Mardock Scramble

by Ubukata, Tow

  Balot looked at the scoreboard. The last five spins were 14 red, 0 red, 17 black, 30 red, and 23 red. Having glanced at it, she placed a chip on the layout in the space for 2 black. She then threw another one into the mix, which she placed on 14 red.

  The old lady, the croupier, took a look at Balot’s chips.

  She hadn’t expected Balot to dive straight in and bet on single numbers, it seemed, and she waited a moment before carefully placing her hand on the roulette wheel.

  “Starting,” the old lady called in a low, steady voice.

  She gripped the handle of the wheel with her left hand and spun it around with a deft movement. It hardly looked like she had put any effort into it at all. At the very same time she threw the ball smoothly in with her right hand. The wheel spun to the right, and the ball spun around within the bowl, traveling in the opposite direction. The numbers flew past in a dizzy whirl, and the ball seemed to slide gracefully against them, the two opposing movements creating a beautiful spiral effect.

  Balot thought she might put another chip somewhere on the layout but suddenly stopped herself, transfixed by the rotations.

  “No more bets,” the old lady called out, preventing any additional bets on this spin.

  Chip gripped tightly in her hand, Balot followed the ball with her eyes.

  The ball and the wheel seemed to be drawing closer together. Or so she thought, but then the ball ricocheted off one of the eight metal pins that were placed inside the wheel, sending the ball off in a seemingly random direction. It continued on into the wheel just as its rotations were slowing down, and the ball slipped into one of the pockets with apparent ease.

  The spinning wheel slowed down again. The numbers were much clearer now, and it was possible to see exactly where the ball had landed.

  “Two black,” called the old lady. Then the hand that had just smoothly spun the ball was on the table, placing a weighted crystal on the layout over the number that had just won.

  Balot was surprised to see the speed with which the other dealers moved to prepare and distribute her winnings.

  It was as Oeufcoque had said—she won the first round. They made sure of that.

  The croupier had seen the number and placed the ball there with astonishing accuracy. Balot had heard stories of such skill but never believed them until just now, having seen it with her own eyes. An incredible display of ability.

  Or it could just have been coincidence. The electronic scoreboard suggested that this was indeed a possibility. It wasn’t as if the numbers of the roulette wheel were neatly lined up from 1 to 36. Rather, they were arranged in a seemingly random pattern: 14, 2, 0, 28, 9, 26, 30. Looking at the results of the last five spins, it was possible to detect something of a pattern emerging.

  Whether it was due to a biased wheel or some habit of the croupier was hard to tell, but considering that the odds were thirty-six to one normally, it didn’t seem beyond the bounds of possibility that she had won legitimately.

  Or was it all calculated, part of an act to draw the punter in ever more deeply? Judging by the features of the croupier in charge, it was hard to discount this possibility. She looked every inch the master of her craft.

  “Congratulations, madam.” One of the other dealers pushed a mountain of chips toward her. Thirty-five times her original stake. Flustered, Balot offered the chip that was her original stake to the dealer. Not to gamble with—as a tip.

  –Gosh, what a surprise.

  Balot said to Oeufcoque, furtively.

  –It felt like someone set you up to win. Probably a trick to draw the crowds in.

  Oeufcoque’s words backed up Balot’s existing suspicions.

  Before she realized it, there were people gathering at the table. Thirty-five to one was the best payout there was in roulette—it was the rarest and therefore always interesting. Equally noteworthy were the figures displayed on the electronic scoreboard beside the roulette wheel. Anyone in the know would soon realize that the numbers revealed the distinct possibility of a biased wheel—and this could be exploited.

  Would the ball continue to fall in the same area, or would the pattern be interrupted? This was the question, and one that countless keen eyes were now watching to see if they could have answered. It was what made gambling exciting.

  One by one the chairs at the table filled up, and there were other people who placed their bets while remaining standing. Some placed their own bets on the layout, others called out to the dealers to have them place chips on their behalf. Before long the table was a kaleidoscope of colored chips. Roulette fever had taken hold.

  –There are body odors everywhere—it’s all one big mess!

  Oeufcoque wrote on her hand as normal, but she felt as if he were wailing in despair.

  –Let’s head over to another table. We’ve got what we wanted, and the croupier has what she wanted.

  –Wait.

  Balot held him back.

  –I want to play here again. Please?

  Balot already had chips in her hand even as she snarced him.

  –There’s no guarantee you’ll win again. The croupier had a strange, capricious smell about her.

  –I want to watch the woman a little longer.

  –You’re interested in the croupier?

  She sensed that Oeufcoque was perplexed, but it didn’t stop her from placing another chip on the layout.

  She went for a straight bet again, a single number: 14 red.

  Balot thought she saw the old lady take in the bet with her eyes.

  The more Balot looked at her, the more noble she seemed in appearance and stature. Not some act put on for the job or for the crowds. There was a certain something that seemed to radiate from her very core.

  Balot was reminded of the manager at her old place of work—the one who gave Balot her name—and also of Queen Bee.

