Chance Meeting
The elephants looked wrong.
That’s not to say they didn’t look like elephants. Or that they were out of place against the wild grasses and isolated clusters of drought-proof acacia trees. On the contrary, considering the many grazing species of ungulates that I could see, and not least the warthog that insisted on crashing randomly through undergrowth somewhere to my left, the eventual presence of nature’s behemoths was entirely…well, natural.
They just seemed a bit ‘off’. I peered at them in study as they drew closer. What was it? What was it?
Hmmm…actually, none of them seem to have any-
And then I saw her.
Oh, bollocks.
For reasons that she probably assumed began and ended with the word ‘cute’, she’d chosen to ride atop a baby that squirmed between the legs of the adults around it. The baby did not look happy. With her bulk she could at least have had the decency to ride a bull.
“How you like your wake-up call?” she cackled as the procession ground to a halt in front of me. I frowned. Elephants. Long-held icons of memory. It made sense really.
She looked around and did that semi-disinterested sneer that only she and posh mother-in-laws in old flicks can. “Bit pompous, no?” she continued. “You, a king of the savannah?” I shrugged.
“It’s a dream, Queenie. It’s meant to be fantastical,” I growled. Of course, this fact had only become apparent to me when I’d seen her, but I wasn’t letting her see that. “By the way,” I continued, “If you want to blend in next time…” as much as a fat Mexican aunty can and as much as dreams ever repeat themselves, “You should know that African elephants have tusks. Large ones.” Queenie really looked at her herd for possibly the first time.
After a moment, she went back to the sneer. “Who cares? I’m here to wake you up so you need to notice me,” she countered from atop a baby elephant still wheezing from its’ exertions.
“Why do you need to be here?” I asked. “What’s wrong with the alarm I set?”
“I changed it,” she explained. My stomach lurched and some trees disappeared in the background. I wanted to pretend she hadn’t said that.
“You…”
“I know you have big interview today so you need to be bright and sharp and dazzle everybody with your average brain, yes? So I synchronize a new alarm with circadian rhythm instead.” She was speaking quite casually but meanwhile the whole vista around us was disappearing and the dread in me mounting.
“Nooo,” I rumbled. “I checked that last night. There was no way to synchronise the end of a sleep cycle with the wake-up time.” Queenie just gazed off into the distance thoroughly unperturbed. “Unless I had 50 minutes less sleep, which I didn’t want to do without.” I finished with a slight squeak. She turned back to me.
“I know. So I went forward instead,” she beamed. The terror grew as the last of the herd animals vanished.
“Forward? As in…40 minutes more?” I croaked. Queenie’s demeanor wasn’t dampened.
“Yep. Time to wake up, hombre!” she sang. I screamed.
“Fucking b-!”
I sat bolt upright in bed and narrowly missed the ceiling. Sure enough, the clock in the upper left corner of my vision showed what I already knew to be true. I was late.
Suspending me and stretching out in every direction was a huge expanse of white sheet anchored at 12 points around the room; my beloved ceiling hammock. It was a daily joy to climb up here and crawl/roll towards the middle as much as I could manage. It also negated the need for an extra room, which, considering rents in Hong Kong these days, was fine by me. Unfortunately it didn’t exactly make for a quick exit when required. There was only one thing for it.
I maneuvered myself over to directly above where I knew the couch to be, took a deep breath and muttered: “Emergency release.” Instantly all 12 anchors released the sheet and I landed with a ‘whomp’ on the couch whilst the living-room was transformed into a skiers’ dream landscape of hills, levies and cliffs.
The shower had been waiting for me for a good 45 minutes and if it was possible for a suspended bubble of hot water to look peeved, then it did. I stepped through once slowly and emerged suitably damp, before getting sprayed with cleansers. I lathered up before a quick step back into the bubble to rinse and then I was out again and being buffeted with jets of hot air.
I’d picked out the clothes already. They were somewhere underneath the bloody sheet. I dived under and the peculiarity of getting dressed beneath a giant milk-white bivouac seemed appropriate to the mornings’ direction.
More fun and games awaited me down in the basement.
“What do you mean you gave it away?” I asked. The porter grinned at me the way other people grinned at naughty kittens.
