by Ubukata, Tow
–Twelve in the whole casino.
“That’s quite a lot…all containing Shell’s memories?”
–No, just four of them. The ones that have the OctoberCorp company emblem stamped on them. They’re made by special order.
“I see…”
–What are we going to do? Steal them?
She was half joking, but—
“Robbing a casino is just as tricky as robbing a bank, you see. Burglary should be our last resort.”
Balot was a little surprised that the Doctor took her question seriously.
“We could ask the DA to conduct an official investigation, but once Shell works out what we’re up to it’ll be too easy for him to palm his chips off somewhere else. And if Shell warns OctoberCorp, we’ll be letting the big fish get away. We need to move carefully. Let’s see if we can be granted special search privileges—but no…” The Doctor muttered to himself in this vein for a while.
Then, all of a sudden, “Hmm. I think the best thing for starters is to head on in as if we’re ordinary punters.” He grinned at Balot. It was somewhat disconcerting—almost as if he were raring to go, looking forward to the prospect.
“Balot… I’m going to ask Oeufcoque too. I think he will agree with my decision, but—”
–Yes? What?
“Have you ever played at a casino before?”
–No. I’ve been inside them with men, but I always just stood next to the man as he played.
“Do you know the rules to poker and roulette? What about blackjack or baccarat?”
–Um… I know the rules to snap?
“Lesson number two, then,” said the Doctor. “As soon as Apprentice Private Investigator Ms. Rune-Balot learns how to brew a proper cup of coffee, it’ll be time for her to move on to her next object of study, methinks. How about it, young lady?”
–Can I ask you something?
“What is it?”
–Do you like gambling, Doctor?
The Doctor flexed his fingers. He tried to wear a solemn expression, but he couldn’t prevent a wide smile from breaking out across his face.
“Let me see. Gambling is the ultimate thrill—a game of intellect, but also aesthetics. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world.”
Balot was not convinced.
Chapter 7
ROTOR
01
Balot was close to tears.
As a result, she didn’t even notice that Oeufcoque had woken up and that his capsule was open.
Such was the intensity of the Doctor’s training program. On gambling.
The basics she learned from the legal eCasinos, and she was introduced to all sorts of games.
The eCasinos had their own individual variations on the rules, and Balot learned about the various discrepancies. Everything was reinforced further through a number of practice hands with the Doctor. Blackjack, baccarat, poker, high-ball, low-ball, high-low split. On top of that, she also learned the ins and outs of wheel of fortune, roulette, and the slot machines.
So far so good. But this was where the Doctor’s lecture really started.
“Right.” The Doctor started writing on a blank form, gleefully scribbling down some formulae and drawing up a table. “Let’s talk game theory. As we have seen, with a finite game it’s possible to express everything in normal-form. For a finite zero-sum game, we represent everything in normal-form and then work out what sort of strategy the other players are likely to employ—this would seem the logical way to approach things. So, let’s examine the logical criteria and try and work out where the game’s equilibrium lies.”
Creases appeared above Balot’s eyebrows, and she nodded. The Doctor was trying to teach her something. How to win at gambling. The problem was that she had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Still, she listened as best she could.
“So, let’s express this normal-form game as a payoff matrix. We assign the numbers 1 to n to your various strategies, and on the other side we do the same for my strategies. This way we can clearly demonstrate through the matrix how your decision influences my payoff, and vice versa. Logically, each player should take the action that maximizes his potential payoff. In other words, you can think about all sorts of possible moves, but in the end the matrix will reveal your optimal strategy. This is what we call equilibrium analysis.”
As the Doctor spoke he wrote down a list of letters of the alphabet. Letters with numbers beside them. The plus and minus symbols were fine, easy enough to follow. But then all sorts of other symbols started appearing, and Balot soon lost track of what they meant, or whether the letters meant anything or whether they were code for something else…
“But what happens when the players have the opportunity to cooperate? Let’s take a look at so-called cooperative games. The theory is simple. The player’s obvious strategy will be to choose one of a number of finite moves, taking into consideration the logical move that the other player is likely to make so that they can optimize their mutual payoff.”
Balot was starting to feel that the Doctor was becoming ever-so-slightly ostentatious in his display of knowledge. But she kept at it, listening as intently as she could.
“So, if we take a subset from our payoff matrix and apply this procedure to it then we can see that the outcome is going to be different when collusion is involved—that’s what a cooperative game means. It’s a so-called special function: you pass the variable n to the collaborator, and that special function is then fixed on a unique value.”
Balot watched the swarm of symbols as they emerged from the Doctor’s hand, and wondered how much of this it would ever be possible for her to learn. She hoped that she would at least be able to understand something of his final conclusion when he did arrive at it, but at the moment she didn’t even know how to look out for that.
As this was going on, Oeufcoque was inside his capsule, waiting for the liquid to evaporate. Once it had, he turned back into his customary shape of a golden mouse and struggled his way out of the capsule.
He landed on the bed and turned part of his fur inside out to make a pair of his usual pants. Then he pottered off toward the sound of conversation.
