Chapter 14 – Boredom
Constanta, Romania. 7:57am, 5th November 2032.
"Matt, I'm at the casino, I need you to help me around the place, help me find out where they keep the security camera footage." Alex asks, already moving down to the hallway to the elevator.
"Hold on a sec." Matt says, not ready to do what Alex wants. "Okay, just give me a minute."
He makes his way down to the ground floor and finds the holographic map of the complex and begins to interact with it, homing in to the main gaming area. It's not marked on the map, but it has to be nearby. He checks the basement level on the map and finds an area marked off as 'Services', he knows that this is where it must be.
"Okay, there's a service area where they store the data, I can't access it from here so it must be on a computer not attached to any network. Their systems are closed, which means I need an uplink plugged into their servers if you want me to get access to their security cameras." Matt explains.
"Okay, I'll call back if I need anything else." Alex replies before hanging up and replacing his phone back into his pocket.
Alex moves towards the stairs down to the brightly lit underground tunnel where he sees a set of double doors locked by a key card entrance. He remembers the place and moves on into the main casino area, open 24 hours but at this morning hour it's more like it's closed. Small robots move around the floor vacuuming all the debris before they begin clean the carpet floor, ready for the next night. Most tables are empty and not operational, only 20% of tables are open of which a fraction are being used. That makes it harder for Alex to find an adequately sized person.
He's planning to get in disguise by using an outfit from the casino personnel: A white button up business shirt with a yellow, red and dark blue coloured vest and black trousers. Some vests have red and use the other colours as patterning, others are yellow and have red and dark blue patterning and some are dark blue with red and yellow patterning. The patterning itself is an embroided outline of the front of the casino set in the bottom right of the vest itself. Alex looks for a similarly sized employee to use, but his attention is quickly drawn to a much safer alternative. He spots the employee area and walks past the door casually, noting the security, which is the same as on the service door. Alex stands further away just to not arouse suspicion as he sees one of the employees move off to the break room. He heads towards the same room as the employee from the other side. The employee swipes his card and opens the door to get inside; Alex follows directly behind so he doesn't touch the door. Once inside, the adrenaline naturally kicks in and he knows he has the advantage of stealth and silence. It takes under 5 seconds for him to takes the keycard off the employee, including the chain that it was attached to on his pants.
Next, he ventures around until he finds the locker room, containing spare articles of clothing in case a customer get angry and spills their expensive cocktail over them. Alex flicks through the clothes until he finds some that are his size before moving to the bathroom to get changed. Once fitted out in his disguise, wearing his normal clothing underneath, he moves back into the public area. He quickly moves back towards the service area with his hand in his trouser pocket ready to swipe the card and continue on. He swipes away and waits for access to be granted, which it is after 2 seconds of analysis. He moves inside and looks for the surveillance room, where all of the files from the security cameras and bugs are kept. Alex finds a room with four server towers inside by looking through the tiny porthole window from the outside. Alex opens the door and moves inside, shutting the door quietly before getting surprised at the nature of this room. This room is essentially trapped between two sets of fans. One set blows up from beneath the floor and the roof is fitted with powerful extractor fans to recirculate and cool the air down again. As a result, there is a powerful gust that blows at Alex's feet which makes the trouser legs batter against his ankles.
This is where Matt would have helped out tremendously, Alex thinks, too bad he doesn't have an uplink on hand; it would have been so much easier if he were here with him in Romania. Alex doesn't know his way around a server room, or where to start. What he does see behind all of the towers is a computer desktop with six screens in a 3 by 2 rectangle, used to review the security footage from a closed source. Alex sits down on the plain metal chair and looks for a mouse or track pad but there are none, which means it's the type on control he likes the least, gesture control. He waves his hand in front of the screen which wakes up the computer from it's slumber, it asks for ID, to which Alex provides the keycard for examination. It takes more than 5 seconds to verify the ID, a time Alex thinks is a bit too long, but nevertheless, he's into the security cameras. They load up the current view as they are filming presently, however, Alex pinches his fingers on his left hand and moves it to the left, turning back the clock on the footage shown.