“You booked a vehicle for 9:30 sir,” he whined. “It’s now 9:50. What do you expect?” The damn thing to be waiting for me with my name on it frankly. The porter nodded his head in a different direction. “Now the Wongs…they booked for quarter to, but they were early!”
“Hope they crash,” I muttered, not that that was possible. The porter tilted his head for a moment as though he’d heard something and was playing it over again to be sure, but then ignored it and gazed at the bright light now streaming from the garage maw.
“Don’t worry. Here comes yours now,” he said. Not technically it wasn’t, but it’d do.
“Thank f-”
“Of course, we haven’t had time to set your destination which means you’ll have to tell it yourself.” He was grinning again but there was a glint of evil this time. “As you know, manual entries do require an insurance increase…in case of any errors,” he lamented.
Bastard. I’m going to have Queenie play this back tonight and at this point I’ll be able to kick the grin off his face with an axe. There was nothing like having a PA for stress relief.
I climbed in the silvered aerofoil-shaped cockpit and addressed the machine.
“Ian Hunter.”
“Where to, sir?” it asked.
“The Teacup.” The machine’s engine whined down.
“I don’t know that destination, sir.” Shit. Too many bloody nicknames in HK.
“Sorry. I meant The Bliss Hotel.” Immediately we sped off out of the basement into the sunlight of a new day and joined other vehicles moving stupidly fast.
Vehicle AI’s were specifically ordered to ignore nicknames just so the insurance increase could be justified. Actual daylight robbery, as Riz was fond of saying.
Here in the 27th Century, pretty much all interviews were done virtually, and often at a moment’s notice so employers could see if you were genuinely capable rather than merely well-coached. The global workplace was almost entirely virtual so this was merely natural. Fully half the employed masses in Hong Kong virtually went to work in another country. That was all okay with the Collective as more than twice that number were virtual expats into Hong Kong and so paid their taxes here.
These facts meant that having to turn up for a job interview in the flesh was rare to the point of bordering obscenity. Marcus Szeto was a peculiar man though. Case in point: The Bliss Hotel.
A relic from the days shortly after engineers had first told architects that they could make a stable, catastrophe-proof building regardless of what it looked like, and the architects had said ‘Prove it.’ A giant white and blue-trimmed teacup and saucer at the corner of a block was more than enough proof to my eyes, but just in case…there was a towering beige beer-mug down the street.
“Mr. Hunter,” said a well-built man with glasses who met me in the lobby. He had a hand extended in my direction and I just about remembered to shake it. This felt far different from the virtual experience I was used to. More painful for starters.
The lobby was huge. Or it seemed so. With all the holographic and atmospheric control tech that was around it was folly to even try and judge an indoor space. The culture-grown leather suites Marcus invited me to settle into were definitely huge though, and distractingly comfortable.
He smiled at me. Showing teeth or genuine warmth?
“I’m sure you’re curious as to why I wanted a physical meeting,” he began in a gentle baritone.
“That was a bit puzzling,” I said. Marcus grinned some more.
“To be honest, you’ve already passed that test,” he said shifting in the armchair that faced me. “I’ve found that those who could adapt themselves to the strangeness of keeping a physical appointment were usually far more reliable. And you were perfectly on time, Mr. Hunter.”
I shrugged, far too used to frankness to bother hiding it here.
“No, I was late. I aimed for 20 minutes early. Time to scope out the place and get used to feeling comfortable and confident here,” I admitted. Marcus was grinning again.
“Precisely what I would’ve done,” he said. “Admirable.” He glanced into the middle distance on his right, probably looking over my Ceev in his retinal view. “So why do you want a job with me?”
It was the kind of question that employers had generally stopped asking. We all knew that neither food nor (more importantly) beer was free and also that not having a purpose in life lead to eccentric self-destruction. So employers had moved onto asking why that particular line of work. Sensing my hesitation, Marcus decided to clarify for me.
“The key to that question is the ‘with me’ part,” he said. “With your experience, you could get a place with any of the big gambling houses.”
I shook my head at him.
“That’s the point,” I said. “With my experience, I want to move into arbitrary betting. I’ve handled every kind of regular bet there is at every scale. It’s time to move onto a new challenge. Keep the game fresh.”
