GAME KING
We decided, as a group, not to tell Lester about any of the IAA stuff. If he didn't like the idea of the a second government agency getting involved on our end, he could call the thing off entirely. We had no way of continuing the heist without him and he might even be inclined to frame us up for that Zancudo job and the plane crash at the reservoir. Lester sometimes seemed like funny little geek with no social skills and no friends, but I'd witnessed the effect he could have on the lives of people who had crossed him. In his own way he'd probably been responsible for more deaths than me or my whole crew.
Sento didn't know anything about Lester and he had no idea why we'd sprung him out of the Altruists camp. We tried to get as much information out of him as possible on the drive back to the City. As well as being a hacking legend, Austin Sento had once been a virtuoso violinist. At one time he had been at the top of his profession, but his weakness had been gambling. He'd lost several fortunes playing poker, blackjack and betting on horse racing, but then he'd discovered slot machines. As he sank deeper into debt his health suffered, his performing skills deteriorated and his career nose-dived. By the time he'd lost his house and his wife, he'd hit upon a fool proof way to beat one of the most popular gaming machines, the Lady Luck just like the one me and Lester had seen in the Casino that night.
When we reached my apartment Paige had set up a Lady Luck machine in my lounge. It had been redirected via the Casino's own maintenance department, courtesy of Paige's own hacking skills. The Lady Luck was an old design, every bit as much of a classic to gamblers as a Declasse Tornado or Voodoo was to me. It had been upgraded over the years with new electronics and software patches and other kinds of cosmetic improvements, but at it's heart was still the same basic code that it had run on since the mid-eighties, and that was where it's flaw lay Sento explained.
Within minutes of walking into my apartment, Sento had begun playing on the machine. His hands moved up and down the keys while his eyes remained steady on the video display reels. The faces on the virtual playing cards flicked by with an artificial sound effect. Slowly after about forty minutes Sento had a full house lined up thousands of dollars banked up just waiting for him to hit the 'Payout' button.
"How old is this machine, is it up to date?" He jabbered.
"It's what they use in the Casino up at the racetrack," I said.
I watched him play it some more and noticed he still wasn't taking the payout from the hands he'd won. His 'Bank' was building up to over twelve-thousand.
"This is the glitch," he said. "Integer overflow! Keep all your winnings, then wait until the payout hits $16,384!" He showed me the magic number rolling up in the corner of the screen as he made another full house, then everything went blank.
"What happened? Has it stopped working?" I started to look for the socket where the machine was plugged in to do a hard reset. Sento stopped me. The machine glitched back into life.
"It resets the memory, but look." He pressed all of the hold buttons in turn, then off again, then he hit 'Spin'. Instead of losing the use of the hold buttons on the second spin they'd become a permanent function. He could make any hand he wanted at will.
"All we need is for you get seven kings, can you do that?" I asked him.
"Sure, I can get anything I want with this set up now. What do we get for seven kings?" He asked. I picked up the phone and dialled one of Lester's many phone numbers.
"You get a brand new Sandking truck," I said, 'and we get over two million dollars,' I muttered to myself.
"But I can't drive," said Sento.
Someone on the other end of the phone picked up and I said,
"The new machine's been installed and my operator's warming it up right now."
"Good. Get your man cleaned up and buy him some clothes, but don't get rid of the beard or hair. Take him out on Friday, then get yourself down to the beauty parlour. I left you all the details." With that he hung up. I knew about the 'take him out part' and for once it wasn't an instruction to have someone assassinated. Lester wanted Sento to be in the Casino on Friday night and he wanted me to be in the Los Santos Customs next to Lester's Garment Factory.
Sitting on the desk in my Heist Planning Room was an envelope with a bunch of photographs of Sandking trucks and some scribbled notes about where my crew all needed to be for the next setup job. Now we had the sub, a Bugstars van and equipment, the insects, and Lester had worked out the finer details of how we would rob the FIB's money laundering Casino, the getaway vehicle was the last piece of the puzzle.
