A casino. A ******** casino. The noise from the fireworks and the brilliantly flashing lights should have attracted swarms of infected by now. Are where the hell were they getting the power to run the lights? Micah rubbed his eyes and shook his head in disbelief. He could see now, at least. He'd spent too much time fumbling blindly around the apartments, hating how useless he felt. His sight had come back after he'd slept, but he wasn't taking it for granted now. Not anymore.
If the casino had lights, he figured, they probably had access to good resources. It'd be stupid not to check it out and see if he could get anything, or figure out where they were getting stuff. He moved cautiously toward the building, still slightly spooked by the absence of infected.
As he stepped in, he was hit with a wall of warm, stuffy, smoky air. He coughed a few times and blinked through the faint haze. He could smell booze and people and food as well, the smell of casino; he didn't gamble often - hadn't gambled often - but he'd been enough times to know what was what. It was so normal that it was surreal. A casino employee stepped up to offer him a drink and a bag of tokens, and Micah took both with a wary stare. The man's smile was professionally impersonal. Micah waited until the guy had left to talk to someone else before quietly abandoning the drink on a table. He didn't want to be drunk for this, and he didn't trust this place or these people.
There were slot machines all over the place, and blackjack and poker tables. Micah hesitated, weighing the bag of chips in his hand. It hadn't cost him anything, and suspicious as he was about that, he might as well use the tokens. If it was gonna cost him, it was probably gonna cost him regardless of whether he used the tokens or not, he figured. Slots were random, blackjack and poker you could use some skill; however, he wasn't some kind of card sharp, and he wasn't going to pit himself against house dealers.
He picked a slot machine and sat down on the stool.
[Casino Tokens: 50]
OOC
Character's name: Micah Lambert Character's faction: Apartments Character's journal link:Journal Character's survival stats: Micah BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF MY CHARACTER Squarish, short, and irritable. He has short, sandy brown hair in a slightly spiky style, brown eyes, and glasses with a coppery wire frame. Wears practical, tough clothes, jeans or work pants with steel-toed or hiking boots, and a flannel or jacket over a t-shirt. He has a small gold wire earring in his left ear and a star tattooed on the back of his right wrist.
Cautiously, Micah pulled the lever, some small part of him half expecting the machine to explode or something, in spite of the other people playing obliviously and peacefully in their own little worlds. Slots people usually didn't notice anything unless you were somehow getting in their space, and they probably wouldn't notice or care if a machine exploded. But the numbers spun, and the wheels stopped one by one. He had two pairs, he realized. Four tokens came rattling out into the return.
He scooped them up and put them in the bag, feeling weird, as though he was doing something wrong.
[Casino tokens: 54]
OOC
Character's name: Micah Lambert Character's faction: Apartments Character's journal link:Journal Character's survival stats: Micah BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF MY CHARACTER Squarish, short, and irritable. He has short, sandy brown hair in a slightly spiky style, brown eyes, and glasses with a coppery wire frame. Wears practical, tough clothes, jeans or work pants with steel-toed or hiking boots, and a flannel or jacket over a t-shirt. He has a small gold wire earring in his left ear and a star tattooed on the back of his right wrist.
Micah pulled the lever again. This time, the reels locked into place one by one, and all showed different numbers. No tokens. He wasn't losing anything playing it, at least.
That was what was wrong, he realized. He wasn't putting anything into the machine, but it was still working for him, and it'd given him winnings. He looked around. Nobody had shown up to take the tokens back or put an out of order sign on the machine or anything. Either nobody had noticed or it was supposed to work this way.
[Casino tokens: 54]
OOC
Character's name: Micah Lambert Character's faction: Apartments Character's journal link:Journal Character's survival stats: Micah BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF MY CHARACTER Squarish, short, and irritable. He has short, sandy brown hair in a slightly spiky style, brown eyes, and glasses with a coppery wire frame. Wears practical, tough clothes, jeans or work pants with steel-toed or hiking boots, and a flannel or jacket over a t-shirt. He has a small gold wire earring in his left ear and a star tattooed on the back of his right wrist.
Micah looked back to the machine and pulled the lever again, experimentally. The reels blurred into motion, spun, stopped one by one. He'd gotten another pair. Two more tokens came rattling down into the return, and he took them.
Instead of trying again, though, he got up. He already felt weird about playing for free in this weird casino. He didn't trust it, and he didn't want to wait around to see if anything would happen if he kept playing the machine.
[Casino tokens: 56]
OOC
Character's name: Micah Lambert Character's faction: Apartments Character's journal link:Journal Character's survival stats: Micah BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF MY CHARACTER Squarish, short, and irritable. He has short, sandy brown hair in a slightly spiky style, brown eyes, and glasses with a coppery wire frame. Wears practical, tough clothes, jeans or work pants with steel-toed or hiking boots, and a flannel or jacket over a t-shirt. He has a small gold wire earring in his left ear and a star tattooed on the back of his right wrist.
