Althena Book 2

48. Sensory Overload

I wake up in the morning and Drogon is already out of bed. Meanie. Cyrus is coming out of his room.

I run and wrap around him. "Boat Day."

"Casino Day." He grabs my ass and hoists me up.

I kiss him and tug on his hair. "Boat day."

He gives me a deep kiss and pulls me as close as he can. "We have to do some stuff at the casino this morning. We can do the boat this afternoon."

I kiss him again then hop down and run downstairs.

"Good morning, babygirl." Drogon kisses my head.

"Bring bullets. And nobody shoot my little boat."

"We're not the ones who shot your boat, baby." Conner winks at me.

I giggle.

Clayton scratches his head. "Why are you shooting a boat?"

"We're not shooting the boat. We have to check out the casino. Monte is waiting for us. Let's go."

"Food though."

"Eat on the way, baby. He is waiting for us." Mike hands me a sandwich he made for me.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

Cyrus grabs some milk and potatoes for me. Conner and Clayton grab some food to bring, and we are off in the helicopter.

We land in Mystical Moon and Monte jumps in. "It's about a 2-hour drive north of Darkburn. It won't be too bad, and the area is clear. It's in a little town."

I am lost. "I thought we were going to the casino?"

"There's a casino north of us. I want to see how it runs. It's only open on the weekend, so we need to go now."

"Can I get in?"

"Legally no. And you're not the queen there. We're going to pretend you and Clayton are 18."

Clayton nods. "We're close anyway. Nobody will be able to tell."

"Yea, we're good."

Monte chuckles. "Make sure you're on your best behavior. You have to be an adult there."

We agree very quickly.

We land in a dirty parking lot and climb out. "It's a block over. This lot was empty, sir."

"This is fine. Thank you."

The guards land in another helicopter and follow us around the block. "THERE." Clayton points at a big flashing sign that says casino. It would be near impossible to miss.

We go in, and it's sensory overload for me. There are a lot of slots. They are all flashing different colors. Loud music is playing from each of them. The floor has different bright-colored tiles. Hospital lights are bright as hell and nearly cover the ceiling. Red lights from cameras flash in every direction. I rub my eyes and try to get used to it.

Mike takes my arm and leads me more into the building. We get to the middle and look around.

"Bank." Monte points at it. "There is nobody working here but a bank teller."

"Good morning, folks. Is everyone 18?"

Mike answers, "Yes." while I rub my eyes again.

"Is there really nobody working here?" Monte is looking all over. Then he shakes the man's hand. "Sorry, she is building a casino, and we're trying to scope out a few and check layouts and things."

"I am the manager here. We only have slot machines. So, 1 bank teller is usually enough for us. Occasionally, I'll have to step in and help her, but for the most part, it works. The police department is right around the corner, and she's behind bullet-proof glass. We have no need for security. The slots range from a penny to $10,000 a pull."

"Do they take money or just tokens?"

"Pennies and nickel slots take cash or tokens. The rest are tokens only."

I go over to the man with Monte. "I'm not going to try the 10,000 token machine, but can I see it?"

"Of course. Right this way. Penny machines start on that side, and they get more expensive the further that way you go."

"Wow, you can win a million dollars."

"Yep. The jackpot on this machine is 1 million."

"Do you own this casino?"

He shakes his head. "I'm the manager. I keep the books straight and pay the bills. The owner is a man by the name of Edwardo Nordin. He's happy with it being open 6 hours on each weekend day. So, that fits perfectly with my other job hours. It makes a lot of money considering how much it's open. I would suggest having your casino open every Friday and Saturday. Those are the big days. Where are you building one?"

I'm looking everywhere but at Monte. I know he's looking at me. "I'm still thinking. It's such a big step."

"It is that. I will let you know. Do not use Shrine Games. It is a pain and always going down. Half of the penny slots are Shrine. They are the worst. Look. I can pick up any laptop. Go to the shrine website. Log in with my info. It lists every shrine slot I have." He shows us on his laptop. "From here I can change the winning parameters. You have a 1.5% chance of hitting the jackpot. And it gets higher from there. This would be fine except their website goes down at least an hour a day. Everyone who owns shrine machines seems to try and log in at the same time. It slows the system way down. And it can be hacked. Ours were hacked once, and they were all set to 100% of the time hit the jackpot. Luckily, I checked before we opened. Nobody was able to cheat the system, but still."

"Do you have any recommendations for brands?"

"I love Firework Engine. Each person and company is different. All of our high-price slots use Firework. This is the Firework laptop. They give you a laptop to control them. But. There's no website. I have to physically take this laptop to each machine and plug it in. It does an eye scan on me. Takes a password. Then I can adjust the parameters. There's no website, so no hacking issues. The system never slows down. The laptop wouldn't turn on once, and they brought me a new one within 3 hours. I love the whole Firework system. I love the support. But. It's a lot of walking from 1 machine to the next. Checking each machine 1 at a time. You may like having the website more. That depends on you. Also, how many slots you have. I wouldn't be able to check them all 1 at a time if we had 7,000 slot machines."

"How many do you have here?"

"63 total. 14 are Firework. If you'll excuse me, please. She is in no way 18. NO CHILDREN." He runs after some lady with her kid.

"Oh, just babysit for a minute." The lady runs over to the bank. Then she runs towards us. She drops a token in the $10,000 machine. "I always have to try for my million." She smiles at us and goes back to the kid before it's done spinning. She doesn't win anything. "Thank you." She takes the kid and leaves.

Monte rubs his face. Then he looks at me and rubs his eyes.

"You folks doing ok?"

"Yea, we're good. How often do you check the perimeters?"

"Shrine machines, daily. I have to check for tampering. Firework I check once a month. And not 1 of them has ever moved. Also, if I have any big winners, I check the machine for tampering before the payout. That's always good practice. Check the machine and video. Make sure they didn't try to cheat somehow."

Monte nods. "Thank you for your time."

"Of course. Enjoy your day and good luck with your casino."

"Thank you, sir." I smile at him. He is a nice guy.

Monte pulls me outside. "Why are they still washing here?"

I scratch my head. "I don't know what you're saying."

"They are cleaning money."

"I don't know, Monte. Stop talking about it."

"I will figure this out."

"Stop looking, please."

Clayton comes out the door. "This is a very boring casino. I expected something else."

Mike and Cyrus follow him out. "You know it's bad when the kids won't stay."

"I thought my eyes were gonna blow up." I rub my eyes and blink.

Clayton nods. "My ears hurt."

"Yea that was a lot." Cyrus laughs. "And the floor was insane. Tiles of every color, everywhere."

Mike gives me a hug. "Yours will be better. You'll have a nice theme. Some artwork. Natural light from the skylight."

Clayton rubs his ears. "And you'll turn the volume on all the machines down to 25%. Nobody needs to go deaf. And you should have some food in yours. Snacks or something. The whole thing was boring."

"COFFEE SHOP." I run for the helicopter.

Cyrus picks me up over his shoulder. "Please don't run out in front of a car."

Clayton pulls me down. "You need to have chips."

"Well, they're done. Take them to the helicopter. I'll find the rest of us."