Neon Lights and Nil Chips

Rose frowned as the machine failed to give her any means through which to gain an empty chip.

Then Zeo charmed in over the call line, and Rose listened up. Sabrina responded fairly quickly. Although she'd forgotten to check in, it appeared everyone else had found a machine as well.

"I just found one too," she chimed in. She shoved a hand into her pocket, and used it to shovel 1000 zenny into the machine.

"I don't think it's going to be as easy as I'd hoped," she continued, "I can't figure out how to get it to give me a blank chip."

After following the instructions once more, and this time ending up 1000 zenny poorer, Rose waited for the machine to vend her chip.

She hoped the others had had more luck, and waited for their responses to come in over the line.

"If they aren't any better off than I am, I may have to blow this value to drop the chips remaining balance to Nil." she thought.

So, with that in mind, she looked around for a roulette table while she waited.

"Nothing..." Zeo sighed with disappointment. It was just as he'd thought before; no amount of button pushing would get the thing to drop blank chips. It would be just like asking people to steal them. Then again, stealing a poker chip without value probably didn't benefit the thief much. Time to try something different, he thought. Even if I did pay the base thousand zenny to get a chip, my chances of successfully gambling it away are slim. They wouldn't even let me near a table. Zeo wasn't even sure why they'd managed to get in the casino so easily.

If it came down to it, Zeo could try something a little more "creative" with the machine. The Mr. Program in the machine would likely notice that kind of "creative" attempt however, and Zeo didn't want to do anything to it. He went over the machine one more time before sighing again and taking a few steps away from it. No point standing there for too long. It might draw attention to me, which is the last thing I want. Zeo raised his PET again. The team didn't appear to be having much success, so it was probably time to come up with something.

"Yeah, I don't think it's possible to get a blank chip out of these things," he started. "Not the proper way, at least. And I'm not too keen on trying to mess with it." Zeo took a moment to scan the casino floor before him, looking at all the different ways to lose a thousand zenny. "It doesn't look like it'd be much trouble to gamble it away, but would they even let us try?" Zeo didn't really want to find out, but at this rate it was seeming inevitable.

...Nope. Didn't matter what she did, she wasn't getting a 0z chip. Sabrina couldn't help but wonder why the limit was at 1000z; you'd think any amount would work for the casino. "Yeah, there's no way we can get a 0z chip without doing anything weird..."

But, Zeo raised a good point. They could just get 1000z on it and lose it on purpose. She'd give it a shot herself, but eh. She had no personal cash, and as thought earlier, using her other source would result in one highly displeased Christopher Jetto. "Actually, that's not a bad idea. We got in pretty easy, so I dunno why they wouldn't let us try. But I can't do it, since I don't have any money I can use for this...either of you guys up for it? And where are you guys? There's not really much point in splitting up anymore." She looked around, but neither of her friends were in her field of vision. Hopefully no one got lost...

With their attempts at getting a nil-zenny chip on their own foiled predictably, Rose pulled out her own cash, once again, to finance the mission's objectives. One could wonder if her bank account was bottomless, but then, one wouldn't. With a small whir the machine dispensed her chip, swallowing up the thousand she had put into it, and a look around showed a roulette table just nearby. Zeo contemplated doing something unorthodox to obtain the chip, but decided against it until it was necessary, and waited at his machine, talking to his teammates. Meanwhile, Sabrina had also let most of the work go to Rose for the time. Good reasoning, too, as a couple of large and burly males strolled up to her, looking clearly inebriated. Shambling up to her and giving her obviously some dirty looks, they attempted to sound suave while looking like a couple of idiots.

"Heeeeeey, here's a chick."
"Hey, babe, what's your name, mmm?"

Rose took the chip and flipped it over in her hand, thinking.

She responded to the various things people had said to her, through her PeT. "I'm up for it," she began, responding to Sabrina. "So I guess we'll find out how this works."

Rose figured the security here was lax, as the others had pointed out. She also assumed she could pass for legal if she played her cards right and didn't make too much of a show.

As she approached the Roulette table to gamble away all her Zenny, she responded to the last part of the message. "I'm further into the Casino, heading towards a roulette table to test my luck. Feel free to come cheer me on."

This last part was said upbeat and somewhat in jest, in order to establish that she wasn't too concerned or self-centered.

When she arrived at the table, she thought she heard talking over the line, but couldn't place it. Assuming it was someone walking by one of the other two, she resumed her luck testing.

"I guess the best way to lose my money would be to go for the least likely result," she mused. Turning to the man in charge of the table, she slid her chip towards him and said, "A thousand on Double Zero, please." A quick survey of the table had shown her that this kind of bet was the least likely to succeed.

Rose hoped it wouldn't get her too much attention, and prayed that he'd give back the empty chip after she lost the money. It would suck if he kept the Value-less chip, since it would render her efforts futile.

