Neon Lights and Nil Chips

Rose nodded as the girl went on. She seemed nice enough, and was at least trying to be helpful. She wasn't getting her very far, though.

Then the woman got to the important parts. This was what Rose had been looking for. "Oh, I see," she began, slowly. "Is there any chance you could get me one of your higher ups? Or could you tell me where I could find them?"

She figured these were reasonable requests. especially since she made a harder one and then conceded to an easier one. It was a fairly solid tactic, in her opinion.

Worst case scenario, she'd get no answer, but she'd at least know what it was she needed to do. As long as she could find a higher up now, regardless of how, she'd be alright.

Even if she didn't, she could check another Casino. That'd add even more time to their destination, and it probably wouldn't get them a null value chip, so this still seemed the best bet.

Her thoughts stayed focused, and she was conversing with someone, so she didn't actually say or heed anything to or from her allies over their phone connection.

She waited patiently for a response.
"Um, well.... uh..." the attendant murmured, scratching her chin. "I-I think they don't like to be interrupted by such a trivial request.." However, after seeing Rose's determined face, she figured that the girl wasn't going to be very lenient on her. She reached down to pick up a phone, dialled a few numbers, and talked into the receiver slowly, squeaking as she went into number after number. After a few calls, she looked down dejectedly. "I'm sorry, but I couldn't--"

"What's all the trouble about here?"

The attendant turned in surprise at the gruff voice, and immediately bowed her head when she found the tall, smartly-dressed man leering down on her. Slicked-back hair, a million-dollar suit, confident pose- it was obvious that the person was someone important. The man crossed his arms and demanded an explanation.

"W-Well, Mr. Cohen, I was attending to this lady here, and it seems she has a certain request that I could not fulfill..." the attendant tried to explain.

"Well, what's the problem?!"

"I-It's... um."

The man turned to Rose, and finally realized that she was there. "Oh, pardon my rudeness," he said, completely changing his demeanor in the blink of an eye from overbearing to sweet-talking. "My name is Edward Cohen, and I am the Chief Executive Officer of- what do you call this hotel again- ah, the Grand NetVegas Hotel Casino. How may I help you, young lady?"
Rose remained determined, and the nice attendant eventually tried it her way. However, her phone pleas weren't getting very far. It was then that a man showed up.

based off the attendant's reaction, the man must be important. Rose also gave him a quick bow when he arrived. She got his name, and a very nice introduction.

"Though he's not very nice to that girl. I guess he must be a little two-faced," she thought. She gave it a mental shrug. That carried no significance here; she had the man she needed to speak to within her sights.

"Oh, it's no problem at all," Rose began, responding to his apology. "It's a pleasure to meet you, sir."

She couldn't help but notice that he was not very aware of his surroundings, or at least didn't care much. She wasn't sure what to make of that, so she put it behind her and got on with it.

"I just had a little request, and apparently I need permission from someone like you to get it done. I won't trouble you with all the details, as I'm sure you're a busy man, but I basically wanted to get a chip with no value to take home with me, from the casino. Is there any chance you could help me with that? "

She assumed flattery of a type, like knowing his time was worth more than she could offer to fill it with, would help. She also assumed that talking less worked in her favor. It kept him from getting upset with her, and it also kept her from needing to share the more trivial sounding details of her story.

She just hoped the man was reasonable, kind, or at least enough of a public image hound that he'd fulfill this simple request for her.
"Hm! Is that all? Well, I can easily fix that!" exclaimed Edward as he let out a small guffaw in response. He strode confidently towards one of the earlier Mr. Program-attended machines, letting Rose follow him if need be. As soon as he reached the machine, he crossed his arms again and looked straight at the Mr. Program for a while. At first, it looked merely as if the important-looking CEO was having nothing more than a staring battle with the program, but as a few seconds passed...

"Identification Positive. Releasing Administration Command for 10 Seconds."

The Mr. Program announced this in a much more flat, robotic voice than that one it had greeted Rose with before. Seeming satisfied, Edward said, "Set chip-value to zero, administrator override. Central firmware purge, administrator override." The Mr. Program blinked for a few seconds before it said, "Administrator Commands Received, Session Ended. Executing." After a short while, Edward bent slightly to pick up the chip dispensed by the machine, and examined it thoroughly. With a smile, he handed the chip to Rose.

