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Trickster's Gold
Part Three By Doug Linger
I payed the entrance fee and entered the tracks. Well, the stands, anyway. I looked around curiously, noting the long lines of betting booths, the bar, the cafeteria. I hadn't been to a racetrack in more than a decade, and that had been with my parents. I had actually come out five bucks ahead that time. One time at the tracks and I'm in the black. Maybe it's an omen. I grinned, or did my canine equivalent, which mostly was wagging my tail. I had brought two hundred dollars. While not my entire bank account, it was about all I could afford to lose, if this didn't work. I didn't really expect it not to, but sometimes it's a good idea to be cautious. The first race was done remotely. Two other racetracks were having their races piped in via television, and they were run in between the local races. It made sense, once I thought about it; it keeps the patrons from getting bored while tripling the betting being done. I'd just never thought of it before. I decided to only observe, this time. Watch the race, sip a coke (I'd found I could still use straws, so I didn't have to shoot everything past a coyote muzzle anymore), and have fun. The second race, though, I placed a bet. It was a lot simpler than I had thought it would be. I merely told them what track, race number, horse number, and amount of the bet. I put $50 on horse 4 ("Army Boots") to win the next race. No point betting it all just yet; I had no more idea of the winner than anyone else. Yet. A few minutes later post time sounded. I looked at the TV (It was another remote race) and noted that no horses were racing. They weren't even at the gate yet! What's going on? I was getting a little worried. Another three, maybe four minutes and my bet would be too far back to change. "That was post time," a deer morph told me when I asked. "It's when the track stops taking bets. It'll be another minute or two until race time." I swore under my breath. Two minutes to the race, and the race takes... call it another two minutes... I kissed that $50 goodbye. Oh well. Live and learn. I'll just have to place my bet closer to post time. It was a bad race, for me. "Army Boots" came in dead last, a full length behind the closest horse. I replayed the last six minutes (tiring myself a bit from the effort) and got back in line. No point in not getting something out of this. I put another $50 on the winning horse, "Tyger Tyger" (The owner was a fan of William Blake's, I guess.). A few minutes later, my horse came in first. I collected my money: about $300. If I had bet my whole wad I'd have had more than a thousand. I had a moneymaker on my hands, for sure. I didn't see many security guards around. It would normally be difficult to cheat from the stands; to cheat at the tracks a person either needs to crack the betting computers or do things to the horses. The guards were there mostly to prevent robberies. Nevertheless, I was careful not to win too often. I'd bet on losers and lose, and bet larger on winners. I placed bets for show and place together about as often as for win, and sometimes I would keep from betting entirely. I had no idea if they kept track of people who were a bit too lucky. Near the end of the race day, I decided to actually ask. I found a security guard, a bear morph. "Um..." I stammered, not sure how to ask without bringing attention to what I was doing. "What would the track do if someone were to win a lot? An awful lot." The bear looked at me a little strangely. "Do?" "You know. Would that be enough to throw him out or anything?" Now he looked, and smelled, surprised that I'd even think of such a thing. "Of course not. He's just lucky." "Even if he comes back day after day, and continues to win an awful lot?" "Then he's really lucky. The odds are against it, though." It took a lot of effort not to laugh in his face. Although I'd have needed a ladder to do so. It was a load off my mind. They don't officially keep track at all, although I was willing to bet that if I used the same betting window every time the person there would think something was up. I let myself win the last three races. It was about 5:30 when the last race ended and I collected my last winnings. I counted it all at the car. My God! I had made over $7000 today! It hadn't come without a price, though. If going back the full ten minutes was running a marathon, five was about a mile, maybe less. A few minutes recovery time and I'd feel almost as good as new, the key word being almost. Replay five minutes twenty times or so in an afternoon and it adds up. I was nearly exhausted. Not so exhausted I couldn't eat, though. It was dinnertime, after all. When I got back to Lawrence I went to the best