The Perfect

by Greg Juhn

  I lifted my ring hand and said, “Car, please.”

  “Car on the way,” was the silky response.

  Two minutes later, a car pinged from the street.

  Josh climbed in next to me.

  “Herod’s in Southborough,” I said.

  The car replied, “Herod’s? Fine. The trip will take about 28 minutes. I’ll drop you off at 9:32.”

  Josh patted the arm rest. “Not bad for a car. You sound almost human.”

  “Thank you,” said the car. “I can get you a 10% discount on drinks if you prepay 3,000 WorldCoin in chips. Interested?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Go ahead,” she said.

  I tapped my IdentityPhone.

  “When you arrive, see the attendant at location 400-10.”

  We sat in silence. Outside the window, endless tracts of suburban decay passed by. Here and there automated lawn cutters chugged away, but most yards were gravel. My parents had brought me out here when I was young, when the roads in this area wound through woods, meadows, and old towns.

  I wondered what Josh was thinking. Probably checking my sugars. My thoughts were interrupted by a blinking blue light on the dashboard. A breakdown. Great.

  “Pulling over for service,” the car said.

  The car glided to a stop on the side of the road, well out of the way of traffic. The door popped open. Josh and I slid out. “Sorry for the inconvenience,” the car said. “I need to reinstall my firmware. Next car arriving in 48 seconds.”

  I looked down the road as cars sped past. Shortly thereafter we saw an empty car approaching. It slowed and pulled over next to us. The door on the side away from traffic popped open. “Hello,” she said. “Sorry about the wait.”

  We were back on the road, and the car stated our new arrival time, 9:35.

  The suburbs gave way to industrial parks. Miles and miles of them, all connected, all the same. The surroundings grew dirtier, grimier, less inviting. If you wanted heroin or synth, this was the place to find it.

  As we arrived at the casino, I looked up at the massive structure sitting in darkness, the great unlit words Herod’s Casino Oasis fifty feet high. Each letter was formed by three studded rows of empty lightbulb sockets. The enormous sign had been dark for over 2 decades, since the tense events of ’26... the oil and gas shortage that shocked everyone into a run for solar solutions. The “Big Switch” to solar was tinged in a bit of unnecessary panic, but things weren’t the same after that. Gaudy energy consumption became socially unacceptable. Solar didn’t allow for excess. The casinos, once lit up like Christmas trees, removed most of their external signage and lighting. For some reason, Herod’s had left theirs on the side of the building, a reminder of different times, or perhaps a defiant political statement.

  Besides, no one had need for big signs any more. There was no reason for such primitive advertising. Everyone knew where they were going when they got in a car, and the car knew how to get there. No one walked. Big signs and bright lights had disappeared together.

  The car glided down several levels and stopped in front of two large glass doors.

  “Car, thank you for the ride. Maybe we will meet again someday,” Josh said.

  “You’re welcome. Maybe we will,” she replied.

  We climbed out.

  “She was lovely... I think we had a connection,” Josh said as we stepped onto the curb.

  The area was well lit, but empty. There was nothing out there but a few security cameras and a row of screens to promote the casino’s attractions. The party was inside.

  Immediately upon entering, we were subjected to a security search to ensure our bodies were gunless and bombless. Standing before a solid reinforced metal gate that blocked our passage, we positioned our feet on painted footsteps. First the whiffer sticks emerged and tapped the contours of our bodies, seeking trace amounts of explosive reagents and the hard outlines of a gun or knife. Satisfied, these whipped back into their holes. Then a skin pen brushed us for a DNA check and positive ID. I had failed to foresee this step and shot Josh a worried look. But his synthetic skin provided the required DNA; NeoMechi had replaced the previous owner’s data in the GlobalID database with Josh’s new identity. No problem.

  Herod’s deemed neither of us a threat, and the gate opened.

