CHAPTER 2
Kit and Beautiful Maria sat cross-legged on their hotel bed. On the bed between them was curried something-or-other, robot room-service food, eaten off recycled white metal trays with disposable alloy forks lighter than plastic. The Hotel Susperides was on the edge of the Fringe, where it could attract minor bureaucrats from the Outside Life and tourists eager to have the Fringe element take their money.
“Not in years,” Kit said. He was talking about his mother. “She and my father were always fighting. Finally she left the ship at Masquerade Station. That was six years ago.”
“Sorry,” said Maria.
“She got a job in a casino, but the place went under. I think she went to Mudville. I haven’t heard from her in three years.”
Beautiful Maria sighed. “Must be hard.”
A stray memory bobbed disconnectedly to the surface of Kit’s mind. “She kept cockatoos,” he said. He hadn’t thought about the big white birds in years.
Maria took a shot of her lemonade. “I’d like to show you Runaway. But before you go there, you should know—sometimes my pop is there.”
Kit looked at her with surprise. “I—I thought...”
“He’s dead. Yes. But before he died he made hundreds of recordings of himself giving lectures on all sorts of topics. He buried them in our old Torvald and programmed them to appear at random. He’s a random glitch—hard to find. We were afraid to wipe him because something important might go with him.”
Kit frowned and took a hit from his bulb of Lark. “How does he... make himself known?”
Maria grinned. “A holographic projection. Sometimes it’s an old one, sometimes more recent. Sometimes he babbles, sometimes he just stands there. Sometimes he almost seems able to have a conversation.” She reached out to take his hand. “I didn’t want to take you to Runaway. Figured you’d freak if you saw him.”
He looked at her. His fingers tightened around hers. “I might have,” he said. “A computer ghost. Jesus.”
“We try to turn off all the holographic projectors we can. But they’re in use all the time. We can’t disable them all.”
“No.” He fired beer again. “One of my cousins is a genius programmer. I could talk to him about it.”
“Not if it’ll end up in your uncle’s files.” She looked at him. “Please,” she said.
He licked his lips. “Okay. I won’t tell anyone.”
She leaned forward and kissed him, citrus and curry. Her breast brushed his arm. Then she laughed.
“The only haunted ship in the universe, and I’m on it. I mean, who else?”
He looked down at the bulb in his hand. “I don’t know that it’s so bad. At least you can turn your relatives off if you have to.”
“Poor boy.” Her white, even teeth closed on the lobe of his ear. Fingernails whispered down his spine as he felt her breath on his nape. He propped the bulb against his knee and turned to her. Put his hands around her, felt the play of flesh over ribs. Her kisses slid over his throat, lodged in a place between clavicle and larynx that made him gasp. She shifted her weight forward, slid her long legs around his waist, adjusted herself in his lap. Her long hair caressed his chest like black smoke. The phone rang.
Maria lifted her head. “Who is it?” she asked. Kit kissed her throat.
“It’s me.” Ubu’s voice came louder than life from the room speaker. “I got your message about where you are. Are you alone?”
“No.” She could feel the muscles in Kit’s thighs trembling. She grinned.
“We gotta talk in private. It’s important.”
She arched back in his lap and looked at Kit with her head cocked to one side. His fingertips touched her breasts, tracing the outlines of the nipples. He was getting very hard against her. “Okay,” she said.
“Now.”
Maria smiled a little ironic smile. “Now,” she said. “Bye.” She looked at Kit. “Sorry. Maybe later.”
“I understand.” He was still pressing against her.
Maria dismounted by kicking one leg up over his head and then slid smoothly off the sheets. She held her grey robe up over her head. Kit watched the play of her milkwhite skin over the knobs of her spine. The sight of her sleek hormone-fed body made him feel clumsy. Fat, sweaty, absurdly tumescent. Maria twisted her shoulders and the robe fell and draped her to her calves. She looked over her shoulder.
“Meet somewhere tonight?”
He pulled the sheet over his lap. “Sure. Where?”
“You’d better let me call you.”
He looked up at her quickly. “Not at the Abrazo, okay? Use the station message board.”
Beautiful Maria shrugged. “Whatever.”
“I’ve got a couple days till we start loading. How about you?”
“Maybe that’s what I’m meeting with Ubu about.”
