Mardock Scramble полностью

–Naturally.

–No fair!

She felt Oeufcoque chuckling somewhere at the back of her hand.

Balot had got it all wrong. At first she thought that the old man was being paraded about by the younger lady, the helpless gent reliant on the woman’s kindness. But that was all an act that he put on for her sake; in reality, she was the one who was utterly dependent on him.

–Don’t be too hard on yourself, Balot. You worked it out for yourself and pretty quickly too. That’s impressive—you’re allowed to give yourself a little pat on the back once in a while, you know, particularly when you deserve it.

In other words, the plump lady didn’t have any chips of her own. Only those that she was allowed to play with. The dealer knew this all too well—it would have been one of the first things he worked out. And that’s where he was targeting his manipulative inducements.

“It’s funny—I can feel that I’m about to start winning, but I never quite seem to get there…” the woman grumbled.

The dealer consoled her with platitudes. “Perhaps we haven’t quite served enough time at the game for the cards to start taking a liking to us yet, madam?”

“What do you think I need to do in order to start winning more?”

“My best advice is to try out a number of different things for yourself, all the while taking advice from a player who knows the game well,” replied the dealer.

On the surface the scene seemed straightforward—a case of the dealer gently flattering his two customers. This was only the tip of the iceberg, though; much more was going on under the surface.

–The dealer is appealing to the old man’s sense of chivalry. He’s being set up as the white knight in shining armor, with the woman being set up as the damsel in distress.

This was Oeufcoque’s analysis of the scene as it played out.

–The dealer didn’t really have to do much to make things go his way. The old man already felt chivalrous, and the woman has long suffered from damsel-in-distress syndrome. There were plenty of opportunities for the dealer to hand them the poisoned apple.

–But the old man’s been contradicting the dealer!

–That’s all part of the dealer’s plan…

–What do you mean?

–The dealer’s deliberately been feeding him half-mistakes, getting the old man to correct him. In doing so, the words are coming out of the old man’s mouth. It’s much easier to get him to act accordingly. After all, if the old man is the one saying the words, he’s hardly going to expect that they’ve been planted in his mouth. He thinks he’s acting of his own free will, but really he’s at the dealer’s beck and call.

Balot’s head started to spin. She couldn’t help but be impressed at how meticulously the dealer had planned the whole situation.

Not only that, to look at him you wouldn’t have the slightest inkling that he was being so manipulative. Ingenious.

–Now then, back to our little game. Let’s see how it’s progressing.

Oeufcoque was talking about the game where they guessed who would leave the table first, of course, not the card game.

–I still think it’ll be the woman.

Balot stuck to her guns. The old man might have been passing on some of his chips to the woman, but he showed no sign of running out anytime soon. And if the old man’s pride was indeed the key to the dealer’s success in manipulating him, well, wouldn’t that very same pride ensure that he wouldn’t run out of chips in the near future?

Before long the game was over—the red marker card appeared again, just at a point when the dealer had bust. There was a pause. Just as Balot thought, the old man still had his large pile of chips intact.