Excelsior East Casino - Oh man, really?

[x-artie.livejournal.com]

Cammie is thwarted in her quest for a simple drink

The second bar on the main casino floor was Cheshire Cat themed. The staff wore tophats and waist coats and the walls that mostly enclosed it were dark and papered to give an impression of a wood at night, with the single open wall latticed in the same pattern. The the lighting was dim and the coasters all had disembodied smiles on them, while the Cheshire Cat himself grinned out at the crowd, most of whom were clustered either at the bar or at small tables scattered across the floor. It was the busier of the two bars tonight and the staff were working flat out to serve drinks and clear tables.

Cammie downed her shot with ease. It was vodka and slightly sweet, but still worth a few shots, at least. It did get expensive fast so she wasn't going to drink the bar. Cammie had taken the bandages off her arm for this, though the worst of the green was under the leather jacket. It also meant most of the smell was confined to there. A good thing too as it didn't take much to actually make people sick. Cammie took another shot of her vodka as the person drinking next to her started to look green around the gills.

He gagged and muttered, in a marked Australian accent, "Christ almighty, what's that smell? Sue, do you smell that? It's like something's died. Fucking Yanks."

Sue nodded queasily and swallowed while he flagged down the bartender. "Look mate, I think something might be a bit wrong around here. You know, with the smell. Do you reckon you could do something about it? C'mon Sue."

They stood and the motion proved to be too much for Sue, who looked around frantically for a bin before vomiting neatly into her handbag to the horror of the other patrons.

Cammie laughed, but kept it silent and to herself. She loosened and shock out the jacket a bit without taking it off, the arm would be a give away, a hand was easy to keep hidden. She grabbed her drink with her right hand and played with the cup, "Must be something in the water. I don't smell anything."

With the Australian couple leaving, one of the two bartenders came over and gagged at the smell. Other patrons began to leave, expressing their discontent as they did so. She retreated a moment later. "Matthew, can you call maintenance?" she muttered. "I think there's a problem with the pipes. Gotta be the pipes. It's pretty bad."

"I just did. They'll send a guy soon. God, how is that woman still there? Like, doesn't she notice it?" Cammie's end of the bar was vacant now.

"I'm telling you, can't smell a thing," she said, holding up her glass, "Hit me. I mean drink, not a punch to the face. Oh, oh shit, you're looking pretty green too..."

Matthew nodded to her and then backed away. A couple of words drifted across from his whispered conversation with the other bartender, Luisa. "...close ...dangerous ...puke." He clapped his hands to get the attention of the few remaining patrons. "Sorry folk. We seem to have some kind of drain issue. We're going to have close down for the night. We need you to leave now, okay? We've got vouchers that you can take down to the other bars in the casino." He began to hand them out.

The patrons muttered but left, all recognising the futility of remaining around the stench while Luisa walked over to Cammie. "Sorry ma'am. We're closing. Take this voucher down to the bar at the other end of the floor, okay?"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" she took the voucher as if somehow it was the greatest annoyance in the world, "There's nothing wrong here. You people are all crazy. Maybe they'll have better vodka though."

"Maybe. Don't bother with the bill, now, ma'am." She turned greener and greener as she spoke before turning and puking onto the floor. Outside, the fire alarm began to go off.


Emma, however, meets no such problems


Emma Frost moved through crowds like a shark swam through schools of fish; they parted before her and eddied back into place behind her, somehow vaguely aware that, if they touched this icily perfect woman in their midst, they risked being eaten alive. When she chose this mode - Ice Queen, White Queen - her location in the crowd was unmistakable, just from the movements of others.

Emma made a quick mental note of the locations of the other members of the distraction team and aimed for a blackjack table that took her about as far from each of them as she could manage. Her arrival and the slight frown she allowed to touch her features was enough to make one of the men at the table hurriedly vacate his seat and the croupier, dressed as Alice, dropped a curtsey without even realising she was going to do it.