Kit slid out of bed and put his arms around her. She drifted gently against him, brushing against his body while she smiled absently and gazed off over his head, into space. In spite of the fact he knew her mind was elsewhere, Kit felt his nerves go warm. He thought about an engagement in a freefall chamber near the station’s hub, picturing a slow, gentle loving going on forever, the two of them spiraling toward one another as their own miniature gravities called to one another. She kissed his damp forehead and extracted herself from his arms.
“Sorry. Gotta go. Tonight. Okay?”
“Station board. Let me know.”
Maria padded from the room on bare feet, throwing him a farewell smile with a quick turn of her shoulders that transmitted itself into a long undulating ripple that swept through her hair. The door irised closed. Kit looked after her for a long moment, then returned to the bed and finished the curry and beer.
He showered, shaved with the hotel razor, and put on his shorts, vest, and battered grey sneakers. He walked through the lobby of the Hotel Susperides without attracting a look from the clerk, then stepped out onto the metal of the rim.
“Hey! Little Brother!”
Kit winced at the sound of his cousin Ridge’s voice. He looked deeper into the twilight of the rim and saw Ridge swaggering up the alloy path with a couple riggers he hadn’t seen before.
Ridge was a couple years older, Marco’s only grandson. He was proud of his torso, and above the waist he wore only jewelry. “Little Brother!” he said again, grinning. Kit could tell he was drunk.
“Riders,” Kit said politely. Ridge came up to him and threw an arm around his shoulders, catching his neck uncomfortably between a steel forearm and a rock-hard biceps. The family embrace, Kit thought. Masculine and painful and forever. Smelling of spilled wine and careless brutality.
“These aren’t riders, Little Brother. These are Capra and Tuck, a couple syster pilots I know,” Ridge said. The insystem haulers nodded hello. Ridge looked at the Susperides lights. “Coming out of the hotel, huh? Get lucky with some Mudviller tourist?”
“Something like that.”
“Better hope you didn’t get lice. You bring lice on board, you’re gonna be sorry.”
“No lice.”
“Thought for a second there I’d take you with us. We’re gonna go up to a hookshop I know in the hub and get some frog ladies. They can do some amazing things with those extra arms they got ’stead of legs. But that tourist lady of yours probably got you all tired, right?”
“Yeah. Tired.”
Ridge pinched him in the crook of his arm again. “Yeah. Tired,” he mocked. He looked up at the two men with him. “The boy does all right with girls, even if he don’t look like much. But getting him to talk about it is like pulling teeth. Why’s that, boy?”
Kit looked up at him, at the handsome, leering face. He hadn’t lived with Ridge for so many years without learning how to handle him at least part of the time. “I don’t want to show you up in front of your friends,” he said.
Ridge whooped with laughter and punched Kit in the chest with his free hand. Kit tried not to look like it hurt.
“Don’t worry about that, boy,” Ridge said. “I be figuring I show these systers here a thing or two in a few minutes. You tell me about this tourist cooze, okay?”
Kit nodded and tried to think of someone as far removed from Beautiful Maria as possible. “Blonde,” he said. “Short hair. About my age. Diamond implants in her cheekbones, like some of them wear. She was here with her mother, who came up to gamble.”
Kit saw the spreading grin on Ridge’s face and knew he’d made a mistake. “Her mother?” Ridge asked. He laughed. “You wanna introduce me to Mamma, boy. I figure the whole family ought to get the benefit of de Suarez talent, right?”
“They’re going down the well on the next shuttle. Sorry you missed ’em.”
Ridge tightened his grip on Kit’s neck. “The little bastard’s lying,” he said. “He wants the whole family for himself, the fucker.”
“It’s true,” Kit grated. He could feel Ridge’s forearm cutting his artery. Blue stars spun in the corner of his vision.
“Yeah? What are their names? I’ll check the manifests, asshole.”
Kit fought for breath. The blue stars were going nova. “Crystal something,” he said. “Check it, for Rice sake!”
The pressure eased on his windpipe. Kit gratefully dragged in air. He realized he should have told Ridge that his girl’s mother had her boyfriend with her.
“Yeah. Fuck. I wanna go to the hookshop anyway. See you later, Little Brother.”
“Cousin. Systers.” The sarcasm in Kit’s voice could have been taken for a result of the bruise on his larynx. He blinked splashes of stellar color from his eyes and watched the three heading for the belt conveyor, a reverse quicksilver waterfall, that would take them to the hub. Laughter cascaded from them as they walked. Kit rubbed his throat and turned away from them.
