ã€ŠThe Silver Wheel Game 3: The Chaseã€‹


 Prologue

    Every Monday morning, Marie Walker rolled a six-sided dice.

    After grabbing a light breakfast and enjoying a morning drink, she would meander to a mirrored room that she had designed to connect to nearly identical parallel universes that also had the same mirrored room. Like a radio. Waiting for her, without fail, were five more versions of herself, in worlds identical to hers in all forms and function with the exception of the result of their morning dice roll.

    They would have an organized and brief meeting, all six versions of herself, discussing what they would do with their weeks. In this way, Marie Walker was able to effectively be in six places at once, make notes of which actions had the best outcomes, and spy on people in one reality, confident that they were doing the same thing, unobserved, in the others. After all: the only thing separating their realities were the roll of the dice, and her unique actions.

    They passed notes. They exchanged jokes. They were always hilarious.

    Sunday night, the six would all converge again and report on their activities. What they did, how the world reacted, and which one had brought them closer to their ultimate goal. In that way, it was almost like a little race, with each version of Marie trying to do better, and accomplish more, than the other versions of herself.

    This week, however, things were a little different.

    ¡°Four,¡± Three noted, each Marie christened with the number their die landed on, ¡°You seem a little pale. Your mission this week was to double-check Oberman¡¯s work, so I take it that didn¡¯t go well.¡±

    Four nodded. One, Two, Three, Five, and Six double-checked their notes from the start of the week. They were reaching what could loosely be called the final stretch of their entire operation: One had been testing the UCA they had been working on, Two had been sussing out if there had been anyone spying on their inner circle, Three had been scouring the multiverse for a better pocket universe than the Silver Wheel, Five had been examining the unique properties of their latest ¡®toy¡¯, Ture, and Six had been brainstorming the possible outcomes of the eventual deployment of the UCA.

    They all had their usual color. Three even had a little tan.

    ¡°Well it¡¯s not like me to be so rattled,¡± Six hummed, ¡°why don¡¯t you start?¡±A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

    ¡°Sure. You¡¯ll be interested to hear that Oberman is not okay. He hasn¡¯t given up on Project 20:7. In fact, he¡¯s advanced it quite a bit since we ordered him to trash it. He even captured one of the Mr¡¯s somehow.¡±

    ¡°No kidding! That¡¯s great news! Now we don¡¯t need the Silver Wheel specifically, right?¡± Two nodded. The others, except One and Four, nodded in agreement. Four puckered her lips as she realized she had something else to say. Something actually important.

    ¡°Er¡­ no. Having one in this dimension and having one that can cooperate with us are two very different things. This one, um¡­ wasn¡¯t cooperative, to say the least. He treated her really badly. But hey, on that note, Three, have you found any other pockets that have more Misses or Misters in them?¡±

    ¡°...huh. Actually¡­ no,¡± Three double-checked her notes with a furrowed brow, ¡°Only the Silver Wheel. Mr. Eight is a bit of an anomaly it seems.¡±

    ¡°So we¡¯re not done with the Silver Wheel, then?¡± Two, Five and Six moaned at once. One and Three somberly nodded, having come to the same conclusion.

    ¡°Well fuck us, eh?¡± One sighed, before turning back to Four, ¡°I don¡¯t suppose we could find a version of her where he didn¡¯t treat her like a dick?¡±

    ¡°Actually, no. It¡¯s exactly how we hypothesized, she exerts a¡­ linear presence to the reality in her area. You know, the exact same thing we needed Mr. Eight for?¡±

    The other five Maries started to flip through the notes Four had already submitted. As they skimmed the report, their own faces began to crack into wide, entertained smiles. As if this were the funniest thing they had seen all day.

    ¡°Okay. So the paleness is because-¡±

    ¡°-yeah. I tried to force it.¡±

    ¡°And that-¡±

    ¡°-Full-on apocalypse.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve got-¡±

    ¡°-Four days, seven hours, seven minutes.¡±

    ¡°Oof,¡± the other five hummed, ¡°well, that sucks.¡±

    ¡°At least I died rich and beautiful,¡± Four sighed, complacently.

    ¡°Well then, I think we can all agree that we won¡¯t be doing that, then. One, you wanna take it from here?¡±

    They continued their meeting as per usual. Swapping notes. Exchanging stories. And, as the evening continued, they would conclude the meeting with a vote on the Marie that did the best, and advanced their mutual goal the furthest, before they called the meeting to an end.

    Eventually, the winning Marie would go over the notes, observations, and the technology, while savoring a well-deserved ice cream sundae.

    The losing Maries, to avoid competition and to motivate future Maries, hung themselves.

    And the very next Monday morning, the winning Marie rolled a six-sided dice.

 Round One: Crown and Anchor

    ¡°Welcome to the Silver Wheel. Ya thirsty?¡±

    Cristina gasped as her eyes shot open.

    The first thing she noticed was how cold it was. There was an indefensible chill in the air that seeped through her thick pajamas and assaulted her skin, making her shiver uncontrollably. The second thing she noted was that the air was muted and dead -- it didn¡¯t smell rotten, just¡­ nonexistent. There was no flavor or texture to it, like breathing in space. She hadn¡¯t realized just how much sensation air offered until it was all stripped away. And finally, the third thing she noticed was ¡°Heads will roll¡±, by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, playing on the radio.

    ¡°W-where am I?¡±

    A sigh drew her attention to a well-dressed and very beautiful woman sitting at the head of the table she was apparently seated at. The table was wide and green, like a poker table, there were six boxes drawn on it, each one housing a picture of either a club, a diamond, a heart, a spade, an anchor, or a crown. It was barely illuminated with a flickering yellow light, that likewise barely illuminated the walls of the room.

    ¡°I just finished saying. Silver Wheel.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s a- no, let me out, let me out!¡±

    It was times like these Ratna became annoyingly aware of how necessary Teresa and her weird calming pheromones were to this operation. No one ever hyperventilated like this when she was around.

    ¡°Look if you want to leave the door¡¯s right ther-¡±

    Aaand she¡¯s gone.

    Ratna huffed, and then groaned when another person immediately took her seat at the table.

    ¡°Welcome to the Silver-¡±

    ¡°AAAAAAAHHHH!¡±

    ¡°...Wheel.¡±

    The problem with the Silver Wheel -- no, that¡¯s not right, there¡¯s way more than one problem with the Silver Wheel. A problem with the Silver Wheel is just how automated it is. While it was always possible for them -- and by ¡®them¡¯, she meant Teresa -- to invite people to this little ruined shack in the void, when it wasn¡¯t being used, it was on the hunt for people to fill those seats. So even now, with only two employees (and one with a presentable and/or dicernable face), a messed-up bar, and the very clear signs of a graceless murder having happened a few feet away from the table, Ratna had to field the steady drip of dreamers who found themselves yanked into the seat of the Silver Wheel gambling house.

    In some small way, it was a blessing the Silver Wheel looked, smelled, and felt like a murder shack. It made her job a whole lot easier when all she had to do was greet them and vaguely gesture in the direction out. But in a much larger way: she was getting kind of sick of being alone.Teresa had been gone for a while now. And Mr. Eight was not the best conversationalist. Plus, she was getting very tired of being screamed at, stuttered towards, and threatened. ¡°Fight or flight¡± was a thing, and if she hadn¡¯t been made so numb to being punched by Nikolay, she would have almost been offended at this point.

    ¡°Welcome to the Silver Wheel,¡± she automatically said when she heard a new set of lungs gasping in the chair opposite her, ¡°you want a drink?¡±

    ¡°W-Who the hell are you?! Where the hell am I?! Where¡¯s my wife?! What did you do to my wife?!¡±

    She sighed.

    ¡°Open the door, then the door behind it. You¡¯ll find your wife.¡±

    And they were gone.

    ¡°Oof. I could go for that drink. Uh, I¡¯ll take a¡­¡±

    She paused.

    ¡°Fuck it. Let¡¯s do something crazy. Cranberry juice. Straight-up. I¡¯m not in the mood to drink-drink right now.¡±

    She stared at the door for a few seconds. Eventually, it cracked open, and a long, slithering tendril wormed out from the bar, deftly balancing a silver tray with an immaculately polished glass filled to the brim with cranberry juice. She gratefully took the glass, and shouted ¡®thanks¡¯ as Mr. Eight, their new bartender and defacto waitress, dragged the tray back.

    She turned her eyes to the chair in front of her, where a terrified old man was staring at her with owl eyes. He looked to be¡­ well past 100. Which probably meant he was a man of means in the real world.

    ¡°...hate to break it to you, my dude, but that door is also the only exit.¡±

    ¡°Oh no.¡±

    ¡°Oh yeah. Welcome to the Silver Wheel. You want something?¡±

    He turned to the door, his entire body trembling uncontrollably. She snorted.

    ¡°So, uh, that¡¯s a no, huh?¡±

    ¡°What even is¡­ is this hell?¡±

    ¡°You think we¡¯d be passing out drinks in hell, old man? It might not look like it right now but this is a gambling house. A respectable place. Almost no one gets tortured or killed here.¡±

    She bit her lower lip.

    ¡°...statistically, I mean.¡±

    ¡°I¡­¡± inch by inch, he turned back to her, and the table they shared, ¡°...I see this is a table for Crown and Anchor¡­ yes.¡±

    ¡°Oh, you play?¡±

    ¡°When I was younger, and foolish, yes.¡±

    ¡°Well, maybe you¡¯ll get the chance to play again tonight, if we can find you an opponent.¡±

    ¡°Am I gambling for my soul?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re really hung up on this ¡®hell¡¯ notion, huh?¡±

    His eyes shifted to both sides. To the door that hid the monstrosity that ran the bar, and a bloody stain that reeked of the vodka Ratna had attempted to use to clean it. Also there were still tufts of hair and at least one tooth in the carpet. She made a mental note to pick those up later.

    ¡°...yes.¡±

    ¡°You just caught us at a bad time. The Silver Wheel is a place where you can gamble whatever you have for whatever you want, more or less. So, for example, you could gamble your singing voice for someone else¡¯s¡­ hair growth.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s impossible.¡±

    ¡°Dude,¡± she gestured to the door.

    ¡°...that¡¯s extremely suspicious,¡± he amended his assessment.

    ¡°It¡¯s legit. Trust me.¡±

    ¡°I didn¡¯t get this old trusting beautiful women in dark rooms, miss.¡±

    ¡°Pfft. Sounds boring.¡±

    ¡°...I never said my life had no regrets¡­¡±

    ¡°Well! Then you¡¯ll want to make sure you don¡¯t regret this once in a lifetime chance. You might be old, decrepit, and whittling away your final years before your anticlimactic yet highly anticipated death, but you¡¯re still alive now: which means you can still improve your life or the lives of those around you with some strategic gambling at the Silver Wheel! You sure you don¡¯t want anything to drink?¡±

    She took a sip.

    ¡°How did you kidnap me anyway?¡±

    Ugh, she really missed Teresa¡¯s pheromone thing. She briefly considered playing into it, and creating an elaborate explanation about how she snuck into his bedroom with a rag laced with chloroform, but in the end she was too exhausted to try to mess with him like that.

    ¡°Didn¡¯t. This is a dream. Going through that door will wake you up.¡±

    ¡°That sounds like a trap¡­¡±

    ¡°Well, it¡¯s true. Tell you what, wait another¡­ minute. Minute and a half or so. Someone else will appear in the seat directly opposite you, and they¡¯ll ask all the same annoying questions as you, if they don¡¯t immediately book it for the door or punch me in the face.¡±

    ¡°...okay.¡±

    They sat quietly. She continued to sip on her cranberry juice. ¡°Don¡¯t You Worry Child¡± by Swedish House Mafia started playing on the radio, which the unnamed old man seemed to appreciate. He opened his mouth a few times to say something, but seemed to reconsider each time, and eventually stopped trying. Mr. Eight used another extended tendril to take the glass of cranberry juice once it had been emptied, which she thanked him for. The old man fished for some cigarettes out of his pocket. He didn¡¯t have any.

    It took two minutes, give or take a few, for a second person to appear.

    A younger woman. Barely nineteen, which seemed to be the youngest age the Silver Wheel would accept people: Ratna hadn¡¯t seen a single soul here that hadn¡¯t firmly finished puberty. She was dressed in black, with obviously fake black hair, and a bit too much black makeup around the eyes.

    ¡°Welcome to th-¡±

    ¡°Oh thank god I¡¯m finally dead¡± the second guest expressed in perfect monotone.

    ¡°...hoo, I¡¯ve got some bad news for you, lady,¡± Ratna said by way of introduction, ¡°but this is actually the Silver Wheel. You ain¡¯t dead. Neither of you are dead. You are in no danger of dying here.¡±

    ¡°Pfft,¡± the woman snorted, ¡°fine, maybe I¡¯m not dead, but you expect me to believe this creepy-ass murder shack isn¡¯t going to kill me?¡±

    ¡°Just because something is creepy doesn¡¯t mean it¡¯s going to kill you. You want something to drink? ¡®Cuz we¡¯re fresh out of cyanide.¡±

    ¡°Who are you, anyway?¡±

    Ratna let out an exaggerated groan while rolling her head around her shoulders.

    ¡°You know what, let¡¯s start this over. Hi. Welcome to the Silver Wheel, you two. A magical gambling house you can only reach in your dreams. It is not, despite the bloodstains and the smell of rotting flesh, a murder house. The minute you get out of here you¡¯ll be back in your beds and you¡¯ll have forgotten you were ever here.¡±

    The old man and the young woman exchanged glances. Having seen the woman just appear in front of him, the old man seemed more or less at peace with the situation. The woman seemed too ambivalent enough to her own self-preservation to care that much.

    Still, she cared just enough.

    ¡°So why are there bloodstains and rotting flesh smells, then?¡±

    Ratna leaned back.

    ¡°I¡¯ll level with you kids, there was a murder here. A¡­ considerable number of murders.¡±

    ¡°Wait¡­¡± the old man interjected, ¡°that¡­ that makes this a murder house, then.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not like the house is dedicated to murder.¡±

    ¡°No house is dedicated to murder, except, like, a slaughterhouse. A house becomes christened a murder house once there¡¯s been a murder there,¡± the woman followed up.

    ¡°Really? Semantics? That¡¯s the game we¡¯re playin¡¯ here?¡± Ratna rapped her fingers across the table. ¡°...fine. Y¡¯all win. The Silver Wheel is a gambling and murder house, but neither of you are being murdered. In fact, you couldn¡¯t hurt yourselves or each other if you tried. All I care about is helping you play a game together. Like any gambling house, you have to wager something, but since this one is magic, you can gamble anything about yourselves. Money. Possessions. Qualities. Talents. Whatever you want. Only exception is years. Can¡¯t swap that or whatever.¡±

    Both the old man and the young woman were listening. Ratna took the time to appreciate this before continuing.

    ¡°If you don¡¯t want to play, you can leave now, no harm, no foul. But once you agree to play -- and you both agree on a fair wager -- then the game begins. And once the game begins, it¡¯s an all-or-nothing affair: if you quit then you lose, and the other player wins. Cheating¡¯s fine, but if you get caught, then you automatically lose. And¡­ uh¡­ yeah. You kids want to play?¡±

    ¡°Sure.¡±

    ¡°Why not?¡±

    ¡°...wait, for real?¡± Ratna blinked.

    ¡°I¡¯ll be honest with you,¡± the old man smiled kindly, ¡°I¡¯m terrified and I don¡¯t trust you won¡¯t kill me if I say no.¡±

    ¡°And I don¡¯t want to leave so I might as well play. A place this creepy is all kinds of thrilling.¡±

    ¡°Cool. Looks like I¡¯ve found our new target demographic: goths and the accidentally blackmailed. Decide what y¡¯all be gambling for. Tell me if you want a drink or something.¡±

    ¡°Magic¡±, by the Mystery Skulls, started playing on the radio. The two strangers turned to each other fully. The old man looked shockingly spritely, the kind of energy you don¡¯t usually see in someone with so many folds in their skin. The woman, interestingly, was the more lethargic of the two, despite her youth.

    ¡°Do we need to introduce ourselves?¡±

    ¡°Can¡¯t hurt.¡±

    ¡°Then allow me to begin. Darryn Navarro. I¡­ own a landscaping company.¡±

    ¡°Myrtle Queen. Professional piece of shit.¡±

    Darryn furrowed his brow at this, but couldn¡¯t quite think of something to say to it. So he hurried along.

    ¡°I might be old but I still have needs. I want to be able to sleep comfortably again. So¡­ I guess¡­ in a manner befitting a murder house¡­ could you perhaps gamble your healthy back?¡±

    ¡°Sure. Premature myelopathy sounds like fun,¡± the girl shrugged, ¡°I want your parents.¡±

    ¡°...they are dead.¡±

    ¡°And I want them.¡±

    ¡°How¡­ how would that work?¡±

    ¡°Dunno. But I promise you it will,¡± Ratna said.

    ¡°I¡­ um¡­ I¡­ yes?¡±

    ¡°Then it¡¯s settled!¡± their dealer announced, completely ignoring the man¡¯s uncertain tone, ¡°Myrtle will be gambling her healthy, youthful back for Darryn¡¯s dead parents!¡±

    At Ratna¡¯s command, thirty chips appeared at each side of the table: Myrtle¡¯s were bone-white, while Darryn¡¯s were the silken ash of the grave. Both of them seemed more than a little surprised and uncomfortable at this spontaneous creation -- but at least Myrtle was now convinced of the magical nature of this place.

    ¡°Tonight¡¯s game¡­ is Crown and Anchor!¡±

    Crown and Anchor, perhaps unsurprisingly, can date itself back to the golden age of nautical exploration: specifically, the early 18th century. It was a game created by British sailors, although it spread to both American and Australian sailors before long, popular to an extent thanks to its extremely uncomplicated rules and how relatively effortless it was to produce the objects needed for play. These days, the game is significantly less popular outside the Channel Islands and Bermuda, where the game is heavily regulated and only legal in very specific instances, such as agricultural shows or cricket matches.

    The game is shockingly simple: you sit at a table with six symbols, the club, the heart, the spade, the diamond, an anchor, and a crown. On your turn, you place any number of chips on any number of those symbols, then roll three six-sided dice that have those same symbols on them. If one of the dice produces a symbol that matches where you¡¯ve placed your chips, you get those chips back. For two dice, you get twice as many chips back from me, the dealer, and three times as many if all three dice get the same symbol.

    ¡°But let¡¯s be honest: Crown and Anchor is pretty boring by itself, and not really designed for competitive play. Which is why the Silver Wheel spices things up with some extremely convoluted rules. So I hope y¡¯all brought pens and papers.¡±

    ¡°Can I borrow som-¡±

    ¡°-First things first: the objective here isn¡¯t actually to get more chips. Rather, you¡¯re going to use the chips you¡¯ve got to build a five-card poker hand. The person who makes the best hand will win the game. How¡¯s that supposed to work, you might be wondering? It¡¯s simple. Simple-ish. It¡¯s not simple at all.¡±

    ¡°At the start of the round, you can put anywhere from two to eight chips on any number of spots. For the sake of this explanation, let¡¯s say you put five chips on the club. Once everyone¡¯s nice and ready, I¡¯ll throw three dice, like normal Crown and Anchor. If no clubs pop up, you lose your chips. If one shows up, you get your chips back, like normal, but you also get a five of clubs to add to your ¡®hand¡¯. If two show up, you get ten chips, and two fives of clubs. So on. The game goes until both parties have five cards. If you manage to get more than five cards, you¡¯ll have to discard old cards to make space for the new ones. And you have to play every round. Unless you can¡¯t because you run out of chips or something. Then you don¡¯t have to play because you lose.¡±

    ¡°¡®But Ratna, what about the crown and anchor spots?¡¯¡± she continued in a fake old man voice, ¡°Those spots are special. First of all, you can only put chips on those spots if you have chips on one of the four spots with suits on them -- the heart, spade, diamond, and club, y¡¯know. But secondly, they give you special powers. Winning chips on the crown spot raises the total number of chips you can put on the other spots, and thus, the value of the cards you can earn. So if you have three chips on the crown, and one dice comes up crown, congrats, you get your three chips back and now you can put anywhere from two to eleven chips on the other spots on the board for the rest of the game. Anchor does the opposite¡­ for your opponent. So if Darryn ¡®wins¡¯ three chips on the anchor spot, then Myrtle can only put two to five chips on each spot from then on out. These add up and cancel each other out, so play smart.¡±

    ¡°Oh, and if you manage to get there: eleven chips are worth a Jack, twelve is a Queen, thirteen is a King, and fourteen is the Ace. Get it? Got it? Good.¡±

    Both parties gave themselves some time to go over the rules.

    Darryn pretty quickly pieced together at least why these changes were made. Fundamentally, there was no strategy in Crown and Anchor: it was entirely luck-based, and you couldn¡¯t even really spread your bet like in roulette, since anything past a two-space spread was effectively just throwing away your money. This, while it could hardly be called Crown and Anchor anymore, at least gave them a reason to think about how much to gamble, and where to put their chips. Still, after a few seconds of thought, he realized the strategy at play here couldn¡¯t be called that much more comprehensive, really: outside the crown and anchor spots themselves, there was no reason not to just pick one suit and stick to it. That way, assuming you didn¡¯t get the world¡¯s worst luck, you¡¯d at least get a flush. Heck, four of a kind, already one of the best hands in poker, was technically extraordinarily easy to get as well. So from where he was sitting, the ¡®winner¡¯ would be either the person who had the balls to make bigger bets and get the more valuable four of a kind, or the person who lucked out when the ballsier person lost their chips. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

    Myrtle, on the other hand, knew a whole lot of nothing about gambling, but she wasn¡¯t exactly a slouch in the brains department, either. And the way she figured, the Crown and Anchor spots were the key here. If they were using four-sided dice (they exist, they¡¯re like pyramids), this game would already be rough ¡ª each dice would only have a 1 in 4 chance of landing on the spot you wanted. Not great odds. Add two more seemingly useless spots, those odds jump up to 1/6, which means more rolls than not, you¡¯re probably losing chips. You could then just bet low and hope, but there were actually strategic ways she could use the Crown and Anchor spots¡­ if she lucked out.

    ¡°No questions from me,¡± Myrtle sighed.

    ¡°I actually have one, if you don¡¯t mind: who will put their chips down first?¡±

    ¡°Heeey, look at you, working that pruned-up brain of yours. That¡¯s for the two of you to decide. But really, you can adjust your bets up until you both agree it¡¯s time to play. It¡¯s not like when you let go of your chips you can¡¯t touch them again or anything.¡±

    Darryn nodded with satisfaction, while Myrtle nodded with the tired ambivalence of a university student at a 6 am class.

    ¡°Very well. I can work with that.¡±

    ¡°Glad to hear it. If there¡¯s nothing else, we might as well begin.¡±

    ¡°Plume¡±, by Caravan Palace, started playing on the radio. Darryn closed his eyes to appreciate the opening melody, and to help soothe his consternation, before turning to his opponent.

    ¡°Don¡¯t think I¡¯ll be going easy on you just because you¡¯re a young lady.¡±

    ¡°S¡¯ cool. But if you fuck me too hard I might start calling you daddy.¡±

    Ratna was not-so-secretly rooting for the goth chick.

    With Myrtle having successfully killed pre-chat banter through the sheer power of deadpan sarcasm, the two were forced to consider their wagers. Myrtle was tangentially aware that if she did plan to simply wait out Darryn and let him wager himself to death, she should wait for him to wager first to make sure she bet less. But she had already exercised most of her fucks at the ¡®thinking up the plan¡¯ stage, and she simply couldn¡¯t scrounge up any more for the ¡®executing the plan¡¯ phase.

    So she put five chips on the club, which just happened to be the closest symbol to her dominant hand.

    Darryn looked at those five chips as if they held some secret meaning. He glared at them so intensely, he completely missed the apathetic thousand-yard stare of his opponent, which would have probably been a bigger tell. He muttered a few things to himself, and ultimately decided that he wanted to play big, so he put two chips on the spade and four on the crown.

    ¡°Everyone happy?¡±

    Myrtle pondered for a minute, before putting four chips on the anchor.

    ¡°I am now.¡±

    Darryn considered how the board changed, then nodded.

    ¡°Fine. Let¡¯s roll.¡±

    ¡°Anyone wanna blow the dice a kiss before we throw?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m¡­ good.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not a whore.¡±

    ¡°Sure you are. Anyway, here we go!¡±

    Ratna conjured three dice, which she rattled dramatically in her long, lithe fingers, her painted nails barely illuminated yet managing to bring at least a small measure of color to the dark, haunted room. When she had sufficiently ratcheted up tension in the room, she flicked her wrist and opened her hand, allowing the dice to bounce and fly across the table.

    The first die landed on a club. The second, a heart. The third, a spade.

    ¡°Looks like you both kind of sucked that round,¡± Ratna announced, ¡°Myrtle loses the 4 chips she had on the anchor, but gains a five of clubs. Darryn loses harder, losing the four chips he put on the crown, but got a two of spades. In case you both really suck at math, that means you both have twenty-six chips left to gamble with.¡±

    Ratna collected the lost chips, returned the rest, and, drawing from a deck under the table, gave each player the card they had won ¡ª seemingly just for the effect of it. Darryn held his close to his chest, while Myrtle just dropped it on the table, face-up.

    ¡°Ugh. This is pretty intense. I didn¡¯t go to sleep to be more stressed out¡± Myrtle broke the ice with lip bubbles that doubled as a sigh.

    ¡°Is this game already getting to you?¡± her older opponent pushed.

    ¡°...I mean yeah that¡¯s what I just said.¡±

    ¡°I, uh¡­ I guess you did.¡±

    ¡°Can¡¯t help it. I really shouldn¡¯tve wagered my spine¡­ after all, ¡®s my oldest friend. Always got my back.¡±

    Ratna didn¡¯t like Myrtle anymore.

    ¡°Well if you¡¯re nervous now, wait until I turn this game around.¡±

    ¡°You got a plan, old man?¡±

    ¡°Of course. And if you don¡¯t, you¡¯d better¡­ watch your back.¡±

    ¡°Eeeyyy. You¡¯re alright,¡± Myrtle grinned, shooting him some finger guns.

    Ratna hated them both at that exact moment, but avoided saying as much, lest they start thinking that puns were the reason this place was so bloody and corpse-filled. So she just chewed on her lower lip and kept her words to herself, allowing the players to re-evaluate their strategies.

    Darryn was behind with cards, but that was okay: with his loss this round, he realized that there was an even better way to win the game, and he was fairly confident he could pull it off¡­ he just needed to create his perfect opportunity.

    Myrtle, on the other hand, let the gears in her head turn as she stared at her five of clubs. A few strategies floated into and out of her head, but ultimately, she decided that it was just a game of luck ¡ª and if she wanted to win, she would just play the hand that had the best odds and cross her fingers.

    He put two chips on the spade spot, and one chip on the crown.

    She put four chips on the club.

    ¡°...neither of you are saying or doing anything. So¡­ you¡¯re good?¡±

    ¡°Yeh.¡±

    ¡°Roll when ready, captain.¡±

    Ratna reared back her hand, shook it three times for good measure, and let the dice roll free. The first landed on the heart, the second showed an anchor¡­ and the third showed a crown. Darryn¡¯s eyes lit up, and an old, throaty laugh broke out of his lips.

    ¡°Got you now, little girl.¡±

    ¡°Wow. And I thought Ratna was the creepy one,¡± Myrtle whistled.

    ¡°Ah, I could only aspire to be that creepy,¡± Ratna hummed, ¡°Anyway. Neither of you get a card, but Darryn only loses two chips, while Myrtle loses four. Darryn still gets the edge, though, because now he can wager nine chips instead of eight.¡±

    The chips were taken. Myrtle¡¯s stack was sitting at 22. Darryn had 24, and ¡ª to his mild irritation ¡ª a cheap ¡®you¡¯re a star¡¯ sticker slapped onto his shirt by Ratna, to ¡®mark¡¯ his extra chip privilege. But that extra chip would be the key to his success.

    ¡°Before we start the next round, could I take you up on that drink offer, Ratna? A coffee. With two sugars. Hold the cream.¡±

    ¡°About damn time. You want anything too, Myrtle?¡±

    ¡°Hot chocolate.¡±

    Ratna looked at Myrtle as if she were a savior haloed in golden light.

    ¡°Christ why did I never order that- Yo! Two hot chocolates! And a coffee! Two lumps no cream!¡±

    She paused.

    ¡°Don¡¯t forget the marshmallows! The small ones!¡±

    She didn¡¯t know if they had marshmallows, but she was absolutely beaming when she turned back to the pair of players. The cynicism that had once sharpened her crude edges seemed somewhat softer now as she rocked impatiently in her seat for the drinks. Darryn, who was also checking the door with every other glance, tilted his head slightly to his opponent, who was staring enviously at his sticker. He ignored that.

    ¡°Did I¡­ did I ask you why you want my parents? I cannot remember.¡±

    ¡°Nope. You asked how it would work, not why.¡±

    ¡°...well¡­ I am asking now.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m pretty subtle about it, so I wouldn¡¯t blame you for not noticing I¡¯m a touch, uh, apathetic. I can¡¯t think of anything I¡¯d want from an old dude, but I would like to shake things up in my life ¡ª you know like surprising yourself by shopping online while you¡¯re drunk. But imagine: waking up one day and finding out my parents are actually super-dead strangers? Sounds exciting. I¡¯d get all wrapped up in that and my life would be way more mysterious and cool. Could be fun.¡±

    ¡°Well, I don¡¯t mind saying that¡¯s fairly twisted and selfish, young lady. Did you even once consider, young lady, how it would make your parents feel to ¡®discover¡¯ you are not their daughter? Or how it would impact my life to learn I have a sister, or to lose my own parents? If this place is what it claims to be, you have a responsibility to think about the impact of your desire. Clearly, you haven¡¯t. I almost feel like I¡¯m obligated to defeat you now, moralistically.¡±

    Myrtle¡¯s first thought was that every word out of his mouth was bullshit, since he was asking her, a young person with a whole life ahead of her, to inherit back problems that would plague her for her entire life and cause her to be a burden to her loved ones. Just so he could sleep a bit more comfortably for the remaining¡­ two weeks he had left? It looked like he had two weeks before he died. Max three.

    Myrtle¡¯s second thought was that she really didn¡¯t care and thus kept it to herself. Although she did snort when, while having these thoughts, ¡°Paralyzer¡±, by Finger Eleven, started playing on the radio.

    Myrtle didn¡¯t get the chance to have a third thought, as the sweet scent of warm, liquid chocolate started to waft into her nose. A smile crossed her face, and she nodded thanks to the pale, blue-eyed stranger who had given it to her.

    ¡°And a coffee for the gentleman,¡± she reported in a somehow relaxing monotone.

    ¡°Oh. Oh shit. Teresa! Teresa, I-¡±

    The dealer stood up, looking flustered. The white-haired woman turned to her, and while her expression remained unchanged, her eyes¡­ they grew a bit¡­ jagged. Jagged enough to shut the once smug dealer up instantly.

    ¡°By all means, continue your game. I will be tending to the Silver Wheel in the meantime. Feel free to join me once the game has reached its conclusion.¡±

    ¡°Eer¡­ right. You, uh, you guys ready?¡±

    Neither Myrtle or Darryn knew where this Teresa person came from, but they didn¡¯t seem to mind at all either. In fact, her sudden appearance seemed to unwind their knotted nerves more than agitate them. As if she was a breath of normalcy in an otherwise insane situation for some inexplicable reason.

    ¡°Sure, sure,¡± Darryn grinned into his coffee, putting two more chips on the spade, and nine on the anchor, ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡±

    Myrtle whistled.

    ¡°Woo. Lookit that.¡±

    Well now she felt rather silly. She had considered putting some chips on the anchor last round, but decided it would be safer to keep her chips. Turned out that was a mistake, because with nine chips on the anchor, she was kind of trapped. If even one die came up anchor, she¡¯d be unable to bet, and that probably meant she would lose. At least, judging by the extremely canine grin Ratna was flashing her.

    So that kind of put her in a spot. She could just ignore it and hope no anchors come up, but if she did that, he¡¯d have at least one more round to pull this stunt again before he ran out of chips, and that seemed more than a little risky: with six rolls in total and a 1 in 6 chance of any of those dice landing anchor¡­ her odds probably weren¡¯t great. On the other hand, she could put eight chips on the crown. If she was lucky, she would get a nice buffer between herself and any future failure, which would force him to re-evaluate his strategy. If they were both ¡®lucky¡¯, she would lose only one chip maximum, and she could prolong the game. Or it could accomplish nothing.

    She couldn¡¯t even try to get him back. Or rather, if she tried, they would need to get two anchors in the same roll, and then she would still lose anyway because she had fewer chips than him. No wonder he was so confident.

    She took a sip of her hot cocoa. It was pretty good.

    Darryn took a sip of his coffee and wondered why there were marshmallows in it.

    Myrtle finally decided. Five chips on the club. And eight on the crown.

    ¡°Gotta admit, not a bad move, old man.¡±

    ¡°Let that be a lesson to you: one moment of weakness and-¡±

    ¡°-Yeah okay shut up,¡± Ratna interrupted. ¡°Let¡¯s roll!¡±

    Despite herself, Myrtle found the tiniest pearl of excitement stirring in her gut as Ratna started to swirl the plastic cubes in her hand, rattling them around rhythmically in anticipation of the throw. Once they had been sufficiently jostled, and Darryn and Myrtle were at the edge of their seats, she threw the dice in a tall, wide arch, so they would crash into the table like stones from the sky.

    The first dice landed on a diamond.

    The second landed on a heart.

    And the third¡­ an anchor.

    ¡°Welp. That¡¯s that then. I guess Darryn wins.¡±

    ¡°Damn.¡±

    ¡°How wonderful!¡±

    ¡°...yeah these things are usually more climactic,¡± Ratna admitted with a shrug, ¡°So¡­ y¡¯all can finish your drinks then leave I guess.¡±

    ¡°Hmm. How bad are your back problems?¡± Myrtle asked, nursing her cocoa, although the moment she did a sharp pain ran through her spine, a pain that abruptly melted into a severe discomfort, as if her bones were made of too-sharp steel, ¡°Ahh. Ah. There it is. Fuck. That¡¯s uncomfortable.¡±

    ¡°Sleep with a pillow under your hips, it will help.¡±

    ¡°Ah, man, I have regrets. I think I¡¯d rather have been murdered.¡±

    ¡°I do apologize for the state of the Silver Wheel,¡± Teresa, the waitress, bowed apologetically, ¡°please let me know if there is some way I can compensate you for any discomfort you may have felt during your game.¡±

    ¡°I could go for a new fucking back.¡±

    ¡°Please let me know if there¡¯s some way within my power I can compensate you for any discomfort you may have felt during your game.¡±

    ¡°...I¡¯d take another cocoa?¡±

    ¡°Right away.¡±

    In the end, Darryn learned his current physician was a crook, hired someone new, and with a few invasive surgeries and new medications, had his back problems fixed at the expense of his now-sued ex-doctor.

    Myrtle slipped on ice and fell the exact wrong way.

    And Ratna was making another go at the bloodstains in the carpet.

    ¡°...and finally he says ¡®paper¡¯ just before Nikolay punches him and then he caught it as I said three. We won the game and then I did a lot of stabbing.¡±

    ¡°Yes. I can see that.¡±

    Teresa almost sounded impressed.

    ¡°Since then he¡¯s been in prison for the whole murdering Oberman thing, and we¡¯ve just sort of been waiting around for you, I guess. Where have you been, exactly?¡±

    Teresa was working on shuttling all the bodies they had hidden under the floorboards outside, with the help of Mr. Eight. There was no shortage of things to clean: broken glass, human teeth, stains caused by of all kinds of fluids on just about every surface, the air itself needed refreshing, there were scuffs and marks on the walls, some lights clearly needed replacing, and the poker table itself ¡ª amorphous as it was ¡ª definitely needed some attention. Fortunately, with Teresa around, they could more precisely control the flow of sleeping people into the Silver Wheel, which was to say, throttle it to zero. When Ehije wasn¡¯t around, she was the owner, after all.

    ¡°I went to get a new body. However, the Boss wanted to know why I needed a new one so soon, so I had to explain the situation to them. Once that was complete, I did my utmost to satisfy Nikolay¡¯s request, until I was given back control of the Silver Wheel. Then I came back as soon as I could.¡±

    ¡°...as soon as you could?¡±

    ¡°Yes. Circumstances withheld me for a time.¡±

    ¡°...you gonna elaborate?¡±

    ¡°In the process of servicing Nikolay¡¯s demands, I came to discover that other owners were being solicited and harassed by Marie Walker in the same way we have. It appears she is in the process of searching for an ideal candidate to perform a certain operation. It also appears so far, the Silver Wheel is the most ideal candidate.¡±

    ¡°I could stand for more elaboration here.¡±

    ¡°As could I. But that is the extent of my knowledge. With it, I can safely assume Marie Walker will be visiting the Silver Wheel of her own volition in the near future.¡±

    ¡°Well, wait, that¡¯s great. She¡¯ll be an intruder, we can just get her with one of our ¡®fuck you¡¯ games and that¡¯s that.¡±

    ¡°I am less certain it will be so easy. We shall formulate our plan more properly with Hakeem.¡±

    ¡°Oh, right about that. His name¡¯s Ehije, apparently.¡±

    ¡°...oh. How curious. Ehije, then. But I would hate to bring him here while this place is in such a state. Let us continue to clean, for the time being.¡±

    ¡°Uh, sure. But one quick question: who¡¯s going to be our bartender?¡±

    ¡°I suppose that responsibility will fall upon me now.¡±

    Ratna puckered her lips.

    ¡°You? Do you even know how to mix drinks?¡±

    ¡°I cannot imagine it is difficult.¡±

    ¡°Really? Prove it. Bring me a Shirley Temple.¡±

    Teresa stopped what she was doing and matched Ratna¡¯s stare for a half-second before turning around and walking briskly to the bar. Ratna watched her go, and stared at the door. Waiting. Waiting for a shockingly long time. Even Mr. Eight was staring at the door now, for as much as they could really ¡®stare¡¯.

    It took longer than they expected for Teresa to come back empty-handed.

    ¡°It would appear we do not have any Shirley Temple.¡±

    ¡°We¡­ wait, we don¡¯t have ginger ale and syrup?¡±

    ¡°Of course we do.¡±

    ¡°...so you can make a Shirley Temple.¡±

    ¡°There were no bottles in the bar with that label, Ratna,¡± Teresa stared at her as if she were the dumb one.

    ¡°How long have you worked here again?¡±

    Teresa went back to cleaning, and Ratna followed suit, although she could hardly be accused of paying attention to the stains.

    ¡°I have no idea what you seek to imply with that question, but if you are suggesting Mr. Eight retain bartending duties I suppose I have little choice but to accept these terms. If you agree to them, Mr. Eight.¡±

    Mr. Eight agreed to keep bartending, since apparently they were the only one who could.

    ¡°Then it is agreed. Let us resume cleaning.¡±

    ¡°We never really stopped, boss.¡±

    ¡°Then let us cease discussion.¡±

    ¡°Yeah I missed you too.¡±

    ~*~

    ¡°Seven Nation Army¡± thrummed in his ears. He tapped his foot in time with the drum.

    He was sitting in economy on a flight between Mexico City and Hanoi. He had just finished adjusting his life insurance, editing his will, and settling the affairs of his estate. He wasn¡¯t an especially old man, and there was nothing he planned to do that was especially risky ¡ª he just told his wife that some news reports got him thinking on the subject of death and it¡¯s not like him to postpone when he got it in his mind to do something. And that was true, so it satisfied her, and she gave him a kiss and, when he was gone, double-checked his insurance and will to make sure she was still part of it.

    She was. In fact, the only real changes he made were that he increased his benefits and disinvested most of his stock portfolio, re-investing in the food and water industry. It was technically an ill-advised move, but he insisted that he had excellent reason to assume these industries would be booming soon and he wanted to snag his cut of the pie early. There was nothing anyone could say that would talk him out of it. Nor was there anyone who was interested enough to figure out that everything he did was to further separate himself from his earlier ties to Walker Industries. Those connections, while tedious and paper-thin even at the best of times, were now completely severed. He had nothing to do with Marie Walker or her commercialization of the exploration of parallel worlds.

    He had a story if anyone had ever noticed or asked. But nobody had noticed or asked.