"Here, now go bring that back 'home' or wherever it is that you're going," said Edward, still smiling. "Oh, and tell Ryan I said hi."
The man very politely filled her request, as she tagged along. It also made him seem very important, when he was able to override the machine's standards.

He also seemed oddly suspicious of Rose, which was odd. To be fair, she wasn't actually taking the thing to her house, but she hadn't meant it quite so literally. She was just sparing him the details.

All the same, she was slightly embarrassed, but that emotion was very much outshone by her gratitude and disbelief. "I can't believe that went along so easily. Everything else has been so muddled up with failure, I definitely didn't expect him to just do it."

She wasn't sure why she was so surprised, but she was.

When handed the chip, she pocketed it and gave him her sincerest thanks. "I really appreciate it. Thanks a lot."

She was then told to tell Ryan he said hi. She committed that to memory, as the situation was far too specific to be coincidental. "That's the man who put us on this hunt's name. Ryan Suffolk. Edward Cohen. I'll remember that,"

"Oh, sure thing," Rose responded to the request, now somewhat suspicious of the whole situation. She couldn't help but think this was an elaborate set up of some kind. It wasn't too important, though, as her and her friends had had a fair deal of fun, and now they were nearly done. "Thanks a bunch. Have a nice day," she said, bidding the man farewell and running off.

Speaking of her friends, "Sabrina? Zeo? It's Rose. I got the chip. I'll meet you guys at the car." She could hardly contain her excitement, and was more than ready to get out of here and on with the hunt.

She didn't pass them on the way, so she waited, as she'd said, at her car. Leaning against the front door she waited patiently for her friends to arrive.
Zeo wasn't particularly happy with their current option, that being "go ask some big-shot casino executive for the chip." He doubted they'd even see a reason to comply, and maybe they would actually have the sense to kick underage teens out of the casino.

With that in mind, Zeo was pleased when Rose spoke through the PET reporting success. "About time," Zeo mumbled to himself, happy that they could finally get out of there. He still wondered why they had been able to get in, converse with security guards, use the chip machines and gamble, of all things. Maybe the place wasn't as strict as Zeo thought. Probably won't have to come back here anyway, so it's kind of redundant. He looked at Sabrina. "Time to get out of here, finally," he said. He was glad they were close to the exit.

"We're on our way," Zeo spoke into the PET. He turned towards the door and started walking, pausing for a moment to ensure Sabrina was following. After that, Zeo headed for the door and out to Rose's car, putting an end to what was hopefully the last challenge they'd face on this scavenger hunt.

...It was official. Sabrina Jetto was out of ideas. And Zeo wasn't showing any signs of having any himself. Which meant that if Rose couldn't come up with the chip, they were probably sunk. Game over. Mission failure. Well, not technically failure, but they wouldn't be able to say 'hey, here's all that junk you wanted' to the guy that gave them this hunt to begin with. C'mon Rose, you're the only hope now...

...And she delivered.

Sabrina let out a huge sigh of relief upon hearing the news, more than a little glad they'd managed to get that last item. Now they could look the requester in the eye and give him everything he could hope for. ...Well, probably not everything, but he couldn't complain with a completed list. "Way to go, Rose! We'll be right there!"

Together, the non-drivers of the group exited the casino, heading for Rose's car. Which was definitely a sight for sore eyes. As they approached it, The Netopian girl's mind started to reflect on what a trio of 16 year olds had managed to accomplish at a place they shouldn't even have been able to enter. It was actually kind of amazing they got the chip, now that she thought about it...but she wasn't about to do anything like that again for a long, long time. "Back to ElecTown! We've got stuff to turn in! And Dad should be there to give us that boiled egg my mom's been working on!"

But first things first. Once she was comfortably seated in the car, Sabrina pulled out the list, and made one last line on it...

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Scavenger Hunt

1- Batch AA-00001 Process Upgrade ~SciLab (Suitachi's Navi Shop)
2- Nil-Zenny Poker Chip ~NetVegas
3- [Neuronomicon], author Maya Frasser ~Bookstore in ElecTown
4- Previous three NetCafe Secret Menu listings ~NetCafe
5- Two (2) Tier-3 Battlechips ~Dad?
6- Thousand Year-Old Spring-Boiled Egg ~Yoka (Mom?)
7- Dentech University 200X Vision Statement Plaque ~DenTech
[+3 FXP to everyone]