He was de Suarez; he had accepted that. The family was everything, all that mattered in the war of de Suarez against all: that was the de Suarez way. Kit had accepted that, too, with certain reservations. He owed the family his duty, his labor, his talent. As long as he gave them this, whatever else he did was his own affair: this was the quiet deal he had cut with himself. A treasonous deal, by de Suarez standards. Kit knew this, knew also that it couldn’t be any other way.
Beautiful Maria was going to stay his secret, one of the few things he didn’t have to share with his uncles, aunts, and cousins on his crowded ship. A small, private detente in the war De Suarez Expressways, Ltd., was fighting with the human race. Here, on Angel Station, a few moments of peace.
*
Ubu reclined on a padded couch in the command cage. He’d called up a dross tune from the comm board, and cool spectra shifted through his mind as the audolin bent notes on the harmony line, each a catfooted glissando along Ubu’s nerves. Maxim sat on Ubu’s bare chest, feet tucked under him, his forehead butting up against Ubu’s chin. With all four hands, Ubu stroked the cat fore-and-aft in time to the percussion. Maxim’s purr grated in pleasant disharmony. White hair floated in the light station gravity.
Our symmetry is broken, and our time, chanted the lyrics, Our hope is a token, and a crime. A song by Fetnab and Sanjay Gupta, who had been shooters once, before abandoning the life for success elsewhere.
A shooter lyric, an early one. Maybe no one else would understand it.
Ubu’s nape prickled, the brief equalization in pressure that meant Maria entering through the station tube. Maxim’s ears flicked back at the same instant. Ubu reached to the keyboard on the couch arm and snapped off the music.
Maria began to descend the ladder, the white high arches and taut Achilles tendons followed by the drifting grey cloud of her gown. Her long hair rebounded as she dropped to the deck, a slow blueblack wave rising and falling. She turned, bent over him, kissed him gravely. Her lips had the taste of lemon. Maria began scratching Maxim’s neck. The cat put out one foot for balance against the pressure that the new pleasure was exerting on him. Ubu felt the prick of claws against his skin.
“Our shit is weak,” Ubu said. “Marco de Suarez bought the miners, but not their brains.”
“How much do we still owe?”
Ubu pointed with his chin. “It’s on comp. Take a look.”
She turned, triggered the display, bit her lip as she saw the figures. She shook her head. “Not good.”
Ubu sat up and lowered the cat to the floor. Maxim scratched his ear with a rear foot. “How much did you win at blackhole?”
“Not enough. The stakes aren’t high enough in blackhole. It’d take me weeks at this rate. Or I could lose everything, if I get tired or careless.”
“We could get into a tourist club with what you won. Play rouge-et-noir.”
Her face was turned away from him. “I’ve never played that.” Her voice vanished into the hiss of recirculated air.
“If you lose, we haven’t lost much.”
“It’s a tough game. Totally abstract. Not easy for me.”
“Maria.”
She was silent. Ubu could see her body outlined in the greygreen glow of the holo display. He waited.
“Okay,” she said. Her voice was smaller than before. Ubu had the feeling he was hearing her with TP, that his ears couldn’t possibly have picked up that tiny whisper.
“What else can we do?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
He came up behind her and put his arms around her, pressed his cheek against the warmth of her ear. He could feel the tension in her. “Want to rest first? We’ve got a few days.”
“I’m rested. Maybe a couple hours under the alpha trodes, though.”
“Whatever you want. I’ll find the rules to rouge-et-noir somewhere. Let you study them.”
Her dark eyes were looking a thousand yards away, not seeing him. Ubu’s hackles rose as he realized what she was looking at: a place where there were no choices left, a place filled with litter like Runaway, like the Long Reach colonies, like Pasco dying, rotating amid his rubbish. Ubu dropped his arms, turned away, picked up the cat. Maxim purred loudly against his chest.
“I wish...” Maria’s voice.
“Yes?”
“Nothing.” She rubbed her forehead with her thumb. “Maybe I should get some rest, after all.”
“Whatever you want.”
Maria brushed past him and went up the ladder slowly, like she hoped Ubu would call her back, tell her she didn’t have to do it. He didn’t say anything, just stood with the cat in his arms and a knot in his stomach and let her go.