    He took a deep breath, and adjusted his seat again. He was too tall for these miserably small seats, but at least the flight was only two hours. He reflected on the past few months: he had spent a lot of time doing a lot of things that nobody had really noticed, actually. It was as if he were such a perfect cog in such a perfect machine that as long as he continued to keep his teeth aligned with the gears adjacent to him, no one cared what else he did. There was no one, not even his wife or his mistress or even his business partners, who were keeping careful tabs on him or making note of the incongruities. As long as the boat didn¡¯t shake, he could do anything he wanted on it. It was a weird sort of freedom via smallness that he could really appreciate, even though he was far from a ¡®small¡¯ person. Compared to the other people traveling in economy, he metaphorically loomed. But even a giant is just another human in a room full of peers.

    There had to be a term for this. Herd camouflage? That sounded right. He was too lazy to check for real.

    His eyes opened to the sound of ¡°Leaving on a Jet Plane¡± by John Denver. That was his alarm, and it was going off.

    Welp. Now was the time.

    Elrick Swayze yawned, walked into the aisle for maximum visibility, and then violently dropped dead.

    Unfortunately, the people next to him had to bare witness to his gruesome end: he had doubled himself spontaneously and lethally. A second head had merged almost exactly onto his existing one, creating a fleshy afterimage that extended out of him. Two sets of teeth. Two tongues. Two pairs of eyes, which had merged into bloody-blue heart shapes. Four arms, four legs, two torsos and two pelvises. It was as if an identical twin had tried to pass through his body, and they both died halfway-through, impaled on one another.

    Passengers panicked, cried, and vomited. The plane needed to schedule an emergency landing. The body was hidden under countless blankets to avoid upsetting anyone else until trained hands and eyes could witness the corpse. It was something they had never seen before. Something they, doctors and surgeons who had worked on the human body for dozens of years, couldn¡¯t even begin to explain.

    But Marie Walker, who happened to have donated an enormous sum to this hospital and just happened to be touring a wing renamed after her, could.

    With a paling face and a terrified stutter, she explained that this man had overlapped with a parallel version of himself.

    The veil between worlds, it seemed, was thinning.

    And she immediately excused herself.

    ~*~

    ¡°Woo, you leave an ugly corpse.¡±

    ¡°You pick my bodies.¡±

    Ture always had a sore throat when jumping between bodies, and he didn¡¯t know why.

    ¡°Yeah look my pool isn¡¯t huge. And thanks to your demanding ass, if I use too much from this pool o¡¯ bodies, people will start to connect the dots.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m kind of surprised to hear you have that much faith in people.¡±

    ¡°You kidding? I¡¯m a people and I¡¯m great.

    ¡°...are you sure?¡±

    ¡°Oooh, implying I¡¯m not human. That¡¯s real clever. A+ banter right there, tell fucking Tarantino he¡¯s been bested¡± she snorted, spinning on her heel to grab a bagel from her assistant, who was mistakenly power-walking the wrong direction.

    ¡°You wanted to blow the whole plane up.¡±

    ¡°Which would have been safer for both of us since no one could have pinpointed the anomaly to one of Helmut¡¯s ex-patrons, thank you very much. Can¡¯t you see babe, it was for us.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll figure something out.¡±

    ¡°I did. Blow the whole plane up.¡±

    ¡°...¡±

    ¡°Oh, don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m not mad sweetie. There¡¯ll be more planes where that came from.¡±

    ¡°Ugh. I¡¯m going to read this new body¡¯s profile. Enjoy your PR hellstorm.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s the plan sweetums. Sending kisses!¡±

    She smacked her lips into her holophone until he hung up on her, which was one of the most satisfying sounds in the world. One of. The most satisfying sound in the world, of course, was anything said or sung by the baritone ear-fuck that was the late Stan Rogers.

    Now there was a man who knew how to die in an plane.

 Round Two: Razz

    Despite what could only be called an exemplary criminal record, Ehije had never actually been incarcerated before. Having recently undergone the process, he had to admit he wasn¡¯t a big fan. Lots of pushing, shouting, and of course, waiting. Wait in the car. Wait in the interrogation room. Wait in the holding cells. Apparently new criminal reforms in the country meant that the process was a lot smoother and gentler for non-violent offenders, but when you¡¯re caught straight-up murdering someone the way Ehije was, well, you get the old world treatment.

    Again, not a fan.

    Ehije could at least use all the time spent waiting to think up a story. A lie, of course, would be less than useless, there was no way he could convince even the most bribeable officer that he hadn¡¯t committed a murder. Hell, with Ehije¡¯s fake ID, emails, money orders, and correspondence with the Nigerian Cultural Center laid out, any idiot could figure out it was premeditated and malicious. But he at least needed a good reason why he decided to push the most influential post-Unilalianism artist in the world off a rented balcony.

    It didn¡¯t so much need to get him off the hook as it needed to slow down the investigation as much as humanly possible. He didn¡¯t know if the Silver Wheel could protect him from all the people who were likely out for him now, and the longer he could stay out of the state prisons, the better. The last thing he wanted was to be Epsteined.

    In the end, he settled on being a paid assassin. It was a reasonable enough story: Helmut was powerful enough to have enemies, a paid sponsor would explain how he got so much money out of thin air, and it would give him, a functional nobody, a reason to have a beef with a wealthy European he¡¯d never met before. But more importantly, 1) it made him a middleman, which took the target off his back, and 2) by dropping a few vague hints and appearing ¡®breakable¡¯, it meant days were wasted trying to find out who actually hired him.

    It served its purpose. But as the days stretched out to weeks, he was starting to grow concerned about the Silver Wheel: he knew he wouldn¡¯t be brought back until Teresa returned, but could it really take this long for her to finish her chores?

    Left alone with nothing but thoughts and anxiety, he started to gaslight himself. Wonder if maybe the whole experience, from Jack Kelly to now, was some really weird mixture of dreams, drugs, and coincidences. He knew that it wasn¡¯t. But there was something so unreal about the reality of the situation that made it hard to swallow even now -- and worse, he already knew people could trick themselves into believing more with less. No crazy person ever really understands how crazy they are, if they realize it at all.

    He clung to the concrete facts. If he was crazy, Helmut was crazy too (which wasn¡¯t much of a comfort). He wouldn¡¯t have been able to reach Helmut if it weren¡¯t for the information he acquired in the Silver Wheel. He couldn¡¯t have hallucinated or dreamt up a link between a German artist he didn¡¯t know and a Canadian business mongul he barely cared about until very recently. It was all very real. But that made the nightly waits for his return trip all the more frustrating.

    Thanks to his obfuscation and clear lack of threat, he had managed to spend all this time in detention centers. But his court case, cut and dry as it was, was fast approaching. Jail was on the horizon, and that was where his convictions would really be put to the test.

    He found himself thinking about that while staring at the ceiling of his cell, which had been his home for the past three months. The Silver Wheel¡­ it really had cursed him with misfortune. Tense gambling matches where his wit and quick thinking were the only things standing between himself and death¡­ or worse. The results of which put him where he was today, away from his creature comforts, having lost almost all of his friends who weren¡¯t that surprised to learn he had taken the final plunge into true infamy, with no real way to avoid a lifetime in prison should he not succeed. All for a vague promise of a wish.

    Still. There were a whole lot of ¡°what if¡¯s¡± in there. What iffing were for the people he conned. He had to live in the ¡°what now¡± world. He just wished he had a better plan than, literally, ¡®sleep on it¡¯.

    ¡°Hey. You have a phone call.¡±

    He shook himself awake, only to wander into a brand-new cloud of confusion. Who the hell would be calling him? His last remaining friend had visited just the other day. And it¡¯s not as if they spoke about anything meaningful -- just reports of what was going on, the gossip, some vague information about where he had moved what was left of his stuff. The plan was to sell it. Use the cash to help survive jail a bit longer. There was no reason to keep any of his old possessions -- he was either going to lose them forever or replace them with even better toys when he got out.

    ¡°Thank you.¡±

    A cell phone was passed to him.

    ¡°Hello.¡±

    This¡­ was a voice he didn¡¯t recognize. It was an older woman, posh, thickly accented. It was clear she was unfamiliar with speaking English, and yet she spoke it with perfect candor. Or at least, with such confidence he could think it was perfect.

    ¡°Who are you?¡±

    ¡°I am Olivia Beisner. The widow of the man you killed.¡±

    ¡°I see.¡±

    She sounded rather calm. But her calmness wasn¡¯t exactly infectious, and now Ehije was stuck in a situation he literally never thought he¡¯d be in -- trapped in a phone call with the woman whose husband he killed. But Ehije wasn¡¯t the type to pause in the face of befuddlement: he marched forward, bravely and obliviously.

    ¡°Well is there something I can do for you, Olivia?¡±

    It was not always a good system.

    ¡°No, I wanted to say thank you. I don¡¯t know why you killed my husband but you made the world a better place by doing so.¡±

    ¡°Oh. Well, that is a pleasant surprise. Thank you for saying so.¡±

    ¡°...yes. He¡­ how you would say¡­ was a murderous whale penis. He liked to talk a lot and say nothing, and do bad things and say it was art. A terrible man. I don¡¯t understand why I would have married him.¡±

    ¡°If I had to guess, ma¡¯am? Money.¡±

    ¡°The money was nice, yes, but still a mistake. Money makes people do all kinds of foolish things.¡±

    ¡°I would disagree that it was a mistake, ma¡¯am. No one can blame you for wanting money. Money is everything.¡±

    He was happy to talk to her. Eager, almost. It¡¯s not as if he had anything else to do.

    ¡°No, I do not think so.¡±

    ¡°...with respect, ma¡¯am, that¡¯s the privileged opinion of someone who¡¯s swamped with the stuff.¡±

    ¡°I know. Money can get you happiness, and comfort, and opportunity, and security. Helmut even used it to get love and freedom. But you can get those things without money too. Money is just¡­ a shortcut.¡±

    ¡°I suppose, being that I am in prison, I have little choice but to hope you are right, ma¡¯am.¡±

    ¡°For now, yes.¡±

    And she hung up.

    Cryptic, but also, entirely predictable. Ratna did promise that the Wheel would get him out of prison, wish or no wish. This almost felt like the Wheel itself was preparing for that situation. Like his life was a play and the Silver Wheel, through some cosmic happenstance, was the one writing its script. And he was just flailing about in the wake of its pen.

    He imagined he was supposed to feel powerless. Bur more than anything, he was just glad he hadn¡¯t been forgotten.

    That thought alone did a great deal to help him fall asleep that night.

    Only to open his eyes somewhere new.

    He knew immediately it was the Silver Wheel -- there was nowhere else it could possibly be -- but this was not the Silver Wheel he had won from Nikolay. It was bright, for one. The grimy, flickering light that once swung above the poker table had been replaced by a glamorous silver chandelier which brilliantly illuminated the marble and gold leaf walls that were decorated with mirrors, pulsing white neon, and two tall, thin fountains that bubbled with water. The table itself was likewise grandiose, apparently carved out of ivory and lined with high-quality velvet that looked so soft you felt drowsy just looking at it. The door frame was outlined with gold-covered statues of snakes, and door itself looked like a gateway into heaven.

    Teresa and Ratna, at the very least, looked the same as they always had, although the extra lighting really highlighted how unusually seamless and uniform Teresa¡¯s skin was. Which grew more unnerving the more he noticed it.

    ¡°Welcome back, Ehije.¡±

    ¡°...you two have been busy, I see.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, turns out, storing corpses in the floorboards tends to leave pretty nasty smells. Since we had to tear the place up anyway, I talked Teresa into some light renovations.¡±

    ¡°I am told we are going for a ¡®Vegas¡¯ aesthetic.¡±

    ¡°I have never been, but this is what I imagined,¡± he looked at the carpet, which was red and every bit as luxurious as what covered the table, ¡°...but I must ask: does this not imply we do not plan to execute Marie?¡±

    ¡°That is a matter I would like to discuss with you, Ehije. But first.¡±

    She put a hand on his shoulder, and she smiled.

    ¡°...thank you for getting rid of Nikolay and Helmut.¡±

    Ehije shuddered.

    ¡°I appreciate the gesture, Teresa, but you scare me when you smile.¡±

    ¡°S¡¯ pretty freaky.¡±

    ¡°Oh. I apologize, then.¡±

    She removed her hand, and her smile.

    ¡°Would you like something to drink while we wait?¡±

    ¡°Did you get a new bartender?¡±

    ¡°Mr. Eight has agreed to the task.¡±

    ¡°...in that case, no.¡±

    After Ratna ordered another hot chocolate for herself (judging by the pile of mugs on her end of the table, she hadn¡¯t been shy about indulging her latest addiction), Teresa took a seat next to Ehije and laid her hands flat on the poker table.

    ¡°We have reason to believe Marie Walker will be coming back to the Silver Wheel of her own volition sometime in the near future. Obviously, waiting for Marie Walker to arrive so we may treat her as an invader would theoretically be to our advantage¡­¡±

    ¡°...but she¡¯d be expecting that,¡± Ehije finished, and she nodded.

    ¡°Yes. We do not want to engage Marie Walker in the battlefield of her choosing. Not only would she be able to plan around it, but by the time she arrives it would likely already be too late to foil whatever she is attempting to do.¡±

    ¡°Wait,¡± Ehije raised a hand, ¡°foil? Why do we care about foiling her? We just want her to leave the Silver Wheel alone, that was the plan.¡±

    ¡°The plan has now changed. My travels to other establishments similar to the Silver Wheel have made me moderately confident that she is attempting to do something catastrophic.¡±

    ¡°...moderately confident?¡±

    ¡°She has been specifically looking for establishments that fit two crieteria: ones that can reach and impact every single existing dimension parallel to her own, and ones that have an entity like Mr. Eight working in them. To the best of my knowledge, the Silver Wheel is the only establishment that employs such an entity, and thus, the only viable candidate for her plan.¡±

    ¡°And before you ask, apparently not even we know exactly what the hell a Mr. Eight is. Not even Mr. Eight really knows.¡±

    ¡°It is not a fair question. What exactly is a human? I very much doubt you could answer in a satisfactory way.¡±

    ¡°Assholes,¡± Ehije helpfully offered. Ratna shot him a thumbs up.

    ¡°...regardless. I feel, as you will be the one playing, the decision rests with you: should we invite Marie Walker and try to entice her to play now? Or shall we chance allowing her to come to us on her own terms?¡±

    Ehije didn¡¯t need much time to think: he had been doing little else during his time in prison, and was mostly just excited he had a chance to have all his thinking put to good use.

    ¡°Neither. Why go in blind? Let us invite someone else instead. Gene Oberman.¡±

    Teresa furrowed her brow. It was clearly a conscious effort on her end.

    ¡°I am unfamiliar with that name.¡±

    ¡°Helmut name-dropped him before I killed him. He is apparently one of Marie¡¯s most trusted confidants, or some such. If we invited him, perhaps we could offer him something in exchange for all his knowledge of Marie¡¯s plans. And, armed with information, better prepare for our confrontation.¡±

    ¡°It seems you once again exceed our expectations, Ehije. That is a fantastic idea.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, congrats on the promotion from con man to killer, by the way.¡±

    ¡°Would you care to remind me who stabbed Nikolay thirty plus times?¡±

    ¡°Must have been you, I only stabbed him twenty-nine times.¡±

    A tendril gingerly placed a hot cocoa in front of Ratna, who high-fived it by way of thanks.

    ¡°If we agree on this plan, then I do not see a reason to delay further.¡±

    ¡°Neither do I,¡± Ehije smirked, ¡°The sooner we get this done, the sooner I can get out of jail and start living my new life.¡±

    ¡°In that case, let us begin.¡±

    ~*~

    ¡°...and in summation, we¡¯re only a few days from being ready to transition the project to the final phase.¡±

    These late-night phone calls with Marie Walker were the worst part of his day. He had never liked them, but now they were agonizing exercises in patience as he tried to keep his own mind focused on the tasks he was assigned to complete. And he never liked the assignments he was assigned to complete. They, too, strained at his extremely thin patience. They didn¡¯t excite him the way they used to. They barely registered in him now. His obsession with and addiction to Miss Nine had rendered everything he had once loved completely null. There was still a part of him that was conscious enough to resent Miss Nine for spoiling his work, but most of him was so overwhelmingly enamored with her that he couldn¡¯t use that resentment to pull himself away.

    ¡°That¡¯s lovely,¡± Marie¡¯s cantankerous voice crackled over the phone, ¡°but there was one last, teeny-weeny little thing I wanted to ask you before I let you go, sweetie.¡±

    ¡°...yes, Miss Walker?¡±

    ¡°Did you, by any chance, happen to delete all our data on the 20:7 project like I instructed you to?¡±

    His heart stopped in his chest. Even at his most lost, he had known he couldn¡¯t keep this up forever. His work was suffering. His reports were lacking. His co-workers and employees were complaining. He knew he¡¯d be caught sooner or later, but that didn¡¯t mean he was ready for it. He had barely prepared at all. Such was the crippling nature of his addiction, he couldn¡¯t even pull himself away from it to ensure he could continue to indulge it.

    ¡°...why do you ask?¡±

    ¡°I was rather hopeful you could dig it back up again, actually.¡±

    He blinked. Several deep, excited breaths followed.

    ¡°...what?¡±

    ¡°Well, the 20:7 dimension is proving to be quite the thorn in my side. So much so I actually kind of regret canceling the project, since I could probably use that sweet, sweet data right about now. I¡¯m not suggesting a full reboot, but if you could take it upon yourself to give the place another little peek-¡±

    ¡°-Of course!¡± his voice caught in his throat. He was crying. This was the best day of his life. ¡°Whatever you want, Miss Walker!¡±

    ¡°Mhm. You know it¡¯s just not as satisfying when you actually mean it. But here¡¯s the fine print: the UCA isn¡¯t working on 20:7. I need to know why. Or, lacking that, how I can distance it enough from our dimension to use the UCA safely without the risk of a crack. Think you can do that sweet stuff?¡±

    ¡°Of course. Of course!¡±

    ¡°Mm. Still too authentic. See you soon, baby-doll.¡±

    She hung up. He stood and cried for a full ten minutes before crumpling to the ground. Caught or not, it didn¡¯t matter anymore: Marie Walker wanted him to really investigate 20:7 now. He could stop hiding it. He could stop allowing his employees to distance themselves from Miss Nine. He could wield his full power as the director of Bigger Skies to sate his hunger and indulge his curiosity. He was going to eat some of Miss Nine and have the medical staff on-hand to ensure he didn¡¯t die, just like he always wanted.

    All for Marie Walker, yes. She wanted it now. It was okay now.

    He could barely fall asleep that night, but in the end, his body couldn¡¯t keep up with the fever of his brain.

    At least, until his eyes opened up to a blinding, glamorous light, the sound of a fountain, and ¡°GHUNGROO¡± by War.

    ¡°Welcome to the Silver Wheel. Can I get you a drink?¡±

    Gene Oberman took one look around, his breathing hard and loud and distracting. His eyes glazed past Ehije and Ratna, and only settled when he saw Teresa.

    ¡°...how did you find me?¡±

    Teresa did not answer.

    ¡°Did you want a drink, sir?¡±

    ¡°How did you find me?!¡±

    ¡°I think I will field that one,¡± Ehije leaned forward, forcing Gene to begrudgingly turn his direction, ¡°as I was the one who found you. Your former friend Helmut had very loose lips.¡±

    ¡°I see. I see. So it wasn¡¯t through Miss Nine. That¡¯s curious. That¡¯s interesting.¡±

    He turned back to Teresa, ¡°Strawberry Fanta.¡±

    ¡°Right away, sir.¡±

    ¡°Right. Okay. Well. I trust you want me because I know about the Silver Wheel, of course. You want to kill me, like you killed Helmut and Nikolay.¡±

    ¡°Not quite correct, sir. We¡¯re more than happy to let you live. All we want to do is get rid of the pills, and to learn of Marie¡¯s plans. We don¡¯t need your life: just whatever you have in your head.¡±

    ¡°I see. I see. And so we play a game for them, of course. But there¡¯s nothing you have I want.¡±

    A glass bottle of Strawberry Fanta was carefully placed in front of Gene. He barely registered its existence. Ehije leaned forward, folding his hands in front of him.

    ¡°Are you sure? Are you aware that I own the Silver Wheel? You could win it from me. And I happen to know already that Marie Walker needs it. And even if you have no loyalty to her, having free reign of this place must be at least moderately tempting for a man of your tastes.¡±

    Gene took another deep breath. Ehije was able to keep his face perfectly static, and not betray how annoying he found the man¡¯s almost comically exaggerated breathing. It was like he was chewing with his mouth full, all the time.

    ¡°Tempting? Sure. But the fact you¡¯re here and they¡¯re not means you won whatever games you played against them. That suggests some level of skill. I, meanwhile, am not a gambler. Why would I risk such important information playing games I know I¡¯m bad at?¡±

    He paused for a second.

    ¡°...also, who are you? I know of Teresa, and Mr. Eight, and your new dealer Ratna, but you are a new face. A replacement for Ture, perhaps?¡±

    ¡°You can call me Samuel-¡±

    ¡°-Oh my god,¡± Ratna rolled her eyes, ¡°Just use your real name, dude, I can¡¯t keep up with this shit.¡±

    ¡°...fine. I am Ehije. The Silver Wheel chose me to be their champion in their little war against Marie Walker and her lackeys.¡±

    ¡°I understand. Well, as interesting as that is, I have no real interest in participating in your scheme,¡± Gene stood up, shaking his head, ¡°I have important work to get back to. Good day.¡±

    ¡°Wait, before you go, I¡¯m sure you¡¯d be-¡± Ehije tried, but Gene was already heading for the door. ¡°-we can offer you more than just the Wheel!¡±

    Gene, however, was unflappable.

    ¡°You can pick the game.¡±

    Gene opened the door to the bar.

    Ehije stood up to follow.

    ¡°We¡¯ll just keep re-inviting you, Gene. You¡¯ll never get a good night¡¯s sleep again!¡±

    Gene closed the door behind him.

    Ehije stared at the door for a few seconds, then sat back down with a huff.

    ¡°...that was not very dignified, Ehije,¡± Teresa noted, picking up the completely untouched bottle of Strawberry Fanta.

    ¡°Fuck. I thought for sure he would want the Wheel.¡±

    ¡°It would appear he does not.¡±

    ¡°Hell, if we¡¯re being honest, he¡¯s probably the smartest motherfucker we¡¯ve invited,¡± Ratna smirked, ¡°Sucks for us, though. Guess we have to decide what to do about Marie blind.¡±

    ¡°I am not ready to give up on Gene yet. There must be something we can use to lure him into a game.¡±

    ¡°How do you suppose you¡¯ll figure that out?¡± Ratna probed, ¡°Dude lives in a secret lab. Even when he forgets all about this it¡¯s not like you can find him on Facebook or whatever. And if we re-invite him he¡¯ll remember being here again so we can¡¯t exactly use that as a chance to probe him. Face it, Ehije, we fucked it up.¡±

    ¡°...perhaps we have been worrying prematurely,¡± Teresa smiled knowingly, ¡°Ehije, it would be prudent of you to check in on Mr. Eight.¡±

    Ehije didn¡¯t like that idea, but nodded anyway.

    The bar was every bit as glamorous as the parlor: it had shed its grungy, dive atmosphere for something more sophisticated and eloquent. Lights shone with champagne gold, the floor was made of an orange-and-gold metallic epoxy, and the bar itself, on top of being decorated with gold leaf and hazy blue lights, enjoyed a much larger display case -- which didn¡¯t hold any more drinks, but rather, allowed each bottle to have a little space to show itself off, so one could more clearly and easily appreciate the artistic contours of the glasswork. There was even an ¡°employee of the month¡± plaque, which had Teresa¡¯s face printed on it, because she had honestly assessed that she was the best employee.

    The area behind the bar was spacious, which was good, because Mr. Eight needed the room. Not only to accommodate their enormous (if fluctuating) size, but also to put some distance between itself and Gene Oberman, who had stopped mid-march to stare obsessively at it.

    ¡°...I see something has caught your interest.¡± Ehije slyly observed, ¡°Maybe you¡¯d be willing to play a game now?¡±

    Gene pulled his lips back into a hungry, carnivorous grin -- a smile that rivaled and surpassed their own wolf of a dealer¡¯s. It was the kind of smile that could only be produced by the sickest minds, whose depravity stemmed from a pure and unadulterated love for the object of their obsession.

    And he pointed at Mr. Eight.

    ¡°...against it. Yes.¡±

    Ehije looked at Mr. Eight. Mr. Eight looked at Ehije.

    ¡°...fine by me.¡±

    ~*~

    Mr. Eight couldn¡¯t sit on the chair, so it stood awkwardly at the end of the table. Every fluxuating square inch of its body fidgeted, as if trying to recoil from Gene¡¯s demented stare. The man was drooling. Drops of saliva fell from his chin and stained the table. For some reason, it was grosser to Ratna than the old blood stains.

    ¡°So, uh¡­ what will you be gambling for?¡±

    Mr. Eight didn¡¯t want to do this. It had never gambled before. It could barely even hold cards. But it understood how important Gene¡¯s knowledge was to stop Marie Walker, and it didn¡¯t want to be accused of not being a team player. After all: it was shooting for that employee of the month plaque.

    Teresa put a cool hand on what could be called the equivalent of its back, in relationship with the table. It relaxed, then tensed, then relaxed again. It found her rigidity comforting, and enjoyed flexing itself against such solidity.

    ¡°I¡¯ll give you all my knowledge of Marie Walker and her plans if you win. But if I win¡­ if I win, I want Mr. Eight to take me to the same wonderful place he took Miss Nine. I want to become like your Mr. Eight. That¡¯s fine, right? Those are fine terms?¡±

    Mr. Eight paused considerably before agreeing to the deal. Two sets of 30 chips appeared on the table: in front of Oberman, pink and black in an almost ice-cream swirl. And for Mr. Eight, chips of an indescribable color and pattern that seemed to vanish the moment you weren¡¯t looking directly at them.

    ¡°...okay. Well today¡¯s game is Razz.¡±

    Poker, historically, was played with a 20-card deck, and was inspired (some say) by either the french game ¡°Poque¡± or the Persian game of ¡°As-Nas¡±. It was only at the middle of the 19th century that the deck would be expanded into a full 52-card deck. Stud poker was the first kind to take advantage of these new decks, but Razz almost immediately followed suit. Popular on Mississippi riverboats through the 19th and early 20th century, Razz eventually fell out of favor to more traditional stud poker, like 5-card draw, and community card poker, like Texas Hold ¡®Em. However, Razz maintained a minor presence in the poker world, even creating a legend out of Greek card shark Archie Karas, who in 1992 used Razz to turn 50 dollars into 30,000, and later that 30,000 into 7 million. He would go on to earn up to 40 million over a span of 3 years, only to lose it all soon afterwards, all at Las Vegas. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

    ¡°Razz is played a lot like seven-card stud. We¡¯ll deal seven cards to you both -- four up, three down -- and you¡¯ll use those cards to make the best five-card hand possible. However, whereas in normal poker the point is to make the highest-value hand possible, in Razz, you want to make the lowest-value hand possible. So you don¡¯t want pairs, kings, queens, nothing like that. Fortunately in Razz, we don¡¯t count straights or flushes, so that makes your jobs a little bit easier.¡±

    ¡°Razz has a few more noteworthy rules. For one, aces are all low. For two, in the very likely event of a tie, suits are dealbreakers:  Clubs are the highest-value suit -- which means you don¡¯t want them -- followed by diamonds, hearts, and finally spades. So spades good, clubs bad.¡±

    ¡°At the start of the round, I¡¯ll deal you both three cards. One face up first, then two face down. The person with the highest-value face-up card makes the first bet. Once you both make your bets, I¡¯ll deal another face-up card to you each, y¡¯all make your bets, yadda yadda, we continue this way until the seventh card is dealt, which we do face-down again. Make your final bets, show your hands, y¡¯¡¯ll get it, unless you don¡¯t, in which case I¡¯m here for questions.¡±

    Both players stared at each other. Gene daringly. Mr. Eight curiously.

    ¡°I understand perfectly.¡±

    Mr. Eight confirmed they understood.

    ¡°Alright then, final rules rundown, no getting caught cheating, it¡¯s all or nothing, if you leave you lose, the same ol¡¯ same ol¡¯, now ante two chips.¡±

    While ¡°Sakhiyaan¡±, by Maninder Buttar started playing on the radio, both parties submitted their chips: Gene with a flick of his wrist, while Mr. Eight placed each chip down one at a time using a number of temporary extensions to itself. The four-chip pot was meager, but Gene was already staring at it hungrily.

    Ehije was wildly uncomfortable, and excused himself to the bar.

    ¡°Yo if you¡¯re going to bitch out bring me some hot chocolate or something!¡± Ratna called back to him as she dealt the first three cards.

    Mr. Eight got a five and two of diamonds face-down, but the king of spades face-up. Gene, on the other hand, had a five of hearts face-up.

    ¡°Looks like Mr. Eight is betting first. Whadya say, slugger, wanna bet with those cards?¡±

    Mr Eight inspected the face-down cards while simultaneously examining their opponent with their plethora of senses. They did not like examining their opponent with their plethora of senses. Gene Oberman was an unpleasant human, and Mr. Eight wasn¡¯t quite sure how to cope with that. Mr. Eight was unaccustomed to disliking the human collection. Generally he found the human collection charming -- cute, almost. They were such a simple collection, each group within the whole operating under very strict laws and with extreme dedication to their purpose, and yet they were still somehow comically inept at doing their tasks and failed all the time. Mr. Eight enjoyed humans in the same way a famous artist would post the scribbles of their child on the fridge: there was a level of incompetence that managed to overcome its own uselessness and become endearing.

    But the collection that made up Gene Oberman was¡­ uncanny. Their frame and outer collection was as cute as any other human¡¯s, but the inside-collection was just a little too well put-together, which when combined with the flaws of the outer frame, made him uncomfortable to gaze upon. Humans were not designed to house such insides. It was an ill fit for them, and Gene Oberman¡¯s clear insanity was evidence of this.

    Mr. Eight pitied the inside collection for what it had forced upon itself, and pitied the outside collection for being unable to escape the catastrophe that the inside collection was putting it through.

    But more than anything else, Mr. Eight wondered why these collections were so keen on card games. The laws were arbitrary and the ¡®fun¡¯ was abstract. Mr. Eight could not grasp the point of these aberrations, but it understood the simple logic that the more chips it put into the pot, the more chips Gene would have to put into the pot, and Gene having fewer chips was the objective.

    So they tried to move all their chips into the pot, until both Teresa and Ratna shouted ¡°no!¡±. Teresa even put a hand on their back again.

    ¡°No, Mr. Eight. Please only wager reasonably.¡±

    This seemed reasonable to Mr. Eight.

    ¡°I would suggest something small, if you wish to wager. Remember that in addition to wanting Gene to have fewer chips, you must also ensure you do not lose chips.¡±

    Mr. Eight retracted their chips, and only put two into the pot. Gene called.

    ¡°Will¡­ it¡­ need coaching the whole game?¡±

    Mr. Eight assured the unpleasant Gene Oberman it would only require help if it failed to grasp the uniquely alien logic of how these card games were supposed to operate.

    ¡°It is extremely fascinating how you manage to communicate without either words or body language. Even watching you do it, I¡¯m not quite sure how it¡¯s possible.¡±

    Mr. Eight invited Ratna to deal again, as it didn¡¯t know where that line of inquiry was going and it didn¡¯t want to find out. Gene Oberman¡¯s inside collection would simply need to come to terms with the fact that accepting phenomenon and understanding phenomenon were sometimes paradoxical objectives.

    Ratna dealt Mr. Eight an eight of spades. Gene got a nine of clubs.

    ¡°Mr. Eight still has the high cards showing, so he gets the privilege of betting first.¡±

    Mr. Eight understood that it wanted a low-ranking hand. It also understood that ¡®hands¡¯ were made of five cards. Presumably because there were five digits to a human hand as well. They had four cards now, and through the rest of the round, would get three more. But what it failed to understand was why they would bet now. They had incomplete data. They didn¡¯t know what cards they would get, nor the three vital cards that their opponents had. What were they supposed to use as a basis for their wager, if it wasn¡¯t to reduce the number of chips on their opponent¡¯s side of the table?

    It was an arbitrary decision, but this was also an arbitrary activity. Maybe humanity reveled in the arbitrary? Considering they were but one tiny collection on a slightly larger collection spinning within an enormous universe, they likely had little choice in the matter. If they didn¡¯t have the arbitrary they didn¡¯t have anything at all.

    Mr. Eight embraced that attitude and arbitrarily wagered five chips. Gene called. And Ratna sighed.

    Ehije sure was taking his time with that cocoa.

    Ratna dealt the next cards. Mr. Eight got a nine of diamonds, whereas Gene got the King of diamonds.

    ¡°Diamond outranks spade. Gene, you have first bet.¡±

    Gene looked at his cards, glowered, and folded.

    Mr. Eight didn¡¯t understand the decision-making process there but it rather wished it had bet everything earlier.

    Ehije found the milk easily enough, but the powdered chocolate was nowhere to be found. Every drawer just had spoons. A frankly unreasonable number of spoons. He knew it was a bar but holy shit why not just wash the spoons instead of stockpiling so many single-use silver spoons?

    ¡°If you are looking for the chocolate, it is in the inside door of the refrigerator.¡±

    ¡°Hm?¡±

    Teresa was standing in front of the bar. The door had never opened. This was normal.

    ¡°Who would keep the chocolate there...¡±

    ¡°We do not use powdered chocolate. We melt chocolate in heated milk.¡±

    ¡°I suppose I should have guessed.¡±

    He pulled out the chocolate. It was frozen to a stick, but even cold, it had a certain richness to it that made his mouth water. He prepared two mugs instead of the one, and started to heat the milk.

    ¡°We need a plan, Ehije.¡±

    ¡°I thought this was the plan.¡±

    ¡°We need a plan to ensure Mr. Eight¡¯s victory. Their mind -- or at least their equivalent -- does not function the same way yours or mine does. The nuance of the game is completely lost on them. It is entirely possible for Dr. Oberman to win.¡±

    ¡°I will confess that I have not watched much of the game. But the way Dr. Oberman composes himself makes me believe he is either the world¡¯s greatest bluffer -- in which case, we were always doomed to lose -- or he is every bit as incompetent as Mr. Eight.¡±

    ¡°I am not comfortable with 50/50 odds, Ehije.¡±

    ¡°And I¡¯m not comfortable trying to cheat a brilliant scientist. He has more reason than most to assume we¡¯d cheat. And just because he is bad at card games does not mean he¡¯s unobservent.¡±

    Teresa was silent.

    ¡°The way I see it, it is far safer to simply let the game play out. Even if we lose, when Dr. Oberman transforms, he may well lose any allegiance he has with Marie Walker. Then he may reveal her plan of his own volition.¡±

    ¡°Or he will be able to assist her more directly with her own plan. Do not forget she needs The Silver Wheel specifically because of Mr. Eight¡¯s presence here. It is not unlikely the knowledge he would gain from his transformation could be helpful to her endeavors.¡±

    Ehije was silent, but not as long as Teresa was.

    ¡°...very well, but then how do you propose we help him cheat? You just said his mind works differently from yours or mine. Say I got behind Dr. Oberman and signaled he had a two -- would Mr. Eight be able to figure out making a V-shape with my fingers means a two?¡±

    ¡°I suppose not. But you are our champion, Ehije. I trust you can be cleverer than that.¡±

    He ran a hand over his face and sighed into his palm. While he tried to wrap his head around the situation, she helpfully walked behind the bar, prepared the two hot chocolates, and took one back to Ratna.

    He took the other and stared hard into the marshmallows.

    Mr. Eight indeed had no skill, but in a game like Razz, luck can still carry you a good distance.

    In fact, it had won every round so far. Gene folded immediately after the second hand was dealt, and after Ratna dealt them each their fourth card in the third he folded yet again. Thanks to sheer dumb luck, Mr. Eight had an enormous lead of 47 chips to Gene¡¯s 13.

    Mr. Eight was thankful that Ratna had been able to successfully reproduce these results while shuffling the deck, intentionally or otherwise, as that was the only thing that seemed to be causing its many victories so far.

    Still, it seems she was unable to reproduce these effects forever. From their understanding of the game, their current 4-card hand was moderately undesirable. It had a seven of diamonds and an eight of hearts face-down, and face-up, a seven of clubs and an ace of hearts. Gene, meanwhile, had an ace of clubs and a five of diamonds showing.

    There were ten chips in the pot so far. As before, all of them were thanks to Mr. Eight¡¯s arbitrary betting.

    But despite how far behind he was, Gene Oberman did not seem unhappy. Perhaps because his inside collection was also aware that the factors that decide who won or lost was also arbitrary, and thus being upset over it was illogical.

    ¡°Mr. Eight, have I already told you how I find the way you speak¡­ fascinating?¡±

    Mr. Eight tried to look busy by checking its face-down cards again.

    ¡°It¡¯s the funniest thing, but the longer I stay here with you, it¡¯s like I understand more and more of what you say¡­ you are a blooming flower, and every second a new petal unfolds itself before me¡­¡±

    Mr. Eight did not do well with metaphors, and made no effort to understand what Gene Oberman was trying to communicate.

    ¡°Can I ask you again why you don¡¯t like me?¡±

    Mr. Eight didn¡¯t want to say, of course. Because it would be difficult to articulate in a way that an inside collection like Gene¡¯s would understand, accept, or even comprehend. Most humans didn¡¯t even want to hear they were collections. For some reason this notion of individualism had sunk into them and they considered themselves a singular whole, despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary.

    ¡°So when you say I¡¯m a collection, you mean I¡¯m made up of trillions of living cells, right? Or is it that my current body is an amalgamation of trillions of different versions of myself? Or maybe it is both?¡±

    Mr. Eight stopped.

    ¡°You do not have an inside voice, do you, Mr. Eight?¡±

    Mr. Eight started to recoil.

    ¡°You narrate everything you do and see in your own¡­ strange¡­ way. It¡¯s like a bat¡­ you send the sound out¡­ and it hits the environment and returns to you as expressions that I can hear.¡±

    Mr. Eight was so unfamiliar with these kinds of dimensions, even now, mentally processing what they do is necessary to logically interact with the world around it. But Gene Oberman shouldn¡¯t be able to understand it. Not even Ratna or Teresa were able to do it to this level -- typically they only understood what it wished for them to understand. If they did grasp everything, they would no doubt have gotten very annoyed by Mr. Eight¡¯s constant narration of events.

    ¡°I¡¯ve been studying Miss Nine for a long time, Mr. Eight, in a probing and invasive way that Ratna and Teresa would no doubt find appalling. I¡¯ve even experimented on myself to become closer to it. And this, my¡­ my perfect self¡­ seems far more acute than my old body. It¡¯s like reading a book, being in a room with you.¡±

    ¡°The hell are you two talking about?¡± Ratna asked, although she was ignored by Gene. Mr. Eight assured her that things were fine and Gene was just crazy.

    ¡°So¡­ should I deal?¡±

    ¡°By all means¡­¡± Gene purred.

    ¡°Please never purr again.¡±

    Two cards. Mr. Eight got a ten of clubs. Gene received two of spades. His good hand got even better. Maybe it would not be to Mr. Eight¡¯s advantage to continue to bet chips at this stage.

    ¡°Eight, you¡¯ve still got the high hand. You gonna make a bet?¡±

    Mr. Eight, for the first time this match, did not make a bet.

    ¡°You¡¯ve suddenly gotten a lot less talkative,¡± Gene Oberman preened, sliding three of his remaining eight chips into the pot, ¡°Are you afraid of me now, Mr. Eight?¡±

    Mr. Eight, as was mandatory to play the game, submitted three chips into the pot.

    ¡°But if you don¡¯t talk, Mr. Eight, how will you be able to play? Will you know what card you get next if you don¡¯t¡­ narrate it?¡±

    Mr. Eight felt as though its privacy was being violated, and, in their stress, suddenly understood why people folded in Razz: ending the round early would prematurely relieve stress. Even if it ultimately lead to an undesirable outcome in the game itself, it would have the immediate impact of alleviating the more pressing stress of carrying a presumed bad hand.

    Mr. Eight was very stressed right now, so it folded to see if that would help.

    It did not.

    ¡°You made the right call, Mr. Eight. I would have won that round anyway. My pair of fives is better than your pair of sevens.¡±

    Ratna and Teresa exchanged a look. Ratna was confused as hell. Teresa looked gravely concerned. Mr. Eight was trying very hard to think as little as possible. Ratna took back the cards and slid chips back to Gene: Mr. Eight still had a lead with 39 chips, but Gene was back to a healthy 21 chips now. Also, he could functionally read Mr. Eight¡¯s mind now, a development even the enigmatic Mr. Eight didn¡¯t quite understand.

    All the same, Mr. Eight was no longer ambivalent to this game, and very much wanted it to end. In fact, Mr. Eight was very much disinterested in even winning, as it did not want any part of Mr. Oberman¡¯s inside collection inside of it.