steak house I knew and ordered their biggest. Meat prices had gone up since the Change, but that didn't concern me anymore. Fifty dollars for the meal? No problem! I even left a twenty for a tip. I enjoyed the meat immensely; it had been done perfectly. Even if it hadn't I wasn't in a mood to be upset by much of anything, really. Despite how tired I was, I wanted to celebrate. Not only had I found that I was a rich man, or would be very soon, but it was my birthday. Despite the first day of the Change, I'm not really into parties. I get nervous during official parties. Hence I don't advertise my birthday. Besides, I rather think saying "Hey, it's my birthday next week!" with the unsaid "Hint hint!" was rather gouche. Thus as usual I "celebrated" alone. With my meal over with I saw a movie, bought some books, and the obligatory champagne. I went to bed later than intended, though earlier than usual, and with a pleasant buzz. The next day I went to the track again. With what the guard said in my mind, I let myself win more, betting more often to win, rather than show or place, than I had yesterday. Too, with my winnings from yesterday, I also had a larger base to start from. I won't bother saying how much I won that day. You'd want to get a gun. Back in Lawrence I began to get ready for the Chandler Iced Tea Social that would start in another hour. These preparations mainly consisted of sitting around watching TV. I did a lot of preparing. Unlike most times, though, this time I had to get ready mentally as well. I had a decision that was, to me, fairly major. Do I tell my friends about what I'm doing? On the one hand, they're my friends. Keeping the fact that I'm rich to myself would be perceived as greedy. Hell, they'd be right. I wanted to tell them. On the other hand, doing so would inevitably raise the question of where I got the money. Any lie I could think of sounded either assinine or illegal. And the truth was at best a grey area. Questions into my ethics I can do without, at least when they're more than thought experiments. I still hadn't come to a real decision by the time I had to leave. The first bits of the CITS went normally. People came in in waves, two or maybe three at a time. I, of course, entered alone. Michelle put in a minidisk of Celtic music as we discussed the merits of a local right-wing extremist (Yes, he did have some, though not on purpose.). Tony landed on the porch outside about an hour after I got there. He had indeed found something to dye his feathers blue and red. He looked exactly like a living Jayhawk would. Everyone there was unsure whether to applaud or laugh. Though I participated, my mind was still on my little dillemma. Eventually someone noticed that I smelled a bit nervous, and asked what was up. Time to decide. So I did. "Um... I have something to show you guys." I reached into my pouch and withdrew a stack of bills. I had gotten most of my money by check, but I had wanted this in cash, just in case I wanted to do this. Or maybe I had already decided, subconsiously, I dunno. I placed it on the coffee table. Nobody spoke for at least ten seconds. Then Tony noted disbelievingly, from his perch across the room, "Those're hundreds." I nodded. "A hundred of 'em, in fact. An even ten grand." People were beginning to move again. "Where did you get that?" Michelle asked. "You dealing drugs again, Trickster?" Tony joked badly. I smiled a little. "Well... remember what my Power is?" "Precognition," Trevor nodded. "Short-term precog," I corrected. I took a breath, partially to get a breath but mostly to make them wait an extra second for dramatic effect. "And you know Woodlands racetrack?" It took a few seconds for the implications to sink in. Here it comes... Then the room exploded with exclamations of "What?" "That's illegal!" "You can't do that!" and "Hey great idea!" That last was from Leo. I shot him a look I hoped he recognized as grateful, then addressed the others. "Look, I don't think it's wrong. It's not stealing or anything." "You're stealing from the tracks," Michelle pointed out. I shook my head. "No, I'm not." At least I didn't think so, but at this point ambiguity would be bad for my arguement. "I did some reading. According to how the betting system works, so long as I don't bet more than ten times what everyone else bets together then the track won't be paying anything. In fact it makes money. All I'll be doing is altering the odds." "That's still stealing. You're making the other people win less," Michaela said. "Sure, in the same way Tony here is stealing from the hydrogen stations by flying to work instead of using a car." I shrugged. "It's stupid not to use every advantage in life we can." "You're still stealing." "Oh, really? Who from, huh?" Michaela shook