He didn’t understand it, but he wanted to cry.
*
Maria had four hours under the trodes, then called the station board and left a note for Kit to meet her on Runaway at zero-thirty. She figured it would be over by then, one way or the other.
She and Ubu left the Fringe at twenty-two hundred, stepping from the fever-filled twilight to the brightly lit high-commerce zone. They walked slowly over the marble floor, arm in arm as if they had all the time in the world. They were trying to get a sense of the place. The casino’s facade was a long three-level-high hologram, just bright shifting colors, like a planetary aurora. It was a new building, built of permanent materials, not tempafoam, constructed in the last three years as the Angelica System’s economy began to develop enough wealth to support high-stakes gambling outside Angelica’s gravity well.
“It’s called the Monte Carlo,” Ubu said. “Funny they named a casino after a statistical methodology. You figure it’s a clue to how to win?”
Ubu and Maria were dressed in dark grip shoes and dark socks, grey pipestem pants, light shirts, dark jackets that were almost but-not-quite uniforms. Ubu had his lower arms crossed behind his back, hiding them under the jacket—his modifications weren’t precisely unknown outside shooter culture, but they were rarer. Ubu was wearing mascara to blend in with the hiline crowd, and Beautiful Maria had surrounded her eyes with kohl, dusted glitter on her cheekbones, and put a handful of Red Nine in one jacket pocket and Blue Heaven in the other. She felt like an impostor: her nerves crackled as she walked past the casino’s auroral facade and into the arching lobby. She tried not to look at the doormen, knowing that if she made the wrong move they’d stop her and ask her what she was doing here, if she had credit. But their eyes passed over her without stopping, and Ubu followed her in and gave a little laugh as he realized he was past the guards. All they had to do now was win a lot of money.
The casino was on their left. Looking at the gaming tables, Maria was surprised by how quiet it was—instead of the constant barrage of arcade noise in the Fringe clubs, here there was only a low murmur of conversation. This impressed her more than anything else: there was the sense that serious money was being won and lost here.
Ubu was waiting for her to say something.
“The bar first,” she said. “I’ve got to give the Red Nine a chance to work.”
She’d taken pills rather than used an inhaler. She didn’t know if a chak would be accepted here. The compound rolled up her nerves like an incoming tide. She could feel the electron world buzzing in her ears.
The bar had a lick piano and a view of the casino. The rouge-et-noir tables were on the far side of the room and Maria didn’t want to look at them. She sipped slowly at her drink and waited. She didn’t want to talk, and Ubu must have sensed that, because he just waited, not saying anything but downing three drinks in the time it took her to finish one.
She was trying to get a sense of the place. She closed her eyes and tried to let the casino speak to her.
White noise. Too much input. She would have to get closer.
Maria stood up. “Gotta go,” she said. Ubu followed her. She let her long legs carry her through the casino at a pace that was close to panic. The quiet in the place was frightening. Hiliners and Mudvillers gathered intent around tables, eyes focused on their play. Sometimes Maria heard a laugh from somewhere, a sound that floated over the crowd like a bird, but Maria could never see anyone laughing. She clutched her credit counter in her white hand. Her scalp was prickling with sweat. This wasn’t her world.
A rouge-et-noir table glittered in front of her. Colored lights played on the faces of the three players, two women and a man, the light shining up from below, making them look sinister. The tourneur was a small pale-skinned man with a large white forehead and a surprising amount of black hair on the backs of his hands. He watched the play with emotionless eyes set beneath perfectly even brows.
Red Nine told Beautiful Maria to play. She dug her nails into her palms and told herself it wasn’t time yet. She stepped up to the table and watched. The woman on her left had the bank: her skin was black, her hair platinum, and diamonds had been implanted on her shoulders and breasts. She wasn’t dressed like a Hiliner, and she didn’t have the body of someone from Mudville: maybe she was a shooter turned professional gambler. Beautiful Maria didn’t want to think how much money she’d paid for the bank.
The other bettors were nondescript. The man was in a dark blue uniform jacket and the woman in a bright, expensive sheath. Her face was painted in fluorescent stripes.
Ubu spoke, and Maria jumped. She turned to him with wild eyes.
“What you say?”
“Do you want to bet?”
She clenched her teeth. Her heart beat madly in her throat. “In a minute.”
“You need betting chips. Shall I get you some chips?”