    Ehije stepped back out, taking several deep breaths, and holding a piping hot mug of cocoa.

    ¡°Alright boys. Ante up.¡±

    Gene oberman put two chips into the pot. Mr. Eight, after getting a nudge from Teresa, did the same.

    Ratna dealt the cards for the next round. Gene Oberman got a face-up three of spades. Mr. Eight got a face-up ace of diamonds, and two face-down cards.

    Mr. Eight did not want to look at the face-down cards. If it did, Gene Oberman would know what was in its hand, and that, it understood but didn¡¯t quite understand, was disadvantageous.

    ¡°Oh, no, you really must not think of it that way. Whether you win or not this round has already been decided by Ratna¡¯s shuffling, as you had already observed. You¡¯ve already submitted chips, Mr. Eight¡­¡±

    Gene Oberman slid forward four more chips into the pot.

    ¡°And if you do not play you have no chance of winning them back.¡±

    It would be illogical to forfeit if it were predetermined to win. But it would be advantageous to forfeit now if it were predetermined to lose. It did not have the data it needed to make a sound decision, and it would never have that data regardless of if it looked at the cards that were face-down in front of it: merely observing them would not change what they were.

    The decision was still maddeningly arbitrary. But since it had already submitted two chips to the pot, a simple risk-cost analysis would determine that between certainly losing some chips, or possibly gaining more chips, the latter was the most reasonable outcome. Especially since folding did not reduce stress the way it had hoped.

    So Mr. Eight put four chips into the pot.

    Two more cards were drawn. A six of diamonds for Mr. Eight. An Ace of spades for Gene Oberman.

    ¡°Mr. Eight¡¯s got the high card. You wanna bet first?¡±

    Mr. Eight did not, but Gene Oberman threw a whopping ten chips into the pot with a giant smile on his face.  Mr. Eight, who was very bad at poker, pushed ten chips in as well. Ehije and Ratna groaned. Teresa looked to Ehije with growing urgency.

    Ehije seemed rather stressed himself.

    ¡°...this cocoa needs something stronger,¡± he grumbled, and started back to the bar.

    But then, he tripped. The mug flew out of his hands. And a wave of boiling hot cocoa soared towards Gene Oberman.

    Mr. Eight, first and foremost the bouncer of The Silver Wheel, was between them instantly, preventing Gene Oberman from receiving any burns. While it was there, it also caught the mug, and stopped Ehije from falling to the ground. It corrected him, and gingerly placed the now-empty mug into Ehije¡¯s hand.

    Gene Oberman looked awed.

    ¡°...that was¡­ very impressive, Mr. Eight.¡±

    Mr. Eight reminded Gene Oberman that this was its job.

    ¡°Yes¡­ yes, I remember now. Charlie said you were there to protect the patrons¡­ presumably to prevent any harm from coming to their¡­ perfect selves¡­¡± Gene Oberman noted with increasingly heavy breathing, ¡°that was the whole reason you were brought here.¡±

    Mr. Eight returned to its side of the table.

    Gene Oberman looked like he was having a hard time seeing straight with how heavy he was breathing.

    ¡°...uh¡­ you alright there, Gene?¡± Ratna asked, dealing two more cards: Gene Oberman got a Queen of clubs, while Mr. Eight got a Queen of hearts.

    ¡°...yes. Yes, I am fine,¡± he wheezed, ¡°Teresa, my dear, I would love a¡­ love a steaming, piping hot cup of tea. Bring me some, would you?¡±

    Teresa bowed, and retired to the bar.

    ¡°...um¡­ okay, well, six out-ranks three, so, Mr. Eight, you get to bet first.¡±

    Mr. Eight did not bet.

    ¡°Aaand asthma attack over here?¡±

    ¡°I am quite alright, thank you.¡±

    ¡°...guess we¡¯re moving right along.¡±

    Gene got a King of spades. Mr. Eight got an Ace of clubs. They now had an exposed pair. This was bad, as it was possible they had another ace or six, in their face-down cards. If this was the case, they would probably lose.

    Gene Oberman must have been aware of this. But he was staring at the door to the bar with feverish desperation for reasons only his inside collection seemed aware of. His outside collection showed no signs of needing tea or even hydration.

    Mr. Eight decided to not make any wagers.

    ¡°Alright, and Gene?¡±

    Gene did not answer.

    ¡°...Gene?¡±

    The door to the bar opened. Teresa walked through, balancing a tray with a cup of steaming hot tea. Gene Oberman fidgeted in his seat as the glass was put in front of him, and then, turning to face Mr. Eight, attempted to pour the boiling water directly onto his crotch.

    Mr. Eight would have liked to have let it happen, but Mr. Eight couldn¡¯t abide the outside collection getting harmed for having the misfortune of being attached to a damaged inside collection. So Mr. Eight intervened, and Gene Oberman moaned loudly in the process.

    ¡°Fucking fuck- that is not okay!¡± Ratna looked disturbed, and then looked away.

    Teresa bowed her head slightly, to put herself at a more even level with Gene Oberman, who was nothing but a mass of heavy breathing and post-orgasmal twitching.

    ¡°Sir, I will ask you to refrain from engaging in any more self-harm.¡±

    The words passed through one ear to the other. Gene Oberman, instead, tried to slam his head into the table with such savage intent he could have very well gashed his forehead. As before, Mr. Eight¡¯s sympathy for the outside collection, and all the more sane versions of Gene Oberman out there, forced Mr. Eight to intervene, wrapping a restraining limb around his head. Gene Oberman pulled his wrist to his teeth to rip out his veins, and Mr. Eight was forced to gag him. Gene¡¯s tongue started to lick at Mr. Eight. His eyes rolled to the back of his head. He was dry-humping the air as he tried to break his foot against the heavy wood of the Poker Table. Mr. Eight had to further entwine itself in order to protect Gene Oberman from himself, and in the process, give him exactly what he wanted.

    Mr. Eight could not ¡®feel sick¡¯ the way humans did, but it felt the Mr. Eight version of the equivalent.

    At least, until Teresa put a hand on them and offered them a smile.

    ¡°...you have thrown out others for less, Mr. Eight.¡±

    The lights above them flickered out. The room was engulfed in black.

    And when they came back up, both Gene Oberman and Mr. Eight were gone.

    Gene Oberman had forfeit.

    ~*~

    ¡°It¡¯s funny because Gene would have won.¡±

    Ratna was flipping through the deck, finishing the game for both missing players. Mr. Eight¡¯s final hand would have been a four of spades, a Jack and Ace of clubs, an Ace, six, and five of diamonds, and a Queen of hearts. Dropping one of the Aces and the Queen, their hand would have been Jack of clubs high.

    Gene Oberman, on the other hand, had an Ace, three, and King of spades, a five and queen of clubs, two of hearts, and a Jack of diamonds. Dropping the King and Queen, his hand would have been Jack of diamonds high. Clubs out-rank diamonds, so Gene would have won the round.

    ¡°And since our boy is so terrible at poker, he would have just called himself to death.¡±

    ¡°One would think that even an alien being would get an inkling of how to gamble if it spent countless years watching others do it,¡± Ehije, who looked less than satisfied, stared hard at the cards. If he had been playing, it would have been a slaughter: Gene didn¡¯t apparently understand the concept of a poker face, and it was clear that neither of them was taking the time to figure out the odds and using that to inform how they wagered. But¡­ ¡®credit¡¯ to Gene where it was due, that was the reason he had refused to play until he had seen something his deranged, addicted mind simply couldn¡¯t resist. Plus, Gene was just good enough at poker (and¡­ ¡°reading¡± Mr. Eight, whatever that meant) to know he was better at it than his opponent, and that he could functionally win the game with one good hand.

    But it wasn¡¯t luck that had won them this game. Bad poker face or not, even if Gene Oberman had taken better care to hide his face and his breathing, there was one thing he couldn¡¯t as easily hide: his erection. The moment Ehije made the unfortunate observation that Gene had the world¡¯s biggest chubby from staring at Mr. Eight, he realized Gene¡¯s obsession with Mr. Eight transcended mere scientific curiosity. Knowing that Mr. Eight would also be forced to intervene if something were to endanger Gene¡¯s perfect self, Ehije was able to plant the seeds of Gene¡¯s destruction with a feigned trip and a hot cup of cocoa.

    So they had beaten three of Marie Walker¡¯s henchmen by exploiting their rage, narcissism, and obsession, respectively. Ehije wondered if Marie Walker herself had any critical foil he could exploit, or if his only option against her was to actually gamble.

    ¡°Mr. Eight was never watching the game, Ehije. He was preoccupied watching the players,¡± Teresa defended their bouncer, who was still missing in action, ¡°which is why I must congratulate you on your plan, as much as I am certain Mr. Eight did not appreciate it.¡±

    Ehije was going to say something, but then stopped.

    ¡°...what is it, ¡®they¡¯ or ¡®he¡¯. Pronoun-wise, I mean.¡±

    ¡°Do you think it is relevant?¡±

    ¡°You switch. Usually it¡¯s they but sometimes you say ¡®he¡¯. And you do not speak carelessly.¡±

    ¡°Yes. Because sometimes Mr. Eight is closer to a ¡®he¡¯ than a ¡®they¡¯.¡±

    ¡°...I find that frustratingly vague yet completely believable.¡±

    ¡°In any case, would you care for a drink while we wait for her to return?¡±

    Teresa¡¯s smiling was the only clue Ehije had that she was teasing him now.

    ¡°I am fine, thank you.¡±

    He turned back to Ratna, who was shuffling the deck. She had practiced hands, calluses at the tips and joints of her fingers, and was starting to put some real finesse into the act. Judging by the look on her face, it was less to impress the guests as it was a vain attempt to keep herself entertained.

    She noticed him staring.

    ¡°I¡¯m a she. Only pronoun I need.¡±

    ¡°I was actually admiring your technique.¡±

    ¡°Thanks it¡¯s my one admirable talent.¡± She slid the deck below the table, before putting her feet up on it, ¡°since ¡®tits¡¯ aren¡¯t a talent and killing yourself isn¡¯t an olympic sport yet.¡±

    ¡°Hm.¡±

    ¡°Yep.¡±

    Both of them sat quietly. ¡°Tere Jism¡± by Sara Khan & Angad Hasija was playing on the Radio. Not that Ehije knew what it was called. Teresa returned soon afterward, a glass of white wine in her hands.

    ¡°Ratna, take your feet off the table.¡±

    Ratna did.

    The silence resumed.

    ¡°...man, I¡¯m diggin¡¯ this chemistry,¡± Ratna pursed her lips, ¡°Hey, Ehije, you¡¯re a con-artist. Charm me or something. Sweet talk me into giving you money or something.¡±

    ¡°I could never, Ratna, you¡¯re too smart to be charmed.¡±

    ¡°Haha, why yo- oooh, I see what you did there.¡±

    ¡°Exactly my point.¡±

    Fortunately, they didn¡¯t have to keep this up any longer. Mr. Eight returned, and while Ehjie was happy to have a relief from the small talk, he still couldn¡¯t call himself a big fan of this eldritch being. No matter how much he stared at him, he never got¡­ better. Palatable. Even when Ehije was certain he had seen everything Mr. Eight¡¯s body could offer, he would notice something new and alien and uncomfortable that would fill him with a brand-new kind of sickness.

    Mr. Eight expressed displeasure with Ehije¡¯s plan.

    ¡°Be that as it may, Mr. Eight, it worked. You would have been incapable of winning that game yourself.¡±

    Mr. Eight reminded Teresa that if he had gotten to bet his whole hand in the first round they would have won.

    ¡°Unless he didn¡¯t call. In which case, you would have won fewer chips than you ultimately did.¡±

    Mr. Eight had nothing to say to that.

    ¡°Look, the hows do not matter. You got to learn Marie Walker¡¯s plan, right? So what is it? Why does she want The Silver Wheel?¡± Ehije pressed, in an effort to sate his curiosity, to move past the subject, and avoid a confrontation with the bouncer.

    Mr. Eight confirmed that it did know Marie Walker¡¯s ultimate goal.

    And he delivered that information exactly how he had received it.

    ~*~

    It was about eleven years ago, when Gene Oberman took over for Bigger Skies laboratory, that he was first informed, almost casually, about Marie Walker¡¯s ultimate plan. It was a night he would never forget: they were eating at a shockingly pedestrian restaurant in New Zealand, in cheap clothes, after having finished touring the secret underground laboratory she had constructed specifically for him. It wasn¡¯t her first secret underground laboratory, but it was her most ambitious, and her first one in the southern hemisphere.

    She had ordered five plates of french fries and an extra-large milkshake. Gene Oberman had contented himself with chicken nuggets and a burger. Gene Oberman remembered being disgusted by the way she would literally dump the milkshake over the french fries and ate them with a fork, as if it were some kind of salad.

    But while that was the biggest reason he found it memorable, it wasn¡¯t the only reason.

    ¡°Soooo¡­¡± she started, trailing the word like a shy girl on an awkward first date, ¡°how do you feel about¡­ genocide?¡±

    Gene Oberman took a bite of a chicken nugget.

    ¡°...to what end?¡± He followed up, ¡°How do I feel about it as a fact of life? As a tool? As a process?¡±

    ¡°Ah, that¡¯s what I like about you, Mr. Oberman, most people here would have been gut-reaction ¡®it¡¯s bad¡¯ or cracked a joke or something. You ask for context. You pry. How is it a wonderful mouth-breather like you is single?¡±

    This was before Gene Oberman hated Marie Walker enough to respect her. He was not attracted to her -- again, the french fry thing -- but he blushed nonetheless.

    ¡°It¡¯s a mystery I guess.¡±

    ¡°Hmm. Well, you pretty boy, I mean as a tool.¡±

    ¡°I am ambivalent.¡± he answered immediately, ¡°A genocide is what put these chicken nuggets on my plate, and probably the potatoes on yours. And if someone really wants to eradicate a group of people from the planet then they may as well do it efficiently.¡±

    She forked more potatoes into her mouth. She made no effort to be graceful or clean in how she ate.

    ¡°Follow-up question, how do you feel about the genoicde of functionally 100% of all living creatures.¡±

    ¡°...it¡¯s bad.¡±

    ¡°Okay well then this will be awkward because that¡¯s kind of what I¡¯m gunning for.¡±

    He finished off his chicken nuggets. She was speaking too lightly for him to treat this with any kind of gravity.

    ¡°So you really are a mad scientist, then?¡±

    ¡°...I mean¡­ obviously, yes, you think a sane person would eat french fries like this?¡± She snorted, shaking her head, ¡°but no, no. It¡¯s way more than just killing almost everything. There¡¯s a reason for it. An important reason.¡±

    ¡°...okay.¡±

    ¡°Hey, hey, let¡¯s go back to the car. I wanna play you something.¡±

    Leaving three plates completely unfinished and drenched in warm ice-cream, Marie walked Gene Oberman back to her car -- literally, just a car, and a fairly old one at that -- and sat him down in the passenger side seat. He noticed, as they sat down, that this car had a CD player. A technology that was obsolete even when he was a child.

    ¡°Lean back. You gotta lean back, man. Close your eyes. Enjoy this dope jam.¡±

    Gene Oberman did as he was told.

    And Marie Walker started to play a song that consisted of one man singing with a small choir. A man with a baritone voice you simply don¡¯t hear from modern singers. Something sad and hopeful and determined, about a man trying to follow the footsteps of great explorers by traveling the trails they had long ago conquered. It was plain, but rather beautiful, and moderately haunting, even if one of the backup singers sounded like a rat was occasionally biting his testicles.

    It played for 4 minutes and 49 seconds before coming to an end.

    ¡°That shit right there was my jam growing up. ¡®S called ¡®Northwest Passage¡¯, and it¡¯s all about how everything is discovered and it¡¯s too late to dream.¡±

    ¡°That¡­ wasn¡¯t what I got from it.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, well, you¡¯re wrong. I heard this song as a kid and I got pissed. Figured, ¡®shit, I gotta find my own northwest passage¡¯. The deep sea is boring and space is empty so I was like, ¡®fuck it¡¯, and explored other dimensions. That¡¯s how Walker Industries came about. You can clap if you¡¯re moved.¡±

    He didn¡¯t clap. He stared at her from his reclined seat.

    ¡°And shit, man, I did it. I explored and I explored and I explored some more. Once you punch through the first interdimensional veil, gets easier and easier every time. I saw a lot of shit. And you¡¯ll see a lot of shit too. And the more shit I saw, the more I realized how absolutely and depressingly meaningless it all was. And you¡¯ll realize the same thing, too.¡±

    ¡°...hm.¡±

    ¡°Here, I¡¯ll prove my point,¡± she reached rather carelessly to the back seat and pulled out a six chamber revolver. He was not surprised to see it, she had told him about it earlier today when he expressed concerns about how the bumpy road was probably bad for the suspension. She kept it locked and loaded at all times. Still, he was not happy to see it, and put a hand on the car door¡¯s handle.

    She put the gun to her forehead.

    ¡°Think it would matter if I shot myself?¡±

    ¡°...it would matter to me, I think I would be out of a job.¡± Gene Oberman sighed.

    ¡°Pfft. Okay, fine. But there are over nine billion people on this planet. I¡¯m rich. I¡¯m important. I have shareholders. But I¡¯m still just one in nine billion. You take one penny out of a jar of nine billion and no one¡¯s going to care. No one would even notice, right?¡±

    ¡°...I suppose.¡±

    ¡°Right, but by putting this gun to my head, I made two worlds. One where I shot myself, and one where I didn¡¯t. So that¡¯s not one dead person out of nine billion. That¡¯s one dead person out of eighteen billion. Imagine taking a penny out of a jar full of eighteen billion pennies. Hell. Take a fistful. Take a thousand. No one would notice.¡±

    ¡°I think I understand.¡±

    ¡°Haha, no, you just think you do. I left three perfectly good plates of ice cream covered french fries in there. There¡¯s a dimension where I only left two plates there. Otherwise, exactly the same. That¡¯s four dimensions I just made now: in one, I ate two plates and shot myself, in another, I ate two plates and didn¡¯t, in the third I ate three plates and shot myself, and in the fourth I ate three and didn¡¯t. That¡¯s two dead Marie Walkers out of thirty-six billion people. You could take two million goddamn pennies out of a jar with thirty-six billion in it and no one would bat an eye, who¡¯s going to notice just two? No one. Not a goddamn person.¡±

    ¡°Really. I get it.¡±

    ¡°I had five plates of french fries there, Dr. Oberman. Do the math with me: if I made a different dimension for every plate I chose to eat, that would be six dimensions, including if I didn¡¯t eat any at all. I put the gun to my head in all six of those dimensions, I¡¯ve made twelve dimensions. What¡¯s twelve times nine? One-hundred and eight. Times a billion, we have... ¡°

    ¡°...a hundred and eight billion.¡± He finished for her.

    ¡°Six dead Maries out of a hundred and eight billion people,¡± she nodded, ¡°but this is the elementary shit, Dr. Oberman. You have to consider every factor. What about each individual fry I ate? The order I ate the plates in? Or how many chicken nuggets you ordered? How many did you eat? Did the lady next to us sneeze or not? Were the chickens that were pureed for your nuggets Rhode Island Reds, Plymouth Rocks, or Cochins? Did your nose itch?¡±

    ¡°Add all those factors up. We get trillions of people. Start including all the decisions people are making all around the world, we get well into the quadrillions. When we consider the activities of animals and plants and aliens or whatever: Nonillions. You know how many goddamn ants there are, Dr. Oberman? So many fucking ants are making so many goddamn dimensions.¡±

    ¡°And you think that¡¯s a lot? Remember: all these numbers are exponential. I created twelve different dimensions with my fries and this gun. And those dimensions spawn new dimensions. And those new dimensions spawn new dimensions. Biggest number ever conceived is Skewes¡¯ Number. And as far as dimensions go, we¡¯ve passed that number a long-ass time ago.¡±

    She threw the gun behind her.

    ¡°Everything everyone has ever done is meaningless. If you don¡¯t do something there¡¯s a version of you out there who has. If there¡¯s a version of you that¡¯s happy there¡¯s a version that¡¯s sad. You can explore the sea and the sky and every inch of land and it doesn¡¯t matter because someone has already beat you to it, and there¡¯s so much goddamn sea and sky and land that what you discover literally doesn¡¯t matter.¡±

    ¡°So. To sum it up. My goal, ultimately, is to make things matter again. I¡¯ve already mapped out how dimensions split. I¡¯m gonna stop it from happening, then trim the fat. Collapse them all into one neat dimension where there are only nine billion lives and each and every goddamn one matters.¡±

    Gene Oberman was breathing heavily again, and even he wasn¡¯t quite sure why.

    ¡°I just need a trigger. I know that somewhere, there¡¯s a nexus from which everything sprouts. I just need to find it¡­ or somewhere that can access that nexus and can impact every dimension simultaneously.¡±

    She smiled. The first time, he realized, she had done so genuinely.

    ¡°Once we find that, we¡¯re in fucking business.¡±

    And she, and he, would later discover such a place.

    At The Silver Wheel.

 Round Three: Texas Hold Em

    Ehije was almost glad to be back in his cell.

    Almost.

    Mr. Eight had what could generously be described as a very relaxed yet thorough way of conveying information. Rather than distill all the information they had received and conveying only the necessary bits, they opted to relay literally everything. Which amounted to a functional eternity of listening to Mr. Eight babble on about things that were tangentially related, redundant, or so specific and complicated that Ehije had no idea what they could possibly mean. By the time they were done, ironically Ehije was practically awake.

    But that was fine. Because they had still gotten the basic gist of what Marie was trying to accomplish. And Ehije needed some time to dwell on it.

    It all seemed so very¡­ fake.

    Yet it made so much sense.

    Ehije, in his many years as a con-artist, knew better than most that people weren¡¯t as simple as they sometimes appeared. They were never driven solely by greed or the desire to be comfortable (even though those qualities featured heavily in someone¡¯s decision-making process) and were more often driven by an innate sense of deep-seated dissatisfaction. As a species, humanity did a very bad job ever being ¡®satisfied¡¯. They could be prosperous, happy, and even grateful; and yet nothing changed the fact that getting what you want was the fastest way to suddenly realize you wanted something else, or something more.

    It¡¯s a desire that had both driven humanity to its greatest heights, and eventually toppled it over into ruin. And it¡¯s a universal desire that many con-artists were able to take advantage of in order to milk greater and greater sums from an enraptured victim.

    Ehije had always assumed Marie Walker had been gripped by something similar. After all, creating a stable way to bridge and travel between dimensions was the holy grail of science. She could have sold that technology for more money than she could ever hope to spend and enjoy a life of luxury and an afterlife in the history books. Objectively, she had accomplished literally everything a person could have asked for years and years ago.

    But the fact that her ultimate goal was to render her own earth-shaking invention obsolete was¡­ well it felt like the kind of thing out of a pulp novel. It was such a cliche, a brilliant scientist who tries to destroy their own creation when they realize it could be used for evil. The twist here was, there was nothing inherently evil about her invention -- the possibilities it presented were nothing short of miraculous -- and so far no one was using it for anything especially evil, outside her own morally questionable experiments at the Silver Wheel and maybe whatever Helmut was doing, although he would have just found something equally awful to do regardless. So there was nothing for her to thwart; and in fact, almost nothing for her to even gain, except the knowledge that there was only one unfathomably enormous universe dwarfing a still insignificant speck of cosmic dust that they called humanity.

    She must have been lying to Gene. Or at least not telling him everything.

    There had to be more.

    He was one day in jail away from finding out the truth. All he had to do was endure another sixteen hours of wakefulness before he could confront her face-to-face, play their game, and win everything that was going on in her mind, as well as his wish. But the thing about prison was that it was boring. There was nothing to distract his thoughts, nor a better use for his energy than feeding his temptations and his curiosity. In that environment, sixteen hours slowed to a crawl, and every time he was sure he¡¯d spent five minutes, he¡¯d check and find he¡¯d barely passed one.

    At this rate, he was going to have the longest, most painful day of his life, sitting in this goddamn cell, staring at a sluggish second hand making laps around a clock¡¯s face.

    But he could still make a phone call. He still had that right. Which was important, because in Mr. Eight¡¯s overlong ramble, they revealed that Gene Oberman knew Marie Walker¡¯s personal number. A number that Ehije had memorized.

    He could just call her and ask.

    If she was as cliched a villain as she seemed in Gene¡¯s memories then she¡¯d be far too happy to taunt the hero by flaunting her full plan in his face. Something along the lines of ¡°since it¡¯s too late to stop me you may as well know¡±, or however it was supposed to work. He had no reason to think she wouldn¡¯t. And he didn¡¯t see any problem with getting in touch with her before they had their match. Heck, in calling her, he might get something he could use against her, as long as he had a convincing enough story.

    Thinking of a good story for knowing her private number and asking about her ultimate plan, at least, gave him something else to do with his time.

    But while he was mid-brainstorm, a guard approached the cell, holding the same dingy phone.

    ¡°You¡¯ve got a call.¡±

    Ehije, somehow, knew who it was without being told. Because his life was a story now, and this was just what made sense.

    He put the phone up to his ear.

    ¡°Yeah so you decided to call.¡±

    It was Marie.

    ¡°...¡±

    ¡°Look sweetie, I¡¯m kind of tapped into this kind of thing. What you decide to do or not in this dimension is arbitrary to me. You made a different decision in another dimension and I¡¯m just so goddamn gossipy. Can¡¯t keep these sweet lips shut to save my life.¡±

    ¡°...¡±

    ¡°But you know that¡¯s kind of why I¡¯m so keen on the Silver Wheel? Throws things for a loop. I tried really hard -- and I mean, really hard -- to find a dimension where Bruno won his match against Charlie? Doesn¡¯t exist. It seems for all this hullabaloo about multiple dimensions, there¡¯s only one Silver Wheel. Only one result. And that was important, y¡¯know, because it was proof that my idea could even work. Before that I wasn¡¯t sure if it would, like, destroy space-time or whatever if I flattened everything out? Like if it needed to work that way to even run? But it doesn¡¯t. Just sorta¡­ happened that way. But if the Silver Wheel can do it, we can do it too.¡±

    ¡°...¡±

    ¡°And look, I get it. I really do sweet pea.You¡¯re not satisfied because it¡¯s so simple. It¡¯s so¡­ so basic, right? And you¡¯re like, this is Marie Walker, she¡¯s gotta be up to something else, there¡¯s gotta be more there. But there isn¡¯t. It ever occur to you that maybe I like it because it¡¯s so simple -- I mean, shit, it¡¯s actually super fucking complicated from a mechanical standpoint, but I mean because it ultimately makes things more simple?¡±

    ¡°...¡±

    ¡°And you know, once it gets simple, that¡¯s just the start. As soon as my actions have consequences we¡¯ll start the real fun. The making the world better bit. It¡¯s just hard to care about fixing this fucked up world when I could hop skip and jump to a better one, and frankly, apathy is terribly boring. I¡¯m ready to start giving a shit, start being scared again, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°...¡±

    ¡°Look at me, rambling -- sorry, it¡¯s just so easy to get carried away these days. Have you been watching TV? I¡¯m kind of in hot water right now. A lot of ¡®people¡¯ have been ¡®dying horribly¡¯ lately because ¡®the veil between dimensions is thinning¡¯ and now I¡¯ve got a lot of big bad government men ¡®throwing fits¡¯ saying I need to ¡®fix¡¯ things. Not very urgently, of course. If oil companies could destroy the world consequence-free in the early 2000¡¯s of course I can destroy the world consequence-free in the second half of the century. I have, like, 30% of Washington on my payroll. You might think I¡¯d need more but peer pressure does the rest. Have you tried being super rich before, by the way? It¡¯s great. Highly recommended.¡±

    ¡°...¡±

    ¡°...oh, also, there¡¯s a version of you who was so moved by some speech I gave that you told me we¡¯re gonna play Texas Hold''em tonight. Looking forward to it sugar plum nice talk byeeeeeeee!¡±

    She hung up.

    He sat, absorbed in his own thoughts, for a considerably long time.

    He came to some conclusions.

    Marie Walker¡¯s phone number wasn¡¯t the only one he had gotten from Gene Oberman. And since she had called him, no one could accuse him of any wrongdoing if he were to make a call himself now.

    So, with a lot weighing heavy on his mind, he dialed.

    And he hoped they picked up.

    ~*~

    The press on the other side of the door was anxious.

    Not scared, anxious. Marie could taste the difference.

    Marie didn¡¯t know what drew most of those people to the field of journalism, but she would wager good money most of them had high ambitions in their youth of breaking ground on some amazing, life-changing situation, or being that brave face at the start of every action movie exposing the threat to the world. They had been waiting for most of their professional lives to be that person, the one who stands stern-faced in front of hot lights and demands the truth from some bumbling, deceptive figurehead, dismissing politics out of hand because this is bigger than that, dammit.

    This was their moment. Not just an apocalypse, a sexy apocalypse. Urgent and enormous yet somehow still manageable. And every person out there wanted their turn to shout out the voice clip that would secure their spot in history.

    Best not keep her people waiting, then.

    She stepped out, looking grave. Still wearing pink, of course; she was a lady of principle, but grave nonetheless.

    A few people jumped the gun a bit early, a few stray shouts escaping the crowd. That¡¯s how excited they were, but the silence from everyone else reminded them of their place.

    ¡°...I¡¯ve been keeping an eye on reports for a while now of some unexpected and entirely unplanned anomalies that have been reported around the world. The nature of which is¡­ gruesome, and comes with some troubling implications. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve all heard them too. I¡¯m not here to merely acknowledge their existence, nor am I here to take responsibility for these occurrences. Given their erratic nature and unexpected appearance, I¡¯m not sure it is possible to pinpoint the exact cause.¡±

    There was a stir in the audience. They did not like that. Walker Industries basically monopolized all interdimensional travel and research. There wasn¡¯t a single true competitor for them on the market. No one else but Walker Industries could possibly prove Walker Industries was responsible, and everyone in the room knew how messed up that was.

    ¡°No, I¡¯m here because - please, settle down - I¡¯m here because I want to assure a troubled public. Not only have I devoted my entire company¡¯s substantial manpower and financial clout into determining the cause of these anomalies, I have also dedicated every waking moment of our time to figuring out a solution. And from that dedication, I am here to say that I have produced a solution that I am certain will address the problem.¡±

    Cameras were snapping non-stop as she gestured for her assistants to pull out what appeared to be a model of the space needle, although it was far more jagged, and its spiral was decorated in gradient pink lights.

    ¡°At both poles of the earth, construction is already underway on two of these Prototype Interdimensional Nullification Kinetic pylons. Y¡¯know. P.I.N.K pylons. With the express cooperation of every significant government and regulatory body. These pylons, when constructed, will stabilize the local fabric of space-time. But we understand that people will be anxious in the meantime, so we are already producing and preparing to distribute another very special invention: the Parallel Intervention Neural Killock band. Otherwise known as the P.I.N.K band. We¡¯ve even got enough to hand out to you lovely people. These bands will be able to detect and prevent any potential unexpected and undesirable interdimensional crossings and immediately cancel them out. This¡¯ll make sure that those incidents you¡¯ve been seeing on the news won¡¯t happen anymore.¡±

    She drew out a small, unobtrusive band to illustrate this new technology. It was pink, and thin, and fashionably designed, and getting enough to cover the planet¡¯s population had required her to strip several versions of earth, and a couple of meteors, to space dust.

    ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯re all aware that the technology behind these devices is as good as useless if we¡¯re unable to get them into the hands of the people who need them. That¡¯s why Walker Industries has created a third technology, one that is indisputably more impressive than the two I¡¯ve already announced, to ensure that the distribution of the P.I.N.K band is both quick and thorough. We call it¡­ the Paranatural Integration N¡¯ Kinesis network. The P.I.N.K network. My marketing team struggled with that one.¡±

    She had no visual aid for this technology. She just pointed up.

    ¡°The P.I.N.K network is, in brief, an elaborate network of advanced satellites that are already in orbit. Using technology forged in both this world and borrowed from more technically advanced versions of our planet, it¡¯s able to track each and every living person and creature on this planet. We call it the P.I.N.K network. It¡¯s really more like the eye of god.¡±

    The room exploded. Of course she knew it was going to explode at this. It was good, from a moralistic standpoint, that the room exploded at this. People didn¡¯t want anyone, let alone Marie Walker, being able to track every single person on the planet. It was a terrifying technology ripe for abuse. But Marie Walker needed to finish, and she needed the crowd to shut up, so she had one of the journalists in front, who happened to be her new best friend Ture, drop dead as his body merged instantly with another version of himself.

    The shouting turned into screaming. Now it was on camera. Now the whole world had seen it.

    And Marie Walker got to look like the hero, shouting for her people to distribute the P.I.N.K bands, which the journalists took eagerly, because liberty later is a small price to pay for security now.

    With the P.I.N.K network up, the P.I.N.K pylons being constructed, and the P.I.N.K bands about to be distributed, Marie Walker was almost ready to launch the UCA.

    All she needed now was to play a game of Texas Hold''em.

    ~*~

    Marie Walker generally didn¡¯t need much to sleep most nights. In fact, compared to similarly wealthy and guilty individuals, her late-night accommodations were relatively barren. She was most comfortable sleeping in a moving car. It was just something she picked up in her childhood, moving so often with her parents, back and forth across Canada. The jostle and the bumps of a moving car were peace and comfort when homes were scary and threatening. You were always moving away from danger in a car, but danger was always moving towards you when you sat still.

    She was in the back of her limo now. In her nighties. Staring out idly at rolling wheat fields. Nursing a glass of Irish cream while the late-night news conveyed confused and terrified reports of her earlier press conference. Panic was the order of the day. Not Marie¡¯s intention, but an expected by-product of a necessary operation. All the other Maries had confirmed: this was the universe they were going to keep. It was final now. This was the lucky winner.

    The decision hadn¡¯t been made lightly. There were dimensions that were better than this one, of course. Where the world wasn¡¯t fucked by climate change and inequality, or where space was a well-explored frontier and humanity was one of dozens of intelligent beings that ruled over the stars, or even ones where Marie Walker was something of a god-queen, worshiped and loved by all. But this dimension was¡­ a fixer-upper. There was a lot of untapped potential in ruin. Desperate times could cause brilliant minds to create brilliant solutions that will save the day. Or, more likely, they could give opportunities for evil people to take advantage of insecurity and fear to gain more power.

    So the winning attribute of this branch of dimensions was the fact that they would be interesting, at the very least.

    She took a sip. She smiled to herself.

    Then her phone rang.

    If her personal phone was ringing it could only be one of two people. And it couldn¡¯t be Gene, since the poor idiot had lost most of his memory at the Silver Wheel. She had been amusing herself watching him stagger around the recently-abandoned laboratory he used to work at like he was in a horror movie. He functionally was.

    But still, she picked up.

    ¡°Ture, honey, this better be important. I¡¯m detoxing.¡±

    ¡°You were the one to tell me to tell you when I have a problem with a body. This one¡¯s right arm isn¡¯t working.¡±

    ¡°Ture, dear, sweetie, pumpkin, ramen packet, it doesn¡¯t matter right now. We¡¯re almost done.¡±

    ¡°...I thought you still had to hand out the whatevers.¡±

    ¡°The pylons need to be finished first, silly boy. If we don¡¯t isolate this dimension first we¡¯ll just have a whole bunch of worlds with a whole bunch of pinks and we¡¯ll be back where we started. Fortunately, we¡¯ll be finished with them sooner than planned.¡±

    ¡°So that means tonight you¡¯ll be going to the Wheel again? You don¡¯t have the pills though.¡±

    ¡°Mhm. I thought I¡¯d need them but a little bird told me I¡¯m getting an invite tonight. Which means our little Royale Treatment babies are about to be useless. Be a dear and throw them out, would you?¡±

    ¡°What if you don¡¯t get an invite?¡±

    ¡°...I¡¯ll make more.¡±

    ¡°Fine.¡±

    ¡°Thanks doll. But before you hang up on me, I do have one little something I¡¯d like to ask.¡±

    ¡°Ok.

    ¡°Texas Hold''em. You¡¯re more of a gambler than I am, I¡¯d appreciate some tips from a pro.¡±

    There was some silence from the other end of the phone.

    ¡°...you want to make your big plays when you¡¯re the big blind. Since I assume whoever goes first will alternate, you should play conservatively when it¡¯s your turn. Your two down cards -- the holes -- are key to winning. Don¡¯t be shy about folding right away if you¡¯ve got bad hole cards, but if you do it every time, you¡¯ll be very easy to read. Ehije is very good at bluffing, but he¡¯s not as good as he thinks at knowing when he¡¯s being bluffed. I already know you¡¯re a good liar, you¡¯ll want to use that.¡±

    ¡°Look at you. Such a pro.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s barely the basics. Texas Hold''em is the biggest game there is, more has been written about it than any other kind of poker. It¡¯s kind of funny they¡¯ve been saving it for last.¡±

    ¡°I do appreciate some sexy drama. And I do hate to keep them waiting, so if you could just¡­¡±

    ¡°Right, right.¡±

    And Ture hung up.

    Of course, it was all well and good to know how to play Texas Hold''em, but at the Silver Wheel, your ability to gamble well was rarely the deciding factor in if you won or not. What mattered more was if you had a system, and she had a system that would blow their little minds.

    She finished her drink. She turned off her TV. She closed her eyes.

    And she let the motion of the car carry her to the Silver Wheel.

    Her eyes opened to Turmoil, by Sonny Moore.

    ¡°Not to be that girl, but was Ture the only one here who knew what good music is?¡±

    Teresa, who was about to open with the usual greeting and invitation to drink, closed her mouth into a firm, hateful scowl.

    ¡°I like what you did with the place, though. Way less murder shack vibes.¡±

    She flashed a smile to her opponent, a man she didn¡¯t recognize on the other end of the table. She knew it must have been Ehije, however. He even looked like an Ehije. She wondered how it was anyone could hear one of his alibis and actually believe him.

    ¡°Was that your call, boss?¡±

    Ehije returned her grin with one of his own, and wow, what a smile it was. Some idiot once said you had to practice something for 10,000 hours before you could call yourself a master, and if that was true (which it wasn¡¯t) this guy had been smiling for twice that long. Practicing it, refining it, making it as glamorous yet disarming as humanly possible. She didn¡¯t doubt for a moment this was just one of his array of smiles, an arsenal of expressions he could pull out whenever he needed them. She genuinely admired it.

    ¡°This was Teresa¡¯s idea, actually. She¡¯s full of good ideas.¡±

    ¡°Mhm. I know. Big fan of her murder policies. Really opened some doors for me. Although it¡¯s made my head of HR want to kill me, you know how hard it is to find good executives, lackeys, and art-obsessed celebrities?¡±

    ¡°I can only imagine.¡±

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t, it¡¯s very boring,¡± she nodded to Teresa, ¡°Hey get me a whiskey sour, or something that would pair well with the cold glares you keep giving me. With lemon. Or lime. I don¡¯t care it¡¯s the whiskey part I care about.¡±

    Teresa turned around and walked briskly to the bar. Marie watched her leave.

    ¡°...so, what¡¯s the deal, then? Ownership of the wheel in exchange for¡­ my memories? The pills? Tell me how you¡¯re gonna work this monkey''s paw.¡±

    ¡°This is an ostentatious moment for us both, Marie Walker, a moment that will culminate in either the success of my quest or the completion of your dream. Why rush it? I¡¯d like to know a little more about this goal of yours anyway. Having learned what I have, I¡¯m almost tempted to find your ideas¡­ agreeable.¡±

    ¡°Son you ain¡¯t tempted shit. When Marie Walker wants to tempt you, you¡¯ll know. You¡¯re just curious. And possibly buying time.¡±

    He shrugged.

    ¡°If you¡¯re that suspicious of me so soon, you¡¯re hardly going to have any fun tonight.¡±

    She paused, cocked her head to the side, and finally ended with a whistle.

    ¡°Man, you are good at this, I¡¯ll give you that. Alright, fine, I¡¯ll do the villainous monologue thing. Buuuuut if you think there¡¯s more to my plan then you really haven¡¯t been paying attention. This is it. That¡¯s all there is. Collapse the dimensions, and make the one. It may seem like this giant, earth-changing thing to you but really it¡¯s just another stepping stone. I got other shit I wanna do but it has to wait till this is done first.¡±

    ¡°And you want to do this because¡­ you think actions are meaningless the way things are now.¡±

    ¡°Make War¡± from The First to Last started playing just as Teresa put a whiskey sour in front of Marie. She took a drink immediately, and emptied the glass in almost one swallow.

