Double or Nothin'

Double or Nothin'

I'm not trying to clear my name per se, there is no clearing my name. I'll tell you what I have done was wrong and there is no taking it back. No, I'm trying to cast light on the evil which compounds evil and has driven some of the most senseless evil in recent history and how it came into my life.

This all started about ten days ago. My wife caught me standing too close to the scratch off machine near the grocery store exit. After four years of marriage, two years in Gamblers Anonymous, banning myself from every gambling app and virtually every casino within a day's drive, two near bankruptcies, eight major relapses, and about one hundred thousand in debt, Donna had had enough it and enough of me. She kicked me out and I was served the papers. I was living in that hotel for a few days before, well, you know.

The thing is, I guess I still can't blame her, but I wasn't even thinking about buying a ticket but seeing the papers triggered a relapse. I had my secret pots of money, mostly in crypto, I justified them as college funds for my two kids, Kyle and Holly, but how to gamble it? Like I said as part of previous marriage consoling and addition treatment I had myself “voluntarily” banned from every app and virtually every casino group in the country. I had myself trespassed twice to test out those bans and Donna had to bail me out. I was a pretty average white IT guy, it isn't like I had any serious knowledge of or access to any sort of criminal underworld gambling and diving that deep felt like too much of a stretch for me, even in all my pain and anger.

Then, on my third day of exile, a new gambling app appeared in the app store and I wasn't banned from it. It was called Double or Nothin'. I downloaded it to my phone and added all my personal info without hesitation and waited for approval.

I thought it was too good to be true – approval. This is where I would all break down and they'd see my bans and deny me access. I almost threw my phone across the room when I saw that but it took all of three seconds. I was approved and I was in the app!

The app's UI was a little unpolished in spots, sometimes the font type and size were off, as was the color pallet, but generally the important features like my funds, bet amount, odds, and of course, payout were fully intuitive and functional.

What was not intuitive was what I was betting on. My first bet available to me was a fifty fifty bet – Long or Short. There was no context to this bet. I could only put my entire bankroll on Long or Short. Was I placing a long bet or shorting a stock? Was this some kind of binary lottery? There was a sign-out clock ticking in the right corner – I had something like twenty minutes to place a bet or be signed out with my bankroll returned but app access cut off. After thinking it over for twenty seconds I smashed the “Short” button with my thumb and immediately lost my thousand dollar bet.

I immediately shrugged it off. I was close, after-all, and went to find the account numbers to my other bitcoin stash to go again when the app prompted me with “Double or Nothin'?” I hit “yes” without hesitation and was prompted with another screen, this time, a warning, “by agreeing to Double or Nothin' you agree to not end the game and its series of bets until you either lose out or hit the jackpot – ending the game includes intentional and unintentional disconnections to the app such as phone, battery, and signal failure – in this event all winnings are forfeit, this is your last screen before resuming betting, if you agree your account will be upgrade to Player 2 status.”

The warning took me out of the game for a moment, I was sitting on a hotel bed with warn out springs with the toilet tanking filling up once an hour and press board furniture. I just wanted to bet so I brushed my thumb over the “I Agree” button and was immediately, as promised, prompted with a new bet – this time “Which color?” - there were two squares – one powdered black and one with shinier black layered with a orange brown woody texture. The timer gave another twenty minute decision time and this time I chose black. Boom! I won one to one on my two thousand for a fresh four thousand dollar bankroll.

My next bet was on one of three two-letter combinations – AM, BA, and GB. I choose GB and was paid two to 1. I won a couple more bets and then the app said no more bets until eight that night, that I should charge my phone, make sure my connections were open, and if I desired, be close to a news source. The last part sounded a little cryptic to me but I was up more than ten thousand dollars before eleven that morning but I really just wanted to gamble more.

I was back on the app at seven fifty, waiting a ten minute countdown and biting my nails, just itching to throw down some bets, hopefully more complex ones. I still had no idea what I betting on but in my burning mind it didn't matter. At the return of bets I was given a diamond-like pattern of four boxes with names “M” at the bottom, “E1”, “E2”, and “E3” counter clockwise all around with option to select zero to all. My mind immediately made the easy connection to baseball. I must have been betting abstractly on some pirated baseball digital gambling parlor. The innocence of it all suddenly put me at ease even as I selected all four boxes to indicate my bet on a home run. Little fireworks graphics indicated I was “locked!” I won! I won! I bet all the odds and I was up, up half a million bucks.

