xp_logs | Once upon a Monday night in Atlantic City

Artie smoothed his suit jacket and looked into the mirror, carefully examining the illusion that covered his face and hands – skin paler than his own and light ash blond hair completed the picture.

He moved around the floor, restless and watched a hand of poker play out before smiling charmingly at the woman running the craps table, leaning forward to place his bet on the thrower. He hadn't been back to this casino for a week. It was probably safe to hit again, especially as he wasn't wearing his own face.

He didn't bother with an illusion the first time another player rolled the dice and handed over his chips with a regretful sigh when the shooter didn't get it past the line. Second round and he still wasn't rolling the dice but that was juuust fine and put a field bet on a three. He snapped the illusion around the dice as they bounced off the backboard and collected his money.

He let the throw after that play out as it would and made sure he won on the roll after that. He leaned forward again, placing two more bets and a hand clamped around his shoulder, dragging him away from the table and twisting an arm up behind his back. Fuck

The security guard all but frog marched him away from the table and through a door marked 'staff'. Artie found himself mentally checking the projections that covered his hair and skin and wished that he could turn and run as the guard opened the door to an office. He'd been careful! He'd only used his powers half the time!

It wasn't fair!

He stared at the man on the other side of the desk as the guard twisted his arm up even further. Shit.

"Hey, now now, there's no need for that, boys. Let him have his arm back. I doubt he's going to jump over the desk at me, are you, Junior?"

Artie shook his head, looking very young and very scared. He hadn't just been working a casino. He'd been working Arcade's casino. He hadn't been captured either time Arcade had kidnapped the Xavier's students but he'd heard enough to wonder how long he had before Arcade killed him in what was undoubtedly going to be a horribly painful and creative way. How could he have been so stupid?

"There you go. Now, who is this little mensch, eh Ms Locke?" The attractive Asian woman standing behind him stepped forward and placed a wallet on Arcade's desk. "Oh, don't tell me he has proper identification?"

"It's fake, but he used a burner credit card a week ago last week when he endorsed his winnings check back to us for cash. We got an image off of his motel."

"And?"

"Something very interesting." Ms Locke nodded, and Artie found a bracelet snapped on to his wrist. His illusion melted away, and Arcade grinned broadly.

"He makes illusions, which is how he was running our craps table? That's a new level of cheating, sport. Hardly fair to the poor accountant from Montock doing the rolling."

"Pit boss made him last week with a couple of rolls of rigged dice that turned up sevens instead. We ran the search you asked for - he's part of their student body."

"Xavier's. Oh, this is just a good afternoon to be me." Lowenstein grinned. "So, what's your real name, motherfucker? If I need to ask Ms Locke, you'll pay for it."

Artie's head rang as his illusions vanished. They'd made him a week ago? With the credit card? Well, fuck, that had been stupid and they'd used rigged dice on him? Torn between anger at the sheer unfairness of that and fear of what Arcade would do to him, he opened his mouth to show his tongue and very, very slowly reached into his jacket pocket to get out a small notepad and pencil.

"Artie Maddicks"

"Artie Maddicks. His name is Artie Maddicks, Ms Locke. Isn't that something. What was the name of that other guy we caught trying to rig the blackjack table last month? Wasn't it Maddicks? What did Mr. Chambers do to discourage him?"

"He smashed the bones in his left hand with a sledgehammer and then used his knife to partially debone it before hitting it a last time. Doctor at Harrah's Trauma said that he might regain use of his thumb after physio. Perhaps. But it wasn't Maddicks."

"No? Odd, because you and well, ol' One-Hand have a lot in common, Artie. How about that? Is Mr. Chambers in?"

"Just in the hotel right now. I can page him?"

"What do you think, sport? Should we?"

"ill give you the $$$ back. twice. pls dont hurt me." Artie looked up at Arcade with tears in his eyes and held the notepad up. Fuck. The security guard behind him gave him a shake and knocked him over.

"He'll give the money back, Ms Locke. That's nice, isn't it? But, you see junior, we didn't give you a loan. You stole from me. So just giving it back isn't enough, you know. Now, what would be enough?"

"An encrypted database, sir?"

"Now that's a good thought, Ms Locke."

"i'm giving you the money back as good faith no matter what," Artie wrote from his position on the floor. "I was wrong and I'm sorry." Distract him from the encrypted database that he had no chance of ever making and maybe the maniac he'd robbed would forget about it. Hah. Right.

"You see? A fine young man, Ms Locke. An innocent lad who fell in with a bad crowd. Made poor decisions. And before he knew it, found himself lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood, trying to figure out where it all went wrong. There's just something missing..." Arcade said, snapping his fingers. "Right, the pool of blood. Mr Chambers?"

An older, beefy looking man stepped into Artie's field of vision, and before he knew it, he was lying on the ground with blood running from his nose and split lips.

Artie lay stunned for a moment and then scrambled back and to his knees, one hand clutching his face. He dropped his hand and made to sign a reply before stopping and visibly forcing himself not to say anything, while the bracelet prevented him from using his powers in response. He watched the man warily, blood dripping down his face, wondering if they'd hit him again. It wasn't like he had any choice in the matter.

Chambers reached down and hauled Artie to his feet by the back of his shirt. The young mutant saw the knuckleduster flash for a moment before it was buried into his gut, driving out all his breath with an explolsive grunt. The second blow landed on his kidney, paralyzing him with pain. He was roughly shoved back into the chair, trying to curl around the blinding ache spreading through his body.

"Now that is the look of a young man that understands he made a mistake and wants to make things right. Isn't that true, Junior?"

It took him a moment to recover enough to manage pen and paper. "I'll do whatever you want me to do to make this right," Artie wrote. It was an exaggeration at best but the one good lesson he'd learned from Annalee was that you didn't fight battles you couldn't win. "I'm sorry."

"See, that's what I wanted to hear. Or read. I don't want to be ableist." Arcade grinned. "Ms Locke will show you a picture of an encrypted datastore that a friend of mine has stolen. I want it back. If you want to use those interesting powers to retrieve it, we'll call it a deal."

Artie nodded slowly. "I'll get your drive back. You'll let me go. Deal. But only if you have information about where it might be and all of that. I make pretty pictures. I'm not a freaking clairvoyant who can find shit."

"Conditions? Well, let me think. Did he mention anything about his teeth, Mr Chambers? If not, perhaps we should remove those first, just to even out the cavaets and the addendums?" Arcade smiled, but the look in his eyes was chilling; there was no doubt that he could order Artie's slow and extremely painful death with about the same consideration as he'd give ordering a drink. Maybe less. "Let's try this instead. You stole from me, motherfucker. I will give you what help I feel like giving you in order for you to retrieve my stolen drive. If you fail to do so, I will have you slowly and painfully killed. If you decide not to help return my stolen drive, I will have you slowly and painfully killed. If you try to run or escape your debt, I will offer fifty times that to anyone who is successful in having you slowly and painfully killed. In fact, sport, you're going to have to work extremely hard to stay alive at all. Deal?"

He nodded. "I understand." Do it or die horribly. End of story. He wasn't going to be able to call for help, was he?