The next few weeks were spent studying what he could and couldn’t do, or at least what he couldn’t work out how to do. Flying was one thing that defeated him. He simply couldn’t make himself fly like Superman. Hmm. There had to be something he was doing wrong, but he couldn’t work out what it was. He left off working on that after numerous failed attempts and several bumps and scrapes and concentrated on other things. He practiced his ball control on the mini-roulette table but also practiced what he came to call a force punch out in the ravine. He simply pushed out the kinetic energy or whatever it was he used to move the roulette ball in a much stronger, forceful manner. After a few days of practice, he actually broke a small sapling off about a yard up from the ground! He stood there and thought about it some more before narrowing the punch down to a pencil-thin projection of force and then punched a hole right through a small tree’s trunk!

In between forays out to what he began calling his testing grounds, he made a bit more money at the local casinos, being sure not to be too obvious, or at least he tried not to be! Anyway, they didn’t ban him or anything, nor did he notice anyone paying him any special attention. At some point, he decided that he was ready to hit the big time and booked flights to Las Vegas!  His folks weren’t happy about the whole idea when he told them where he was going, but surprisingly, they didn’t give him too much serious grief, confining themselves to a general air of silent disapproval.

Chapter 10

Roulette magic

It had been really satisfying seeing the looks on his parent’s faces when he said he didn’t need any money for his trip to Vegas.

“I’ve won enough to pay for the trip plus have plenty of spending money when I’m there, so don’t worry. I’m not using up any of my pathetic savings or anything.”

The implication of how well he’d been doing locally, ostensibly playing poker, meant they had no real grounds to object to his trip. It was still rather nerve-wracking going on his own to somewhere as larger than life as Vegas, not that he told his parent that, but in the event, the trip from the airport to his hotel was interesting but not as exciting as he had been expecting. Vegas was like a combination of a theme park interwoven amongst large office blocks, almost. It had shed the bright lights and mob-ruled vibe of decades past and looked more like silicon valley these days.

Jason wandered around the casino floor for a bit, scoping out the roulette tables, crowd, and casino staff. He had deliberately chosen to start in a different casino to the one in his hotel, and after wandering around, he decided it really wasn’t any different from the casinos back in San Diego, just bigger and much busier. Finally, he headed for a table with only a few people around it. As he approached the table, he discovered that he was far more nervous than he had expected to be! Damn. The difference between playing in the little leagues and hitting the big time! By the time he reached the table, it felt like he didn’t just have a few butterflies in his stomach; no, it felt like there was a whole air wing performing combat aerobatics in there! Finally, he stopped just short of the wheel area at the head of the table. He closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths, and tried to settle. He was too strung out to concentrate properly.