By day, Rico dealt blackjack under the migraine glare of neon. He wore the tuxedo vest, the bow tie, the fake smile. The pit bosses called him “steady hands,” because no matter how many tourists spilled their daiquiris across the felt, his shuffle never faltered. He was invisible in the right way. Reliable, forgettable.

By night, he descended. Past the dumpsters behind the hotel, past the rumble of delivery trucks, into the drainage tunnels that spread like veins beneath Las Vegas. The tourists never imagined it, the miles of concrete arteries hidden under their jackpots and fountains.

But Rico knew. He lived there.

He shared the dark with the others, the tunnel people, the molefolk, the forgotten. Mattress pads pressed against damp walls. Lanterns strung with duct tape. The trickle of runoff water echoing down endless corridors. He had carved out a corner, patched with cardboard and insulation he’d scavenged, his name spray-painted in sloppy letters so no one else claimed it.

Upstairs, the world was light and spectacle, always screaming for attention. Down here, the silence pressed on him like a second skin. He liked it. In the underground, nobody asked him to smile. Nobody told him to shuffle faster.

At night, he counted his tips, stashing singles and fives inside a plastic bag duct-taped to the tunnel wall. He told himself he was saving for an apartment, a way out. But the truth crept in: the money never left the bag. It felt safer sealed into the damp concrete than rattling in some bank account above.

Sometimes, lying in the dark, Rico could feel the casino throb overhead, the slot machines humming through the concrete, the weight of thousands of gamblers grinding the floor above him.

He imagined the city as a great beast, its heart up there in the neon, its guts festering down here in the tunnels.

He belonged to the guts.

And every morning, at the start of his shift, he rose through the drainage grate, brushed the dust off his vest, and stepped back into the light, invisible again, carrying the underground with him.

The End