There was an insistent, hectoring tone in his voice she didn’t like. “Yes,” she said. She wanted him to get away from her.
“I’ll need your counter, then.” He held out a hand. Maria slapped it into his palm and turned back to the table. The black woman was looking at her. A roar of anger went through Maria and she clamped it down, realizing this was the drug. She twisted her hands together below the level of the table and watched the play.
Rouge-et-noir was an electronic game, run by the Monte Carlo’s computer. It was based on an old Earth game called roulette, a popular game until small computers were developed that could judge the tiny biases of the wheel and the tourneur, and which forced the game to go electronic. Since no artificial intelligence could produce truly random play, the random factors were added by the players, who could press keys from 1 to 36 in hopes of influencing the outcome. Each bettor had to press at least one key during the fifteen seconds of play or her bet would be confiscated.
The tourneur called out in antique French. Beautiful Maria watched the play, saw how the bettors put their chips on the squares, the way the numbers began to progress, lighting up from beneath. The numbers moved faster and faster. Bets piled on the table as fingers stabbed at keys. The black squares glowed gold when they were lit. Reflected colors flashed in the tourneur’s impassive eyes. The green border of the layout flashed three times, and the tourneur said, “Rien ne va plus.” Maria watched the bettors, all of them leaning over the table, eagerness and hope in their eyes, and then the tourneur said, “Un, rouge, manque, impair,” and the banker smiled as the tourneur pushed chips toward her with his stick. She began stacking her winnings. Beautiful Maria looked at the losers. Their eagerness was gone, but their hope remained.
“Faites vos jeux, mesdames et messieurs.” It began again. Maria looked at the table, touched her teeth with her tongue. Red and gold gleamed briefly on the table’s surface and faded. Numbers flashed. There was an awareness in Maria’s fingertips that hadn’t been there before. The banker stabbed her key and Maria felt a jolt deep in her heart. The green flashing border dazzled her. There was a whisper in her mind that came an instant before the tourneur’s call.
Twelve...
“Douze ...”
Red, low, even ...
“. . . rouge, manque, pair.”
Maria felt a laugh rising in her throat and quelled it. She looked up at the players, saw the banker’s ambiguous smile. She had broken even on this one. The man had bet red at the last second and made some money. The woman bettor was shaking her head, counting her few remaining chips. Trying to decide whether to play it safe or wager everything on a last gamble.
“Faites vos jeux.” Maria looked at the table as the numbers started to glow. Colors blazed in her mind. Players pressed keys. The woman player bit her lip and played à cheval on two numbers, 21 and 24. Maria’s nerves were afire. Her heart thundered in time to the flashing digits, to the electron world buried beneath the table. She closed her eyes, clenched her teeth. She could detect green light flashing on the outside of her lids, heard the tourneur call, “Rien ne va plus.” Now, she thought, and her body jerked as she felt the power snap from her spine like an arrow from a bow.
“Vingt et un. Rouge, passe, impair.”
The woman bettor gave a soft cry of relief. Maria opened her eyes, saw the tourneur moving chips from the bank to the player. A cheval paid seventeen-to-one. The banker’s dark eyes were turned inward. Maria could see the pulse beating in her throat.
“Your chips.” Ubu’s voice. Beautiful Maria held out a blind hand and Ubu carefully put a pile of chips in her palm. She placed them on the table without looking at them.
Careful at first, Maria thought, and put three chips on PASSE. She thought she could probably influence high-or-low more easily than anything else. The banker’s eyes flicked to her once, then turned away. Red Nine screamed in her head. Her fingers closed around her remaining chips and she felt them cool against her skin. Colored lights began to flow, responding to changes in the electron stream. Maria tasted sweat on her upper lip. She pressed a key blindly, uninterested in the outcome—so far as she could tell the keys added a random factor without helping the player in any way. They were for idiots.
The colored lights began moving faster. Maria held a hand over the layout, felt the beat of electricity against her skin, saw the resolution, and flung her charge into the system as she shoved forward a stack of five chips, placing her bet à cheval on 25 and 26—she couldn’t quite tell which would be the result.
“Rien ne va plus.” Colors pulsed on the table. Maria wiped sweat from her eyes.
“Twenty-five,” she whispered, knowing the outcome.
“Vingt-cinq.”
“Red, high, odd.”
“Rouge, passe, impair.”