  We found our way to section 400-10, one alcove among many in a long corridor that led to the gaming halls. Each alcove provided arriving guests with a private space to buy their chips from an automated dispenser. Our dispenser was tall and slender and new. Sitting next to the dispenser was a crude humanoid robot, a clunky model from the early days, at least 20 or 30 years old. He wasn’t even wearing clothes. His joints were simple hinges with nonelastic cables and a few springs providing the pulley system. Every surface of his metal exterior was dull or scratched. He’d probably fallen over about a thousand times. I assumed that’s why they had him sitting. His face was hand-painted crudely on a rubbery sphere, slapped on by someone in a sweat house who had painted hundreds of these on the same day as this one. The result looked like a cheap Halloween mask. A grotesque abomination.

  I waved my hand over the scanner.

  “We created your account, Mr. Marshall, and received your order for... 3,000 WorldCoin,” the robot said through a buzzy speaker. “Would you like to order additional chips for a better drink discount of 15%?”

  I ordered more and waved my hand again. The dispenser hummed smoothly and with a satisfying click-click a dozen translucent discs appeared in the dispensing slot. Each glowed dimly with the chip value on the surface.

  The robot lifted his animatronic arm. The rubbery mouth moved. “Have fun and good luck,” it said. “Play our latest game, 50-50, and win Big Money!"

  “Look,” I said to Josh, pointing at the robot’s face. “They already have the next generation out and he’s a lot better looking than you.”

  Josh’s eyes grew distant. I appeared to have hurt his feelings. Was he acting? Was he acting? Of course he was, because that’s all he could do.

  His expression looked real, though. I felt bad.

  “Just kidding,” I said.

  “No problem,” he replied.

  We walked away from the alcove and made our way through the crowd to the gaming halls.

  That stupid little throwaway jab at Josh had disappeared into a microphone and now sat on a server, I later learned, and would eventually impact everyone on the planet.

  Dead Humans.

  The interior of the casino was as big as the doomsday bunker in Cheyenne Mountain. From an expansive main entry hall, corridors shot off in all directions like an exploding star. Stairways and escalators led up. Stairways and escalators led down. Elevators shot small capsules of greedy people up the interior walls to the big-stake games on the upper levels and pushed desperate people down to the penny games in the basement.

  The entry hall swarmed with bodies. Wealthy executives in fancy suits, cookie-cutter business people, tourists in shorts, housewives in sweatpants. All funneled off toward their gambling drug of choice. These were the poor people Herod’s was stealing from. The house had the advantage in every game. These folks were here to bet against the odds, and in most cases, lose horribly. Josh and I, on the other hand, weren’t here to gamble; we were just here to pick up a lot of money and go home.

  The air smelled of flavored tobacco vapors and air freshener, mixed into nauseating combinations. Banana and pine. Candy cane and mountain air. The vapors disappeared quickly but the odors wafted through the cavern, emerging from every cluster of players.

  I steered Josh to the left, into a dimly lit hall with a somber vibe. The activity inside had caught my eye. “I want to take a look in these rooms first,” I said.

  He followed me in. “I wouldn’t mind seeing this first hand myself,” he replied.

  Ever since the so-called Right to Death Act was passed, casinos had launched strange and grisly new betting games that fed the public craving for extreme thrills.r />
  The room was packed for a game called 50-50. If you had reached the end of your financial rope and felt you had no reason to live without a serious injection of cash, you could take the ultimate gamble. You squared off against another similarly desperate soul. One of you would win an enormous jackpot and become instantly rich. The other: lethal injection.

  Many of 50-50’s participants had spent weeks in the casino and reached the last of their funds. They had literally no money left. The house didn’t make money on these poor souls; the profits came from the crowd betting on which they thought would survive.

  To wager, you first submitted your bet value, or "bounty.” The casino then delivered a backgrounder on each contestant to your phone. This had nothing to do with the odds, as it was a game of pure chance. The casino just figured you’d want to get to know the players. Once you had become emotionally attached to one or the other, you assigned your bounty to the player you hoped would win. Hundreds of thousands of people played online.