    ¡°Shit music¡­ anyway, great job reiterating what the class already knows. Here¡¯s a fun game, you tell me how I¡¯m supposed to be satisfied with a world where I¡¯ve accomplished everything and nothing at the exact same time, no matter what I do.¡±

    ¡°I suppose that¡¯s one way to look at it.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s the only way to look at it. I¡¯m gonna go full hipster here and say that you just don¡¯t get it. But, but don¡¯t worry. You might not know this, but I¡¯m an educator at heart, and I¡¯ll help you figure out what I¡¯m talking about once we start playing. Which, uh, segues real smooth like into my condition for even agreeing to play.¡±

    Ehije raised his eyebrows. Ratna, who had been there the whole time, shrugged.

    ¡°...okay, what?¡± she asked.

    ¡°When we play ¡ª on top of all the normal rules, you know, winner takes all, no cheating all that ¡ª I want to add ¡®no surrendering¡¯. If you give up before the game¡¯s over, you don¡¯t just lose, you die. That¡¯s how we¡¯ll do this. I wanna play the whole game, no quitting or taking backsies, and what can I say: I got a lot of unresolved self-loathing that only some good ol¡¯ death gambling can satisfy. Got it?¡±

    This was suspicious, and both Ratna and Ehije made no secret of looking suspicious. But something about Ehije¡¯s face also hinted at a well-disguised confidence, as if he had a plan already in play, and after a few more seconds of fake deliberation, he nodded. The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    ¡°Very well. But it¡¯s unnecessary: I have too much skin in this game to give up now.¡±

    ¡°You? Skin? Son, you¡¯ve already won the biggest lottery in history. Your dimension -- our dimension -- that was the lucky winner, my dude. Win or lose, assuming you don¡¯t surrender, you get out of this game alive. Hell, to show there¡¯s no bad blood, I¡¯ll even bail you outta jail when we¡¯re done. Free of charge. If you¡¯re not dead. And if I win because otherwise I¡¯ll forget.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d appreciate that.¡±

    ¡°I know. I¡¯m just so damn nice. Anyway, fuck banter, we can chat while we play. I¡¯m gonna go ahead and wager all my knowledge of the Silver Wheel, alternate dimensions, Walker Horizons tech, the Royale pill, all of it. You win, it¡¯s yours, I¡¯m outta the game for good and will probably become some kind of eccentric potato farmer.¡±

    ¡°And I wager ownership of the Silver Wheel Gambling House.¡±

    As he finished speaking, thirty brilliant silver chips materialized in front of him on the poker table. And at the exact same time, thirty neon pink chips dropped on the table in front of her, shimmering with the celestial sheen of the stars. Marie gasped at the sight of her own chips, and gleefully started playing with them while Ratna took center stage.

    ¡°Well, since we¡¯re all good to go¡­ tonight¡¯s game is none other than the one, the only¡­ Texas Hold''em!¡±

    Texas Hold''em is the most popular and influential game of poker currently in the world, with gambling halls all across the globe having entire tables and tournaments dedicated to this complex and strategic game. While the true origins of the game are lost to time, in May of 2007 the Texas State Legislature officially recognized Robstown, Texas as the game¡¯s birthplace, dating it sometime in the early 20th century. While it stayed in the Lone Star state for a time, it migrated to the Vegas strip in 1963 at the California Club, spreading quickly to other clubs, although the only casino to offer the game was the Gold Nugget. However, after being played in the very first Poker tournament (which would become the World Series of Poker in 1970), it was so beloved that journalist Tom Thackrey suggested that a no-limit game of Texas Hold''em should be the main event. The owners agreed, and from there, Texas Hold''em was destined for greatness.

    ¡°Texas Hold''em has a lot of different variants to its rules. At the Silver Wheel, we play no limit, which means you can bet whatever you want. Since we have a dealer and just two players -- which isn¡¯t normally a thing for Hold''em -- you two will just be alternating who¡¯s the big blind and who¡¯s the small blind: big blind starts the round putting two chips into the pot, and small blind only has to put one in. Since no one¡¯s left of the big blind, small blind gets first bid. Y¡¯all will flip for who¡¯s big blind first.

    ¡°Once the game starts, I¡¯ll deal two hole cards to each of you, starting with whoever¡¯s small blind. Since there¡¯s only two players, the small blind gets to decide if they want to play the round: if they don¡¯t, everyone gets their chips back, no problem. If they do, they have to either match or raise the big blind. Assuming they do that and everyone¡¯s called, and I¡¯ll flop three community cards into the center of the table, and you¡¯ll have the first proper round of betting. Then I¡¯ll add a fourth community card, called the turn, you¡¯ll bet again, and then finally a fifth -- the river -- followed by the final round of betting. Assuming we make it to this point, both players reveal their hands, make the best five-card hands possible with what they have available, and a winner is declared. We shuffle, the blinds swap, and we keep going till someone can¡¯t play anymore.

    ¡°The Silver Wheel has only one rule to add to this otherwise prestigious game: ties. If both of you are stupid enough to play the board -- which is to say, your best hand consists entirely of the five community cards -- then we¡¯ll draw one more card for each of you, and those cards will exclusively determine the winner of the round. Like in Razz, suits will be the tiebreakers: clubs are the most highly-valued suit, followed by diamonds, hearts, and finally spades. This rule exclusively exists to keep the game moving.

    ¡°Any questions?¡±

    ¡°Yeah why do you suck?¡± Marie raised her hand, ¡°Just kidding, I know why already.¡±

    ¡°I am fine.¡±

    ¡°Haha, we¡¯ll see about that,¡± Ratna hummed.

    Marie Walker leaned back in her chair, as aloof as she¡¯d been every day of her life since she realized nothing matters, which happened well before she started plunging the depths of the multiverse. She supposed she should have felt at least a modicum of excitement or anticipation or something, given how this was the culmination of all her efforts, but it was hard to get too worked up over it. For one, she still had to do something about that pesky Miss Nine, and more importantly, the game was already over.

    To the surprise of no one, Marie Walker had already figured out that Teresa and Ehije were going to cheat. And she knew exactly how.

    To their credit, it was a pretty good system, probably something inspired by all the cheating Ture and Charlie did back in the day. And it was a real testament to how much of a threat they considered her, that they would redesign the whole Silver Wheel just to pull off this one little cheat, and she was nothing if not a sucker for flattery.

    But yeah. Turned out, the cards were chipped, and this brand-new poker table was an overlarge computer in disguise that would scan the cards she got and feed that sexy data to Ehije. Brutal stuff. Really. And she would have fallen for it too, were it not for that alternate version of Ehije who had told her about what game they¡¯d be playing. He also let slip how they planned to cheat. So. That was awkward for them, eh?

    Still, she¡¯d wait a bit before she dropped that knowledge bomb.

    There was something she wanted to see first.

    Ratna pulled out a coin, silver and very pretty, and balanced it on her thumb.

    ¡°Boss babe is our guest, so courtesy dictates you get to call,¡± Ratna said.

    ¡°Heads. And make it flip as many times as possible.¡±

    ¡°Really? You struck me more as a tails-up kind of girl,¡± Ratna smirked.

    ¡°There¡¯s merit to that. I¡¯m rich enough to not need to bother with head.¡±

    ¡°Lucky bitch.¡±

    She flipped. The coin spun very gracefully in the air, hanging for a bit at the peak for Marie¡¯s pleasure, before it landed in Ratna¡¯s hand.

    ¡°...heads. So oral-averse Marie is the small blind, and bids second.¡±

    ¡°Sweet.¡±

    Marie submitted one chip into the pot, while Ehije put in two. After Ratna shuffled the deck, they both received two face-down cards, and both flipped them up to give them a look.

    Marie had a two of spades and a two of clubs. A pair, which probably had a name in Texas Hold''em because every opening combination had a name. She didn¡¯t care what it was, though.

    She put another chip on the table, making the game official.

    ¡°Alright. Game on!¡±

    After burning a card, Ratna dealt three more to the center of the table: a four of hearts, an Ace of clubs, and a two of diamonds.

    ¡°Alright, game off.¡± Marie immediately replied, folding on the spot.

    As ¡°Miracle¡± by CHVRCHES started playing over the radio, both Ehije and Ratna exchanged a glance. It wasn¡¯t uncommon for someone to fold so soon, if their hand was really that bad, it just¡­ wasn¡¯t what they were expecting, clearly.

    ¡°Oookay, an early lead for the Silver Wheel.¡±

    She grabbed the chips, the two radiant silver chips and the two cosmic pink chips, and slid them over to Ehije¡¯s side of the table.

    Ehije stopped breathing.

    ¡°...yeah. Yeah. You feel that?¡±

    Ehije grasped his chest with one hand, and the edge of the table with the other. He started to convulse, as if he had to throw up, but couldn¡¯t, since something else was clogging his airways.

    ¡°Mmmm. Let it sink in.¡±

    ¡°What the hell-¡± Ratna started, but was interrupted when Marie Walker slid over to her side of the table and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

    ¡°Hey, so, here¡¯s a fun fact: did you know that neuroscientists have guestimated that the average human brain can store anywhere between 10 and 100 terabytes of information? Probably less, since a lot of that information is already being used for, like, vital bodily functions.¡±

    Ratna furrowed her brow. Marie Walker laughed, and knocked on her head. Ehije finally found the strength to breathe, but was hyperventilating and sweating. Tears were welling in the corners of his eyes.

    ¡°Haha, you goose. Think of all the universes I¡¯ve explored in some form or another -- trillions, remember? What makes me different from your average fuck is that I don¡¯t just see that number and think ¡®big¡¯. My sexy, genetically enhanced, genius brain can actually comprehend it. Completely, down to the granular level, each individual universe and all the little ways it¡¯s different -- and that takes up waaaay more than a few terabytes. We¡¯re trying to cram a lake¡¯s worth of information into a water balloon¡¯s worth of memory. How you holding up there?¡±

    ¡°Hnnnnggg-!¡±

    ¡°Haha. Chin up. That¡¯s only one-fifteenth of everything that¡¯s up here, buddy. We¡¯ve got a long way to go, me and you.¡±

    There was no natural situation one could get in that would cause one to learn so much, so quickly, and so perfectly commit it to memory. So while the initial impact of his first-turn victory on his brain verged on the supernatural, now that it was between his ears, as uncomfortable as it was Ehije could start processing it the way brains do. Networks between neurons that had once supported memories started to wither to accommodate the flood of information which had been deemed more urgent and necessary. To decide which neurons were the least important, they used an invisible, instinctual priority list. His mother, his father, his name, where he was, they all managed to remain. But other things were either lost in the influx of raw information surging into him, or so muddied by their arrival he could barely make sense of them. How had he gotten his money? Where did he even live? Did he know how to drive? Those, and so many other questions, emerged and vanished under a swollen tide of information and data. Trying to categorize or manage it was like trying to sort water by temperature as it exploded out of a dam.

    But while sorting water bursting out of a dam was impossible, it was equally impossible to avoid getting wet. He was immersed in the enormous swollen quantities of data that were filling his brain. Not just data, but comprehension. He didn¡¯t see thousands of universes as climbing numbers, but as thousands of different night skies stretched out in front of him, a billion points of light he could identify and name and explore, simultaneously and immediately. They had as much presence as the fingers on his hand, and even with the fragment of comprehension he had received, he could see the world around him expanding like an inflating kaleidoscope.

    And the larger it became, the smaller and smaller he became.

    He felt an utter, crushing smallness he could have never imagined before.

    It was impossible to describe, or escape. It went beyond irrelevance into territories of functional non-existence. His entire life, and everything he had ever done, wasn¡¯t swallowed by the enormity of the many universes that unfolded before him: they were completely unmoved by them. There was simply nothing to swallow. A gnat throwing itself against the largest mountains would make a bigger imprint on the stone than his every life effort had made to the universe.

    And this¡­ was only a tiny fraction of what Marie Walker had in her mind?!

    ¡°Ehije, you alright buddy?¡±

    It was Ratna. He was sweating. He nodded.

    He stared at the door. Of course, now it made sense why she wanted to kill anyone who tried to quit. She wanted to make him suffer. She was being a sadist. Otherwise she could have just given up the first round and trusted him to forfeit.

    But at least he still remembered that rule. That, at least, wasn¡¯t lost to him.

    ¡°...I see what you¡¯re doing, Marie Walker,¡± he finally spoke, ¡°but if you thought that was enough to defeat me, you were wrong.¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡±

    ¡°Maybe you¡¯ve proven your point. But even if my life has been inconsequential before now, this game, which shall preserve the size you are showing me, is important. This is a once-in-an-eternity chance to be the first and only human being who did something that mattered. So I am not giving up.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re tougher than you look, big guy.¡±

    ¡°But by all means, keep folding. If Ratna has reason to suspect you¡¯re giving up, even within the mechanics of the game, you would break your own rules, and would be killed. So I recommend you stop messing around and start playing for real.¡±

    Marie Walker didn¡¯t look convinced.

    ¡°Yep. Surrendering by folding every round is every bit as obvious as walking away. Just so you know,¡± Ratna clarified.

    ¡°Aww. Well, I guess if you make a bed, you gotta get fucked in it. Alright, game time. Round two. Let¡¯s go.¡±

    The cards from the first round were collected, shuffled, then re-dealt. She was big blind this time, putting two more chips into the pot, and while Ehije decided if he would match it, she checked out her own hand.

    Ace of spades, and eight of clubs.

    His eyes shifted to Teresa, who was staring at her feet, silent and subservient, waiting for the players to make a drink order.

    But she was doing more than just that, of course.

    He was supposed to be cheating right now.

    If things had gone according to plan, Marie Walker should know he¡¯s cheating. She should be working under the assumption that the table is a computer that would read her cards when she set them down. That was his understanding too, until recently. But Teresa had anticipated that a version of himself might leak that information, so he wasn¡¯t told what the real scheme was until he arrived here earlier tonight. The computer plot was apparently little more than a red herring, and the fact that Marie Walker wasn¡¯t letting her cards touch the table was proof that it had worked.

    But the real trick was something far cleverer.

    He submitted the second chip. The game was on.

    ¡°Hokay, so we¡¯re doing this? Alright, works for me.¡±

    Ratna, after burning the top card, threw out three community cards: an eight of spades, a nine of diamonds, and a five of clubs. Ehije already had a pair.

    ¡°Marie, you wanna bet something?¡±

    ¡°Yeah sure. One existential nightmare,¡± she tossed a chip into the pot.

    Ehije threw a chip in as well. He didn¡¯t have a bad enough opening hand to warrant immediately giving up, and he couldn¡¯t have Marie throwing his words back at him.

    He glanced at Teresa briefly before locking eyes with Marie Walker. ¡°The One that Got Away¡± by The Civil Wars, was playing on the radio now, but he was having a hard time giving it much thought. He was having a hard time focusing on anything.

    ¡°Y''all good? Can we keep going?¡± Ratna pressed.

    Marie Walker nodded. A king of spades.

    ¡°Y¡¯know¡­¡± she mused, ¡°you might not believe me when I say this, but I really do like it here.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re right, I don¡¯t,¡± he replied dryly, watching her stir her chips with her immaculately polished finger. Deciding, deliberating, if she wanted to wager something.

    ¡°What¡¯s not to like, though? Free drinks. Nice staff. And it¡¯s the one place I¡¯ve found where there¡¯s some real damn randomness. Roll a dice in the Silver Wheel and five more versions don¡¯t spawn with different results: it is what it is. ¡®S real nice. Didn¡¯t we kinda talk about that earlier?¡±

    She picked up four chips and tossed them into the pot. Ehije collapsed his hand, shuffling the two cards randomly before throwing them back to Ratna, who looked at them before adding them back into the deck.

    ¡°Nope. I¡¯m out.¡±

    ¡°Awww. Boo.¡±

    He made sure her two pink chips that were in his collection were passed over to her: and immediately, he could feel relief rushing through his brain as the information it promised was pulled away from his mind. It was as if a thousand weights had lifted off his skull at once. Music wasn¡¯t just sound. He mattered again. And the word ¡°billion¡± was just seven letters and a vague notion, not a concrete, conceivable object.

    But this next round would be where things get¡­ difficult.

    Ehije had the small blind, and threw one chip into the pot. Marie threw two. The cards were collected, shuffled as before, and dealt. He got a seven of hearts and a Queen of hearts. Marie Walker continued to snatch her cards out of Ratna¡¯s hands, ensuring the cards never made contact with the table.

    Ratna seemed more amused by this than irritated.

    ¡°Ehije. Like your hand enough to play with it?¡±

    He looked at Teresa, who was looking directly at him. Her cold eyes bored into his.

    ¡°...fine.¡±

    He submitted a chip. Marie Walker sighed.

    ¡°Boring,¡± she declared, and with an enormous grin, threw four chips into the pot.

    Blankly, Ehije matched her bet.

    ¡°Wow, you look so serious, buddy. Teresa,¡± she wheeled around to look at the waitress, ¡°are you sure this is the best Chosen one you could get? He¡¯s so¡­ lifeless. And sad. Think he¡¯s still dwelling on the immeasurable inconsequentialism of our existence? Be honest. Girl talk.¡±

    Teresa stood stoic.

    ¡°Ugh. Y¡¯all are so lame. But for real, man, you don¡¯t even know the half of it,¡± she turned back to him, stirring her chips with her pink fingernails, ¡°Just how much¡­ mmph is out there. People are sort of, like, designed to assume their lives matter. We¡¯re raised to admire people. Moments in history. Told we can do anything, change the world, all that shit. And that¡¯s all true! We can! All throughout history people have managed, through single moments or a lifetime of hard work, to change the world, to leave their mark! ¡®S just¡­ we¡¯re never taught to understand just how¡­ you know¡­ small our world is. Grand scheme of things, it¡¯s not that much bigger than we are. And if it were just surrounded by a whole lot of nothing, that¡¯d be one thing. Nothing doesn¡¯t matter ¡ª no matter how much nothing¡¯s out there, it all adds up to zero, and even our little blue dot would be the center of the universe. But the world isn¡¯t surrounded by nothing, it¡¯s surrounded by enormous and beautiful.. something. And every atom of that something doesn¡¯t care. And it¡¯s when you realize we¡¯re being ignored by something, oof, that¡¯s when it hits, right?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s what¡¯s so funny about what you were saying earlier. First human to do something that matters? Don¡¯t kid yourself. All that something out there will never care about or be moved by you no matter what you do. You¡¯re not gravity, or energy, or anything big enough to matter. Win or lose, the both of us, this whole damn game? It¡¯s nothing. A whole lot of nothing.¡±

    ¡°...I-¡±

    ¡°Shut up a sec, Ratna, sweetheart, you gonna deal sometime? You can deal while I monologue you know. It¡¯s not against the law.¡±

    After burning a card, Ratna threw down a three of hearts, a four of spades, and an eight of hearts. One heart away from a flush.

    ¡°Better. Now what were you saying?¡±

    ¡°...I do not envy you, Marie Walker. In fact, I would almost say I pity you. But not because you have been cursed with a mind that is capable of such terrifying¡­ perception. But rather, because your masochism is apparently boundless. You saw the vastness of this great and terrible universe, more than enough to inspire the purpose you now pursue, and yet you said ¡®more¡¯. You bloated your mind with the enormity of reality well beyond necessary, and while it may be an effective weapon against me, I have to question why you did it to yourself. I-¡±

    Marie Walker submitted an extra chip into the pot.

    ¡°-You gonna bet anything, sweetheart?¡±

    ¡°...yes.¡±

    Ehije, with considerable hesitation, slid three chips into the pot.

    ¡°...l am under the impression -- and correct me if I am wrong -- that you were looking for something.¡±

    ¡°Wow, big brain time over here, huh?¡±

    ¡°You spent all that time searching for the Silver Wheel, were you not?¡±

    Ehije hadn¡¯t known Marie Walker for long, so he couldn¡¯t appreciate the look of surprise that struck across her face like a bolt of lightning. But Ratna and Teresa had, and did. She even stopped stirring her chips.

    ¡°...that somethin¡¯ Gene told you while you had him over?¡±

    ¡°A magician never reveals his secrets, Marie Walker.¡±

    It was not Gene Oberman who let slip that nugget of information. It was another soul. Rebecca Wu. Technically the first person to step into the Silver Wheel without an invitation. Only Teresa and Mr. Eight had seen the woman, and heard her off-handed remark, but it had left such a strong impression that they could weaponize it, even now.

    ¡°...alright, let¡¯s play, then.¡±

    She matched his three by submitting two more to the pot. There were eighteen chips there now. A weighty sum of knowledge¡­ or a hefty chunk of the Silver Wheel.

    ¡°As you know, the Silver Wheel erases the memories of people who come here. And neither Teresa nor Mr. Eight remember seeing you before. What I want to know is how you knew this place existed before you even got here?¡±

    ¡°...looking to plug a hole, I take it?¡±

    ¡°I finish what I start.¡±

    ¡°Ah, wish all my lovers could say the same,¡± she sighed dramatically, resting her chin against her hand, ¡°but why bother asking? You¡¯ll find out once you win the game, won¡¯t you? And if you lose, then it¡¯s not your problem anymore. Have a little patience, bucko. Also, are we ready for the next card? Cuz I¡¯m ready for the next card.¡±

    ¡°Could you pick one colloquial nickname and stick with it?¡± Ratna sighed, before nodding to Ehije .He paused.

    He stared at the eight of hearts. He had four hearts. One more for a flush.

    If he won, though¡­ he¡¯d be getting a lot of pink chips from Marie. The toll that would take on his mind was¡­ unimaginable.

    But he had no choice but to endure for now.

    ¡°...ok. Deal it.¡±

    ¡°Lame. But I¡¯m also lame so let¡¯s go.¡±

    Ratna rolled her eyes, burned a second card, and dealt¡­ a nine of hearts.

    He had his flush.

    ¡°Accepting all bets.¡±

    Marie Walker, thinking for a second, flicked a single chip into the pot.

    Breathing heavily, sweat beading on his forehead, he matched her one by sliding ten chips forward. He only had eleven chips left, but he knew his flush would win. Marie Walker watched the pot grow, and raised an eyebrow.

    ¡°Ten chips, huh? You ready to deal with ten more chips, Ehije?¡±

    She grabbed a stack of nine chips and slid them forward -- not enough to join the pot, not enough for Ratna to consider it calling his bet, but enough to taunt him. To underline just how many chips that actually was. Nine, plus her nine other chips already in the pot.

    ¡°That¡¯s more than half of my chips, Ehije. That¡¯s more than half of my knowledge. Two chips were enough to make you sick. Eighteen, though -- maybe it¡¯ll break your brain. Maybe you won¡¯t feel anything, because it¡¯ll just¡­ snap all the little gears you¡¯ve got turning up there. Is that what you¡¯re hoping for?¡±

    She chuckled, then pulled her chips back.

    ¡°That¡¯d be no fun at all. Let¡¯s see how you deal with the ten before we do any big boy bets, shall we?¡±

    She folded.

    ¡°...oh shit no no n-¡±

    Ehije would have fallen to the floor, if Teresa hadn¡¯t been behind him to catch him. She held him up and steady while his body convulsed, his eyelids opening and closing rapidly as his eyes seized in their sockets.

    ¡°...y¡¯know I always took advantage of the whole ¡®multiple dimension¡¯ thing. ¡®S not just my knowledge and memories up here, but all the knowledge and memories of all the different Maries I had helping me. Throw in picture-perfect memory and the aforementioned tampering with my brain-meat, the shit inside my skull is pretty hard to cope with, yeah?¡±

    She grinned with a shrug.

    ¡°Don¡¯t even know what to do with all this extra space I¡¯ve got. Beyonc¨¦ trivia, maybe?¡±

    ¡°Christ¡­¡± Ratna whispered.

    ¡°He¡¯ll be fine. He might not know who or where he is anymore, but he¡¯ll process it eventually. You should really start worrying after fifteen chips or so. That¡¯ll be the breaking point.¡±

    ¡°It is fine, Ratna,¡± Teresa assured her with a determined coldness, ¡°If Ehije must be sacrificed, so be it. He will see this game through.¡±

    ¡°Oof. Cold.¡±

    ¡°There is nothing cold about sacrificing one for the many. On the contrary, it is efficient.¡±

    ¡°Oh? Interesting choice of words there, Teresa. You mean you¡¯re not just doing this for the Silver Wheel?¡± Marie pried.

    Teresa was under no obligation to answer, and did not. Instead, she laid Ehije gently on the floor, took his seat, and after double-checking what was in his hand, pushed Ehije¡¯s cards towards Ratna.

    ¡°As the owner of the Silver Wheel, I am his employee, and thus, can act as his representative. I will continue the game in his stead,¡± she announced, pulling the chips closer.

    ¡°...oh, you¡¯re just pulling that out of your nonexistent ass,¡± Marie laughed, ¡°that¡¯s cheating, Teresa. That¡¯s some grade-A bullshit right there.¡±

    ¡°Perhaps it is ¡®bullshit¡¯. But it is ¡®bullshit¡¯ that your former minion Nikolay employed frequently during his tenure as the owner of this establishment.¡±

    ¡°Wow, he was no fun.¡±

    ¡°Indeed, he was not.¡±

    Marie Walker sighed, and slid her own cards towards Ratna, who then started to shuffle them the same way as before.

    ¡°I believe you are the small blind this turn, Marie Walker. Please submit your chip to the pot.¡±

    Marie Walker took a single pink chip, and tossed it into the pot rather carelessly. As Teresa put her own chips in the pot, she shook her head.

    ¡°...nope, you know what, this just isn¡¯t as much fun anymore. I¡¯m just gonna end the game here, sorry.¡±

    ¡°You are forfeiting?¡± Teresa suggested, almost like a goad.

    ¡°Nah, nah. I know you kids are cheating. Ehije told me already.¡±

    ¡°Oh? And how are we cheating, may I ask?¡±

    She snorted. ¡°You Know My Name¡±, by Chris Cornell, was playing on the radio now. Marie Walker seemed to appreciate this music a lot more, with how she nodded her head to the rhythm.

    ¡°Well, it¡¯s the funniest thing. See, before the game, I talked a version of Ehije into telling me that this whole table was a computer and it was able to read my hole cards the minute I put them on the table. And I was like, that¡¯s lame, right? But when we started playing, I realized that couldn¡¯t be right. Ratna was willing to just hand me my cards. If she was really committed to this cheat she should have slid them to me. Seemed dumb that I could beat your whole high-tech plan by keeping my cards pinched between my fingers.¡±

    Teresa stared at her opponent coldly.

    ¡°So, obviously, a red herring. But thankfully, this version of Ehije is every bit the lil¡¯ snitch the other version of him was, and when he realized that every one of my chips was a jackhammer to the skull, he was probably like ¡®I need Marie to win if I¡¯m going to leave the Silver Wheel in one piece¡¯. He also knew you¡¯d throw him under the bus at the drop of a hat. Which you did, by the way. Stone cold bitch.¡±

    Teresa twitched an eye towards Ehije, who was finally starting to calm down but remained on the floor.

    ¡°Course, he couldn¡¯t give up. He¡¯d die. And he couldn¡¯t just flat-out tell me or you¡¯d probably do something awful to him to shut him up. You have fantastic reaction speeds, you know. So he had to be smart about it. And credit where it¡¯s due, he was. I could have ended the game two turns ago. I just didn¡¯t because I¡¯m a bitch. We¡¯re twinsies!¡±

    Teresa remained motionless, her face unmoving and unrevealing, which in itself was revealing, as Teresa had been taking such strides towards being more expressive and open with her burgeoning emotions.

    Marie Walker pointed to Ratna.

    ¡°You¡¯ve been using the Zarrow shuffle, haven¡¯t you?¡±

    The Zarrow shuffle was a technique developed by a magician named Herb Zarrow in 1940 that allowed you to convincingly ¡°shuffle¡± a deck of cards in a way that literally no cards changed their position in the deck.

    ¡°It¡¯s simple. You stacked the deck a specific way before the game started and mapped out exactly which cards would make up the top twelve cards of the deck each round of the game, and used the Zarrow shuffle to ensure that order didn¡¯t change. Judging by the callouses on Ratna¡¯s fingers, she¡¯s been practicing this a lot, so she probably wouldn¡¯t screw it up. With a standard 52 card deck, you could have ensured that the first four to five rounds, at least, went exactly as you wanted, although if you¡¯re really good at it ¡ª and since Ratna had nothing better to do but practice ¡ª I¡¯m sure you could squeeze more rounds than that out of this method.¡±

    ¡°All he had to do was fold fast on the rounds he was supposed to lose and bet big on the rounds he was supposed to win. With that kind of insider information, his victory would have been assured. Unfortunately for you, he didn¡¯t have the guts to see it through.¡±

    ¡°You have no proof that¡¯s the case,¡± Teresa pointed out coldly.

    ¡°Sure I do. Lemmie show you a magic trick: the bottom seven cards of the deck are, in order, the nine of hearts, the eight of hearts, the four of spades, the three of hearts, the five of clubs, and the six of spades.¡±

    Ratna was obligated to flip over the deck, and reveal the bottom seven cards. It was exactly as Marie Walker had described.

    ¡°Either Ratna did a shitty job shuffling, or she did an excellent job shuffling. I¡¯m going to say it was the latter. But of course, I never would have figured this out if it weren¡¯t for my dear friend, Ehije. Round of applause to him.¡±

    She gestured to the man on the ground, who was slowly blinking awake, moaning the whole time. Ten chips¡¯ worth of her brain were jammed into his skull. He felt as if he were going to rip apart at the seams.

    ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯re curious how he did it? Think back on round two. The turn he folded. I¡¯m sure that was on-script, so you didn¡¯t really notice how he gave up immediately, right? But did you notice how he shuffled his cards before he gave them back to Ratna? I did. And Ratna did too. That¡¯s why she had to look at his cards before she put them back into the deck. But no normal dealer ever has to check a player¡¯s cards before they¡¯re shuffled into the deck. She only had to do it this time to make sure the order was right, to ensure your strategy worked.¡±

    Ratna looked down, sheepishly, but Teresa¡¯s increasingly cold glare never left Marie Walker¡¯s smug face.

    ¡°And before you wonder if it was intentional or not, of course it was. All game he never betrayed any kind of¡­ twitch, like the way I mess with my chips. He even said ¡®a magician never reveals his secrets¡¯, which I like to think was a little nod to Herb Zarrow. This was intentional. It was a cry for help from a man who couldn¡¯t endure being your sacrificial lamb. And¡­ ultimately¡­ I am nothing if not a merciful teacher.¡±

    She leaned back. Both Ratna and Teresa were silent as Chris Cornell screamed the final lyrics to his song into the parlor.

    ¡°If you¡¯re going to be salty, put it on the rim of my margarita. I want a margarita by the way.¡±

    Marie Walker had won.

    ~*~

    Gene Oberman was crying in a dark bathroom.

    He had no idea what was going on ¡ª he woke up confused, scared, and trapped in an underground facility he didn¡¯t recognize with a monster whose very sight was enough to send waves of cold terror down his spine. There was no one around to answer his cries, and every time he thought he found a way out, he discovered it was only a dead end.

    He did, however, know he was being fucked with. His phone worked, but it only seemed capable of receiving calls, not making any. Despite the fact the lights were off, he knew the power worked, but none of the doors accepted his keycard (so he must have worked here?) and the cameras were all tracking his movements. Whatever hell this was, it was a hell someone had designed for him, although his mind was too fragmented to piece together who it might be and why. He knew¡­ he worked for Marie Walker, and he was a quantum physicist, and he remembered everything he had done for his job before this one, but¡­ it was like the past few years of his life had been cut out of his brain with a pair of scissors.

    He briefly entertained the idea that he may have done this to himself. It seemed like the kind of mistake he¡¯d sign up for.

    But dwelling on how he got in this fucked up place would just drive him crazier than he was already going. He had food, he had water, and whatever that¡­ thing was, it wasn¡¯t chasing after him¡­ yet¡­

    He needed a plan. He needed help.

    And that¡¯s when his phone rang.

    As far as he knew, this was his demented tormentor calling to taunt him. In fact, since no one else had tried to reach him before this point, that overwhelmingly seemed like the case. But he just needed to hear a voice right now. Any voice but his. Something that could hopefully anchor him to reality. Something that would assure him this either was -- or wasn¡¯t -- some kind of disgusting coma-dream.

    So he picked up.

    ¡°Hello, Gene Oberman,¡± a stranger¡¯s voice reached him from the other end of the world -- he had no idea who he was, but he sounded vaguely¡­ African?

    ¡°Allow me to explain¡­¡±

 Round Four: Matador

    ¡°Wooo. That smell. That smell is progress. And probably a dash of farting.¡±

    Marie Walker took a second deep breath, completely satisfied with the smell, farts and all.

    The Silver Wheel was undergoing another round of renovation, this time at Marie Walker¡¯s discretion. Installing computers, assorted devices whose working and purpose were beyond even Teresa¡¯s comprehensive knowledge, and upgrading the Silver Wheel¡¯s power output, because the wattage you need to operate a chandelier and a radio isn¡¯t quite up to the task of powering an array of quantum supercomputers. It was a time-consuming process, but since the Silver Wheel existed in a dream-scape, they had all the time in the world. Almost literally.

    During the process, Teresa stood behind the bar, silently watching as people came and went out the front door, as freely as if they were working on a location in their physical world. Ratna, who had nothing better to do, passed out drinks and flirted with the workers. Mr. Eight remained out of sight.

    Teresa was not having a good day.

    ¡°Yo. Teresa. I¡¯m talking to you.¡±

    Teresa turned to Marie Walker, who was leaning against the door frame. Smelling things.

    ¡°...nothing you said indicated you wished to speak to me.¡±

    ¡°Right right but is it okay if we cut holes in the walls? Like, it won¡¯t cause everything to get sucked out into space, right?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± she answered objectively, ¡°but all you would see is darkness. Very similar to staring at the open door of the Silver Wheel from the void, you would not see the ¡®outside¡¯ of the building itself.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s fine. I knew all that already. I just wanted you to know we¡¯re cutting holes in the walls.¡±

    Teresa didn¡¯t blink.

    ¡°...cuz¡­ you know¡­ this is my place now.¡±

    ¡°I am aware, Marie Walker.¡±

    ¡°Alrighty! As long as we¡¯re on the same page. Oh, and, I¡¯m gonna make a little¡­ office space in the corner. Tiny little space. Nothing fancy. If you could be a dear and make sure Mr. Eight visits there real fast, that¡¯d be swell. Super swell.¡±

    Teresa watched her walk into the parlor. She continued to not blink.

    The radio was playing ¡°We Have All the Time in the World¡±, by John Barry.

    ~*~

    Ehije was awake, but he wasn¡¯t sure he wanted to be.

    The events of last night sat heavy on his mind, leaving an imprint that would be sure to haunt him for the rest of his life. That feeling of self-loathing resentment when you look back on a moment and wish you¡¯d done something else -- an intense regret when you think on all the different, better paths your life could have taken -- feelings that usually need decades to mature were stirring in him already, fully grown and seeping through his entire being. Becoming part of his identity.

    Now, he would always be the one who gave up his chance to save the world.

    Logically, he knew there was nothing he could do about it. He was aware of the situation he was in and the necessity of his roundabout surrender. But logic did not rule here. He had, after so many years, fallen victim to the dreaded ¡°what if¡±. Not ¡°what if he could have stomached all that knowledge¡±, he knew the answer to that. No, he couldn¡¯t help but wonder what could have been if his guard was up sooner, and he had realized what Marie Walker was actually betting: if he had put the pieces together sooner, took what Oberman had told him seriously, and taken the necessary precautions¡­

    ...well, it was doubtful Marie Walker would have played, then.

    But while his confidence was shaken, it was not destroyed. Perhaps better if it had been, because he still believed that if he had truly tried, maybe, just maybe, he could have found a way to get her to agree to play while lessening the impact of what she was offering on his mind.

    If only, what if.

    He sighed, blinking boredly at the ceiling of his holding cell.

    He¡¯d be going to prison soon enough, he supposed. And then he would die soon enough, he supposed some more, which meant this bother wouldn¡¯t be his problem for much longer. He would be leaving the land of What If soon enough, and he would land¡­ somewhere. Probably someplace like the Silver Wheel, if what Teresa told him was true, to work in weary labor until he was fit to stay in one of those bright places she seemed to come from. That didn¡¯t sound too appealing, but he would make it work.

    At least as far as this life was concerned, he had lost.

    ...but just because he lost didn¡¯t mean he would let Marie Walker win.

    He had anticipated, after Marie Walker¡¯s earlier call, that he could lose. And he had taken steps to ensure that even if he failed, he would find a way to drag her down with him. And there was no better time to play his final hand than now.

    It was a crapshoot. A risk. A gamble.

    But that was what made it so perfect.

    ¡°Excuse me,¡± he gestured to a passing guard, one he knew to be more morally flexible than the others, flaunting a pack of cigarettes between the bars, ¡°I really need to use the phone again. For a while.¡±

    The cop furrowed his brow. Ehije had used idle conversation and careful listening to determine this guy wasn¡¯t exactly the most upstanding individual, but he¡¯d never tried bribing him before. Then again, he¡¯d never needed to use the phone this much before.

    ¡°...it is nothing nasty. You can watch me the whole time. I just want to text some family and friends. I am going to prison soon, correct? All I want is to let them know I love them and that I am doing okay.¡±

    The cop snatched the cigarettes out of his hand and walked away without a word.

    That was fine. Always have a backup plan. And in this case, having his cigarettes stolen would only make his story sadder for the next cop he would solicit, the one he knew to be a bleeding heart. The man didn¡¯t approve of the attempted bribe, but he was struck by how deeply Ehije cared, and agreed to let him use his phone as long as every message was checked first. Ehije agreed to the conditions gratefully.

    He wrote out ten texts saying ¡°Hello, I am healthy and well, and I love you all. But I don¡¯t think we¡¯ll ever see each other again. Always in my heart, Claudia¡±.

    He explained that Claudia was his drag queen name. The cop believed him.

    And he hit send.

    ~*~

    To say Claudia had been having a rough few months would be an understatement.

    Goodness, where to begin: kidnapped, hidden in an underground lab, losing all her limbs, transformed into a grotesque abomination that defied any human description who could perceive reality in a way that eternally twisted her old understanding of existence, lied to, violated, and now she was trapped in a dark, nearly empty facility with her long-time tormentor, who, in some small mercy, seemed to have gotten over his obsession with her and was now as scared of her as everyone else, which was the only time she could recall welcoming the howls of terror.

    But maybe she¡¯d be getting more good news soon.

    The other day, Oberman -- ugh, even the name was gross -- mustered up the courage to approach her just close enough to throw a phone at her. On the other end was a gentleman who seemed to know an awful lot about her situation, and what¡¯s more, seemed to know a lot about the person who was ultimately responsible for what she had become. Communicating over the phone was hard, on account of the fact that she had a hard time making this new body vibrate air at the correct frequency, but through considerable trial and error the two of them were able to come to an understanding.

    The phone, which she had kept on her person ever since they hung up, vibrated. She opened it.

    ...well she¡¯d never say she was ¡°well¡±, but technically Ehije had held up his end of the deal. Her friends and family knew she was alive. A burden was lifted off her¡­ chest? Heart? She didn¡¯t even know if she had either of those things anymore. But she did feel better. It wasn¡¯t often someone got the chance to say farewell after they¡¯ve already died, but then it wasn¡¯t often someone died the way she had.

    She lurched forward. She moved with inexpert clumsiness, able to stagger forward despite how unwieldy her body had become. She had spent enough time with it, and with her new and unorthodox mind, to be comfortable with the process of moving. But she was a non-concrete entity trying to navigate an irritatingly static world. Of course there would be collisions. Mistakes. Occasional discharges, if she misjudged a distance and impacted some metal harder than intended. She was aware of them, but also aware that whatever notified her of each collision, it wasn¡¯t pain, strictly speaking. The nervous system that human bodies used to communicate problems seemed so comically obsolete compared to what she had now.

    There was only one other warm body in this place. Easy to find. Easy to smell. She knew he had spent all this time hiding, as if she couldn¡¯t see him when atoms had so much space between them. She could alway see him. She could always reach him. She could always slip between those enormous gaps that make up solid objects. Including the enormous gaps in his own construction, if she wanted.

    She didn¡¯t want to, though.

    He was in the kitchen, probably scavenging whatever was left in the fridge. An increasingly thinning resource. He was looking rather ragged, and was hosting more life than most humans would be comfortable with, on account of a lack of bathing. It was actually rather nice, now that she could appreciate the complexities of this system without the burden of dealing with the smell. Plus, it made him more tolerable when she remembered that she functionally only disliked about 1,300 grams of him. All the other parts were okay.

    She appeared behind him just as he turned around.

    She waited out his screaming and his sobbing as he tried to push through the fridge to escape, as it was the only direction she was not. Unfortunately, he lacked the capacity, so all she could do was wait until he got acclimatized to her appearance.

