Gambler (5 page)

With no obvious signs in the rest of the
casino she turned to the cash outlet. It was the only place where
the casino's books could be edited and that made the staff her
prime suspects.

Nova pulled out the chips she'd won at the
table, just in time for Cracos to see her as he strode past. He
leant in close to her ear so that no one else could hear. "You're
supposed to be finding my money, not taking it."

Nova shrugged and gave a thin smile. "Part
of the job," she said, sauntering away.

At the cash outlet she placed her chips down
and the woman behind the bars counted them. Nova watched her
closely. She seemed good at her job, if a little bored.

"You must love working here!" Nova said in
the most girly voice she could manage.

The woman behind the counter raised her
eyebrows and stared at Nova. "Another bounty hunter, huh?" the
woman asked.

Nova let her false smile fall. "That
obvious?"

"Probably not to most, but I'm good with
people," the woman said, looking back at the chips.

"Maybe you can help," said Nova. "Have you
had anyone who looked suspicious?"

"If I had I would have told Cracos
myself."

"Of course you would have. Of course," Nova
said, clenching her fist beneath the counter. "But just in case, do
you think there are any staff members who would take money? Change
the books, perhaps?"

The woman frowned and held out her hand
without a word. Nova handed over her cred-stick, but continued to
stare at the woman.

"No. No one would be so stupid as to cross
Cracos," the woman said. "Five hundred."

Nova watched as the numbers on her
cred-stick jumped up. She could have made a living playing the
tables, but she couldn't stand the atmosphere. The stink of
desperation hung like a cloud over the casino and no one could keep
up a winning streak forever.

"Thank you for your help," Nova said,
turning away.

She tried to keep the annoyance from her
face until she was out of the casino. Then her expression dropped.
The fruitless night combined with running into Vicki had her
fuming. She clenched her hands into fists and did her best to
refrain from stomping until she got to Crusader.

Once inside she lifted a hidden compartment
from the side of the main hallway and placed her cred-stick inside.
A ruby the size of her fist that she'd been saving for a rainy day
glimmered next to the cred-stick. She closed the safe and marched
to her sleeping pod.

"Cal! Scan the video footage of the casino.
I want to know about any anomalies. And keep an eye on that
cashier," Nova called out through the ship before dropping down
onto her bed. She didn't wait for a response before closing her
eyes and drifting off to sleep, hoping with all her might that
Vicki and Kero stayed out of her dreams.

CHAPTER SEVEN

When Nova woke the next morning, she felt as
if she hadn't slept at all. Her head ached with the dreams she'd
had and she wanted nothing more than to stay curled up in bed.
Instead, she forced herself to stumble out to the food generator,
before continuing on to the command pod, laden with a bowl of
colourful rings. She shovelled them into her mouth, barely
registering the sugary flavour.

"Did you find anything?" she asked.

"Nothing of special interest," Crusader's
voice came over the speakers.

"Where's Cal?"

"My Class Four Labourbot is recharging."

Nova waved her hand but said nothing.

"Would you like me to show you the few
images of note from last night?" Crusader said.

Nova nodded and continued to eat the cereal.
The image of blue sky through the ship's front window disappeared,
and was replaced with the dimly lit and flashing interior of the
casino. The image was on fast-forward and Nova smiled as she
watched people walk with double speed from table to table.

"Here we noticed two men acting
suspiciously," Crusader said. "But they were only exchanging
drugs."

A red circle highlighted the men exchanging
the illicit material.

"Do a scan of the warrants. There must be
someone who will give me money to bring those guys in," Nova said,
resolving to get paid for at least something whilst she was here on
this god forsaken planet.

While running from her dreams the previous
night, Nova had come to a resolution. There was no way she was
going to let the pouty-mouthed Vicki beat her at a hunt. The
woman's only skills were batting her eyelashes. Nova felt an
inescapable need to outdo the other woman, sure that if she failed
she would have to give up the Hunter life forever.

