Roman Roulette - Countryhumans America x China

Stars

In less than six hours I was kidnapped, interrogated, almost killed, and now, wanted. 

What an adventure!

Next to me, my frazzled new-found friend, China was having a small internal panic attack, muttering something in his own language. I heard the word 'Loong' a lot. I wondered what it was. 

It was now fully dark outside and the city turned on its flashing lights to the maximum. Somewhere out there Mexico would be having the time of his life. A certain part of me was not believing what we just witnessed and wanted to join the crowd, to dance and sing along with the rest of the masses of people and forget all my worries right there and then. I looked over to China. His gaze was dark and furious, full of loathing towards those carefree people.

"Hey," I said, nudging his uninjured shoulder gently. "maybe you'd like to go get some food? I don't know about you but I'm famished."

His gaze remained focused on the crowd. "We're on the run, America. At least, I am."

"Pfft, so what? We can't even eat regular food if we're on the run? We have to hide out in the desert and eat poisonous snakes?" 

For a brief second, I saw a shadow of a smile cross his face. Then it disappeared. He shook his head. "You shouldn't be here. Don't get yourself involved in my problems. You wouldn't understand."

"But I would!" I said. "you can't just hide in the desert like a recluse! They have really powerful technology and can find you using helicopters or autos, so you and your feet can't really outrun them." I flicked one of my damp locks in his face. 

He sputtered. "and what do you propose I do? Stay here for them to butcher me slowly?" 

I thought for a moment. Yes, Krasna-Giorno was definitely a huge monstrosity of a bureaucratic machine, but then again, every machine is made of something. In our case, Krasna-Giorno was made out of tiny, insignificant workers that didn't really care about their jobs and powerful bosses who influenced large spheres. I bolted straight up. Of course!

"Romania!" I suddenly said. 

"Who's that?" China asked. "your boyfriend?" 

"No!" I said indignantly, putting down my soda. "he's a worker here. He deals cards at Palm casino."

"Great, now we have someone else who knows you." he muttered. "so what about it?" 

"He told me about how he doesn't really like his job. Maybe he can help us?" 

China snorted. "I doubt he'd risk his job, no matter how bad it is...his livelihood to help me."

"Help us, you mean," I corrected. 

He rolled his eyes. "We went over this."

I ignored him. "I heard that day that there was a large departmental meeting, and Romania's actual girlfriend was part of it."

"what's her name?' he asked, although his voice wasn't excited. 

"I forgot," I admitted. "but we could search her up, maybe. The Internet has everything." 

I pulled up a search engine. Hovering over the search bar, I typed in Romania's name. A second later, his profile came up on Krasna-Giorno's webpage.  

"Aha!" I said. "it says that 'Romania is a low-level dealer for Romanian and Russian speakers at Krasna-Giorno's Palm Casino on the West side of Westmoon. He also works at the tap bar and is a consort with Moldova, a high casino executive'." 

"A high casino executive," he echoed. Then he fell off his thought cloud. "So what? She can't help you. She probably will report me as soon as possible to her superiors!" 

"Hey, we haven't done anything yet. Keep your skin on," I muttered. "don't get your tongue in a twist." I looked over all of the executives. They looked pretty immemorable; plain faces, grim frowns, crisp suits. No originality, no cheerfulness, no warmth. Just business. 

But then, something caught my eye. Her. 

"Hey, China!" I gasped. "look, its that woman with the stenciled eyebrows and mascara!"

"Who?" he asked groggily. 

"The restaurant manager who talked to us before those two," I said, trying to sidestep the whole episode while jogging his memory of the woman. 

"Oh," he said slowly. "yeah...with the heavy makeup. She was short."

"Yeah, her name's Ukraine," I read off the page. "I remember, she told us too." I looked down the page. Her description was short and consice. Director of Dining and Gastronomy. Key Contributor. Scrolling over the heavily glossed pictures of perfect managers, I try to find a memorable face. There had to be someone who was alive looking amongst the waxy images.

"Hey China," I said. "I'm going to ask a stupid qiestion."

He looked at me. "What is it?"

"What's a key contributor?" I smiled sheepishly.

"It's someone who helped the company grow very quickly from the beginning," he explained. "Usually a very powerful person with a lot of influence when it comes to desicions."

"Oooh," I nodded. "I knew you were smart."

He half smiled. "Me? I'm actually very dumb."

"Why? You knew what those words meant and I didn't." I laughed. "I think you have to be smart to know so much."

"I might be intelligent, if that's what you mean," he said. "But I'm not smart. If I was smart, I wouldn't ever have gotten into this mess."

I patted his shoulder. "Hey, that's what I'm here for. Like it or not, we're a team now. I can't just leave you and saunter off." I gave him a bright smile.

"But you could." He pointed out.

"No, I couldn't. Look at it this way; if I left, I'd be endangering myself too. I know about their plan, and that's the last thing they want: a woman with their plan, ready to tell authorities."

His eyebrows went up involuntarily. "I...didn't even think that way."

"See? That's why we need to work together!" I clapped my hands.

He sighed. "I guess we are a team then." He looked very unhappy about that.

"So, the first thing we do tomorrow is start to figure out what we need to do. I want to go back and see if Romania is available to talk. We need information."

"Okay," he said, unconvinced.

"You see, there a billions of ways to lose your money in a casino town," I glanced at his weary face. "But there are a billion ways to get money, too."

"And?"

"All we have to do is play our cards correctly," I said enigmatically. "And we can not only repay your debt, but the debt Krasna-Giorno owes the world."

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Yay, I've started this story back up! I really have no clue how the story will go on, but I have a fleeting idea.

This is my main story focus for now.