Gambling at Checkout

“We're back, Recruit Number One and we're not a bunch of poor muckers anymore!” Eight obnoxiously shouted, as she kicked open the door to our bungalow.

A snoring noise emanated from one of the hammocks hanging from the ceiling. Rollnaldo was fast asleep. His square shape was a bit rounder than usual from his bloated stomach.

Eight swung up a plastic shopping bag that was densely filled with black poker chips and dropped it down on top of him.

Rollnaldo’s eyes popped open as the bag of chips knocked the wind out of him. “Mother pipper! Is there a bowling ball in here?”

Eight gave a naive laugh. “Don’t be silly, my love. They paid out our winnings in one hundred dollar chips. That there is one hundred thousand dollars… minus forty seven percent withheld for taxes.”

So actually sixty-three thousand dollars.

Eight might be the first domestic terrorist in the universe that actually pays their taxes. Honestly, I’d say this gave her even less credibility as a terrorist.

Rollnaldo jumped down from his hammock. “Well, I sat through that full nine hour long timeshare informational seminar. If it wasn’t for the free buffet, that would have been a worse torture than water boarding.”

“Was it really that bad?” I raised my eyebrow.

He shook his head. “Even worse. Those were some of the most relentless salessnowmen that I’ve ever met. If I wasn’t a veteran salesman myself, I probably would have caved.”

“Good job, Recruit Number One. Thanks to your sacrifice we were able to flawlessly pull off our operation and secure funding for our organization.” She began digging around in the shopping bag. “Since both of you did such a good job, here’s your cut of the profit.”

Excitedly, both Rollnaldo and I held out our hands.

“Here you guys go.” She placed our reward into the palms of our hands.

Immediately, our glee turned to disappointment.

I looked at her confused. “Uh…this is a single hundred dollar chip and a stick of chewing gum.”

“Yes it is.” She responded plainly. “I didn’t want to say anything earlier, Recruit Number Six, but your breath stinks.”

Rollnaldo held up a napkin. “She gave me two hundred dollars worth of chips and this explicit drawing.”

“Uh huh, You got more money because I like you better.” She grabbed the napkin back from Rollnaldo’s hands and looked at it curiously. “What’s so explicit about this? It’s just a picture I drew of us on the beach holding hands.”

In her hands was a crudely drawn picture in red pen of a stick figure of herself with two excessively large circles drawn on her chest area, While Rollnaldo was just a square with a smiley face drawn on him.

I paused for a moment, trying to process the image. “What the heck are those surrounding the two of you?”

Eight Shrugged at me, confused. “Those are just bananas from the banana trees on the beach.”

Rollnaldo slowly shook his head. “Those definitely don’t look like bananas and I’m pretty sure you're confused with coconut trees.”

Rollnaldo was definitely right about those banana drawings. Honestly, part of me felt that the entire image on that napkin should have been blurred out.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I would hang that drawing front and center on my fridge.” It didn’t seem like she was seeing what we were. She shoved the image back at Rollnaldo. “Make sure you frame that when you get the chance.”

Interjecting back in, I cut back to the chase. “But seriously though, after all I went through today, you’re only giving me one hundred bucks?”

She rolled her eyes at me. “You’re an ungrateful little mucker, aren’t you Recruit Number Six or should I say Seven? Let’s not forget who lost my bombs back in Blackjack Crossing. I should cut your reward in half, but I only have one hundred dollar denomination chips.”

I let out a huff, as I crawled into one of the hammocks. “Whatever… It's getting late, I’m just going to bed.”

Just wait until the twenty-four hour cooldown is up.

“Yeah, I agree. We need to get up early to check out, so these snow pippers don’t try to catch us with any late check out fees.” Rollnaldo concurred.

“Fine, you two get your rest. I’ll be back in the morning. Now.that I have the money I need, there are some things I need to pick up.” She had a devious look on her face as she slipped out of the entrance of the igloo.

It probably would have been a golden opportunity to ditch her, but Rollnaldo had already passed out and I was so drained, I didn't have the energy to go back down the mountain. For now we were just going to have to bear with her until I could defeat her in a Gamble Showdown. I wasn't sure what she was plotting, but I really didn't want to get roped into it.

♠️♠️♠️

“Get the pip up, Lucky! We overslept.” Rollnaldo frantically called out.

“Huh-.”

Before I could even react, he untied one of the ends to my hammock, causing me to fall out of it, crashing to the ground.

“We have literally ten minutes to check out or we're getting hit with a fee!” He scrambled to get together his belongings. “Quick, shove these miniature soaps in your pockets.”

“Don't forget there's free snacks in the mini fridge.” I pointed out.

“Ah pip it, let's just take the entire fridge too.”

The two of us proceeded to ransack the room of any complimentary item we could get our hands on, along with some ‘questionably free’ items. By the time we left the room and managed to return the key just in the nick of time, Rollnaldo's cart was probably twice the weight it was before we came. To conceal everything we took, he tossed a tarp over it.

“We'll be long gone before these snowmen notice a thing.” He snickered to himself just as we were making our leave.

“Today might be our lucky day. Eight never came back last night. I think we're finally fre-.” I spoke too soon.

“Sup muckers.” She casually greeted us as she seemingly manifested out of nowhere.

“Where the pip have you been?” Rollnaldo wondered.

She smirked. “Oh you know, just taking care of some business.”

I pointed to her. “What’s with that bag you got there?”

On her back was a sketchy looking black rucksack that was larger than she was. I wasn't sure how she was managing to carry it around, but her back muscles must have been crazy strong.

“It's full of bombs and some other illegal stuff that I bought.” She just came out and said it without an ounce of hesitancy.

“Alright Eight, it's been fun and all, but I think this is where we go our separate ways. I challenge you to a Gamble Showdown!” I declared.

“Alright, fine. Nose goes. One, two, three go!” Speaking as quickly as she could and before I even had time to react, she already was touching her nose with her index finger.

“Come on, not again!”

“I see you still haven't learned your lesson, Recruit Number Nine.” She let out a chuckle.

“Why was I demoted two ranks this time?” Not that her make believe terrorist recruit hierarchy made a difference to me, I was just curious.

“Calling you Recruit Number Eight would just get way too confusing, since my name's already Eight, so I just skipped it and demoted you down to nine.” She explained. “Well, we should probably head out. The lift probably won't be too busy around this time.”

“Wait, what do you mean lift?” Rollnaldo looked at her curiously.

“There's a cable car just over there that's used to bring people up and down the mountain.” She pointed over toward a large wooden sign with a large blue arrow on it that read, ‘gondola lift’.

“What the pip!?” Rollnaldo held his arms out with an irritated look on his face. Why'd you make us climb this mother pipping mountain by hand when we could have taken that yesterday?”

Eight shrugged. “Then we would have had to walk around the entire mountain, my love.”

Rollnaldo just stood with his mouth open, unsure how to even respond.

“Listen Eight, I know you want us to be part of your terrorist group, but I kind of have a goal of my own. It's hard to explain, but I need to get to the High Roller Province to see the Kasino King.” I attempted to rationalize with her. She was basically holding us hostage thanks to this country’s laws. If we kept getting side tracked by her shenanigans, there was no way I was going to make it home. At this rate it was more likely that I'd end up in jail again.

“That works out perfectly. It just so happens I was planning on paying the Kasino King a visit myself.” She had a devious grin across her face as she spoke.

That wasn't what I wanted to hear. She was without a doubt plotting something. I just hoped it didn't affect my chances of getting back to my own world…