I was absolutely gitty hopping around my little cardboard VIP high rollers section that I must have sounded like a mad man to my neighbors and anyone unlucky enough to be shacked up underneath my room. The app then prompted trumpeted my triumph with some early 2000's style slot winner graphics saying that I was now invited to join a live stream for tonight's game and that I could, if possible, stream this to hotel's smart tv for better viewing and access to all the action's angles.

I waited impatiently for the live stream to start on the tv. I was expected an illegal unauthorized MLB stream, or maybe something as silly as a little league game for weirdos, and worst some obtuse abstracted bingo and prop-bet bastardization of a baseball game in front of a green screen by masked box crew from Europe or Asia.

What I got I couldn't understand at first. What I got I hoped and prayed was the broadcast of a hyper realistic video game as a bald young man in his early twenties donning a combat helmet with a GoPro camera rig and night vision in the mirror of some well lit bathroom. He was muttering with grinding teeth, “this is not the natural state, democracy is not a natural state, industrial society is not a natural state, this overpopulation is not a natural state, I am the deliverance from the unnatural.” as then reached down in a brown duffle bag with the name of a maintenance company on it and picked up what looked like a set of military grade armored plates on a rig with a black handgun strapped to the side and threw it over his janitor uniform. Next out of the shadows of the bag he pulled a black AR-15 style rifle complete with a suppressor and various grips, optics, and decals. He slapped in a magazine and pulled the handle back and let it slam forward before he let it sling to his side. He this this with unflinching intensity, his eyes spun color like the centers of hurricane force rage churning up to be unleashed. Finally he donned criss-crossing bandoliers, one sporting spare magazine pouches and what looked like military grade grenades and the other – the other was rigged with three translucent white plastic containers, each about the size of a twenty ounce bottle of sports drink which were partially filled with an off-white fluid.

He exhaled audibly into the microphone as the sound seemed to finally switch on. Other on-screen information was displayed including “Player One” name and what looked like a heart-rate and signal monitor. One of his eyes blinked as he apparently could hear something in an ear piece that we, the bettors, were not privy to on our stream. We could only hear his acknowledgment of whatever they told him to do, which was, “arming GB now.” He reached back into the bag and pulled out three syringes and methodically injected each one of the canisters strung up to his chest with the long needle before pushing the plunger down slowly. Each canister in turn underwent some kind of reaction in which the off-white fluid turned clear with a slight brownish hue. He left the syringes in each one.

I sat on the edge of the bed mesmerized and in shock like I had seen the towers hit again for the first time. The man, the mass shooter, the terrorist who ever it was had stopped making noise in the echo prone bathroom and I could hear something, like a faint rumble or roar bouncing around. It struck me that he must be at some kind of a sporting event or large event venue somewhere in the world. Somewhere in the world but probably somewhere in the United States based on the fact he was using english.

The man in the gear seemed to be praying in the mirror as the app took about unfurling more terrifying features. “Access granted to venue security cameras – full motion video and optional sound is uncensored but delayed approximately seven seconds to permit for exciting near-real time proposition betting. You have ten minutes to place event bets or do you? The action could begin at any time! You must make at least one bet to continue. Good luck!”

I scanned through all of the screens including one of a back of house sound and lighting control booth and I felt like I dropped two stories in the bed. This was going down at the Diamond – the eight thousand seat sold out event venue hosting Fast Valkyrie mere blocks away from my dingy hotel. No wonder even this place was packed.

I hadn't tapped the screen in three minutes and so the automatic countdown to logout for security of the account had begun. I tapped it as I stormed around the room deciding what to do. Could I go to the police now, I wondered? I thought about it and they would probably think I was faking and come here and pick me up. I thought about calling in my own bomb threat anonymously but even if they evacuated, that wouldn't necessarily stop the shooter from inflicting countless deaths or accidental deaths in the panic. I thought about going down there myself but obviously that wouldn't help anything, I couldn't park much less get into the building in time and even if I did, I didn't have a ticket or a gun. No, no, no, no something – I saw two armed security guards pass the outer hall feed.

