“Well, apparently management disagrees with you there, Mitch.”

Muttering profanity, Mitch swiped his card and led us through another door into a large room. Two uniformed security guards watched us suspiciously and put their hands on their holstered pistols, but since we were with Mitch they hesitated. Trip gave them a friendly wave. “Morning.” Past the guards were a bunch of employees watching dozens of computer monitors. Each monitor was divided into four separate camera views, and they switched around every few seconds.

“That’s a lot of cameras.”

“Thank you,” Mitch answered with pride. This was obviously a man who owned his job. “Hey…wait a second, dreadlocks. I recognize you now. You two were with that bunch that trashed the buffet.”

“It was all a misunderstanding,” I said.

“We looked great on the security video, though…I mean, we probably looked great on video.” Trip corrected himself. “I can only assume. Obviously.”

“Freaking management.” Mitch grumbled. “They said we were supposed to be nice to you conference attendees. At least the polo-shirt bunch had the common decency to move to a hotel across the street and out of my hair. If it was up to me I would’ve pressed charges and never ever let any of you back on the property.”

“But then we wouldn’t be here to save the day now.”

“Freaking management.” Mitch gave the sort of resigned sigh that only a truly disgruntled employee that knows he’s smarter than his bosses can make. “Come on.” Mitch took us to the first couple of computers. “These banks cover the street. How many people you got out there now, Mickey?”

The employee manning those computers looked over and did a double-take when he saw how Trip and I were dressed. “I lost count when the National Guard showed up.”

Mitch continued his tour. “Most of these cameras are of the casino floor, these show the shops and plaza, here’s the conference center, and we can cover every corridor and elevator in the hotel. I saw you all running around on sixteen earlier. We called the police and sent up a security team, but they got turned away by some of you assholes who wouldn’t let them up the stairs—”

One of the uniformed security guards butted in. “They don’t pay us enough to argue with a bunch of crazies with machine guns.”

“And then this—this travesty.” Mitch pointed at one of the four squares on the screen. It was black. “Can you believe that?”

“There’s nothing there,” Trip pointed out.

“Exactly. You people broke one of my cameras.”

“That’s what happens when you set off a homemade bomb in an enclosed space while trying to stop an invasion of metal Teutonic slug monsters. Hell on the hardware.” I cracked my neck. “Speaking of which, you guys got any Tylenol in here?”

Mitch must not have caught the slug monster part. “That camera was very expensive.”