Spy School: Outbreak

Chapter 6

Illusion Casino and Resort

Las Vegas, California

May 6

1300 hours

As we walked into the room one thing became apparent. One of us was going to sleep on the floor. Although the Illusion was nice, it was clearly used to handling things like honeymoons, and romantic getaways, or even family visits where you would book two rooms, one for parents and one for kids. It was not used to catering for people who weren't romantically involved, so there was one bed. To be fair, though, the bed was pretty big. At least double the size of our beds at our dorms. It was a nice bed too, with a fancy wooden headboard, and a matching bedpost. The rest of the room was nice as well. Big too. There was a shag carpet that looked brand new, a mahogany desk with a rolling office chair, an armchair, a full kitchen, and a fantastically tiled bathroom with a walk-in shower. My main focus though was the bed.

"I'll sleep on the floor," I offered upon seeing the limited sleeping options.

"No," Erica said simply. "You take the bed, I will take the floor. I've done it before, I'm fine now. Besides, the floor doesn't look that bad."

She was right. The moment we stepped on the carpet, we sank a good inch and a half downwards, and it almost felt like a mattress anyway. We headed back to the car and grabbed the few bags we had brought with us. Because we'd had to go through airport security, Erica was in a rare situation where she didn't have any weapons, but we'd been assured that we would be resupplied soon. We just didn't know how. We were supposed to wait the night here, then stowaway on a plane to Hawaii. We would then jump off midflight, and land on a small yacht the CIA had floating out there. We would then catch a ride on the helicopter, and skydive into the Reserve, and try to sniff out the GH-O, wherever it was. I assumed we would get weapons on the yacht, but I couldn't be sure.

I had decided to try and take a nap immediately upon reaching the room, but I wasn't sure Erica would take very well to that. She sat on the bed and said, "So, are we going to address it?"

"Huh?" I said, not knowing what she was talking about.

"The elephant in the room," She replied.

Oh. That's what she meant. I remembered back in Aquarius, where my not talking to Zoe ended up in things getting super awkward between us. I decided that the best thing to do in that situation was for us to talk like adults. But you've forgotten one thing. Like back in Aquarius, I wasn't an adult.

"Um...nope!" I said. She sighed. "Uh...I'm going to go get food. I don't know, maybe take a nap or something. I'll wake you up when I get back."

"Okay," She said, tiredly. I'd seen Erica go days without sleep, but she hadn't been this tired.

"E," I said. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." She said though I could tell she was lying through her teeth. "Just go."

I left the room and headed downstairs, hopped into the car, and got Chinese. Erica was fast asleep when I got back, so I headed into the kitchen and put it on the counter. I walked over to where she was sleeping on the ground. I gently woke her.

"Erica," I said. "Hungry?"

"Yeah," She said.

We grabbed the food from the kitchen and sat on the bed, and ate in a sort of awkward silence. The whole time I was dying to say something, anything to her. But I didn't know how to start. I eventually gave up, and got under the covers, saw Erica get into her mountain of blankets she'd retrieved from the closet, and we both fell asleep.