Vnator

Going to be taking a break from writing next week, so enjoy this and the next two chapters until then!

It was my first time doing “overtime”, and for probably the first time in my life, I planned to make my boss proud. He believed that there was some kind of organized force directing the large number of cheaters we’d been facing at the tournament, so it was my job to find the culprit.

“So which one of you three could it be?” I mumbled to myself as I drove down the highway. “Zane, Petrovich, or Victoria?”

Mr. Goldshanks had already narrowed my search to the three major casino owners in the area sponsoring the event, due to their power and motivations against him. Now it was my job to find out which one of them it was, and to collect proof of their wrongdoings. Figuring out whodunnit would hopefully be as simple as using [Detect Cheating] on each one when they showed up to the tournament tomorrow, but the real challenge was proving their guilt. And that was why I was here.

I exited my car and made my way to the local police department. The building was a lot smaller than I expected, especially with it being Atlantic City and all. Maybe this place wasn’t as big of a shithole as it was in my time yet? Or maybe it had something to do with what Kamila said about how only the worst kinds of people actually went to prison? Not wanting to bother about the logistics of crime and time travel when I already had enough on my plate, I went inside.

“Atlantic City Police Department, how can I help ya?” asked a bored officer who sounded like she was a competitive chain smoker outside of work.

“Hi, I’m Mike. I work for Mr. Goldshanks, from the casino hosting the tournament?” I said, flashing my work badge. “I wanted to talk to some of the cheaters we caught today, see how they got away with it for so long.”

She leered at me for several seconds before motioning me over to a clipboard. “Sign your name here and head inside. Most of them are being kept together in a holding cell, but we’re interviewin’ a couple of ‘em right now to figuh out just that, so there’s no real reason for you tah be here.”

“Thank you, but I’m getting paid to be here, so I’m going to give it a go anyway,” I replied, writing down my actual name of Chuck. Call it a hunch, or even just plain old fashioned paranoia, but I had the sudden feeling in the back of my mind that I didn’t want to leave a paper trail here.

The officer silently shrugged in response to what I’d written before returning to her magazine. It looked like there was a porno rag expertly hidden underneath a fashion one. I returned her gesture and made my way to the interrogation rooms.

The tiled floor on the way there was incredibly dusty, with each step I took leaving a very visible footprint. It didn’t make sense for there to be this much buildup, even over years, without it ever being cleaned up. Maybe a vacuum cleaner exploded a bit ago, and nobody’s gotten around to cleaning it up yet? But rather than track down a janitor, I just continued towards the interrogation rooms.

There was only a small selection of them, all lined up next to each other on the other side of the building, with one-way glass windows and thick metal doors. As I reached interrogation room A, I was met with a younger female officer exiting.

“You want to talk to the cheater too?” she asked, eyeing me suspiciously. She had curly blonde hair and an unusual amount of cleavage showing for an authority figure.

“That’s right,” I replied, pointing to my badge.

“Sure, have fun. But the man’s a… hard nut to crack,” panted the officer, seemingly out of breath.

I rolled my eyes and continued forward, but a sudden realization hit me. I’d been here long enough to know what she was implying, and the idea of an authority figure wielding their power like that sent a small shiver running down my spine. I tried not to show it, and instead just went inside and shut the door behind me.

The interrogation room consisted of white painted concrete, with a single lamp, table, and chair in its center. The lamp shined down onto a seated man with disheveled hair who was in the process of buttoning up his shirt. I recognized him, he was part of the invisible ink duo, with him as a player and his girlfriend as the dealer who marked the cards.

“Hank. Hank Phil?” I said, reading off the [Detect Cheating] popup while slowly making my way to the table. I tried playing up the role of a hardboiled interrogator, with a gruff voice, menacing presence, and everything I’d seen in the old detective shows my parents back home used to watch. I could’ve turned on Charisma and made this a cakewalk, but after seeing what my boss could do on his own without any kind of System inspired me to try and do the same. Besides, I could’ve used the practice to actually get good at intimidation on my own merits.

“Who the hell are you? You don’t look like the police,” he said. “Hold on, you’re the one who put me here! What the hell do you want?!”

“Oh, it’s pretty simple,” I casually replied before jerking my head towards him with the wicked glare of an angry chihuahua. “I want to know who your boss is.”

“Well, too bad. I’m pretty comfortable here, so I don’t think I’m going to spill.”

“Really? Underneath this hot lamp and surrounded by nothing but white?” I asked, tapping the light source to make it start swinging. As I did, its bulb immediately went out.

“Believe me, it’s not even the hottest thing around here,” the cheater replied with a smirk.

I only doubled down on the force of my gaze, channeling my inner constipation to bring forth a truly fearful presence. And that bastard somehow didn’t even flinch! Time to try something different. “How badly do you think you’ve fucked up?”

“Eh, it’s not so bad,” Hank replied with a shrug.

“Don’t forget the fact that you’re going to be banned from just about every casino in the city, if not the entire country, for the stunt you pulled on live TV. Perhaps I could pull some strings and reverse the decision if you gave me a name?”

“Really? That’s all I’d need to give?” he asked hopefully. “In that case, sure! The person who told me how to do all this is Lady Quirova.”

