The air inside the main tent tasted sweet. Sickly sweet.
Jason, Sarah, and O'Malley walked through the flaps of the "King of Clubs." The tent was enormous—a circus big top patched with advertising billboards.
Inside, the ground was covered in Persian rugs, stained with wine and dust.
Hundreds of people lay on the floor. They were curled up on cushions, smoking from long, hook-like pipes. The smoke that drifted up was thick and blue.
They were smiling. Vacant, empty smiles.
"Check the pupils," Sarah whispered, grabbing Jason's arm. "Dilated. Unresponsive."
She knelt beside a man in a tattered suit. He was staring at the canvas ceiling, giggling at nothing.
"It's an opiate," Sarah diagnosed, sniffing the air. "But it's modified. It's not just killing pain; it's inducing hallucination. Look at his rapid eye movement. He's dreaming while he's awake."
"Soma," Jason muttered. "The perfect drug for a broken world. Why fix the reality when you can just hallucinate a better one?"
"Gentlemen! And the lady, of course."
A voice boomed from the back of the tent.
They looked up.
Sitting on a throne made of welded car bumpers and velvet cushions was a man.
He was massive. He wore a white suit that was impossibly clean given the dust outside. A blue flower was pinned to his lapel.
He smoked a thick cigar. But the smoke wasn't tobacco brown. It was blue.
"Al Capone," O'Malley whispered, his hand drifting to his gun.
But this wasn't the Capone of history. The syphilis that should have been rotting his brain by 1920 seemed... paused. His skin was clear. His eyes were sharp, glowing with that same faint blue luminescence.
"Welcome to the Lotus Hotel!" Capone stood up, spreading his arms. "I heard your arrival. Very dramatic. A crash landing adds character to a visit."
"We didn't crash," Jason lied, stepping forward. "We parked."
"Semantics," Capone waved a hand. "You're here. That's what matters. New York is loud, Jason. Chicago is bloody. But here? Here, the blue dust quiets the noise."
He gestured to the room of addicts.
"Look at them. No hunger. No war. Just the dream."
"They're vegetables, Al," Jason said coldly. "You're farming junkies."
"I'm providing a service!" Capone's smile faltered, just for a second. "The American Dream is dead, kid. I'm selling the American Hallucination. It's a growth market."
He sat back down.
"So. You didn't fly all this way to critique my business model. What do you need?"
"Parts," Jason said. "Fuel injectors for a diesel engine. High-pressure nozzles. And clean kerosene."
Capone laughed. He snapped his fingers.
A curtain behind him opened. It revealed a warehouse stack of crates. Engines. Generators. Parts scavenged from a thousand looted trucks.
"I have your nozzles," Capone said. "I have everything. But I don't want your gold. Gold is heavy. And out here, you can't eat it."
"What do you want?" Jason asked.
Capone's eyes drifted to Sarah.
He smiled. It wasn't a friendly smile. It was the smile of a man who owned everything except the one thing he wanted.
"Her," Capone said, pointing with his cigar.
O'Malley racked the slide of his Thompson. The guards—hulking men with blue-stained mouths—raised their shotguns instantly.
"Put it away, O'Malley," Jason said calmly. He didn't look at his bodyguard. He looked at Capone.
"She's not for sale, Al."
"Everything is for sale," Capone said, his voice dropping. "She looks like... someone I used to know. Before the noise started. Before the scars."
He inhaled the blue smoke deeply.
"Leave her. Take the parts. Fly away. She stays and becomes the Queen of the Dust."
"No," Jason said.
"Then you die," Capone shrugged. "And I take her anyway."
The guards stepped forward.
Jason's mind raced. He couldn't win a firefight. There were thirty guards, and they were high on a drug that likely dulled pain.
He needed leverage. He needed to cheat.
"You're a gambling man, Al," Jason said loudly.
Capone paused. He raised an eyebrow.
"I am."
"Let's play for it," Jason said. "One hand of poker. Five card stud. If I win, I get the parts and we leave. If you win... you get the ship. And everything on it."
"And the girl?" Capone asked.
"And the girl," Jason lied. Sarah stiffened beside him, but she didn't speak. She trusted him.
Capone looked at Sarah. Then at Jason. He grinned.
"Bring the deck."
They sat at a small table in the center of the tent. The addicts murmured around them, a chorus of ghosts.
Capone shuffled the cards. His movements were fast, unnatural. The blue drug heightened his reflexes.
Jason watched him. He realized the problem instantly.
He can see my micro-expressions. The drug heightened perception. Capone was reading him like a book.
The cards were dealt.
Jason looked at his hand.
Pair of Eights. Ace. King. Three. Garbage.
Capone smiled. He didn't even look at his own cards. He was looking at Jason's pupils.
"You're bluffing, Jason," Capone whispered. "Your pulse jumped. You have nothing."
