Neon Knights

Part One: Patient Zero

~Prelude~
Silias Martin sat alone in a back alley, contemplating his fate and what had brought him to this point in time.  He held in his hand a silver Desert Eagle.  A powerful handgun, one he wasn't even sure how to use.  The rain dripped down the side of his cheeks as he stared at his reflection in the chrome of the gun.  He made sure the safety was off.  He only wanted to scare him, not sure yet if he could actually kill him, but he didn't want to take any chances.
​Silias closed his eyes and let the rain wash over him, possibly for the last time.  He wasn't sure, did it even matter? Did what he was going to do even make a difference?  His own life was over, Silias knew this.  Knew that he had died with his wife and daughter, dead and buried in what seemed like ages ago, but in reality was just a few short hours.
​It wasn't hard to track down Hector De La Rosa, a reputed mob boss, drug smuggler, dealer, pimp, and all around bad guy.  Silias didn't care about his extracurricular activities; only what Hector had done on the night of June 11th, 2010.  The night Salias's life ended and Hector had issued his own death warrant, if Silias had the balls to do anything about it and actually issue said warrant.
​Silias couldn't remember what his life had been like before that day, his mind wasn't the same after the tragedy he witnessed and endured.  He tried to erase them, erase that moment, erase himself even, for if he hadn't have been so fucking careless, none of this would have happened.
​Silias scratched the stubble on his face growing in; he didn't time for shaving, or to take care of his personal hygiene for that matter.  God, he couldn't even remember the last time he had bathed.  To any passer by, he must have looked like a common homeless vagrant.  He wore ruddy pants, old Nike's, a holey World's Best Dad shirt, and brown trench coat.  Typical wears of Las Vegas's bum community.  After all, isn't that who Silias took the clothes off of in the first place?  But if there was one thing Silias wasn't, it was homeless.  Silias owned a beautiful home in Lakes Las Vegas, a home that was supposed to be safe.  Upon his wife and daughter's death, he inherited over $1 million in life insurance policies.  So he had money, but it didn't matter.  Material things could never replace his family.
​A street walker passed by him just as he put away the Desert Eagle.  She stopped to consider asking Silias if he would like some company tonight, but caught a glance of a strange scar between his eyes and a whiff of his body odor and decided against it.  Silias never even noticed her.  He was too deep in thought, too deep in memories...

1. Silias worked as a Manager in the slot department at one of the Vegas Strip's oldest casinos, the Tropicana.  In his 20 years at the casino, he had seen it switch from owner to owner, schmuck to schmuck, dead beat to dead beat, in and out of bankruptcy, at the verge of closure, and so and so forth.  One thing he could never get over was the smell.  He could walk in certain hallways, doorways, and offices and catch a faint scent of stale piss, mold, and what he figured a rotting corpse would smell like.
​Silias was in charge of a handful of employees and taking care of large jackpots.  His best work, he felt, was with his customers.  He knew their names, kids name, wife's name, lover's name, favorite games, and where they worked.  He was confident in the fact that over the years he had learned everything there was to know about this profession, from coin to tickets, from reel to video, he had seen and dealt with it all.
​But he had never dealt with Hector De La Roza.
In the computer, it had noted that Hector was retired and to be treated with the up most respect.  He hailed from Florida and was only 22 years old.  Silias figured he came from old money and was blowing his inheritance.  He did find the remark "up most respect" a little strange.
​Hector arrived on the night of June 10th with an entourage of men.  He pulled up in a black Hummer Limo.  Silias didn't see him come in, but he heard people talking and wondering if he was some sort of celebrity.  Hector and his crew left their bags with the bell man and handed a crisp, new hundred dollar bill.
​Hector's men all wore white suits with black shirts, white tie, black and white shoes, and white suspenders.  They all seemed to be of Hispanic descent and had their hair slicked back like Italian goombas. Hector wore the exact opposite in terms of colors, but a suit none the less.  He wore a black fedora hat with a single white dove feather in the black band around the base.
​The group walked in with a purpose and headed to the Crystal Room, also known as High Limit Slots.  Silias stood and watched. This was nothing new to him as many players came in groups.  Celebrities used to do it all the time back in Sam and Dean's time.  Silias couldn't remember the last time a real celebrity had stepped foot into his casino.  And he didn't include Carrot Top as a "real" celebrity.
​One of Hector's four men, the tallest, gave Silias a come here motion with his left hand as Hector sat at a Video Poker machine.  Silias headed over and began to introduce himself as Hector threw five stacks of strapped hundred dollar bills at him.  Silias caught them and read that each strap held together $10,000.
"Mr. De La Roza would like this broken into $2500 vouchers," said the tall one with a thick accent that Silias could not place.
"Of course," was all Silias had squeaked out. 
He had dealt with these types before, wanna be gangsters.  They weren't around when the real mob had run the Trop like Silias had been.  They would never have allowed guests to treat employees like these types usually do.  But this was a different time, a corporate time.
Exchanging cash for fast cash or ez pay vouchers was nothing new in this technological day and age.  This was a huge leap forward for the casino business, no longer would they have to wait for bill after bill or coin after coin to be fed into the machine for someone to lose all their money.  Now it could all be done in instant
Silias went back to his cashier who ran the cash to verify the amount and happily printed 20 tickets for the new player.  Silias walked over and began to hand the tickets to Hector when the tall man, who was obviously his right hand man, snatched them from him.  Silias wondered if that right hand man was used as Hector's right hand every time he wanted to jerk off as well.
"Good Luck," Silias said happily as he walked away, Hector only sneered at him.
​Silias watched as he fed ticket after ticket into that game.  In a blink of an eye it was gone.  It took only half an hour for the machine to do what used to take hours to do.  Sadly, they had just paid Silias's salary for the year.  Hector never once took off his white designer sunglasses. The tall right hand man once again motioned to Silias and Silias obliged him.
"Mr. De La Roza would like this game closed down until tomorrow evening, he would like to shower and sleep for a few hours.  It has been a long flight and Mr. De La Roza is exhausted." 
Silias simply responded: "Of course."
​The men left as Silias closed the game.  He could never understand why people would spend so much for something so trivial.  Maybe it was because he saw this sort of thing every day that made him decide not to gamble.  He couldn't get what the big draw was and was just glad these people paid his bills and will be sending his daughter to college in a few years.  And he always thought in the back of his mind when he saw someone blow through $50K in under 30 minutes: "God, what I could do with that type of money!"
​Silias looked at his watch, 1 am, time to go home.  The graveyard came out and radioed for them to go home.  Silias checked in with the oncoming managers and filled them in on Mr. De La Roza's game.  There wasn't much else to pass on. It had been a really slow night.
​Silias walked to the underground garage where bosses, like him, got to park.  He jumped in his car, ignited the engine, and drove off in his economical, hippie, family friendly, electric, hybrid car.  Silias slowly pulled out of the garage and headed down the back alley to Las Vegas BLVD.  He waited a few moments before turning right and hitting the LVB and Tropicana left hand turn light.  Katya had always made fun of him for driving so careful.  She always referred to him as Babushka, Russian for Grandmother, whenever he was at the wheel.  Silias always felt the same way, better safe than sorry, and it had served him well in his 30 years of driving. Not one accident and not one traffic ticket.  He often wondered if anyone else had that impeccable of a record.  It was a nice night so Silias decided to roll the driver and passenger's windows down halfway.
​Silias turned left as the light turned green.  He was the only car in any of the three left hand turn lanes.