I pulled out my wallet and dumped its mostly worthless contents onto the bed in a eureka moment, “yes!” I screamed. My annoying brother in law who talked my ear off about cyber security worked as a security guard at that venue and he gave me his personal, anytime number on the back of his business card I kept mashed up in my overstuffed wallet. Now I just needed to figure out which bathroom this guy was in.

I put my bluetooth in my ear it to phone only then dialed the number in a separate window of my phone and I begged and begged he would pick up. One ring, two rings.

“Hell...”

“Don't ask me right now how I know this Keith!” I shouted as loud as I could into the phone and interrupted him.

“Who is this?” Keith sounded faint over the background music.

“It's your in law, Bob.” I yelled.

“Bob...is this about...Donna?” Keith picked up his volume and the lowered it, “I don't want to get involved in this right....”

“No, now, just be quiet for a second, are you right now passing through Hall O3 of the Diamond?”

“How did you? Bob are you at the show? What is goin?” I watched him seconds later do a double take around the hallway.

“No, look, like I said don't ask me how I know this but there's a guy with in one of the bathrooms okay, he's got a maintenance bag and a uniform and he's geared up, he's got an assault rifle and possibly a bomb rigged on him. Okay, this is not a joke or a prank or something. This about...” I hesitated for a moment, “it's cyber-security related okay and I can see you and your partner there and we picked this shooter up too okay, you need to stop this guy, now before he gets on the floor or the seats, without causing a panic okay?”

Keith was an idiot. I've always felt that way ever since he tried to get me to pass for what he considered to be “fit” and “prepped”. I was betting everything on an idiot who wanted to be a hero swat cop and acted like he already was one. I was also betting he'd hero first and hesitate to ask questions later and so far that was playing out. I was also putting six against one and I liked those odds even if it was six thirty somethings with TV righteousness against a twenty something zealot.

Keith cupped the phone silent with his hand while talked with his partner. “Do you know which bathroom he's in?”

“No, I said, he's facing the mirror and I can't see a marker or anything and he's in a blind spot on the camera.”

“Wait...how can you see him and not...”

“Trust me...”

His partner guard said he saw a janitor on the opposite, the O1 hall side of the venue.

“Okay, I'm muting you for now but stay on this, I'm getting back up.”

After the camera delay I could see two other pairs of guards running towards the O1 hall bathrooms which, fortunately were all on the second floor. I could also see at least one guard in the security booth pick up a phone.

There countdown timer was down to two minutes and I was prompted with a grim choice. I had to place a bet to maintain this feed. I had to place it on the last prop taking wagers and it was the most basic, most obvious and yet more chilling of bets – at bet propositioned by this app dozens of times now. “Over or Under the High Score?” The high score, set in Las Vegas in 2016 with sixty killed in that seemingly inexplicable mass shooting. I put it all on the over – knowing that I would lose my ill gotten money. I cleared all of the remaining quick bets that popped up after – including if a VIP would be killed or injured and my chance to bet on a final score – killed and injured. Then the betting screen went down and the final minute was counting down.

I could see Keith and five others stacking up guns drawn along the striped walls leading to the bathroom door. I could see the zealot taking deep breaths in and out as he glanced down at his watch on his left arm and shouldered the rifle with his right arm.

A third screen crackled to life – it was security booth, “Keith, we have authorities in bound but we have a major problem. All of the major emergency exits are sealed – even the main gate just closed and they all appear to be in storm mode. You copy? Even if was had a bulldozer it could take ten minutes to bust those doors down. You're going to have to do this quiet and without back up.”

My call waiting ended and Keith was back on my line, “Bob, I'm going to trust you heard about the storm doors being sealed, they were designed to make this place an emergency hurricane shelter so we're more or less trapped in here unless you can use your cyber magic to deactivate the primary locks and one of us can manually open them. They have back up power so you can't access it by cutting the power. There's four of them E1, E2, E3, and M.”

