Viral Nation Read Online Free PDF Page B

pound of carrots, they needed it as soon as possible.
    Isaiah had a week’s worth of extra tickets for himself, plus the fourteen his grandmother received as an old-age pension from the city each week. Living in the barracks, he didn’t draw food rations.
    “I can’t wait around for you to play all those,” West said.
    “No worries.”
    West shoved his tokens into his pocket and followed Isaiah to the oblong table, lined on three sides with people, their faces red and slick with sweat as they cheered on the shooter and then followed the dice down the table with their eyes. Isaiah elbowed his way to the front, and West followed in his wake.
    The dealer across the table from them was dressed in fishnet stockings and a pink satin leotard cut over her round hips to her narrow waist on the sides and nearly down to her belly button in front, barely containing her cleavage.
    The dice bounced off the rail and rolled partway back before stopping. The dealer’s bleached-blond curls bobbed as she called, “Shooter rolls eight the hard way!”
    Some groans, one whoop from somewhere near the head of the table. The dealer at the center of the table, a man wearing a jester’s hat with bells on the tips and a skintight, slightly obscene metallicpurple jumpsuit, raked in the dice while the fishnet girl and another wearing shiny black shorts and a red tasseled bra mucked up the bets.
    The jester used his stick to push the dice toward the next shooter, but flipped his hook and took them back when the music changed and the lights in the room dimmed before one bright beam shot down from the ceiling.
    The deafening noise that defined the Bazaar’s gambling floor dulled, and everyone at the table craned their heads back to look up. West included.
    “Ladies and gentlemen!” A deep, rumbling voice boomed over the speaker system. “Overhead, for your viewing pleasure, the Flying Phoenix!”
    The room stayed silent for a moment as a girl in crimson velvet encrusted with crystal stones unfurled from a wide, white silk ribbon. She dropped from the ceiling with dizzying speed, then caught herself with a wrist trapped in the silk and spun in a wide circle over them.
    “Christ,” Isaiah said. “Look at those legs.”
    They were long and flexible, each one tipped with a satin slipper. Clear stones on the velvet caught the lights and her dark hair cascaded around her as she spun.
    The show was over in five minutes, and West knew another one would happen every half hour. Maybe another aerial show. Maybe jugglers on stilts making their way between the machines, or trained poodles jumping through hoops in the circus ring that rose from the center of the main floor.
    Anyone who had an entertaining talent could earn a few extra tickets by performing at the Bazaar.
    When the lights and music came back up, the shooter who’d rolled the eight handed the dealer back the coupon he’d been given for his win and took another token.
    “Just a pound of mutton,” he said to the woman next to him. “We can do better.”
    “I’m going to the machines,” West said to Isaiah.
    “Come on, I’m the next shooter. Then you. Then we’ll go tug the bandits, okay?”
    Isaiah smiled and laid a token down without waiting for West to answer. The shooter threw something that made everyone at the table groan and the female dealers lean precariously over the table to collect the house wins.
    “Okay, okay, okay.” Isaiah moved into position and placed a bet as the jester slid the dice to him. “Daddy needs a new pair of shoes.”
    He picked up the red cubes, tossed them around in his palms, blew on them, and sent them flying. The dealer in front of West, the girl with the huge breasts, winked a heavily made-up eye at him, then looked back at the bets in front of her.
    “Hot damn!” Isaiah smacked the heel of his hand on the wooden rim of the table, sending an empty glass balanced there tumbling to the floor.
    The winking dealer handed him a coupon, her fingers