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The man nodded dully and said, “Are you Berserker Bear?”
“Am I what?”
“Berserker Bear. Sir.” The man cautiously drew out his phone. “Can I take a picture? Because no way the insurance company believes this . . .”
“WTF is Berserker Bear?” Armo demanded.
“It’s what they’re calling you on Twitter. I didn’t make it up! Don’t blame me!”
“You can take a picture, but if you post it, say I do not like the name Berserker Damn Bear. It sounds like something from Build-a-Bear Workshop. I mean, come on, people, I want a cooler name.”
“Yes, sir, Mister . . . Mister Bear.” The man who was about to lose his motorcycle clicked a picture of Armo, fully morphed, flexing his arms, and because of the angle and because Armo’s morphed face was neither quite human nor quite bear, the photo appeared to be of a leering, bipedal, probably insane polar bear on a yellow Yamaha.
“Berserker Bear,” Armo muttered darkly, and powered up the engine. “Gonna have to do better than that.” Then he drove the Yamaha right off the back of the trailer, swung into place beside Dekka and said, “Ready.”
He revved the engine until his whole body vibrated.
Dekka unleashed a huge and rare grin and did the same.
“Dude called me Berserker Bear,” Armo said.
“They call me Lesbokitty.”
“Yeah, we gotta get new names.”
“You know, Armo,” Dekka said. “I was just remembering this quote I heard once. It was from a soldier in World War II. His whole unit was in a trap, surrounded, situation totally hopeless.”
“So what’d the guy say?”
“‘They’ve got us surrounded . . . the poor bastards.’”
Armo threw back his head and laughed aloud. “Now that is some hardcore Viking shit! Hah! We’re surrounded, Lesbokitty—let’s ride!”
It was late afternoon when they spotted the glow on the horizon, evening by the time the glow had become a sparkling jewel chest.
“Ride through town?” Dekka yelled over to Armo.
“Are you seriously asking me whether we should ride down the Vegas Strip looking cool on big motorcycles?”
“So, that would be a yes?”
“It would be a ‘duh, of course I’m riding my motorcycle down the Strip.’”
“I kind of thought you might say that.”
They glided along, past the mysterious black pyramid of the Luxor on their left and the pastiche of New York-New York, sparkling orange in the setting sun. Lights everywhere, glowing and flashing and swirling, massive billboards ten stories tall, pedestrians shuffling in herds along the strip.
Then, suddenly, Dekka saw a different pattern of lights, one not advertising or enticing gamblers. Police lights. EMT lights.
“Hey,” she called to Armo.
“I see them,” he said.
“Do we turn back?”
“Maybe it’s not about us. I mean, they’re all at that one casino. How do you say that word?”
“Venetian,” Dekka said.
