After lunch

Richie grimaced.

"Well? Go on, take it." Chikita had a smug grin.

The remainder of the haul she pulled in for the bird was stuffed between her glaciers, poking out like a wary meerkat.

"You're evil." Richie sweat.

"I'm a fuckmothering contract killer, no shit. Come on, give momma her cut." she chuckled.

Cuppy's float ball came down and snagged the wad of cash, reeling it out of Chikita's t shirt. She grit her teeth, pupils pinpricks, as the recurved hook swished just past her left glacier's ice cap. The color drained out of her face.

"Scary..." she breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thanks, Cup." Richie chuckled.

Cuppy looked at him, bemused. "Why are you scared of chest lumps? Silly."

Holly pinched the bridge of her nose. They'd have the birds and the bees talk later.

Cuppy chuckled to himself, plopping back onto the couch and reading over a pamphlet he'd found blowing around in the wind outside. It was an announcement of a lion show at a nearby carnival event. "How do they tame lions anyway? Think it's as easy as Wampy?" Cup asked, pointing at the scraggly cryptid.

The wampus cat, as if its pride had been wounded, picked Cuppy up in its jaws, clamped around the waist, and began violently shaking him, with little to no appropriate concern on Cuppy's, nay, anyone's, part. Except, perhaps for Cuppet, who had his hands on his hips in a disapproving stance.

Tame lions... tame lions... Why did that ring a bell to Richie? Come to think of it, what was that little moment earlier when the manticore first announced itself to him? He briefly asked a name... Spunky? Sputnik? Something like that.

Perhaps you could apply some of your admirable street wit to thinking through logistics outside of snagging microwave pizzas from unlocked ghetto apartments for once and figure it out, dear host. his dragons decided to chime in.

"You guys don't get to go radio silent and show up just to give me shit!" he slapped them. "...ow."

Pro tip - they were only tangible, and thus smackable, while lifted off of his skin. Cowards.

"Anyway, what's this about a carnival?" Richie asked.

"I saw an ad for it while I was checking the power, street level, too. Circus stuff!" Cuppy chirped.

Holly held her chin. "Carnival? You must mean Carnival Top. You haven't been in the city long, I take it, but it's one of the largest and most trafficked tourist attractions in Station Bay. It comprises an entire gaming and entertainment district that takes up several city blocks. Think of it as a kind of multitudinous theme park assortment of casinos, in-door amusement park rides, and stage shows. There's a prominent luxury hotel that faces the bay side of the city, and whose top suite is one of the highest points in the city. I was originally going to stay there for a while, but I didn't book the room in time. As you may be able to surmise, some rather well-to-do visitors grab up the vacancies like hot cakes."

Freyja narrowed her eyes at Holly. "Glad to know my tax dollars are going toward super glamorous accommodations for the secret police."

"You don't pay taxes." Holly said.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"No. No I don't." Freyja smiled, tail wagging.

“That reminds me, we need a TV.” Richie smiled.

“You’re going to burn through money faster than Chikita can savage creatures for it at this rate, going by Holly’s purse.” Freyja pointed to the empty carcass of the archaeologist’s financial standing. “Before we blow through all ten thousand dollars, we need to find a way to reinvest it and keep ourselves stable.”

“What do you suggest?” Chikita scratched her head.

“Cuppy gave me an idea just now.” Freyja said. “Carnival Top is a gambling city within the city, essentially?” she regarded Holly. “Answer’s right in front of us. We gamble.”

“Yeah?!” Chikita’s eyes lit up, bearing the glossy reflections of tumbling dice within them.

“Says you and a few thousand other suckers who lose their car, house, and left kidney trying to break even. Does this even qualify as a plan?” Holly adjusted her glasses.

“No, hear me out.” Freyja said. “I bet with Cuppy’s powers, and yours, we could rig the odds in our favor. We’ll be the ones doing the suckering, and make bank. Besides, could be fun to take a vacation, play some games, hit some rides - I want to see this luxury hotel and sit at the foot of their best bed too.”

“Yay! Vacation!” Cuppy chirped.

“Small problem with this scam.” Holly said. “All but one of you are minors, with Cuppy looking like a small child in particular, and the only one of you who is of age to get anywhere near a slot machine or a betting table is way too irresponsible, has no documentation, and will pick fights with random tourists.”

Chikita gave a prolonged glare at Holly and her accurate slander.

“Cook us up some false IDs. You can hack that, right?” Richie asked.

“Even if I do, you guys don’t look the part.” Holly held her chin.

“I’ll figure out how to get us through security, Richie and me.” Freyja said. “Cuppy’s the tricky one. He technically is a stunted adult, we can just tell them that. We’ll leave out the part about by how many years. If need be, Richie and I can enter separately, bouncers might get too suspicious if we group up and all have baby faces. If the IDs aren’t taken at face value, we’ll just bribe or seduce our ways in.”

“You do not speak for me.” Richie stuck out his tongue.

“How’s the doll supposed to help?” Chikita thumbed at Cuppy.

“Easy.” Holly said. “I think I already know where Freyja is going with this. His string powers are perfectly suited to cheating. He can sense the interior of machines and their complex parts, or detect the subtle biological tells of a betting man, like their pulse, twitches, even the chemicals flooding their bodies. As long as he knows what to focus his threads toward, he seems to have an innate knack for analyzing and reverse engineering anything he wants.”

Cuppy nodded, pleased with himself.

“So all we have to do,” Richie said, “Is give him a few crash courses on human anatomy, biology, and chemistry and such, and the rules and workings of the casino games.”

“Lot easier with internet access.” Freyja admitted.

“Think you can manage that if we pick up a computer?” Richie asked Holly.

“A TV splurge is going to be expensive enough. You go on ahead and grab that, and whatever you need to take with you to Carnival Top. Everyone with my clearance level back at the Institute had to be a master computer technician and engineer by default, among other prerequisite specialities. Easier to list the degrees I didn’t need to make the cut than did, practically. I ran stock of all the parts you liberated from the garbage heap. Not just weapons, you have more than enough for me to make the framework for a computer from scratch. Cuppy’s wires can help me with a bulk of the hardware too, and I’ll figure out some kind of proxy to keep us hidden from the surface-level network. If I borrow Cup and stay here for about five or six hours, I can get it done by today. How about the rest of you get out and taste some fresh air for a bit?” she suggested. “Just be discreet. I don’t think Mason will just cap you in broad daylight amidst witnesses, but that doesn’t mean you should make a scene recklessly either.”

“Keep a low profile, got it.” Richie said. “Been trying to do that.” he glared at Cuppy and Freyja. “Anyway, come on Frey, walkies. You’re helping me lug the tube back.” he retrieved a red wagon from the hall closet.

Freyja grimaced. “Damn you. You’re trying to make me exert physical effort again.”

Chikita cracked out her neck. “I have no idea what most of any of this means, so I’ll just take you future people’s word for it. I think I’ll hang back here too, check Cuppy’s mystic fortifications around the property, and where the rough border between our territory and no man’s land is. Should be advantageous to mark exactly where the safe zone terminates, if only for deciding how long your cat’s leash should be.” Chikita pat the wampus cat; it growled at her in the back of its throat.