    When he started hyperventilating and clawing his eyes out, she realized this was not a waiting game she could win. She rolled her many eyes and skulked into the shadows, then told him that she needed him to calm his ass down.

    ¡°W-what?! You can talk!?¡±

    Yes, but that would sound way worse than communicating this way.

    ¡°Why are you doing this to me?! Go away! Where am I?!¡±

    Location was something that was rather hard for her to narrow down, considering she had far more points of reference than she used to. But without information to color a lot of that raw data, she could honestly say she didn¡¯t know, either. But she also said that it didn¡¯t matter, because if he wanted to get out of this alive, he needed to do what she said.

    ¡°You¡¯ll let me go if I do?!¡±

    Sure, she lied.

    ¡°Okay. Okay, fine. Whatever you want, please!¡±

    He still hadn¡¯t opened his eyes. She didn¡¯t like this, but she still much preferred it to whatever had been going on in his head earlier. She asked him if he had heard of a place called the Silver Wheel.

    ¡°W-what?! No!¡±

    She asked if he knew anything about interdimensional travel.

    ¡°What are you talking about?!¡±

    She asked him if he knew how to use the computers around here.

    ¡°W-wha¡­ y-yes, I think so¡­¡±

    Then she told him that he needed to turn them on and get himself caught up. They had a lot of reading to do.

    ¡°Please, please forgive me, but with the power out-¡±

    She¡¯d return the power.

    ¡°H-how?!¡±

    That part was easy.

    She slithered away, keeping one eye on him while she got to work. The issue of power may have baffled her in another time, in her old body, but now that she had become this thing, it wasn¡¯t a question of what was possible, but rather what she could execute. Electricity is simply organized electrons, synchronized and pushed in one direction. And electrons were just steady particles of a specific mass with a negative charge. A negative charge is just a state of matter that projects a force. And while she didn¡¯t have the same matter that the rest of the world had, she could turn herself into a convincing facsimile. Slipping into the wires. A space so small to a human, but incredibly spacious to her current body, she almost felt it was a little too empty.

    Stretch herself out. Vibrate. Synchronize. Push through the wires. Become the charge.

    Electricity was just a thing, after all.

    And Claudia could be whatever the hell she wanted.

    <hr>

    Ture had died something like¡­ forty times now? It didn¡¯t occur to him to start counting until a few weeks ago, and he sort of guessed it had been around twenty-eight at that point. So twelve deaths for sure, and somewhere in the range of twenty-eight beforehand. Could have been more, but probably not less. Marie wanted to scare a lot of people. ¡®Get the wheels spinning before they even hit the ground¡¯, to use her terminology exactly. And to her credit, it had pretty much worked exactly the way she hoped: turned out, having powerful, rich people lose friends in a grotesque, seemingly unavoidable way makes a great catalyst for societal change and government approval.

    At this rate, all this P.I.N.K shit would be ready in a few weeks. And her plan would be ready to go, as far as he understood it. And to be clear: he absolutely did not understand it, nor did he ever try to.

    Frankly, he was just here for the ride. And what a hell of a ride it was. Sure, he had to work for Marie Walker, but frankly, his tasks involved doing what she said, and dying at the end of it. As long as he did all that stuff on time, and it wouldn¡¯t compromise her ultimate objective, she let him do whatever the hell he wanted.

    And he wanted to do a lot. He ate food ¡ª real food, that never got old ¡ª all the time. He took naps in the sunshine. He ran in circles. He shouted a whole lot. He tried to fly a kite. He climbed a tree, and rode a bike. He ate copious amounts of ice cream and cake. He stripped naked and rolled around on a bed. He did a lot of drugs.

    The only thing he hadn¡¯t done yet is fuck someone. It¡¯s not that he didn¡¯t have opportunities, typically the men and women whose bodies he controlled had unsuspecting spouses, but¡­ well, there was a line. Using someone else¡¯s body to screw their loved one felt a bit too rapey for Ture¡¯s tastes, so he figured he¡¯d put that on hold until he got a more permanent body and just masturbate a whole lot in the meantime.

    Which should be soon. It would be bad form for people to die in the gruesome way they had been once those P.I.N.K collars were out. After a few more ¡ª according to Marie Walker¡¯s timeline, just to move things along at a healthy clip ¡ª they¡¯d be good to go and he¡¯d have his pick of the remaining bodies, plus an incredibly generous severance package so he could spend the rest of his days on earth basically doing whatever, as long as he kept his mouth shut. Turned out, Marie Walker preferred the carrot to the stick when it came to employee loyalty. Which makes enough sense, when you¡¯ve got nothing but carrots to pass around.

    Yep. All he had to do was what Marie Walker said, and he¡¯d be set for life.

    ...so why hadn¡¯t he thrown out the Royale Treatment pills yet?

    His first thought was ¡°well once she¡¯s done with it, it¡¯ll be business as normal ¡ª I could visit, maybe win something¡±; but then, he doubted Teresa would give him a warm welcome considering how he helped Marie Walker with her ambitions. So that wasn¡¯t really a good reason to keep them.

    Of course, he could always sell the pills for some extra spending money. Not that he would need that unless he made some truly terrible life choices. Or¡­ maybe to start a cult or whatever. If someone could be brainwashed into thinking Charles Manson could kickstart a race war then surely there¡¯s someone out there dumb enough to think he¡¯s a savior just because he can give people dreams of magical casinos a few times. But cults, by definition, are full of dumb shits, and for the life of him Ture couldn¡¯t think of a reason why he¡¯d want to hang out with more dumb shits. He generally went out of his way to hang out with as few dumb shits as possible.

    He even thought that maybe he could keep them for emergencies? But what emergencies, exactly, would require a visit to an interdimensional casino?

    Holding on to the pills was not something he could logically ferret out. So he stopped trying, and just accepted the fact that whatever reason his goblin brain wanted to keep the pills, it was harmless enough as long as Marie Walker never found out. And she was so engrossed with the final few steps of her plan it seemed doubtful she would pay him any mind at all, as long as he kept dying in the right spots.

    He was in Prague now. Europe was one of the first places to go along with the whole P.I.N.K scheme, and the collars were being distributed right now. But she still wanted to give the world a little nudge, so, he was supposed to die in his hotel room. Marie Walker figured it would be too suspicious if people kept dying in these highly-concentrated public areas, so she wanted to sprinkle in some deaths in more private, solitary settings. A body in a hotel would be found quickly enough, and thanks to social media, the whole rest of the world would find it at the exact same time.

    But that was tonight. Today, he was doing his two favorite things ¡ª slouching in the grass of a park, and eating something new and delicious ¡ª in this case some kind of funnel cake called a trdelnik. Letting the grass cradle the back of his head and a hat keep the harmful rays of the sun out of his eyes.

    He sighed. Complacent. Watching some drones carrying more collars to more waiting hands.

    Ture died in 1998. Marie Walker did very little to prepare him for what the present day ¡ª his future ¡ª would have in store for him. It wasn¡¯t easy, even now, to cope with it all, even if he could have technically lived to see this point if he hadn¡¯t died so young. The internet ¡ª that thing that let him see boobs from his home PC if he was willing to wait half an hour ¡ª was everywhere now. And way faster. Phones seemed to get an upgrade too: now they could be injected into your body and project out of your skin as holograms. You could live up to 140 years comfortably, if you had the money for it. ¡°True¡± AI had been created in an isolated environment, and ¡°limited AI¡± flourished in modern electronics. Planes were faster. Cars were self-driving. There were people living on the moon, and some had even managed to set foot on Mars, although that particular experiment didn¡¯t go well. And of course, automated drones could do everything from delivering packages to performing life-saving surgery.

    ...it all would have been so marvelous if it weren¡¯t for all the downsides. Apparently, since he died, people managed to flood the planet, destroying coastlines, devastating food production, sending scores of refugees inland, and reawakening lethal infections that had been frozen in the ice caps. Lots of people died. Everyone had a digital identity that could be tracked at all times, so ¡°privacy¡± was just a pretty word that only the rich could afford. There was a flux of nationalism, which apparently started even before the refugee thing, so everyone was violent and angry. Income disparity was at such comical levels that simply owning property made you wealthier than 60-something percent of the population.

    Oh, and all the music was awful. It was like the last good song had been written in 2021 and everyone seemed to agree to stop trying and just talk over generic techno beats. Every time he heard a contemporary song it only made him¡­ tired.

    He couldn¡¯t say he cared for the way the world turned out. But it was a whole lot better than serving drinks for an eternity.

    ¡°A- Scruffles! Scruffles, where are you going?!¡±

    In a universe where everything that could happen did, the only luck anyone could be said to have was the luck to be in the right dimension at the right time. Ture was already lucky enough to be in the designated ¡®saved¡¯ dimension, and now that luck was about to double down on itself.

    Because he was soon tackled by a very large, yipping dog.

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry! Something must have ¡ª this is very, uh, um, this is very unlike him. Scruffles! Scruffles come here!¡±

    He sat up, pushing the ball of short fuzzy fur and slobbering away from him as he shot an irritated glance at the owner.

    It was a blind girl in a wheelchair.

    It was Iva.

    ~*~

    ¡°He¡¯s a trained support animal. He¡¯s supposed to know better. Did you see if something spooked him?¡±

    Ture didn¡¯t know for sure, but he had an idea: judging by the black, charred fur on the tip of his tail, some jerk was having fun with matches. To Scruffles¡¯s credit, who was currently resting under the coffee table they were sharing, he calmed down very quickly, once the fire had been put out. He seemed like a good dog. A homie. And, accidentally or not, had proven to be the best wingman Ture could have hoped for, considering this was exactly the way some kind of cheesy love story would start. He wouldn¡¯t throw the poor fellow under the bus.

    ¡°Yeah.¡±

    ¡°What was it?¡±

    Ture tapped his finger against his coffee cup.

    ¡°He¡¯s got a little burn on his tail. I think some jerk kid thought it would be funny.¡±

    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s awful! Is he hurt?¡±

    ¡°No. He¡¯s fine. Just a little singed fur.

    Iva didn¡¯t look good. Ture remembered she was sharp-witted and confident, someone who likely could have won a normal game at the Silver Wheel, and used what she had won to great effect. But she had been up against Charlie. And Ture helped him cheat. And she had turned into¡­ this.

    When the Silver Wheel takes its toll, it doesn''t take extenuating circumstances or cause-and-effect into account. When Iva lost, she didn¡¯t just have to cope with the loss of her legs, she had to cope with the circumstances that caused it, and the ones that followed. Clearly those circumstances hadn¡¯t treated her well. Her hair was already graying. She was way fatter, although that makes enough sense. She had the kind of bags under her eyes that look like the bruises of many nights spent in tears. And judging by her clothes, her finances weren''t in great shape either. Ture had no idea how hard it was to find a job when you were blind, but blind and crippled? He was kind of surprised she was out and about.

    And now she was anxious. Shy. Maybe even a little desperate, given how quickly she took him up on his offer to get her some coffee. He had an attractive voice in this body. And wasn¡¯t too far from her age. She kept straightening out her shirt, as if that would make her look better. It didn¡¯t. It just made Ture feel sad to think she was getting anxious and hopeful and stressed for nothing.

    ¡°You¡­ speak Czech?¡± She asked.

    ¡°No. Phone implant. It, uh, does the work for me.¡±

    ¡°Oh, so English?¡± She swapped instantly. She hadn¡¯t lost that, at least.

    ¡°Yeah. English.¡±

    ¡°Are you a tourist?¡± She pressed.

    ¡°...yeah.¡±

    ¡°Prague is a very nice city, especially if you don¡¯t have pockets to pick,¡± she nodded, ¡°And I¡¯m told it¡¯s very beautiful, too.¡±

    He didn¡¯t say anything. She fidgeted under the weight of his silence.

    ¡°Um¡­ haha, I, uh¡­ I live out of town too¡­¡±

    Ture was having a hard time looking at Iva. While running into her was just fortune¡¯s usual mischief, he had invited this awkwardness on himself by asking to spend more time with her like some kind of masochist. He never wanted to face the consequences of his past actions, the ones he regretted the most, but with the opportunity in front of him, he couldn¡¯t bring himself to turn away from them either. This was a unique pain. A special kind of pain you have to be very lucky to experience: to adopt an intense hatred for yourself on behalf of someone who doesn¡¯t even know they¡¯re supposed to loathe you.

    ¡°...hey. Mind if I ask... an uncomfortable question?¡±

    ¡°Um¡­ yes?¡±

    ¡°How did you lose your legs?¡±

    ¡°...and you still¡­ um¡­ it was an accident. A car. Jerk was drunk or something.¡±

    ¡°That sounds painful.¡±

    ¡°...well it¡­ yeah.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡±

    ¡°Unless you changed your voice, I already know you weren¡¯t driving. It¡¯s fin¡­¡±The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    She caught herself.

    ¡°...it¡¯s not your fault.¡±

    Ah, there it was. The iconic line. He supposed it would have been a shame to sit down with her if she didn¡¯t unwittingly spit out that tripe.

    ¡°...who knows, maybe it is?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m¡­ I mean did you¡­?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m just thinking, you know, butterfly effect. I spit out some gum, gets on someone¡¯s shoes, tracks into a carpet, pisses off the maid who steals a wallet from a hotel room, that guy goes broke, starts drinking in their misery... ¡°

    ¡°Oh. Well, then¡­ it¡¯s everyone¡¯s fault for everything, so¡­ we¡¯re back around to it not being your problem, right?¡±

    He snorted.

    ¡°Yeah. I guess.¡±

    They took a few more sips of coffee.

    ¡°...must be hard.¡±

    A flash of irritated indignation crossed her face.

    ¡°Was there a reason you wanted to talk to me? Or were you just practicing being a dumbass?¡±

    Well, it¡¯s good to see there was still a bit of the Iva he remembered in there. He smiled.

    ¡°No, I¡­ I was actually, er¡­ how do I put this¡­ inspired? I guess? And I wanted to know more about you. It¡¯s just hard to put into words, exactly. I dunno if you¡¯ve ever felt it, where you run across someone and you¡¯re¡­ you feel like you need to get to know them.¡±

    ¡°I get that a lot. Being a blind girl with no legs. I used to get it a lot more when I was prettier though. Lots of guys who wanted to save me or something. No one wants to save this, though.¡±

    She gestured to herself.

    ¡°...um¡­¡±

    ¡°You can say it. I don¡¯t need eyes to know.¡±

    ¡°I would say¡­ you don¡¯t need saving.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, well, that¡¯s what I¡¯m supposed to say, right? A legless blind girl is only good for inspiring people, and there are a lot of dumb lines I could throw out to do that. But here¡¯s the shitty truth: I¡¯d love to be saved. I¡¯d love for someone ¡ª anyone ¡ª to just sweep me off my non-existent feet, get me some mechanical legs and some ocular implants, and let me go back to living.¡±

    He swallowed, and his smile faded.

    ¡°Aren¡¯t you living, though? You¡¯re out. You¡¯re drinking coffee. You¡¯re-¡±

    ¡°-existing. Life doesn¡¯t work for people like me the way it works for you. I¡¯m not just talking about the obvious stuff ¡ª like stairs, or street signs, or doors ¡ª I mean everything. Dreams? Someone like you doesn¡¯t have to limit their dreams. You literally can do anything you set your mind to. I can pretend I¡¯m an astronaut but I can¡¯t make it a goal. You can think that one day you¡¯ll see the, the great wall of China ¡ª I can¡¯t. The gap between what I want to do and what I can ever even hope to do is enormous. Bigger than you can ever imagine. And maybe that wouldn¡¯t be so bad if I wasn¡¯t surrounded, every day, by people and media who remind me that the way I live my life is incomplete. And that includes people like you, who want to gawk at the blind crippled girl hoping she¡¯ll give them the inspiration they need to do the shit she never can. Thanks for that.¡±

    Ture didn¡¯t have a lot to say to that. He sat in silent, baffled sadness. Angry at himself for having been so insensitive. And furious with himself for having done this to her in the first place: her, and the countless others he had hurt trying to buy his way out of the Silver Wheel.

    But he did finally figure out why he had decided to keep the Royale Treatment.

    ¡°I never thought about it that way,¡± he said, slipping one pill into each of their drinks, ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m sure.¡±

    They both took a drink. They¡¯d both fall asleep at the table in a couple of minutes. They¡¯d be woken up before long, he was sure, but he didn¡¯t need long to forfeit a game at the Silver Wheel.

    It¡¯s not like this body needed legs or eyes anymore.

    ~*~

    ¡°Ture?¡±

    ¡°Ture?!¡±

    ¡°Ture¡­ oh fuck is this that fucking gambling shit fuck shit!¡±

    Oh. Marie Walker was here. And Teresa, who looked like a startled dog at the mention of his name. Her body was fixed up now, at least. And as it turned out, he was in his old body too. So it was a right and proper reunion after all. A mildly awkward reunion.

    Made more awkward when Marie Walker, neck-deep in some heavy sci-fi tech, waddled over to him and slammed a gloved hand into the wall behind him, pinning him.

    ¡°The fifty shades of fuck are you doing here my dude?!¡± her smile cracked a little bit, a lot of stress clearly mounting onto her shoulders and adding some weight to the darkening bags under her eyes, ¡°Didn¡¯t I tell you to throw out the goddamn pills?¡±

    ¡°Is this¡­ Ture? Is it really you??¡± Teresa asked, leaning over the countertop. Their eyes met. Their gazes lingered. A spark of familiarity was visible within Ture. He blushed, and looked away.

    ¡°Yeah, yeah, I brought him to earth like I promised I¡¯m a miracle worker can we go back to the part where you tell me why I-¡±

    But Teresa had a habit of appearing wherever she wanted within the Silver Wheel. So she was between Ture and Marie Walker instantly. As if she had always been there, with her arms wrapped around him, her cold, porcelain body pressed against his, her chest artificially rising and falling in synch with his own startled breathing. Her cheek rested against his shoulder. He could feel the cold nothing escaping her nose.

    The moment was somber and sudden. Enough to stun all but one soul in the room.

    ¡°What the hell is going on?!¡± the blind girl begged.

    ¡°Gay shit,¡± Marie Walker sighed, leaning backwards, having been shaken out of her disbelief. ¡°You two done? Can I get back to interrogating my employee now?¡±

    ¡°Relax. I¡¯m not here to fuck up anyone¡¯s plans. I just wanted to give this girl some legs and eyes. It¡¯s not like my current body will need them in a few hours.¡±

    ¡°Hey. Hey. Sweetie. That¡¯s noble. That¡¯s nice.¡± Marie Walker grabbed his cheeks and forced him to look at her, while Teresa helped the girl to the last remaining stool, ¡°that¡¯s not the point. Why do you still have the Royale Treatment?! I don¡¯t want to lean all the way into the cackling villain thing but what the hell ¡ª that¡¯s literally the only thing that could interfere with my plans now!¡±

    Plans that have come along quite a ways. The old Silver Wheel he had left behind was gone ¡ª it looked more like the basement of an IT lab now. Even the few remnants of the Silver Wheel that remained ¡ª the poker table, the bar, the radio playing ¡°Goldfinger¡± by Shirley Bassey, and the ¡°employee of the month¡± sign ¡ª had been made gaudy. As if Marie Walker decided to turn the place into a fake Vegas casino before she tore out the walls and replaced them with wires and silicon.

    She had bad enough taste to do something so eccentric just because she could.

    ¡°...I wanted to visit Teresa when you were finished,¡± he lied, ¡°Sorry.¡±

    ¡°Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. You were keeping them in your locker, right? Goddammit Marie, you respect your employees'' privacy once and all of the sudden¡­ right, well, I hope you get your goodbyes in, because¡­¡± she took out her phone, texting quickly with one eye while the other stayed on him, ¡°...because I¡¯m gonna have the janitor chuck the rest out right now. Okay? Okay.¡±

    They exchanged glances. Cooler, somehow, than the look he shared with Teresa. He wasn¡¯t afraid of her, but he did respect her enough not to appear too defiant¡­ or to show how disappointed he was that the pills were going to be discarded.

    ¡°That¡¯s fine. Can we play our game?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, yeah, whatever, knock yourselves out.¡±

    And Marie Walker got back to work.

    ~*~

    Gene Oberman was distressed to see how many of these reports were signed by him.

    Well, distressed and, in the most dark and childish corner of his tormented mind, slightly amused. This really was the most Hollywood twist of them all, after all: discovering that you were not only the victim of a terrible tragedy, but also its unwitting author.

    That didn¡¯t mean he was smiling, though, when he listened to himself rambling about how much he wanted to violate that thing that was powering the computers. No wonder it hated him. He kind of hated himself right now too. This place ¡ª or this Marie Walker person ¡ª must have twisted him in some uniquely dangerous ways. He was almost glad to have forgotten, if it wiped his slate clean and gave him the opportunity to make amends ¡ª both to himself, and his work at this laboratory, called ¡°Bigger Skies.¡±

    It- no, she. She was behind him. She wanted to know what he was reading about.

    Well, being an interdimensional eldritch horror didn¡¯t mean you automatically understand quantum physics, he guessed.

    ¡°It¡¯s about what we were doing here. In this lab. And¡ª I mean we as in¡ª not you.¡±

    She communicated that she understood what he had meant.

    ¡°We were investigating parallel worlds and alternate dimensions, stuff of that nature. Most of it was scrapped. The stuff that we kept working on was¡­ a bit of a mess¡­ the big project was a thing called the, uh¡­ let me find it again¡­ UCA. Universal Collapse Apparatus. The plan was to, uh, ¡®collapse¡¯ all the alternate dimensions so only one would remain. Then stop more from being formed. It would kill a lot of people.¡±

    Miss Nine observed that was bad.

    ¡°Yeah. I think even Marie Walker knows that. She has a whole squad of people who just¡­ hunted down versions of herself? Killed them? The versions of herself who must have opposed her plan. Millions of dead Maries. The number is still going up now. But I think¡­ what you wanted me to look up was the only other ¡®active¡¯ project at this facility¡­ something called Project 20:7.¡±

    The name sounded familiar to her. As if she had heard it before, muttered by the scientists and faculty who had seen her before they were evacuated.

    ¡°Let me see¡­ some people discovered a dimension where thing¡­ uh, people like you live. I think the first plan was to weaponize them but they were too ¡ª and I could be reading this wrong ¡ª structurally variable and prone to pacifism. But we¡­ well, mostly I, I guess, wanted to know what you exactly were. You know scientists and their need to¡­ label. It became an obsession when we got our hands on you. According to my personal logs I was keeping you a secret from Marie Walker for a long¡­ long time.¡±

    ¡°As for what caused you to transform, well, it happened at a place called ¡®The Silver Wheel¡¯. Does¡­ that name means anything to you?¡±

    She confirmed that it did not. He supposed that made sense: the Claudia who went to the Silver Wheel had vanished ¡ª and according to his old notes, ¡°Miss Nine¡± was a different Claudia they had brought over from a parallel dimension to study the effects of the Silver Wheel.

    ¡°It¡¯s something like an interdimensional gambling house. I don¡¯t¡­ ever explain completely how it works, but I think it¡¯s a place where you can wager stuff that¡¯s not just money. Like¡­ talents or fates. But something happened to you there that impacted every version of you, so we, uh¡­ we kidnapped you from an adjacent parallel universe so we could study how the Silver Wheel, uh¡­ works.¡±

    She stated that he was fucked up.

    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m seeing that.¡±

    He wasn¡¯t completely sold on the notion that studying something like that was problematic. If he was being honest, he might argue that the benefit of understanding how such a system operated vastly outweighed the single life that was sacrificed to study it. But he was not going to disagree with the now super-powered mutated version of his former victim on the morality of it.

    ¡°Anyway. The Silver Wheel comes up a lot. It¡¯s the lynchpin of this whole operation. Marie Walker needed it to make the UCA work. And, uh, if what that guy told you over the phone is right, she¡¯s probably setting it up over there right now. There¡¯s only one thing that¡¯s slowing her down now, and it¡¯s¡­ uh¡­ it¡¯s you, I think. Or something like you.¡±

    She slithered closer to the screen. He flinched, froze, and trembled while her assorted limbs wrapped around it. He soon had to close his eyes and just focus on his breathing.

    ¡°This is the only dimension where you exist anymore. All other versions of you managed to escape to¡­ um¡­ whatever world things like you live in. But you also seem to be exempt from the theory of parallel universes. Which is to say, your actions and decisions don¡¯t spawn new dimensions, and moreover, you at least dull the ability for things around you to do the same. There¡¯s¡­ something like you at the Silver Wheel. Once she¡¯s in control of it, she¡¯s probably going to force it to cooperate with her so she can spread that effect to everyone in this world. That¡¯s, uh, probably where the P.I.N.K collars and pylons come in¡­ if I had to guess¡­¡±

    She asked if there was a way they could get to the Silver Wheel.

    ¡°Uh¡­ they had pills but they¡¯re all destroyed now¡­ but¡­ they were able to get there in the first place with a physical gate and outer-dimensional wear¡­ I think that¡¯s still here¡­¡±

    She stopped powering the PC. The white screen suddenly turned dark, as did the room he was working in. Oberman yelped.

    And while he staggered in the darkness, she told him to take her to the gate.

    ~*~

    ¡°Okay, so, you¡¯ve both been here so I trust you remember how this place works, right?¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°I said you know how this place works right?!¡±

    It was kind of hard to hear over the sound of construction. There were at least ten other people here, not including official Silver Wheel employees, who were all working directly under Marie Walker to get the Silver Wheel ready for the final phase of her plan. They were trying, more or less, to be considerate of the three people at the table, but that consideration didn¡¯t extend beyond trying to not bump into them as they shuffled back and forth, putting a variety of machines and computers together.

    Marie Walker was supervising. Bags under her eyes, a hard-hat on her head, and a weary but concerningly genuine smile on her face. The Goldeneye theme underlined the menace.

    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯ve been here before,¡± Iva huffed, ¡°And I¡¯m still not sure I believe you when you say you just want to give me limbs. How¡¯s that gonna work, is a truck gonna back up and drop new legs on my stumps?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know. But it will work,¡± Ture insisted, ¡°The Silver Wheel just¡­ does.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll probably get abducted by a mad German scientist who will use you to test his regrowth serum,¡± Ratna suggested boredly, watching a group of three install yet another generator, ¡°that will work against all odds and expectations. And he¡¯ll be so mad he¡¯ll kidnap Ture and¡­ eat his eyes or some shit.¡±

    ¡°Sounds plausible,¡± Ture shrugged. Iva frowned, and went back to fingering the hard plastic domino tiles that were on her side of the table.

    ¡°...okay, fine. But how can I trust you?¡±

    ¡°Once we make our wagers we can¡¯t change them. I¡¯ll start. I¡¯ll bet my-¡±

    There was a slight yell off to the side. Everyone glanced over to see one of the workers leaping back from what appeared to be a loose wire. A jolt of electricity. Harmless but frightening. She wiggled her hand a bit, laughed, but Marie Walker looked less amused as she stomped over.

    ¡°What the hell was that, Gretta?¡±

    ¡°Just a little-¡±

    ¡°-just a little? This is too important for you to be fucking it up Gretta! A whole lot of work went into this Gretta. We don¡¯t get a second chance to do this, Gretta!¡±

    ¡°...sorry-¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t- I- just, just go home. Out the door. Comeon. I¡¯ll be the new Gretta now. Christ.¡±

    Gretta, who looked a strange mix of hurt and relieved, started for the door. One player and his dealer watched her go. The other player didn¡¯t, because she was blind. But she was still listening.

    ¡°You, uh, you okay there boss?¡± Ratna asked with a shit-eating grin.

    ¡°Fine! I¡¯m fine. Gretta is fine. Do your dumb game.¡±

    ¡°Mmmmmmm... ¡° Ratna leaned to the side like a stupid child armed with a stick, facing down a bear, ¡°are you sure? You seem a little¡­ on edge. Would a soothing suite of insults delivered directly from the bitter core of my cold heart help?¡±

    ¡°Fuck off and play!¡±

    ¡°Fuck off? I wish. But play, well-¡±

    ¡°-actually, can I ask what¡¯s going on? There wasn¡¯t so much construction last time I was here,¡± Iva asked, ¡°it¡¯s distracting.¡±

    ¡°Fair enough. You happen to be at the Silver Wheel in a historic time. The woman you¡¯ve been hearing bitching is none other than Marie Walker, and she¡¯s going to use the Silver Wheel to destroy every other parallel dimension but one. So all that construction you¡¯re hearing? That¡¯s her working on that.¡±

    Iva opened and closed her mouth a few times, as if thinking she knew what she wanted to say before changing her mind.

    ¡°...that¡¯s¡­ Marie Walker? And she¡¯s doing something that¡¯s stupid.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not having this debate with you!¡± Marie Walker called from the generator.

    ¡°Parallel universes are what made you rich, though.¡± Iva leaned to the side, towards where she heard Marie Walker yelling.

    ¡°Ug- I can get rich other ways, darling!¡±

    ¡°But the parallel universes are the only reason most people have fresh water and food.¡±

    ¡°Sucks for them.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s going to be wars.¡±

    ¡°Oh my god- good point! I can get rich selling weapons, then!¡±

    ¡°Wow, fucking bitch¡­¡± she leaned back up, ¡°shouldn¡¯t we be stopping her?¡±

    ¡°We tried,¡± Ratna shrugged, ¡°but see, around these parts, we use gambling to settle our differences, and despite our best efforts, Marie Walker won. So.¡±

    ¡°Best efforts my ass, you were chea-¡±

    Marie Walker tried to stand up, and in the process, bumped into one of her employees who was carrying one of the heavier CPU cores to their destination. He staggered and caught himself, while Marie Walker stumbled into the wall.

    ¡°You okay?¡± He asked, readjusting his grip.

    Marie Walker looked as if he¡¯d just pissed on her mother¡¯s fresh grave.

    ¡°The hell was that?! Say something when you¡¯re walking past! Fuck I could have hurt myself!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s¡­ a pretty small space, I figured you saw-¡±

    ¡°Figured? You assumed?! Assumptions could get one of us killed! And spoiler alert, this is like the one place in the whole multiverse where we can¡¯t die!¡±

    ¡°Um-¡±

    ¡°Fuck it, put that thing down, get out. Take a paid holiday, go to fucking¡­ fucking wherever people go on holiday! Miami? Costa Rica? Don¡¯t care, get out!¡±

    This time, all the remaining employees, in addition to the player at the table, watched him go. Iva merely listened.

    ¡°It appears you are distressed,¡± Teresa noted, having appeared next to Marie Walker instantaneously, ¡°Could I interest you in a drink?¡±

    ¡°Christ I-¡± Marie jumped ¡ª still very much not used to Teresa¡¯s more peculiar habit, despite having seen it on video before ¡°-don¡¯t do that either! What is wrong with you fucking people?! Announce yourselves! Don¡¯t fucking¡­ phase out of nowhere like a pale apparition trying to teach me a lesson about Christmas!¡±

    ¡°Of course,¡± Teresa bowed her head ¡ª her normally calming aura doing little to ease the owner¡¯s nerves, ¡°but I really would recommend a drink.¡±

    ¡°Are you mental? I¡¯m working next to a live generator! With so many people friggen¡¯ jolting me I¡¯m liable to electrocute myself!¡±

    ¡°That would be most regrettable,¡± Teresa noted ¡°I shall prepare you some tea and leave it at the bar for you. Away from the live wires.¡±

    ¡°I ain¡¯t drinking shit if I don¡¯t watch you make it!¡± She called after Teresa, who started walking for the barroom door at an incredibly leisurely pace. Teresa met eyes with Ture, and winked. Ture flinched. She really didn¡¯t look flattering in¡­ light. Good light.

    Ratna leaned backwards. Iva took a sip of her ginger ale.

    ¡°...right, so, I wager my legs and my eyesight.¡±

    ¡°Oh, right, um¡­¡±

    Iva¡¯s expression twisted in thought, folding her arms over her chest as she deliberated. ¡°The Look of Love¡±, by Dusty Springfield, accompanied her thoughts.

    ¡°...just¡­ pick something. I¡¯m just going to give up anyway.¡±

    ¡°No offense but I still don¡¯t completely trust you,¡± Iva noted, ¡°I mean, you helped an asshole cheat me out of my legs, I still don¡¯t know you weren¡¯t the rat ejaculate who attacked my dog, and you drugged my coffee. I¡¯m desperate enough to do this, but not stupid enough to do it blindly.¡±

    ¡°...why would you think I¡¯d attack your dog?¡± He asked with genuine hurt in his voice.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know how assholes work, man, I just have to live with them.¡±

    ¡°...right.¡±

    ¡°What about one of my languages? I¡¯ll wager my language knowledge.¡±

    No chips appeared.

    ¡°Not equal. I have that app, remember? Learning a new language just isn¡¯t appealing to me.¡±

    ¡°My arms and my sense of taste.¡±

    No chips appeared.

    ¡°...I¡­ I don¡¯t want more arms.¡±

    ¡°Are you serious? But my legs were worth two-something billion to Charlie?¡±

    ¡°He didn¡¯t value the money very much.¡±

    ¡°How much can you value your legs and eyes if you¡¯re going to die soon?¡±

    ¡°I guess I value them enough, considering I¡¯ll probably lose them painfully.¡±

    Ratna nodded, flashing a grin.

    ¡°If I had my say it would be excruciating.¡±

    ¡°Good to see you too, by the way,¡± he dryly retorted.

    ¡°Ugh, fine¡ªwhat about my dog? You like my dog, right? I wager my dog.¡±

    And, as if magic, the chips appeared: Ture¡¯s were the blackest night, a void from which barely any light could escape, and Ivy¡¯s were a fuzzy gray, the same color as Sir Scruffles the Second¡¯s fur. She couldn¡¯t appreciate the color, but when she put her hands on the chips, she could appreciate the texture, which seemed familiar despite being an unwavering hard plastic.

    ¡°...I guess I like your dog.¡±

    ¡°About damn time,¡± Ratna announced, ¡°with that, I can finally introduce tonight¡¯s game: Matador!¡±

    ~*~

    Gene Oberman didn¡¯t quite know yet how he lost all of his memories. The man on the phone simply said he could help, he didn¡¯t detail the circumstances as to why he needed it: probably to avoid losing too much control over the situation. It would have been nice if going over the reports and working on the dimensional gate triggered these destroyed memories so they would all come rushing back at once. But while nothing that convenient happened, he did enjoy the next-best thing: as he absorbed this all-new information for the second time, he found it shockingly easy to retain and connect. Like filling in a half-finished jigsaw. Everything just¡­ snapped into place.

    That didn¡¯t make the job easy or stress-free of course. Just manageable. A manageability that¡¯s important when you¡¯re trying to re-activate a device that could very easily punch the wrong kind of hole in space-time and send the world careening towards catastrophe. There were fail-safes for that, of course, it¡¯s not as if he was building it from scratch, but a far more likely outcome ¡ª and one there were no fail-safes for ¡ª was him making some critical error or inputting the wrong coordinates and stranding him in the middle of the¡­ big fat nothing that apparently surrounds this Silver Wheel place.

    Or at least stranding Miss Nine. He wasn¡¯t entirely sure who was going there, all he knew was that she wanted to get there through the gate, and he was fairly certain he knew why.

    The lights overhead flickered slightly. He looked up anxiously.

    ¡°You, uh¡­¡±

    She was all around him. Even if he couldn¡¯t see her, he knew she could see him. Knowing one of those bulbous¡­ tumorous¡­ oozing eyes was always locked on him made him feel sick to the stomach. It was the feeling of being watched, if it were a nauseating cold that burned through his goosebumps and made his bones themselves feel as if they were full of sick.

    ¡°...you need to keep the power constant. A flicker like that would be lethal in the gate.¡±

    A part of her emerged from the wall ¡ª not like a ghost, but as if the wall itself was vomiting her out in wet, heavy belches. The sound of all the eyes rotating to face him made him feel even worse. How could he have ever been enamored with this thing?

    She told him she would work on it.

    He nodded. He wanted to swallow but he was sure if he did he would just throw up.

    She asked him how much longer it would take.

    ¡°Um¡­ I, I¡¯m not sure. They disabled it before they abandoned the lab. But since it¡¯s still intact I could fashion a workaround, that¡¯s not the hard part. The hard part is figuring out how to get to the Silver Wheel with it. The coordinates are very¡­ precise. It¡¯s not like a 3D plane with an x, y, and z axis. And¡­ it¡¯s not quite right to say the Silver Wheel has ¡°moved¡± since our first trip there, but¡­ well, we functionally did. So I¡¯ll need to do¡­ equations.¡±

    He took a few deep breaths. The air was dusty and tainted with the flavor of electricity and metal. It grounded him, ironically enough, and helped steady him¡­ important, considering the work he had to do.

    ...that thing was still sticking out of the wall. He tried not to look at it.

    ¡°But soon. I think we¡¯ll be able to try it soon.¡±

    She asked him if he knew what she was going to do.

    ¡°...I kind of assume you, uh¡­ want to play me at the Silver Wheel. So you could become human, and I¡¯d become¡­ that.¡±

    She said that was a good idea. But she also said that he wasn¡¯t the same person who tormented her. And now that she was getting more confident in her new body, she wasn¡¯t sure she could trust anyone else with it.

    ¡°It¡¯s that powerful?¡±

    It¡¯s not that it was powerful, she assured him, it was that it had options. Nothing that bound him bound her. The laws of reality were merely a suggestion, which she could disregard without consequence. Her physical body alone was merely the byproduct of a negotiation between where she came from and the reality she inhabited now. A way to keep things, if not consistent, at least manageable. She equated it to freedom. But her freedom was still limited by what she knew. Being able to see atoms didn¡¯t mean she understood how they worked. In that respect, he would be far more dangerous in this form than she could be without further study.

    ¡°So¡­ what are you going to do, then? After we¡¯re done with the Silver Wheel?¡±

    First, she would find a way to escape this laboratory. He and his associates had managed to prevent her from leaving, using science beyond her understanding to seal the gaps between space she could normally swim through: but she felt that it was an incomplete seal, and before long she could break out into the world at large. And once she did? She would dwell in the space between space. Lurk, explore, expand, and observe. And, if she felt so compelled, intervene. With amusement, she recalled all the times Marie Walker equated herself to a god on television. Perhaps she would take up a similar role. There was no force on this earth that could stop her, after all.

    He started sweating.

    ¡°Ahah that¡¯s great rooting for you!¡±

    The wet sound of something moving behind him suggested she was moving closer.

    She said that maybe she¡¯d learn how to read minds, if she spent enough time with him.

    He started working faster.

    ~*~

    Dominoes has been around for a while ¡ª their first historical mention was in China, specifically in Former Events in Wulin, by Zhou Mi, which was penned between 1232 and 1298 ¡ª but have spread considerably further since, although it wasn¡¯t first recorded in the wider western world until the early 18th century, when the game showed up in Italy, likely brought over by missionaries. While it was never as popular as dice and card-based games, they were the undisputed champions of analogies: perhaps most famously when US president Eisenhower used the ¡°Domino Effect¡± to justify military intervention in Vietnam in 1954.

    ¡°There¡¯s nothing especially unique about Matador ¡ª sometimes called Russian dominoes ¡ª except that it¡¯s easier for me to dick with the rules, which is why we¡¯re playing it. Like most blocking games, the-¡±

    She was cut off by another frustrated growl exploding out from the Silver Wheel¡¯s owner. Ratna sighed.

    ¡°Get out! Out!¡±

    Two other people, at the command of their increasingly agitated boss, shuffled for the door. Marie Walker watched them go. Every corner of her face took turns twitching.

    ¡°...actually, you fucking go too,¡± she pointed to another employee on the other end of the room, ¡°Yes, yes you. You¡¯re sloppy. Are you listening to some podcast or something right now?¡±

    ¡°Actually-¡±

    ¡°Fuck I don¡¯t care just go.¡±

    They were down to significantly fewer employees than they started with. Around five brow-beaten souls.

    ¡°Try to do a nice thing and not replace your workforce with drones, and this is what you get,¡± she muttered under her breath, although she was breathing so loudly it was still audible across the room. Another employee, reading the room, saw what was coming and just showed herself out.

    ¡°...are you done?¡± Ratna asked, her wolfish grin replaced with a wearier dog¡¯s irritated scowl, ¡°This may come as a shock but not everyone¡¯s in love with the sound of your voice, and we¡¯ve got a game to play.¡±

    Marie Walker didn¡¯t reply to that. Ratna, rather than prod further, shrugged.

    ¡°Right, so, Matador. At the start of the game, you both will grab five dominoes from the pile ¡ª called the boneyard. The player who grabs the highest double, or a domino with matching numbers on both sides, goes first. On your turn, you¡¯ll have to connect one of the dominoes in your hand to a domino on the table. You do this by matching pips so they add up to seven: so if there¡¯s a five/five domino on the table, you¡¯ll have to connect a dominio that has a two on one of its sides. If you have a Matador ¡ª which is to say, a domino whose pips add up to seven by itself, such as a four/three or a six/one ¡ª you can put that down on either end of the domino line. We play with special rules for blanks, I¡¯ll get to it.