“And you don’t think you can do that at AnyBet?” He queried. I shook my head again.
“Because of their protocols, AnyBet don’t trust experience garnered outside their house. You have to work up from the inside. No fast-tracking.
“Odds-on aren’t too bad but by their nature they handle a very small range of incidental bets. On top of which, huge stakes tend to gravitate towards them so only the most trusted bookmakers are allowed to handle things. The chances of success are too slim and big-stake bets are rarely all that interesting. I’d rather deal with the everyman betting.”
Marcus mulled this over for a while, during which I studied him.
Naturally we looked the same age, but I’d taken the step of finding out that he had a good twenty-three years on me. The glasses were an affectation; no-one needed corrected vision in this century. The World Council would never have sanctioned personal flight if that was the case, even though the Chinese Collective had decided to ignore the decree. His hair and eyes were black and the face was almost abnormally typically Chinese. His Cantonese was like mine though. He’d learned it here a long time ago. I wanted to hear his Mandarin now, to see if he’d grown up speaking it like I had. His English wouldn’t tell me anything as all Western languages had downloadable accent apps these days. Something all Eastern Collectives had forbidden.
Marcus appeared satisfied with my answers and said:
“You’ve certainly done your research.”
It was my turn to grin.
“Instant interviews,” I conceded. “Got to know everything before you let everyone know you’re available.” He smiled and nodded.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Let’s get technical.”
He gave me twelve scenarios, a range of bets, and I handled and made odds for all of them. With Queenie I could calculate odds almost before the parameters were laid but I made a point of doing them on my own and just as fast. The sports bets needed quick research concerning form, injuries and arena conditions and I flagged two of the others as possible first-signs of a scam. It was taxing but not tricky.
“Well done, Mr. Hunter,” said Marcus at the end of it all. “You’re fast and efficient.”
“As I said,” I began, making my point again. “There’s nothing new for me there.”
Marcus Szeto leaned back in his armchair and seemed to muse.
“Quite so,” he muttered. “Well as you know, the key with Incidental or Arbitrary Betting is to use your knowledge of the other fields to determine suitable odds to random situations. Each case is unique, but as with everything concerning humanity, there are trends.”
“I’ve read all the theory,” I assured him.
“I’m sure you have, but as you must know, the only genuine way to test your aptitude for the job is for you to do it. Therefore…” he said as a memo icon popped up on my retinal view. “I suggest an eight hour contract, with you working on the IB desk for us. Darius, our head bookmaker will pass on any bets to you he feels are relevant for the purposes of evaluation.” I waved at the icon and a standard probation contract emerged. I set Queenie to scanning it against WC standards whilst I nodded at Marcus.
“I’ve arranged with the hotel for you to use this seating area for the rest of the day if you wish,” he continued. “They’ve assured me it’ll be quiet and un-intrusive. Please feel free to order meals or any other refreshments and just charge it to the firm.”
“That’s very kind,” I said, as Queenie verified that I wouldn’t have to pay back the largesse in the event of failure.
“Is that acceptable?” he asked.
“Absolutely.” I said.
“Excellent. In that case I just need to brief you about one last thing,” he said. “Death bets.”
Marcus crossed a leg over the other and clasped his hands together before continuing.
“They’re not common but they do happen with incidental betting and as an employee I have to make sure you adhere to company policy.” Frankly, I couldn’t wait to hear what came next. “As you know, the WC has declared them unscrupulous, immoral and borderline criminal, which means we charge exorbitant amounts to handle them.”
I burst out laughing. Possibly a mistake but Marcus barely acknowledged this which alerted me to the possibility that it was a common response.
“They break down into three types,” he continued. “Celebrity, personal, and random deaths.” Marcus tweaked at his glasses for a moment. “Celebrity deaths are the most common. As soon as any of them hit seventy, it’s game on. There are lots of well-established independent risk-lists out there giving odds on everyone with a virus out of warranty. AnyBet are the stingiest fuckers around so we use theirs.”
I nodded in understanding. Calculating the rate of physical decline in an individual relied on many and multiple factors including mean lifetime fitness and family medical history. It was far too much work and much easier to just let someone else do it for you.
