The first thing we did was head down a brief flight of stairs, and then we began walking along a corridor full of doors. Beth explained that these went to various cocktail stations throughout the casino.
Actually, the entire area below the main floor was honeycombed with accessways of various sizes, most of these leading to little elevators that took a shrunken worker up to her table. The waitress halls were the only areas where there were actual doors and corridors. The rest of it was a maze of transport tubes designed for tiny women to make their way quickly to their station and back again, without help from any normal-sized people. Apparently, they wanted to minimize contact between the tiny women and full-scale employees as much as possible, which was a great idea as far as I was concerned.
We finally stopped at a door near the end of the hall and went through. It had a number on it, but someone had crudely scrawled "Rookie Door" across that in red letters. "This is where we train the newbies," Beth explained somewhat sheepishly. "There are no games here except nickel and quarter slots, so you'll only be serving old folks and cheapskates. You won't get much in the way of tips, but you also don't have to do a lot of dodging around--old people aren't very fast and don't make a lot of sudden moves. They also don't do a lot of groping. Well, mostly anyway."
I shuddered at that thought. Like most people in my line of work, I've done a lot of martial arts training, and I figure I can take care of myself. That's at normal size, though. If someone attacked me while I was two feet tall, I wouldn't be able to stop them. Karate wouldn't hurt a giant much (except maybe in the one obvious location), and despite its "use the enemy's power against him" mantra, judo just wouldn't work if the opponent was three times your height! The thought of someone abducting me at this size, and using me as some kind of play toy, was not a pleasant one. I'd already accepted that this might have been what happened to the missing girls, but still, it wasn't something I was looking forward to experiencing for myself.
"Don't worry," said Beth, noting my reaction. "The surveillance teams in this place are fantastic. If anyone tries to take advantage of you, they'll be taken down in a few seconds. You'll see what I mean the first time someone grabs your cute little ass--and they will, trust me. Soon or later, someone WILL do it!"
I grimaced. Back before I'd joined the FBI, I was a cop in St. Louis, and a couple of times they made me do prostitution stings. On several of these stakeouts, the targets had gotten all over me before backup arrived. That was the sort of thing that made me quit the force, and of course commit to taking self-protection courses as quickly as possible. I had hoped that working with the FBI would keep me out of such situations. Oh, well, so much for that.
"What about when I'm--when I'm smaller?" I stammered, my mind running away with the thought of huge hands wrapping around me, lifting me off the ground, and carrying me off toward God knew what. "What happens if I'm six inches tall and someone g-g-grabs me?"
I almost choked on those last words. The thought of someone's giant hand around me was so terrifying I almost couldn't stand it.
"There are always a couple of guards at every table," Beth assured me. "If anyone tries to pick you up, they pay the price. Oh, I won't lie to you, it does happen, but no one's ever been hurt that way. At that size your body's a lot tougher, being more compact and all. At ten you can survive a fall from the table unscathed, and at five, someone would pretty much have to throw you full force into a wall to hurt you."
Though the prospect of being slammed against a wall was not very pleasant, the idea that armed men were all around the place for my protection made me feel a little better. I started to relax, but just as I did, we emerged from the hallway into the casino itself.
Now, so far, I've tried my best to explain what it was like with everything being three times bigger than normal, but that was in a single enclosed room followed by a set of properly proportioned hallways. That was nothing compared to what I was looking at now. Ahead of me, there were several towering rows of slot machines, and beyond that, the edge of a colossal bar. Try to picture a football stadium full of giant people and gambling equipment, and you'll get some kind of idea of what I was looking at.
All around me came the loud beeps and chimes of one-armed bandits in operation. As I stood there, open-mouthed and overwhelmed, a couple of normal-sized people walked by, giving me only the barest of glances before continuing on. I stared up at them in slack-jawed shock.
I tell you, it took every ounce of self-control I had to keep from turning around and running back into the safety of that warm, inviting, normal-looking hallway. You can't imagine what it's like to go from five-nine to one-eleven and have to look up at somebody from the level of their thighs!
I really don't have words to describe what I was feeling. It was kind of like being embarrassed, frightened, and intimidated all at once.
"Come on," urged Beth. "The sooner you get out there, the faster you'll get used to it. Trust me."
She led me out onto the floor, where all I could do was stare UP at everything. Damn, it was weird! People sitting in chairs were taller than I was by far, and I couldn't even see the displays on most of the machines. Hell, the bar itself was higher than I could possibly jump--how was I supposed to get drinks and deliver them to the customers?