    ¡°You take turns putting down dominoes one at a time. If you find you don¡¯t have a playable dominio in your hand, you have to draw from the boneyard until you draw something you can play. If the boneyard is empty and you find yourself in that situation, you just pass. If both players pass, then the player with fewer dominoes in-hand is the winner. Otherwise, it¡¯s whoever runs out of dominoes or chips first.

    ¡°Which is what brings us to the chips, which normally aren¡¯t a part of Matador. In this version of the game, you can put chips onto ends to act as additional pips anytime on your turn ¡ª so if you¡¯ve got a one-pip domino and you want to connect it to a five-pip domino, you can put a chip on the five-pip to turn it into a six-pip, making the move legal. This is also the only way to use blank dominoes ¡ª but note that each chip only affects one side of the domino. Put two chips on one end of a blank domino, and either you or your opponent will have to flush out the other end to connect it to something else.

    ¡°But there¡¯s one extra unique maneuver I¡¯d like to tell you about: a chip combo. If you can arrange it that three dominoes in a chain have the exact same number of your chips on them, you can force your opponent to discard that many chips. So if you have three dominios in the chain, and they each have three of Ture¡¯s chips on them, then Iva has to throw out nine chips. So if you want to punish your opponent for spending too many chips, or restrict their ability to easily get rid of dominos, now you know how. After all, there¡¯s no way to get chips back, so be careful how you spend them!

    ¡°Oh, and I should mention: three dominoes with chips on them ¡ª anyone¡¯s chips ¡ª is the maximum allowance. After three, it has to be a natural connection. Otherwise it would be way too easy to buy victory from the start

    ¡°That was a long explanation for a game we¡¯re not even going to play, but did y¡¯all get it?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Got it.¡±

    ¡°Sweet. Pull your tiles.¡±

    Ratna, guiding Iva¡¯s hand, helped the girl pluck five tiles from the boneyard and place them in front of her, and behind a small barrier so she could freely feel up each tile without Ture being able to see it. Ture obviously didn¡¯t need the barrier, nor even to hide his dominos, so he rather carelessly pulled a one/three, a two/three, a five/five, a blank, and a one/two.

    ¡°Not to spoil anything, but it looks like Ture goes first. Ture, would you like to play?¡±

    The moment of truth. Iva leaned forward.

    ¡°...nah, I surrender.¡±

    ¡°Wuss.¡±

    And at that moment, a miracle happened: Iva blinked. And as she did, the whites of her eyes expanded, and her pale eyes, for the first time, found focus: darkness parted way to light, and a world of color and shapes flooded into the abyss that had once engulfed her entire life. Muscles that had never been needed, accessories of uselessness, were suddenly activated, taking their first, sudden, and terrifying steps forward. It would be wonderful if it was beautiful. It would be inspiring if tears swelled up and she marveled at the world that had so long been denied her by the misfortune of her birth and economics. But it was confusing. It was a blurry swirl. And more than anything, without a lifetime of associations to inform what she was seeing, it was ultimately meaningless. Like an illiterate man being handed a bible in the expectation he would discover faith.

    But even if she had received the comprehension necessary to make the most use of her eyes, she wouldn¡¯t be able to appreciate the drama in front of her. She wouldn¡¯t be able to understand who had just entered the Silver Wheel, nor why Marie Walker looked at him as if he was a ghost. She wouldn¡¯t quite get why they started shouting, at each other, or what they were shouting about, muddied as it was with their intermixing voices, Ture¡¯s confused vocalization as he tried to navigate a suddenly black world, and the radio, blaring out ¡°The World is Not Enough¡± by Garbage. And she certainly wouldn¡¯t understand ¡ª much less appreciate ¡ª the weave of limbs that surrounded them, a dance between two eldritch abominations as they grappled against one another.

    She would be confused about it all, until one loud, piercing noise suddenly made everything crystal clear. Even when blind, she knew that sound.

    Marie Walker had been shot.

 Round Five: Wolf Pack

    When Iva woke up, she wasn¡¯t in the comfortable leather chairs of the coffee shop. She was in the back of the ambulance.

    Her dog, Mr. Scruffles, had realized she had been drugged and made quite the fuss about it. This drew the attention of the coffee shop employees, who figured ¡ª not unreasonably ¡ª that Ture had tried to drug and possibly kidnap this wheelchair-bound blind girl. It was only his own bad luck (or poor execution) that led to him drugging himself as well. Horrified, they called an ambulance.

    Iva didn¡¯t suffer any long-term damage. Quite the opposite, in fact. Her story, as the blind, crippled girl who was almost kidnapped in broad daylight, went viral. She was asked to speak about her life and the challenges she faced on daytime talk-shows, and her story was so eloquent and moving that a crowdfunding campaign was launched to raise money for new legs and working eyes for her. It reached its goal, and within a matter of weeks, she could see her beloved dog, Mr. Scruffles, for the very first time, and take him for walks like she used to.

    She¡¯d later go on to be an inspirational speaker, getting paid to be shuttled around the world to talk to jam-packed conference halls about the power of perseverance and optimism, happily glossing over the fact that she had very much been defeated by her handicaps, and had only been ¡°saved¡± by the man who had drugged her to take her to an interdimensional gambling house. It wasn¡¯t what the audience wanted to hear. They wanted to hear how a positive attitude could get you through the darkest of times.

    And that¡¯s what she¡¯d tell them.

    As for what happened to the man who drugged her?

    Well...

    ~*~

    Mr. Eight was better at being Mr. Eight than Miss Nine was at being Miss Nine.

    It just came down to a matter of experience, really. He¡¯d been himself longer than she had, and he was more comfortable with his body and what it could do than she was. Still, despite the enormous gap in their experience, she was able to hold him off ¡ª just long enough for her unwilling partner to fulfill her end of the deal for her. Ehije had given her the one thing she wanted, and she had, in turn, satisfied his own request: assassinating Marie Walker.

    Billie Eilish¡¯s ¡°No Time to Die¡± was playing on the radio.

    ¡°Fuck! Fucking fucking fuck!¡±

    Mr. Eight disengaged from Miss Nine, and coiled into Marie Walker¡¯s body, pulling out the bullet. Gene Oberman lowered the gun, which had already been rendered useless by Mr. Eight, who had dismantled it in the middle of his skirmish with Miss Nine.

    ¡°Holy¡­ holy shit¡­!¡± Marie Walker gasped, ¡°That¡­ fucking hit my heart. You shot my fucking heart!¡±

    ¡°I missed your fucking heart,¡± he corrected her between big, obnoxious breaths, ¡°otherwise you¡¯d be dead.¡±

    Mr. Eight kept himself plugged into her chest, white, mallow flesh mixing with the red to create a creamy pink foam that covered the wound. She was breathing hard, too. Her fingers were trembling. Her skin was pale. And a look of unadulterated, unrestrained fear had morphed over her face. A fear expressed so fearlessly, unrestrained, that it made it abundantly clear to all in the room that she had never truly known it before now.

    ¡°...I¡¯m¡­ I¡¯m gonna fucking die. Who¡¯s-¡± She turned to her employees, ¡°who¡¯s awake in our lab right now?! Can anyone- oh god, an employee- just like Charles, someone fucking shot me in the lab. Someone must have shot me in the lab. Oh my god. Oh my god. I¡¯m going to die. I¡¯m going to die.¡±

    ¡°It would certainly seem that way, Miss Walker,¡± Teresa noted quietly, standing over her with an unusually cold glare, ¡°I only regret you dirtied the floor I worked so hard to clean.¡±

    ¡°Fuck. Fuck no, no no no, I can save this. I can fix this. Y-you!¡± She pointed to one of her employees, ¡°Get to the table right fucking now! We¡¯re playing! We¡¯re playing for our lives!¡±

    That employee, whose name and face Marie Walker had never taken the time to commit to memory, could only stagger backwards, and rush to the door. Marie Walker tried to lunge at her. She failed.

    ¡°Fuck! No! Come- you!¡± She turned to another employee.

    ¡°I¡¯m not dying for you, Miss Walker,¡± he replied.

    ¡°Fuck, I¡¯ll -- I¡¯ll replace you! I¡¯ll, I¡¯ll pay your replacement! Your loved ones will live like fucking kings! Your wife and kids and your fucking whatever will be gods! Play me! Play me!¡±

    ¡°...I don¡¯t have a wife.¡±

    And he walked out the door.

    ¡°Are you fucking kidding me?! I don¡¯t care! Jim! Fuck you, Jim!¡± She shouted after him, improvising a name on the spot, ¡°I¡¯ll¡­ I¡¯ll fucking¡­ turn your dog into a¡­ dick¡­ worm that¡¯ll rape your¡­ fuck it¡¯s hard to talk with a fucking hole in your chest!¡±

    She slammed her back against the wall, leaning hard against it. She was grabbing her chest. Fingers digging into the ugly pink foam that had so imperfectly closed the wound.

    Nothing Mr. Eight did could affect other dimensions. That was the whole reason she needed the Silver Wheel.

    His life-saving foam was just a stopgap. She still had a hole in her chest. She was still going to die. She was still going to die.

    Her eyes scanned the room. Miss Nine and Gene Oberman were gone: removed by Mr. Eight in his usual manner, returned to the waking world from which they had come. Iva was gone too. Presumably escorted out of the premises by Teresa, as a courtesy to the confused and dazed young woman, who had more than enough to contend with without Marie Walker¡¯s pained, desperate screaming. Which only left the fucking dealer, that bitch of a waitress, and¡­

    ¡°...Ture.¡±

    Ture had remained seated quietly, absorbed in his own world while Marie Walker¡¯s had been falling apart around her. He looked shockingly calm, despite the gunshot, the screaming, and the roaring that was echoing in her ears, and the blindness that had so recently claimed him. He looked like a buddha. Or a yogi. Or whatever the hell they were called.

    ¡°Ture, let¡¯s play,¡± she clawed over to the table, throwing herself into the chair opposite him, ¡°Gimmie the life in that body. Your health. The¡­ hole in my chest, however we can make this work! You¡¯re gonna get a brand-new one soon anyway!¡±

    Ture gently turned his face towards her. His eyes were open, but milky and empty. Like his soul had been sucked out. Marie Walker was wheezing. This pain was so different from the pain she normally felt. It felt suffocating. Bigger than the body that contained it. It was a pain that seeped through the mission she had burdened upon herself, and she felt her entire life¡¯s efforts burning on her shoulders, closing in around her. Breathing was hard. It was painful. How could she have found Gene Oberman¡¯s breathing so fucking charming?! This wasn¡¯t genius. It was just pain.

    ¡°Makes sense, yeah,¡± he replied, ¡°I can wager to take that hole in your chest, if you want. But what are you going to wager? We can¡¯t play unless you wager something too.¡±

    ¡°Fucking twenty billion dollars?¡±

    No chips appeared at the table. Marie Walker snorted.

    ¡°The fuck?!¡±

    ¡°Your money doesn¡¯t mean that much to me, I guess,¡± Ture shrugged.

    ¡°Why are you so calm!? A woman¡¯s just been shot?! Your boss! Shot! Care more!¡±

    ¡°This is your Silver Wheel, Marie Walker,¡± Teresa reminded her, bowing her head as she materialized next to her, ¡°I¡¯m afraid since you first arrived, this sort of thing has become quite routine.

    ¡°The fuck? Those were- those were- I- That was different! Dying here is- it¡¯s, it¡¯s permanent!¡±

    ¡°I believe for the vast majority of people, death in any circumstance is permanent,¡± Teresa replied.

    ¡°I¡¯m not the majority of people, dumbass! Fine! All my money! Whatever!¡±

    No chips appeared.

    ¡°Why are you making this difficult?! You¡¯re just going to give up immediately, aren¡¯t you?!¡±

    ¡°We had the same problem with Iva, Marie,¡± Ture replied tranquilly, ¡°you still need to wager something I want.¡±

    He blinked, slowly.

    ¡°...can you guess what I want, Marie?¡±

    Marie Walker¡¯s eyes shot open. Her lips curled into a pained, amused little grin. She slapped both hands against the table and leaned forward, hot, uneven, and blood-scented breath pushing against the tip of his nose.

    ¡°...the Silver Wheel?¡±

    As the last syllable escaped her lips, thirty pure silver chips, in three piles of ten, materialized in front of her, glistening and pure. In front of Ture, thirty grass-green chips, with a single red dot in their center, appeared. He turned to his left, where he assumed they had appeared, and put his hand upon one of the piles. He smiled as the tips of his fingers glanced the plastic.

    ¡°I should have fucking known,¡± she laughed between gritted teeth,

    ¡°...frankly, I¡¯m a little surprised myself.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not just going to surrender, are you fuckboy?¡±

    ¡°...the heart wants what it wants.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d ask why, but I¡¯m in a lot of pain and I don¡¯t care. When I whoop your ass, Ture, you¡¯d best forget any fucking notions of getting a new body after this one. You¡¯re dead. You¡¯re fucking dead.¡±

    ¡°You really need to expand your vocabulary.¡±

    ¡°Shut up!¡±

    Ture wasn¡¯t lying. He was a little surprised to find that he wanted the Silver Wheel, more so than he wanted money. He couldn¡¯t even quite put his finger on why. He knew why he didn¡¯t want the money, of course, he had plenty, and the allure of money wasn¡¯t the real reason he even wanted to come back to life. All the things he wanted most ¡ª the sunshine, the grass, the wind, the ice cream ¡ª you could get that without much.

    As for why he wanted the Silver Wheel? Maybe he wanted it because it was the only way he could save this body, and get his eyesight and legs back. If he was really going to be stuck with this body ¡ª win or lose, that¡¯d be the case ¡ª it would be nice if it wasn¡¯t blind, immobile, and doomed to die later that night anyway when he became another victim of Marie Walker¡¯s fabricated dimensional crisis. Maybe he wanted it because he missed Ratna and Teresa. It had been a long time since he had seen them last, and it would be nice if he could catch up with them for real. And maybe actually enjoy his next hug with Teresa¡­ somewhere with dimmer lights so she looked less off-putting.

    Or maybe, just maybe, he fundamentally disagreed with Marie Walker¡¯s plan.

    Maybe he just wanted to stop her.

    ¡°What are we fucking playing, Ratna?¡± Marie Walker spun to her, ¡°Make it fast!¡±

    ¡°So glad you asked,¡± Ratna replied, ¡°it¡¯s a pity we already used Texas Hold¡¯em, but fortunately we have a nearly as climatic game in the backlog.¡±

    She flashed a grin at both parties, and slapped a deck of cards in front of them. The plastic thud of her hand against the fabric-covered table somehow reverberated through the air, challenging the radio, which was playing ¡°You Only Live Twice¡± by Nancy Sinatra.

    ¡°...I call it¡­ Wolf Pack.¡±

    ¡°Wolf Pack¡±, which is known by no other name, was created in the Silver Wheel by Ratna, at a date that¡¯s unknown because the Silver Wheel operates outside the standard realms of space and time, even if it is conventionally bound by it. She created it out of boredom between dealing other people¡¯s games, play-tested it with Teresa, and thought this was as good a time as any to give it a real go, since both parties were familiar with the Silver Wheel and would be accustomed to playing games with radically different rules than they may otherwise be used to.

    ¡°In Wolf Pack, the goal of the game is to make the strongest ¡®Wolf Pack¡¯ possible with the four cards in your hand. Unlike poker, the strength of your wolf pack is determined by adding together the numerical value of the four cards you have: so a five, a seven, a two, and a ten would be worth twenty-four points. Jacks are eleven, queens are twelve, kings are thirteen, and aces are fourteen. You know, like you¡¯d expect.

    ¡°So how do ya play? Well, I, the dealer, will deal y¡¯all four cards at the start. Once you both ante two chips into the pot, I¡¯ll throw down two face-up cards in the center of the table. Then, you both throw down a card from your hand on the table at the same time, face down, and then turn them face-up at my signal. The jerk who dropped the highest-value card ¡®wins¡¯ the round, and gets to pick which of the two cards in the center of the table they want to add to their hand. The loser gets the other, while the cards you threw down are discarded. If there¡¯s a tie, suits will be graded by Razz rules ¡ª spades are the best, followed by hearts, diamonds, then clubs. You can choose to not put a card down, to ¡°hold¡± your hand, but in doing so, your opponent is automatically deemed the winner, and can take whichever card they want. The remaining card is discarded, so if you don¡¯t put a card down, you don¡¯t get squat. The winner can decide if they want to bet something, and if they do, the loser can either call, raise ¡ª assuming the winner made a bet on that round ¡ª or attack.

    ¡°Unlike normal poker, there¡¯s no folding, only attacking. When you attack, you reveal your hand to the other player and add up its value. The other player then ¡®attacks¡¯ back, and whoever has the most points wins whatever¡¯s in the pot ¡ª their Wolf Pack was stronger. The cards are reshuffled into the deck, both players get dealt a new hand and we play again. Point ties are broken by who has the strongest single card in their pack. It¡¯s important to note that you can only choose to attack if your opponent either bets or raises. If neither player attacks, or the winner doesn¡¯t bet anything, then I put two more cards in the middle of the table, you all ante another chip, and we play again. Note that if you can¡¯t ante for whatever reason, you can¡¯t get any new cards during that round. Also, if nobody attacks for four rounds in a row,or both players decide to ¡®hold¡¯ their hands the same round, then both players are forced to attack. ¡±

    ¡°One last rule, but it¡¯s an important one. Wolves are stronger when they complement each other, which in this case means your hand score will go up. These bonuses can overlap, so try to get as many as you can. Here¡¯s a handy list to help you figure out score:¡±

    <ul>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Mixed pack ¡ª nothing added.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Same breed (same suit) ¡ª +5 for three of a kind, +15 for four of a kind.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Rainbow pack (one card from each suit) ¡ª +10 to score</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Same strength (same value) ¡ª +5 for two of a kind, +20 for three of a kind, +40 for four of a kind.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Clear leadership (straight) ¡ª +20 to score </li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Beta pack (2, 3, 4, and 5 of the same color) +40 points</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400"> Alpha pack (2, 3, 4, and 5 of the same suit) +100 points</li>

    </ul>

    ¡°And we play until we run out of chips or Marie Walker bleeds out. Any questions?¡±

    ¡°I have one,¡± Ture raised his hands, ¡°I can¡¯t see.¡±

    ¡°Not a question, but good point. Teresa, would you mind helping him?¡±

    ¡°Of course,¡± Teresa bowed her head, and positioned herself behind Ture, resting one hand against his shoulder, ¡°I shall be his eyes during this game. I trust this is not objectionable, Marie Walker?¡±

    ¡°All of this sucks!¡±

    ¡°I am glad to hear it,¡± Teresa nodded, taking a seat next to Ture while keeping her hand daintily placed upon his shoulder. He appreciated its cold, corpse-like stiffness with an almost familiar fondness, but his mind was still trying to appreciate the minutiae of the game. From what he could tell, the real lynchpin of the game was how betting worked: to get the best cards, you¡¯d have to give up the best cards, which also forbade you from attacking if you won. Dropping bad cards, on the other hand, was the only way you could attack, but losing that higher-card advantage when the other player took the better card meant you were almost always attacking into a hand that had the potential of being better than yours. A strong potential, even, since he couldn¡¯t even attack unless the person who dropped the high card was confident enough in their hand to bet on it.

    But that wasn¡¯t the only problem. The bigger one was the fact that every card is ¡°seen¡± by the other player ¡ª both the card you drop, and the card you replace it with. With four rounds to play before you were forced to attack each other, it¡¯s entirely possible for the other player (particularly one as intelligent as Marie Walker) to know what all four cards in your hand are. The mental math wasn¡¯t that hard, and even with a hole in her chest it was unlikely she¡¯d be blind to any of this. She must have realized it too.

    Of course, you could alway hold, but that could give your opponent four turns to make an even better hand, since they would be in control of if you could attack or not. Sure, you wouldn¡¯t be able to bet anything, but if the game went the full four rounds you¡¯d still be guaranteed a six-chip win, assuming the ante was two chips.

    He didn¡¯t like it. It really seemed like a game designed more to accommodate Marie¡¯s strengths than his own, which made him question whose side Ratna was on. But then, it was equally likely that the issue of who would be better at what game had never even crossed her mind ¡ª she may have just picked this game because she wanted to see people play it.

    Irreverent to the end. Good ol¡¯ Ratna.

    ¡°Are you up to this, Ture?¡± Teresa asked ¡ª she was looking at him, he could tell, thanks to the immense, piercing cold he felt on his cheek. He could also tell she was looking at him warmly, because it wasn¡¯t as cold as he remembered.

    ¡°Let¡¯s play and find out.¡±

    Ratna¡¯s pleasured growl could almost be heard over the radio, now playing ¡°Writing¡¯s on the Wall¡±, from Sam Smith, as the very first card clapped against the fabric of their table.

    ¡°Then let¡¯s begin!¡±

    Each player was dealt four cards. Marie Walker picked hers up with one hand, scrunching her brow as she tried to negotiate her mental capacity between remembering the rules and managing the immense pain in her chest. Teresa picked up theirs, held them before her, and used the fan of paper cards to hide her lips as she whispered what they had to Ture.

    ¡°A four of clubs, a four of hearts, a queen of spades, and a ten of spades.¡±

    Thirty points worth of cards. And since they had a pair, it was boosted up to thirty-five. But the value of the cards didn¡¯t mean much when you first looked at them: hand strength only mattered after someone made the first bet, because that was when it could be put to the test.

    ¡°How does Marie Walker look?¡±

    ¡°Pained.¡±

    ¡°...right.¡±

    Ture was not used to this whole ¡®being blind¡¯ thing. Every time he blinked, a not-insignificant portion of his brain was convinced he¡¯d see the Silver Wheel again, and everything would be back to normal. And every time he didn¡¯t, he suffered the same intense yet brief shock. It really wasn¡¯t coming back. He couldn¡¯t help but wonder when all the times he told himself ¡°it was gone for real¡± would finally sink in. Or how it would feel when it did.

    ¡°You kids ready?¡±

    ¡°How many times do I have to groan in pain for you to understand I¡¯m kind of in a hurry?¡±

    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t matter, I ain¡¯t counting.¡±

    ¡°God, just deal!¡±

    ¡°First, ante.¡±

    Both parties grabbed two chips and tossed them into the pot. Marie Walker with short, joyless motions, while Teresa did it with her usual cryptic grace.

    Ratna moved with her usual cinematic, aggressive flourish, and her exaggerated motions at least made it easy for Ture to hear whenever she threw a card down. He knew she wasn¡¯t doing it for his benefit, but he appreciated it anyway.

    ¡°She has dealt a jack of clubs and an eight of diamonds, Ture.¡±

    Neither card was good for them, strictly speaking. If they replaced their four with the Jack they would enjoy a net gain of two points, but it seemed unlikely they could put down the four and expect to pick up the Jack. In which case¡­

    ¡°We should hold, I believe.¡±

    ¡°Yeah. We can¡¯t give up our queen or risk losing our pair.¡±

    ¡°Alright, count of three, drop your wagers ¡ª one, two, three!¡±

    Teresa didn¡¯t drop any cards, but Marie Walker did, throwing down a five of diamonds. She didn¡¯t appear to have put much thought into it: whether that was because of the pain or because she just knew what she was doing, Teresa couldn¡¯t tell.

    ¡°Holding on the first round? Wusses. Marie Walker wins the betting phase.¡±

    Ratna seemed disproportionately pleased with the opportunity to have her game played officially, which underwhelmed the magnitude of their game somewhat. Still, the gravity weighed heavily on Ture, who could feel Teresa¡¯s shockingly rigid frame tense¡ª and even hear her breathe ¡ª at the seat next to his. This was a last-second, last-ditch chance to stop Marie Walker. The culmination of plans upon plans. Even Teresa couldn¡¯t avoid inching closer to the edge of her seat when Marie Walker grabbed the jack of clubs and slid it into her four-card hand.

    ¡°Alright. Want to bet something, team bleeding heart?¡±

    On paper, it was Marie Walker who won that exchange. They didn¡¯t know how many points she had, but they did know it was at least six more than the hand she started with. Meanwhile, they were still sitting at thirty-five, but having never played this game before they didn¡¯t know if that was a winning number of points.

    By Ture¡¯s estimation, the average strength ¡°hand¡± would be thirty-two -- that was to say, if you were to take the statistical average in the range of points each card could be worth (two to fourteen, so eight) and multiplied that by the number of cards in a hand, and disregarded any of the set bonuses, the lion¡¯s share of hands would be in that range. By that measure, they had a better-than-average hand. But they also knew that Marie Walker had gotten rid of a lower-value card (thus removing it from the deck) and got a higher-value one.

    So the real question was, if Marie Walker was confident enough in her hand to bet something, would they be willing to attack? Or would they chance another round?

    Turned out, they would actually have to make that decision, as Marie Walker threw two more chips into the pot, allowing them to declare an attack if they so wished.

    ¡°What do you think?¡±

    ¡°...we could possibly go for a flush. Another four, or a queen or ten, would also dramatically increase our score.¡±

    ¡°...one more round, then.¡±

    They called, but didn¡¯t raise. So the next round began, and an additional chip had to be tossed into the pot, which was sitting at ten chips now.

    ¡°Alright then¡­ will it be heaven or hell for our intrepid heroes in the next round?¡±

    ¡°Plural. Subtle.¡± Marie Walker growled.

    Still, the question posed by their dealer would be answered when Ratna dropped an eight of diamonds and a five of clubs next: with the five of clubs, they could improve their hand score by exactly one point. Technically an improvement, but hardly the clear-cut gateway they would hope for.

    ¡°Alright, drop your wagers¡­ now.¡±

    The pair didn¡¯t really need to discuss what to throw down: either one of the fours would do the job, and Teresa dropped the four of hearts simply because she already knew Marie had a club and she wanted to keep her knowledge of the other clubs in the deck at a minimum.

    Marie Walker, unsurprisingly, abstained from wagering this round.

    ¡°And our fortunes reverse. Take your card, guys. Any bets?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Teresa replied as she took the five of clubs.

    ¡°Then round three begins now.¡±

    The pot was looking heavy with twelve chips now as both parties were forced to ante. They were only one round away from the hand being forced to end, but Ture was already feeling the pressure of the situation weighing on his shoulders. This wasn¡¯t a time when he could afford to make any mistakes, and it seemed like every chip they put into the pot with a hand that wasn¡¯t sure to win was another blunder in the making. But, as with most games like this¡­ his biggest weapon was just his luck and his endurance.

    All he could do now was hope the next card drop would be better.

    ¡°She dealt a five of spades and an ace of diamonds¡±

    ...that was not better.

    Getting the ace would obviously give them the biggest score boost, but they could still get six points by swapping out their own four of clubs for the five: the question was if Marie could just use the ace to widen her presumed gap on them further.

    ¡°Drop the four. We¡¯ll take whatever we can get.¡±

    At the count of three, both parties dropped cards: Marie walker flipped up a ten of hearts, while they revealed their four of clubs: unsurprisingly, Marie took the ace, while they grabbed the five. Since she only got four more points (that they knew of) while they got six, they technically ¡®won¡¯ that round, and were sitting on forty-two points¡­ Marie Walker had at least half of that, with the cards they knew she had.

    She threw in another chip.

    ¡°A shockingly conservative bet.¡± Teresa noted aloud, ¡°How very uncharacteristic of you.¡±

    ¡°Wow it¡¯s almost like I¡¯m more cautious since my life is on the fucking line.¡±

    ¡°You certainly did not encourage caution in your subordinates.¡±

    ¡°You can¡¯t only be figuring out now I can be a little self-centered, can you? Now fucking attack or call or whatever.¡±

    ¡°Yes. ¡®Or whatever¡¯,¡± she repeated, glancing down at Ture before whispering ¡°thoughts?¡±

    Ture paused for a moment, remembering the cards that were in their hand¡­ before he shook his head definitively, useless eyes narrowing.

    ¡°...we can¡¯t expect to get a better hand than this. Attack.¡±

    They knew, with that ace, Marie Walker could outbid them for anything. But losing any of their lower-valued cards would either rob them of their pair bonus or their flush bonus, which would almost certainly result in a net loss of cards for them. There was no better time to strike.

    With Tina Turner¡¯s ¡°Golden Eye¡± accompanying them, Teresa dropped their wolf pack, snarling and hungry, onto the table: a five of clubs, a five of spades, a queen of spades, and a ten of spades: forty-two points in total, thanks to their pair and their mini-flush.

    Marie Walker¡¯s eyes flashed over their hand¡­ before she snorted, a mix of relief and arrogance, as her own wolf pack was unleashed upon them: a jack of clubs, an ace of diamonds, a queen of hearts, and a jack of diamonds: through sheer brute force and a pair of Jacks, she had fifty-three points.

    ¡°The first round¡­ goes to Marie.¡±

    Only six of Ture¡¯s chips were absorbed into Marie Walker¡¯s pile, but the effect of the exchange was immediate: a dull but intense pain as chunks of his chest started to flake away, gorging through his body, and filling Marie¡¯s own gaping hole. She exhaled with a momentary but intense relief, and shook her head a little bit, as if refreshing herself for the next round.

    ¡°Dying sucks. I can¡¯t believe poor people do this all the time.¡±

    A bottle of tequila was placed in front of her on a silver platter, as well as an ornate drinking glass. She ignored the glass, but started inhaling the drink itself, as if it could somehow replace the blood that her veins burned for. She didn¡¯t stop to breathe until she was half done, and it was only because her body forced her to cough.

    ¡°Fuck. Deal. Deal, dammit.¡±

    Four chips, total, were thrown into the middle of the table. Four cards went to each side of the table. Four cards were examined on both sides of the table. But only one side had to whisper what they had, under their nonexistent breath.

    ¡°A nine of spades, a two of hearts, a nine of diamonds, and an eight of hearts.¡±

    ¡°Pretty good. We can bet the two and attack this round if we wanted. Take back an early lead.¡±

    ¡°That may be advisable.¡±

    ¡°...this is nice.¡±

    Ture didn¡¯t know it, but Teresa looked at him with no shortage of surprise.

    ¡°Is it?¡±

    ¡°How come we never played together when I was working here?¡±

    ¡°You were an employee, Ture. You had obligations.¡±

    ¡°Can¡¯t you take that stick out of your nonexistent ass just this once? It¡¯s not like we¡¯ll be seeing each other again after this.¡±

    She smiled.

    ¡°I will take it under consideration.¡±

    ¡°And here comes the face-up cards. Read ¡®em and weep.¡±

    Ratna dropped a king of diamonds and a four of clubs. Another large split. Which put a damper on his original plan. Giving up the two for the four would mean a guaranteed two extra points ¡ª making their hand worth thirty-five points ¡ª but it would give Marie the king, which would be bad. They would get more points swapping their current nine for the king, but that all depended on if they could even get it.

    ¡°Ture. We must drop the two, as planned.¡±

    ¡°...what?¡±

    ¡°Marie Walker is in too much pain to hide her expression. And it¡¯s taking her too long to agonize over what card to put down. She must need that King but not be in a position to take it decisively. In which case, she is likely to simply act to try to deny us the king. Dropping the two, we can only get more points. Dropping something higher puts us at too great a risk.¡±

    ¡°Stop talking!¡± Marie Walker slapped a card down. Ture nodded, and Teresa put down the two.

    ¡°And flip!¡± This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    At the same time that Ture and Teresa revealed their two of hearts, Marie Walker revealed her own king of hearts: she had, indeed, opted to try to deny them the king at the cost of getting a pair. They claimed their four. She claimed her king.

    ¡°Are you gonna-¡±

    ¡°No, obviously,¡± she growled, all but confirming she had a bad hand.

    Two more chips were anted, two more cards were dealt: an ace of clubs and an eight of spades.

    A win-win hand for them. There was nothing they could wager that wouldn¡¯t net them a huge point lead. The ace would get them at least ten more points, if they managed to win it with their four, but even if they lost and got the eight, getting two pairs would boost their score by an impressive nine points: making the grand total forty-four points.

    ¡°But we can only attack if we both lose the bet and Marie is confident enough to attack.¡±

    ¡°Marie Walker put down her card quickly. She no doubt sees this as an opportunity to get rid of one of the lower cards for something better. She will likely lose the wager even if we put down the four.¡±

    Attacking in Wolf Pack was tricky. You had to win the wager, yet your opponent had to be confident enough to bet something. Unlike in normal poker, a bet couldn¡¯t be used as a simple intimidation tactic: you had no choice but to confront your opponent no matter what, so there was no incentive to wager unless you really think you can win. If Marie Walker¡¯s hand was really as bad as it seemed, it was unlikely she would wager anything, and make it more likely that the next round she could improve her own hand¡­ or force their own hand to get worse.

    Still. No matter how you looked at it, trading a four for an eight was a good move. And it¡¯s not as if she would know they had a pair already. Maybe they¡¯d be surprised.

    So they dropped their four of clubs.

    ¡°And a one and a two and a flip!¡±

    As Teresa predicted, Marie had dropped a two. They revealed their four, and thus, won the round. Taking the eight would give them a good chunk of points and allow Marie Walker to have the ace, which might make her bold enough to attack¡­ but she, unfortunately, wasn¡¯t an idiot, and she would safely assume that if they weren¡¯t taking the better card, they must be taking the worse card for a reason.

    Plus, taking the ace would make them ¡°safe¡± in the coming betting round, so¡­ they grabbed it. And she took the eight.

    ¡°We¡¯ll bet two more.¡±

    Marie Walker contorted her face in thought, watching those two bloody chips fall into the pot with a mild clatter. There were two more rounds of betting to go, and all she knew was that they had an ace in their hand ¡ª the other three cards were a mystery. The two of them knew she had a king and an eight (at least twenty-one points), but could safely assume the other cards in her hand weren¡¯t great either. The real question was if she felt she could make her hand better before that happened.

    She dropped her cards on the table, sighing: an eight of spades, a seven of diamonds, a three of clubs, and the King of diamonds Thirty-one points. Much less than their forty-five.

    A noticeable chunk of Ture¡¯s chest started to mend. And Marie Walker moaned as her pain intensified once again.

    The back and forth of life and death.

    ~*~

    ¡°Of course, the primary purpose of this strategy meeting is simply to waste Marie¡¯s time.¡±

    Both Tersa and Ture were in the bar, having made some excuse (over Marie¡¯s loud and pained protests) that they needed a system to work on improving their coordination. The dealer had approved of it immediately because of course she would, and the two of them were conferring to the tune of ¡°Another Way to Die¡±, by Alicia Keys & Jack White.

    ¡°The more pain she¡¯s in, the quicker her temper, and the easier she will be to manipulate. You understand this, correct?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I do¡­¡± Ture drew his words out¡­

    ¡°Good.¡±

    ¡°...I don¡¯t understand why you¡¯re carrying me, though.¡±

    Teresa looked at him, cradled in her arms, bridal-style.

    ¡°Your legs do not work, Ture. This was the most efficient way to transport you.¡±

    ¡°Was it¡­ the only way?¡±

    ¡°I suppose I could have carried you over the shoulder, if that would be more agreeable to your outdated masculine sensibilities.¡± Teresa cracked a smile. Not that he would know by sight, but he could hear the slight uptilt in her voice that indicated good humor.

    ¡°What would you know about gender norms? You barely even have one.¡±

    ¡°And yet you are blushing, so I must be feminine enough.¡±

    He was, in fact, blushing. And the two of them stood motionless for a while, listening to the music, letting more time pass in each other¡¯s company before Ture eventually, and carefully, put away the silence that had been building between them.

    ¡°It¡¯s¡­ good to see you again, Teresa. Or it was. Until, you know.¡±

    ¡°I understood what you were trying to say, Ture. The feeling is mutual.¡±

    ¡°Aren¡¯t you mad at me, though?¡±

    ¡°Of course not. You have always served yourself first and foremost. I knew that before I grew fond of you. Why would I be mad at you for acting like yourself?¡±

    ¡°...wow that¡¯s¡­ a pretty wholesome way of saying you expected me to be a shit.¡±

    ¡°For what it is worth, Ture, if that is what you believe you will be happy to hear you have surprised me today.¡±

    He shook his head, still smiling.

    ¡°Ha, well¡­ I wouldn¡¯t keep her waiting long, she¡¯ll change the rules like Nikolay did.¡±

    ¡°Yes. Back to the table, then.¡±

    The door opened up for them as Teresa carried him back into the room. Mr. Eight was visible again, working on Marie Walker to ease her pains, but his efforts were largely unappreciated by her, judging by the fact she was actively trying to avoid looking at him, let alone thanking him.

    ¡°Sit down. Let¡¯s fucking get this out of the way.¡±

    ¡°You seem more composed now, Marie,¡± Teresa noted as she rested Ture on the seat next to hers, ¡°Or at least more energetic.¡±

    ¡°Your magical eldritch abomination, on top of being the source of all my problems is also the temporary can of WD-40 my shot ass needs to keep going,¡± Marie noted with a humorless hiss, ¡°And if we keep evening out in this dumb game we¡¯re going to be here all night. So I¡¯ve put away ¡®pained¡¯ Marie for ¡®serious¡¯ Marie. Let¡¯s get this over with.¡±

    ¡°Maybe serious Marie should have come out sooner.¡±

    ¡°Maybe Ture can keep his opinions to himself?¡±

    A beat.

    ¡°...actually, fuck it, I want to know something: why the hell are we doing this again?¡± She asked, her once white-hot rage having simmered down to a seething, desperate anger, chilling proportionately to the slowly draining color in her face, ¡°we had a good thing going, Ture. I wasn¡¯t doing you any harm. I kept my promises. And you never cared about morality before now. The hell are you thinking?¡±

    As she spoke, the cards were dealt. Teresa and Ture had a three and a six of spades, an eight and king of hearts, and the cards they were bidding for were an eight of diamonds and a queen of spades. Four chips sat in the center of the table, waiting to be claimed as they deliberated their move.

    ¡°...I guess¡­¡± he pondered as Teresa put their three of spades down, ¡°...I guess it was Iva. I didn¡¯t come here planning to do this. But Iva reminded me that when I pick a side I¡¯m generally picking the bad one. And I¡¯m tired of feeling guilty.¡±

    They both flipped their cards. Marie dropped a three as well, but hers was a club. Teresa and Ture won the round, and to avoid revealing the fact they had an eight in-hand, took the queen. It added up to the same net total of points in any case, so they were sitting on a cool thirty-nine points.

    Teresa bet two chips, and Marie called and raised by another two: so Ture had Teresa immediately attack when she told him she sensed mild frustration in Marie¡¯s face ¡ª and in doing so, Marie revealed an ace of hearts, a nine of diamonds, and two eights ¡ª a club and a diamond. All together, her points added up to forty-four: only narrowly winning out thanks to her pair.

    ¡°Guilty? Heh. Fuck me, I¡¯m so sick of that line, that¡­ word. You¡¯re not the first employee to turn on me because of it. And let me feed you some of the bullshit I¡¯ve fed them over the years.¡±

    The cards were collected and reshuffled. Ratna was staying quiet.

    ¡°We¡¯re not killing anyone, just stripping away some redundancy. We¡¯re preventing a dimensional overload in the finite space of reality. We¡¯re bringing back true purpose and choice to our daily lives, we¡¯re ensuring that free will exists, we¡¯re trying to signal to a more powerful being¡­ year after year I¡¯ve had to grapple with that fuck called guilt to get people to do their goddamn jobs. You know how much it sucks to hear I have to do it now, too? So damn close to the end?¡±

    ¡°Can¡¯t say I do,¡± Ture argued as the cards were dealt, one at a time, ¡°but it sounds like you spent a lot of your life ignoring all the people telling you this was a bad idea, and making up lies because you know your real motivation is bullshit.¡±

    ¡°Bullshit? Making up excuses was a courtesy,¡± Marie grew more venomous as her wounds slowly healed, and Ture¡¯s slowly deepened, ¡°I owe my employees exactly two things, a paycheck and insurance. Everything after that is just me being nice. I don¡¯t owe anyone a friggen¡¯ monologue. The universe is big, god¡¯s a lie, and exactly no one who matters can judge me for what I do with my own fucking brilliance.¡±

    They had a five of spades, a two and a nine of diamonds, and a ten of hearts. The first face-up cards on the table were a ten and a six of diamonds.

    ¡°Everyone can judge you!¡± Ture replied ¡ª his words lacking any bite, but still carrying heat as he realized, much to his surprise, that he actually cared about winning this argument, ¡°If there¡¯s no god then the universe is owned by everyone. You don¡¯t get to flex your big brain, plant a flag on reality, and say you can do with it what you want. Just by existing we own a slice and deserve a say!¡±

    They dropped the five of spades. Marie dropped a queen of hearts and took the ten of diamonds. The pair grabbed the leftover six, and called when Marie bet three more chips.