her head. "I don't know. The tracks, maybe. At any rate it's not money you earned." "Look, I didn't come here to argue. I didn't come to brag, either. I believe in share the wealth, so here," I said, pointing at the stack on the table, "I'm sharing." "Trying to buy our friendship?" I finally lost it. "No, dammit! I have that, already! Or at least I thought I did. Would you rather I kept this secret? If you found out somehow, I'd be called greedy, as well as morally suspect." "I don't consider this morally suspect, at all," Michaela stated firmly. "Well I do, and that's all I consider it. Now, do any of you want any of this, or no?" Leo looked like a kid looking in a candy shop window. But he followed everyone else's lead; nobody took any of the money on the table. "Fine. I'm now $10,000 richer than I thought I'd be. You've made me a happy coyote," I lied as I gathered the bills. The rest of the night didn't go too well. Nobody ignored me; Tony and Leo even tried to treat me the same. But the conversation was a little... restrained... when I tried to say anything. Eventually I got the message and left. I didn't go to the track for the next few days. I didn't go on a spending spree either, at least not a major one. I did buy all the books and minidisks I had my eye on; mostly, though, I did what I usually did, which was hang out. Sometime that week the Party in Memorial Stadium, which had been going nonstop since the Change, finally ended. The only reason it did is because it rained. Being outside in a Kansas rainstorm is not fun. It started up again briefly during the Fourth of July, but the police were prepared and it ended proptly on the fifth. My friends from the CITS and I, meanwhile, had our annual Burn Down Baldwin party. Every year we would somehow top the previous year, come closer to making the title a fact. It wasn't on purpose, really; it just happened. The first year the party was held, we used rubbing alcohol to light the road ablaze (in a rainstorm, yet). Last year we used homemade thermite to actually melt the pavement while tornado warnings were sounding. This year we would light fireworks and Leo would try to shoot them down with his pyrokenesis before it exploded on its own. He must have been practicing; about half the time he hit they would explode as if they were set off by the fuse anyway, making those great fireflowers. It was quite a show, especially after it got dark. No weather-related things going on this year, though. Still, I kinda wondered if Baldwin would survive next year's Fourth. During the next four weeks I got into a loose routine of going to the tracks two or three days a week and made ungodly sums of money. I didn't spend most of it, although I did buy a new car. I figured if I was going to do some long distance traveling I might as well go in style and comfort. So I bought myself I Porche. Truth to tell, it was the car's name that got me as much as anything else; it was a Roadrunner. I eventually had to tell my parents where I was getting all the money. After all, last they knew I was fired from my pizza delivery job, and here I was with a couple hundred grand. They thought I was dealing drugs, and unlike Tony they weren't joking. So I went through the entire ethics/legality debate again. I decided to keep what I do to myself from then on; the arguements were getting annoying. The only people who needed to know were the IRS and myself. There was one other thing I did during those weeks. I had been calling myself Trickster since the day of the Change, and I thought it past time to make it official. So I got my name changed. My new legal name became Trickster, to the wry grins of my friends and the astonishment of my parents. In the beginning of August I began making my final preparations for my move to California. I had got the last of the bills paid, my address changed, and all the mundane stuff done in July. Then I had to pack the boxes. I had never realized how much stuff I owned! Even though I gave away a lot of stuff I wouldn't need in California it was still quite a bit. I hadn't originally planned to use movers, but not much can be fit into a sports car, and I could now afford movers. There wasn't really any party before I left. As I said, I'm uncomfortable at formal parties, so we merely had some wine brought in for the CITS. "You have my new number?" I asked, near the end of the evening. They nodded. "Good. You won't be able to reach me until I hit San Francisco in a couple weeks. 'Til then I'll be busy road trippin'." "I wonder," mused Tony, "how does one trip roads, anyway?" "I dunno," I said, looking thoughtful. "I guess this'll be a learning experience. I'll call you when I figure it out." Not long afterwards, I left. Some of those people I haven't seen since.