Though the virus was only guaranteed till age seventy this didn’t mean you dropped dead immediately (although some people actually did). Everyone was different; and as such their bodies deteriorated at different rates. Most people, and especially celebrities, hid themselves away once physical aging started but the rate of decline could always be estimated. The most telling factor was ‘lifestyle detriments’. If you’d smoked freely for fifty years while your lungs dutifully repaired themselves, you were unlikely to stop even once that ability was gone.
“Personal deaths, we don’t do,” continued Marcus. “Most times the gambler has had a hand in it, or knows someone who does. I’m going to leave it up to you whether or not you want to pass that information onto the police. If you have time, I recommend it. If there’s six more bets waiting to be handled…it can wait.”
I shifted uneasily. Bookmakers had a bad name in certain circles and a lackadaisical approach to crime was the number one reason for it. Still, compared to most small gambling houses that refused to talk to the cops at all, Marcus’ attitude was quite positive.
Of course, if the crime involved taking money away from the House then we were all upstanding citizens who were only too happy to help.
Marcus scratched his chin as he started talking again. “Of course this does beget the interesting situation of life insurance bets,” he mused.
I couldn’t help but smile. It was the ever-present essay question on IB bookmaking exams. The virus made actual life insurance obsolete. No-one was paying those fees against a four percent chance of an accidental death, and similarly, no insurer was taking on anyone over the age of seventy. Therefore, one of the ways of leaving a bequethment for your family was to take your life savings and stake it on the month (or week, for big money) of your demise. Of course you couldn’t collect your winnings; and family members couldn’t place the bet for you as it’d be a Personal Death bet and prone to police scrutiny. The way around it was to challenge the collection order by leaving any winnings to your heirs; a legal hold-up that most times would eventually result in the winnings being released. So, bearing in mind that the stakes were always significant and you could legally assign a drone to monitor the individual 24/7 to detect any foul play, the question was: should you take the bet?
It was only really a quandary for those students who’d never worked in the industry and were both dazzled by the large stake on offer and still shackled with a conscience. It was easy to think that you should always be striving to make the most money for your House. The correct answer was ‘No, of course not’. This was a business and that was basically a scam waiting to happen. It’s an eight hundred year-old saying but seriously, ‘Where there’s a will, you can be damn sure there’s a way.’
“And finally there’s random deaths,” said Marcus. He shrugged a little. “Names of seventy-year-olds picked out of the census. They can’t choose Hong Kong residents as that wanders into the personal deaths realm. Usually done in bulk. The maths undergrads like to do lots of statistical plotting and then stake big on annual regional death rates. We give them lean odds but the thrill of being right keeps them coming back.
“Of course they have competitions with other universities to see who can win the most and then other people bet on that,” he finished, shaking his head at human behaviour. That type of gearing, where a betting pattern evoked another one and then another one was quite well documented and required reading on a standard bookmaking course as it allowed a House to look at their trends and see where marketing opportunities lay. I’d had to take a semester of human psychology to go with it.
“Ok,” said Marcus standing up. “That’s about it. Any questions?”
“Not at all,” I said. “I look forward to showing you what I can do.” At which he grinned again and stuck out his hand.
“I look forward to seeing it,” he said and then strode out of the lobby and into the sunshine behind me.
I sat back for a moment and listened to the quiet hum of gently moving controlled air. The couch had already shaped itself to my body, redistributing the weight from my coccyx and offering gentle kneading of the thighs to ensure good blood-flow. The rest of the lobby was amazingly quiet though the seating areas in the other corners were also occupied and the reception desk handling a steady stream of guests and visitors. Audio repulsion technology at work, clearly.
“Queenie,” I muttered and she popped into my retinal view as though on the couch beside me.
“You wan’ tha kit?” she asked lazily. I nodded.
“Yep. Set up all the books too, in case I’ve forgotten anything.” Immediately my custom office environment overlaid itself on the real view. I dragged on some i-gloves.
On the right was the comms-scroll with my most-used research contacts on it, together with a few new ones I’d made in anticipation of this job. A calculation tablet was directly in front whilst a stack of books represented the training manuals I’d asked for. It was a very retro environ that almost no-one approved of; the calculation tablet even moved some people to disgust, but personally I was very visual about these things and needed to see the figures to feel that I actually had a good handle on them.