  It wasn’t that Balot particularly respected these women, and neither looked much like the croupier. She just associated them with each other somehow. That led to another train of thought, and Balot recalled something that a female movie star had once said in a television interview.

  The journalist who was interviewing the star had asked her a question: “Would you ever consider plastic surgery to remove your wrinkles, just like so many other stars seem to be doing these days?”

  The actress just smiled and said, “I worked hard for these wrinkles.”

  The words had made a great impression on Balot.

  The actress in question had started out in porn before moving into regular acting work, eventually becoming a great star of screen and stage. Balot did of course, given their similar backgrounds, empathize with the actress and respected her too. But there was more than that. The actress exuded a certain mute confidence when she answered the question. If there’s anything in my life that’s worth being proud of, then these wrinkles are it, she seemed to say.

  The lady that stood before Balot now seemed to exude the same aura of quiet certainty. Bell Wing. Balot said the name to herself once more. She felt lucky that she had been able to sit down at this table. Nothing to do with whether she was going to win or lose, but a different sort of luck. Just as she felt lucky that it was none other than Oeufcoque and the Doctor who had brought her back from the brink of death after Shell-Septinos nearly killed her.

  While Balot was thinking this to herself, the distinguished croupier had spun the wheel in the opposite direction to the previous spin, and likewise the ball.

  The two rotated like twin stars, and No more bets was called.

  Just before the ball was about to fall into place, Balot sensed something—it was as if the ball were moving according to someone’s will.

  The wheel slowly came to a halt and the winning number was revealed.

  “Fourteen red,” Bell Wing called out in a steady voice.

  The table exploded. It was her second straight up in a row. Another small mountain of chips moved toward her, and her pile of chips looked for a moment like a mound o
f rose petals.

  A hundred-dollar chip, thirty-five to one, twice in a row. The pile didn’t include the chips she’d bet or the 5 percent commission that the house took, so that meant a total of $6,600 in front of her.

  The other punters seemed to be encouraged by this—My turn next!—but Balot just stared at the pile of chips in front of her.

  It just seemed too much, as if the money couldn’t possibly be hers.

  She wasn’t there for money in the first place, of course. Money was just the means to the end, a step on the stairway that led up to the real target, and all that the money in front of her really meant was that Balot was one step closer to her goal. Thinking about it this way helped keep Balot calm.

  –The next game is going to be tricky. Best leave this table well enough alone now.

  Oeufcoque’s words rang true, and she saw the sense in them. But Balot wasn’t ready to leave the table, not yet. She started to feel that if she was meant to climb the stairway to the top, step by step, then she might as well enjoy the journey and value each step for what it was.

  –I want to stay here just a little longer. I won’t use up all our winnings or anything, I promise. Please.

  Oeufcoque seemed to think deeply on this, and he paused before he replied.

  –Just remember that your winnings so far are still a long way off from our overall target.

  He made no further attempt to make Balot leave.

  Balot thanked him and took the next chips in her hand.

  She slipped them onto the tableau: 14 red, 2 black. Some of the other punters were watching her to try and ride her coat tails, others figured third time unlucky, and others still were in discussion about the law of averages and how they applied to this table.

  Then the ball was thrown in. The wheel spun to the left, the ball to the right. The white ball against the red and black wheel of fortune. The numbers melted together, the ball hit one of the pins, and an invisible hand reached out from the thirty-eight pockets to pull the ball in, one of them ready and waiting to welcome it.

  The ball bounced off the dome in the middle and fell.

  The ball and the wheel became one.

  There was a collective sigh. The wheel stopped, and the winning number was revealed.

  Bell Wing had her crystal dolly in her hand.

  “Fifteen black.”

  The dolly was placed on the layout, over the winning number. The winners’ chips were distributed, and the chips that Balot had staked were taken away by one of the dealers.

  “You were so close.” The voice came out of nowhere, it seemed, and it took a moment for Balot to realize that the words had been directed toward her.

  Balot raised her head and looked at Bell Wing. Bell Wing, in turn, was looking at Balot. But the croupier had no more to say and shifted her attention back to the rest of the table.

  –There’s nothing close about it.

  Oeufcoque was the one to say these words, but Balot was already thinking them.

  Fifteen black was almost directly opposite 14 red on the wheel.

  More importantly, Balot couldn’t work out why Bell Wing had chosen to speak to her.

  Was she trying to determine whether the punter that she had used to draw the crowds was the type who might get greedy and go for broke? Or was she trying to demonstrate to Balot that she could manipulate the ball at will and send it to whichever corner she wished?

  –Are you going again?

  –The first time I won it was because she let me. Now, I want to win for myself. It was a strong answer from Balot. She felt confident that she could do it. She had learned all the strategies the Doctor had taught her. More than that, though, she felt a desire welling up inside herself—a desire to use her newfound abilities, to exploit them fully, to win.

  –I think I can, you see.

  –Well, I’m here to back you up to the hilt.

  Oeufcoque’s answer revealed that he understood what Balot was feeling.

  Balot squeezed the chip in her hand before calmly placing it on the tableau.