 The desert heat was stifling. Even with the air conditioning on full blast, all this fur makes a person hot. Coyotes live nearly everywhere in North America, but I couldn't understand how they could live here. Unless desert coyotes have electric fans snuck into their coats somewhere... I was coming to my goal, what I was planning to be the high point of my little trek. I had left Denver about a week earlier, taking a secondary highway instead of the interstate. Since I was entering the Rockies, there was actually something to see! With no schedule to adhere to, I was free to take my time along the scenic route. I smiled wistfully. The second day I had lost track of time while on the road, and it had grown dark while I was nowhere near a town. I had declined to move on to the next town (Half the point of this trip was to see stuff, and travelling at night isn't a good way to do that.) and had instead just parked. And because car seats are hell to sleep in, especially now that I have a tail, and because it was a warm night, I slept outside. I had expected to sleep in motels so I hadn't brought a tent with me on the trip. Thus I was lying directly under the stars. And what stars! I had never seen so many! I was from New Jersey, and light pollution there had drowned them out. Even in Kansas, Lawrence was too bright to see many. But suddenly I understood why some people became astronomers, why they get obsessed with the sky. What depressed me the most was when I realized that as recently as last century, this is what everyone saw at night. People in the heart of New York City could see the Milky Way. Since that night I had avoided motels and continued to sleep outside. I shook myself from my reverie as I passed a much-awaited sign: NOW ENTERING LAS VEGAS The smile in the rearview mirror didn't belong on a coyote driving a car; it would have fit far better on a wolf looking at sheep.
I looked around the casino. It was like all the others I'd seen, different only in the details. Over the last ten days I had seen casinos with Egyptian, Roman, circus, Hollywood, New York, and Russian themes. Here it was a monster-movie theme. Dracula loomed over the main entrance, the Mummy was a permanent resident at the main bar and the staff leaned heavily towards wolf-morphs. Over the last ten days I had concentrated on games in which human interference invalidated the results, such as roulette and keno. I didn't play those exclusively, though; craps, blackjack, and even poker could be won with the help of my talent, if less consistently. And of course, no visit to Vegas is complete without playing the slots. Teke (telekenesis) alarms, if they existed, apparently don't work versus time travel. All in all, I was having a grand time. I had made more money in ten days at Vegas than I had made in four weeks at the races. There was a downside, though. Security would inevitably eventually catch on, and I would get the boot from that particuar house. Nothing more than that, for which I was surprised but grateful. I suppose they couldn't prove I was cheating, so they could only ban me. The net effect was that I was beginning to runn out of major casinos. (There's scads of small ones; heck, one McDonald's had a few slot machines.) Two hours later, I had moved from the roulette wheel to the slots. I would insert my coins, pull the handle, and if I didn't win I'd do a minimum-time replay. I'd long since found I could do many more one- minute replays than five, and many more fivers than tens; I suspected a graph of times replayable vs. time replayed would be logarithmic, but never bothered to find out. Even so, I limited myself to a similar win/loss ratio to when I'm at the racetracks, winning about half to two-thirds of the time. I had just finished a replay when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see a low-level cheetah morph (about a 3, I thought automatically; he didn't even have digitigrade feet). "Would you come with me please?" he asked politely. It was plain he wouldn't accept "no." Well, time for me to get kicked out again, I thought. A few more of these and I'd have to leave Vegas until they forgot about me. Oh well, there's alway's Reno. I shrugged in response to his question and gathered the coins in the tray. I had the feeling I wouldn't get the time to trade them in for bills or E-Money (at least I never have in the past) so I just put them into my pouch. It sagged heavily against my hip. After a few steps we were joined by another security person, this one a rat. I began to think while I was led away. I reviewed my actions, trying to determine whether I had tipped them off somehow. I couldn't find one. Sure, I won a lot, but that could be just luck, right? I still didn't know what tipped any of the casinoes off to my activities. It