November 2025 My toes are cold. Only two of the five electric baseboard heaters that heat my house are on. I’m keeping warm by wearing a robe and fuzzy socks. The weather this year is cold at night and warm during the day. Inger feels a different heat from Damian. It’s a mix of attraction and revulsion she can’t digest. She confesses the heat while Inger and Tala are sharing tea in the American Cafe, “can I tell you something?”
Paradise Casino and Resort, Paradise, NV, 17-Nov-2125
“Ay, what is it?”
“I don’t know if I can say. I mean, he’s an ass and I told him I wasn’t into him. But he keeps pushing. It’s like standing too close to a wood stove that burns hot.”
“Who?”
“Some stalker who keeps sending me messages. I ignore him but it doesn’t stop him. He doesn’t get the hint.”
“Then don’t answer.”
“Been trying that. He’s so crazy he killed my DoorDash Driver. The police still say they are investigating. But I talked to my neighbors in Richmond. It’s not hard to figure it out. “
“That’s a lot. I didn’t know.”
“I don’t know. He’s supposed to be in debtor’s prison in Norfolk, VA. But he still invades my life through messages. I can’t be quiet much longer.”
Off Leash
Damian, up to now, has been laying low being a model prisoner in the Saito-Gumi debtor’s prison. He hasn’t been quiet, though. It took a minute, but he found dormant hive accounts on the Mikako units returned from lease. Not every lessee is disciplined about logging off their accounts. Procedure is to initiate a factory reset. But procedure is only as strong as the hands that follow it. Damian knew the truth: some techs cut corners, some lessees never log off, and some units slip back into circulation dirty.
And some techs suck and managing a ticket queue. A little insider fact: Field Service Requests (tickets) have deadlines, Service Level Agreements (SLA)’s. The usual ticket is due in a week from initiation. Stupid tech’s wait until day four or five to begin work on it. They endure the ire of their bosses who get annoyed that a ticket sits idle for days before starting on it. Competent techs make contact with the end user the day that the ticket is assigned and stay in touch until it is resolved. They also act on the ticket as soon as it is assigned. Damian’s victims are the stupid field techs.
Damian has a few favorites, who reliably remain on the bad side of their managers, at risk of losing their job. One in particular, Dice Kellor, is forever on the short list of techs reviewed in the morning manager’s call. Kellor is worthless. His tickets won’t show activity until notifications go out saying “This ticket is about to bust SLA”. Then Kellor or someone in his group will step up and save the day. One of the Scooby-Doo’s is Damian. More than once, Damian said to Kellor, “I got you. Transfer the ticket to me.”
SLA Roulette
Kellor did that. He escaped the wrath of his managers and the cold chair beside the off-boarding HR admin’s desk for another week. Damian sunk his hooks into him a little deeper. Then took a sip of Dice Kellor’s reputation. A little bitter but otherwise of good vintage.
Inger has a tablet with her as she takes tea with Tala. It sleeps while they chat. Then it wakes with an alert: “Don’t think you can escape. I am your destiny. Choose — obey me or meet your end.” ASSHOLE! OMG! The words slipped out of Inger in a shout. Heads lifted from their meal and glared in her direction.
Tala set her cup down with deliberate calm, eyes narrowing but voice steady. “Easy, Inger. Don’t let him write your script. That’s what he wants — to make you react, to make you carry his shadow. We’re in the Hive, not the Citadel. Here, you choose your destiny.” She leaned closer, lowering her voice so only Inger could hear. “Answer him with silence. Or better yet, answer him with living. That’s the reply he can’t endure.”
“It’s a reply I can’t ignore. This guy has been stalking me for almost a year. I told him NO! I shunned him. He won’t stop! Tala, with all the love, prison can’t stop him, the cops have excuses, and I’m supposed to do nothing!
He Bet Black VIXI
Kellor was slow to learn. But he did learn. Damian was trouble. He saved Kellor’s ass more than once, but the rescue was never clean. Each favor carried a debt. Each silence carried a shadow.
In custody, you can become a trustee. Damian, intent on owning Inger, saw this as a necessary step toward success. Just direct messaging her wasn’t landing. She had to agree that he was her destiny. She belonged to him. It’s time he made sure of that. He became a model trustee allowed to handle field service calls. Beyond that he built a reputation as a top tier Senior Field Service Engineer. Kellor was a frequent source of tickets for him.
