Mardock Scramble полностью

She slotted it in gently. The wheel spun and settled, and she was nowhere near winning. She stuck the next coin in.

She let it go at precisely the moment she felt the wave rising. She lost again. But as a result, she sensed clearly that the wave still had farther to go. Balot breathed in, then out.

She waited for the wave to rise, coin held firmly in her hand.

Then her hand moved. Before she knew it, the coin had been released, the button pressed.

–What…?

Balot snarced Oeufcoque, surprised.

“It’s not a good idea to win too much at this stage. You’ll be marked out.” Such was Oeufcoque’s answer. He had caused her to let go of the coin early.

The wheels in the machine spun around and stopped.

There was no siren. Instead, about twenty five-dollar pieces clattered out of the bottom of the machine. Balot was confident that if she’d been allowed to get the timing absolutely right, she would have won at least ten times that.

“Remember that out of all the chips in the casino, we just need the four that we’ve come for. We could win hundreds of other chips along the way, or not, it really doesn’t matter in the end—either we get the four we’re after, or we fail. For now, best play it safe and make sure we don’t draw the casino’s attention unnecessarily.”

–I thought you said you’d let me have some fun…

Balot seemed a little disappointed.

“It might seem like fun to you, but somehow I don’t think the people around you will see it the same way. Casinos like winners—but not people who win too much.”

Oeufcoque’s words reminded her again of the cameras overhead.

Balot meekly collected her winnings in her basket and went to rendezvous with the Doctor.

03

“So, you think you’ve started to get the hang of it?” said the Doctor.

The Doctor had nothing in his hands, so at first glance it looked like he had lost all his chips, but, “Looks like we’re just around the ten thousand mark combined,” he went on to say, surprising Balot by pulling out a handful of thousand-dollar chips from his pockets.

–Aren’t we going to use these machines to try and get Shell’s chips?

“Even if we were to bleed all the slot machines dry, we’d still be shy of two million. There’s no way we could reach our target. In any case, we don’t want to seem like we’re taking the casino head-on.”

–So what are we going to do?

“Make some money off the other punters.”

Balot’s ears pricked up. They’d been over the plan a number of times, but only the main points and in broad strokes: what to do, when, and how to do it. The overall master plan was firmly the Doctor’s territory.

“Well, looks like our supply train has come in. All that’s left for us to do now is mosey on down to the front lines.” The Doctor finished speaking and walked over to the other side of the slot machines.

Once they had escaped the maze of the slot machines they arrived in a large, expansive room, big enough to fit a number of tennis courts side by side.

A number of gaming tables were lined up in the middle of the room in an orderly fashion, and on either side were green plants decorating a cocktail bar. The bustle and clamor of the previous room had completely disappeared.

This space was far more chic, and the atmosphere could have been described as sophisticated.

A number of immaculately turned out dealers stood behind their tables, like actors holding the stage. Waitresses carrying trays of complementary drinks circulated briskly. Some of them wore traditional bunny outfits, and others sported outfits bearing card-inspired designs or the brand names of certain alcoholic drinks.

“You know what a mechanic is, don’t you?” the Doctor asked under his breath, and Balot nodded in response.

The Doctor had told her all about mechanics—card sharps. Everything from their modi operandi to their motivations—why they risked everything to cheat at cards. Some did it for the sheer thrill, others saw it as a shortcut to fame and riches. In other cases—particularly for those who grew up as dealers in the territories where casinos were illegal—cheating was just par for the course, an act as natural and obvious as eating and drinking.

“Let’s see if we can hook ourselves a couple,” said the Doctor. “If we targeted the casino right at the outset then we’d be out on our heels before we knew it. So our next maneuver should be one that benefits us the most while benefiting the casino at the same time, and certainly not causing them any loss. That’s how we’ll dig our trench, so as to provide us with a solid foundation from which we can launch an all-out offensive later…”

–But would we be thrown out even if we didn’t actually cheat?