She made sure to watch it, in order to make sure she could say something if he made to get rid of it. "Maybe if I tell him it's my lucky chip, he'll let me keep it." It didn't sound like a terrible plan, so she kept it in mind.

In the meanwhile, she watched the roulette, waiting for the ball to land in any one of the many slots that wasn't double zero.

"Good luck," Zeo responded to Rose's announcement as he looked back towards the entrance. "Or rather, bad luck, I suppose." Not that Zeo was ungrateful for Rose's resolve in trying to gamble away the chip's value, but he wasn't keen on trekking across the establishment to watch her do it either. It sounded a little risky, so he decided to head back to the main entrance and look for Sabrina. If Rose wasn't back by then, maybe he'd be alright with going to find her. Leaving the uncooperative chip machine behind, Zeo started to head back to the entrance.

Upon getting there he was treated with an unpleasant sight. Two guys had approached Sabrina and they didn't look like the kind of people one would want to be around. As he walked into the entrance area, Zeo noticed the men and kept walking casually until he was behind them and still within Sabirna's view. ...now what? he asked himself.

Well, anything she can come up with is probably better, Zeo thought after a moment of deliberation. He started to approach Sabrina at a casual pace, still out of the newcomers' view. Zeo figured that if she needed to, Sabrina could probably improvise something with him present. He prayed that it didn't involve any human bulldozing this time.

So, coming to a stop a few feet behind the men and in full view of Sabrina, Zeo placed his hands in his pockets and waited for Sabrina to help him help herself out of the situation.

Cool, Rose was going to gamble some cash away. Good thing someone could do that. "Break a leg, Rose!" And by leg, she meant that 1000z on the chip. Hmm...what to do now? There wasn't much she could do here, so maybe she should just go wait outside? It was hot, but they'd know where she was, at least...Unfortunately, that wasn't happening, as two more than slightly intoxicated men walked up to her and started hitting on her.

So she was apparently hot enough to get ogled by a pair of drunk guys. Hooray?

But it'd been a long day, and she was tired. She didn't have the patience for this. In fact, she didn't have the patience for this even she was 100%. Time to get the guns ready for a walk-by. "Oh, hi there! My name's Bea. You know, as in beat it? Scram? Get out of my sight? Now go away, unless you want my bootprints where your sun doesn't shine USED to be!!" Subtlety, thy name was Sabrina. Now hopefully they'd just scram and go for someone that actually liked getting that kind of treatment. And preferably someone at or above the age of 18.

And if they didn't, she and Zeo over there would have to team up and beat the tar out of them. Exactly how was still being debated in her mind.

"Now, now, come on..." one of the men said, swaying his head to the side with half-lidded eyes and a grin that said 'quiet down, bitch'. The man placed his hand on Sabrina's left shoulder and gripped it tightly, and his inebriated partner did the same on the other, effectively flanking her on two sides. "Don't be like that... it's cool to have a little fun. It's NetVegas, baby," the other said, hiccuping at the end. "Yeah, we'll show you a good time..."

Meanwhile, Rose lost at roulette, having the ball land far, far away from 00. Which was expected, of course. What was unexpected was that she did not obtain the chip back, as the dealer swept across the board and dealt with the payouts and takings. Her chip disappeared among the pile, and the dealer was about to start over.

Rose was fairly distressed with the recent turn of events. Sure, she'd lost, as had been her goal. Unfortunately, the man had in deed taken her chip. This wasn't how she'd wanted things to turn out.

Luckily, she had planned for this. Otherwise there was a fair chance she could have lost everything in a moment. As he began pulling the chips away, Rose spoke up.

"Excuse me! Sir!" She stated loudly, making sure he could hear her. Even if that meant attracting attention to herself, as everyone else at the table would hear her as well. "Sir, I know there's no value left on it, but that was my Lucky Chip. Would you please slide it back to me?"

She said it nicely, politely, and in a controlled way. but she said it loud enough and with enough force that it sounded less like a request and more like a command. She needed it back, and didn't want to blow another thousand zenny in this place.

She waited, looking somewhat impatient, but smiling kindly, for the man to give her chip back.

Unfortunately for Sabrina and Zeo, Rose had been far to caught up dealing with this mess to notice that they seemed to be having difficulty at all. She never even noticed the phoneline's additional buzz. Of course, Rose was a talker, not a fighter, so it the two weren't losing much here.

Sabrina looked to each side, noting that if she tried moving, she'd be forcefully stopped. Looked like it was time for Plan B. An incredibly simple Plan B, at that. Security at a casino was probably decent, seeing as how if something happened to a customer there, business would probably become very bad, very soon. Now to see if that logic was right.

"SECURITY!"