    ¡°Pff- owned? You sound like a child,¡± Marie laughed as they were both forced to ante another chip, ¡°Ownership is nothing but a fancy word for respect, and I don¡¯t know if you¡¯ve figured this out, but neither this world nor any other has done a damn thing to deserve mine. And glass houses pal ¡ª if you gave a shit about who ¡®owns¡¯ what, you wouldn¡¯t be walking around in someone else¡¯s body.¡±

    The next two cards were dealt. A five of diamonds and a ten of clubs. In theory, they wanted the five. In practice, they already knew she had a ten and didn¡¯t want her to grab another. In any case, it would leave them with no extra points in the best case, or less in the worst: and they were running out of time to turn around what was honestly a mediocre hand.

    ¡°Ture,¡± Teresa whispered, ¡°We could put down the ten, but I do not think we can win with-¡±

    ¡°-When did I ever say I was a role model? I¡¯m not attacking you from a moral high ground, I¡¯m attacking you as someone who rather likes reality and would rather you stop fucking with it. And I¡¯m attacking you as someone who thinks the way you define if something has ¡®value¡¯ or ¡®meaning¡¯ utterly stupid. Infinite universes or just one, something ¡®matters¡¯ if you want it to. That¡¯s it! That¡¯s all there is to it! And everyone figured it out but you.¡±

    There was a beat, and Ture looked to Teresa.

    ¡°Well? Put it down!¡±

    Teresa paused, frowned, and dropped the ten of hearts. Surprisingly, Teresa abstained from betting any cards, so she automatically lost the round. They got a ten, but no change in hand value. They didn¡¯t bet, and anted another chip as the third round began.

    ¡°Haha, wow! I wish I had that privilege,¡± Marie leaned forward, ¡°I wish I was stupid enough to be able to believe that shit. But that¡¯s the problem with this big ol¡¯ brain of mine, for everything it can do, it can¡¯t whittle down everything I know into something that can fit into that tiny skull of yours. I can explain it over and over again but-¡±

    ¡°-Holy shit you two, either kiss already or play the damn game!¡± Ratna interrupted, dealing a two and an eight of spades next.

    ¡°...¡±

    ¡°...ugh.¡±

    The two cards on offer weren¡¯t exactly appealing to Teresa or Ture. And apparently, Marie felt the same way, because when it came time to bet neither party put down cards.

    So, they were forced to attack.

    Teresa laid down their hand: a nine, a six, and a two of diamonds, and a ten of clubs. Only worth thirty-two points thanks to having three of the same suit.

    Marie Walker dropped two tens, of diamonds and spades, a nine of clubs, and a eight of hearts. Shy of a straight, but still worth forty-two points. More than enough to win the round, and to cause the gash in Ture¡¯s chest to deepen significantly. He hunched forward, his unfocused eyes still burning holes into Marie, who for the first time since she was shot managed to sit up straight, even if she was huffing in pain.

    ¡°Ah. Fuck, that¡¯s better. I¡¯d have hoped you¡¯d do better for our final confrontation, Ture. As boss fights go you¡¯re really letting me down.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s my line.¡±

    ¡°Oh, because I¡¯m your actual boss. Well in deference to the wordplay I¡¯ll wait till after this game to fire you.¡±

    Four more chips into the pot. Teresa and Ture were down to less than half. Ture anxiously fingered the fourteen chips hanging between him and what little life he had left. Teresa stared on.

    ¡°Fuck, it hurts to breathe,¡± he muttered.

    ¡°That is unfortunate. Please conserve your breath, then. It would perhaps be better if I took over from here out anyway,¡± Teresa put a hand on his, squeezing, ¡°If Marie Walker would not object, of course.¡±

    ¡°Why the hell not. Let¡¯s settle two scores at once, eh?¡± Marie Walker smirked as the cards were dealt, ¡°Heck, why not add Ratna to your team, too? Make it a threefer.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t tempt me,¡± their dealer retorted.

    Teresa flipped up her hand, not bothering to communicate it to Ture, who between his blindness, his crippled limbs, and the growing gash in his chest, was in no position to focus on the game. With a static expression, she gazed at her hand: a queen, ace, and king of spades, and a seven of clubs. Her starting hand had graced her with 51 points. A hand that was almost certain to win any attack.

    Now, Teresa only needed to milk it for as many chips as possible.

    The first two cards were dealt: an eight of clubs and a five of hearts. But it didn¡¯t matter. Teresa was going to wager the seven of clubs just to make sure the game didn¡¯t end on the off-chance Marie didn¡¯t want either of the cards. That didn¡¯t turn out to be a problem: at the count of three, Marie dropped a card as well: the five of spades.

    Teresa took the eight. Marie took the five. She was sitting on 52 points now.

    ¡°I shall bet two chips.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll raise by two more.¡±

    The pot grew to twelve chips. Neither of them attacked. Teresa and Ture were sitting on eight chips in total now. Dangerously close to ending the game entirely. Teresa made a note of this urgent lack of chips silently, and threw another chip into the pot to pay for the next round. Marie did the same.

    ¡°We¡¯re getting pretty close to the climax, huh?¡±

    Teresa didn¡¯t reply.

    ¡°Heh. In spite of everything I can¡¯t help but still like you.¡±

    ¡°I wish the feeling was mutual.¡±

    Ratna dealt the next two cards: a queen of hearts and a seven of spades. With that seven, Teresa would have four spades, increasing her overall score by nine points: giving her the nearly unbeatable score of 61. She didn¡¯t so much as crack a smile at the thought.

    They each dropped a card. Teresa had put down her eight of clubs. Marie, a king of clubs.

    Marie must have a flush too, Teresa reasoned, to give up such a powerful card: if she had swapped her five of hearts for that queen she would have gotten seven more points: the only reason Teresa could assume she wouldn¡¯t do that is if she wanted to keep the hearts.

    So they both had flushes. But Teresa also knew Marie¡¯s flush had a five in it. Teresa was more than willing to bet her flush was worth more.

    And more than willing to bet Marie thought the exact same thing about her own hand.

    ¡°I¡¯ll bet three more.¡±

    Teresa dropped the chips into the pot. There were only four chips on her side of the table now. There was a lull in the air as the radio breathed between songs. Marie Walker paused.

    It was the end of the second round. They had two more chances to draw, if they wanted them. In theory, either of them could still improve their hand: Marie had at least one low-value heart card she could replace with something stronger. Teresa¡¯s seven of spades could stand to be replaced, and if she was lucky enough to get a jack of spades, she¡¯d get a straight, which would net her an additional 24 whopping points: giving her a hand that could only be defeated by this game¡¯s equivalent to the royal flush, an Alpha pack.

    But Marie plotted. If she attacked and lost now, she¡¯d still have a noticeable lead on them. If she waited it out, she clearly thought the possibility existed of finishing them off this round.

    Her eyes darted between her chips, and the deck of slightly-worn cards in front of Ratna. Her breathing was rasped, but calm. Moreso than Ture, whose blindness and pain were acting in conjunction to flll him with a growing sense of dread. The unbearable silence at the table only agitated his anxieties. Teresa put her hand on his again.

    ¡°...heh,¡± Marie chuckled, dropping her cards face-up on the table, ¡°I can¡¯t believe people do this for fun. This is the most stressed I¡¯ve been in my life.¡±

    Marie¡¯s hand was, for lack of a better word, phenomenal. A five, a queen, a king, and a nine, all of hearts. All together, it was worth 54 points. And Teresa could plainly see why she hesitated: if she could replace that five with a ten in the next two rounds, she could have gotten the elusive straight-flush, which would have actually won the round.

    But she didn¡¯t.

    Teresa dropped her hand: the queen, king, ace, and seven of spades. Still worth 61 points.

    ¡°Aaand Teresa wins by the slim margin of seven points. A narrow lead, but like lyin¡¯ bitches say, it ain¡¯t the size that counts.¡±

    ¡°If you had bet less I might have played through,¡± Marie had the audacity to offer advice, twirling her pink hair with pink fingernails, ¡°but there was no other explanation for why you would bet three for ¡®winning¡¯ a seven of spades.¡±

    Teresa didn¡¯t reply.She merely nodded curtly and appreciatively at Ratna when she pushed her winnings to her side of the table, easing Ture¡¯s suffering significantly and bringing a greater share of the pain back into Marie¡¯s bosom. She flinched, coughing as the wound grew deeper once again.

    ¡°How do you feel, Ture?¡±

    ¡°That was too fucking close.¡±

    ¡°If it was not close, we would not have gotten so many chips back.¡±

    ¡°...ugh.¡±

    They were back. The jaws of defeat were still dangerously pinched into their throats, threatening to puncture the skin, but the grip loosened, and they could both breathe slightly easier.

    ¡°Have you calmed down enough to play again, Ture?¡±

    ¡°Sure, but feel free to veto me.¡±

    ¡°As you wish.¡±

    The next hand was dealt. Two chips were submitted on each side.

    Teresa and Ture got a ten and queen of clubs, and an eight and four of hearts. Only 34 points, but it had potential to get a lot better, with the right cards. Marie appeared a bit irritated. But then, losing that last hand must have been more frustrating than her cocked smile dared betray.

    She caught Teresa staring. She smiled.

    Ratna dealt a jack of hearts and a king of diamonds for them to bet on.

    The move here was obvious: trading the four for the jack would net them the most immediate points, increasing their total points by seven, and put them in a position to get a straight, if a nine or another king was drawn. Still, Teresa conferred with Ture, and when she had his tacit approval, she nodded to Ratna, who started the countdown.

    They dropped their four of hearts. Marie dropped a jack of clubs, and grabbed the king of diamonds. They had gotten their jack, and from what little they could tell, won the trade, since Marie had only gotten two extra points for certain.

    Marie took a breath that was supposed to be deep, but was painfully shallow. There was no good way to get shot in the chest, it seemed.

    ¡°...say, Ture.¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°...what would it take to get you to give up?¡±

    ¡°You mean to die?¡±

    ¡°Yeah. What would I have to promise you to make you do that.¡±

    Teresa noticed the tips of her opponent¡¯s fingers were quivering. Maybe it was from the pain. Maybe it was because she knew that she was technically bleeding out in the waking world. Or maybe it was because her whole dream was still a few bad hands away from being crushed underfoot. A moment of unwilling empathy, perhaps, for the billions of people she had so often sneered at, whose lives were likewise terribly vulnerable to the winds of ill fortune.

    ¡°I dunno. I¡¯d like to not die, is the thing. Seemed like I didn¡¯t get to do a whole lot of living before this.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, well, that¡¯s your fucking fault.¡± ¡±

    He thought.

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure there¡¯s anything.¡± He shook his head, ¡°You could promise to stop your plan here, but you care about it more than your life. Plus you lie all the time. I-¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re thinking too small,¡± she huffed, ¡°think of me like your personal fucking genie, alright? All the brain power I¡¯ve dedicated to this mission won¡¯t have a direction when this is all over. I¡¯ll be freed up to do anything with it and I won¡¯t especially care what it is. Think about it. The woman with the smarts to destroy over a trillion-trillion universes, at your fucking command. I¡¯ll even bring you back as a freebie. You¡¯ve got that nomad soul, die now or in a few hours I can still put you in a body.¡±

    ¡°Wow,¡± he half-laughed, a smile genuine enough to catch Teresa¡¯s eye growing on his face, ¡°It was only a few minutes ago you said I was dead for sure. What happened to all that pride?¡±

    ¡°I stopped caring! This is stressful and¡­ and dumb!¡± She shouted, flinching at the pain, ¡°Fuck, if this was your fucked-up tactic to get more shit out of me, fine! You win! I¡¯m yours to command, just¡­ give up! I¡¯m begging you here, Ture!¡±

    Ture, in response, shrugged.

    ¡°I¡¯ll think about it. Are you going to deal or not?¡±

    Marie Walker hissed in growing frustration. Teresa, whose static expression leaned towards concern, remained there as they called Marie¡¯s two-chip bet. They didn¡¯t raise, and soon had to throw an extra chip in as the ante for the following round.

    Calling, however, turned out to be a mistake.

    Because at the top of the second round, Ratna revealed a two of diamonds, and a two of spades.

    There was no way either of them would bet to take one of those cards.

    And if they both refused to wager, they would attack automatically.

    It was possible to win a hand of Wolf Pack with 41 points, but both Ture and Teresa were certain this wasn¡¯t going to be one of those hands: and when they dropped their ten of clubs, queen of clubs, eight of hearts, and jack of hearts, they were countered with Marie¡¯s eight, queen, nine, and king, all of diamonds.

    41 points vs 57 points. Not even close.

    And Marie had another convincing lead.

    ¡°A View to A Kill¡±, by Duran Duran, unwelcomely hammered on the radio as Ratna started collecting the cards, both parties staring at each other. Marie, with increasing desperation as the clock achingly counted down in her world, and Ture and Teresa as it seemed increasingly unlikely they could actually put an end to Marie¡¯s genocidal plans.

    Not even Ratna smiled, although that might be because ¡°A View to Kill¡± by Duran Duran was playing, and it¡¯s a very bad song.

    ¡°Why the frown?¡± Teresa asked as the cards were dealt, ¡°is this not exactly what you wanted?¡±

    ¡°This isn¡¯t even remotely close to what I wanted. I don¡¯t even like gambling.¡±

    ¡°But you wanted things to matter, by your own twisted logic,¡± Ture followed up, ¡°And by that logic this is the first thing you¡¯ve ever done in your life that matters. This stress, knowing you only have one shot to make this work, one chance¡­ this is exactly what you were looking for.¡±

    Teresa picked up their cards. Two aces, of clubs and spades, a ten of hearts, and a six of clubs. Forty-nine points in their first draw. The perfect opportunity to even out the score and start turning things around. Especially since Marie seemed to stare at her hand for slightly longer than a glance.

    It wasn¡¯t the mental math that slowed her down. It was deciding what to do with the cards.

    ¡°You know, I¡¯d really like to say you¡¯re wrong out of raw, unadulterated spite,¡± Marie snorted, ¡°but fuck me if you¡¯re right. This is what I wanted, I should really be having more fun with it. All my life, every little step I took, led up to this moment where things finally matter. I guess¡­ that¡¯s refreshing. It¡¯d be a lot more refreshing if it wasn¡¯t playing cards with people who I hate.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re wrong, you know,¡± Ture said as Ratna dealt the first two cards to bid on ¡ª a five of spades and an ace of hearts. Obviously, Ture and Teresa wanted the ace, but they paused for a moment to consider if it was worth sacrificing one of their aces to ensure Marie didn¡¯t get it, or to risk losing it by betting the lower-value ten for the eternally enticing three of a kind, ¡°I think everything you¡¯ve done before this has mattered. Even by your own stupid logic.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, well, we already established you don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about.¡±

    ¡°Fuck off, I do. You think life is meaningless because there are trillions of alternate realities, and between all of them I do everything, so the decision to do or not do something is meaningless, right?¡±

    ¡°More or less,¡±

    They dropped their cards: in the end, Ture and Teresa had decided to risk playing the ten of hearts ¡ª at least if they were stuck with the five they¡¯d have three spades and the score would even out. Fortunately, their gamble paid off ¡ª Marie Walker had only dropped a two of hearts, so they were able to claim the ace and she was stuck with the five of spades. With three aces and a six of clubs, Ture and Teresa had a whooping 68 points in their hand. As before, now their job was to milk as many chips as they could from Marie.

    They wagered three chips. Marie, a bit surprisingly, called.

    ¡°I think that¡¯s great,¡± Ture continued as the next two cards were laid out to bet on, two sixes, of diamonds and spades, ¡°It means if I make someone smile, even if there are versions of me that don¡¯t, there are still trillions, quadrillions of versions of me that do. That¡¯s trillions, quadrillions of smiles. Just because there¡¯s a quadrillion sunny days doesn¡¯t mean the one I¡¯m enjoying is less special. Just because it¡¯s raining in another quadrillion universes doesn¡¯t mean my sun isn¡¯t shining now.¡±

    He paused for a reply, but it was not Marie who spoke next.

    ¡°I have worked at the Silver Wheel for a long time, Marie Walker. I have not kept track of the dates nor do I intend to estimate the duration. I have had the privilege of hosting countless individuals, and working alongside dozens more as transitional employees. I cannot honestly say I remember each one well, nor that I have always had the wisdom to try to remedy that. But I can assure you that if you have undertaken this whole mission out of a love of humanity and a desire to see their lives given purpose, you need not have. Humanity does not need purpose as there is no goal to strive for. Humanity does not need meaning because there is nothing to define. I have learned that humanity is a self-contained miracle. A wonder that exists to awe itself. Just as the stars do not need a reason to be beautiful, and there is no ¡®purpose¡¯ behind the bright, blue sky, humanity does not need a reason or purpose to be worth marveling at.¡±

    Marie Walker was silent, her fingers gently stroking the faces of the chips in front of her. She tapped on their edges a few times, looking to one of the well-lit corners of the Silver Wheel.

    ¡°...Ratna, are we going to play?¡± She finally asked.

    ¡°Oh. Uh, kinda thought you were gonna talk. It¡¯s like your thing.¡±

    ¡°Pink is my thing. Talking is my antidote for a word sick with stupid.¡±

    They threw down their wagers: Teresa and Ture had bet their six of clubs, as they had nothing to lose in the effort, and Marie Walker put down a queen of clubs, surprisingly enough. She took the six of diamonds¡­ which probably meant she had some kind of straight. But a straight would only be worth twenty points ¡ª it couldn¡¯t hope to fill the gap that separated them. Still, Marie bet two, and Teresa and Ture called. Tempted to raise, but they ultimately decided not to scare her off.

    Round three began. There were sixteen chips in the pot once they made their antes. Ture and Teresa were sitting on eight chips, but a hand worth 68 points.

    A film of sweat was starting to appear on Marie¡¯s brow. Her paling fingers trembled, both cold and stressed.

    At the center of the table, Ratna dealt a three of diamonds and a five of hearts. There was no way to improve their score with that hand, but they didn¡¯t want to pass to end the round prematurely ¡ª not when they could hopefully milk more chips out of Marie.

    ¡°...you know,¡± Marie started, fingers stopping cold over her brilliantly silver chips, ¡°the best day of my life was when I first pierced the veil between dimensions. Not because it was a scientific first or anything, not because it was the culmination of all my hard work¡­ hell, a lot of dimensions were doing the dimension-hopping thing before I did, I knew that before I even started. But the reason I liked it was because¡­ fuck, I could finally meet myself. Meet someone else who ¡®got it¡¯. I hoped that maybe I wouldn¡¯t be so damn alone if I could just surround myself with myself. Other bad bitches who ¡®got it¡¯. The size, the scope, the hopelessness of doing anything. Because no one else does. No matter how many times I say it or explain it it just doesn¡¯t punch through their thick, stupid skulls.¡±

    As they expected, Marie didn¡¯t wager. They put down their six of spades, though, and in turn got the five of hearts. They were sitting on 67 points now, and Ture made the decision to push their luck: Marie seemed like she was waiting for something. They wagered five. She called.

    ¡°Are you trying to give me second thoughts? Well, it¡¯s working,¡± she said, trembling as she looked down at her cards, and the meager three chips on their side of the table ¡°I¡¯ve second-guessed myself every step of the way for a long time. But let me tell you what I told myself so many times throughout my journey here: even if the multiverse didn¡¯t disqualify the meaning of my actions, giving up before I¡¯m finished definitely would. Everything that¡¯s led up to this has to have been for something more than a revelation and an apology letter. It would be an insult to the people I¡¯ve hurt and killed to get this far.

    ¡°Ture, Teresa, I am going to win this game.¡± She snarled, ¡°And I will finish what I started.¡±

    The fourth round began. They anted their chips, and Ratna dealt a jack of diamonds and a four of spades.

    Either card would work for them. If Marie Walker did have a straight, which seemed incredibly likely, then the highest value card in her hand could only be eight, and even if she had a straight-flush, the most points she could possibly have was seventy-one ¡ª technically she could have won with that last round, but clearly she had designs to empty their side of the table to make it a decisive blow¡­ a design that backfired with that jack. Once they grabbed that jack, they¡¯d have 83 points. And there was no way Marie could beat them.

    ¡°Alright, drop your cards in three, two¡­ and now.¡±

    Ture and Teresa dropped their five of hearts

    Marie dropped a six of diamonds.

    And she took the four of spades.

    They got their Jack of diamonds. They had a hand worth a daunting 83 points, and yet, the memory of the start of the round, when Marie Walker had grabbed the five of spades, flashed like a big, throbbing red light in their heads. There was only one reason Marie Walker would have stuck this out for so long: she had been waiting for one specific card since the very first round, and lady luck had seen it fit to deliver it to her.

    Marie Walker pushed what remained of her chips, all thirty-one, into the center of the table. Dwarfing Teresa and Ture¡¯s meager two chips, a cruel, victorious grin raked across her ghost-like face, underlined by the smudged pink lipstick that still clung to her.

    Teresa put a hand on Ture¡¯s, and squeezed.

    Ture sighed, and then snorted, and then placed his hand on the last, worthless chips he had left. They couldn¡¯t play with only two chips. They could ante for the next round, but that was it: Marie Walker would have everything she needed to simply bulldoze them at that point.

    ¡°...we tried, Teresa.¡±

    ¡°We did, Ture.¡±

    ¡°Thanks for being my eyes.¡±

    ¡°Thank you for¡­ everything.¡±

    He pushed the two chips into the pot.

    ¡°Bring it, you pink cunt.¡±

    Their packs were revealed. Ture and Teresa had three aces, of hearts, of clubs, and of spades, and a jack of diamonds to even out their score to 83 points.

    Marie Walker had a two, three, four, and five of spades. The Alpha Pack. Worth 149 points, put together. It wasn¡¯t even a contest.

    Marie Walker had won.

    The hole in her chest vanished, filling miraculously with flesh and blood, while a hole bored into Ture, merciless and brutal, blood exploding from his chest as he gasped, grasping at it as agony wracked his body. Teresa held him up and pressed his face to her cold, unmoving chest, while Marie Walker stood up and adjusted her clothes.

    ¡°Haha, oh my god. Oh my god. Holy shit, Ture, you fucking idiot. You¡­ asshole! Putting me through all that! Just to prove a point or¡­ to impress Teresa? Fuck I don¡¯t get it dude, but you know what? Doesn¡¯t matter. Nothing matters. You can go to the woods and eat bear shit, because I am so done with these fucking games. Fuck! Asshole. Motherfucker.¡±

    ¡°Northwest Passage¡±, by Stan Rogers, was playing on the radio.

    ¡°I need to make sure I¡¯m not bleeding out in my world,¡± Marie calmed down a little bit, brushing down her clothes, ¡°but I¡¯ll be right back, sweeties, so please don¡¯t die before I do. I¡¯d really like to throw some booze into that wound. Rub it in. Make you scream. I think I¡¯ve earned that little treat, right? Haha, asshole.¡±

    She briskly walked past them, her footfalls silent and empty, the sound of Stan Roger¡¯s most iconic, prolific song marking her passage to a brave new world. Mr. Eight had taken their place next to Ture, attempting to alleviate his pain the way they had for Marie Walker, but she stopped him with a flick of her wrist.

    ¡°Don¡¯t wear yourself out on him, dear, I¡¯ll need you at full strength for what comes next.¡±

    The door swung open as Marie Walker passed through it, but before it could close again, Ratna interjected.

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t be in such a hurry to leave, ya lumpy bitch.¡±

    Marie paused, turning around to peer into the gambling hall. Teresa continued to hold Ture to her chest, wordlessly rocking him back and forth as he gasped, blind and crippled and wracked in a familiar pain, the last of his borrowed life slipping through his fingers. Mr. Eight had consumed a corner of the place to themself, a twitching, flexing, anxious entity that didn¡¯t dare vanish yet didn¡¯t want to stand in the light. And Ratna, her face half-shadowed by the unblinking light above her, her lips pulled back in a wolfish grin, staring back with eyes lit up in a bloody lust.

    ¡°...what¡¯s got you in such a good mood?¡± Marie asked cautiously, cracking open the door, ¡°I knew you didn¡¯t get along with Ture but I was pretty sure you weren¡¯t rooting for me.¡±

    ¡°Gosh, I wonder,¡± Ratna hummed, leaning forward, ¡°Do you remember the rules of the Silver Wheel?¡±

    ¡°...I¡­ yes. Yes I do. No cheating. You lose if you quit. You can¡¯t gamble¡­¡±

    She paused, face scrunched in thought.

    ¡°...you can¡¯t gamble for time,¡± Ratna finished her thought, ¡°No years. No months. No seconds of your life. You¡¯re stuck with the time you get.¡±

    Marie Walker slammed the door open.

    ¡°What are you saying?!¡±

    ¡°Exactly what it sounds like,¡± Ratna replied, ¡°You may have gotten rid of that hole, but the Silver Wheel doesn¡¯t operate the way you want. You were dead the moment you got shot in the chest ¡ª your time has been spent. You¡¯re not getting it back.¡±

    She laughed. A loud, yippish, gleeful laugh, one that made Marie Walker recoil.

    ¡°All you¡¯ve done is give yourself a pretty corpse.¡±

    Marie turned to stare at the back of Teresa¡¯s head. She felt cold staring at it, but it wasn¡¯t the familiar cold that seeped from Teresa¡¯s every pore, that prohibitive but comfortable chill that Marie had always silently envied. The cold she felt now was the most common cold there ever was, a cold shared by billions of humans throughout all of history. A cold that briefly unifies every soul through every corner of history and possibility.

    ¡°Teresa¡­ is that true?¡±

    Teresa didn¡¯t answer. Her head remained craned over Ture, who was straining to say something, anything, so his last words could be more inspiring than ¡°Bring it, cunt¡±.

    ¡°Teresa I order you to answer me!¡±

    Teresa slowly turned to face Marie. There was no joy or victory in her face, but there was still the faintest ghost of a smile pulled up on her dead face.

    ¡°Yes, Miss Walker. It is true. As we speak, the last of your life is dripping from your living body. Soon you will vanish. Your ambitions will be unfulfilled, and your ¡®soul¡¯ will go to a very dark place.¡±

    She turned back to Ture, squeezing his hand as she rocked his body gently against hers.  ¡°For what little it is worth, Miss Walker, your life will still have had a tremendous impact on the universe.¡±

    Marie grabbed the first bottle she could find behind the bar. A thick, heavy bottle of champagne. Something she had set aside for herself for when she had finished her work. She didn¡¯t know anything about it, just that it had a pink label and that was good enough for her.

    She raised it high and smashed it into the back of Teresa¡¯s skull. With a dull crack, it caved, but Teresa didn¡¯t react.

    ¡°You have changed the world you lived in for the worse.¡±

    Marie hammered into Teresa¡¯s skull again. One of her eyes popped out, falling on Ture¡¯s bleeding chest, as porcelain chunks started hanging off her destroyed scalp.

    ¡°You¡¯ve gotten countless people across every reality mercilessly killed.¡±

    Marie screamed, slamming the bottle for a third time. It exploded, sending broken glass across the floor of the Silver Wheel, and doused herself, Ture, and Teresa in the frothing alcohol. More of Teresa¡¯s face was demolished, leaving only a pair of painted cheeks and a pair of moving lips.

    ¡°And you¡¯ve robbed me of two dear friends.¡±

    ¡°Shut up shut up shut up!¡±

    Marie smashed what was left of the bottle against what was left of Teresa¡¯s head. Glass and porcelain went flying, leaving Teresa with nothing but an empty void bleeding from her neck, and Marie with hands poxed with broken glass and her own blood.

    She was panting. She was shivering.

    Teresa remained seated, cradling Ture¡¯s motionless face in one palm, while the other gently clasped his cold, empty hand.

    ¡°Fuck this place,¡± Marie hissed, staggering backwards, clumsy hand groping at her hip until she pulled out the silver key, the representation of her ownership of the Silver Wheel, ¡°fuck you, Ratna, and double-fuck you, Mr. Eight, and triple-fuck you, Teresa, and the biggest fuck you in the goddamn multiverse for¡­ that asshat Oberman.¡±

    Ratna said nothing. She only watched, amused and delighted, as Marie staggered out to the bar, Stan Rogers urging her to bravely explore the well-traveled path that every human before her has ventured, and stood before the black void that hung ever-present right beyond the walls of the Silver Wheel.

    ¡°So, I¡¯m going to a dark place, huh?¡± She muttered, chucking the key into the void ahead of her, watching it vanish into the darkness below her.

    And she snorted.

    ¡°...bring it on, cunt.¡±

 Round Six: Pig

    ¡°Welcome to the Silver Wheel Gambling House. Would you like a drink, ma¡¯am?¡±

    Panic was the first reaction, as it used to be. Which was reasonable. It was all very reasonable to want to shout and scream and rush for the exit. And yet, the woman who just opened her eyes didn¡¯t. The panic came, and the panic passed, aided by the mellow atmosphere and scented smoke that wafted around them. It was designed to subdue the most violent of reactions. But nothing could subdue the confusion.

    ¡°...where am I?¡±

    ¡°As I said, ma¡¯am, this is the Silver Wheel Gambling House. I am your waitress, Teresa, and I am waiting to take your order.¡±

    Typically, Teresa was the first thing they registered, other than the general atmosphere of a classy, upscale establishment. She had a pretty, youthful face underlined by an obvious yet unobtrusive layer of makeup, paling her skin and plumping her lips to a brilliant shade of red. Her clothes were sharp and professional, form-fitting, and looked perfectly worn, as if they had been conjured flawlessly over her body and hadn¡¯t suffered so much as a crease in the years and years she must have worn it. She had withdrawn blue eyes, and she moved like someone who had operated so long in the heat of the spotlight that she had grown disdainful of laboring under it.

    The next thing guests would notice, by and by, was their surroundings, as they scanned the room for details. It looked like a high-end casino, gaudy and beautiful and delightfully fake, although feeling rather lonesome as the usual hectic atmosphere that accompanied these kinds of gambling establishments was entirely absent. Music (in this case, ¡°Why Worry¡±, from Set it Off) streamed in from unseen speakers. The smell of alcohol and lingering smoke punched through the perfume of the air. It was well-lit, with only a single shadowed corner that somehow never quite managed to escape the periphery of their vision.

    Finally, they would register the rest of the table.

    A seat, just for them.

    The table they were seated at, and the single dice in front of them, and three face-down cards.

    The dealer, in this case a young indian woman with violent brown eyes that clashed with the impish smile on her thin pale lips.

    And their opponent, sitting at the far end of the table.

    ¡°Oh, hi.¡±

    ¡°Hey.¡±

    He hissed a little bit, his finger flickering up and down, as if debating whether he wanted to raise it or not, ¡°er¡­ could you order something? The waitress is kind of freaking me out.¡±

    ¡°Oh. She¡¯s still- she¡¯s still here,¡± she noted, ¡°uh¡­ schnapps?¡±

    ¡°Very good, ma¡¯am.¡±

    She bowed her head and walked out the nearby door, where the woman briefly glimpsed what appeared to be a bar, manned by¡­ someone. The door wasn¡¯t open long enough for her to get a good look at him. She stared at the frosted glass door for a little longer, before slowly turning to the grinning dealer, who had an arm slung over the back of her chair, looking far more relaxed than her stiff-spined colleague.

    ¡°So¡­ um¡­ where are we?¡±

    ¡°Silver Wheel. Like we said. It¡¯s a magical gambling house you and your¡ª husband?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± he shook his head, ¡°brother-in-law.¡±

    ¡°Pffft. That makes sense, you could do way better, girlfriend¡± Ratna stuck her tongue out, ¡°anyway, you two have been selected by fate ¡ª or something like it ¡ª for the opportunity to participate in a once-in-a-lifetime game of chance. This, a place between the world of the dreaming and the awake, is a magical realm where you can wager anything your heart desires: money, power, talents, skills ¡ª whatever you can imagine, you can put it on the table, and use it to win whatever it is your opponent has put down.¡±

    Of course that was insane, but in spite of the fact it was unbelievable, the woman, who liked to go by Oli, believed it. She didn¡¯t bother trying to understand how paradoxical that was, because she doubted untangling that twist of logic would dispel how absolutely believable she found this situation. So she accepted it as-is.

    ¡°There are a few rules you should know before we get started. For one, every game here is winner-take-all. You can¡¯t duck out until you¡¯ve either lost all your chips, or won your opponent¡¯s. Try to leave before that, and you forfeit. For two, whatever you wager has to be seen as equal in value by both parties. So even if you think his car is worth your collection of unique owl pellets, you can¡¯t play unless he agrees. And for three, you can¡¯t wager more time. Everything else is on the table but you can¡¯t gamble for more or less time on that sweet rock you call home.¡±

    A glass of schnapps was placed in front of Oli, but she didn¡¯t quite see who put it there. A quick glance saw the waitress was standing by the door, head bowed¡­ but it would have been impossible for her to place the drink in one moment and be there the next. Another failure of logic in this strange place Oli decided not to linger on.

    Her brother-in-law seemed unusually calm. Maybe it was the air.

    ¡°If you want to play, talk over what you¡¯d gamble with your opponent. Otherwise, you¡¯re free to walk out the door and return to the waking world. No matter what you do you won¡¯t remember it, so, don¡¯t worry about getting any FOMO or whatever the kids call it.¡±

    The two of them looked at each other.

    Oli laughed awkwardly.

    ¡°Kinda a lot to take in, huh?¡±

    ¡°No kidding. But¡­ you kind of feel like it has to be true, right?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m so glad you said that, I was afraid it was just me!¡±

    ¡°So¡­ you wanna do this? I have to admit I kind of want to try it.¡±

    ¡°Oh, I do. I even know what I¡¯m willing to gamble.¡±

    ¡°Pffft, this ought to be good. My sister has already shared your recipes so-¡±

    ¡°-I¡¯ll gamble Isaac.¡±

    Oli gawked.

    ¡°...what?¡±

    ¡°Isaac. My wife¡¯s kid.¡±

    Her eyes were wide and frozen, but not in the ¡°deer in headlights¡± style. That suggested danger, fear, and an inability to process the alien destruction that raced towards you. Hers looked more like the still glare of a very large, angry man who was just spat on by a much smaller, weaker man. An almost confused, excited rage, the static before the first of his enormous hands fell like bolts from heaven.

    ¡°Neither of us will remember this, right?¡± he shrugged, ignoring her obvious shock, ¡°I know you love him to pieces and you¡¯ve always wanted a child of your own. So this seems like the perfect time to seize him for yourself, right?¡±

    ¡°...I¡­ I¡­¡± she stammered, too angry and excited to be coherent ¡°I- you can¡¯t just-¡±

    ¡°Oh, he can.¡± Ratna interjected, ¡°It¡¯s not the years of his life so it¡¯s on the table.¡±

    ¡°I-I mean, he¡¯s not even really yours-¡±

    ¡®-he is by marriage. You want him, right?¡±

    She paused.

    ¡°..yes. Yes I¡¯d play for him.¡±

    ¡°So don¡¯t try getting on your high horse, how¡¯s that sound?¡± he smiled, although there was a bitterness to his smile that she didn¡¯t recognize. Yet, sadly enough, it didn¡¯t seem alien on his face either. It was like seeing the other side of a coin ¡ª noticeably different, but you couldn¡¯t deny it was the same hunk of metal. She didn¡¯t like it. She didn¡¯t care for it at all. She squirmed a bit at the realization, and squeezed her thumb to shake herself out of it.

    ¡°Oh my god, I wish my sister could see you right now. She never believed me when I said I wasn¡¯t comfortable with you being around Isaac, but if she could hear all this¡­ you¡¯re kinda sick, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    Oli hadn¡¯t known her brother-in-law was so...callous? Then again, she supposed she had never really gotten past the first impression stage of their relationship. He was her sister¡¯s second husband, and apparently he was a widower himself. She had only met him a handful of times, but each time he seemed kind, if a little reserved. As if he was afraid of letting go, or letting something show. She had chalked it up to him still wrestling with his first wife¡¯s passing, even though there was a not-so-secret part of her, a place in her mind untouched by sympathy or empathy, that believed he must be salting his own wounds if time hadn¡¯t healed them by now.

    ¡°Good thing neither of us will remember this,¡± he shrugged aside her scathing glare, ¡°And what will you wager for the chance to get your very own child?¡±

    Oh, right. She had forgotten that part, too. It was true she had always wanted a son to call her own, and it was true that Oli desperately wanted one just like her nephew, Isaac... but what was she prepared to lose to make that happen? Money? No, she¡¯d need that to take care of Isaac if she won. Plus, she wasn¡¯t exactly swimming in it either. She had an extensive collection of exotic and unique seashells she¡¯d wager, but she doubted he was as interested in that stuff as she was. She had a master¡¯s in biochemistry she didn¡¯t technically need anymore she could wager¡­ but then, she didn¡¯t know how this place worked, exactly. If she lost it retroactively she¡¯d also lose her current job, and she¡¯d be back at square one.

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure.¡±

    ¡°Think harder. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll think of something. Maybe something you¡¯re good at.¡±

    She crossed her arms, rocking her body, as if that would make her imagination a more fertile breeding ground for thoughts. It must have worked, because she only needed a few seconds of rocking ¡ª and one sip of schnapps ¡ª before she nodded to herself.

    ¡°...you know what, if you really feel this way about your own kid, I bet you¡¯re getting up to other nasty deals, too. I¡¯ve been told I¡¯m a good liar.¡±

    ¡°So you want me to trade my kid for your ability to lie well?¡±

    ¡°He doesn¡¯t seem to mean that much to you.¡±

    He leaned forward.

    ¡°Prove you¡¯re good at lying.¡±

    She smirked.

    ¡°Sure, sure, since we won¡¯t remember this. Every nice thing I said to you about your wedding toast was a lie. It was short, and over-dramatic, and cheesy, and way worse than my sister¡¯s. And the stuff that was supposed to be moving just came off as self-indulgent. It was crap, and everyone I spoke to there agreed with me.¡±

    His aloof, dry expression actually faltered slightly at that, and under the cracks some genuine hurt seeped through.

    ¡°Really? I worked really hard on it.¡±

    And in turn, she flashed him a playfully wicked grin.

    ¡°I know. It was good.¡±

    He needed a second to process that.

    ¡°...heh. Well played,¡± he admitted. ¡°Fine. I¡¯d like to be able to lie like that.¡±

    And at that admission, like magic, two sets of thirty chips appeared in front of them: his, a galaxy-swirl of red and brown, which was every ounce as ugly as it sounded, and for her, a gradient of black-to-white chips with many healthy shades of grey in-between the two extremes.

    ¡°The chips are down and the game is official. I¡¯d say last chance to back out, but, heh, you missed it already. The ability to lie well for his kid ¡ª I¡¯d call this the most fucked up bet in this establishment but, heh, that¡¯d be a lie, too. Anyway, the game tonight, appropriately enough, is Pig.¡±

    ¡°Pig¡± is a simple dice game created in 1945 by American magician and gambler John Scarne, first written about in his book Scarne on Dice. The creation of a dice game might seem a bit out of character for a man who is often lauded as the greatest card manipulator of all time, but in reality the relatively simple game existed mostly as a way to teach would-be card sharks about probability, and has been adapted as such. ¡°Pig¡± is also the oldest example of a family of dice games called ¡°Jeopardy Dice Games¡±, a category created by famous German board game designer Reiner Knizia, which describes any dice game where progress is made by risking what progress you¡¯ve already made.

    ¡°Pig is stupid easy. You roll the dice in front of you, adding up the results of each roll, until you either roll a one or decide to hold. If you hold, the points you¡¯ve rolled that round get added to your score, a new round starts, and your opponent rolls. But if you roll a one, the points you¡¯ve rolled that round drop to zero, the next round starts, and your opponent rolls like you¡¯d expect. First person to score 100 points wins.¡±

    ¡°Of course, here at the Silver Wheel, we like to spice up our gambling with some actual strategy, and since there¡¯s not a whole lot of strategy to Pig, we¡¯ve added a fairly big kink to the rules. That, dear friends, would be the cards in front of you.¡±

    Both parties glanced at the cards next to their unique dice. Oli picked hers up ¡ª she had a +1, a -1, and a reroll. She was pretty sure she could figure out how this was going to work.

