Mardock Scramble

She drew a face card—clubs.

–As I thought—you did come to my rescue, after all.

She hit again, still speaking apparently to herself. This time she received a 5. Hearts.

–Ah, finally! Thanks for dropping by.

Still prattling inanely to herself, she chose to stay.

–I’ve always bet on hearts, all along, but I think that this heart is particularly worth betting on.

“Well, there’s a stroke of luck for you,” said the Doctor, ever the Doctor, as he stared intently at the dealer’s upcard.

The dealer had a 5 and 7. He drew a picture card and bust.

“You know, you’re exceptionally gifted at predicting the cards. Your uncle never would have guessed that one, you know,” continued the Doctor.

–Yeah. The spade seemed to want to stick his oar in, but the heart went well with the club, so I thought it was worth betting on them to see if it would work out.

“Hmm, I see. You’re having a conversation with the cards, you could say? Talking to them?”

The dealer handed over her winnings with an expression that seemed to suggest that he’d rather Balot kept her conversation for people and let the cards sort themselves out.

The game progressed along similar lines for another few hands, and then Balot had a jack and 10 appear in front of her.

Balot now put on a triumphant air, pointing at her cards.

–I was waiting for these! See! I knew my clubs would come crawling back to me before too long. A little too late, though, don’t you think, Uncle? I don’t really need them anymore.

The Doctor just nodded, somewhat carelessly.

Balot was the only one to win that hand.

She received her winnings but pushed them over to one side, apparently uninterested by the chips—bored by them, almost.

She could almost hear the dealer’s state of confusion cranking up a notch.

At this point the dealer should really have given up on trying to read Balot, taken stock, and just continued with a level head; he still had the house edge on his side, after all, and it wasn’t as if the house had started losing heavily yet. It wasn’t even his own money that he was losing. But the dealer was determined to crack Balot, to work out what she was thinking. His smile remained, but it was growing more and more strained.

–Does this person still want to bankrupt me, Oeufcoque?

–It seems so. Of course, all that’s really happening is that he’s losing the plot.

–Why is he even that bothered? It’s just a job for him, isn’t it?

–That’s the sort of person he is, no doubt. He needs to be in control. Trouble is, the dealer doesn’t really have any direct influence over his own game. Take away the natural advantage that he has by playing to the rules and the dealer’s not much more than a bystander, after all.

–I see that.

–The trouble is, there are some dealers who try and use that natural advantage as a shield, stepping out of line and going over and above the call of duty to try and get more. This dealer is a perfect example of that: he’s cold, calculating, and very, very good at parting punters from their money. The corollary of this is that he needs to be in control at all times—he’s the dominating type. And that’s something that we can use to our own advantage in so many ways.

It wasn’t long before the Doctor picked up on the turn of events and pitched in wholeheartedly to their strategy of befuddling the dealer. He nodded along at Balot’s impenetrable statements and threw back a few of his own for good measure.

“I must say, I’m most impressed, O niece of mine. It seems like I’ve created a monster!” The Doctor praised her conspicuously and lavishly, virtually forcing the dealer to follow suit. The dealer wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to be praising, of course. Before long he found himself talking in the most abstract of terms: most impressive, wonderful, how perceptive of madamoiselle.

The game reached its middle stages, and another instruction came from Oeufcoque.

–Try changing your posture now. When the next hand comes, cross your legs.

Balot did as she was told, crossing her legs as soon as her second card was on the table.

The dealer shouldn’t really have been able to see under the table, of course, but nevertheless he seemed intently focused on her actions.

–Right, now for the next few hands, try shifting your position constantly—from left to right, as if you’re trying to see the cards out of the corner of your eye.

The Doctor hit and received his card. His total was now seventeen, and he stayed. During this, Balot shifted her body so that her back was half turned to the Doctor.

It became her turn, and she hit on fourteen to take her up to eighteen.

Instead of responding immediately, she crossed her legs again, looked at the cards from the left corner of her field of vision, and declared her intention to stay.

The dealer couldn’t take his eyes off Balot—they were still glued to her as he flipped his own hidden card over.

The dealer had two 9s—total eighteen. A draw with Balot; the Doctor was defeated.

Balot asked Oeufcoque a question as the cards on the table were collected.

–What are we trying to do now?

–Humans have a natural tendency to order things in their mind, to put things into neat boxes so that they can better understand them. We need to make sure that the visual cues we give off are consistent with that—in other words, we need to look as we’re supposed to be feeling.

–I don’t understand at all…

–For example, when you’re thinking about something you really like, your eyes look to your left. When there’s something you don’t like the idea of, your eyes shift to your far right. When you think about something you admire, they fix on a point in the distance somewhat to the left. Oh, there are plenty of individual variations on the theme, of course, but statistically speaking most people tend to have the same “tells”—there’s a fixed pattern. Those who are skilled manipulators can train themselves to be able to read people by just their eyes and body language, working out their opponent’s thoughts and feelings without them even saying a word.

–This dealer is checking me out?

–Of course—it’s one of the basic principles of psychological manipulation. As I said, not just eye movements but also the positioning of your hands and feet, the way your face is turned, the slope of your shoulders: all these are supposed to be a map, a diagram to someone’s current psychological state.

Balot looked at her cards and couldn’t help but feel a scowl, even if she didn’t show it. Had the dealer really been watching her so all along? Like a Peeping Tom? It wasn’t a nice feeling.

Determined to destroy the picture that the dealer had so assiduously drawn, Balot now shifted this way and that. Then sometimes she would confuse him further by refusing to respond at all to the cards, keeping her posture frozen. It didn’t take much. The dealer, who had been ruling the roost at his table, manipulating the players every which way, was now dancing to Balot’s tune—and he didn’t even realize it.

She would smile aimlessly, apropos of nothing, and the dealer would be forced to smile back. Then she would go all grumpy, causing the dealer to turn serious, wondering what the matter could be. Before long, Balot was sure that if she asked him to jump, his only response would be “How high?”

–I think the time is now ripe to enlist the Doctor to our cause.

As Oeufcoque spoke, Balot noticed that a new strategy chart appeared on her left hand—the Doctor’s moves.

Balot waited for the Doctor to bust, then offered to help.