Greenies

more than make the entire table fold at once, leaving his pot nothing more than the half of a credit that made up the ante. It would be better if he played them up a little first, drew them in.

'I'll open for two tenths,' he said.

His PC, which was open before him and utilizing the standard poker program he'd downloaded when the game was first introduced to him, heard his words and automatically subtracted .2 credits from his bank account and transferred it to Hicks' computer, where it was stored in an escrow folder known as 'the pot'.

'Fuck my ass,' said Xenia Stoner, who sitting next to him. She was dressed in her MPG T-shirt and shorts like everyone else but the lack of a bra beneath it was plainly obvious and quite a distraction to the males at the table. 'I'll bump you a tenth.'

'Three tenths to me, huh?' said Hicks. 'What the fuck? It's only credits. I'm in. What about you, Zen?'

'I'm in this motherfucker too,' said Valentine. 'Three tenths.'

Steve Sanchez, at sergeant, was both the oldest and the highest ranking at the table, the only one among them who had been a member of the MPG prior to the revolution. He made a look of disgust. 'I'm out,' he said, throwing his cards down. 'Somehow I don't think this jack-high I'm holding is gonna be improved much.'

This brought it back around to Jeff. 'You still in, Waters?' Hicks asked. 'Or do you need to call your mommy first to check?'

'Still in,' Jeff said. 'Another tenth to the pot.'

Hicks' PC made the announcement that the pot was now right with one point seven Martian credits in it.

The five of them at the poker table were all members of the 17^th Armored Cavalry Regiment, as was every one of the other 1736 men and 755 women currently stuffed into this particular staging area. It was very crowded, very noisy in here, with a haze of tobacco smoke obscuring the view across the room. The entire regiment had been deployed to their defensive positions the day the first Earthling landings took place but they'd been pulled back into the base as soon as it became clear the Earthlings were following strict doctrine and would have to march to the city to fight. The 17^th ACR had been on what was called 'one hour readiness' ever since. This meant that every last one of them could be back in those defensive positions, armed, armored, supplied, and ready to fight, in less than sixty minutes if the call-up came. Unfortunately, the only way to insure this one hour state of readiness was to keep all of the personnel in a holding area close to their biosuits and the airlocks to the outside. They couldn't drink alcohol or smoke marijuana. They were not allowed to make voice or text message or to send any other form of communication out of the base. They could shower and shave but that was only about once every three days at the rate the waiting list was going. To make it all worse, the cigarette supply — which came from Earth and was therefore getting pretty low planetwide — was quickly dwindling to the point that packs of smokes were going for twenty credits apiece or two hundred and fifty dollars.

The sheer boredom was a worse enemy than the marines. About the only thing there was to do was watch MarsGroup on the Internet screens or play poker. Jeff and Hicks had both decided that the latter of these choices was far superior. Their companions at the table — Sanchez, Valentine, and Xenia — were the crew of one of the tanks that provided overwatch to their platoon when they were out in the field.

'Okay... cards?' Hicks asked, picking up the deck. 'How many you want, Mr. Jacks or better?'

Jeff took the deuce out of his hand and tossed it down in front of Hicks. 'Just one,' he said.

There was a murmur around the table at his actions, a few disquieted looks. Jeff did a good job of keeping his poker face neutral, especially when he looked at the new card he'd been given and saw it was another four. He had a full house! A full fucking house!

But Xenia only took one card as well. What did she have? Had she just pulled down a full house as well? If she had, odds were that it would be higher than the paltry fours over eights he was holding. He looked at her, trying to read her emotions but it was impossible. She had been playing the game longer than Jeff.

'Could be I have straight flush,' she told him sweetly when she saw his perusal. 'Or it could be I have a broken straight. That's what makes the game interesting, isn't it, Waters?'

Jeff returned her smile, an expression he'd rarely offered to anyone in the past, particularly people of the female persuasion. He, like all of the other men at the table, was strongly attracted to her although he held very few illusions about actually having a chance with her. In the first place, he was still married to Belinda, the woman who was still sitting back in their one bedroom apartment in the Heights, living off welfare money, contributing nothing to the revolution, her ambition in life to pump out her one child so she could score the extra bedroom and the extra welfare allotments that came with it. Jeff had no problem with the thought of cheating on her, in fact he planned to never touch her again, to dissolve their blessed union as soon as the fighting was over and he had a chance to take a little breather, but the most significant barrier between himself and Xenia was their upbringing. Xenia had been brought up in an employed family living in the Casting Meadows section of Eden — a solid, middle- class neighborhood. Her father had been a mid-level manager for MarsTrans, one of the highest positions a Martian could hope to rise to in the Earthling corporate system. Xenia herself was an educated woman, the holder of a bachelor's degree in agricultural engineering. She had been working for AgriCorp as a planting supervisor when the revolution came. She was articulate and well spoken, everything Jeff fancied he wasn't. He knew there couldn't possibly be anything she would see in a multi-generational ghetto dweller five years her junior, but still, she was always friendly to him, always had a kind word to say to him, and genuinely seemed to like his company despite their differences. In the back of his mind there was a part that always seemed to be wondering if there was some spark there.

'This is startin' to look really bad,' said Hicks. 'Dealer takes two. How bout you, Zen? What do ya, want?'

'Three,' Valentine said in disgust. He slapped his discards down hard enough to send one flying off the table. Hicks picked it up wordlessly and then dealt him three more.

'Okay,' Hicks said after giving everyone a minute or so to peruse their cards, 'the bet's to you, Waters. What do ya say?'

'Half a credit,' he said.

'Hmmm,' said Xenia, casting a wary eye upon him. 'Someone seems to think he has something going on here.'

'Could be,' Jeff said. 'You in?'

'I'll see your half and raise you another quarter credit,' she said.

'Fuck this shit,' Hicks said, tossing down his cards. 'Dealer folds.'

'I'm out too,' said Zen. His cards joined Hicks'.

'Well?' Xenia asked Jeff. 'You gonna put up?'

Just what did she have? Was she bluffing? Or did she really have his full house beat? Did she think he was bluffing? He decided to push the envelope a little. 'I'll see your quarter and raise you another half,' he said.

She hardly blinked. 'Call,' she said. 'Let's see what you got, tough boy.'

He took a deep breath and laid his cards on the table. 'Full house,' he said. 'Fours over eights.'

Her poker face collapsed, turning to a frown of disgust. 'Oh fuck me raw with an apple picker,' she said. She put her cards down. They were the eight through queen, all in a nice order but of multiple suits. 'I thought you were bluffing. I finally fill in a goddamn straight and your scraggly ass gets a full house. I hate this game.'

'Its kind of a microcosm of life, wouldn't you say?' Sanchez asked, giving her a meaningful look. He was on the prowl for her as well and seemed to be hoping that his status as a semi-educated man would help make a connection with her. Sometimes it seemed like it was working, sometimes, like now for instance, it didn't.

'What the fuck's a microcosm?' Hicks asked. Like Jeff, he was a product of the ghetto school system, which was to say he had dropped out shortly after ninth grade and was barely literate.

'A small example that symbolizes a larger concept,' Xenia replied, flashing her warm look, her smile at Hicks now.

'Huh?' he asked.

'It's like this poker game, this hand we just played,' she said. 'You can look at it as a microcosm of the war.'

'How's that?' asked Jeff.

She looked at him. 'You're a beginner to this game,' she said. 'Someone that a more experienced player like me would assume an easy target, a walkover. You bet high and risked a lot while I assumed you were trying a half-assed bluff to try to rook me out of the pot. However you weren't really bluffing. You were sitting there with a