“Okay! Look you've got thirty seconds before he starts go now!” I sprung from the edge of bed seat and flew to my backpack and hauled my laptop on to the two seat card table in the corner. For the sake of cyber security I won't go into details of what I did but the Diamond's computer systems were easy to access remotely but I was distracted as my call with Keith and the flurry of video feeds and prop bets overwhelmed by senses and interactions with my phone and the tv.

I was sweating and all I could hear was loud static filled pops on the line with Keith. I held my breath and swallowed hard as I waited those precious seconds for the feed to catch up.

“Goddamn!” I swore as I was forced to decline a pop-up prop bet on the outcome of the engagement before the security camera recorded Keith's two guards eating lead the moment they entered the door. Their bodies rupturing in spurts of crimson before crashing to the blood-splashed tiles and using final precious moments of consciousness, of life, flailing in vain, trying to move themselves out of the way of the torrent of bullets. I could see Keith freeze in a crouched pose with his arms up over his head staring in anger and dismay over the bodies of his coworkers before he vomited and his partner pulled back from the kill zone.

I switched my view back to the POV of the zealot. He was hiding in a stall with the door shut still as can be with his rifle propped up, suppressor muzzle visible in the far corner of the frame. A little display in this view recorded two probable kills. The odds were four to one now but I knew where he was in relation to the rest of the bathroom now. I could see the light reflecting off of the mirrors and I could see he was in the third stall down. Better yet, the stalls on that side of the room were recessed a bit, meaning there was a full concrete wall protecting their entry from any indirect fire through the stalls while they could unleash hell in turn.

“Keith! Keith!” I shouted, “Look, I'm sorry about that. Look, I know where he's at in the bathroom now.” I gave him the location of the zealot in the bathroom. Keith said nothing to me except, “For Nichole.”

He and his three others formed a firing line at the edge of the protective wall and unloaded two magazines of hand gun ammo each through the stall doors. I could see the thin metal doors turn to swiss cheese and the tile and plaster wall bits explode into dust on the POV view of the zealot.

“Did we get him?” Keith unintentionally screamed into the phone. I couldn't see as the debris was still obstructing a good sight. I switched to my wide angle and saw them move to surround the stalls when I heard louder gunshots crack through my real time phone connection with Keith.

The zealot fired from the other side of the stalls on the guards and Keith. I could see the footage through his helmet view as he strode methodically, handgun leveled at the floor, unimpressed over the bodies and back to the stall where he situated his helmet on his head and pulled up his rifle again.

I didn't know if he knew, if he was getting help from someone who knew I was helping, or if he was just paranoid and a master ambusher. I couldn't decide because he left the rifle where it would be visible on the floor of the stall and maybe he left the helmet there just for the kill footage. I kept up this line of thinking because I couldn't deal with the death of Keith or the possibility, maybe likelihood he wasn't dead but mortally wounded and spending his last moments dying at work while I realized his daughter, Nichole was probably there undefended in the line of fire.

The world seemed to roar in anguish with me as emergency vehicle sirens sounded around the building as they came screaming past towards the Diamond. There was only 1 armed security guard left in the building up in the security booth and he was pounding the screens in front of him while on the phone – no doubting seeing what I had just seen.

My eyes were ripped from the grief-stricken booth and blood slick bathroom tiles back to the POV view of the Zealot as he mounted his rifle on the banister over looking the show's main floor. Feedback blocked the loud music overwhelming the microphone as heat and smoke blasting from the suppressor of the rifle blurred the house lit mass of people moving rhythmically about the floor near the stage. It was also unreal and dehumanized desensitized as blobs of gunshot victims dominoed over ecstatically joyfully blissful blobs. It was so horrified yet so detached and unreal at the same time.

He emptied one magazine randomly sweeping lead into the mass before reloading and taking aim at the stage and performers. A more few rounds cranked off before the weapon, possibly damaged by gunfire in the bathroom, seemed quit, jammed. He struggled with the black tube and swore as he burned his hand on some part of it before he tossed over the railing and moved on. The music abruptly died off given way to a cacophony of noise and feedback interference from alarms and screams of thousands of people.