  Each player stood in a private chamber, as grave as a funeral chaplain. A shiny silver ball the size of a basketball sagged in a net between the chambers, hanging heavy with suspense. The players’ fates would be decided in the span of ten seconds. Following a horn’s deafening blast, the ball would drop into a trough and roll to a pivot gate. Sometimes, the ball rolled right through the gate and dropped into a basket in the right-hand room. Other times it rolled left. Although the winning bettors took the majority, the winning player got a princely sum, and the house took the rest.

  Our timing was good, morbidly speaking. Betting had closed and the game was about to start.

  In the left chamber: a guy in a suit, staring at the ground, not moving, expressionless, a statue. Josh pulled up his bio: "Peter Perry. He suffers from ulcerative colitis and has a cat named Tommy. He’s been in the casino two straight weeks. His wife left him 18 months ago. He’s a financial consultant. He likes rom-coms.”

  In the right chamber: a man in worn, ill-fitting shirt and jeans, wringing his fingers, tapping his foot, biting down on his lip, wide eyed. The idea of getting to know them appalled me.

  “Jason Mertz,” reported Josh. “Single, never married, age 31. Claims landscaping as his career, but I can’t find much to verify that. I uncovered some jail time. Likes bash metal.”

  A wall clock flashed awake and began the countdown – 60 seconds. As the seconds plummeted, the crowd grew quiet.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  As we left, the horn blasted. Seconds later, a chorus of reaction from the crowd.

  The winner would be emerging now from the chamber to shake hands and mingle with the bettors, accept congratulations, thank everyone. Then he’d probably head straight to the elevator and up to the highest stakes tables.

  Josh said, “Peter lost.”

  “I didn’t want to know.”

  Peter the Loser would be heading to the injection room now. Some losers changed their minds and decided to go on living, but surprisingly, most went through with the suicide. Losing the game nudged them off the last ledge. Without money, with no way to pay the bills, with no spare change for food, with no funds for gambling, with no options, what was the point?

  “Interesting,” Josh said as we left. “A robot would never do that.”

  “A robot doesn’t have anything to live for, and therefore doesn’t take desperate chances.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it.”

  Ready to play, we headed straight to the blackjack tables. That was where the loamy land lay. Along the way we passed countless slot machines and roulette stands. These were worthless to us. Or were they? Could Josh communicate with a one-armed bandit? I brushed the thought away.

  Most of the tables were mobbed with players and bystanders. While these would provide plenty of distractions to the pit bosses, potentially helping us fly under the radar for a while, we didn’t want drunk people elbowing us or breathing in our ear or asking us questions. Other tables were empty; the dealers watched us hopefully. We passed. Then we saw our spot. Three people were already playing quietly, but no one was hanging out watching.

  Josh and I divvied up our chips and took a position between two players. I would keep my bets low. I had purchased the chips, so his winnings would go to me.

  A pit boss watched us, bored. He scratched a stubbly cheek.

  Lining up his chips, Josh pushed a blue chip into the betting slot. We were ready.

  Josh had explained that a proficient card counter has only a 1% advantage over the house, which meant you needed to bankroll a lot of money to cover your losses and play a lot of games to ultimately realize your edge. The maximum bet at a Herod’s blackjack table was 800,000 WorldCoin. To place those kinds of bets, a card counter would need at least 20 million to get through the statistical troughs. Casino dealers shuffle often, and every time they do, the card counter is back to square one. For Josh, deck shuffling only meant it would take him a little longer to get a read on each card. Once he did, a card might as well have had "Ace of spades" or "Three of clubs" printed on the back. By that point, the game was over for the house. He would have the ability to play a perfect game of blackjack – he would have the best possible advantage, the theoretical upper limit with a completely marked deck. There was no way we were coming out of this scenario except filthy rich.

  Our key to winning big was doubling down – doubling a bid after getting the first two cards. Josh could identify his next card, which sat at the top of the deck, so he could always double down when it was the best odds.

