On Astral Tides: From Humble Freelancer To Astral Emperor

Watching my sister as she scowled at the sharply-dressed Asian who walked past us, I appraised him with interest. Not bad, not bad. I think he might be my type…

“Oh come on Aliyah. Why so frowny? You’ll ruin the effect of that dress. You are really quite something in it.” She certainly was. It wasn’t often I could get her in more feminine clothes, but the mission profile called for it, so she was wearing a party frock with a plunging neckline, making the most of her ample assets.

“I can’t help it.” She scowled. “He was totally staring at my chest. Ugh, Makes me fucking sick.”

“Harsh as ever, aren’t you? He didn’t look trained, his movements were unpolished, but my eyes don’t lie. He had good muscle under that suit. You never know, he might be your type if you gave him a chance?”

“Yeah, right. Projecting much, moron? No, if I was talking about my type, the girl he was with…” she licked her lips seductively, as she gazed over at the small blonde girl who was taking up a spot at a table, wearing a snappy suit. “… small and cute, it really gets me going. Maybe I could go up and…”

“No way. Mind on the operation.” I shot her down, sighing. The last thing we needed was more trouble when we had finally got a decent lead on our target. “I don’t want you causing a scene trying to hit on a girl. Maybe if we have time later…” She was adorable for sure, the sort of girl I bet would be fun to drink with, unlike my sister. Speaking of… Oh Lord have mercy, we are on mission!

“Go easy on the booze sis, I know we are trying to blend in, but we can’t afford to have you go berserk here.” she was quickly draining her whiskey, the ice tinkling in the tall glass.

“I know, I know.” She replied with a sigh. “We’ll have to hit the tables if I can’t drink, we have to maintain our camouflage. But that’ll be such a damn waste of money.”

“Yeah, no shit. The cheating in here is blatant. But even so, did you notice?” I asked her. “Even when there isn’t any cheating people seem to be losing way more than they should. It’s totally weird.”

“Sharp as ever Trey. If only you would put your brain into learning Russian and Chinese like you are supposed to, rather than stupid shit like this and hitting on worthless guys. Everyone seems so … God, it’s like the opening to a zombie flick in here. Gives me the fucking creeps.” She swallowed the rest of her whiskey and let out an unladylike belch.

Seriously, acting like that you’ve no chance of getting a cute girl to pay attention to you. “Yeah, you got that right, Aliyah. You can see it in their eyes and the way they move. It’s like they are all under the influence of some strong drugs. And not the usual drugs people take at a casino. I’m starting to get a bit of a headache myself…”

She agreed with me, nodding. “Yeah, I thought it was just the booze, but I haven’t had that much, since you keep nagging me like some old bitch. I’m definitely feeling off somehow. I wonder how it’s done. If our target is simply pumping some sort of gas into the place I’m going to be damn disappointed.”

I was about to answer her when one of the guys we had undercover, who was slowly gambling away his money, sent us a signal with a swift hand sign. Ugh, why do none of our guys look good in decent clothing? That’s the downside of being a military contractor, no-one has any style… anyway ‘Guy here, suspicious’ huh?

It was the hot Asian from earlier. Somehow he was winning every toss of the dice. Which is strange, considering how rigged this place is. I gestured back, asking him to keep an eye on him, just in case. It was then that my sister elbowed me, rather too roughly as usual.

“Hey, don’t bruise my perfect skin.” I complained, but she quickly shut me down.

“You’ve got plenty of muscle, that shouldn’t hurt you. Anyway, our cutie over there… looks like she’s suspicious as well.”

The young blonde was winning most of her spins, and had amassed a huge pile of chips in short order. “Seriously, how are the two of them doing it? Are they in on the scam, or… maybe we have the wrong target?”

