Mardock Scramble полностью

Balot re-split, received another 10, and stayed. Her second re-split card also received another 10, and she re-split again. And so on and so on. It was only when she came to the sixth split that she drew a 7 and finally stopped.

The dealer looked like a bank robber hemmed in by police on all sides. Police with advance notice of when the break-in was due to take place. The dealer’s shaking hand moved toward his own cards now, slowly turning over his hidden card, well aware that it was the pin to a hand grenade that was about to blow up in his face.

The dealer’s hidden card was a 10. Bringing the total number of tens on the table up to twenty.

The dealer’s total was eighteen. Of the ten bullets that Balot and the Doctor fired toward him, one missed and the other nine landed with deadly accuracy. The dealer was at death’s door.

–The prize is within our grasp now.

Oeufcoque’s words floated up on Balot’s hand as if he were giving her his blessing. Balot was truly thankful to have Oeufcoque silently watching over her.

–All we need now is a couple more good chances and you should be able to pin it down.

By “it,” Oeufcoque of course meant the thing that they had come to this casino for. The four million-dollar chips. The Doctor’s instructions came to mind again—they must steal the yolk without touching the white or the shell.

The payout came. Between them Balot and the Doctor were looking at over half a million dollars. The plump lady might have lost big to the house, but in one fell swoop Balot and the Doctor had won almost five times as much from the casino.

–See, it’s like I said. Stop being stingy with your chips, and they stop being stingy to you!

Balot grinned cheekily, as if to say that this was only natural.

–But it’s going to be a little tricky now, isn’t it, Uncle? With all these chips cluttering up the table, I mean.

“Fine, well, once we manage to win a bit more we can exchange our chips for larger denominations.”

–Okay, Uncle! We’ll just have to win some more then!

“Sure. I think that if we could double what we have now then that ought to do it.”

That bizarre conversation out of the way, Balot gave a convincing show of bracing herself for the next set of cards. Likewise the Doctor.

The dealer stared at the pair of them in shock, as if they had each just grown a pair of wings.

–Now we need to make sure this dealer stays put at this table.

Instructions from Oeufcoque flashed up.

–We need to convince the house that we’re a useful set of customers, ready to be milked for all we’re worth. Otherwise they might switch dealers on us or even ask us to leave the casino.

At this point Balot noticed that the dealer was listening to instructions being sent to him through his earpiece. It seemed that the dealer had asked an attendant for more chips, and that the attendant reported this back to the floor manager. The dealer was being subjected to a lecture from an authoritative-sounding voice.

The floor manager’s analysis was that the pair at the table were probably ordinary punters, high rollers who had somehow slipped through the net of the casino’s usually comprehensive VIP screening. But until their identities could be confirmed for sure, the dealer’s orders were to try and contain them. Keep the bets as low as possible, set a house maximum limit, and distract them with prizes and trinkets—free-stay coupons at the hotel, first-class plane tickets, and whatnot. Balot, though, had no intention of being contained by such things. She had to come up with a plan. She thought about what her opponent wanted. How she could act as if she were about to fulfil their needs.

–Hey, Uncle? Why don’t we play a different sort of gamenow? First to use up all their chips?

Balot gave her best impression of a spoiled brat who always got her way, however capricious.

“Come again?”

–A battle between me and you. First to get rid of all their chips wins.

The Doctor was visibly stunned. As was the dealer. “That’s not, er, what this game is really about, you know? Or rather, I should say that’s not how you play at a casino…” said the Doctor.