Chapter Three
Vegas
“Dictatorship suits you.” —Letters to Hilda (writer unknown)
Vegas saw DBO’s tiny figure in the distance. She had waited all night for this so-called fairy godmother. She had watched the sun go down and come up again only to find the person who was going to save everything was a shed worker, an Operator. She watched the slip of a girl walk fearlessly through the scarecrows, ignoring the birds. Vegas had no memory of her. Who noticed a shed worker? They all looked the same.
She waved.
DBO, aware of the danger of waving close to mechanical birds, nodded.
A parrot fluttered across to Vegas and nestled on her shoulder. She waved it away. It squawked into her ear; she cursed and tried a futile dodge and stepping-away motion. The bird fluttered in the air and flew back
