Mardock Scramble полностью

That was fine with Balot. It was no more than the truth, after all. Part of her did really feel this way, and it seemed for a moment that there was a different version of herself sitting in the chair.

The dealer drew his card and it was a 6—his total was now sixteen. As per his obligation under the rules he drew another. A 5. Total twenty-one. There were sighs all around.

Had Balot not drawn her last card, the dealer would have gone bust, and everyone at the table would have won.

Instead, as a result of Balot’s actions, everyone lost. Having said that, Balot was no longer bothered. If you wanted to win, you should have predicted what cards I was going to draw, she thought, unapologetic.

Everyone’s chips were collected, and a new game began. After that Balot lost two more hands, won one, and then seemed to settle into a pattern of winning and losing alternate hands.

When you were destined to lose a hand you lost it, no matter how you bet or what you tried—that was blackjack.

You could lose because you had drawn a card, and you could lose because you hadn’t.

You could draw on a twelve and bust, or you could stay on a sixteen and lose because of it. Then there were those hands where you were always going to lose whether you drew another card or not, because the dealer simply had a better hand. This happened not once or twice, but repeatedly.

On the other hand, it could go the other way—you didn’t have to do anything and could simply win over and over again. Whatever you did, whatever the other players did. Call it luck if you like, but such luck didn’t just come out of nowhere; many battles were fought, and people had struggled with tactics and strategy to work out the optimal course of play through blood, sweat, and tears before finally reaching the depths of the game.

The battle raged on, a microcosm of Balot’s inner turmoil.

Win or lose, it was all in vain if she didn’t manage to keep a cool head and a steady hand.

–Concentrate on your breathing.

Oeufcoque had to remind her constantly of this.

Balot knew for herself that this was the best way for her to stay in control.

Even when she had learned to use a gun, the first thing she mastered was her breathing. The Doctor had drummed it into her that it was what she needed to focus on at all times; when she was first taken to the hideaway, after the trial, whenever she had a headache.

Balot concentrated on the feeling of what it was like when she was at her most relaxed and tried to remember what her breathing felt like then, inhaling, then exhaling. She had always thought that breathing was one of those things that happened of its own accord, varying from hard to gentle depending on the circumstances, but when she actually put her mind to it and focused she was surprised at how much she could control her breath and how much in turn that improved her composure and her mood.

When she breathed deeply into her stomach, she felt relief. When she breathed into her chest, she felt hope. When she breathed into her shoulders she felt her whole pulse quickening, and when she breathed focusing on her pulse she felt a strong sense of identity, of knowing the ins and outs of her body.

Her aim now was to ensure that she would be able to breathe consistently and calmly, regardless of whether she won or lost at the table.

Turning her mind to this made her realize just how stiff she had become since sitting down.

Curiously, it wasn’t even the high stakes that were making her feel tense and uncomfortable.

Six hundred thousand dollars—an unthinkable sum of money in her previous life.

As the Doctor said, it wouldn’t be at all strange if she’d wanted to just take the money and run, forgetting all about the case.

But the hatred that she felt burning away inside her was not about to accept the consolation prize of mere money.

The hatred that she felt was in fact for the money itself, and also for those people who were its slave. Virtually everyone she knew who was motivated by money ended up coming to grief one way or another. Not only that, the more grief they came to the further they got sucked in and the more they started believing that money would solve all their problems. The more money you had the more you could do with it, true, but also the more it ended up doing to you.

This was why it was no longer simply a question of money for Balot. She had been hurt by other peoples’ pursuit of money, but now it was time to turn the tables and to use that very money that had hurt her as her tool to do it. Balot was fired up, but she wouldn’t let this fire disrupt her game. She breathed in deeply, determined to stay in control so that she was ready to make the right decisions no matter what the game threw at her.