I normally preferred i-glasses to a retinal view but it was about time I got used to it; I’d had Queenie in place for over two years now. I wasn’t doing without the i-gloves though. I needed force-feedback when I touched something in VR, not just for the damn thing to glow.
The first thing I did was contact the Bliss Hotel, which automatically logged me as being in-situ, and ordered some breakfast. Brain-food; sushi, sweetmeats and lots of juice blends.
The next thing was to log into the gambling house. Darius, a heavy-set Chinese guy in a garish Hawaiian shirt met me at the door and assigned me a workspace in a distinctly Spartan office.
“You can check out the punters front-end in your lunch-break if you like,” commented Darius. That was where the fanfare and dancing girls would be, I knew. Darius gestured at a creche. “As soon as you sit everything will feed to your custom-environ and no-one’ll know the difference. I’ll give you five minutes to play around before I start sending through some bets. Good luck.”
“Thanks,” I said sitting down and Darius promptly disappeared back to his desk icon that floated above me to the left. I got myself settled in, battened down the fear and told Darius I was ready.
Things got interesting quickly. A group of salon employees wanted to place stakes on how long before their newest colleague was ‘relieved’ of her duties. People are sick. Not to mention lazy; it would have been easy to construct a book themselves but if you could get someone else to do something for you, you did. That’s where the money was made. The House made no charge on making the book but kept all stakes for the effort and only paid out appropriate odds to the winner. It was quite easy to make more than was paid out, especially as the gamblers usually decided not to have more than one person choose a certain outcome.
The subject of the salon bet was doomed. She’d lost a number of jobs due to her slack timekeeping and her skill levels didn’t counterbalance this at all. On top of which, her new boss was rather ruthless with his employees. However, he did also have a habit of bedding his new recruits (of either sex) and she was attractive enough to qualify for such treatment. A quick glance at her social history though, pointed to a distinct lack of promiscuity despite being single for long periods. Her boss was going to have to work pretty hard to keep up his record, and this in turn could well delay the inevitable.
The odds started out long but shortened drastically after a month which was when he usually gave up trying. Fairly big stakes from the other employees too. Fixed.
Soon after, I got my first death bet. Three siblings wanted to wager on the last moments of their grandmother’s obscenely old Japanese Bobtail cat. As both owner and cat were resident in the UK, the risk of interference was minimal. Interestingly, the feline’s virus warranty had been expired for 10 months before anyone noticed as little Samba carried on as though nothing was amiss. Very unusual for pets, who pretty much declined rapidly after the virus gave way and were normally dead in a week.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Now though, Samba was showing the first signs of deterioration and the slope was notoriously slippery. I worked quickly, factoring in Samba’s noted resilience into standard rates of decline and the tablet spat out a 6-week calendar with half a very steep mountain of odds on it. Fixed.
To be fair to the grandkids, the winnings had been earmarked to help fund a new kitten from Samba’s direct lineage.
At lunchtime I did visit the front-end of the House and it was suitably gaudy and bright. The main lounge harked back to a Roman feast with divans and couches and an army of serving girls and boys sporting the briefest of togas. Incidental Betting was done with slightly more decorum on a large veranda that overlooked an ancient Roman city, circa 79 AD. Behind it crouched a rather squat mountain. I applauded Marcus for his effort but felt it was wasted on the average punter.
After lunch, a familiar face sidled into the chair opposite and grinned. Me not impressed.
“What the crap are you doing here?” I exclaimed. He tilted a head at me.
“Not very professional, are you?” said Riz.
“Don’t have to be. I know you haven’t got the money to bet.” I shook my head at him. “Darius let you through?”
Riz grinned again.
“He thought it was quite amusing.” Riz spread an arm at a vista I couldn’t see. “What’s all this then?” he asked. I switched over to the front-end so I was on the veranda with him.
“It’s Pompeii,” I answered. “See that mountain behind it? It’s actually a volcano. What season do you reckon it is?”
Riz squinted.
“The fields are green, so summer.”
“Mmm, in about a month or two, that baby’s gonna erupt like it’s had everything on the menu at Sven’s Curry-house and utterly destroy the town.”