"What are the stakes?" asked Emma.

The woman at the table smiled. "$100 buy in," she said and shuffled the cards again. "Do you want to play?"

Emma raised one perfect eyebrow. "Well, at $100 it hardly seems worth it, but maybe for a little idle amusement." She reached into her clutch and pulled out a stack of chips, letting them spill from her hands onto the table, rolling in front of the other players. "Is that enough?" she asked. "My EA got them for me: I haven't bothered to sort out the denominations yet."

The woman glanced at the chips Emma held and shook her head. "It's more than enough. I don't think this table is suitable for you, to be honest." She waved down a young man wearing a skin tight shirt and shiny trousers and top hat in a homage to the Mad Hatter and said "Peter, can you take this lady across to a nicer table? This one won't really interest someone of her standing."

Peter nodded and held out an arm to the woman. "If you'll come with me, ma'am?" he said.

Emma looked down at the proferred arm and the body that was attached to it and then reached out and casually gathered her chips back and slipped them back into her clutch. “I do hope you’re taking me somewhere entertaining, Peter,” she drawled. “You never know what could be in it for you, if you are.” Taking his arm was an insinuating caress of firm muscles.

He swallowed nervously and led her to the tables, handing her over to another croupier. "This table should suit you."

Once again, there was a woman running the blackjack table. "There's a $5,000 buy-in," she said, smiling and smoothing out her Alice costume. She looked like she was about fourteen.

Once again, Emma reached into her clutch and casually scattered her chips across the table. “Will this do?” she asked. “I’m not sure how much my EA gave me.” She frowned at the man next to her and deliberately flicked one of the chips out of his reach. “Not for you,” she admonished. “Not unless you’re good enough to win them off me.” Emma’s tone was a deliberate, provocative challenge and she pitched it to carry across several of the nearest tables and was pleased to note a number of people looking in her direction. Even more deliberately, she drew herself up to her full height and thrust her magnificent and barely decently covered décolletage at the man in question, drawing even more eyes. “And you’d have to be very good to do that.”

He blushed and stammered. She had that effect on people. "I uh. I'm in," he said and tossed a stack of chips out onto the table.

Emma had taken candy from babies and it had proven considerably more difficult than it was to take all of the money off the people surrounding her. On the few occasions she had frequented casinos in the past, she had been scrupulous in not employing her telepathy, aware that even a suspicion of cheating would have her investigated by some of the largest and least scrupulous business interests on the planet. This time, considering who owned this casino and how the evening was likely to end, she happily trawled through the minds of the people around her knowing exactly what cards she was up against in each round. Emma didn’t make it too blatantly obvious – winning every hand would have had her escorted from the table and the building in a very short space of time. But she made sure that each win was accompanied by ridiculously vapid celebration that involved showering air kisses and unexpected caresses on many of the other patrons and that each loss was accompanied by equally over-the-top exclamations of dismay and exaggerated movements that threatened, at every moment, to release her bosom from its precarious confinement. It took only a few draws for the pile of chips in front of her to grow with the crowd around the table growing equally quickly. A few more draws and the croupier was replaced by a much larger and sterner man, dressed in something that looked like a soft-porn version of the Knave of Hearts outfit. Another couple of draws and the crowd seemed large enough for the second part of her plan to be effective. With a few deft touches, Emma lowered inhibitions, increased adrenaline flows, drew lightning quick telepathic fingers across amygdales, heightening awareness.

When Doug and Ororo’s signal in her mind told her they were ready for it, she said, innocently, “Tell me, does anyone smell smoke?”

At that moment, the fire alarms began to blare, lights flashing and the alarm cutting across the din of the casino. Patrons gathered up their chips and (at times others' chips), all swearing and complaining at the interruption. With more deft touches, Emma increased the level of panic and allowed a small feeling of triumph to drift through her mind as the crowd around her suddenly began to push and shove and then, with almost one mind, began a panicked run towards the exits, sowing confusion around them.