Mardock Scramble полностью

There were three cameras pointed at the table. Not that they were particularly paying attention to it at the present time—they were simply three of the many that scanned the room, and they happened to monitor Balot’s table.

Balot snarced the three cameras ever so slightly, causing them to shift just a few millimeters. The security systems on the cameras themselves were fairly easy to crack—after all, it wasn’t as though the customers were likely to climb up to the ceiling and adjust them individually. Balot did adjust them, so that there was now a small blind spot that happened to be just about where she was sitting.

Balot’s cards at the time were K and 8.

The flop was 10, 6 and J.

–See if you can tune into everyone’s breathing patterns.

Balot obeyed, honing in on the breathing rhythms of everyone at the table, including the dealer. They breathed in, then out. In again, then out again.

There wasn’t a single one of them who could survive without breathing, after all.

The cowboy’s breathing was the roughest. His breaths were centered around the area from his chest to his shoulders. The old gentleman’s exhalations came from below his belly. The dealer, the other mechanics, and the Doctor all breathed from the area between their chest and their belly.

Their breathing changed as the game progressed, and in particular all of them began breathing heavily when it came time to call.

–Aim to call your hand at the precise moment everyone has fully exhaled.

Balot followed Oeufcoque’s orders obediently, and she fell into a new pattern of play, almost without meaning to.

–Try and relax, go with the flow.

The moment Oeufcoque said this, Balot’s right hand moved suddenly, of its own accord. This was the instant that everyone at the table had just finished exhaling. Balot found that she had exchanged one of her cards with one of the Doctor’s cards that he had just laid down on the table after folding in the first round.

–You see, the instant between exhaling and starting a new breath is the moment a person’s guard is at its lowest.

Balot’s cards were now K and Q. Nobody had noticed.

–Looks like clubs really are your lucky suit.

Oeufcoque’s words were simultaneously an observation and a prediction.

The third round of betting began. The Doctor and the potbelly had both already folded, so it was now a four-horse race. The turn card was J. This made a pair with the jack in the flop, so anyone who had three of a kind on another number would automatically end up with a near-unbeatable full house. The hand now came down to a battle of wits as each attempted to guess whether the other players were nearly there, already there, or just bluffing.

The old gentleman raised, and the suit called. The cowboy called and raised again.

–Raise to the limit.

Balot entered her money to call, then raised a further $120. The calls went round the table, the cowboy raising and Balot re-raising. By the end, the pot contained over two thousand dollars.

The calls finished, and with them the third round of betting.

Balot couldn’t stop her chest from throbbing.

The dealer put his hand to the card shoe.

The fact that his eyes glanced at the hand signals of the man on the far left didn’t escape Balot.

The river card was flipped over.

A.

Incredible—and for a moment, Balot really couldn’t believe it.

–That’s what I thought—I figured our chances were about one in four for this one, Oeufcoque whispered to Balot as she continued to raise the stakes throughout the round.

–It’s a peculiarly human characteristic to be biased toward a certain suit or number, to give off a particular smell whenever confronted with it. The man on the far right gives off relief whenever a spade is dealt, for example. The others, too, give off distinctive odors whenever they see a certain suit. It seems that clubs aren’t very popular at this table.

–Is that why so many are coming to me? I’m getting everyone’s leftovers?

–I suppose you could call it the inevitable surplus, yes. But, you know, this is what many people would call luck, or destiny.