Chapter 6 - Ping Pong Brothers

Hearing IRIS's 'advise', Jako stop hesitating and walks towards the table. A plain looking man that looks to be the leader was seated behind the card. He was flanked by a pair of muscular twins which made him look quite small and short in comprasion. The three of them together looks quite intimidating.

Jako don't have any evidence of any wrongdoing by this person however his gut feeling is telling him that there is something shady going on.

He heighten his senses as this place itself is questionable morally, anything could happen next.

"So what do we have here?" Jako ask the shady looking fellow, "I'm Captain James Anson of the Frigate Thunderous Dragonfly. Beside me is the engineering brothers Ping and Pong, their profile is publicly avaliable. You can make a search on them."

The brother on the right snicker at Jako, "Isn't this kid still wet behind his ears, he will be fresh meat for the slaughter"

"Too early to say, he might have tough bones to chew.", commented the brother on the left.

Jako is starting to feel like he is back in his army's days. Muscle jarhead all around, thinking and acting tough. 'Oh this is going to be so much fun, IRIS could you pull up the files on this set of brothers?'

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Name: Huang Jun Ping

Citizenship: 2nd Class ITI Citizen

Age: 22 Years

Specializations: Corvette Ship Design

Key Background: From the house of the Huang. Elder child of the twins son of Huang Chin Hin and Wu Jin Yun. Their household is doing above average and part of the Asian Colonist Union.

Ping has shown decent talent in ship design and proof to be good with other part of Engineer. He is known to have a bad temper and could be susceptible to violent. An incident involving seven injured student was settle out of court, warning was issued instead. The twins are also known as the Ping Pong brothers.

Last known status registered into First Fleet Academy. Crew of the Frigate - Thunderous Dragonfly. Two warning received, one each for possible act of violent and possession of improvised weapon, no known criminal activities, no known genes modification, no known...

Ranking: 197th (Thunderous Dragonfly - Frigate Class)

[Certification]

Basic Engineering (sub system) (75.2%)

Basic Engineering (structure) (81.1%)

Adv. Design (Corvette) (11.7%)

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Name: Huang Jun Pang

Citizenship: 2nd Class ITI Citizen

Age: 22 Years

Specializations: Engineering Warp Drives

Key Background: From the house of the Huang. Younger child of the twins, son of Huang Chin Hin and Wu Jin Yun. Their household is doing above average and part of the Asian Colonist Union.

Ping has shown decent talent in propulsion design and engineering. Like his elder brother, he have shown talent in other parts of engineering. Known to be clam but could be susceptible to violent when his brother is involved. An incident involving seven injured student was settle out of court, warning was issued instead. The twins are also known as the Ping Pong brothers.

Ranking: 197th (Thunderous Dragonfly - Frigate Class)

[Certification]

Adv. Engineering (propulsion) (11.1%)

Basic Engineering (sub system) (49.2%)

Basic Engineering (structure) (31.2%)

Basic. Design (propulsion) (97.7%)

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Last known status registered into First Fleet Academy. Crew of the Frigate - Thunderous Dragonfly. One warning received for possible act of violent, no known criminal activities, no known genes modification, no known...

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'Look at those muscles... Host should get them to join immediately.' IRIS sounds excited

Once again Jako hope there is a setting to change his A.I. personality.

Focusing back on topic Jako asked, 'So how are we doing this?

"Let's make this simple and exciting shall we, how about we play a game of poker. The person who lost all his chips is the loser... you do know the game rules right?"

"Yup, I know the rules..." Jako replies

The captain of the Thunderous Dragonfly points at Marcus, "So is this your navigator? I would need his Academy resumes to confirm his skills."

"He isn't my navigator, i'm representing myself. I'm new but i could easily take up the certification for the navigation role."

The captain look visibly displeased, "The trade isn't very fair then... however I could help you out here. How about it, when I win you sign an extended contract for four year instead of two. You will be part of my ship crew and will be in any role I assign you.", arrogantly he continues "If you win, those two brother's contract will be transferred to you."

At the same time, he send the modified contract term to Jako.