He knows roughly when Tyson would have arrived at the casino, so he begins there by looking around at the tables for any sight of him. Then he realises that Tyson couldn't have snuck out with the money whilst Jess was still awake, so Alex moves the time forwards another half an hour. After more scanning, He catches a glimpse of tiger with his arms wrapped around a similarly buff gorilla in a well-tailored suit, both holding cocktails of some types. Alex doesn't know which cocktail it would be, it's hard to tell on 8K resolution monitors. He sees them saunter over towards a set of double doors, separated now, and the gorilla asks the attendant at the door to let them in. There is no sign on the front door, but he can guess it's a high rollers area, the area under the sea. After some explaining, they step inside. Alex swipes away at the screens, trying to find them on another camera that has them in view. It takes him 10 seconds to find out that there are no security camera in the high rollers area, further evidence that maybe there are things which people don't want to know about.
Satisfied that he knows what happens after they go out of view, he shuts down the computer and retracts the ID card from the computer before leaving his seat. He feels the rush of air come from underneath him like before as he approaches the door. He leaves the room as calmly as he came into it, heading back to the hotel room. He saunters down the hallway, and readies his key card to enter.
"Room service." Alex says cheekily.
"Not now."
It's not a voice he recognises. Alex was ready to swipe away but now his card just waits next to the scanner. He thinks quickly about what to do, as well as keeping calm.
"My mistake sir." Alex replies, looking back down the hallway for the stairs. He moves quickly towards the stairs and goes up one level and heads to the room directly above theirs. Alex knocks on the door.
"Room service."
"I didn't order anything." A middle aged, Middle Eastern accent replies.
"The room below has offered to pay for anything you order, as an apology for the noise." Alex replies.
"I didn't hear anything." He replies.
"They insisted that all the adjacent rooms be compensated." Alex insists.
"Fine, come inside and take my order."
"Alex takes out the employee's key card and swipes it in the door's scanner. Once again, it takes a few seconds before it accepts his card and unlocks the door, a longer time that usual.
"Sorry to disturb you." Alex apologies as he shuts the door behind him.
"It's okay." A brown furred ferret replies with an impressively sculpted beard that is uniformly a centimetre thick around all parts of the face. Dressed in a white buttons up shirt with the first three top buttons undone to expose his chest fur and a pair of black trousers, the same colour as the one's Alex has on but noticeably finer. "Now, what do you recommend I order?"
Alex hasn't read the room service menu, he hasn't had the time to do so yet. As a result, he tries to control his nerves, a slip into nervousness and he's gone.
"There are some specials on at the moment." Alex begins. "The first is a pan fried snapped infused with foie gras and topped with a red wine jus. And the next is a bit more expensive, a scallop stuffed with Local caviar and Sicilian truffles."
"And how much would these items cost?"
"It doesn't matter, they are free." Alex replies. "So, if you could please indicate your preference."
"Your offer is tempting, but I have just had breakfast, so no thank you." He replies.
"Nothing at all?" Alex asks, trying to think of another way to move the ferret out of his way so he can get to the balcony unseen.
"That's right."
Alex moves closer to the sliding glass door that allows access to the balcony.
"Would you like some fresh air?" Alex asks.
"It's too cold."
"I'll prove it." Alex says, opening up the balcony door and standing outside in the cold with a cool sea breeze lapping into his face.
"Please leave." The ferret insists, getting slightly agitated.
Alex panics, he has no other option but to fling himself over the balcony and down onto the balcony below, where he sees the situation inside his own apartment.
Four black suited and black gloved wolves standing around the couch at all four corners, staring inside towards the two gang members sitting on the couch looking quiet and content like students in a classroom, both facing forwards, staring out into the distance, right through Alex. He looks at them quickly, unarmed on the face of it, then decides how to enter. There is only one way to enter, he knocks. This attracts the attention of the four intruders who turn their heads. The closest one moves towards the door, putting one hand inside his jacket pocket, which makes Alex slightly nervous. He unlocks the door and slides it open, still with one hand inside his jacket pocket. Alex steps inside, unsure if they can see him or even know if he's here. Then he quickly realises no one would open the door for no one, especially if they can see that there's no one.
"He's here." He says to someone via a wire.
Alex slowly walks around the room until he's in line with the couch, just to be in the right position to look around the room. He can hear a set of footsteps walking along from the bedroom, slowly towards the main room and guess who he sees.
"Morning." Jeremy casually says wearing a much pricier suit with a royal blue tie which by itself is worth more than the suits of his henchmen combined. "I love to disturb you at this hour, wherever you are."
He's here? In my hotel room?!