Beth led me along the rows of slot machines, which were tucked into a corner of the casino, out of the main traffic areas. Like she said, only low-risk gamblers came to this part of the building. The bar actually served both this section and the opposite side, which had dollar slots and a few low-bet paigow tables, but my serving area ended at the bar's edge.
The layout of the area was actually pretty simple, with six rows surrounding the protruding bar, and a couple of sets of seats up against the wall where people could rest when not betting. I wasn't supposed to visit those, however, as only people actually gambling were eligible for drinks. That was one of the things I had to learn, as it turned out: how to tell a worthy customer from a "scammer," a pretender who just wanted a free cocktail or two. Perhaps not surprisingly, there were more such people in this part of the casino than anywhere else, because the amount of money they had to spend pretending to gamble was not all that great.
"Don't worry if too many people drink and run," said Beth. "It happens, and security'll spot them anyway and flag them for later action where necessary. If they're hotel guests, they'll find the bill for the drink on their room tab."
I nodded in agreement, still trying to get used to the idea of everything being so HUGE, and Beth finally led me over to the bar. Another miniature girl was there, getting a cocktail for a customer, and I saw how that was supposed to work. At the bar's end, a low-placed microphone allowed her to pass the order on to the bartender, whom she never actually saw unless he leaned over to talk to her for some reason. Once he'd fixed the drink, he lowered it and its tray down to her with a special motorized lift.
Beth introduced me to the other waitress, whose name was Heather Andrews. She looked to be no more than twenty, with short red hair, very light skin, and a smattering of freckles across her youthful face. Like me, she appeared to be quite athletic, and fit nicely into her costume. She was also much shorter than myself, probably about five feet at full size, but no more than twenty inches high right now.
"Oh, are you the new girl?" Heather said after Beth rattled off our names to each other. "Good, I was afraid I'd be stuck here in Rookieland for the rest of my natural life! This does mean I'm gonna be movin' out of here soon, right?"
Beth laughed at that. "Yeah, your training's over," she replied. "After today, you're moving out to the main floor. After you prove yourself there, we'll give you a try on the roulette table."
"Great!" said Heather enthusiastically. "Gotta tell ya, I'm used to 33 now. I'd love to try something in a smaller size!"
I looked at her curiously, a little be surprised by her reaction. "You mean you actually WANT to be smaller?" I asked. I couldn't envision a time when I would want such a thing for myself.
"Sure, who wouldn't?" Heather laughed. "The tips are better the smaller ya get, y'know."
"Sorry, I'm still not quite used to this, I guess," I apologized, feeling a little embarrassed about showing my fears so openly.
"Trust me, it'll feel natural in a coupla days," said Heather amiably. "This is my second week. Yesterday, I tried walkin' through the casino at normal size, and it didn't feel right at all. I actually felt weird being so big. It was like things were in the wrong place, y'know?"
I laughed at that, but saw at once she was being completely honest about it. Already I felt more at ease about this job, and found myself liking Heather automatically. She seemed like the kind of person who'd make a good friend, especially since we were both relatively new here. I resolved to make sure I talked to her some more later.
We exchanged some more small talk and then Heather left to deliver her cargo of drinks to the waiting gamblers. Without much effort, she hefted the tray and its three glasses onto her shoulders and started out across the floor. That had to be heavy, I thought, but Heather didn't seem at all fazed by the load. Another thing I'd get used to after a while, I suspected.
Beth told me the hardest thing for a newbie was to remember who I'd taken an order from and where they were sitting. Taking an order and then failing to deliver it tended to tick off customers more than anything. It was actually better to not take an order than it was to get one and then not see it through. Beth went on about this for some time, impressing on me how important this part of the job was, until I assured her I got the message.
Once I got good at the job, she told me, I'd be able to take four orders at once without trouble, but for now, I should practice just getting singletons for a while. She accompanied me around the floor as I did just that, collecting a single order and then filling it at the bar. I saw what she meant about remembering who placed an order, but with my Bureau-trained observation and identification skills, I had no trouble adapting to this role.
Getting used to the giant tray and drink glasses was tough, but after just a few trips, I got the hang of it. At first I tried balancing the tray on my head, but I couldn't see well enough, so eventually I figured out how to hold it on my shoulder like Heather had done. The glasses, as it turned out, were specially weighted and fit into little slots on the tray's surface, so they wouldn't slide around or tip over unless I really lost my balance.
After about half an hour, Beth told me I was ready to solo, and she left me alone on the floor, surrounded by giants.