Mardock Scramble

HIT THE JACKPOT AND DRIVE AWAY IN ONE OF THESE BEAUTIES!

The Doctor sat down at a slot machine near the cars. Even as he explained its workings to Balot, he was pouring coins down its hatch. The cylinders started revolving, and the moment of truth approached. One of the symbols clicked into place, then another, and the Doctor’s fortune was decided. Of the four lines he had bet on, one just about resulted in a payout, and five twenty-cent coins clattered into the tray below. “Not a bad way to test your luck, eh?”

Carefully, he slid some more coins into the slot and pressed the button.

For a moment, Balot thought she might try snarcing the machine to produce the result she wanted.

But her Oeufcoque-gloves pulled Balot’s left hand away. Then the palm of her hand was by her ear, and she heard Oeufcoque’s voice. “Don’t underestimate the security here.”

Her heart thumped.

The machine was swallowing up all of the Doctor’s coins. But the Doctor seemed unconcerned and continued throwing in more coins with abandon, as if he were testing out its rhythm.

Balot stopped and sensed the inner workings of the machine. It was set up so that the slightest bit of external interference would cause it to lock down completely. Not the most subtle system in the world, but all the more secure for it.

Suddenly, Balot felt that she was being watched. She looked up at the tall ceiling. All sorts of colored illuminations were scattered around, and in between them Balot noticed an incredible number of security cameras, all firmly set in place. She gulped involuntarily.

–The Eye in the Sky, Oeufcoque said, sensing Balot’s thoughts. Originally developed for military use. Every single one of those cameras is powerful enough to accurately distinguish between different sets of footsteps in a field from a distance of twenty thousand meters. There’s a whole team of surveillance staff watching behind the scenes, probably, watching every move down here. The second you try anything with the slot machine, the warning goes up and cameras will be trained on you from all angles.

Balot squeezed her hand, indicating to Oeufcoque that she understood him loud and clear.

“Would you like a go yourself, Balot?” the Doctor asked suddenly. It seemed that his coin count was fluctuating up and down, winning some then losing them again.

Balot nodded, then asked a question through the crystal on her choker.

–Am I allowed to choose my own machine?

“Why not? Let’s split up for the next half hour or so, see how we do on our own. We’ll establish our supply train here, ready to move on later. May fortune smile upon you!”

Balot left the Doctor and started wandering around the machines.

She stared at them one by one, trying to feel the wave that the Doctor had been talking about.

She may not have been able to snarc the machines to manipulate them directly, but she could at least sound them out for variations and anomalies.

Each machine moved to its own complicated rhythm. It wasn’t as if they were all standardized to some sort of median average. Before long she started to get a feel for the overall patterns.

She remembered something she had once read. A wave may be made up of individual droplets of water, but the wave doesn’t actually move the surface of the water; all it does is cause the surface of the water to bob up and down as it passes.

Balot was now starting to experience this for herself.

Balot sat down in front of a machine. It was a one-dollar slot machine in the shape of a whiskey bottle. She’d selected this one because she felt that its rhythm was settling down.

Balot had been sensing all these loud—exaggerated—sounds from her surroundings. She felt that these were due to the complicated rhythms of the machines ebbing and flowing, never quite calm enough to properly read, but this machine was different. Calmer, she sensed.

Balot placed some coins in the slot, pressed the button, and watched the symbols spin around.

She sensed their movements as she stopped the wheels. Each one landed on a different symbol, almost impressively so.

Balot put another coin in the slot. Just the one, this time. She spun the wheel.

No luck. She put another coin in and again had no luck. She repeated the process a number of times, and suddenly she had won.

Balot grasped her feelings at that moment. She thought that Oeufcoque might have tried to say something, but she couldn’t hear him. She couldn’t even hear the tumultuous roar of the machines around her anymore.

Balot continued with the machine, losing the next round. She felt just like the machines all around her— ebbing and flowing. Then she felt a sensation—her whole body being lifted. Her hand moved up to the slot naturally, automatically. She threw coins down the slot in quick succession, leaving just the slightest of gaps, until the wave was at its crest before pressing the button with perfect timing.

“Flawless…”

She heard Oeufcoque’s voice. Balot came to her senses. The roar of the machines returned.

She squirmed when she heard the piercing sound of the siren. She wondered if she had done something wrong. Voices pressed in on her from all around. She realized that she was now surrounded by a huddle of people.

Amazed, Balot looked around at the throng. Everyone was voicing their astonishment.

For a moment Balot thought that she was about to be hauled away by the police, but she was wrong.

The very next moment, an incredible clanging of metal assaulted her, and she looked down at her hands.

She’d never seen so many coins before in her life. At first she wondered how she was possibly going to fit such a large quantity in her pockets, but as the coins kept coming, it wasn’t long before she abandoned that idea as impossible. That was how many coins there were.

Envious voices were heard all about. A casino attendant pushed his way through the crowds.

Balot’s face was still startled when she looked at him, and he smiled at her, flourishing a basket. “Shall I store your coins for you, madamoiselle?”

Balot nodded, wondering if he was about to cart all her coins away.

But she had a strong feeling that the coins weren’t really hers to begin with.

As he was scooping her coins into the basket, Balot’s left hand flew up to her ear again.

“Give him a tip. One dollar ought to be enough.” Hearing Oeufcoque’s words, Balot scrabbled around for a one-dollar bill and took it from her pocket.

The attendant turned to her with the basket full of coins in his hands. He saw the proffered note and received it graciously. Then he took Balot over to the counter, where he exchanged the full basket—so heavy that it was like carrying around a set of bowling balls—with a considerably lighter roll of hundred-dollar coins.

Balot took the hundred-dollar coins along with the basket. She counted them to discover that there were precisely sixty of them. For a moment she couldn’t even work out how much money that was.

Basket in hand, Balot walked back toward the slot machines. Feeling the wave, as she did before. Then she sat down at another machine where she sensed that the wave was settling down. This time it was a five-dollar coin machine. She had only three of these in her pocket. She sat there waiting carefully before placing the first one of these in the machine.

She slotted it in gently. The wheel spun and settled, and she was nowhere near winning. She stuck the next coin in.

She let it go at precisely the moment she felt the wave rising. She lost again. But as a result, she sensed clearly that the wave still had farther to go. Balot breathed in, then out.

She waited for the wave to rise, coin held firmly in her hand.

Then her hand moved. Before she knew it, the coin had been released, the button pressed.

–What…?

Balot snarced Oeufcoque, surprised.

“It’s not a good idea to win too much at this stage. You’ll be marked out.” Such was Oeufcoque’s answer. He