"Anything else?" Nova asked, pushing
thoughts of Vicki from her mind and focusing on the job at
hand.

"A few more minor incidences," Crusader
replied.

The screen split into four, showing footage
from different cameras and different times of night with various
red circles highlighting the unsavoury behaviour. A prostitute was
selling her wares in one screen, a small robot flitted between the
crowds stealing cred-sticks and jewellery in a second, and a brawl
broke out in a third. None of them pointed towards the casino
losing money. Chances were high that Cracos had a hand in all of
the unsavoury pies being shown and was definitely taking a cut of
the profits.

An hour later, Nova threw up her hands.
"Nothing! All of that and we're left with nothing." She stood up
and paced around the command pod.

"Our probability calculators suggest it is
eighty-nine per cent certain to be an inside job, committed by a
member of the casino's staff," Crusader said as Nova paced.

"I'll look into the staff. At least most of
them are in the dark about the investigation; as long as that woman
at the front desk can keep her mouth shut."

Nova left her formal dress on the floor of
the ship and instead headed to the casino in her usual black pants
and top. The familiar trench-coat billowed out behind her as she
marched around the side of the casino to the staff entrance. She
held her wrist against the lock. A moment later it flashed green
and she pushed her way through.

Inside, the staff room was bare. The walls
and floor were grey metal, lit by dim bulbs in the ceiling. The
only decorations in the room covered the staff lockers, a few of
which had various insignias stuck or carved into their surfaces.
According to the casino schematics, this staff room was for the
people who had direct access to the casino's money. If the theft
was an inside job, the person's locker would be here.

Nova walked to the closest locker and went
to work opening the door. The lock was basic at best and it took
only a few moments for her to break through the simple encryption.
The locker door swung open with a squeak and she peered inside, but
revealed nothing except a change of clothes and a poster of a
half-dressed woman.

She went to work on the second locker, then
the third, and on along the rows. Most of them contained nothing of
interest. Some contained personal items which would raise a few
eyebrows, but nothing that would suggest a major theft
operation.

Nova's stomach tightened as she went through
the lockers. The one consistent thing was desperation. It leaked
out of the lockers and spread across the floor like a noxious gas.
As much as she wanted to get paid - and beat Vicki - a part of her
wanted the thief to go free. They probably needed the money a lot
more than Cracos.

In the end Nova found three lockers with
items that could potentially be linked to the casino crime. The
first contained a collection of small bottles, two of which were
empty, one was half-full and those at the back remained unopened.
With steady hands she picked up an empty bottle and peered at the
worn label. She would recognise the logo anywhere. Siness.

The company name was used as a front by the
biggest drug-dealers in Tabryn. To anyone on the outside they
looked like simple medicinal jars but to anyone who had seen the
underbelly of Tabryn, the jars contained Zine, the premier street
drug, a combination of enzymes which removed inhibitions and
increased adrenalin. If it was made by Siness it was guaranteed to
be good quality, and an expensive habit. Nova looked through the
rest of the items in the locker but aside from the vials there was
nothing of interest. She took note of the locker number and moved
on.

The second suspicious locker overflowed with
photos. Her eyes narrowed as she looked over the pictures. It was
odd for images to be stored in physical format - the cost compared
to digital was astronomical but here they were. A whole locker
full.

Nova studied some of the pictures. She had
no doubt that they were for blackmail. They depicted various
persons in compromising situations; often half-clothed. She flicked
through more images; People doing drugs; having sex; or simply
exchanging items of value in darkly lit alleyways. Cracos featured
in multiple images, appearing naked with a variety of people, both
men and women.

It was as if the photographer had walked
around Outer Tabryn taking snapshots, but Nova knew that couldn't
be the case. The subjects of the images were too well-dressed, too
clean, their environments too luxurious. No; these photos were of
powerful people and someone wanted control over them. Clearly this
photographer had contacts, as well as the mental capacity to come
up with an intricate plan.