I introduced Sento to 21st century personal hygiene technology then took him down to Ponsonby's for a new suit. I chose him something flashy that made him look like an eccentric tech millionaire. I guessed that the hair and beard would be so he didn't get recognised too easily by the Casino's security systems, since Sento had been barred from about every major gambling establishment in the country. While I was doing that Jane and Wilby went out to Blaine County and got hold of a Sandking XL. They drove it down to La Mesa to the LS Customs where it got stripped down and fitted with a long list of modifications.
The Sandking was going to get us and the money boxes out of the Casino and out to the ocean, where the mini-sub would be waiting. For the last week I'd been flying around East of Los Santos working out my route. Jane and Paige had also been busy modifying the sub to carry the metal boxes and doing test dives along the coast. They'd found somewhere deep enough to get the sub in without it being seen, yet close enough to a high cliff so we could drive the truck off of it. Hopefully we lose the cops and maybe fool them into thinking we'd driven in by accident and drowned. Either way, they wouldn't be able to follow us once we were safely in the mini-sub.
So after I'd given Sento his brand new fake ID dropped him off at the Casino I drove down to the customisation shop to where our Sandking was sitting with nine of the best mechanics we could find. They'd upgraded the truck's engine, added a nitro boost, a bigger turbo, better brakes and fitted stronger suspension to take the extra weight of the cash boxes and armour plating. They'd also built in a false compartment under the rear seats to store SCUBA gear, and they'd even hidden Micro SMGs inside the wheel arches so we could get to them inside the Casino if we needed to. Despite all of this, from the outside the truck looked totally standard. The only thing we didn't know was the colour of the truck we'd be switching it with, that was going to be the tricky part.
I sent Jane and Stone off in a Pounder delivery truck to go to the Vapid dealership in Pillbox Hill. I called Wilby at the East Docks and told him Sento was building up to hit the jackpot. Wilby reported that he was at the top of one of the cranes and he was looking out over all the brand new Sandking trucks which had just been unloaded off the container ship from China (even Vapid had stopped making things in the USA). Somewhere among the dozens of new trucks would be the one destined for the Casino.
Paige was on her usual evening shift in the Casino and was giving us regular updates. Staff weren't allowed to carry phones or other electronic devices on the Casino floor, so we were relying on her half-hourly smoke breaks. The last we'd heard Sento was still building up his payout pot towards the magic number that would trigger the glitch. This waiting was always the worst part of any mission.
It was difficult co-ordinating everyone, not being there myself, hoping it all came together somehow. I kept telling myself that I had a good crew, I could trust them to handle anything, but that meeting in the tunnel was still bothering me. I didn't trust the IAA and I doubted they'd let us off the hook so easily. Maybe they'd let us steal the money then they'd rob us? Maybe they'd use the whole thing to blackmail us into doing more of their dirty work. It all made me uneasy, and it was a distraction that I really didn't need right now.
I was snapped back into the present by an unscheduled call from Paige.
"Sento's having problems, the glitch isn't working!" She said.
"Not working? Is it the machine? I thought they were the same as the one you had shipped to my apartment?" I said.
"I don't know, he says there's something different about them. Maybe they've been patched." She rang off abruptly. If Sento couldn't win the Sandking we couldn't get our replacement in there and our getaway was busted. We could steal the stock Sandking from the Casino but we'd never survive all those cops in an unmodified truck. Crucially, the jump from the cliff and into the deep water was just too far without the uprated engine and nitro. I called the others to tell them to sit tight and get ready for a long wait, but I knew this would only make them more nervous.
The longest hour of my life passed and then another call came in from Paige.
"We figured it out, the machines were set for a five dollar limit. All I had to do was set them to the maximum ten-dollar limit. I don't think anyone noticed. Sento managed to get the glitch working and he's on his fourth king now."
"Do you think anyone knows he's cheating?" I asked.
"Technically he isn't, he hasn't taken a single payout yet so none of the alerts will be triggered in the control room."
Sento had told me one evening how he was never actually convicted of fraud. In court his defence lawyer had maintained that all his client had done was operate the machine using its normal interface, he had not modified or caused the machine to malfunction in any way. His case was eventually thrown out, but the Casino had already confiscated his winnings. Unfortunately the tax on those winnings was still due, and without the money to pay it he'd gone to prison.