  Chapter 8

  EXPLOSION

  01

  Balot now adopted a different strategy. She started aiming for the lower payouts, bets that would double or triple her stake.

  She was currently going after the even money bets that ran down the side of the numbers on the layout.

  There were three types of bets. Low/high—that is, 1-18 or 19-36. Odds/evens. Black/red.

  Each resulted in a doubling of the original stake. Balot was mainly sticking to low/high as she took in the sensations of the wheel, the ball, and Bell Wing’s fingertips.

  There were a number of points she was to take note of, and Oeufcoque conveyed what these were by writing on her left hand. The angle of the bowl’s incline, the shape and number of the metal pins, and the slope of the dome inside the wheel. On top of that she also had to pay attention to the depth of the pockets and note whether they were cushioned or not.

  The bias in how the ball landed was determined by the wheel and how it was spun. If the bowl were shallow, the ball wouldn’t bounce as much on its way down. The metallic pins were easier to read when they were shaped like rods, and the fewer of them there were, the easier it was to predict the path of the ball as it ricocheted off them. The steeper the incline on the dome, the more likely the ball was to fall straight down; the deeper the pockets—and the more padding they had—the less likely the ball was to bounce back out of the pocket.

  The table that Balot was currently sitting at passed muster on all these points. The wheel was level, and the bowl wasn’t too deep. There were four cylindrical rods, four diamond-shaped ones. The angle of the dome’s incline was more or less forty-five degrees exactly. The pockets were a little over five millimeters deep.

  If the wheel had been less ideal then Balot had planned on giving up immediately to find greener pastures elsewhere. But instead she found herself fired up, ready for a challenge

  In response to her newfound determination, Oeufcoque’s writing disappeared from her hand to be replaced with something useful: the number of rotations.

  The number of times the ball went around and the number of times the wheel went around.

  All the while Balot’s bets were progressing steadily from bets that paid double her stake to those that paid triple.

  Column bets: choosing one of the three lines of numbers to bet on, excluding the 0 and the 00.

  Douzaine bets: choosing one of 1-12, 13-24, or 25-36. This also paid out triple her original stake.

  Weaving backward and forward from one of these bets to the other, Balot and Oeufcoque gradually started piecing together a picture of how the croupier spun both the wheel and the ball.

  The ball would almost always do between eighteen and twenty rotations. In particular, whenever the croupier focused on the spin, it would be closer to eighteen full rotations. Oeufcoque calculated the amount of time it took from the ball’s release to when it first started dipping, all the while computing the odds that it would hit a particular pin and the angle at which it was most likely to hit the bowl.

  There were three key factors involved in the spin. Three states: the numbers were easily visible, or they could just be made out when following them around, or they were blurred beyond perception. After watching a number of full spins, Balot and Oeufcoque found they could work out the point at which one state transitioned to another.

  It wasn’t an easy task to pinpoint it exactly—but it was absolutely essential if Oeufcoque and Balot were to stand a chance in predicting the croupier’s habits.

  All the while, numbers were appearing inside the glove on Balot’s right hand.

  Oeufcoque’s magic numbers.

  The numbers contained in each of the eight segments of the wheel, divided according to the positions of the pins. Each segment was given a name, and the idea was to accurately predict the path of the ball as it bounced from one segment to another.

  First there was North Side: 25-29-12-8.<
br />
  Then North East: 19-31-18-6-21.

  Followed by East Side: 14-2-0-28-9,

  South East: 14-2-0-28-9,

  South Side: 26-30-11-7,

  South West: 20-32-17-5-22,

  West Side: 34-15-3-24-36,

  and North West: 13-1-00-27-10.

  There was a fine line between success and total failure, and the difference would come down to whether they were able to determine, in an instant, which segment the ball was heading for.

  This was where Oeufcoque really came into his own.

  Every time the ball fell, he could highlight in an instant which segment it would hit.

  Furthermore, this was hardly cheating. Any player was allowed to have a crib sheet at the table with them, showing the arrangement of the numbers. Indeed, it was fair to say it was standard practice among regulars.

  You could even buy official guide sheets containing such information—and much more besides—at the casino’s own kiosks or in the hotel lobby.

  The question was not whether you were allowed this information, but whether you could you use it quickly and accurately enough for it to be useful.

  And could you then go on to use that information to work out how the angle of the ball—as it ricocheted off the pins—would vary according to when and how the ball and wheel were spun.

  The table was divided into four blocks, and if, for example, 00 (in block A) was at position B when the ball started to fall, you were talking about a spin of roughly ninety degrees, or one quarter of a full rotation of the wheel.

  Oeufcoque was able to perform complex calculations to cut out the intermediary steps and focus on just the crucial factor: the point in the rotation at which the ball would fall into the wheel.

  When Bell Wing put her mind to it, this was at the point of a full rotation: 360 degrees. Otherwise, it was almost always around the ninety-degree mark.

  There were some variations in results, of course. But these outcomes were because Bell Wing was deliberately manipulating the spin. Oeufcoque could tell this because these were the only times when the ball seemed to move with a different sort of motive than usual. The motive being to deliberately inject some variety into the figures.