Nova took note of the second locker's
number. In her mind she ran over the limited information she had.
It was far more likely that the blackmailer was committing the
crimes than the druggie but she needed more information.

In the final locker of the row, Nova found
that the lock had been upgraded. In fact it was one of the best
models Nova had ever come across. She worked at the encryption but
it took far longer than she'd expected.

Her heart jumped and she glanced at the door
at the tiniest sound. She'd chosen the middle of a shift, but she'd
already been searching for hours and people could return at any
moment. She didn't want to know what they might do if they found
her snooping through their things.

With a last desperate pull the metal door
swung open. Nova's eyes bulged. A pile of cred-sticks almost filled
the locker and when Nova first opened the door a few rolled out and
fell to the floor. She picked them up and stared at the numbers
running up their sides. Each stick held tens of thousands of
credits. The locker had to contain over a million credits.

Nova stared at the fortune and a part of her
wanted to grab the sticks and run. She'd go to Crusader, fly off
into the stars and live out the rest of her days as a very rich
person. The rest of her resisted the urge. Where could a simple
casino worker get so much money, legally? The only answer Nova
could come up with was that they couldn't.

The drug addict and the blackmailer
disappeared from Nova's mind as she stared at the cred-sticks. She
needed to find out who owned this locker.

"Cal, take note of locker number
six-seven-seven," she said aloud.

"Acknowledged," Cal replied. "But shouldn't
you get Cracos there now?"

"Innocent until proven guilty. If Cracos
sees this he'll just take it. We need to be sure this is our guy
before we get Cracos involved."

"Acknowledged."

"Oh, and note down two-eighty-three and
three-three-three," Nova said as an afterthought. She had already
discounted those lockers once she'd seen the cred-sticks, but maybe
there were warrants outstanding on the owners and she could make
some extra credits.

She was sure to place the cred-sticks
exactly as they had been and then re-locked the cabinet; the last
thing she wanted to do was alert the offender. She left through the
back door and strode with her coat pulled up around her face,
trying to be as casual as possible, until she reached the safety of
Crusader.

"Get me Cracos," she said as soon as she was
inside.

By the time Nova reached the control pod,
the screen showed Cracos's face.

"Bounty hunter, do you have some good news
for me?" Cracos asked. A fat cigar hung out of the corner of his
puffy lips.

"I need some information on locker
numbers."

"That's hardly a breakthrough," Cracos said.
"You're the second one to ask me that today."

Nova tried to hide her surprise at his
statement, while begging that it hadn't been Vicki.

"That's good to know. I need to know who
owns lockers six-seven-seven—"

"Let me guess, six-seven-seven,
three-three-three, and two-eighty-three?" Cracos said, rolling his
eyes.

"Um, yes."

"As it happens I already have the names in
front of me." Cracos smiled at her and pulled the cigar from his
mouth, allowing a plume of smoke to drift up out of view.

"Siaro Gallon, Zodac Xion, and Fenton Pict,"
Cracos said.

"Excellent."

"If that's all?"

"Yes, thank you," Nova said, waving her hand
to end the communication.

Cracos's face disappeared from the front
screen and was replaced with blue skies. Nova pondered what she had
heard. She wasn't the only one who had searched the lockers and
whoever it was had found the same things she had. There was no time
to waste, she had to find the criminal before anyone else, and if
the locker full of cred-sticks turned out to be the one, then she
was already far behind.

"Get me Tanguin."

At Nova's voice the screen flashed and
Crusader's voice came over the speakers. "Calling Tanguin at The
Jagged Maw."

In only a few seconds the screen flashed and
Tanguin's face appeared. Her black hair shone in the light of her
computer. She smiled when she saw Nova.

"Nova, how's the hunting?"

"Not too bad. I've got some cash for you if
you run some names for me." It was a small price to pay given that
Tanguin would get the information in a fraction of the time it
would take Nova.