Evan Kade
I, Spy
Out of all the people Evan Kade had been hired to watch, he had found that the rich were considerably easier than the poor. Their egos tended to overlap their need to disappear in a crowded room. Their desire to boast and be admired far exceeded their need for discretion. Evan had learned to recognize those patterns and categorize individuals at an early age.
And as much as they filled him with a certain degree of disdain, it was usually the rich who hired him. There was a certain irony in that.
Tonight, however, Evan wasn't here as a spy. At least, that was what anyone watching him would assume. Dressed in the crisp uniform of one of the casino's waitstaff, Evan moved effortlessly through the crowded gaming floor of one of the Core's more extravagant establishments. The casino was the sort of place where fortunes changed hands over the course of an evening and where people with more credits than common sense came to convince themselves that luck was a skill.
Music hummed beneath the constant chatter of conversation, laughter, and the occasional cheer from one of the gaming tables. Lights glittered from every polished surface. Servers moved between tables carrying expensive drinks for expensive people, and somewhere beneath it all was the soft, incessant sound of credits being won and lost.
Evan fit neatly into the scenery. He carried a tray in one hand and wore the pleasant, forgettable expression expected of someone whose primary concern was making certain his customers had everything they wanted. He smiled when spoken to. He apologized when someone brushed past him. He remembered drink orders. And he listened. The elderly businessman at table twelve was complaining about a competitor's latest acquisition. The young woman at the sabacc table had been pretending not to know the man sitting three seats away from her for the better part of an hour. A pair of corporate executives had already consumed enough to make their conversation considerably less guarded than it had been when they arrived.
Evan stored each observation away without appearing to do so. Faces, names, relationships and patterns. He didn't need a datapad to remember them. He rarely did.
A glass was lifted from his tray and replaced with an empty one. Evan moved on, pausing at another table to offer a refill. His attention wandered casually across the room while he worked. It was always interesting to see what people revealed when they believed nobody important was watching. The trick was to never become important. A waiter was invisible. A waiter belonged everywhere. A waiter could stand beside a table while two people discussed business worth millions of credits, and neither would think twice about what he might have heard. Evan preferred it that way.
He stopped beside a table near the edge of the gaming floor, offering a polite smile to its occupants. "Something to drink?" His tone was perfectly professional. His eyes, however, had already begun taking inventory.
Tag: OPEN
And as much as they filled him with a certain degree of disdain, it was usually the rich who hired him. There was a certain irony in that.
Tonight, however, Evan wasn't here as a spy. At least, that was what anyone watching him would assume. Dressed in the crisp uniform of one of the casino's waitstaff, Evan moved effortlessly through the crowded gaming floor of one of the Core's more extravagant establishments. The casino was the sort of place where fortunes changed hands over the course of an evening and where people with more credits than common sense came to convince themselves that luck was a skill.
Music hummed beneath the constant chatter of conversation, laughter, and the occasional cheer from one of the gaming tables. Lights glittered from every polished surface. Servers moved between tables carrying expensive drinks for expensive people, and somewhere beneath it all was the soft, incessant sound of credits being won and lost.
Evan fit neatly into the scenery. He carried a tray in one hand and wore the pleasant, forgettable expression expected of someone whose primary concern was making certain his customers had everything they wanted. He smiled when spoken to. He apologized when someone brushed past him. He remembered drink orders. And he listened. The elderly businessman at table twelve was complaining about a competitor's latest acquisition. The young woman at the sabacc table had been pretending not to know the man sitting three seats away from her for the better part of an hour. A pair of corporate executives had already consumed enough to make their conversation considerably less guarded than it had been when they arrived.
Evan stored each observation away without appearing to do so. Faces, names, relationships and patterns. He didn't need a datapad to remember them. He rarely did.
A glass was lifted from his tray and replaced with an empty one. Evan moved on, pausing at another table to offer a refill. His attention wandered casually across the room while he worked. It was always interesting to see what people revealed when they believed nobody important was watching. The trick was to never become important. A waiter was invisible. A waiter belonged everywhere. A waiter could stand beside a table while two people discussed business worth millions of credits, and neither would think twice about what he might have heard. Evan preferred it that way.
He stopped beside a table near the edge of the gaming floor, offering a polite smile to its occupants. "Something to drink?" His tone was perfectly professional. His eyes, however, had already begun taking inventory.
Tag: OPEN