Sheets of paper covered in numerical formulae were littered about the floor, and Oeufcoque stepped over these, looking at the numbers as he passed them. Before long he arrived at the scene of the crime and the source of the paper.
Oeufcoque sniffed the air, as if something were burning, and sighed deeply. He passed under the Doctor, who was in the middle of another animated explanation, and hopped onto the table via the chair.
“What are you hoping to achieve by throwing a whole load of economic theory at a fifteen-year-old girl, Doctor?” said Oeufcoque. The Doctor and Balot raised their heads simultaneously. “This might be your field of expertise, Doc, but try not to lord it over the girl too much—you’ll give her an inferiority complex. And Balot—you don’t have to put up with this, you know. Don’t be a martyr. What are you trying to do—experience the prisoner’s dilemma with your own body?”
Having rebuked them both, Oeufcoque sat down on top of the sheets of paper that covered the tabletop.
“Greetings, Oeufcoque. You’re awake earlier than I expected. The latest technology from Paradise seems to have come on a bit since we were last there.”
Oeufcoque shrugged his shoulders. “So, what’s been going on?”
The Doctor brought him up to date, explaining what Balot had discovered while she was at Paradise and the conclusions that they had come to. All through the Doctor’s exposition, Balot’s eyes were cast down. She was terribly nervous. Oeufcoque was in easy reaching distance, but she couldn’t even turn to face him.
“Well, putting aside the fact that Balot is now a suspect for crimes against the Commonwealth—a fact that we’ll revisit later, Doctor, don’t think I’m letting that one pass—surely there’s a better way of preparing Balot for certain victory at the gaming table than to throw a whole load of numbers at her? Isn’t tha
t right, Balot?”
Balot’s body jolted.
Oeufcoque and the Doctor looked at her in mild surprise. Balot tried to answer. Something casual. But the words just wouldn’t come forth.
Balot just sat there staring at the table, trying to make herself seem as small as possible, retreating into herself.
Oeufcoque and the Doctor let her be. There were no forceful reproaches, no What do you want? or If you have something to say then say it.
“I hope you’ll find it in yourself to forgive me,” Oeufcoque said suddenly. “For sleeping through the worst of it, while you were making difficult choices.”
Hurriedly, Balot shook her head.
The Doctor asked Oeufcoque a question, as if to reassure Balot. “How are you doing now, Oeufcoque?”
“I probably shouldn’t strain myself by turning too vigorously, but if it’s just a matter of helping Balot learn to win at cards then I’m well up for it.”
Then Oeufcoque walked over to Balot so that he stood right in front of her eyes. “Would you mind if I hopped on your shoulder?”
Balot stared at Oeufcoque. Her vision started to blur. She nodded, and tears started to fall. She covered her face with both hands, and Oeufcoque reached out to touch her with his paw.
“I’ll put the coffee on.” The Doctor rose from his seat.
Timidly, Balot opened her hands and extended one of them to Oeufcoque.
–Can I touch you?
“Sure.” Oeufcoque jumped onto Balot’s palm. Balot lifted Oeufcoque up, brushing him against her face before placing him on her shoulder.
–Will you stay by my side? Just for now?
“Of course.”
–I’m so sorry, Oeufcoque.
“I’m fine.”
There were no more words. Balot was doing everything she could to suppress the turbulent emotions that were now bubbling up inside her, and she was desperately trying to stop herself from involuntarily snarcing them to Oeufcoque.
The Doctor returned and laid the cups of coffee out neatly. There was even a tiny cup for Oeufcoque. The Doctor and Oeufcoque waited patiently for Balot to regain her composure.
After that, they made their plans. They decided who was going to play what role, and how best to act.
They went through every possible scenario they could imagine, and the Doctor agreed to synthesize it all into one master plan.
When that was over, Balot prepared dinner. They all sat around the table, making small talk. About what they were going to do next. After this case was solved.
No one said anything decisive, of course. No details—just vague generalizations, half jesting. They were all getting along with each other again, on the same wavelength. That was enough for now.
After dinner, the Doctor stood up with his plate in his hands. “Well, it seems our preparations are complete.”
Oeufcoque smiled, but solemnly. “We’ll win our case yet.”
Balot wanted to add something but couldn’t think of anything, so she just nodded.
Balot had been assigned a private room on the second floor, and as she settled into her bed there, Oeufcoque spoke to her. “Shall I stay by your side until you fall asleep?” He was hanging upside down from the pull-switch of the night lamp.
–I’ll be all right.
Balot leaned over to touch Oeufcoque.
–Thank you.
And that was all she had to say. Not only that, she realized that this was all she had wanted to say, right from the beginning.
Oeufcoque pulled the light switch to turn the lamp off, left the room, and shut the door gently behind him.
In the darkness Balot cried, but just a little.
As she cried, she thought. About progress. Oeufcoque and the Doctor both looked to the future. They stood for progress—they defined themselves by fighting against vague and equivocal values and targets. They aimed for tangible results.
