the air. It dances, in spite of the air current seeming still. Even without having to breathe it in, the casino still feels suffocating. Because it’s not just the dust.

The slot machines. The tables. The broken LED screens. The shards of glass scattered around the floor. Empty and abandoned, these things – these toys – they weren’t made to be still and quiet. They weren’t built for loneliness. Even without anyone possessing them, I can still hear their whispers. They do not tempt. They do not even invite. They simply want you to know they are still here. Here, in a place abandoned by both time and money alike. If I was one of them – if that had been my only understanding of existence – I would cry: ‘Never make another one of me.’

They are not crying, though. Merely whispering. And the whispers eventually get lost, through a passage that hides between the light and the dust. My daydreaming follows along, forcing me back to where it had begun; with me absent-mindedly staring at a dusty ace of spades on the ground.

The silence in deafening.

“What do you think he was doing here?” Dee asks me.

“I don’t know. Stealing Wi-Fi?” I suggest.

“You can go to a Starbucks for that.”

I adjust my hat. “If the point was to get online, there were probably ways that didn’t involve buying overpriced coffee.”

“Hey.” Dee stops. “I love Starbucks.”

“It’s okay. I don’t.”

“Funny. Aren’t you the one with a caffeine addiction?”

“Which means I’ve developed standards. Either way, not like I’ve been drinking coffee lately. I mean, I’ll gladly resume it. As soon as I find a hole in this body I can pour the coffee into.” I look around. “I was gonna suggest he was homeless. The thing is, this is a big place. Usually one aimless wanderer leads to another. But I don’t see any sleeping bags, or blankets, or food wrappers, or needles or – or anything.”

“Maybe the cops chase people away every few weeks?” Dee offers.

“Maybe. Maybe…” Impossible to tell for sure.

Impossible to tell anything. We’re stranded in the middle of a giant ocean. Wherever we look, we only see the water touching the horizon. This lead is like our little raft. The way things are looking, our only two options are to either starve on it or wait until it inevitably capsizes.

Are we actually going to find anything? Was he even here? This was really more Bobby’s theory than anything. An unprotected Wi-Fi connection to a house around here. This is the most likely place, given how it’s abandoned. But what if it was one of the neighbors? What if he was just passing along and caught a signal? What the hell are we supposed to do then? And speaking of Bobby – God even knows if he was telling us the truth.

Bop.

There goes a hole on our little raft.

Dee is spinning the roulette table. “These things are heavier than I thought they were.” she murmurs.

“We should check upstairs. Maybe there’s something in, like, the manager’s office? I know that’s where I’d be if I was gonna live here.” Is my lack of optimism noticeable?

“Yeah.” I guess it must be, given how her own is even more apparent. “I think I saw some rubble around the stairs, though. Not sure if you can even get up there anymore. Or that anyone could have. I doubt it’s a recent thing.”

Bop.

“Right.”

Meaning, we’ve probably seen all that was left to see.

And there’s nothing here. Not even ghosts.

Bop.

To be fair, it was a long shot.

Bop.

Hell, we’re not detectives, last I checked.

Bop.

Frankly, I’m still not sure what Dee’s intentions are, even if we had somehow caught him. Kill him? Get him arrested somehow?

Bop.

The feeling of suffocation returns. It’s still not the dust. And it’s not the slot machines.

We’re underwater now.

We’ve come to our last stop.

“You know,” Dee sighs, “this is one of those things where I didn’t actually think about what we’d do when we got here. I guess I just took for granted that this is where it would all pay off. Three months. Bobby. The lake. You.”

“Me?”

“You getting shot, I mean.” She sits on the table, next to the spinning wheel. “It all feels like it was for nothing.”

“We were never going to be able to undo what he did. Or get enough evidence to actually send him to prison. And killing him would’ve just sent him somewhere else. For all we know, he would’ve ended up in some body and just gone on to—”

“I know. I know, I know, I know.” She falls backwards, onto the large columns of numbers. “This was stupid.”

“We haven’t look that hard, to be fair.”

“We’re not gonna find anything. It’s been three months.” She groans. “I’m sorry, Juice. I’m sorry for dragging you into this. If it weren’t for me—”

“Hey, don’t—”

“If it weren’t for me—”

And now, surrounded in the darkness of the casino floor, our lungs filled with dust and our minds trapped deep in an underwater chasm, a light appears.

Not a metaphorical one, either.

A beam of light emanates from the direction of the blackjack table.

Sitting at the dealer’s side is a large figure of a person. The light is coming from their head.

Except, that’s not how heads work. I raise my hand to block some of the light as Dee jumps to her feet, plastic gun at the ready. Ready to do what, I have no clue, but it’s there.