"Enjoying the views?" He asks rhetorically. "I know you are, these rooms are more than a thousand euros a night, you'd expect something like that." He points out to the vista including the casino.
"So, um. I'm just going to sit down here." He says, sitting on the top of the couch in between the unmoved Jess and the more intimidated Tyson. "…Until you appear so I can talk you face to face with some… important, business matters. Well, when I say business matters it's really me having fun while I watch you, to see how to work under enormous pressure. Surely you must have realised that I could have easily stolen all your money within minutes of your arrival, but, what satisfaction would that have given me… that's gives me no pleasure.
The skunk takes a look around the room, hoping for a well-timed entrance from the raccoon, before strolling around while he fills in the time.
"There's a poker tournament tonight, buy-in is 2 million euros, which is almost precisely the amount you have left in pounds. Coincidence? Well, you can choose whatever you want to believe. You will play at this poker game tonight and at least have a chance of winning something instead of the certainty of the disappearance of your money if you don't. I won't be playing, that would be unfair for you. So, I have a stand in which your… disproportionately build friend of yours acquainted with last night. He's quite good, best poker player I could buy. He gets 20% of whatever he wins as payment. His name's Lawrence Fischer and he's got fast fingers as well, you should see him do that trick with the poker chip; he can make that thing move across his hand quicker than I thought possible. And it's not just the speed, it's the nonchalant and careless way he does it. It's like he's just doing it because he's bored, exactly the reason why I am here."
"I'm bored. I thought this would be hard but this was easier than buying a cup of coffee. I have more wealth and power than I know what to do with, all before the age of 24. And don't get me started on the police, because they have not done a single thing that got them anywhere near me because I am above them. They say that the law is above no one; I say it's not discovered the heights that I'm at. You should listen now because this is the part that concerns you if you are here. Stealing, being a master thief, that's just a hobby now, a tradition, a past time. I do that for fun. That money you 'stole' from me, that's a drop in the ocean. I would set the buy in higher if not for your poor souls…"
Alex appears in sight, having become internally incensed at how much Jeremy thinks he has him in his palm.
"You think I'm already finished?" Alex retorts back, trying to contain himself.
"No, far from it. In fact, I hope for the opposite." Jeremy replies. "It's just…"
Alex's phone rings.
"Answer it." Jeremy insists. Alex looks at Jeremy puzzlingly once, then again just as he pulls out his phone before answering it.
"Oh, put it on speaker." Jeremy adds. Alex obliges.
"Hello."
"Hey, I just wanted to know if you found out what happened last night with the money." Matt replies.
"Um, we've lost… about half a million pounds last night." Alex replies disappointingly.
"What? You didn't bet at the casino did you?" Matt asks.
"I don't know." Alex responds despairingly. "It was late, how was I supposed to remember what I did last night?"
"Alex, I know that's a lie. That's not something you'd do." Matt insists.
"I'm sorry." Alex apologises under the presence of the skunk.
"It's fine, it's a little setback." Matt tries to rationalise the situation. "I called you to talk about some possible options I spent all night researching. The simple answer is that we need more people; it's the only way we can do this, and guess where I've found it. You said there was something called, um, Thiefnet, a while ago. Well, there's a new sort of system like that but it's different, I won't go into the specifics, but it's incredible. I was one there for less than a minute before I was flooded with requests. I have more than 150 people wanting to work for you."
Alex is taken back by such words, but he can't justify in his own mind why anyone would want to work with him. Do people really believe that he's really got as much potential as Antonio believes?
"Um, what do you want me to say to that?" Alex asks, not because he's flattered but because he's really not sure what he's meant to say.
"Say that you need time to look over it." Matt replies as an email comes through on his phone. "It has the profiles of everyone that's contacted me, we only need about 3 more so don't get carried away. I'll explain it later on a secure connection. Okay, I'll see you later."
"Bye." Alex responds before hanging up.
"Is that a heist I hear you planning? Planning to steal something from the casino? Casino heists are too basic, too simple. I could bleed this place dry within a week, but that would deprive me of a nice place to stay. Well, I wish you luck." Jeremy says as he nears the front door.
"Oh and the site your friend found is just Thiefnet V9.1. I had it remade so I could find someone that could challenge me, just to shake things up a bit; but that time hasn't come yet. Until next time." Jeremy farewells as he is followed by the four henchmen out of the hotel room.