Damnit! I threw myself back to the laptop and finished the remote unlock of the storm gates over the exits with a few keystrokes. I turned my eye back to the chaotic security feeds of people streaming to lower levels moshing up against the two main exits opposite from the zealot's gunfire. The red and white evacuation strobes gave strange soft hypnotic quality to the hopeless chaos.

Back to the POV feed the shooter came across a rush of people exiting from the third floor which he randomly opened fire on with his hand gun downing two teenage girls before sending the mop scurrying over themselves to opposite direction. He took cover near a vending stall and threw a pair of hand grenades down the halls.

One of the windows was flashing for a bit now. These main app's betting boards were alight, tracking the winnings and losses of a dozen or so gamblers across a dozen and half bets while being constantly propositioned on number of grenades thrown, shots fired, emergency response time, and bystander heroism likelihood and efficacy.

I was this close to turning it off. I was this close to just walking away. I might as just be watching CNN live coverage now. There was nothing left to do but start grieving seemingly until the next we interrupt this broadcast.

Then my bluetooth connection sprung to life and I reflexively answered it without knowing who it was.

“Bob,” A raspy pained voice came faint through my ear, “where is he? I have to get one of the storm doors open. Where is he? Which door can I reach?”

“Keith? Oh my god you're alive!”

“Yeah, I bought better body armor than my colleagues I guess. They should have listened to me but that's later.”

I switched windows to bathroom feed where I saw him gripping his side with one hand, his gun with the other as he gingerly limped through the door. I swapped over to the video over the gates. I relayed to him I was able to reset the gates electronically and that M, E2, and E3 were blocked but E1 was open. I couldn't tell where the shooter was at the moment.

“Is there anything else about this guy. I should know?” He voice was muffled by the alarm but I hear the gasps in his breath, a dam holding back a wall of pain.

“I think he has a bomb on him.”

“Anything about the bomb, trigger? Type?”

“Uh, um, three canisters around his chest he pushed a syringe into each other. I think they had GB written on them. Know anything about GB explosives?”

“No. Never heard of it but I don't have a computer in front of me. You do!”

Goddamnit, he was right, I opened a new search window and frantically typed in “GB explosives” in the search bar misspelling it twice. No results. I retried it with GB weapon in the search bar.

The search results returned: GB Weapon – first results: Standard NATO reporting name and code GB – Sarin nerve agent – usually binary chemical weapons munitions. Sarin, eighty one times more lethal than hydrogen cyanide gas, it is a volatile liquid which quickly vaporizes into a colorless odorless vapor resulting in...muscle cramps and spasms. I stopped reading.

“Um, Keith, he may have some kind of chemical weapon on him.” I left out the part where I believed he had enough on him to kill about half of the eight thousand people trapped in the venue. I realized it was some miracle so far in the exchange of gunfire none of his canisters had been hit but then I wondered, if one had been in the bathroom if it would been isolated enough there to ended this whole thing then and there.

“I guess we can't shoot him.”

I went back to the shooter's feed.

“Why not?” I could hear rage and anguish in Keith's voice as well as the waves of screaming victims around him.

“Well one, he's got those canisters on him and two, it looks like he has some hostages.”

“Where is he heading.”

“I'm not sure. Up some stairs to the third floor.”

“Got it. Hang on, I'm putting you on.” The call went to hold.

The shooter's cam showed him yelling at two women and a boy to stay close to him as he seemed to back his way down a hallway on the third floor. His head frantically swiveled back and forth as he seemed to back himself up against a wall or door. I couldn't see but his gun went off and suddenly he stumbled through a threshold into a less refined less public facing part of the structure. He turned I saw him unload the rest of a magazine into a door marked “Security booth.” then as he reached for another magazine more loud pops rang out.

The PO V view dropped three suddenly and staggered about before jerking violent towards what I recognized as the booth security guard mag dumping into the zealot from his blind side before he himself is downed by the shooter's more accurate pistol fire.

