_”Who comes to Vegas stays in Vegas, even if it means enduring a daily horde of deadly blackouts, where locals don’t dare venture outside for fear of the risks associated with the relentless hurricanes and disease-ridden Florida. You’re a Vegas native, born during the golden era of casinos, when their gambling revenue was the lifeblood of the city. Now, you’re the one cashing in on the pain and suffering of others by bidding for health data feeds from death-watched souls and being paid a meager sum to dismantle the rotting corpses before they become inorganic and souls are consumed by the blazing inferno. This is a perilous existence, full of monotonous routines and a lack of financial compensation for the sacrifices you’ve made to survive. In a good month, you’ve witnessed the death of two dozen souls, while in a bad month, you’re paid for a simple act of vigilance. You long to escape this monotonous existence and put down your watch for good, but illegal activities like that are the most challenging of the lot.”_Who comes to Vegas stays in Vegas._ Nobody moves to a place where daytime
blackouts come with death counts if they have anywhere else to go. None of the
old people you watch over do; somebody once told you they used to go to
Florida, but that’s a place for people who want to play three-sided chicken
with hurricane and plague. You are a Vegas native, born back when casinos
still made money. Now you make yours by bidding for health data feeds from
watches ( _your father’s creaky voice, endlessly whining about odds_ ) and
being paid, not much, to remove corpses before they liquify in the heat that
baptized their souls away ( _your mother’s smooth rake as she cleared the
roulette table_ ). It’s a risky life. It’s a monotonous one. It pays for your
half-burned solar panels and the bribes to cops to ignore them. It doesn’t pay
enough to get through the Big Blackout everybody has at least one bet on. The
only meaningful notification you get is when somebody dies alone. In a good
month you’ve closed the eyes of two dozen dead bodies. In a bad month you pay
somebody to cut a wire. You’d like to take off your watch for good but that’s
the difficult kind of illegal.
Like your parents, like the city, you go to sleep when the sun rises.