Ubu’s voice broke in. “Good. Good. Look at the odds!”
Blind rage roared up Maria’s spine. She spun toward her brother. “Get away!” she whispered. “Get away from me!”
Shock showed in his eyes. He raised his upper hands, said nothing, backed away. Beautiful Maria turned back to the table, saw the banker looking at her as the tourneur pushed chips toward her place. “Faites vos jeux, mesdames et messieurs.” Maria ordered her chips in two stacks, then played one stack à cheval on 11 and 12.
She pressed a key as the lights began to cascade. Her breath rasped in her throat. The banker was intently pressing keys. Maria stared at the tourneur’s hair-backed hands. Her body wrenched as the play came to an end, and she cried out as she realized her glitch had gone wrong, that the winning number was 10. She should have played more conservatively, bet transversale pleine on 10, 11, and 12.
Maria licked her lips as the tourneur moved her bet to the bank. Ubu had broken her concentration: now she had only half her winnings to play with. She put half her chips on MANQUE and decided to play it safe for now.
Red and gold swam up and down the table. Sweat blinded her but it didn’t matter. It seemed to Maria as if she could see below the table, see hidden veins and arteries coursing with electrons. She pressed one key, then pressed another because it felt right. Things were lining up: she could see the resolution. Red Nine urged her to increase the bet. She resisted the temptation and cried out as the final number came up: the one she had anticipated. If she had bet the number she would have won thirty-five to one. She reached over the table, thumped a fist down, laughed as the chips moved toward her. She had the table beaten now.
Maria put half her money on MANQUE again. She felt as if her heart were pumping electrons. The numbers cascaded, the glitch formed in Maria’s body, she pushed out all her remaining money on nine. Her sweat pattered on the table.
“Neuf. Rouge, manque, impair.”
Beautiful Maria shrieked and jumped in the air. The woman bettor looked daggers at her: she’d stayed even the last two rounds, but had bet everything on milieu douzaine and lost it all.
The banker was looking at her, too. She reached into a pocket and came up with a chak, fired one round up each nostril. Chaks were allowed here, Maria thought.
She could feel the power coiling in her. She put a handful of chips on PASSE: she couldn’t even tell how much. The game began. She saw the resolution, pushed another stack out, won again. Won another time. She was nearly blind with sweat, but that didn’t matter: she could feel the pulses under the table and could push chips where the electrons led her. The other players had withdrawn: Maria and the banker were playing against one another. A crowd had gathered: she could hear their noise, but she ignored it. Energy danced on her skin. She knew every move before it was made. She laughed and tossed her hair and pushed chips on the table. Then, suddenly, the energies died. Maria gave a cry of surprise. She blinked sweat away and looked at the banker.
The black woman returned the gaze, her look strangely soft. She raised her hands. “Elle vient de faire sauter la banque,” she said, and turned away. She looked left and right, as if she didn’t know quite where she wanted to go, and then she stepped into the crowd. Maria blinked after her. She saw that the woman’s steps were unsteady.
Maria could hear cheering. Arms were put around her; she realized they were Ubu’s. “You just broke the bank,” he said. He said it again, shouting. “The bank is broken!” He picked her up and swung her around. Her mind reeled. Ubu put her down and she tossed her hair out of her face.
“I want a drink,” she said. The people around her cheered, as if she’d said something witty.
“If you will come with me.” This was the tourneur. Maria stared at him. “If you will come with me,” the man said again, “we will cash your chips.” She looked at his furry hands: they carried a small basket with her chips in it. “We will have to go to the casino office,” the man said. “The cashiers aren’t authorized to pay out this much at once.”
She followed Ubu and the tourneur through the crowd. People laughed, clapped, offered to buy them drinks. Maria turned her head, saw the banker walking toward the exit alone. It was her money, Maria realized. It wasn’t the Monte Carlo’s money they’d won: the money was all the banker’s. A wave of remorse dizzied Maria. Why hadn’t she realized this before? The house was probably playing banker at most of the tables; she could have robbed the institution with a far clearer conscience.
The door to a side office dilated open in front of the tourneur. He handed the basket to a man inside and stepped back to allow Ubu and Maria to pass. The door irised shut behind them.
