Jul 8th 2011, 16:17 by E O Hatterpol | 1228 AU FROM SUN
"What was that bug, anyways?" I said, looking around on the ground for the critter. It had to have been close, because I could still hear its mechanical chatter.
Heartbreak beckoned me with the dice. I have a bad gambling addiction, but I swear to you there was something else at play in that casino. Something that made it so I couldn't help but accept the dice. I walked to the end of the craps table & looked out over the green lawn's grid numbers with both excitement & the unsettling sense of impending doom.
People dressed up in tuxedos & fine dresses with drinks & cigarettes in hand placed their salty space booty bets: three silvery asteroid metal pirate fingers on this number, a heap of furs on that one & a golden sword in a golden scabbard on that one over there.
Can you tell yet that I didn't know what I was doing? The worst thing about my gambling addiction is that I've never taken the time to learn how to gamble properly.
"If you win the roll, I'll tell you what those bugs are," Heartbreak said enticingly.
One of Heartbreak's girls bent over to blow my dice, but she didn't have any of that flirty emotion in her eyes that you'd expect if this were a movie. For a split second, she looked just like that zonbi who died in the DSOD.
I shut that out of my mind & just threw the dice... & won! The betmaker doubled my space booty -- ah-WOO-gah!! Now I could give Ravi the Bookman all his loot back & have some for myself!
"Congratulations! You won the roll," said Heartbreak. "As promised, I'll tell you what the bugs are. They are strange, mechanical creatures with unnatural life inside, built to spy on the guests at Starbase Octopus. If you've seen them more than once, they might be spying on you."
"Really? Like spy equipment for Starbase police? But I didn't do anything worth spying on!" I protested, paranoid.
But maybe the Starbase was spying on me? Nixie had reported the zonbi's death & people had seen me at the scene of the crime, bashing in its skull with my feet. And there had been a bug there -- it had fallen on my shoulder! As I put two & two together, I got that uneasy feeling again, like I was being watched both by the walls & the stars beyond.
The dice were in my hand again before I knew it. All Ravi the Bookman's salty space booty was piled up somewhere on the incomprehensible grid of numbers and images. I didn't even know what I needed to roll to win.
In fact, I didn't want to roll again. I wanted to take those winnings & move on to the next game! But I had this weird feeling, like I couldn't exert my own will over the situation. I just had to roll again.
"You just doubled down. If you win this roll, too, then I'll tell you just what kind of unnatural life is hidden inside those spy bugs," said Heartbreak.
I gave him a long, hard look, but couldn't read what was behind his twirling moustache, bowtie and boxing gloves. And then my hand was up in the air, setting the dice loose on all of Ravi the Bookman's salty space savings.
I knew I was screwed the second I let the dice go. They bounced down to the other end of the craps table & then looked straight back at me with the wrong faces on. The casino men scraped all my space booty to one side. They weren't giving it back.
"But that money was for rare books for Ravi the Bookman!" I complained. "Dude wanted a couple first editions; he said it was like eating fresh kangaroo meat & drinking aged wine all at once. Now what am I gonna do?"
The weight of my irresponsibility nearly took my legs out from under me. I felt more hollow than a jellyfish, and with less brains, too. Here I was trying to get my girlfriend back, and now I had gotten myself into a pickle that'd lose me my best friend!
"Psst..." said Heartbreak.
"What is it?!" I said irritably.
"I know how you can win all that money back."
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