The zealot slowly rises to his feet with the footage exposing his blood splattered on the walls and floor. He was down but not out. Fortunately, it appears his would be hostages fled in the ill-fated ambush but as he slowly continued through the bowels of the venue's utility area I was not surprised when he fell through a door marked “HVAC maintenance area.”

Keith's hold on my bluetooth ended and he asked me to give him the good news about his ambush plan with his booth guy. I had to give him the bad and worse news about how his ambushing coworker failed and where the zealot had just entered. Keith was had developed a noticeable wheeze in his breath and wasn't hiding his wincing either as he told him he was bracing himself against a wall trying to push through another stream of panicking people but he was still far from being able to open a storm slider. He asked me to see what the authorities were doing outside.

I flipped the tv to picture in picture with phone streaming the app to the smaller set and local breaking news coverage on the main. A reporter had said that authorities had just ordered them back another fifty yards to a new perimeter because of a hazmat concern. I relayed this Keith who realized they weren't going to even try to break in now because of the sarin threat.

I turned back to the app full screen and specifically to Zealot's POV. He had managed to cut a small hole in some ducting where he was setting the canisters. He pulled pins on them like grenades and then placed duct tape over the hole.

“This is not the natural state, democracy is not a natural state, industrial society is not a natural state, this overpopulation is not a natural state, I am the deliverance from the unnatural. This is this the natural.” Then a final bang went off and the helmet fell down in front of the slumped body of the zealot where his gunshot wounded face was out of focus.

“Keith, whatever you're going to do, do it now, he's put the canisters in the HVAC and shot himself.” I held my breath thinking about the Sarin vapors whipping through the HVAC system in the Diamond, spilling undetectable into the air from the vents above upon the thousands still trapped.

Keith ended the call with me and I watched on the cameras as he fired his gun into air in desperate bid to clear a path for himself to the gate everyone was pushed up against. After about a minute I watched as the E1 gate finally opened. I could hear the venue's emergency system state the emergency gate was now open and to proceed that direction – even the overhead lights strobed to point people running around and hiding to move towards that exit. In the panic of some eight thousand people exiting in waves I lost sight of Keith.

I turned live footage of authorities – SWAT, police, fire, EMT, and even now national guard decked out in hazmat suits and gas masks trying to swarm and corral the terrified mass into holding and testing areas just outside of the massive venue's parking lot. Massive emergency vehicles desperately trying to block and stem the tide of civilians trying to escape in their own cars and trucks while panicked drivers piled into each other and persons running through the lot on foot.

For the moment it appeared despite the utter pandemonium in the parking lot things were turning out okay but my eyes drifted to the security camera footage of at least two dozen bodies strewn across the venue floor in front of the stage, people hiding in place fallen to the ground stiff with their limbs contorted in odd directions, their faces an unearthly hue of blue and frozen in the agony with puddles of fluid escaping from their twisted mouths.

Jesus Christ I had no idea and until that point there was part of my brain that was hoping that there was no way the Sarin threat was real or at least this real. I turned off the feed and returned to the app's home screen after I watched through my fingers over my eyes a large group of some thirty or so near survivors, men, women, kids, collapse just outside of the gate, about ten feet into the parking lot, crash into pavement. Some of them tried to crawl without success as they crumpled into themselves, wetness appearing in their pants as they uncontrollably pissed and shit themselves. Their faces splashing with drool, snot, and tears pouring out of pained twitching expressions. Vomiting gave way to violent back-breaking spasms and convulsions for more than two minutes before they mercifully went still.

The constant sound of all of those emergency vehicles blocks away they were joined by tornado sirens and public broadcast message to shelter in place indoors, turning off all ventilation to the outside and sealing off an interior room with duct tape or anything readily available. I expected some kind of panic of in the hotel in those few seconds but then I remembered most of the people staying here today were probably down at the Diamond.

I broke down into suffocating crying for a moment as I switched back to the betting board and saw that the event had concluded and now bets were being placed on the aftermath – who would be to blame, would martial law be declared, would this lead to an international conflict or a domestic repression campaign, etc. Then the app reminded me that I took the Over and had won about eleven million dollars and then I was locked out.

