[Veritas]

Labor Day weekend, and a busy one for the Luxor and all the other hotels in Las Vegas. Despite the sluggish economy, thousands flocked to Sin City to try their luck at the casinos or to forget their troubles at the shows, taking advantage of the online discounts on hotel accomodations.

Saturday saw an influx of new guests checking in at the Luxor: happy couples who were married or about to be married in the hotel wedding chapel; elderly folks ready to blow their retirement funds at the blackjack tables; families with small children arriving to see the Pirates of the Caribbean show or even to see Criss Angel perform an impromptu magic act in the lobby; and the usual bored tourists hoping to experience something exciting. Bell attendants carted endless loads of luggage up and down the inclining elevators. Wait staff nearly collided into each other fulfilling orders for room service. The concierge's phone rang incessantly for restaraunt reservations, theater tickets, show times, and other demands. In all, it was just another typical day at the Luxor Hotel and Resort...





In the ECRU shop, Vivi DiLano was putting in overtime getting ready for Fashion Week. The staff had the day off, of course, but Vivi proved to be a human dynamo when it came right down to the wire. In the silence of the nondescript square building just off the fables Vegas Strip, Vivi labored painstakingly on the showpiece of the collection: a tailored, straight-skirted snowy-white wedding gown with paisley patterned sequins going up the side and a white hood in place of a veil. Very twenty-first century, Vivi thought. Billowy tulle, lace veils and poofy sleeves were so Fifties. This gown was so much more elegant, and besides, could be used as a summer evening gown as well. ECRU was high-end, but it was also practical in its designs, which suited Vivi quite well...




At the EMS station, Leslie was at her usual post, headphone on, dispatching paramedics to Sunset Park where a skateboarder had cracked his skull while grinding down a rail and landing head first on the concrete. Her partner for the day, Evelyn, had vanished while on duty, a flagrant breach of regulations. She was always sneaking off for a smoke or a snack or something when the opportunity rose, leaving Leslie or anyone else to pick up the slack. Goddess, that girl's so lazy, Leslie thought. She was so going to get fired. The monthly performance reviews were coming up, she remembered, and Evelyn was gonna be history...



Nini was in the MindFreak shop, folding new CA t-shirts onto the display table near the front. She had just started a new term at UNLV, her last in her quest to earn a business degree. She hadn't seen her friend, Hadley, for a while, what with her being busy with Criss' show and all. Rehersals alone ate up most of her time. She was following her dream, and Nini was going after hers. Best of luck and good wishes all around, she thought as she arranged the stacks of shirts neatly on the table. It was no big deal, really. They'd hook up some other time...



Dr. Melinda Shyne pressed a stethescope against the hairy back of one Daniel Roskowitz, an overweight foreman complaining about tightening in his chest. "Take a deep breath," she instructed.

Roskowitz did so, repeating whenever the stethescope pressed against his back. The lungs were good, Dr. Shyne noted. He said he had quit smoking fifteen years ago, thankfully. It was the strain of his spare tire that was causing the strain on his heart, no doubt about it. She would have to set him up on a diet plan and recommend he exercise every day for at least thirty minutes--join a health club or something, she would tell him, cut back on the brewskis and eat more sensibly if he wanted to live another ten or fifteen years longer at least...



Criss and his camera crew wandered around the streets of Las Vegas, taping the astonished looks on the faces of the passersby after Criss dazzled them with his street magic. With a flick of his wrist he tossed playing cards into the air and deftly caught them again, producing the very ones selected by his latest volunteers. Cards seemed to appear out of nowhere: from behind a person's back, inside pockets, purses and hats, even his boots. When he wasn't doing card magic, he was either levitating himself or a volunteer from the audience. Whatever Criss did, he wowed them...




Meanwhile, at the Las Vegas NEDA station, the seismograph needle drew a steady line along the strip of graph paper slowly unscrolling from its spool, registering zero-point-zero, then zero-point-one, then back to zero-point-zero, then suddenly jumping to three-point-zero, three-point-nine, five-point-nine, six-point-zero. The needle zigzagged sharply across the graph, streaking jagged spikes of black as the earthquake reached a maximum of six-point-nine, the strongest ever recorded in that region.





It came so suddenly, so unexpectedly, as those who witnessed the great Las Vegas earthquake would relate later. Like Nine-Eleven, it had been just another day, everyone going about their business, they said, and then it happened. The ground shook, the pavement heaved as if some giant monster was emerging from the ground. Water pipes ruptured, sending geysers shooting up from the cracking streets. Women shrieked, men screamed, children cried out for their mommies and daddies. Entire city blocks seemed to split in half, sending masonry cascading to the ground.




Vivi DiLano tumbled to the floor of the ECRU shop, the dressmaker's form falling on top of her. She tried to get up and run, but the shaking building knocked her down again and again. On her third or fourth try, a heavy shelving unit containing sewing supplies toppled on top of her, pinning her underneath. She struggled to free herself, but could not budge the unit. She had only enough strength to scream for help.



Nini felt the tremors under her feet at first, then watched as jackets, shirts and other merchandise hanging on the walls came tumbling down. A ceiling fixture fell on the jewelry case, shattering it. Remembering her earthquake emergency training from her California days, she found refuge underneath the sales counter and rode out the quake curled up in a fetal position, with only a three-quarter inch sheet of plywood counter to protect her.



"Okay, I want you to pick a card," Criss instructed his latest volunteer, a tattooed skateboarder of about nineteen years of age. The skate rat had just withdrawn a card when the pavement under their feet began to heave. The onlookers were thrown to the ground along with Criss and the camera crew. One videocamera shattered as it tumbled off the shoulder of its cameraman. The other managed to remain on its perch, documenting the disaster in a shaky montage of panic.




Leslie was still alone at her post when the quake hit. As soon as the tremors made their way to the station, she ducked underneath the desk for safety, as she had been trained. "Oh, Goddess!" she prayed. "Protect me! Make it stop!"

She heard the loud crashing of furniture and computer terminals toppling to the floor as she huddled underneath her desk. The lights went out overhead. The giant glass panels in the front of the dispatch room sprouted jagged cracks, bursting in their frames and shattering to the floor. Leslie screamed and screamed and screamed...




Then, as suddenly as it came, the earthquake stopped. The dazed population of Las Vegas looked around themselves, wondering what had happened. Their city, the Entertainment Capital of the World, lay in ruins: cars were overturned, many on fire where they had collided with other cars or parts of the city itself. Windows were cracked, shattered or gone altogether. The pavement buckled crazily along the Strip. Children wailed in terror, coughing from the dust choking the air.

Criss rose from where he fell, wiping the dust from his eyes, and noticed a bright red streak on his right arm. He had scraped the skin on the pavement as he had fallen. Clutching his wound, coughing from the dust, he gazed around himself in horror at the scene of desolation before him.

"Holy God in Heaven!" he gasped. "What the (bleep) happened?"