Oeufcoque was nearly shrieking, but then, as if realizing he was only making her more afraid, he suddenly stopped himself.
Balot pulled herself together and signaled that she understood. She lightly squeezed her left hand over her leg.
There was a strange tension in the air. The seventeenth hand was also a tie.
Fatigue was setting in, a nameless weariness.
Blackjack demands you endlessly walk a long, long path.
Over the long path, there are ups and downs—the road is never flat. But this—this was like trudging through a barren desert. There was no path to be seen; the scenery shifted from moment to moment, but in the end, nothing changed. All you saw was the flat, boundless horizon.
At the twenty-second hand, something different happened. The Doctor had an ace and a queen. Balot had a 5 and a 6 and hit to draw a king. Two twenty-ones, side by side.
Ashley’s upcard was a 2. For the first time in the match, Ashley spoke.
“This is easy. Not having to do anything. I don’t have to entertain you, and I don’t have to trick you either. You both play with precise tactics. That way, I don’t even have to think about anything.”
He reached for his hole card. A bad premonition ran down Balot’s spine.
It was a 4. The 2 and 4 made six. He drew a card: 4. Another: 5.
Before Balot’s dazed eyes, Ashley smoothly, dispassionately, turned over the next card: 6. The 2 and 4 and 4 and 5 and 6—twenty-one.
Balot felt something scream deep inside herself. He was toying with them, with his unchanging cards. A heavy fatigue was building up inside her, even worse than if she had been losing.
Behind Ashley, Bell Wing stood watching with a clear face. After the twenty-seventh tie, Ashley placed one hand over the other and leaned over, like a waiter who had just finished setting down their meals.
“This is a good place to take a break.” The red card was on top of the deck, without a single card to spare.
Balot was stunned. And the Doctor, who had placed the card himself, stared at the card shoe as if it were a fortune teller who had just correctly guessed his birthday.
Ashley’s bulky hands never paused. He began to shuffle.
“You two have wonderful luck,” he said. “I wonder to which one of you it belongs. The gentleman? Or the young lady? Or is there someone else who brings it here?”
Balot could sense information coming to Ashley through his earpiece. How much she and the Doctor had won and in which games. What was remarkable about their methods. Under what circumstances did they prevail. From those bits of information, Ashley had sensed a third party.
So said the third party. Balot’s fists were clenched.
Ashley finished the shuffle. This time, Balot inserted the red card into the stack of cards. His effortless cut seemed to swallow up her influence on the deck with supreme skill.
And as Bell and the large audience watched, the second round began.
Ashley’s first upcard was a 2. The Doctor drew an 8 and a 10—stay.
Balot had a 3 and a 5. For a moment, she considered staying, but in the end, she decided to hit. A jack. Eighteen. The same as the Doctor.
Ashley revealed his hole card—a 6, making eight. Next, he drew a queen, making eighteen.
Even if she had recklessly stayed, all that would have resulted would have been her loss.
The Doctor added more chips to his bet. Balot followed suit and raised her bet, from three thousand dollars to six. It was both Oeufcoque’s instructions as well as her desire.
She wanted to feel in control of something, if only to dispel the depressing sensation of total stagnation. And the number of chips she placed before her was the singular thing she had control over.
“Such luck you have,” said Ashley. “Its power is affecting even me.”
Balot and the Doctor were progressively raising their bets. To the dealer, it should have been a pivotal moment. But Ashley’s management of the cards was undisturbed, leaving no openings for attack. He seemed to be taking their hands and instantly ripping them to shreds.
“I’ve never met a player who could rival my luck. That’s why the casinos treat me like the door to the vault. But maybe this time, someone has come holding the key.”
Ashley kept repeating that word,
Maybe this man had the singular ability to arrange the deck in such a way that the outcome would be inevitable.
A shuffle that could manipulate the order of over three hundred cards—that would be a skill with a singular purpose.
There was no sign of marked cards hidden at the bottom of the card shoe.
It would also explain why he had opened new decks. Unsealed cards could be in any order, but if he knew the order the cards came in, he could potentially arrange the cards using his particular technique. Granted, it was hard to believe such a technique could exist.
But the real problem was what that technique would bring. Their fatigue would build and build, and eventually they would be sent away. But if the casino’s orders were to retake her chips, he wouldn’t have a way to do so.
Why didn’t he have a method to force the players to lose? Was he trying to tell them that they were free to leave now without consequence? Balot didn’t know—and she could sense Oeufcoque wanting to ask the same questions. If Ashley wasn’t setting some trap, then wasn’t he just trying not to do anything? Sure, he was like an iron wall, but he’d be nothing more.
But Balot couldn’t quit now. Just because she’d obtained one of the four chips, she couldn’t have said,
The Doctor had said that memories were many-body information. They grew along with the passage of time, but at the same time, memories of one time were connected with memories of another. If Shell’s memories were divided between four chips, those memories couldn’t be reproduced without all four time lines. And if the memories couldn’t be reproduced, all they’d have is an album showing the growth process of neurons.
Their goal wasn’t that kind of analytical research—it was the details of Shell’s deeds, and without those, their entire battle—and Balot’s game—would be without meaning.
The Doctor sighed. “We may have to change our tactics.” For the first time since starting the game, he took his chips off the table. He placed half of them back down.
The cards came. Ashley’s upcard, a queen.
The Doctor had a 5 and a 7; twelve. Balot had a king and a 4; fourteen.
The Doctor hit and received an 8. His total, twenty.
“Hit.” His tone was defiant, like an underling in a gangster movie facing down the barrel of a gun, crying out, “Go ahead, shoot me!”
Ashley looked at the 8 and edged up his chin as if to say, “That’s the card you got.”
“I said hit.”
The Doctor hit his finger against the table, insisting on the card.
In the face of such reckless self-destruction, Ashley swiftly turned over the next card.
A 6.
“That’s a bust,” stated the dealer.
The Doctor shrugged. The situation was obvious. Anyone could see it. Even Ashley.
The problem was that the Doctor had exposed himself. He had called out the perfect deck. But how would their opponent move next? Everything depended on that.
Balot hit. Her card, a 6. Her total, twenty.