“Lady Quirova? What kind of name is that?”

“That’s the name of my fortune teller!” laughed the cheater, almost falling out of his seat as he kicked at the air.

“Are you telling me you don’t care about being put on the gambling world’s collective shit list? You’re never getting into a casino again after today unless you get my help, and then how are you going to earn yourself a paycheck?!”

“Oh please, poker’s just a hobby, and not even a big one. Do you think I actually do this for a living? I already have a full time job, and I doubt my boss would give a shit that I cheat at cards. He just won’t invite me to poker night anymore, and I’m not even the biggest cheater out of the bunch!”

My vision began to turn red, but I subtly forced away the urge to smash his face into the table with a shrill scream. My mouth was shut so I knew he would barely hear it. “So what punishment do you think you’ll be handed by the law, huh? You could’ve cost a very important businessman a lot of money, and they don’t take very kindly to that. I’d say that’s at least deserving of 10, maybe 20 years in the slammer?”

“Ha!” Hank shot back. “How about a hundred or two hundred dollars? And that’s going to be a piece of cake, especially with what I got paid for this job! So why don’t you go home to the casino ‘Mr. Security Man’ and send the other lady back in?”

“Fucking hell, man!” I shot back, finally losing a grip on my frustration and letting everything spill out my mouth. “Don’t you have a girlfriend also locked up here?! How the hell can you just sit here banging police officers when she’s probably scared half to death in some holding cell?”

“What’s the worry?” the cheater replied with a cocky smile. “This room is soundproof, and she ain’t gonna to find out what I’m doing with Christy!”

“God dammit, I’m not talking about you… cheating?” an epiphany struck. “But now that you brought that up, I wonder how soundproof these walls really are?”

“I dunno, that blonde chick and I got pretty wild in here before you showed up,” he nervously chuckled.

“Well then, I HOPE HANK’S GIRLFRIEND DOESN’T FIND OUT THAT HE’S HAVING SEX WITH SOMEONE ELSE!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

“Hey, hey! No need to test it out, and not like that!”

“Why? You scared she might find out?” I asked with my own smug grin for a change. “Don’t worry, I think these walls really are soundproof!”

The cheater let out a sigh in relief.

“But I’m more than capable of leaving this room.”

“Seriously dude, knock it off. It’s not funny,” said Hank fearfully.

“So it looks like there is something you’re scared of!” I replied with a sadistic grin. “I could walk out of this room right now and scream it to the whole station, and there’s nothing that can stop me!”

“If you do that, nobody here’s going to trust you to interrogate anyone here anymore. You’re going to ruin the fun for everyone!”

“Oh come on, if everyone does it, why do they hate the idea of cheating so much?” I asked angrily. “It makes no fucking sense!”

“Because it’s just wrong?” Hank asked rhetorically, as if it was common knowledge. “…But we still gotta do it! It’s like asking people not to bother having sex at all! So of course everyone keeps it on the down-low.” He almost looked guilty after saying that. “But at least it creates some pretty juicy drama, so Ultarian won’t be too mad about it.”

“But then why not just accept that part of you and have an open relationship or something?” I asked exasperated. “Sounds like that would be way easier than just breaking each other’s hearts.”

“Because… Naomi is my girl!” Hank coughed out. I tried to make eye contact to eke out anything else from him, but the cheater’s eyes were closed tight. It almost looked like he was wincing from a headache, but I couldn’t tell whether he was faking it or not.

“Whatever,” I whispered to myself. So it looked like Hank was the jealous type, but what the hell was that? The sheer cognitive dissonance that Hank just threw out there didn’t sound natural, but at the same time, it weirdly made sense. The way he talked about how everyone else felt the same way about it, especially about how all of this cheating was supposedly an open secret, perfectly fit what was wrong with this world. Perfectly down to a T.

But despite how messed up this place was, there was a place, a man, that tried to keep the worst of it away from his employees. And I still had a job to do for him.

“Does it look like I work here?” I asked, pointing at my work badge for the third time today. “Do you think I give a shit what some officers think about me pissing in their little sandbox?”

“…shit. Please don’t tell my girlfriend!”

“Tell me who your boss is, and I’ll keep my lips sealed.”

“Fine,” he said with a heavy sigh. “I don’t have an actual name, but the guy really did call himself Lady Quirova. And we only met at dead drops, the next one’s supposed to be tomorrow at 9 pm on the bench next to the roller rink on Queen Street.”

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” I asked, flashing Hank a tired, yet victorious smile.

“But seriously dude, please don’t tell her!”

“Don’t worry, I won’t. If it turns out you’re wrong, I’ll need some kind of leverage to get you to talk more.”

The cheater looked down in relief.

“Though to be honest, she’s probably in her own interrogation room where she’s getting ravaged by another police officer.”

“Fuck off! She wouldn’t do that! Take it back!”

I silently stared at him, perplexed by his hypocrisy.

He looked me right in the eye before looking back at the ground in defeat. “She wouldn’t,” he whimpered.

I didn’t reply. I simply walked out of the interrogation room.

[Skill Obtained! Intimidation (lv 1)]