'Host, please note that the contract has many terms that is disadvantages to you. With the biggest one being the 'right of distribution' affecting resources/rewards entitled to you and contract transferal.'

Jako felt like laughing out loud, 'This guy is complacent and underestimating his opponent. The way he send the file over also meant this was all part of his plan. It is obvious he have done this scam more than once.'

After a quick scan of the document, Jako agreed to the term of the game and agreement. This has been confirm by their A.I. and will be binding.

Shortly after the group moved to a private room to proceed with the game. They will be using physical cards, to prevent possible hacking.

The cafe waitress has provide them the cards and Captain James suggests Marcus to be the dealer. The game is ready to begin.

At this stage everything still look fine, nothing seem to be raising any red flags.

Jako is up by a few chip after a few rounds however, IRIS pointed out, 'This guy is cheating.'

Jako replied calmly, 'I know, the cards is marked, most likely he swap the deck before hand or he is in cahoot with the waitress. This is a common tricks used when we are bored and playing cards in the army. In my past life, I have seen that done more times than i could count. The second he propose poker as the topic, he have lost.'

Jako was able to guess and confirm the markings by the 6th round, he pretends to hesitant a few time when his cards are bad and shows confidences when his cards is good. Captain James fall into the trick and thought of him as an easy person to read.

The game reach the climax when Jako got a decent hand... Captain James cards was better though.

"How about it, the game has been dragging too long. My cards isn't that great but it feels like yours isn't too great either. Let's go all in shall we?"

"I have a lot more to lose captain, I'm not confidence enough..."

"How about I sweeten the deal, I will add a bonus of 100 credit regardless of the result."

After pretending to think for a few seconds, Jako goes 'All In'.

Thinking he have trick Jako into an All-In, he smirk and think to himself, 'Greedy brat...'

Captain James immediately open his cards, a Full house... "Sorry kid, too bad for you." he want to contince bragging when he notice Jako's smile.

Jako had hidden an ace using a sleight of hand in the previous round... this is the best time to use it and his flush instantly change to a striaght flush when he reveal his cards.

"You, you cheated, that isn't your ca...."

Jako interrupts, "You sure you want to talk about cheating?"

Frowning Captain James understood Jako words, while the sleight of hand is hard to prove, the marked card is still there as physical evidences. All he could do is quickly pack up the cards, leaving the twin brother and exit the cafe.

"Contract agreement received, does host wants to confirm the details. Captain didn't transfer the 100 credit tho."

"This guy isn't half bad, i thought he is going to get tricked" Brother Ping seems impressed.

"I did a search on him, almost no result except for the debut match this morning. In my words, he's a smart guy, in your's, he need to grow some balls." Brother Pong remark as he continces his search for information on Jako.

"My kind of guy though, likely to keep us alive once we enter service. Anyway i think he have guts to pull that trick without a change of facial expression.... Anyway i guess we are back on a little bird." Ping reach out his hand to shakes Jako's.

"We will be in your care, Captain."

IRIS nicely providing some information to Jako. 'As there are numerous small ships, corvettes are serial numbered instead of named. Little Bird is the nick name given to these ship class.'

Jako made some quick introduction with the twins and added their contact to his communicator. Its been a long day and Jako is feeling fatigued. Since he have gotten himself two crew members, he is ready to head back and hit the sack.

However when he bid farewell to the group, Marcus didn't allow him to leave, he hound Jako about the help he provided and he was owed two dinner now. As he doesn't have any credit he could only promise an extra large portion meal when he get some credits.

Marcus couod only relent and decided to have some food before heading back. Jako was finally alone.

After leaving the cafe Jako realise something, 'IRIS, I'm curious about one thing, if an A.I. was able to identify he was cheating why would he dare to use tricks to scam people?'

Without any wacky comments IRIS answered, 'Most ITI citizen have a basic A.I. implant that works more like a computer, their function is very limited. The more well to do ones have Advance A.I. but still not good enough to identify anomalies out of their programming. I'm special though, only first class citizen have implants at my level.'

After the explanation, IRIS returns to her nutty self, 'Praise me more, love me more... i'm the best thing that has happened for you'

'...'