Having witnessed Sabrina's initial (and surprisingly diplomatic) attempt to resolve the situation fail, Zeo quickly tried to come up with something else. He didn't have anything worth using as a weapon, and even if he did it wasn't something he would be willing to use. Another possibility along those lines did occur to him, but it would most certainly get him injured, whether it was his body or his eardrums.

Zeo proceeded to reach for the potential weapon in question, but before he could actually get out his PET Sabrina took things into her own hands. To her credit, it was a good idea and a loud one, so they'd probably get some kind of response from it. That left Zeo without much to do to help, though. He took the opportunity to set some precautions in place, which translated to running around the two persistent obstructions and positioning himself beside Sabrina. No point risking being grouped in with the wrong crowd.

His initial idea now unnecessary, Zeo relinquished his grip on his PET and kept a wary eye on the undesired company. He hoped they were sober enough to avoid making trouble in a situation like this, and if they weren't, maybe his potential weapon would see some use.

Still, I hope not, Zeo thought as he waited for the solution to their problem to arrive.

"Huh?" The dealer turned in Rose's direction and raised an eyebrow at her question. "What're you talking about? Slide it back to you?" His face screwed up as he set up the game for another round. "Riiiiiight, lucky chip. Hahaha, like I haven't heard that one before," he said, the sarcasm practically gushing forward as he rolled his eyes. Raking in the cash, he started up the second round, leaving Rose more than a little disappointed.

Meanwhile...

"SECURITY!"

Yep, that got them packing. Sabrina got out of a hairy situation none the worse for wear, and Zeo didn't have to use his weapon.. whatever it was. Anyway, they were rid of their troubles for now, but they were also back at square one, as far as anyone was concerned, and were no closer to getting their desired item as before.

Rose was more than a little upset. She hadn't done anything wrong. It wasn't like she was asking for her money back after the game. She just wanted a valueless piece of encoded equipment.

As a result, she came off fairly insulted by the man's response. She gave him an unpleasant look, and responded, matching his sarcastic tone, "Thanks for being so understanding."

She turned around and started walking away before adding "Scumbag," under her breath.

"Well, that wasn't successful at all," Rose informed the other two over their phone connection. "Strike one on my end. How are you guys holding up?"

She quickly looked around for her next destination. "There must be some way to get a chip back. Maybe exchanging the remaining value on your chip would do it, but I'd rather ask first. There's also the chance that there's a gift shop here that sells them." She began looking with those things in mind. Some sort of money exchange area, a gift shop, or, if that failed, she could try to find an information booth or a map of some kind.

Best case scenario, her next plan would work, and they'd be done here. She needed to find out what could be done, first, though, so she searched for potential options.

Finally... Zeo thought, sighing. "And that's why I wasn't eager to be in here." He relinquished his grip on his PET and ran a hand through his hair. "I hope Rose managed to get that chip." Zeo wanted to get out of there before they ran into any more new friends. Speaking of friends, one of them was currently speaking through the PET connection. Zeo hurried to remove his PET so he could hear Rose better. "Is that so..." he replied somewhat sadly to her first news. When she asked how they were doing, Zeo frowned. "Could be better, and we still don't have anything to show for it."

Rose went quiet after that, so Zeo started thinking about what to do next. "So gambling didn't work," he pondered quietly. "Maybe there's a blank chip lying around from some unlucky patron." Zeo gave the area a once-over. Then again, if the dealer took Rose's blank chip, they probably take everyone's. "I've got nothing," he said into the PET. "Maybe they sell the blank chips somewhere? That seems really weird, considering they're worthless, but if a collector wants one it must have some significance." Of course, it might really have none at all and their client was just crazy, but entertaining the possibility might help them find a chip anyway.

Zeo turned to Sabrina. "Nice plan," he said dryly in response to her solution to their problem. "Quick, simple and easy. You have any other great ideas, or should we start looking around again?" he asked jokingly. Zeo then took a casual glance around for any casino-related stores, ready to either head off searching again or follow Sabrina.

With a satisfied expression, Sabrina watched the two thugs flee the scene, apparently finally taking the hint. She then listened to Rose and Zeo's remarks, not happy at the fact the chip was apparently not going to come easily. Oh, and the latter's smart aleck remark wasn't going uncountered. "Gee, thanks!" ...Strangely, it seemed sincere. Even though it wasn't. "I don't really have any ideas, though..."

"Hang on, Sabrina!"

The Netopian girl looked around, before noticing that a hologram had formed on her shoulder. "What, did you think of something?"

"Sorta...I'm wondering why the machine wouldn't let us get a chip with no zenny on it. So, what if I went and asked a Mr. Prog in there? Maybe we can find out something."

