Casino in Space

"Well little bro, looks like we finally made it. Time to make some money!" My brother declared as we stood in front of the entrance to a massive structure that resembled a grand palace, of which nearly every square inch was covered by neon lights.

"I'm not so sure about this, Randy." I began casting my doubts on this money making plan of his.

"It's your first time here, so just let your big bro show you the ropes."

The neon sign that spanned the entire roofline of the complex read, "Space Las Vegas." It was exactly what you'd expect by the name; a casino that was located in the rings of Saturn on top of an artificial platform that orbited the planet. In fact, this casino was the largest in our solar system. It was the size of a city and its neon lights were so bright they could be seen from Earth.

Randy led the way through a set of glass doors that automatically slid open as we approached them. Before going any further, a security-bot dressed in a black suit blocked our path. This robot was nearly identical to the others we've encountered over the past two days, except for the fact that it was much taller and absolutely shredded. It was essentially a monitor on top of a bodybuilder’s frame.

It spoke in a deep intimidating mechanical voice, "please present your identification. Boop Beep."

My brother pulled out a chip from his pocket, which displayed his holographic driver's license when he flipped a switch. The security-bot scanned it with a red laser that came from its finger tip. After a moment of processing, it displayed a picture of Randy and his info on its face screen:

Name: Randy R Rodgers

Age: 27

Sex: M

Hair Color: Cyan

Eye Color: Black

Species: Earthling

Residence: Space Chicago

"Go ahead. Boop beep." The robot let him through.

As I approached next, it looked me up and down and asked, "are you even old enough to be in here? Boop beep."

Unfortunately, I had a bit of a baby face and was on the shorter side, so it wasn't all that uncommon for me to be confused for a minor.

I presented my ID and the security-bot scanned it. A picture of me along with my info displayed on its screen:

Name: Ralphy R Rodgers

Age: 21

Sex: M

Hair Color: Cyan

Eye Color: Black

Species: Earthling

Residence: Space Chicago

"My scan shows that you are in fact an adult. Please proceed. Boop beep." It allowed me in.

My brother put his arm around me and waved his hand in front of us as we faced the vast sea of slot machines and table games that lay before us. "Well little bro, how does it feel to be in a casino for the first time?"

I squinted my eyes. "To be honest, all these lights are kind of giving me a headache and it's a bit loud in here."

"You'll get used to it.” He completely brushed off my complaints, as he looked towards the bar. “How about we grab a drink, then hit up the ATM!"

"Wait a second. How are you going to buy alcohol if you don't have any money?" I wondered.

He let out a loud laugh and pulled out a gold plastic card from his pocket. "It just so happens that I'm a gold tier member here. I got a bunch of comped stuff saved up. Even though we’re flat broke, we get to live like kings tonight!"

"Don't you only get comps from los-."

Randy shushed me. "Don't jinx us. Gambling's all about having good mojo. If we believe hard enough, we'll win for sure."

At this point, it was pointless to argue with him. It wasn't like my Twenty Seven stollars was even that much money, anyways. Whether he blew it didn't really matter, since we were probably going to still have to find some kind of odd job to get the money we needed.

As Randy went to order his drink, I went to withdraw my funds from the ATM. I plugged my info into the terminal and it spit out a few green metallic credit card sized plates. Despite cashless methods of payment like credit and debit cards being the most frequent payment methods in the galaxy, physical currency still had its uses.

After about five minutes, my brother returned. "You sure you don't want something to drink? I have more drink vouchers than I know what to do with." He offered as he sipped on a large glass of some sort of green glowing beverage.

"What even is that?"

He held his glass up in front of his face and stared at it for a second. "No clue. I just told the bartender-bot to surprise me."

Whatever it was, it didn't look like it was meant for human consumption, but that didn't seem to bother Randy as he downed the entire thing. Around his mouth it left a glowing green ring and when he lifted his shirt, I swore his stomach had a subtle glow to it.

"Alright little bro, time to hit up the roulette table."

I followed behind him as he made his way to the table games section with a confident swagger in his step. He immediately locked on to one table in particular. "I can feel it. This one has good mojo."

"I don't get it, aren't the odds the same on all roulette wheels." I was still skeptical of his logic.

He looked me in the eye, with a stern look on his face. "Listen, if we're going to win, I can't have you questioning my methods. I need absolute blind faith from you or you're going to mess up the mojo. Do you understand?"

I was pretty certain that this "mojo" stuff he kept talking about was just a bunch of superstitious mumbo jumbo, but I supposed I had nothing to lose.

I nodded my head and handed him the twenty seven stollars in my pocket. "I have faith you can do it, Randy!"

He confidently smirked while he walked up to the table, which was empty other than the robo-dealer, dressed in a pair of black dress pants, a matching dress shirt, and a red velvet vest.

"Minimum bets are twenty five stollars. Beep bop." The robot informed him.