“No way Trey, we’ve untangled this mess perfectly. It might come to nothing, but the owner of this crappy casino is definitely our guy. Still, I wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on her if you want.” She licked her lips again, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor girl. May you remain forever untainted by my brutish, unfeminine sister…

The Asian had moved to roulette as well and lost quickly, but I couldn’t help but feel it was calculated, and I was proved right moments later. Yeah, that guy is smart, but I don’t think he’s in on this situation after all… He waited until security relaxed their vigilance to win back his losses and more, but the notable thing was he seemed wary of the guys we had stationed around the place too. Good instincts. Maybe I should let my sister approach the girl, give me a chance to talk to him… no, mission first. We can’t afford to blow it considering the expenses… My head was starting to fog up, part of the mysterious effect that we had been tasked to investigate, no doubt.

Signalling to some of our guys to change positions, I followed the Asian with my eyes. After a brief stint of losses at blackjack he met up with the girl and they passed us, heading to the bar. I signalled to Aliyah, and she then followed them over, buying another whiskey next to them. Damn, she’s right at the danger line for causing trouble… my stomach hurts, and not from whatever poison is in the air here, damn it!

Shortly afterwards the girl left, leaving him behind. My sister returned, having finished her drink, and her steps were a little unsteady. Fuck, that’s the first warning sign…

“Well, I can tell you one thing.” My sister said sourly. “They were drinking way more expensive whiskey than me. I can tell you another thing I learned from listening in. I think I want to marry her, she can keep me in the life of luxury I want. With her luck we’d never go hungry…”

“Seriously, cut the crap Aliyah. My head hurts, and the longer we stay here the more money our team is blowing through on these crooked games. Did you learn anything useful?”

“Hey, don’t talk to your sister like that.” She pouted. “I’m the one who keeps us on track, remember! It looks like he’s entering the poker tournament here. We considered it, remember, to see if we could get closer to our target, but we decided against it.”

Of course we did, a hundred grand is quite the chunk of change to wager on the off chance of running into the target, and whoever goes in will have to go without backup… “Yeah, there is a lot of security back there, and they are packing heat. Any attempt to secure the target would be risky…”

“Unless…” Aliyah smirked. “… we had someone else to distract them? I’m not sure how they’ve been doing it, but that guy and his cutie have been out-cheating this dump left and right. Like you said, there’s something really odd going on here, and I reckon that they know what it is. Best case, we can use them to flush out our quarry and distract the security. Worst case and I can just extract information from him directly. It’s a win-win.”

But a hundred grand… that’s a good chunk of our operating budget… “It sounds feasible, I admit. But why you sis? I’d feel better going in myself, I’m better at CQC if it comes down to trouble. You hit hard, but…”

“Oh come on Trey, you may have a good brain for spotting patterns, but your poker-face is shit. You always get cleaned out when we play with the guys in the barracks. Besides…” she crossed her arms under her ample chest, causing it to rise up alarmingly.

Shit, whoever makes her bras should get an award, that’s solid engineering.

“… You know most of the people in that tournament will be guys, and I have… ways… of distracting them. Besides, that Asian was checking me out too, so since he’s a secondary target now, all the better if I do it. I can get close and extract information with ease.”

True, and I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact he’s with that petite girl… still, it makes sense. But man, a hundred grand…

“All right. But it’d sure be great if we walked out of this with any of this cash left.” I made a few hand signals discretely, and over the next few minutes various big guys brushed past, dropping envelopes into my pockets. Retrieving it I counted out a hundred thousand dollars in used banknotes. Passing them to Aliyah I asked her one last time to be cautious.

“I’m counting on you. The whole operation could hinge on this. Otherwise it’s an all-guns-blazing scenario, and I don’t want the fallout.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this Trey.” She boasted. “You just keep gathering info and make sure we’ve got the movements of security down. I’ll keep in contact, and if I see a chance at the target I’ll call.” She tapped the extremely discrete earpiece hidden behind her ear that we had sourced from a contact at DARPA. “Besides, I have other weapons in here than my chest.” She patted her side.

“All right then. Good luck and give ‘em hell!” with that I watched my sister stride confidently over to the VIP room at the back, and after a brief discussion she was escorted inside.

Damn, now I need a drink too, but I have to be fresh for possible combat black-ops. But my head and stomach hurt like a bitch. I’d love to know what tech is causing this so I can bust it up. Oh well, one beer to take the edge off of it can’t hurt…