“Eye spy with my little eye…” I said as I rubbed my temples. It’d been several hours, and I only had a single bathroom break in that time. [Detect Cheating] was working overtime alongside me and had already caught half a dozen people so far.
With the new level ups, finding and catching people felt a little easier, as if the Skill was guiding my eyes right to them. Of course, there were the occasional- ok, overly common relationship cheater, but the process still felt much more efficient. As such…
“Right over there, cheater number five.”
Detect Cheating (lv 11)
Target
Jessica Valentine
Method
Marked cards
It sounded simple enough, but when I leaned over the rope barrier to get a better look, I couldn’t see anything different about her cards. Same brand, same patterns, was it some kind of false alarm? I frowned. Jessica looked way too confident for her to not be cheating, especially with how the other competitors at her table were sweating bullets. She just closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and threw down her chips.
Wait a minute…
I closed my own eyes and took a deep breath. The smell of sweat filled my nostrils, and I was about to take a step back at the pungent odor that I would’ve expected from a children’s card game tournament, but something made me stop. There was something else mixed in with the scents, something sweet.
[Skill Level Up! Situational Awareness lv 2 -> 3]
I slowly waded into the play area while holding up my lanyard. When I made it to Jessica’s table, I peered over her shoulder to look at her cards. They all looked plain.
She saw my intrusion and held them tightly to her chest, the action blowing air towards my face. And along with it, a whiff of perfume.
I closed my eyes and sniffed around. Several of the cards held strong aromas, along with her left hand. She must’ve been marking the cards with different perfumes in order to tell who had good cards in their hand!
My eyes widened in bewilderment as I walked back to the outer area and got hold of one of the bouncers. His reaction to this revelation was about the same.
“You want me to do what?!” he asked, surprised.
“Sniff her left hand. Or the cards in the deck,” I said slowly, unable to hide the discomfort from my own voice. “She’s marking the good ones with perfume.”
“Damn, how can you even tell from a simple walk-by?” asked the bouncer apprehensively. “You know what? I don’t want to know, we’ll take care of this.”
I watched as the burly man and several of his compatriots approached the cheater in question. After some awkward conversation, one of them actually grabbed her hand and took a huge whiff, and another did the same to the deck of cards.
“Yup, they’re both covered in perfume!” confirmed the smeller. “My super sniffer never lies!”
And with that, they escorted the woman from the table. I, along with the rest of the audience, stared at her as she left the building, meeting her utter indignation with our total bafflement. I could’ve sworn I’d seen something like this on TV as a kid.
“And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we’ve concluded the first day of the tournament. Thank you all for tuning in, and we’ll see you tomorrow.” Jerry Chetman, the TV announcer, took a deep breath as the camera cut.
Just in time, too. I was starting to reach my limit.
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As the competitors began to file out of the casino, I made my way to a little corner where someone had set up a table full of food. It was full of breakfast items when I first arrived, but I didn’t have time to enjoy any since I was late. But now, there was nothing to stop me from taking what was rightfully mine! Except, of course, the table being picked clean.
Several bagels, from plain to poppy, along with an empty pint tub of cream cheese and single-use packets of apricot jam sat alongside a half-gallon carton of room temperature milk and a pot of lukewarm coffee. The sad remnants of a fruit platter was laid out at the front, all that was left was half of a very brown banana and a small bunch of overly mushy grapes.
I settled with grabbing a sesame seed bagel and slathering what was left of the jam on it with a plastic bread knife. I would’ve preferred another flavor of jelly like strawberry or grape, but those were long gone. I sighed as I took a bite of the dry and sweet mix of the fruit preserve-slathered bagel and washed it down with unsweetened milky coffee.
“For such a big tournament, I expected a little more from the catering,” I joked to myself out loud.
“It’s the end of the day, what do you expect?” retorted one of the attendants walking past. It was Kamila, the same one who’d brought me to the tailor earlier.
“Yeah, that’s fair.” I shrugged.
“Of course, if you’d gotten here earlier, you could’ve enjoyed a better selection,” she deadpanned back. “But it’s not like I can expect you to actually care about this place.”
I turned my head and directed an unamused look at her. “I caught five cheaters today and only took a single break. I know this isn’t about me being late today, what’s your problem with me? This is still just my first day here, so it’s not like I’ve made any bad habits. What did I do to you?”
“Oh please, you know exactly what you did. Just strutting in here and trying to charm your way into a job thinking you’re too good to schedule a meeting, believing your supposedly good looks and ‘boyish charm’ were all you needed to get your way with others.”
“What? What the hell are you talking about-”
Before I could finish, I was interrupted by another man interjecting himself into our conversation. He was dressed entirely in gaudy red velvet, from his suit to his pants, to his sneer.
“Eyy love, fancy seeing you here!” said the intruder as he drew his hand towards Kamila’s butt.
She quickly slapped it away before it could make contact and delivered a death glare at the offender. “The hell are you doing here, Zane?” she spat, her voice soaked in venom.
“I’m a sponsor! I have as much right to be here as you,” he replied with an arrogant smirk. His expression and behavior were just as gaudy as his outfit. “And that’s Mr. Fleming to you, love,”
“Not since I quit,” replied the attendant, her sour reply providing me all the context I needed.
It was even sour enough to make Zane drop his cheerful facade. “You think you might be safe here Kamila, but nobody runs away from me! I’ll have you crawling back soon enough.” With that final, ominous statement, he turned around and left for the other side of the casino floor.
“Damn,” was all I could let out in response as a hoarse whisper. “Is that the guy who owns Zane’s casino?”
“Yeah. But don’t worry, he makes that same threat every time he doesn’t get his way,” replied the attendant with a huff. “What a fucking baby.”
I nodded drily. “Yeah, total douche. Just like his wife.”
Kamila looked at me with a curious expression. “And that’s also my problem with you.”
I just stared back at her with an equally confused look.
“I can’t say you’re just as bad as Zane, but you’re no saint either. Not from how you were acting when you first came in here three days ago.”
I looked down at the ground as the realization hit me. Kamila wasn’t wrong, that was exactly what I did back then, but it was Charisma that made me come off that way. Still, those words and even that partially-formed insult came from my lips, so they were my responsibility.
“Goldshanks just hired you because of the tournament and how important it is, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to keep you on afterwards. If you ask me, it’s only a matter of time before you try to have your way with one of us, and the moment you do, I’ll make sure you get fired. The girls here are under my protection, and I’m going to make sure they never have to deal with another Zane.”
She immediately turned around and began walking away, but stopped when I responded.
“I fucked up. I never meant to act like that when I got here, but that seemed to be the only way to get noticed. I’m sorry.”
Kamila turned around and looked at me with wary, yet searching eyes.
“But we got off on the wrong foot. I promise you I’m nothing like that, and I’m going to prove myself to you. All I ask is a chance.”
She spent several seconds looking deeply into my eyes, and scoffed. “This tournament is your chance, then. Try not to mess it up” She walked away without another word.