Riz’s eyebrows shot up then slowly lowered themselves again over a few seconds.
“Ahh, I get it. A random event with astronomical odds that actually came through,” he reasoned. “That First Millenium history degree was good for something then?” he said.
“Yep. Drinking.” Riz laughed and I grinned. “Seriously though, mate. What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I’ve come to make a bet,” he said.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yep. I’d like to put 100 silver standard shares on you passing your interview,” he said with not a little mischief in his eyes. I was stunned into silence. One thing at a time then.
“You. Have silver standard shares?” I queried. More mischief on the face now.
“I’ve been saving for a sunny day,” he said. He leaned forward. “So…can you calculate some odds for me?”
That was tricky. If the odds were too long then it would signify either a lack of confidence or the worse indication that I was trying to do my friend a favour. Too short and it might border on arrogance. On top of which…
“You do realize that just making the bet automatically adversely affects the outcome of it?” I said. Riz nodded.
“That’s to keep it interesting,” he said. “After all, that is why you’re moving to this realm of gambling, right?” I gave him a grin with no warmth.
“Cheers,” I said. I stared at my calculation tablet for a moment. “I’m going to need some time to work this out. You can wait in the main House and I’ll notify you when it’s ready. I recommend the Card Hall for you.”
“Take as long as you like,” he said and swivelled away.
As soon as he’d gone, I got a message from Darius:
It’s not a yes/no question.
Basically telling me that outside of a coin toss almost no bet had chances of 50:50. Crucially, the bet required me to rate my own performance throughout the day. Self-assessment. Employers love that.
“Queenie,” I said. She popped into existence again with a bucket of popcorn in her lap. “Lunch ended an hour ago,” I complained.
“For you skinny-man,” she accused. “The rest of us have to take care of our figures.”
“Ya-” I stopped myself. There was no point explaining that as a hologram, despite being a photo-realistic one, she actually wasn’t real and therefore couldn’t really eat or put on weight or anything and it was just a feature of her personality protocols. PA’s didn’t appreciate that kind of talk.
“Ok. Just pull up all the bets I’ve handled today. I need you to trawl through recent histories of Gaming Houses in HK and find similar bets. As close as you can Queenie, and compare the odds laid out to what I’ve been giving.”
She put the popcorn down.
“Okay. About five minutes, I think,” she said. Ridiculously fast considering even bets that were essentially identical could have deviating odds due to the researched factors. A tough-as-nails cat like Samba for example was pretty darn rare.
Meanwhile I got to grips with, among other things, trying to factor in how this bet itself skewed the odds.
How in hell does Riz get his hands on silver standard shares? I couldn’t get away from that question. Ordinarily he doesn’t, was the answer, but that just made me angry.
Focus on the matter at hand. This bet is just another bet and Marcus would no doubt be evaluating my entire days’ performance. However, as far as incidental betting goes, how I handled this would be a key indicator as to my ability, especially if things were in the balance at the end of the day.
So…treat the whole interview as just this bet and use the remainder of my performance to add a suitable variance spread. A good remainder increases the chances of a good outcome by about 5? 10? Maybe 7%. A bad one decreases the chances similarly. Fixed.
Queenie soon came back with the comparisons of my bookmaking. For the simple ones with lots of strong data to compare with, I was doing well in hitting within 5% of the mean odds. The quirkier ones, that naturally had less and weaker comparison data, showed me giving odds significantly longer than the mean. A quick raise of my eyebrows was followed by some quick calculating. It was okay. The stakes involved in my bets were almost exactly larger by the same proportion. None of that stuff was going to affect my chances significantly.
Which left just this bet. It was almost the reverse of the Salon bet from earlier. In that one the subject’s fate was determined by her history and that of her employers. I started to investigate the same in my case.
Someone slid into the chair opposite me. Darius can’t have seen my busy sign.
“I’m sorry, but I’m still in the-,” I began to apologise.
“Do you know what a Silver Fin is?” came a gravelly voice. I looked up. Opposite me was an olive-skinned man with trussed up dreadlocks pulled back from his lived-in face and wearing different shades of blue denim. I was shocked. Unless it was an online affectation, this guy had not received the virus on his 21st birthday. He was aging normally, hence the deep lines on his forehead and at the edge of his eyes. How had Darius let him through?