“Hello?” I speak to the light.

“Hello.” the light speaks back. Its voice is deep and booming. There’s an echo to it, too.

“H-Hello.” Dee stutters.

“Hello.” The light turns to her, ever so slight, allowing me to get a view of its source.

It’s someone in what I can best describe as a deep sea diving suit. Like the ones they made in the 1930s. Like the ones that should all be sitting in a museum of some kind, instead of staring us down in an abandoned casino in the middle of the night.

The light is emanating from inside the large round helmet, through all three of its little windows. How the hell can the person inside even see anything, given the brightness? And given how stuffy it must be to be in that thing, why in God’s name did they decide to wear a black duster on top of it all? Is this some kind of a new fashion statement? A performance? Are they cut from the same cloth as the man believing a wolf’s head would make a good replacement for his previous one?

How did we not notice this person walking over to the table? Were they just sitting there the entire time? Waiting?

Who?

Who is this?

Am I scared? I think I might be. I just want to leave, even though all we’ve done is exchanged pleasantries. Pleasantries that didn’t exactly feel pleasant, but—

“I’ve been waiting.” the stranger declares.

Waiting? Expecting? That doesn’t make sense. Pr0c should be long gone. Probably. Maybe. No signs of living here, after all. Waiting for us because someone told him, maybe? Bobby? Is this some twisted joke, after all?

“Waiting for what?” Dee takes the plunge. I can see it in her – she’s harboring the same doubts.

The stranger’s light shines on me once more. “I didn’t expect it to happen the way it did. You look good, though. I mean, the hat looks a bit silly. But you seem to be taking it well. That’s what matters the most.”

“What are you talking about?” Come on. Focus. “Are you pr0c?”

“We’ll get to him soon enough.” they say. “Rest assured, unlike some, I have no intention of hacking anyone up.”

Implying he isn’t pr0c. Okay. Might as well try for something a bit more obvious, given that he doesn’t seem to be all that generous with his answers: “Who are you, then? What are you doing here?”

“I’m here because you’re here. I’ve been following you for quite a while.”

“Strange.” Dee scoffs. “I think we would’ve noticed being tailed by a dude wearing… uh… that.”

“We both know your senses are dulled.” The diver leans back in the seat. “Still, I wouldn’t get too caught up about it. Most will agree I’m a bit difficult to see coming.”

“By the way,” I chime in, “I like how you just casually dodged the first question.”

“Oh.” the stranger’s metal finger taps the table. “Well, I guess you can think of me as a maintenance man. The maintenance man, as far as I know. See, at the bottom of a certain ocean, there is a pipe. This pipe runs some… precious material. As precious as it is plentiful. And sometimes, the sheer amount can cause the pipe to burst. My job, as the maintenance man, is to fix it up. Spills are bad. Very bad.”

“Okay.” Dee glances over in my direction. “I think we should go.”

“Spills are bad. Very bad.” The diver sighs. “But I’m tired. So tired. And I can’t bring myself to fix this spill. This one, big, giant spill. It’s been spilling for decades. Polluting the ocean. And I watch. And I know I have to fix it. And I can’t. I can’t be the maintenance man anymore.”

I nod over to Dee, turning on my heel.

On some days, I’d probably stick around to listen to a homeless man’s ramblings. Yet—

“I need a successor, Jacob.”

Oh, he knows my name, does he? I guess that confirms it.

“Whatever, Bobby.” I spit out.

“It’s what I made you for.”

I pull the entrance open. “Go to hell, man.”

“You are not your father’s son.” I hear the diver’s voice. “You already knew that, though. Just like you should know now that your current state proves you to be mine.”

I turn back around, laughing – and not without some honesty to it. “What? Is this a Star Wars moment? Do you tell me you’re my father, and I shout off the top of my lungs? Do you think I’m stupid?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. You are what you are. And you will take my place.”

“Fuck you.”

The blackjack table flings itself into the air. The light shining behind it disappears. The dust, in its own special breed of panic, scatters, disappearing even from the cracked light. Dee lets out a yelp. I’m too stunned to even form a sound.

For a single, terrifying moment, time stands still.

The table crashes back down onto the ground.

All is dark. All is quiet.

I can’t move.

“Don’t test me, Jacob.”

The diver now stands between Dee and me.

In their hand is a large, rusty scythe; its blunt end planted firmly into the ground.

“Who are you?” I ask again.

“I’m the maintenance man.” they repeat.

“What are you?” Dee murmurs, as the plastic gun slips from her hand.

“Tired.” the stranger says. “Too tired.”