“Hey, there. Welcome to Deep Desert. Did you have a reservation with us, sir?” the person on the other end of the counter asked somewhat robotically.
“No. Actually I’m here to try and enter the raptor lottery. Can I still do that, um, Clark?”
Clark tossed his head to the side a bit and said, “Yeah, sure. It’s not a traditional lottery, more of a slot machine sort of thing.”
“What?”
“Yeah. We just step over to the screen over here and you write down a number between one and fifteen. Then I hit this switch and you’ll see a series of numbers randomly cycling through screen at high speed. You’ll then press the button on the screen’s panel to stop the cycling. If it’s your number, you win the lottery. Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it,” Trevor said a bit nervously, looking at the LED screen in front of him. Clark handed Trevor a small piece of paper labelled Raptor Lotto with today’s date stamped on it. Biting his lip, Trevor filled in a 14 and handed it back to Clark.
“Okay. Looking for lucky number fourteen,” he announced before flipping the switch he’d pointed to. Trevor’s eyes went wide when the large white numbers starting flashing across the middle of the screen. They were going so fast each number barely had a chance to register in his mind before it was gone.
After letting out an apprehensive sigh, Trevor pressed down on the button marked, “STOP,” on the panel and the numbers immediately stopped cycling. A single number was now displayed on the screen and Trevor could hardly believe his eyes.