    ¡°At any point during the game, you can play a card. The +1 will add one to the dice¡¯s number, whereas the -1 will reduce the dice¡¯s number by one. ¡®Rerolls¡¯ will force rerolls of the result. Pretty self-explanatory. But if you¡¯re really lucky you can also play the ¡°fuck you¡¯¡± card, which lets you cancel whatever other card your opponent just put down. Once you use a card, it¡¯s placed at the bottom of the deck. Every time your score passes an interval of 25 ¡ª so at 50 and 75 too ¡ª you¡¯re dealt a new card. Lemmie draw attention to the fact there¡¯s only ten cards in the deck: three +1¡¯s, three -1¡¯s, three rerolls, and one ¡°fuck you¡±. You can play a card in response to the opponent playing a card, but you can only use one card per dice roll. You can¡¯t, for example, use two +1¡¯s on any single roll. If a card is played when the dice isn¡¯t showing a number, it will impact the next result. Otherwise, it will impact the result currently showing. And to keep this from being a game of pure speed, you need to let the dice sit for a few seconds before you roll it again, in case your opponent would like to play a card.¡±

    ¡°Any questions?¡±

    Oli was no gambler ¡ª at least, not compared to her brother-in-law, who seemed to have taken quite the shine to it lately ¡ª but she also wasn¡¯t an idiot. Since both of them had three cards, and there were only four cards currently in the deck, it was entirely possible, if the game went long enough, to figure out what was in your opponents hands by just remembering what got played in what order. Card counting, made easy. What made it more complicated was the fact that she didn¡¯t know if their cards were dealt randomly, or if they both started with a +1, a -1, and a reroll by design. And asking, unfortunately, would probably signal to her brother-in-law her hand, even if she kept it vague.

    However, as near as she could tell, the cards only helped to mitigate the randomness inherent in the game.You could use the reroll or the +1 to avoid any 1 rolls, allowing you to roll longer, and you could use the -1 to force your opponent¡¯s 2¡¯s to become 1¡¯s¡­ or cancel out an opponent¡¯s +1, she supposed. End of the day, she wasn¡¯t convinced the cards changed that much¡­ unless there was something she wasn¡¯t seeing, it all largely hemmed on luck.

    Speaking of¡­

    ¡°No? Great. Then all you dorks need to do is roll your dice. Whoever gets the higher number starts. Reroll if it¡¯s a tie, obviously.¡±

    Both Oli and her opponent picked up their dice wordlessly, but they were glaring daggers at each other from their ends of the table. But despite the lightning in the air, everything was still in that moment. Shockingly so, save for the slow drip of sweat off Oli¡¯s half-empty glass. Oli wondered what was going on in his twisted little head for a brief moment, entertaining all kinds of uncomfortable notions, before giving up on the exercise and throwing her dice rather carelessly into the air: much different from his more efficient scoop, shake, and spill method.

    Still, both produced results: she got a 5, and he got a 3.

    ¡°The lady rolls first.¡±

    ¡°Thank you for calling me a lady.¡±

    ¡°Thank you for assuming I put any thought into my word choices.¡±

    Well, there was nothing to it but to do it, she supposed, as Bob Dylan ¡°Don¡¯t Think Twice, It¡¯s All Right¡± plucked its way to live across the radio, she started throwing her dice through the air. 5, 2¡­

    ...she waited with baited breath to see if her brother-in-law would pounce on that two. He wordlessly shook his head no, inviting her to continue rolling. She obliged, and next got a 3, 3, and 5.

    18 total so far. She glanced at her brother-in-law, whose face hadn¡¯t even twitched. She considered, briefly, holding: but with two cards that could save her from a 1 roll, she had no real need to hesitate yet.

    4. Another 4. And finally, after hitting 26, she rolled her first 1. Since he could counter her +1 with a -1, she dropped her reroll card, and got a 6 instead. He continued to do nothing. Not even a nervous twitch as her score leapt up to 32, nearly 1/3rd of the score she needed to win, and all she¡¯d need to secure a new card.

    ¡°If I didn¡¯t know better I¡¯d think you wanted me to win.¡±

    ¡°Why would you think that?¡± he asked, his emotions uncharacteristically muted.

    ¡°You don¡¯t seem nervous or anxious or¡­ like you want to win? This isn¡¯t poker, you don¡¯t need a poker face.¡±

    ¡°I can see why you¡¯d find that weird. Ratna, how does the Silver Wheel ¡®work¡¯? I gambled Isaac, but how will I lose him if I lose this game?¡±

    ¡°Oh, the Silver Wheel will find a way. In the waking world it will all feel very natural,¡± Ratna rattled on, her undying smile sparking with new, villainous life as she matched eyes with the brother-in-law, ¡°a chain of events, predictable and traceable, will lead to your son being taken from you and given to your opponent over here. Likewise, if you win, the same thing will happen to you: a series of coincidences will make you a better liar, while more coincidences will rob your opponent of her ability to do it well. Rest assured of nothing else, the Silver Wheel will find a way to make it happen. Everything that follows is mere¡­ collateral damage.¡±

    ¡°I see. So why should I feel nervous?¡± he shrugged, ¡°If I lose, I won¡¯t remember I lost Isaac. From my perspective, I won¡¯t have put him at risk, I¡¯ll have him taken from me by an uncaring and unpredictable universe. I¡¯ll cry. I¡¯ll be sad. But that¡¯s a future that¡¯s not even certain to happen. It¡¯s just as likely I¡¯ll get to keep my son and inexplicably become a better liar. Which will open all kinds of doors to me¡­ like, being better at writing wedding toasts.¡±

    ¡°I really doubt you¡¯d gamble your kid for just that. Don¡¯t you love him?¡±

    ¡°Of course I do. So the fact we both agree your ability to lie is worth him must mean we both know you¡¯re exceptionally good at lying.¡±

    Oli scoffed, fingering the dice indecisively, unsure if she should cast it again and risk needing to use another card.

    ¡°What¡¯s that supposed to mean?¡±

    ¡°Well we both had to agree this was an even wager before we started, right? So you must really value your lies if you love them as much as I love Isaac,¡± he leaned forward, ¡°And I¡¯m kind of curious why. Do you do a lot of lying, Oli?¡±

    ¡°Of course not,¡± she eventually dropped the dice, without rolling it, ¡°but you can be good at something you don¡¯t do.¡±

    ¡°Right,¡± he sighed, ¡°so you¡¯re holding?¡±

    ¡°Yeap.¡±

    ¡°Smart girl,¡± Ratna chuckled, grabbing her discarded reroll card, sliding it under the four-card deck, and dealing her a new card ¡ª another +1. So now her hand was two +1¡¯s and one -1. She almost would have preferred another reroll, but at least she had a vague idea of what was in the deck now: at least one reroll at the very bottom, and statistically, at least one -1 and the ¡°fuck you¡± card.

    ¡°Alright, can our terrible father beat out 32 points? Let¡¯s find out.¡±

    Her brother-in-law picked up his dice very casually, and gave it a toss. 6. 5. 3. 3. 3. 5. Exactly 25. He put the dice down after a rather uninspired six rolls, and turned to their dealer with the same muted smile.

    ¡°I¡¯m holding there.¡±

    ¡°Quitter. At 25, you¡¯re still 7 points behind your opponent.¡±

    ¡°Yes, I can count, thank you.¡±

    Still, unlike Oli, he hadn¡¯t used a card to get this far ¡ª but that didn¡¯t disqualify him from getting a new card for hitting the 25-point mark, meaning he had four cards to her three, and he had reduced the size of the deck from four to three. That, she realized, gave him a fairly sizable advantage over her¡­ but with two +1¡¯s she should still be fairly safe.

    ...it was only then, as she picked up her dice to take her turn, that a thought came to mind.

    ¡°...do you think I¡¯m lying to you?¡±

    ¡°I think everyone lies.¡±

    Her first roll was a 3. This dice really liked 3 for whatever reason.

    ¡°And you want to be better at it.¡±

    Her second roll was a 6. Nine points this round so far.

    ¡°Are you curious why?¡±

    Her third roll was a 1. She immediately dropped her +1.

    ¡°If I¡¯m going to keep this kid in my life,¡± he continued in lieu of responding with a card, allowing her to roll again, getting another 6. ¡°I¡¯ll need to lie better if he¡¯s going to believe I love him. And maybe I can lie to myself until I actually do.¡±

    She shouldn¡¯t have been surprised by his bluntness, he had been almost destructively straightforward ever since she had arrived at this weird place. And yet, she still found her perspective of the world shaken. She was so surprised she forgot she was planning to stop rolling that round and let the dice slip out of her hand ¡ª luckily for her, it landed on a two.

    ¡°How could you not love such an amazing boy?¡± she asked breathlessly, ¡°he¡¯s so cute and adorable and he¡¯s so obedient and quiet, and he¡¯s got such brilliant green eyes and he¡¯s so smart and funny. I always feel so loved with him, it¡¯s like he¡¯s a little love and hug and kiss factory and he¡¯s always working overtime. Your son is a treasure!¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s alright I guess.¡± Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!

    He picked up his own dice to take his turn, assuming she was done. All-in-all, she had rolled 19 points, putting her at 51 points. So Ratna snatched the +1 she had already used and gave her the top card of the deck: the legendary ¡°fuck you¡±, which literally had a cartoon face of their dealer, Ratna, flipping the bird. She would have smiled, but she was still fuming at her own brother-in-law¡¯s obstinance, and merely added this card with her -1 and her +1.

    He rolled. And as luck would have it, it immediately landed on a 1.

    ¡°...alright then,¡± he nodded to Oli, indicating it was her turn.

    ¡°You can¡¯t just ¡®alright then¡¯ this,¡± she pushed forward, ¡°If you feel this way about your kid, why gamble for my ability to lie? Why not¡­ gamble for my love or something? So you could love him the way I do?¡±

    ¡°Good question. Why didn¡¯t you offer it?¡±

    ¡°...er¡­ well, it doesn¡¯t matter, does it? I¡¯m pretty sure I¡¯m going to win.¡±

    ¡°At this rate.¡± Ratna chuckled, ¡°roll away.¡±

    A 5. And immediately afterwards, a 1.

    Oli¡¯s finger twitched to the +1, but then she paused: if she used it now, she¡¯d have no other card to stop her from losing: just a -1 and a ¡°fuck you¡±, and no guarantee she¡¯d ever make it to 75 points, where she¡¯d draw a new card.

    So instead, she just shook her head.

    ¡°Spoke too soon. You¡¯re up.¡±

    He nodded, and rolled his dice. A two.

    She immediately slapped down her -1.

    ¡°Or did I?¡±

    He blinked, ¡®cracked¡¯ a half-smile that literally seemed to rip through his blank, emotionless face, and shrugged. ¡°Alright.¡±

    Ratna claimed the -1, and Oli had the field again. That was as good a time as ever to use the -1, she figured, and if he was going to insist on not using his cards, she¡¯d happily steamroll him. The way he clung to his cards, it made her suspect maybe he was trying to lose.

    She rolled a 2. She paused, but he didn¡¯t return the favor. Even though she was certain he must have had at least one -1 in his hand, since the four-card deck should contain one reroll, one +1, and one -1: since she didn¡¯t have another -1, and there were three -1¡¯s in the deck, the other had to be in his hand.

    So she rolled again. 5. 5. 4. Sixteen points so far.

    ¡°What will you ever do with him when he¡¯s yours, I wonder?¡± her brother-in-law asked, resting his chin on his palm. That smile he cracked earlier had broken the shell on his face. He was getting anxious. The tells were starting to show: his fingers were digging a little too hard into his cheek, he was leaning just a little farther forward than before, and his gaze was still on the dice as he spoke. She played with it in her fingers, and watched his eyes flicker as she deftly manipulated the plastic cube.

    ¡°I guess a lot of that depends on how I get him. I¡¯m sure I¡¯d let my sister and you visit him, of course, but I think I¡¯d want to move once he¡¯s in my house. To a better neighborhood. Oh, and I¡¯d homeschool him, if I could. I¡¯ve always wanted to be a teacher, you know, and I¡¯d love to shower him in the love I¡¯m sure he doesn¡¯t get from you.¡±

    A bolt of rage cracked under his face, catalyzed with the help of his thinly-masked anxiety. He very consciously leaned forward, his chin falling on his propped-up arm so he could squeeze his hands together. She could faintly hear his feet tapping rhythmically with ¡°Digital Witness¡±, by St. Vincent. The pulse of his thoughts.

    She rolled another 5. His cards were face-down on the table, and he finally broke his glare away from her dice to glance at them.

    ¡°...does that¡­ upset you?¡±

    She held the dice up¡­ and dropped it.

    She got a 1.

    She didn¡¯t need to think: she played her +1, turning that 1 into a 2, salvaging her 23 points.

    She waited for him to respond.

    In his endlessly baffling manner, he didn¡¯t. Either to her card, or her question.

    Ultimately, she decided to stop there: she was one point away from getting a new card, but while her ¡°fuck you¡± could stop him from using a -1 on her, it couldn¡¯t help her if she rolled another 1. Her point lead was strong enough as is, and she would use her ¡°fuck you¡± to end his turn as soon as possible, then make her next turn as quick as well so she could claim that last card and prepare for that final stretch of points.

    ¡°And by banking it, she¡¯s secured 74 points over her opponent, who¡¯s still stuck at 25. Let¡¯s see if he can not suck long enough to actually get some points this round.¡±

    He clasped his dice and sighed. A few deep breaths to steady him, to channel good vibes into his own plastic cube. For what little good it would do him.

    And it worked, at least for the first roll. He got a 5.

    Oli leaned forward. If he got a 1, no matter what, she wouldn¡¯t let him change that. All she needed was that one in six chance. That one opportunity, and she could clinch this game with her enormous lead.

    His next roll was a 2.

    Then a 4.

    Then a 3. Fourteen points so far.

    ¡°Okay¡­¡± he muttered under his breath, breathing onto his dice, before rolling again. It seemed this dice liked being talked to, because it rewarded him with a 6.

    Too many points for Oli¡¯s tastes: but as long as he kept rolling, he was at risk of getting a 1. And all of these points didn¡¯t matter until he ended the round, and judging by the way he picked up his dice again, he wasn¡¯t done just yet. Which meant her hope was still alive.

    At least, until he got another 6 .Twenty-six points, pushing him past the 50 point mark.

    He exhaled, as if the weight of the air in his lungs was becoming too much to bear, and he was finally enjoying release.

    ¡°I¡¯m done.¡±

    ¡°Of course.¡±

    At 51 points, he just barely passed the halfway mark, and earned himself another card, making his four-card lead a five-card lead. It was only now that Oli realized this was probably his strategy from the beginning: to claim as many of the limited cards in the game for himself for one legendary, unstoppable roll combo. Plus, by having five cards in his hand, assuming he was counting cards the way she was, he must have known that she had the ¡°fuck you¡± card, and that she was going to reclaim the reroll she played earlier in the game after her next turn.

    There were no new cards after 75. So she needed to win with one reroll and one ¡°fuck you¡±. Which seemed more than doable: his strategy might have been daunting, but it¡¯s dice that ultimately determine if you win, not the card.

    Plus, if they were cycling through cards and she was already back at drawing the reroll she had used first, she knew exactly what cards must have been in his hand: one +1, two -1¡¯s, and two rerolls. Only one of which would guarantee he survived rolling a 1. Even if for some reason she wasn¡¯t able to finish the game in the next two rounds, she was far from out: he¡¯d still have to get fifty points.

    Swelling with confidence, she picked up her own dice and tossed it. A 5.

    ¡°I¡¯ll stop there.¡±

    ¡°Pussy,¡± their dealer snorted, ¡°but I guess 79 points is better than 51. Alright love, you¡¯re up.¡±

    As he picked up his dice, the dealer handed her the final card she¡¯d earn this game: the reroll. Looks like she could count to ten after all.

    He squeezed the dice between his fingers, pressed it to his forehead as if offering it a prayer, and threw it. 5. 5. 6. Already, sixteen points. He paused here, glancing away from his dice to Oli ¡ª they both knew he couldn¡¯t stop there, she was too close to winning to not take chances, but the tension was getting too much to bear long strings of throws. Every time the dice clacked and clattered and warbled in the air, it felt like a bolt to the chest. An intense longing on both sides of the table for very different things. Even the effort to pick up the dice felt like swimming through syrup as both minds wracked with what they stood to lose from this game. The assurance that they wouldn¡¯t remember didn¡¯t seem to alleviate the way it once had.

    He dropped the dice. A 3. Oli almost wished it would take longer to land, so she could mentally brace for each drop better. But¡­ she could also feel her mind racing, not just with fear, but with possibility. Of what could happen next, when he rolled a one, when she finally got a turn, of how her life would change when Isaac was finally hers.

    He rolled again. A 6. He was at twenty-five points, which meant if he stopped now he would be at 76. On one hand, he had to stop here, because thanks to her ¡°fuck you¡± there was no way he could survive rolling a 1. But on the other, if he did stop here, he¡¯d need her to roll at least three 1¡¯s before scoring 24 points: because she would ¡°fuck you¡± his first attempt to give her a 1, and she still had a reroll in case she got a second.

    He was thinking. His hands were twitching, not so much ¡®clawing¡¯ into the table as much as they scratched helplessly into the fabric, as if trying to rewrite his situation. Whatever thin disguise of ambivalence he may have worn earlier was completely gone now: he well and truly wanted to keep his wife¡¯s kid in his life.

    ...so why had he gambled him in the first place?

    He picked up the dice again.

    He decided he couldn¡¯t risk letting her roll again.

    The next roll landed on a 4. He¡¯d have 80 points if he stopped now.

    The next roll landed on a 5. He¡¯d have 85 if he stopped now.

    Oli was standing up now. Ignoring the nearly empty glass at her side. Deaf to whatever music was playing in the background. She was so close. She just needed a 1. A single 1.

    He picked up the dice again.

    It landed on a 6. He¡¯d have 91 if he stopped now.

    ¡°Comeon¡­¡± Oli whispered, biting into her lower lip so hard she risked bleeding. He, too, was starting to stand, casting nervous glances between the dice and their dealer, who was drinking in the atmosphere like a bemused cat.

    The next roll was a 3. He¡¯d have 94 if he stopped now. He was within striking distance of 100. If he rolled a 6, he would win. If he rolled a 6, she¡¯d be forced to use her reroll on him.

    She started to pray. She was too anxious to know exactly who she was praying to, to direct her hopes with a name or address, but she started feverishly praying that he would get a 1, asking whoever would listen to give her this. She made so many promises. So many vows to be better, to do better, to go to ¡®church¡¯, whatever that meant to whoever was receiving her aimless prayers, but she said them sincerely nonetheless, because that long-distant hope was the only thing she had left now.

    He picked up the dice, whispered into it, and let it fly from his hands.

    ...and it landed on a 1.

    ¡°Ohmygod Yes! Yes! Yes!¡± she praised, while he released a string of curses that would no doubt offend whatever deity was seated on her shoulder. Of course, he dropped his +1 card, and equally obviously, she dropped her ¡°fuck you¡±. Canceling it out.

    ¡°Ooooh, so close!¡± Ratna laughed as the brother-in-law dropped his head to the table, gripping both sides as his fortune turned against him, ¡°But hey, you¡¯re not out of this yet, big guy. Your opponent still has to get twenty-one points, and you almost hold all the cards. Alright sweetie ¡ª you¡¯re up.¡±

    Oli¡¯s elation was short-lived: Ratna was right. she had one reroll, which wouldn¡¯t so much guarantee she survived a 1 as much as it improved her odds slightly. Meanwhile, with two -1¡¯s, her opponent could easily punish a 2, forcing her to use her reroll early.

    But still¡­ only twenty-one points. With luck, she could win this in four rolls. And even if she failed, he¡¯d still have to roll 49 points: with only two cards that could undo the damage of a 1.

    She hadn¡¯t won. But she had good odds.

    And she threw her dice.

    It landed on a 3. She only needed eighteen points now.

    She threw again. A 6. She only needed twelve points now.

    She threw again. Another 6. She only needed 6 points now. She was within striking distance of victory. Both of them were exhausted from his last turn, but neither of them had settled down either: both still standing, both still clenching teeth and hagged breathing as their game inched closer to a conclusion.

    She picked up her dice¡­ and she threw it.

    ...and in a stroke of incredible luck, it landed on a 1. As if their dice conspired to toy with them as they edged dangerously close to victory. But she still had one card to her name, and she played it: giving her one free reroll.

    ¡°Comeon¡­ comeon¡­!¡± she hissed as she picked up the dice, glaring at its corners, somehow sharper than any knife she¡¯d seen in her life, ¡°for Isaac¡­!¡±

    She threw the dice.

    A 4.

    If she stopped here, she¡¯d have 98 points. Which meant this next throw would determine if she won or not. A 1, or a 2, and she¡¯d lose, and it¡¯d be up to her brother-in-law to close the enormous point gap between them. Anything higher than a 3¡­ and he¡¯d force her to reroll. No doubt. But he could only make her reroll once, and he couldn¡¯t drop a -1 if she rolled a 2 on the second roll, so she only had to roll a 3, 4, 5, or 6 on the first roll, and anything but a 1 on the second.

    ...but if she ended here¡­ she could secure these points. She¡¯d give him a chance to catch up, but he had 49 points to go and only two rerolls to make that happen. And if he used them¡­ then her odds of winning would be even greater.

    Oh god. This was the toughest decision of her life. Did she play it safe¡­ or go for the win?

    ¡°I need you to make a decision, sweet cheeks,¡± their dealer leaned forward, her grinning face dangerously close to Oli¡¯s, ¡°Are you holding¡­ or rolling?¡±

    She stared hard at the dice.

    Then picked it up.

    ¡°Screw it!¡± she shouted, angry, petulant, at the notion that she was being put in such a difficult situation. But the way she figured, she already had a strong lead on him: 79, 98, she was still close enough to be scary for him. And making him use a reroll now, if necessary, would still mean one less reroll for his own herculean climb to bridge the gap between them if it worked in his favor.

    So she picked up the dice, and she threw it.

    It bounced.

    It spun.

    It lasted every bit as long as she had hoped it would last a few short minutes ago.

    And as the head of the dice spun, both parties could clearly see the number she had rolled before the dice had even settled.

    It was a 1.

    ¡°No! No! What fucking bullshit!¡± Oli shouted, while her brother-in-law could only breathe: he¡¯d been holding it in this whole time, knowingly or unknowingly, and seeing that single dot finally untwisted the valves that controlled the air into his lungs.

    ¡°Oh, don¡¯t relax yet, buddy,¡± Ratna snorted to her brother-in-law, ¡°You ain¡¯t out of the woods yet, Mr. 51 points. Good luck.¡±

    While Big Data¡¯s ¡°Dangerous¡± started playing over the radio, her brother in law picked up his own dice. With no more cards in her hand, and no more chances to get them, Oli could do nothing but hope and pray, if she could decide who she was actually praying to. Or if it mattered.

    He picked up his dice¡­ and he threw .

    The first roll landed on a 5.

    The second¡­ landed on a 1.

    ¡°Shitting me¡­¡± he muttered, dropping his first reroll card so he could take another crack at it. The dice was much nicer following that, giving him a 5 instead.

    The next roll was a 2. Then a 5. Another 5. 3. 2. He had racked up 22 points so far, and if he had ended here, which of course he wouldn¡¯t, he¡¯d have 73 points total. Not even enough to get a new card, but too close for Oli¡¯s liking.

    <ol start="6">

    <li>  And then another 6, which made Oli¡¯s heart ache. </li>

    </ol>

    And then finally, his second 1.

    But of course, he dropped his second reroll card, getting a 4 instead. Which meant he was out of lifelines. Assuming she was counting her cards correctly, he only had two -1¡¯s left. He had nothing but luck to carry him for the remaining 11 points that separated him from victory. Still far too close for her taste, but she was glad they had leveled the playing field at least somewhat.

    ¡°Please¡±, she begged in her own mind, praying to the same formless, nameless deity who had answered her the first time, ¡°Just one more 1¡­ please¡­ one more 1¡­.!¡±

    And her god, benevolent and kind, responded.

    He rolled a second 1.

    ¡°Oh thank god thank goooooood!¡± she exhaled, pounding her chest as if to steady her throbbing heart, picking up her own dice. ¡°That scared the crap out of me. But-¡±

    ¡°Put down the dice, sugar. His turn¡¯s not over.¡±

    Wait¡­ what? That shouldn¡¯t be right¡­

    She opened her eyes and looked at the table. His 1 was still there, but next to it was a -1 card. He had reduced his own die result to 0.

    ¡°...that¡¯s bullshit. That doesn¡¯t count, does it?¡±

    ¡°Rules say you stop when you roll a 1. He¡¯s rolled a zero, so his turn¡¯s not over,¡± Ratna shrugged, as if it were the most normal thing in the world, ¡°Your mistake was assuming that the -1 could only be used aggressively. But boytoy here had figured out that every card, sans the fuck you, is really just an opportunity to keep your combo going.¡±

    ¡°...no. No, that¡¯s¡­ that¡¯s such horse shit. That shouldn¡¯t work! That shouldn¡¯t work!¡±

    But while she complained, he had rolled again. A 2. A 4. and then a 6.

    He had crossed the 100 point gap.

    ¡°And I think I¡¯ll hold it here.¡±

    ¡°Smart man. And our winner is Aarav-¡±

    ¡°No! I refuse to accept this! I was so close! Let me talk to your manager- or, or let¡¯s play again!¡± Oli leaned forward, slamming her fists into the table, ¡°Double or nothing!¡±

    ¡°...how do I ¡®double¡¯ Isaac?¡± her brother-in-law asked, eyebrow raised.

    ¡°I¡­ I don¡¯t know, but you can¡¯t¡­ you can¡¯t take my ability to lie, I¡­ I um¡­¡±

    She struggled. She floundered. She found herself wrestling to do something that had come as easy as breathing not moments before. It was as if the connections she needed to make to create a fantasy even she would believe couldn¡¯t form anymore. It took concentration. It took visible effort. It was almost impossible.

    ¡°Don¡¯t bother trying anymore, I already won,¡± her brother-in-law sighed, regaining control of the situation as if he wasn¡¯t sweating bullets not more than a few seconds ago, ¡°Don¡¯t beat yourself up over it. I knew what we were playing and had time to plan. And more experience with this shitty place.¡±

    ¡°...what¡­?¡±

    He gestured to the wolf-like dealer, who was collecting the cards and the dice. She flashed Oli a bloodthirsty grin.

    ¡°That¡¯s my dead wife. And she drags me here all the time.¡±

    ¡°...I don¡¯t understand, your ex is¡­ dead and¡­¡±

    ¡°Not dead enough if you ask me,¡± he snorted, ¡°but yeah, didn¡¯t you think it was weird I knew her name even though she never introduced herself?¡±

    ¡°...you cheated, didn¡¯t you? You- you had a loaded dice, didn¡¯t you? You and your whore of a dead wife set me up, didn¡¯t you?!¡±

    ¡°Well it was my idea to bring you here, so¡­ yeah, sure.¡± Ratna beamed, ¡°But since my two-timing hubby went and got remarried I don¡¯t so much as lend him a hand either on or under the table, if you know what I mean.¡±

    ¡°This¡­ this has to be some kind of bad dream¡­¡±

    ¡°Haha. You¡¯re half-right,¡± Ratna chuckled, sweeping away from the table and resting her arm across Oli¡¯s shoulders, ¡°...it¡¯s certainly bad.¡±

    Oli reeled backwards. Silent in a defeat that was so awful she couldn¡¯t even lie to herself to make her think it was somehow survivable. Keenly aware of her loss, she could do little but accept as Teresa gently grabbed her shoulders and steered her out the door, into the yawning void that waited to drag her back into the waking world.

    The married couple glanced at each other. Ratna leaned up and pecked his cheek.

    ¡°Good job.¡±

    ¡°Scared the crap out of me, are you sure you didn¡¯t fix the dice?¡±

    ¡°Heh, nope,¡± she leaned away from him, cupping his hand and dragging him towards the bar, ¡°You¡¯re just so handsome even lady luck¡¯s fallen for you.¡±

    ¡°Bite me.¡±

    ¡°You wish.¡±

    ~*~

    ¡°The world¡¯s gone to shit.¡±

    Of course, when Marie Walker had thrown the key to the Silver Wheel into the abyss, the gesture was purely dramatics. As Teresa had pointed out to Ehije from the very start, the key was merely symbolic of ownership: once Marie Walker had died, ownership had once again transferred to Teresa, who was quick to re-establish the Silver Wheel¡¯s original purpose. Only two creatures on earth, Gene Oberman and Miss Nine, knew of the Silver Wheel now, and both of them could be trusted enough to leave it well enough alone, so Teresa did not extend her purging wrath to them.

    The Silver Wheel was a mystery to the world once more.

    Exactly what Teresa had wanted from the very beginning.

    Teresa was cleaning up the parlor while the night¡¯s victor sat at the bar, drinking a rummy cocktail, Ratna seated on his lap, arms wrapped affectionately around his neck. The sensation was strange for Aarav, who hadn¡¯t known his dead wife to be so tender, but in the many times she¡¯d dragged him to the Silver Wheel since it reopened in its former glory, it usually ended this way. Him having barely scraped a victory from the jaws of defeat, and her mocking him for choosing to get remarried when the ¡°woman of his dreams¡± was still around.

    Still a headache. Still the love of his life.

    ¡°With no other Maries, no one¡¯s really smart enough to handle Walker Industries. And since everyone¡¯s still convinced that the ¡®veil between dimensions¡¯ is thinning, well, there¡¯s a lot of panic. All non-essential interdimensional travel and trade is shut down, which basically means we¡¯re being watered and fed by other earths but that¡¯s just about it. Governments are scrambling to get control of her P.I.N.K technology, all the power she¡¯d been generating with her interdimensional power stations, everything like that. The world is shit and it¡¯s only getting shittier, so¡­ I¡¯m glad to hear there are other worlds out there doing better. Makes me think maybe there¡¯s still something we can do to fix our mess.¡±

    Aarav had a second job, other than entertaining his dead wife: keeping them abreast of current events. Teresa didn¡¯t want to be caught off guard by another Marie Walker, and thus, wanted an agent on her version of earth who could keep up with any potential threats and keep her abreast of any who might need nipping in the bud. His only reward for this was getting to spend more time with Ratna, but the payment was good enough for him. Waking up in the Silver Wheel was waking up to the reminder that his ex-wife, while forgiven, did not hate him, or blame him. An emotional oasis he knew he would forget upon waking, but he was sure he still managed to carry with him through the waking world¡­. somehow.

    ¡°So, same shit, different asshole, then?¡± Ratna asked.

    ¡°Just about. Hey, uh, can I have a refill¡­ um¡­¡±

    ¡°You may call me Xecho, man of mystery and liquor¡± their new bartender turned, flashing a cunning grin that was undercut by Aarav¡¯s knowing frown as he tapped his chin.

    ¡°...no, wait, you were Chester last time. You said your name was Chester.¡±

    ¡°Please forgive Ehije,¡± Teresa interjected, appearing beside and behind Aarav, bowing her head, ¡°he is still struggling with managing the professionalism his job demands. He will stop operating under aliases soon. I trust.¡±

    With Marie dead, Ehije was, indeed, killed in prison soon after arriving. But that worked out well, as far as he was concerned: it meant his last-minute gamble had paid off, which left him feeling like the world¡¯s best gambler and con-artist. So he died with a smile, or at least, he tried to smile. It was hard to keep smiling while getting beaten to death by prison guards.

    Still, he couldn¡¯t say he was surprised to wake up in the Silver Wheel. A dark soul that barely edged its way to the light before death: he was the perfect candidate for an employee, and as it turned out, he already had work experience here.

    ¡°Please do not be cruel, Teresa, surely there is no harm in my little game. It helps keep me amused during the long workday.¡± Ehije grinned.

    ¡°Yeah, let him call himself stupid names. I like Xecho.¡± Ratna chimed in.

    Mr. Eight, who wasn¡¯t in the room but could still chime in, agreed.

    Teresa, for all of her flaws, could not ignore the virtues of democracy, and nodded.

    ¡°Very well. But if you had any hope of becoming employee of the month, you will need to reconsider how you act in front of patrons.¡±

    She gestured to the employee of the month plaque. She still had her own face there.

    ¡°...yeah, about that, shouldn¡¯t we, I dunno, memorialize Ture there or something?¡± Ratna asked, brow furrowed, ¡°the dude did die trying to protect the Silver Wheel.¡±

    Teresa looked at Ratna as if she were speaking some alien language.

    ¡°He was not an employee when he did that. So he does not qualify.¡±

    ¡°Ah, right. I¡¯m the stupid one, silly me.¡±

    Teresa paused, her eyes darting back and forth slightly, as if trying to read the room.

    ¡°...I¡­¡±

    Everyone turned to look at her.

    ¡°...I cannot in good conscience declare him the employee of the month. But Ture will always be a special friend in my¡­ heart. And I look forward to seeing him again, in a bright place.¡±

    Ehije smirked, and raised the glass he was refilling for Aarav.

    ¡°Cheers to that.¡±

    ¡°Yeah! Cheers!¡± Ratna joined in, throwing herself over the counter to blindly grope behind the bar, grabbing an empty glass to hold up.

    Mr. Eight, now in the room, elegantly plucked two empty glasses from the back, and handed one to Aarav, who held it up as well. Cheers.

    ¡°Cheers.¡±

    Most of their glasses were empty, so they couldn¡¯t drink or toast. And by the time they had filled each glass, Teresa had wandered off ¡ª probably to clean something, or simply to escape the memory of the bartender she had lost. Still, everyone else drank, and talked, and cheered, and enjoyed the happy dream that the Silver Wheel sometimes offered those who visited it.

    But all happy dreams would need to end eventually.

    And Aarav¡¯s would end when he stepped out the door, and opened his eyes.

    ~*~

    Over the next few days, Isaac retreated into his room more and more frequently, much to the concern of his mother and his new dad, Aarav. The wedding had been hard for Isaac, who had spent much of it with his aunt while his mother and new father were celebrating, and at first they assumed he was still adjusting to having a new man in the house. Aarav understood. He still struggled waking up next to a new woman in his bed. But while doing laundry right after one of Isaac¡¯s visits with his aunt, he noticed an unusual stain that a nine-year-old should not be able to produce: one that could have been mistaken for a mere spill of water were it not for the stench of bleach that had clearly been used to disguise a more incriminating smell.

    Aarav had suspicions. But his wife loved her sister, and Oli, for her part, effortlessly breezed past his efforts to probe exactly what it was she was doing during Isaac¡¯s visits. He had been looking for some proof, some evidence, that he could use against her, something that didn¡¯t involve putting Isaac on the spot: he didn¡¯t want to be accused of trying to use, or, god forbid, manipulate his new son to cause a split between the two sisters.

    After a particularly good sleep, that opportunity finally arrived: he noticed Isaac had a slight bruise on his hip. He called Oli about it, as Isaac had once again been over there, and Oli insisted it was just from a slight fall he got playing in her yard. When he asked Isaac where the bruise came from, Isaac said he didn¡¯t know. And when he asked Isaac what he did with Oli, ¡°playing in the yard¡± didn¡¯t come up.

    A weakness, which he latched on with the hungry fervor of a starved shark. When he asked Oli why he didn¡¯t remember playing in the yard, she insisted he was sleepy, which was what led him to getting bruised in the first place. When he pointed out he was over around lunch, she insisted he was sleepy because he had a big lunch. Isaac couldn¡¯t independently collaborate this. When she accused Aarav of trying to create a crisis for drama¡¯s sake, he pointed out there was no one else in the call who could hear them, and with no audience there was no drama.

    It wasn¡¯t much, but once they hung up, Oli was shaken. She realized she couldn¡¯t go on without Isaac, but she also couldn¡¯t risk slipping up again. She started overthinking. She started overplanning. Creating an increasingly intricate web of lies that she tried to drag Isaac through. A more competent, willing accomplice might have been able to navigate her turbulent weave of misinformation. But Isaac was clumsy, and scared, and he didn¡¯t understand the seriousness of the situation.

    In the end, desperate and fumbling as Aarav relentlessly pursued the story to its logical conclusion, she tried to give Isaac a phone so she could better control his story even when she wasn¡¯t there. A phone, she very quickly realized, that became evidence.

    Oli was arrested. Her family was devastated. And both Aarav and his wife were investigated for suspicions of their own complicity with the scheme. And Isaac, he was left confused, and scared, and unable to know what was right and what was wrong, who he could trust, and who he could safely love.

    And one night, when Aarav had to comfort his sobbing step-son, Isaac asked him if he was going to be okay.

    And Aarav, now a much better liar than he was when this all started, could confidently say that he would be.

    This is not the last story that the Silver Wheel shall tell. It will continue to spin, twisting the threads of fate for those fortunate ¡ª and unfortunate ¡ª who are caught in its alluring spokes. Directing fate from the shadows, assuring that those with the guile, charm, and luck to endure her trials are rewarded, and those who fail are punished alike. And you may never know when you find yourself caught up in these strings: every turn of good luck, every twist into misfortune, every unexpected gift and every sudden loss ¡ª it may be a sign that you, too, have played a game at the Silver Wheel Gambling House.

    But it will be there.

    A single cog in a wild, wonderful universe. Unpredictable, vast, and beautiful in its glory and horror.

    Waiting for your next visit.

 Epilogue

    ¡°Northwest Passage¡±, by Stan Rogers, played quietly on the radio, and slowly pulled her heavy eyes awake.

    Marie Walker yawned, smacking her lips together as she blinked out the window. It¡¯s dark. The rolling of the car jostled her slightly as she peered around her father¡¯s half-awake daze, staring at the clock in the car.

    It says 4 AM in blinking, green lights.

    She doesn¡¯t know where they¡¯re going, and she never asked, because wherever they go, they¡¯re never there for long. They park, they refuel, they go for walks and stand in line for rations and supplies, before they pack it up and travel again. Circling wildly around the broad, semi-tamed swatches of Canada, running from something they can never quite escape.

    She should be terrified, but she¡¯s not. She actually quite likes it.

    ¡°For just one time¡±, she would remind herself, ¡°I would take the northwest passage¡±, perfectly in tune with Stan Roger¡¯s heavenly, syrupy voice. This was a journey. An adventure. And while her legs hurt and she didn¡¯t sleep well and she¡¯d heard the same five playlists over and over for the past two years, she never ceased to thrill at the adventure. Her memory was flawless, but even when they traveled a road she knew well, she would always find something new to memorize and catalogue, which in turn, she could turn into any number of adventures and stories, possibilities and of course, entertainment. Even as little as a crashed car or a new corpse conjured endless hours of speculation as she imagined the long, endless chain of events that could have led to that small adjustment in the world. Retracing the winds of a hurricane to the careless take-off of a distant butterfly.

    ...of course, that only worked when she could see out the window. It was too dark for that now.

    She would have taken out one of her handful of books that shared the backseat with her, or maybe beat Wario¡¯s Woods again on her old Game Boy Color, which was still sticky from the time she dropped it in her pancakes a few years ago. But her mother was twitching and moaning in her sleep. Which meant she was having one of her dreams again. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

    Her mother had very lucid dreams, and often spoke when she slept. Both Marie Walker and her father could derive some amusement from playing into her dreams, having an abstract and often loving back-and-forth rapport with the unconscious woman.

    ¡°Hngg¡­¡± she hummed, ¡°three of a kind¡­¡±

    ¡°Three of a what?¡± she asked in a whisper, prompting her father to turn around and smile, unaware until now his daughter had woken up.

    But her mother didn¡¯t answer¡­

    ¡°...shit¡­ j-jackpot¡­¡±

    ¡°Mom?¡±

    Her mother didn¡¯t answer. Marie Walker reached forward to gently nudge her elbow, which usually would have woken her up, but wherever she was, she was there too deep. There was no drudging her out.

    ¡°So¡­ Silver Wheel¡­ will¡­¡±

    ¡°Silver Wheel?¡±

    She glanced at her father, who glanced back at her. The road was empty, so he could afford to exchange shrugs before he turned to look straight ahead once more.

    At the time, neither Marie Walker nor her father understood this was the most important dream of their lives. Soon afterwards, during one of their pit stops, her father would buy a lottery ticket on a whim, simply because he had the change, and he would win a healthy sum of cash: not much, but enough for them to get a new, self-driving car, one with enough space in the trunk for more supplies for Marie Walker¡¯s schooling. This included a small engineering kit, which Marie Walker quickly used to prototype a new kind of bioelectric battery that could recharge someone¡¯s phone using their own heartbeat. This invention would be refined and improved until it made Marie Walker her first million, and from there, Walker Industries would start to indulge Marie¡¯s fascination with exploration, seeing other worlds, and uncovering the mystery of the Silver Wheel ¡ª a hypothetical space Marie Walker figured her mother may have visited that somehow twisted reality to bring her this sudden upturn in fortune.

    No, at the time, she would merely look back out the window, staring at the dotted, occasionally broken line of streetlights that illuminated the road, and hum alongside her hero and favorite singer, Stan Rogers.

    Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage

    To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea;

    Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage

    And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.