Our return to the United States was quite a simple affair. Hans elected not to return with us, preferring to stay in Europe. Personally, I think that he was just tired of us asking him questions. Ty convinced me that Hans wasn't to blame for his ineptitude with providing reports and information. After all, if he had been properly trained, or even briefed, by his superior, then he wouldn't have had a problem. I'm sure that he'll be much happier returning to his usual role of messenger and delivery man.
Hans did drive us back to the airport in Switzerland, however, and then said goodbye at the aircraft. I spent the car trip and flight reading the few reference books that had been provided for us. Over all, I would have to say that I was unimpressed. While they certainly did provide quite a number of interesting starting points for research into the Norse pantheon, the informaiton itself was quite sketchy. Much of it was contradictory and, in many cases, directly contradicted the small fragments of fact that we'd been told by either Hans or our patrons.
I was certaily glad of the chance to read some of the books written by and for mortals in regards to the Norse gods, but certaily don't intend to take it as gospel.
We arrived back in Las Vegas late in the afternoon. It took quite some time to get a cab from the airport, which is unsual. Vegas is one of those cities where you can usually expect to find a convenient cab within 5 minutes of needing one. Possibly because the airport is so close to the strip, cabs are rarely far away.
When we finally did get into our cab, I was shocked and appalled to hear the driver announce, as though it were a perfectly reasonable thing, that there would be an additional $10 fee for him to drive us all the way to the hotel. Now, perhaps I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that driving to the hotel was the actual job of a cab driver. When questioned, he explained that the additional $10 applied only to fares that terminated at hotels on the Strip.
Isn't that 98% of their business?
I had a strong suspicion that this "charge" was not one that was endorsed or even understood by the cab company itself, and I simply refuse to be forced to pay money for nothing. So I told the cab driver that he could simply drop us off on the edge of the Strip and we'd walk to the hotel.
The driver was not happy about this, and intimated all kinds of bad things could happen to people walking through Las Vegas at night. I've visited Vegas any number of times, and have never found this to be the case. Nonetheless, I was happy to advise that my 6'4" cousin was certainly able to protect me. (Mind you, I'm 6' myself now, and hardly a delicate wallflower.) The driver was still dubious about it, but clearly not concerned enough to simply drive us the extra quarter mile without charging us the ridiculous $10.
$10. Seriously?
As we were walking along the Strip, however, a number of things became clear. This was not the Las Vegas I remembered. Dark clouds covered the sky, and the entire city felt oppressive. No one was on the streets. Well, no one but police cruisers. And there was a huge rent in the road where the viking ship had landed a couple of days ago.
Something was clearly wrong.
We made our way back to the Luxor, and formulated a plan. First, something to eat. Then, shopping for new clothes. (The downside to suddenly being larger than life is that none of our clothes actually fit us anymore.) Finally, patrolling the street looking for trouble so that Ty could try out his new abilities and weapon. Plain and simple. Right?
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