Jason looked at the cards.
He couldn't bluff. Capone would see it.
So he had to do something else. He had to hallucinate.
Jason closed his eyes. He focused on a memory. Not of 1920. Of 2024.
He thought of the internet. The sheer, overwhelming noise of digital data. The scrolling screens of stock tickers. The neon of Times Square in the rain.
He projected Future Confusion. He flooded his own mind with images that Capone couldn't possibly understand.
Capone flinched. He blinked rapidly.
"What..." Capone muttered, rubbing his temples. "What are you thinking? It's... too fast. Too bright."
"I'm thinking about the future, Al," Jason said, opening his eyes. "It's a scary place."
Jason discarded two cards.
"Hit me."
Capone dealt. His hand shook slightly.
Jason picked up the new cards.
Eight. Eight.
Four of a kind.
Jason slammed the cards on the table.
"Read that," Jason challenged.
Capone stared at the Eights. He looked at his own hand—a Full House. He had lost.
For a moment, the tent was silent.
Then Capone started to laugh. A low, dangerous rumble.
"You cheated," Capone whispered. "You used the Time Magic. I saw it in your eyes. Blue light. Codes."
"I played the hand," Jason said, standing up. "Pay up, Al."
"No," Capone snarled. He flipped the table. "Kill them!"
"Now!" Jason yelled.
He didn't reach for a gun. He grabbed the flare gun from his belt—the one he had taken from the Okie raider.
He didn't aim at Capone. He aimed at the curtain behind the throne.
At the crates of dry, oil-soaked Blue Poppies.
BOOM.
The flare hit the crates.
WHOOSH.
The poppies ignited instantly. The oil in the petals turned into a blue fireball.
"My crop!" Capone screamed, turning around.
"Run!" Jason grabbed Sarah's hand.
They sprinted toward the exit.
Behind them, the smoke from the burning poppies filled the tent. This wasn't a gentle drift of smoke. It was a massive, concentrated cloud of hallucinogen.
The crowd of addicts inhaled it all at once.
A collective scream tore through the air.
OVERDOSE.
The "good trip" turned into a nightmare instantly. The addicts began to claw at their faces, seeing demons in the smoke. They attacked the guards. They attacked each other.
"The demons!" a man screamed, tackling a guard. "They're eating my eyes!"
The tent erupted into a riot of madness.
Jason, Sarah, and O'Malley burst out into the cool night air.
"To the ship!" O'Malley yelled, firing a burst into the air to clear the path.
They reached the Icarus.
Hughes and Oppenheimer were waiting at the ramp.
"We heard the explosion!" Hughes yelled. "Did you get the parts?"
"Stole them on the way out!" O'Malley tossed a bag of injectors to Oppenheimer. "Fix it! Now!"
Oppenheimer scrambled up the ladder to the engine housing. His hands were shaking, but he worked with desperate speed.
Behind them, the "King of Clubs" tent was engulfed in blue flames. Figures were running out, screaming, tearing at their clothes. Capone stood in the doorway, firing a golden Tommy gun into the sky, laughing maniacally.
"Engine One is primed!" Oppenheimer shouted. "Contact!"
The propeller sputtered, coughed black smoke, and then roared to life.
"Go! Go! Go!"
The Icarus lurched forward, dragging its belly through the sand until it caught lift.
They rose into the darkness, leaving the burning carnival of souls behind.
Jason collapsed into the pilot's seat. He wiped sweat and soot from his face.
"We made it," Sarah breathed, watching the blue fire shrink below them.
"We survived," Jason corrected. "There's a difference."
"Captain," Hughes said urgently. "Look at the radar."
Jason leaned forward.
The radar screen—a primitive cathode ray tube—was glowing.
Not with a ping from a plane.
With a solid beam.
"What is that?" Jason asked.
"It's a signal lock," Hughes said, his voice trembling. "It's coming from... above."
"Above?"
"High altitude. Sub-orbital."
CRACKLE.
The radio turned on by itself.
A voice filled the cockpit. Synthesized. Robotic. Cold.
"Target Acquired. Identity: Icarus. Designation: Chaotic Variable."
Jason froze. He knew that cadence.
"Gates," Jason whispered.
"Protocol Zero Initiated," the voice droned. "Orbital Strike in T-minus ten seconds."
"Orbital?" O'Malley looked out the window. "Boss, look up."
High in the night sky, among the stars, a new star appeared. It was red. And it was getting brighter.
"He built a satellite," Jason realized with horror. "He didn't just stay in the Valley. He put a gun in space."
A red laser beam—thin as a pencil—painted the hull of the airship.
"Evasive maneuvers!" Jason screamed.
"You can't dodge light!" Hughes shrieked.
Jason looked at the red dot on the dashboard.
The Eye of God was open. And it was looking right at them.