The room was small and simply furnished: straight metal chairs with minimal padding, a desk, a video, a comp. A plump woman sat behind the desk, sucking on a cigaret. Maria tried not to show her disgust at the filthy Mudville addiction. The woman’s dark hair was cut short and she wore a grey jacket. Her lips were painted bright orange. Two men stood to either side of her. They were both big men in dark clothes. The woman gave a close smile as she looked at the basket of chips on her desk.
“It isn’t every day we have such big winners. Sit down. My name is Jamison,”
“It isn’t every day we win this big,” Ubu said. He sat down and bounced his lower set of hands on the arms of his chair.
Maria looked down at her chair. Red Nine was wailing in her body and she didn’t want to sit down.
Maria made herself sit. She reached into her pocket for some Blue Seven and put the pill to her mouth. “Could I have a glass of water?” she asked.
“No,” Jamison said crisply. “You may not.”
The blow knocked Maria sideways in her chair. The pill flew from her lips, struck a wall, fell to the dark green carpet. Red Nine turned Maria’s fingers to claws and sent her snarling at the man who had struck her, not even thinking about it; but he slapped her twice more across the face and dropped her back to the chair. Maria heard a thud as the other man’s fist punched into Ubu’s solar plexus, doubling him over.
Beautiful Maria looked up at Jamison. She could feel her face reddening where she’d been struck. Ubu’s panting breaths sounded loud in her ear. Jamison was looking at Maria intently with her orange lips pursed.
“Tell us how you did it,” Jamison said. Her voice was perfectly ordinary in tone, as if she were asking the time of day and hadn’t just seen two acts of violence. Maria just stared at her. The man by her chair slapped her again, lightly this time. The shock was the same.
“Answer,” he said.
Maria could taste blood in her mouth. Red Nine blazed in her nerves. Her vision was filmed with red.
“How did you do it?” Jamison said. “Our tables are built so as to prevent interference. You set off every alarm in the house, so obviously you got past our safeguards somehow. How did you do it?”
“I—” Maria began. But Ubu sprang out of his chair, charging head-down for the man before him, and caught the guard by surprise, driving him back into the wall. He grappled the man’s arms with his lower hands, punched wildly with the upper, his head still down. The man managed to avoid the wild swings and brought a knee into Ubu’s face, then dropped him with a vicious punch to the neck. Maria’s nerves jumped at the horribly solid sound of Ubu’s body hitting the carpet. She could feel something liquid running from the corner of her mouth and she wiped it away. The back of her hand came away red.
Her glitching the systems had worked in the smaller Fringe joints, she thought. But maybe they couldn’t afford the safeguards the big casinos could. She and Ubu hadn’t thought of that.
The man that had dropped Ubu had undipped a scanner from his belt, was passing it over Ubu’s body. “What is it?” Jamison asked. Her tone of voice hadn’t changed, was still perfectly ordinary. She sucked on her cigaret. “Some kind of implant induction device? Which of you has it? What is the range?” Her voice changed, became suggestive. “If we can have the device, we might let you keep some of the money.”
Maria looked at her, tried to form words in her bruised mouth. “You’re not... going to give the money back to the banker?”
“To Colette? Hardly. When you buy the bank, there’s always a chance you’ll lose it. It’s a safer form of gambling, but it’s still gambling. She knew the risks.”
The scanner was passing over Maria now. The operator looked at the readouts, frowned, looked at Jamison and shook his head.
Jamison leaned forward. “Tell us,” she said. “If it’s a good system, we might let you keep all you won.” She shrugged. “It’s pocket change to us. We can win it back in twenty minutes on a good night.” She stubbed out her cigaret, then broke it in half and dropped the halves on the desk. They made a clattering sound. “Of course you’ll never be allowed in any gaming house again,” she said. “Here or on the Fringe, which I’d guess is more your style. Your stats will be transmitted everywhere.”
Maria looked at Ubu. He was moving feebly on the floor, and his face was webbed with blood. Pain beat in Maria’s chest. Her hands clenched.
She looked at Jamison. “The truth is,” she said, “I’m a witch.”
Jamison leaned back in her chair and sighed. “The answer,” she said, “is unsatisfactory.”
The man slapped Maria again, hard. Tears spilled from her eyes. “It’s true!” she wailed.
The next blow drove her off the chair, to her knees. Red and blue pills tumbled from her pockets. Blood dropped scarlet amid the scattered colors.
“Start with Level Two,” Jamison said. “If they don’t answer, you may continue to Level Three.”