was at this point that I realized I wasn't being led to the exit. There was a door a short distance away from it marked "Employees Only" which I was led through. Beyond it was a staircase leading down, a maze of hallways, then a door marked "Security". "Am I getting the VIP tour?" I asked lightly, to keep my spirits up. This was one step away from being arrested, in my opinion and maybe in reality. I didn't relish the idea of jail. The cheetah glared at me. "No." Beyond the door was a large room. There were perhaps a dozen people here watching monitors showing the casino floor. I didn't get more than a few seconds to observe, though, as my escort brought me to yet another door. Behind this one was a small room. The floor was carpeted, there were nice chairs that had been modified to allow tails, and even a table of magazines. The room reminded me of a dentist's waiting room, without the charm. I was ushered inside and left. I distinctly heard the door lock. There wasn't a whole lot for me to do, so I just sat down and picked up a magazine. It was a Time, but from before the Change. A quick search found that the youngest magazine there was three months old. Just like a dentist's office. It was over an hour before the same cheetah-morph stopped by. After letting me stop by the bathroom, we went to the Director of Security's office. Past that door was a mid-degree wolf-morph who looked more predetory than usual for his species. "I assume this is him?" the wolf asked the cheetah. "Yessir." The wolf turned his gaze to me. "I understand that you've been cheating at the tables." "I'm shocked." And I was, just not for the reason's someone might think. How did they figure it out? To anyone watching it would just seem to be-- "...luck?" the cheetah finished my thought. He was smiling; I could tell even without looking. Finished my thought? "Let me guess: you're a telepath?" He nodded, still smiling. I smiled back, and turned to the director, who was smiling as well. It's a smile-o-rama! was my disjointed thought before I continued. "So, you mindscan the crowd looking for cheaters, and tell the cameramen. They then get the cheater on tape, and to jail he goes." The director nodded. At first glance he seemed pleased, but he smelled nervous. He wasn't as confident as he would appear. "No, tell me if I'm wrong, but you don't have a recording of me cheating anywhere, do you?" The Security Director's smile turned rigid. Got it in one. "No, we don't," he said after almost a minute. They must have been getting desperate, and nabbed me before I could do much damage. "But we do have your confession," he continued. I quickly scanned my memory for everything I said since entering the casino. I couldn't find anything. "Confession?" "You just admitted you cheated." Ah, it's another bluff. "'Fraid not. I said you don't have any records of me cheating. There's a difference." "We still have the testimony of our witness," the wolf growled. "A telepath? Do you know how many constitutional ammendments would be broken by allowing him to testify? Let's see, there's the right to free speech, right to privacy, rights against self-incrimination... he's useless, and in fact, it's probably illegal for him to be employed the way he is." The wolf's face had been getting nasty-looking through that entire little speech. Finally he erupted from his chair, his teeth bared in a snarl. "Get him out of here," he growled to the cheetah. "Get him out of my office, get him out of this casino." The cheetah promptly turned and led me away. I was getting the boot again, but it was better than jail. And there were plenty more casinos, if not as many as two weeks ago. "I see you're thinking about just moving your little racket to another casino," the cheetah-morph said, surprising me a little. "Don't bother. I plan on calling all the other places in town. You, my friend, have just been blacklisted from Las Vegas." I growled softly in annoyance. But it was simply faster than was happening normally. I didn't bother to reply; he would know what I was going to say before I did anyway. After getting thrown out of Transylvania Casino -- almost literally -- I went and picked up my effects at a nearby motel. While I had gone to the casinos to gamble, I had stayed here, possibly the only place without a single slot machine. That way I had never had the added indignity of security standing over me while I packed. I gave a healthy tip to the people at the motel, packed up my Roadrunner, and drove off. I gave myself one last, short tour of Vegas before heading south on I-15. No sense in delaying; I wouldn't be welcome back in Vegas, most likely for the rest of my life. California, here I come! I shouted for all the nearby telepaths to hear.
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