Gamble

If all goes well, I’d be able to simply swipe the scientist's wallet with a hug. But the tricky part was going to be putting it back. I’d need a little help for that part.

Luckily, my two allies weren’t too far away, watching from a distance. A simple glance was enough to signal them to come over and back me up.

The room I was looking for was a quiet one off on the other wing of the hotel. It was a lounge for anyone who needed to get away from the crowd. Once we were in there, it wasn’t hard finding the man sitting off in the corner, watching a hologram of girls dancing on a stage.

“That the guy?” Ikari-san asked me.

“Yeah.” I took initiative and approached the man. “Excuse me, hello!”

I tapped the man on the shoulder, prompting him to turn around. He was a humble looking older man with glasses and a kind smile. Despite watching the virtual woman, he didn’t strike me as the lecherous type. 

He appeared to be holding a paper in his right hand and writing something with his left.

“Ahh, yes. Hello. Are you Mrs. Hibiki-san?”

“I am!” I opened up my arms for a hug. “Sophia-chan has told me so much about how cool you are! I want to be a scientist too!”

“Ahh!” he cheered as he accepted my hug.

This was where it all went down.

I might not seem like the type, but I learned a bit about pickpocketing from the old guy at the dumpster. Without giving away too many secrets, I got pretty good at doing it.

Another point on my witch card.

The trick is that once you know the type of person your looking for, in this case, a middle aged man who probably kept his wallet in his right back pocket, all you needed to do was cause some sort of distracting sensation on him to give yourself a chance to swipe into his pocket.

Bingo. Got what I needed, and he didn’t suspect a thing.

I figured the wallet was in his right back pocket because he was writing with his left hand, meaning he was left handed. Well, he’d probably want to keep his wallet in the right pocket so that he could pull it out with his right hand, then sift through it precisely with his left.

Next came Ikari-san’s introduction using his Kishimoto alias. That was when I decided to make a quick scan of his card.

The device I was using to make the scan wasn’t much bigger than a cell phone, it just was a bit thicker to let the card slide through. With my husband taking the man’s attention, I was able to cleanly scan the whole card in seconds.

“Must be rough working at the factory,” Ikari-san said. “How many days a week they make you clock in?”

“Mmm…five days a week, 8 hours each. But that doesn’t account for the overtime they force on me.”

“I hear that, man. You should see what they make me do at work. You an early bird?”

“I’m awake at the strike of 6 am every morning.”

We needed to get the wallet back in his pocket as soon as we could, but another hug from me might be a little suspicious.

While the guys were talking, I swiftly passed the wallet to Ko. She knew what to do.

“Excuse me, mister, can I have a hug too?” Ko asked, playing up her childlike cuteness.

“Aww, you remind me of my daughter when she was little. Those days are long gone...”

He bit the bait, then kneeled down for a hug.

But I’d overestimated her little grasp, because she dropped the wallet behind him.

My heart started pounding.

He’d been alerted to the sound, but Ko quickly took his attention back.

“Waaaah!” she fake cried. “I miss grandpa!”

“Oh dear…” he went in for another hug. “It’s alright, dear. Don’t cry now…”

It was now or never. I quickly bent down and picked up the wallet.

Ko started shaking herself around, distracting the man as much as possible while I stuffed the wallet back where I’d taken it from.

Just to keep us safe from prying eyes, Ikari-san stood between me and the other people in the room so nobody would see exactly what I was doing.

Thank God, we managed to get it back in.

“There there…” he patted Ko on the back as her fake crying eased. “I’m sure your grandpa would be proud of how much of a good girl you are.”

“You mean it, mister?” *sniffle sniffle*

She was a good little actress.

Despite that heart attack of a situation, everything went well. Just to keep us from looking suspicious, we struck up a conversation with Mr. Yume. I managed to convince him I was actually interested in joining the profession. He was impressed that his daughter had actually made an intelligent friend.

I laughed at that, but it wasn’t an act.

We had what we needed now. So after about an hour of conversing, we decided to get out of this place.

“Ko, what was that?” Ikari-san glared at her while we were making our way to the exit.

“I apologize. my arms are a bit short, and I couldn't find his pocket."

It’s not like she could have put it in another pocket or anything, since then he might realize something was wrong.

Ikari-san made a disgruntled breath, then looked solemnly at me.

“Oh well. I gotta remember she just a kid.”

I think we both easily forget that she’s just a kid. We expected her to go above and beyond the call of duty, but she's only going to go so far until she's older. And even then, I'm not sure we wanted her to.

***

At the exit, they were making people line up to check their bags. Apparently Sophia had woken up and suspected that that idiot from earlier had stolen something from her.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

I think it’s pretty obvious they weren’t going to let us leave with a scanning device. Maybe I could open it up and take out the memory card? No…not enough time.

It was almost my turn to have my bag checked, so I did the only rational thing I could think of.

I threw it out.

It landed in the garbage can right next to me, along with a napkin I’d had in my purse. I wanted to make it look as little strange as possible.

As crazy as this was, it was a gamble that wasn’t totally out of my favour. If things go well, I know exactly where this will end up.

That luck that’s been following me all night? I prayed it was going to stay with me just a little bit longer…