  The pit boss stood next to me with hairy arms crossed, silent except for his raspy breathing. At times I felt him staring at me, but most of the time he studied Josh. His gut instinct, his years on the floor, seemed to have tipped him off that something was up. Maybe it was my imagination. Or guilt.

  About 20 minutes in, the tables had turned against the house. Josh started betting larger amounts. His winning rate grew. He also doubled down at each perfect opportunity.

  The pit boss watched our every move. I was more aware of the dozen or so security cameras pointed at us. Four or five from the ceiling. Several pointing up from the table. Others mounted on nearby game machines and lights. In some remote room, a team of security experts watched everything going on: the Eye in the Sky. How many were watching Josh at this very instant? Josh was as calm as a robot reading the news. How many were watching me? I was sweating. I could feel my shirt growing wet at the pits, which I confirmed with a quick glance down.

  Josh chatted with the dapper businessman and mirthless heavyset woman playing at our table. They acknowledged his wins with cool nods, even as they themselves busted more often than not.

  His bets grew bigger and bolder. An hour in, we were in no danger of leaving with a loss, and our playable bankroll was getting bigger.

  I was dripping sweat onto the floor and table. The pit boss was still standing silently next to me. He gestured toward an adjoining table and another pit boss soon joined us. This man was bigger, stockier, grimmer than the first. I finished a Long Island iced tea and ordered a second from a passing waiter. The surrounding chatter, clinking glasses, shuffling cards, coughing, horns blasting, and other background noise distracted me, but I’m sure it meant nothing to my partner. Meanwhile, I continued betting small and mostly losing.

  The betting limit at this table was high enough for Josh to double down a few times and win over a million WorldCoin. But that would surely draw suspicion.

  It was possible we had already drawn too much attention. Two burly security guards had joined the pit bosses. These guys had a menacing appearance, with neat white uniforms, shined up gold badges, and twice the muscle mass of our pit crew. Their hair was shaved down to a clean military cut.

  Josh played his first 200,000WC bet and doubled down. No one spoke. I could feel the eyes on me from behind, the four men standing side by side, arms crossed, watching. Josh had a two and a King. The dealer showed a ten.

  With a qui
ck finger tap, Josh requested a card, and the dealer gave him a none. Josh slashed the air with his hand to show he was done. An unnecessary gesture: his total was 21. The dealer dealt himself a six, then flipped his hole card: eight. At 24, dealer busted. Josh retrieved a 400,000WC chip, now glowing platinum.

  I wanted to get out of there. We had already won 611,725WC, more than my privileged salary paid in two years.

  But Josh gestured for another hand. Then he turned, looked at the four sentries, smiled sincerely, and went back to his cards.

  One of the guards reached forward and tapped him on the shoulder. “Excuse me, sir,” he said. “Could you step away from the table for a minute?”

  Josh nodded and slid off his stool. The guard waved him to approach and gestured for him to raise his arms. The guard patted him down, top to bottom. Josh’s body must have felt unusually solid. I imagined them waving a metal detector and had a moment of panic. In general, security didn’t use these unless they suspected a concealed weapon. People had so much metal in them, medical monitors and sensors, that it took quite a bit of effort to figure out what’s what with a detector.

  They weren’t ready for that step yet. They let Josh continue. I tipped back my glass and became aware that I needed to use the bathroom. My head was getting light. Drinking had been a mistake. I had done so out of nerves, but now that I had a buzz, I worried it would be hard to act normal.

  I told Josh I was going to the men’s room, and he nodded without looking at me.

  I weaved my way through the tables, the throngs of players and observers, the vapors. A good splash on the face would help. Inside the men’s room, after having done my business, I pressed the floor switch with my foot and filled my cupped hands with water, splashing and rinsing my face. I shook my hands and grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser. Another man in the bathroom finished up and left. As he did, the security guards entered.

  My heart skipped a beat and I opened my mouth to speak – to say what, I have no idea – but it didn’t matter because they grabbed me and smashed my face against the wall. They pressed their bulk against me as they pinned my hands together and slapped cuffs on them.