"Hmm...well, it's something, anyway. C'mon, Zeo! I don't really feel like being by myself right now..." Grabbing his arm, Sabrina dragged him over to the nearby machine, where she promptly noticed the hologram of the Mr. Prog. Hmm, forgot about that. SplashMan probably wasn't needed for this part after all. All right...time to ask.

"Excuse me, but I've noticed that you can't get a chip from this machine without any zenny on it. Is there a reason for this? Because if there is, I'd really like to know why..."

"Wawawauu..."

The Mr. Prog wasn't used to being interacted with other than for giving instructions, and floated around rather distractedly before replying. "Umm... we're not allowed to give out chips without value on them... umm, because someone might sabotage their system and do bad things... a bad guy might do something bad like steal them and make fake ones...." Another Mr. Prog floated by from a nearby machine, and added, "Ooooh, and if the chips don't have any value, someone might try to change its data.. and maybe even break it! That would be bad, breaking things is bad! Only we can change the data, and we can't tell you how. Nope, we can't. Not even the dealers can change it, no no, they only take it and hold it for us."

Meanwhile, Rose had found a map nearby, showing the layout of the place to be not that difficult. It detailed the various places one could gamble money away, money exchange, and essentials such as restrooms and exits and all that other stuff. One of the exchange booths was near her location, and this time, it was human-operated. Perhaps another go at it?

After looking over the map, Rose made her way over to the Money Exchange booth, hoping to deal with some reasonable people. "I'm going to go talk to someone at the Money Booth to see if I can get anything there," she informed her friends.

Since the walk wasn't too long, she found herself at her destination rather quickly. Once she got up to the desk, she waited for the attention of the person behind the desk before launching her assault.

"Um, Excuse me," she said politely, "But I was just wondering: Is there any way I could get money taken off a chip so I could bring it home as a souvenir? I want to bring home a chip, but I don't need it to have any money on it."

She tried to sound innocent and earnest. She also genuinely hoped the answer would be yes. She did have more contingency plans though, so she was ready to come back with more questions if the woman denied her but left her extra options vague.

After being dragged over to the chip dispensers again, Zeo began to protest futilely. "But they probably won't-" he got out before Sabrina came right out and asked the machine for info on their predicament. And got a straight and easily understandable answer. "Well, maybe they will answer," Zeo finished sheepishly. He kind of wished he'd thought of it when he was back at the other machine, but he'd probably been over thinking things back then.

"So it was to keep the chips from being used for malicious purposes..." Zeo said aloud. "I hope our client isn't planning anything like that." With all these weird items the guy wanted, Zeo couldn't help but be a little suspicious. But most of them are pretty much harmless, he reminded himself. Dropping the subject, he decided to capitalize on Sabrina's diplomacy and ask some questions himself. "Is there any way for you to make a blank chip unusable? That way we could get one and there'd be no worry about us misusing it."

Deciding to pile on another question, he kept going. "And if that isn't possible, do you know any way for us to get a blank chip?" Zeo had no problem continuing Sabrina's straightforward approach. It had worked with those thugs a minute ago, and hopefully their success rate wouldn't be dropping any time soon.

...Huh. So it was to to prevent people from altering them to their own ends. Sabrina thought that one over for a moment...after which it appeared incredibly stupid. Was a 1000z really going to stop anyone from that? But, it probably wouldn't do much to say that to the Mr. Progs, seeing as how that was like shooting the messenger. Oh well, she had another idea anyway.

...Which Zeo surprisingly beat her to. Not that she couldn't polish things a little herself. "Yeah, it doesn't have to be a usable chip with actual data recording stuff in it or anything. So long as it looks like a real chip with no zenny on it, it doesn't really matter to us." There, a nice add-on to her friend's question. Hopefully the programs could help them out, or at least point them in the proper direction. Even though they couldn't physically point.

The attendant at the exchange booth blinked at Rose's question, slightly surprised at the unexpected question. "Umm," she started. "Well, I don't really know, miss, but I'm pretty sure any chips aren't to be taken out of the casino at all, whether coded with value or otherwise. Besides that, I only deal with the exchange part of the tokens. The encoding parts are all handled by the house Mr. Programs, which usually do all the normal things. If there's anything unusual needed to be done, like erasing the cash-verification part of the chip, there needs to be authorization from a higher-up."

"I'm sorry that I can't help you out, but as far as I know, that's about the only way you're going to get anything looking like a chip from this casino out. There should be other casinos that don't use coded chips, you can take those out no problem, though."

The Mr. Prog said about the same thing, but phrased kind of like this: "You're asking me to break the chip!! I can't break the chip, breaking things is bad, it's bad! Only the big people can tell me to break things, only they can. That's because they have the password!"

"Charlie, don't say that!!" its companion shouted.

"Ah! Oh, oh no! Um, ah. P-Please forget what I just said! Please?"

And so, it seemed that their only option was to go to one of the higher-ups... or was it?