Almost another hour went by before Sento made his sixth king. Then another half an hour later Paige texted me a single number '7'. He'd done it! Sento was now the proud owner of a $45,000 Sandking, whether he wanted it or not. He'd been led off to fill out the paperwork, and sure enough the Casino had put in the call to the Vapid dealership for a replacement. Jane called in that the flatbed truck had left the dealership and they were now following it to the docks. Finally, it was on!
I told everyone in the workshop to get ready. They already had our Sandking masked up on a rig inside the spray booth. The computer controlled paint mixer was filled with the special quick drying paints. Jane told us when the flatbed had arrived at the docks then Wilby took over the channel to say he could see it. Meanwhile Jane drove the Pounder into position ready for the switch. I patched Wilby's voice over the sound system in the workshop and all the mechanics listened intently for one single word, a colour, so the spray booth could run its program.
"The flatbed's driving around to the row of Sandkings. He's stopped. He's getting out." Wilby said. "He's checking all the licence plates, looking for the right one."
There was static filled silence, then Wilby's voice broke through again,
"He's got to the end of the row, right on the corner of the docks. Wait, the last truck, he's looking all around it. I think it's our truck!"
"You sure?" I said.
"Haha," laughed Wilby, "the guys complaining to himself about how he's going to have to move about four or five trucks to get it out, this is good, it should buy us some time."
"Dammit, tell us what colour it is!" I yelled at him down the line.
"Oh, it's blue. With chrome detailing. Hold on, I'm sending you the photo now."
The guy on the spray booth computer had already got the Vapid Sandking XL colour chart open and punched the correct ratios into the paint matching system. The machine sprang into life. Then Wilby's photo came through and we saw the blue Sandking with its chrome trim and a bed-cap.
"Remember, you got twelve minutes until it's dry after it leaves the booth," said the spray guy. I got my stopwatch ready. Everyone crowded around the laptop screen looking at the photo then ran around collecting parts. Four guys pulled down a matching blue bed-cap from the storage rack. Another couple got the chrome vinyl ready for the detailing. The licence plate guy pulled down a blank and put it into his press. Someone shouted,
"Hey what wheels?" and I radioed Wilby.
"Get us close-up of the wheels!"
"Ok, I can't see yet, he's still only moving the first truck, he's having to back it up past all the others."
Eventually the second picture came through and the wheel guys had an argument about which ones they were. They didn't have the right ones so one of them called their branch in Burton to send a set right away. The spray booth beeped and I started my stopwatch, but the paint guy said,
"Not yet, that's just the first coat, there's another layer."
"Wilby, just double check everything, tell us every detail on the truck you can see." He read out a list of stuff and everyone checked they had the right items. The bedcap was hooked up to a cradle in the ceiling ready to be lowered down onto our truck. The spray booth beeped for the second time.
"Ok, now we heat treat it for two minutes!" said the spray guy. I asked Wilby how much longer he thought we had.
"Ok, he's got two more Sandkings to move, then he's going to be taking ours out of the row. How's it going over there?"
"Just great," I said. "Be ready to steal the truck, but not until I say."
Another two minutes followed as I waited for the door on the spray booth to open. I set my stopwatch for twelve minutes and hit the start button.
"He's getting into our truck now," said Wilby. "He's backing out, very carefully." Everyone helped to wheel the rig with the now perfectly blue Sandking on it out of the booth and into the fitting bay. Even before it had stopped moving some of them started tearing off the masking sheets. Four guys ran around behind them applying the chrome vinyl to the wheel arches and sills. The truck was already starting to look like the one in the photo.
"Wait, there's a bull-bar on the front." Said Wilby. "He's backed it around the corner and it's got a chrome bull-bar on the front." Everyone was already busy so I ran up to the racking at the back of the workshop, but I couldn't see what I was looking for. One of the mechanics shouted at me, telling me which shelf it was on. I pulled a bull-bar down and hauled it around to the front of the truck ready to be fitted.
The van with the wheels skidded to a halt outside and more guys appeared to put them on like a pit crew. At the same time the bed-cap was lowered down onto the back and the last piece of chrome vinyl was stuck on. I climbed up into the cab and got ready to start the engine.
"Ok, he's parked our truck up behind the flatbed, ready to load it. I'm going down."
"We're not ready yet, can you stall him?" I saw six guys at the front trying to put on the bull-bar, but it didn't fit. I'd grabbed the wrong one from the shelf.