But Shell and Boiled were different. They’ve turned their backs on progress, she thought. They had spun themselves around, so that each stared at his own past even though it was supposed to have been long since dead.
The past was just a skeleton, and you could do what you liked with it.
That is, provided that you had come to terms with it, given it a proper burial. So Balot thought.
But even if the past were firmly buried in its grave, it was still looking back up at you, and all it took was a small crack to emerge in the sod and the past could thrust a half-rotten arm right up toward you. And when the hand of the past grabbed hold of your leg and tried to drag you down, you could end up losing sight of where you were even heading in the first place.
When the gaze of the past boring into their backs became too much for Shell and Boiled, they turned around to face it and were swallowed up by the darkness.
The same darkness that Balot knew she could be swallowed by at any moment.
Balot considered what she could do.
When she left this silver egg, what exactly would she be able to do?
Eventually her tears subsided, and Balot fell asleep.
≡
“Do you think we’re doing the right thing?” Oeufcoque jumped onto the chair and then up onto the kitchen table.
“What’s this, now?” The Doctor had been gleefully sorting their plans out on the table, and now he turned to look at Oeufcoque, a little fed up.
“The gifts that we gave to the girl…they’ve put her in a real dilemma.”
“You mean the plan of action that she’s chosen? The plan derives from her own consciousness, you know!”
“Yes, but you can’t say for sure that her latent desire for revenge hasn’t unduly influenced her subconscious mind.”
“You may be right, but it’s not as if she’s burning with the need for revenge at the moment, is it?” asked the Doctor.
“Hmm…no. I think she’s humbly putting her mind to the task at hand—solving this case.”
“Then I think she’ll be all right. Besides, if Balot hadn’t chosen the path of Scramble 09 and had just been relying on the Ham & Eggers, by now she’d be in little strips, being sold off down at the marketplace.”
“Marketplace?” said Oeufcoque.
“Intelligence from the police that’s just come in. About the assassins Boiled hired. They were well known among the human-body-part-fetishist community, apparently. They sold off quality body parts.”
“Hmm.”
“They’re the ones who deserved to be torn limb from limb. I think so, anyway, and I’m sure Balot thinks so too. But Balot doesn’t consider it to be our job to do so. She doesn’t have to tear them limb from limb to be satisfied or achieve closure. That’s a good thing, surely? That’s not to say I’m pleased that our old hideaway is now in ruins, of course. But even that can be fixed up one way or another with reparations from the Broilerhouse when we manage to solve this case properly.”
“That’s true, I suppose.”
“I also feel that we definitely did the right thing in strengthening the girl. As per usual, someone had been systematically tampering with the Ham & Egg circuits. An inside job, most probably—a mole taking money to look the other way, not caring in the slightest whether the people bribing them were murderers or fetishists,” said the Doctor.
“So what’s happening about the inside man?”
“The police are on the case there—it’s out of our hands. You’re looking at serious money to try and bail out someone involved in hacking a public network. I’m sure there are plenty of police looking to their next bonus, eager to pin down the mole.”
Still, Oeufcoque didn’t seem entirely satisfied, and he remained sitting on the table.
“Talk about wishy-washy, Oeufcoque. Anyway, what do you think?”
“About what?”
“The girl, of course.”
Oeufcoque scratched his head with his small paws. “I really hope that her reason and ambitions will triumph over her negative impulses. That’s her real job, to make sure t
hat this happens. Our job is to give her room to develop by protecting her from harm and helping her to recover all her legal rights and privileges. It may be that this sort of work is what I was looking for all along.”
“You see yourself as a social worker? If you can’t stand the heat you can always get out of the kitchen. Just find another line of work,” said the Doctor.
“No—overdependency on social welfare can lead to lives being snuffed out in an instant. The Broilerhouse always overcomplicates things, and they will always need PIs to solve their cases, one way or another. I want to be useful as a deterrent against an everlasting cycle of violence, to protect lives. That’s what Scramble 09 is for.”
“Then what exactly is your problem?”
“I’m not comfortable with the idea of forcing the girl to use me as a weapon, even with the threat of a clear and present danger…”
“And that’s why we’re looking for a chink in the enemy’s armor—to help us solve this case in the quietest way possible. What’s wrong with that?”
“Doctor, I’m a living tool, and you’ll never really understand me.”
“Huh?”
“I’m constantly on the lookout for a user. I want someone like Balot to be using me. I had thought that I’d never again be able to entrust myself to someone else’s hand completely…”
“So?”
“I’m disturbed by the fact that the girl wants to become a PI after we’ve solved this case.”
“Well, I’m glad of that.” The Doctor took his eyes off Oeufcoque for a moment, sipping his coffee.
“What’s there to be glad about, Doctor?”
“Have you heard of the marriage blues, Oeufcoque?”
“No, what are they?”
“They’re when you wear yourself out worrying about something that you’ve already decided. Obsessing about things like self-centered emotions, whether you’re feeling all right, whether something is inevitable or whether it’s happenstance.”
“Are you saying that I’ve got the marriage blues?”