Damian signed into Kellor’s queue and brought it current. In it was a stroke of luck. The Paradise Resort and Casino had a few Mikako’s that were end of life. The ticket was an IMAC (Install, Move, Add, Change) to prep the end-of-life Mikakos for shipping to Norfolk. The Hive and the designated Mikakos could do this autonomously. Damian changed it to a “technician required” IMAC and assigned it to himself. He added a note claiming that was serious enough to need senior staff.
Come With Me Now
Tala, “what can you do? Almost anything you do comes out better for him.”
“I know. But . . . here is what’s weird. He’s not a bad guy. I mean, he is . . . but he’s kinda hot. Electrical Engineering degree, film industry parents, kinda good looking–solid husband material who kills Door Dash drivers.”
“Do you know for sure he murdered that guy?”
“No. But it makes sense. And anyway, Damian gives me the creeps.”
Well, waddya know. Speak of the devil. Damian enters the American Cafe on a break. He greets Inger and Tala as they are sharing a tea, “Girl, come with me! NOW!
“Rude! How about . . . No.”
“You can’t refuse me, Inger. I removed Jace Varo so he isn’t in the way. There is nothing keeping you from me. Accept your fate and come with me,” Damian, as he ruminated in his cell, imagined a very different moment than this.
“Have you seen a doctor about that microdick? I need a man who can satisfy me. Can you satisfy me, microdick?”
This is not how he thought it would go. In his mind, she would say yes, the casino supplied Bently would whisk them to the helicopter and then to a private jet that would fly them to Belize. A Harlequin novel happy ending. Damian had no words.
Tala had words, “We’ll figure this out. Honey, don’t be so quick to decide. You said yourself he’s good looking.”
“He just admitted to murder!”
“Did not,” said Damian.
Inger stared hard at Damian. Come with him now? The words, “fuck no” rattled through her heart, “Micropenis, you just lied to me. I don’t know what drugs you are on, but I am not goin anywhere.”
Going Home
The IMAC that Damian used to get himself released and dispatched to the casino turned out to be fake. Kellor reported Damian’s swindle to the guards. It took a bit to sort it out and find Damian. Times up, though, and the guards came and collected him, “bye Microdick. Your ride home is here.”
Tala, “Well that settles it, then. You don’t have to do anything.”
“I don’t know, Tala. Prison didn’t hold him. He found a way to get to me. I don’t have great options.”
“Agreed. Some boys don’t listen until you hurt them. Maybe we should prepare for the next time he gets out.”
Fuck No, Damian
The clatter of plates has returned, but the air around their small table still feels radioactive. Tala sips her Darjeeling as if a man wasn’t just dragged away in cuffs minutes ago. Inger stares at the empty doorway, pulse finally slowing.
A shadow falls across the table. Dice Kellor stands there in his wrinkled Saito-Gumi polo, lanyard twisted like a noose in his fist. He doesn’t wait for permission before sliding into Damian’s still-warm chair.
“They’re going to burn me for this,” he whispers. “Trustee off-leash in a public space is an automatic review. By morning I’ll be on a transport to Norfolk myself.”
Inger finally looks at him. Her voice is flat, almost kind. “Still not my problem.”
Problem? What Problem?
Kellor leans in, sweat shining under the café lights. “It will be. He already has three more IMACs queued. One lands here again on December twelfth. Different escort next time. Someone who doesn’t owe him yet.”
Tala sets her cup down with deliberate calm. The porcelain clicks once, like a round chambered. “And you’re telling us this because?”
“Because if he disappears before then, those tickets die with him.” Kellor’s voice cracks. “Help me make him disappear, and maybe the clan decides I’m worth more alive than floating in the bay.”
Green Path
He slides his tablet across the table. Three green dates glow on the screen. The first is today—already cancelled. The next two are live.
Inger taps the December date once. The screen locks with her fingerprint. She pockets the tablet.
Tala lifts her cup in a small, mocking toast. “Mountain won’t come to you anymore, darling. Time to go to the mountain.”
Inger stands. The legs of her chair scrape like a blade clearing the saya. “First I need my sword,” she says. “Then we start hunting.”
She drops a twenty on the table and walks toward the staff elevators. Behind her, the tea grows cold. Somewhere above them, the slot machines keep singing their idiot song, unaware that the oracle has just spoken.