Mardock Scramble

Oeufcoque explained. He was referring to the first pile of chips that the suit had used in order to call. And, indeed, the numerals on the chips ran parallel to the white lines on the table.

–The man on the far left is holding a chip between the middle finger and ring finger of his left hand.

The potbelly was indeed doing that.

–The man in the suit is the designated winner of this hand—he has three aces. The Doctor has two pairs, fives over fours. The cowboy next to the Doctor has three jacks. And the old man next to you has two pairs, tens over fours.

–How can you possibly know all this?

It was hard to believe. Reading emotions through odor was one thing, but surely there was no way he could accurately work out what every card was?

–The man on the far left is exchanging information with the dealer and the man wearing the suit. I just picked up on that. As for the rest, I just observed for a while, and I can tell how certain people start to smell when they get dealt a certain hand.

Balot found herself growing more and more impressed as Oeufcoque’s words appeared on her hand.

–The man on the left is broadcasting who has what pairs in relation to the community cards. He’s using the position of the chip in his right hand to show the others the strongest hand among us marks. The shape and posture of his left hand is showing them what the other people have, and whether the dealer is able to deal the man in the suit a stronger hand or not. The man in the suit placed his chips the way he did to signal for the river card to be an ace.

–They can manipulate the cards that are dealt too?

–They have certain cards concealed in the card shoe. Marked cards. The sort you can identify by touch—a funny shaped corner, or one card slightly bigger than the others. They don’t need to mark every single one; as long as they have a couple of high cards such as aces and kings, and know which suit is which, they have an overwhelming advantage.

Balot noticed that the dealer’s hands did indeed brush against the cards in the card shoe now and then. The move was disguised so that it looked entirely natural, but she could see that he was definitely feeling the shape of the cards.

–The sneaks!

–Looks like the mechanics are about to win.

The old gentleman folded, and the Doctor folded too.

The cowboy raised and raised again, through gritted teeth that ground together so noisily that Balot thought they might crumble to bits. She almost felt sorry for him, the sitting duck that the mechanics were preparing to pluck and roast.

The betting was finally over, and the cowboy revealed his hand with vigor. Three jacks. Just as Oeufcoque had predicted.

The cowboy’s manner seemed to suggest that it was a close call but he felt he had a good chance of victory.

But that was what good cheating was all about—making the mark feel he has a chance when in reality he has none.

The suit revealed his hand. The cowboy recoiled.

Three aces. It was just like the previous hand, except the shoe was now on the other foot.

Balot watched the chips flow over to the suit, and at last she realized what was happening. You needed bait to catch a sucker, and what better bait than another sucker? They let the cowboy win at first, then just as he started getting into the mood they would take it all back from him and then some, all the while keeping alive the flame of false hope that he might still have a chance.

The suit won the next hand too. After that the old gentleman won, then the cowboy, then back to the suit.

As far as Balot and the Doctor were concerned, money was only flowing one way. They gave a convincing impression of a pair who were delighted just to be there and happy to pay for the privilege of being allowed to participate.

The mechanics weren’t slow to recognize this. In other words, they made sure that Balot and the Doctor had good cards, or at least good enough to dangle a glimmer of false hope before them before pulling it away at the last minute—until the next hand.

The second round of betting had just begun when Oeufcoque suddenly asked Balot a question.

–Do you think you could snarc one of the overhead cameras?

–Probably, yes.

–Try shifting the camera that’s watching over your hand.

Balot did so. She sensed the security cameras on the ceiling without so much as a glance in their direction.

There were three cameras pointed at the table. Not that they were particularly paying attention to it at the present time—they were simply three of the many that scanned the room, and they happened to monitor Balot’s table.

Balot snarced the three cameras ever so slightly, causing them to shift just a few millimeters. The security systems on the cameras themselves were fairly easy to crack—after all, it wasn’t as though the customers were likely to climb up to the ceiling and adjust them individually. Balot did adjust them, so that there was now a small blind spot that happened to be just about where she was sitting.

Balot’s cards at the time were K

and 8

.

The flop was 10

, 6

and J

.

–See if you can tune into everyone’s breathing patterns.

Balot obeyed, honing in on the breathing rhythms of everyone at the table, including the dealer. They breathed in, then out. In again, then out again.

There wasn’t a single one of them who could survive without breathing, after all.

The cowboy’s breathing was the roughest. His breaths were centered around the area from his chest to his shoulders. The old gentleman’s exhalations came from below his belly. The dealer, the other mechanics, and the Doctor all breathed from the area between their chest and their belly.

Their breathing changed as the game progressed, and in particular all of them began breathing heavily when it came time to call.

–Aim to call your hand at the precise moment everyone has fully exhaled.

Balot followed Oeufcoque’s orders obediently, and she fell into a new pattern of play, almost without meaning to.

–Try and relax, go with the flow.

The moment Oeufcoque said this, Balot’s right hand moved suddenly, of its own accord. This was the instant that everyone at the table had just finished exhaling. Balot found that she had exchanged one of her cards with one of the Doctor’s cards that he had just laid down on the table after folding in the first round.

–You see, the instant between exhaling and starting a new breath is the moment a person’s