"I'm on it," said another voice in my ear. It was Stone and he'd walked down from where Jane was waiting with the Pounder to where all the Sandkings were parked. I overheard him speaking to the delivery driver, "Hey buddy, shift them trucks will ya. Put 'em back into the row before one of my guys runs into 'em." The driver mumbled and groaned, but didn't argue. I pictured all the trucks the guy had moved to get ours out of the row parked haphazardly around the port access road. It would probably take the guy a while to put them all back.
Suddenly I felt the truck drop down to the ground. The right bull-bar was on, everything looked perfect and the lead mechanic waved a circle in the air telling me to start her up. The mighty V8 roared into life and I checked my watch. There were still five more minutes until the paint was fully dry, but I could drive it so long as I didn't go too fast.
"Wilby, as he's moving the last truck you take the Sandking. I'm on my way," I said.
"Shouldn't be too hard, this idiot's left the motor running," Wilby replied.
I drove carefully out of LS Customs and onto the up ramp. When I got onto the main road I heard Wilby in my earpiece.
"Ok, I'm in. Hurry up!"
"Jane, you guys ready?" I heard an affirmative from her and put on some speed down the hill to the Port. I could hear the police sirens as I got closer, but I knew I had to stay out of sight of the cops. Right now they were chasing Wilby all over the docks, he'd have to keep driving in circles until I was in position. I took the road just to the right of the overpass and looped back around into the Jetsam car park, hoping everyone would be looking the other way as I crept slowly along the container lanes.
I counted off the rows, looking at the letters painted on the ground, until I was at 'F'. I saw the big Pounder delivery truck sitting with its rear doors open and a set of ramps leading into the back. Jane and Stone were standing beside them. I pulled into a the gap just behind it, hidden in between the containers. I signalled Wilby that I was in position and he started making his way over to us. Not only had both trucks been made to look alike, but me and Wilby were both wearing the same outfit. We looked identical, same clothes, same truck. Wilby swung the huge Sandking around the tight corner and up the ramp into the back of the truck, then Stone pulled the ramps away and Jane slammed the doors closed as I drove out of the gap, taking Wilby's place as the truck thief.
The cops screeched around the corner and saw me making a hard left into the next lane. I checked my stopwatch and saw that there were still two minutes remaining. I had to avoid slamming into anything and damaging the truck, but this wasn't so easy. With all the mods she was a real beast. She had so much power it was easy to get into a slide if I gave it too much gas. I rounded the corner at the top of the container lanes and almost collided with a police cruiser. Instead of hitting it though, the truck's massive wheels simply rode up over the car's hood and crushed the windshield as I carried on over the top of it.
The cops had set up a road block on the exit road, but instead of bashing through it like I normally would, I acted scared and doubled back to the east side of the docks again where the flatbed was parked. I pulled an impressive four-wheel slide around the warehouse on the corner with the ocean on my right. The flatbed driver had moved his truck across the road and was standing there with a pistol aimed at my head. This hadn't been part of the plan.
I threw on the handbrake and slid the Sandking around to the left while I bailed out of the driver's door. I heard gunshots, but none of them hit the truck, or me. I tucked and rolled into some crates and scrabbled for the edge of the dock, diving into the ocean with more bullets flying above me. I let myself sink down, diving deeper until I saw the bottom. My lungs were already bursting but I swam out, away from the docks, before coming back up to the surface. The sound of the sirens off in the distance filled my ears as I shook the water out of them. I looked up to see the cops scanning the area around the edge of the dock and a saw a Police boat moving in.
I dove back down and swam out at a more leisurely pace, towards the beach near El Burro Heights. By the time I crawled ashore under the bridge Jane had driven around in the Pounder to meet me.
"It worked," she smiled. "The guy just took our Sandking and loaded it up. Stone's following him, he's on his way to the Casino." We walked up the steps to the Elysian Fields Freeway and saw Wilby reversing the original Sandking out of the back of the truck.
"What are we going to do with this?" He asked.
"I don't know, we'll store it in my garage, maybe we can use it for a practice run," I said. We all got into the Sandking and abandoned the Pounder on the waste ground at the side of the road.