Micah wandered around the casino, looking at everything and talking to nobody, looking at the layout of the floor and the other guests, or players, or idiots, whatever you wanted to call them. Nobody seemed to take any interest in him, and he stopped to lean against a pillar after a while. The atmosphere in here was getting to him or something. He had a small headache, and he felt a little woozy. Was it an aftereffect of getting hit in the back of the head, or was it just the warmth and all the smoke? He'd never objected to other people smoking, but he wasn't a smoker, either. He straightened up and wobbled alarmingly. But I didn't drink anything, he thought, and tried to focus through the haze - no, it wasn't a haze, his vision was blurring ...
When he became aware of himself again, he felt achy, his limbs heavy, like a bad hangover, but without the accompanying pounding headache. He didn't have time to appreciate this, though; he was too busy panicking over not being able to see again. He could hear murmurs, other people in the room, but though his eyes were open, he couldn't see. Then the lights came on, bright and harsh, and he reflexively tried to throw his arm across his face, only to discover that he was tied to a chair, tightly enough that he couldn't move at all. He was in a classroom of some kind, absurdly enough, and a voice came cheerily over the speakers.
Micah listened, and the scowl he'd been wearing deepened with each word. Of course it had been a ******** trap, and like an idiot he'd gone and walked right into it. Good job, Micah! And now if he wanted out, he'd have to play whatever game these people were playing. Or be eaten for dinner, it sounded like. He gritted his teeth. Being furious about this was better than being terrified.
When the voice asked for questions, he kept his teeth clenched tightly together and remained stubbornly silent. He'd figure this s**t out on his own, and who knew if they'd answer questions truthfully, anyhow?
His chair was dragged roughly into another room, and he was spun to face two other people. Pick one, the announcer demanded, and Micah stared at them. Only one. The woman looked a little older than him, nicely dressed and gorgeous; the man looked like he might be Micah's age or a little younger, and tears streaked his cheeks. How the hell was he supposed to pick? And why? Was he dooming the other one to death and possibly being a main course?
If he thought about it too much, he wasn't going to be able to do this at all, and then he'd probably be dinner. Without stopping to consider the decision, he jerked his chin at the young man. "Him," he said, and looked down at the floor, refusing to meet their eyes. "Sorry," he said in the woman's general direction, and heard his voice crack a little, and pressed his lips shut.
The casino people untied the man, and dragged the woman's chair through a door, and Micah couldn't stand it any more. He opened his mouth to ask what was back there. He was interrupted; the young man bolted, sprinting for the exit. Several shots cut the air.
"You idiot," Micah mumbled, and looked away from the limp and bloody body. He couldn't blame the guy, though. He couldn't swear that he wouldn't have done the same thing if he'd been untied. It seemed that he wasn't going to be saving anyone, and he saved that thought for later, in case he got a chance to get someone back for it.
[Casino tokens: 56]
OOC
Character's name: Micah Lambert Character's faction: Apartments Character's journal link:Journal Character's survival stats: Micah BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF MY CHARACTER Squarish, short, and irritable. He has short, sandy brown hair in a slightly spiky style, brown eyes, and glasses with a coppery wire frame. Wears practical, tough clothes, jeans or work pants with steel-toed or hiking boots, and a flannel or jacket over a t-shirt. He has a small gold wire earring in his left ear and a star tattooed on the back of his right wrist.
Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2015 9:28 pm
When Micah walked back into the main room of the casino, he realized that the guards near the exits were there to keep anyone from escaping, and felt stupid. He saw a few familiar faces now, and plenty he didn't know, and all of them had that weird desperate look on their faces. They were all trapped, he understood now. They were all idiots, including himself.
The two attendants who'd escorted him into the room stood on either side of him, looking him over. One of them was an older man, the other a pretty young woman who looked more like she belonged on a stage than wearing the casino uniform. "21, ya think?" the woman said suddenly, as though Micah couldn't hear her.
"Not over thirty, for sure," the man responded. "Limbs and eyes intact, that's good. Looks healthy."
"Are you gonna ********' examine my teeth or something?" Micah demanded, incensed.
They ignored him. "Not an important person," the woman continued blithely. "See what he's got on him, would you?" Only the awareness that these people were armed made Micah hold still as his pockets were rifled through. He clenched his fists and his teeth and stared straight ahead as they checked what he was carrying, discussing the items and what they might be worth. It didn't help much that his stuff was returned to his pockets afterward.
"100," the woman decided after a minute.
"That much?"
Micah seethed silently.
"100," she nodded, and produced what looked like a dog collar from a pocket of her uniform. She did something to it, and the number 100 lit up on the front of it. "Hold still, honey," she said to Micah, and Micah bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from taking a swing at her as she fastened the collar around his neck.
Once it was on, he stalked away from the pair, his face burning hot with the sheer humiliation of being valued like some kind of animal. Like some kind of meat. They didn't try to stop him. They didn't have to.
MY CHARACTER'S TOTAL VALUE IS 100 COINS
[Casino tokens: 56]
OOC
Character's name: Micah Lambert Character's faction: Apartments Character's journal link:Journal Character's survival stats: Micah BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF MY CHARACTER Squarish, short, and irritable. He has short, sandy brown hair in a slightly spiky style, brown eyes, and glasses with a coppery wire frame. Wears practical, tough clothes, jeans or work pants with steel-toed or hiking boots, and a flannel or jacket over a t-shirt. He has a small gold wire earring in his left ear and a star tattooed on the back of his right wrist.
