Lucky Thirteen

Posted on Tue 14th Aug, 2018 @ 1:17pm by Elizabeth Anderson M.D. & Eddie Hunt

1,139 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Oblivion
Location: Hunt's Fortune, Tivoli Gardens
Timeline: MD 13, 2120

Damion was attending opening night of Hunt's Fortune in his guise as Corin Durant, fix-it bloke extraordinaire. He'd had to apologize to Elizabeth and explain to her that he would be on duty the first night and would have to wait until the second night of the grand opening to go there with her, if she would like to join him. He personally couldn't imagine what attraction a casino would hold for Elizabeth, as he'd never known her to have the slightest interest in gambling. Neither did he, except for poker, but poker wasn't gambling; it was skill and being able to accurately read one's opponent.

He was about to go raid the buffet table for a sandwich when he noticed the lights flicker for an instant. That wasn't good. A casino depended on having an uninterruptible power supply, so the lights shouldn't be flickering at all. He was about to investigate further when someone tapped him on the shoulder. "Mr. Durant?"

Damion fought not to jump out of his skin. He'd spent a lifetime training himself in childhood and in Starfleet never to allow anyone to sneak up on him from behind, and now someone had just done it. It didn't matter that the casino was filled with enough noise to easily mask the sound of someone's approach. He was supposed to be more skilled than that.

"Yes?" Damion inquired as he turned around.

"I'm glad I found you." it was an Efrosian, one of the casino employees, clad in the kind of dark business suit that was clearly a work uniform and not a fashion statement. "Mr. Hunt said you might know how to repair this. We're having a problem with the lighting. We can't get some of the colored lights in the dicing area to come on. It's making it difficult for the croupiers to see in there."

"Ah. I'll have a look," Damion said. "They're not working right in here, either. Show me what's amiss."

"Right this way," the man replied. "Name's Pra'shekun, by the way. I make the lights do all sorts of patterns and so forth, but I'm no repairman."

Elizabeth was wandering the aisles, observing different games, and the gamers who played them. It was crowded, definitely a crush, and noisy, but she was able to turn down the volume, and concentrate her recordings on only the people she wished to record. Mostly she was on automatic, saving things to examine later. She stood at the edge of games and set subroutines to look for patterns. She wanted to understand this human gambling, so she could help those who took things to an extreme, but she didn't think it was something she could personally learn to appreciate.

As she stood behind the roulette table, a couple of female friends arrived and began to play the game, sliding tokens across to the man at the wheel. One of them was familiar to her and she searched her databanks for a name. Serena Alia, that was it. She worked in Orchids & Jazz. Elizabeth moved to record her and her reactions, because she wouldn't have expected to see her gambling. As she did so, the corner of her eye caught movement that was familiar. Only one person walked that way, and she turned her head to see Damion following a casino employee. She watched him until he was out of sight, and then turned back to the roulette table, putting away her curiosity about the man she missed seeing regularly.

"So this is Earth gambling," a young Andorian woman said to her Bajoran friend, who looked roughly the same age. "How do people stand it in here? It's so hot!" She wore a spaghetti-strap mini dress covered in pewter-colored spangles, and delicate chains of the same color were entwined around her antennae.

The Bajoran woman beside her was much more conservatively dressed--no glitter on her, except for her earring. She wore an aubergine pantsuit and leaned against a roulette table, sipping a drink. "Honestly, Triya, you're never happy unless it's cold enough for water to freeze. Hey, isn't that the cute guy we saw in the lift the other day? The one with the ponytail?" She pointed.

"I don't remember any cute guy, just the one with the ferocious scowl. If he's not blue, I'm not interested." Triya glanced toward the disappearing figure of Corin Durant. "I dunno. He's wearing the same jumpsuit, so maybe." She shrugged. "Humans all look alike."

Anderson clamped down her jaw to keep from jumping into the conversation that wasn't meant for her ears. Humans did not all look alike! She was torn between wanting to agree with the Bajoran and wanting to inflict minor bodily harm on her. She smiled as she thought, At least she has good taste!

Good humor restored, she moved closer to Serena and her friend, watching as they placed bets, both on the same number, thirteen. "Wait," she said out loud. "I thought thirteen was unlucky."

Serena and Cheya turned to her in surprise. "I never heard that," Serena said. "I guess we'll find out."

"Superstitious nonsense," Cheya frowned. "Depends how you look at it, some may see it as unlucky, I look at it as the odds are the same as any other number," she continued, as she always placed a chip on 0 as well.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to butt in. That was sort of an involuntary learning moment for me," Elizabeth said, noting their responses. She also made a personal note that embarrassment wasn't an emotion that had developed. At least, not if she understood embarrassment. It was always a question in her mind these days, just how much she understood. Oh, for the days when everything was clear and logical and doubt-free! she thought, watching as the wheel went around and around, predicting where it would stop, if the table wasn't rigged. That gave her pause. Would Mr. Hunt rig his tables to favor the house somehow?

Elsewhere in the casino, Damion went with Pra'shekun to the electronics control room. It was located close to the camera room, which showed an image of each table in real time so that there was a second line of defense against cheaters. The electronics control room was nearly as elaborate. Each slot machine could be controlled through a computer screen either individually or as a set with the others in its row, if need be. Damion had spent several evenings since the capture of the signaler studying the schematics of the slot machines and learning how to affect them individually or as a group. Tonight he moved past that area and went to the light board.

Outside the room, there was a muted cheering from the Roulette table where there was a big win ... on lucky thirteen.

 

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