Randy slapped the money down onto the table. "Let me get a quarter, robo-bro. I'm playing outside."

It dished him out one purple colored poker chip. Randy took it in his hand and looked out at the primarily black and red grid on the table. He then proceeded to flick his chip up with his thumb. It landed back down and rolled around the grid until finally resting on green zero.

The robo-dealer placed its mechanical hand on the roulette wheel and proceeded to spin it counterclockwise. It then took a small white ball in its hand and flung it on the rim of the wheel, in the opposite direction.

It waved its hand across the table. "No more bets. Beep bop."

Randy and I watched in anticipation while the ball went round and round the wheel. My adrenaline only continued to increase as the ball slowed down. Eventually, the ball's momentum finally died down. It plopped in and out of a couple slots until it finally rested on...

"Duck yeah! I told you not to doubt the mojo, little bro." Randy jumped up with excitement as the ball landed on green zero.

The robot shelled out our winnings. "Congratulations on the 35 to 1 payout. Beep bop."

35 to 1 meant we just won thirty five times our bet, which came out to 875 stollars along with our initial bet of twenty five stollars. Maybe my brother was actually on to something after all. Now that we had the money, we were ready to-.

"What the heck are you doing!?" I exclaimed as I witnessed him put all our chips back down onto green zero once again.

"Don't doubt the mojo. We can win even more."

"But we've already won what we need and some."

"No more bets. Beep bop."

My stomach dropped as I heard those words. Once again the ball went round and round until it eventually settled on...

"No!" I shouted on the top of my lungs.

The group of crab-like aliens playing poker at the table to our right and the drunken walrus looking thing playing craps at the table on our left all looked up and stared at us from the scene I was causing.

Randy let out a sigh, "that's what happens when you don't have faith. You messed up the mojo."

It landed on black eighteen. The dealer swept our chips back into its pile. I felt like I was going to throw up.

"Hey cheer up, little bro. We still got two stollars left. It's not over yet. Let's take a break and redeem these free meal vouchers I have at the food court."

He attempted to console me, but I was so angry I refused to speak with him. I did still follow him to the food court though… I wasn't about to pass up a free meal, considering we were broke now.

🍔🍔🍔

Sitting across from my brother in a food court booth, I shot him a death stare while I ate off my plate of comped chicken tenders. After losing all that money, I had no idea how he could sit there with a smile on his face.

"I don't think this business thing is going to work out. We should just cut our losses and sell the ship." I stated bluntly.

He looked up from his bowl of jambalaya and let out a sigh, "listen little bro, I genuinely appreciate you dropping everything and taking this leap of faith. I'll even make you a deal..." He put our remaining stollars on the table. "If we can't win the money we need for those fees with these last two stollars, you can do whatever you want with the ship and we can put an end to this venture."

To my surprise he was actually in agreement with me.

He continued on, "but for this final shot, you have to agree to have one hundred percent blind faith in me."

"Fine, but if you can't pull this off, we're putting this whole thing behind us."

He let out a laugh as he slid the money towards me. "oh, I won't be the one pulling off anything... You will!"

"But-."

He cut me off. "Butts are for crapping. You agreed you wouldn't doubt me. I want you to listen carefully to each and every one of my instructions."

At the moment, there was nothing else for me to lose. I would give him this last chance and humor him. After finishing our food, he led me to the center of the casino floor amongst the mass of slot machines.

"I want you to go with your gut and find a machine that's got good mojo." He ordered me.

I did as he said and wandered around scanning the area for the right slot. Eventually one in particular caught my eye…

Unlike all the wild and crazy modern slot machines with their multiple displays, over the top animations, and bonus games, this one was a non-digital old school machine with simply three columns and a lever on the side. It was tucked in a corner and completely unassuming. I don't know why, but it felt as though this one was calling me.

I took a seat in front of it, while Randy stood over my shoulder. He gave me my next set of instructions. "Put your two stollars in and bet all of it."

I proceeded to insert the money into the slot on the machine…

"Are you sure?"

"Don't doubt the Mojo!" He scolded me.

It was now or never. I looked up at the machine and pulled the lever. All three columns began spinning. I took a moment to watch, until finally hitting the stop button. There were butterflies in my stomach as each wheel stopped one by one...

7... 7... 7! The machine made a pinging noise as it paid me out exactly two hundred stollars in winnings.

"I'm sorry I doubted you!" I exclaimed, turning toward Randy in disbelief.

He obnoxiously smacked my shoulder. "I knew you could do it, little bro!"

I hit the redeem button and grabbed my voucher. "Well, I guess all that's left to do is cash this in."

"Wait a second! How's about we hit up black jack and-."

I stopped him right there. "I think we've had enough gambling for one day. We have actual business we need to take care of."

With that, I quickly claimed my winnings and made my way for the exit. The last thing we needed was to lose all this again and end up back at square one. Now with the funds secured, we were a step closer to getting our space food truck business officially started.