I ground my teeth between crying fits as tears boiled on face and my hands tried to rip the bed sheets apart. In a moment reflective clarity between these fits of angry tearful paralysis I noticed my hotel's phone was ringing. In an emotional loss of control I stormed over and answered it, when I picked it up I expected to hear someone from the front desk telling where to go to shelter from the possible gas release.

Instead it was a casual friendly voice, almost like a bar tender, who addressed me as, “Robert, this is Robert, yes?”

“Yes. Who is this?”

“This is the Speaker for the House of Double or Nothin' – first of all rest assured that the release will not extend past the parking lot of the venue and that you are safe for now. Second I am sure you're excited to collect your winnings and we've taken the liberty of depositing your winnings into three separate crypto-exchanges and of course a separate bank account for your compensation.”

“Compensation?

“Yes, well, you were Player 2 after all.”

“Player 2?”

“Yes, it was clearly marked as such. I take your silence and surprise as very interesting. We figured that you would know that you were being recruited because of your proclivities as a gambler and IT cyber security specialist and that, reading the room so to speak, you were not exactly our typical clientele.”

“Wait, are you saying I wasn't just betting, I was playing...I was an accomplice to this massacre.”

“Every game, every event worth betting on has at least two players, two teams, two agents with agency within certain rules and expectations otherwise it's just not that much fun or profitable to set up bets on, now is it. We knew about your addiction, we knew about your divorce, we knew about your specializations, we knew about Keith.”

“Then you know I have certain set of skills.” I blurted that out like Liam Neeson in Taken, blustering so badly, “I'll expose you...I have.”

“Listen, Mr. Bob, what you have is about twenty million dollars, some ambiguous digital footprints from an app no one else who matters has heard of, now as a courtesy from the House, please consider this your head start.”

“Head start?”

“Yes Mr, Bob, see unlike most of the primary and even secondary perpetrators of our events in the past you're in the relatively unique position to still be alive and it will not take long for authorities to find you and paint you as some one they can prosecute for it. After all you did hack into the Diamond's systems and play with the storm gate systems.”

“F...”

“So I suggest you view it like this – see, as a gambler you're not the most excited when you win – you're the most excited when you came so close to winning . Now, every day you wake up a free man and bed down a free man you'll think you're this close to winning – staying a free man the rest of your life. How exciting this must be for a gambler, to go Double or Nothin' every day of your life from here on out!” The voice turned cheerful at the end.

“I will...”

“No Mr. Bob, I can assure though that one you will be caught and between now and then any attempt to expose us or our little side projects will be the day those ambiguous digital fingerprints turn into say evidence of a mistress, connections to the cult, ties to Iranian bank accounts, kiddie porn and oh, not just for you, you and your inevitable trial but for your family too. Your cyber expertise will fall on deaf ears with the public and with officials who think the internet is a truck. So take our advice, the day you want to stop pushing the slot machine button for being on the run, if you do not want to be our legal patsy, then please feel free to play Russian roulette with a semi-automatic hand gun.”

“Son of a...”

“You're resting on the last pillar of society here and we won't let you push it over. It's a slot machine – push the button – the outcome is arbitrary violence or arbitrary reward, there is no morality behind it, nor reason, - no one in there deserved to die nor did the zealot deserve a satisfying sacrifice in his own mind, okay, nothing is earned or created, sometimes just borrowed. The arbitrary wins and arbitrary terror we bring keeps order. It is important to remember that order and order is the House, the House's Most Esteemed Guests, and then the rest of you and we're fastened to that pillar. Good bye Bob, enjoy your money and try to put on a good show for the Esteemed Guests.”

I thought about this phone conversation every hour of life since it happened. I'm posting this in a way I believe can't be traced back to me while I'm on the run. This is true accounting of what I'm guilty of but also of who are the architects of what I assume are countless senseless acts of violence across the United States if not the world. I know that this stands to contradict most of the official narrative behind the Diamond attack and other events I referenced like the Vegas Shooting but it is the truth. If you think you know who I am and are sympathetic to my story please relay this to Donna and if she survived, please relay it to Nichole for Keith.

It's been about a week. I intend to keep running, I intend to expose them. You can bet on it.

By Theo Plesha