Mardock Scramble

–It’s like they’re fighting. And just when I’ve come to save them.

She looked at the jacks with disappointment. The red and black one-eyed jacks.

–But I’ll stay.

Without hesitation, Ashley turned over his hole card. A king. Spades.

Beneath Balot’s left arm, Oeufcoque’s swirl of numbers adjusted.

Some of the suits pressed together, amassing into an iron wall.

With great contentment, Balot watched the dealer draw his next card.

He drew a 6. Twenty-one. He was an overwhelming fortress.

Ashley’s thick hands casually collected her chips. The cards went too.

Balot’s eyes remained on the table as if seeing the afterimage of the cards: 5-K-6 and J-J.

“Have you had enough?”

Balot sensed something behind his mocking words. He was trying to hide the moment of defenselessness born of a hastily built defense.

That held the true meaning of building an impregnable iron wall in this game.

Balot snarced Oeufcoque.

–I want to bet on clubs. So they will become my ally.

–Understood.

He didn’t ask why. He didn’t ask how it would quantifiably affect her chances of winning. He wasn’t blindly following Balot either. It was his own decision based on his instinctive knowledge of her thoughts.

Oeufcoque was in the fight too. As a part of their new combination.

Balot smoothly placed her chips. Her impatience had vanished completely, not like the shadow had lifted into dawn, but as if her senses had pierced the unpredictable darkness, adding their own light to it.

She felt herself becoming one with the game. The cards were her, and she was new.

It was stress, it was hostility, and it was a blessing.

Ashley’s management of the cards grew more and more skewed. That determined which cards Balot should chase after. Her 10 and 9 of clubs were impeded by the ace and king of spades. Next the 4 and 5 of clubs brought forth the king of clubs, only to be crushed by the jack of hearts and his reinforcements, the 3 and 7 of diamonds.

Balot’s senses reached out like a hand searching through the darkness and colliding with something, for the ever-widening crack in Ashley’s flawless handling of the cards.

The scariest thing within the darkness, thought Balot, is to be struck motionless from fear, unable to move even a single finger and to be freely used.

Once, she hadn’t the will to resist being used. She had thrown away her senses. Until she’d met Oeufcoque. And now, from within her thin shell, she sensed with voracity. Suddenly, a sharp odor came to her nose. A phantom smell. A smell like the cologne Death would wear came over her body, enveloping her. Balot thought back to the time she’d been trapped inside that car, when the stench of gas filled the space. At that time, all she could do to survive was to withdraw into herself.

At that time, she thought she would die. Sad and pitiful.

But they came in time.

Ashley’s upcard, an 8.

Balot’s cards, 3-6.

All of them clubs. Balot’s finger tapped the table.

–Hit.

She received a 6. She raised her finger, then tapped the table again.

–Hit.

With a flutter of Ashley’s hand, her next card came—6.

So, 3-6-6-6. She had seen it before, but now it was on her side of the table.

The same card appeared three times in a row—that was the wailing of the iron wall as she pried it open.

Balot stayed. Ashley turned over his hole card as if lifting an impossibly heavy weight. The ace of spades. Ashley’s guardian deity had appeared. But it was too late. With the 8, he had nineteen. Balot won.

“Congratulations,” said the dealer with a smile. Before retrieving the cards, he handed out her winnings.

But neither his smile nor the winnings impressed her.

Her honed senses focused upon one point among the swirling numbers.

Now or never. So Balot thought, and so Oeufcoque thought.

–Next hand, please.

She turned over her left hand, and with her right, she grabbed it from her palm and gently placed it upon the table.

Until both her hands were back on the table, Ashley didn’t move a muscle.

The crowd of onlookers gasped. The golden million-dollar chip was in play.

“Balot…” said the Doctor. He wasn’t calling for her. It was just a whisper, pregnant with surprise and anticipation.

Bell’s eyes were steady upon her.

Balot tapped the table. Ashley’s eyes flicked over to the golden chip, and his hands casually slid the cards from the shoe.

His upcard, a jack. Balot’s cards, A-4. All of them spades.

The cards were his sword swing, and Balot attacked them head on.

–Hit.

A card came. The seven of clubs. Her ace, once worth eleven points, was now worth one.

–Hit.

Balot tapped the table without hesitating, as if keeping in beat. Ashley didn’t slow either. The card came. The 7 of clubs. Nineteen.