Chapter Eighteen - Casino

"Hey, you're... you never gave me your name, now that I think about it."

I paused mid-push, then slowly lowered my arms down, taking the weight I was pressing upwards with them until there was a heavy clunk. Well, heavy-ish. I was bench-pressing eighty pounds within this fancy machine that was meant to keep my form 'correct' and... mostly it was there so that I couldn't mess it up and drop a barbell onto my own face.

Glancing over to the side, I saw a familiar face peering down at me. Natalie.

She looked very tall when I was laying down like this. Tall and muscular and a bit sweaty from exercising.

"Uh," I said smartly before her question replayed itself in my mind. "Yeah, I guess I never did," I said. "Natalie, right?"

I'd spent hours with her. A dozen, at least. And in those hours she'd beaten me black and blue. Yet, for her, we'd only met once and in passing.

"That's right," she replied with a grin. "Good to see you here again. Just working out?"

"Yeah," I said.

"If I'm bothering..."

"No, no," I replied quickly. "I could use a break anyways."

I'd been at the Ctrl-At-Delts for about two hours already. Some of that was stretching and the usual sort of... between exercise procrastination. I was actually wasting a lot of time trying to figure out where I was in some of my favourite series.

Once I joined up with Luna Corp, I had the cash to start buying audiobooks instead of just pirating them, and now I wanted to catch up to some of those, only... some of the next books in series I was reading were nine months further away than where I'd been.

Real pain in the ass, actually. Plus my bookmarks were all gone, and the suggestion algo on the sites I used weren't tuned into me either.

Anyway, point was, it was an easy, chill workout day. I had plans for in a couple of hours, but that was for later. Right now, I was slowly trying to get my body up to a D-ranker standard. I figured it would only take nine months or so... hopefully a bit less.

"Eighty pounds, huh? Not too bad. You look like you're barely one ten soaking wet."

"Uh, yeah, something like that," I said. I was a bit skinnier than I maybe should have been. 'Stick thin' in some places. Not that I didn't like my body, but... yeah, there was a whole industry out there working to make me self-conscious.

I wasn't sure if someone like Natalie got that. She was certainly not a traditional beauty, but this woman had lean musculature and genuine abs, and I was pretty sure she wasn't using any bio-modding for that. It was all training and diet and very long hours at the gym.

Well, maybe she did have some body image issues? I didn't know, and it wasn't my place to ask. "So, you come over to comment on my BMI, or?"

Natalie flushed, something I hadn't seen before. "No, no, sorry. That was rude of me. Just saw you and figured I'd come over and see how you were doing. Last time you mentioned you needed to train for, ah, reasons. I was kind of dismissive, and I regretted it after."

"Oh," I said. "Yeah, no, it's okay. I figured it out. Not that I'd mind training with you some more."

"More?"

"I mean, uh, I heard that you do the training for Luna Corp? I'm with them, so we might be meeting in the ring, or however you do your training. But yeah, if the offer is there for extra training time, I wouldn't mind taking you up on that. I could really use some polish."

Natalie nodded along, smiling rather sweetly.

She was a strange woman. Sometimes she felt like this tough-as-nails wall. All hard edges, and right now she had the bashful attitude of... I don't know, a soccer mom? A really built soccer mom.

"I could help with that. You're new at Luna Corp, right? I'd remember seeing you otherwise."

"There's a lot of people getting training, maybe I blended in?" I asked.

She shook her head. "No, I'd remember you. Uh..."

"Anyway, uh, yeah, I'm new there," I said.

"Good, good," she replied before looking around, past me, then back. "Anyway, thanks."

"For?"

"Oh, um, no, nevermind." She giggled, which was a rather cute, bashful sound. "I'm gonna go. I think I'm dehydrated. See you around?"

"Yeah, of course," I said.

I watched her go. She had thighs like... damn.

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"Dammit," I said before flopping back down onto the bench. Stupid time loops not affecting my body. I got back to pumping iron, at least for a while. When I was done, I took a quick, cold shower in the gym's locker room, changed into the same outfit I'd worn for the interview (minus those awful shoes) and then left, only pausing long enough to wave a goodbye to Natalie on the way out.

Why hadn't I asked her out for coffee or something?

It wasn't like I didn't have the time for it. I could fit something like that into my schedule, and Natalie was cute, and friendly, and seemed kind of interested. Maybe?

Or she was just being nice and it came off as awkward and I was just misreading the whole thing.

As tempted as I was to Reload the entire afternoon to find out, it was probably not worth it. Sunk cost, and all that. Besides... it could have been worse?

Next time, then.

My next destination was a hotel in the North quarter, which was a bus then taxi ride away. The expense made my head hurt, but I bore it, because it was possible that I'd be making a lot more from this little day trip.

It was seven-something in the afternoon by the time I made it. I went into this... not very nice hotel, rented a room to store some stuff in, then left. I wasn't going to bring that revolver or the weapon I'd gotten from the portal with me.

Not to my next destination, at least.

That was the Velvet Dreams Casino.

The Dreams was a mid-tier casino, a tall building covered in lights and mirrored surfaces. The entrance was a wide, open lobby, leading right in and inviting people with loud pop music and constant ads.

The moment I was close, I felt my augs fritz then I was hit by a few intrusive advertisements in the corners of my vision. This was such a bad idea... but it was one way to make a lot

of cash.

I walked over to a counter within the casino, with some hundred-odd people playing on slot machines behind me, then spent a thousand dollars on a single chip.

Smiling as if this wasn't a hellscape, I wandered the floor for a while. I didn't care if it looked like I didn't know what was going on, because that was the role I was playing.

Finally I found what I was looking for. This place had roulette tables.

I found one that wasn't too busy, smiled gormlessly at the man handling the table, then placed my one coin down on the one. "Just got a job, baby!" I said. "I'm feeling real lucky today. I just put my token here, right?"

The man working for the casino gave me a quick rundown of the game, and seemed to suggest that I ought to put my chip on black or white, rather than on a specific number, but I shook my head.

Then I Saved.

The wheel spun, and I lost.

I Reloaded.

The wheel spun, and I lost again, but with a different number this time. Good.

I Reloaded.

I Reloaded.

I Reloaded.

It took sixty-three tries... but finally, the ball stopped on the right slot. I stared, almost Reloaded by reflex, then I cheered. "Yeah!"

I spent the next three hours in the casino. Not gambling. That one bet had earned me a neat thirty-seven thousand, which was a nice way to explode my cash into a lot more.

Could I have bet all of that on a second roll? Sure.

But I figured that the casino wouldn't look into one girl randomly winning thirty grand. That was well within their expected losses for the day.

One girl winning twice in a row for a total of one point two million dollars, on the other hand, was worth investigating. They'd make a check for magic-use, maybe look into my background, might even do something entirely innocent like try to use me for promotion. Not anything I wanted or needed right now.

I needed to play the part of the lucky winner. I went to a nice restaurant in the same casino, ate a two hundred dollar meal with real magical ingredients farmed in some portal somewhere, then waddled out of the casino just a tiny bit tipsy after drinking a couple of fruity cocktails that hadn't tasted at all like alcohol.

I picked up my stuff from the hotel, then ordered a cab.

It was half past late, but I had one last stop for the day.

Full-Auto Stranger-Danger. I had to repay Jane before the debt came due, and I figured that she might be able to help, or know the people who could, with a few other little things.

***