“I’m sorry Mr-…”
“Do you know?”
“Know what?”
“A Silver Fin. What it is?”
The name sounded familiar. Not in a good way though. I racked my brain, searching for the term. I’d heard this at college. Scott had studied Second Millenium History and he’d mentioned it. Mentioned it as the proper term for a…
Oh.
I frowned across the desk.
“Sir, are you referring to a Ghost? Because if so-”
“Good. You do know. Excellent. Well I am here to make a wager on them,” he said with a tight grin.
“Err, I’m pretty busy, so if this is a joke-”
“Why would anyone,” he interrupted me again. “Joke about such a thing?” Which was a very strong point. He pressed a thumb on the Stake read-window on his side of the desk and leant back solemnly. “As you can see, I am willing to place 6000 Gold Standard Shares on my wager.”
He was right. The funds came up on my tablet under the name of Enoch Tepes. That was surprising enough considering only the lowest 7% worldwide didn’t have access to the virus. More surprising was the quiet that followed. My desk should be going crazy with a stake that large entered on it. Darius and Marcus should both be at my shoulders by now kindly offering to take over. Instead, nothing. Meanwhile, Enoch was waiting for a response. Enoch who wanted to bet on Ghosts.
“What exactly is the wager, Mr. Tepes?” I asked. Enoch flexed the fingers of his right hand in turn as he spoke.
“I wish to bet that they are not, as commonly thought, in fact aliens,” he said quietly.
Oh I see. He’s insane.
Enoch rose from his seat slowly.
“I see you’ll need some time to work out the appropriate odds. I shall wait back there. Take your time.”
“Hold on,” I managed, snapping out of my reverie. “What makes you think they’re not aliens?” Seeing as how they average 9 feet tall and can walk through walls.
Enoch grinned genuinely this time.
“Because aliens wouldn’t care,” he said, and left.
Wow. Okay. This is all a bit weird. I’d been ruffled and I had to get back on track quickly. I ordered a shot from the Hotel and called Queenie.
“Get me a condensed history on the Ghosts. I need to know everything about them and what the top people think of them.”
Meanwhile I’d carry on with analyzing Riz’s bet. Which meant reviewing my employment history.
Easy enough; I’d got every job I’d ever gone for. All three of them. Actually four in truth but I didn’t think washing skycars in Buenos Aires really counted. (Shitting dogfuck! 6000 Gold!!) My first bit of truly gainful employment had been as a parts recycler; figuring how much of defunct machinery could be reused as-is (and for how much) and how much needed to be turned back into raw slurry before useful metals could be extracted from it again.
After a while people realized I could basically guesstimate what percentages of a machine were reusable and how much was destined to be slurry and then calculate what we’d make off it; all within a minute of it coming through the door.
Good old Carlton Hong, my then boss, confided that my talents were being wasted and gave me a link for Macau Stakes; sports-betting firm ordinaire. I started at the bottom, learning and watching the Main-AI dole out betting slips by the thousands. I graduated to paying out, which still involved piggy-backing on the AI. (How can they NOT be aliens? Have you seen their tech?!) At that point it was clear that there was almost nothing in traditional sports betting that needed a human being on the company side of the counter.
That toil though seemed to sit well with the gambling houses who needed folk to sit invisibly behind the croupier-AI’s and work out expected gains and losses on the customers, from where they could project earnings for the table. The AIs could do most of the work; spot trends, playing strategies, look at personal finances and gauge whether or not a punter was coming back this week or not.
Yet they still got it wrong. There was nothing so random as a human being it seemed (except perhaps, you know, a pissing alien!). In poker, they bluffed regardless of the cards they held, as if addicted to it. In Blackjack, they called for a further card whilst holding 19 already. A pet-shampooer, who lost heavily on Tuesday would be back Friday whilst the man who had taken his winnings and just gotten a promotion at the bank, wouldn’t be seen for a month.
It took another human to recognize these foibles.
I saved up, got my scalp peeled back to insert the PA grid, and, Queenie in tow, moved onto group betting.
Even with just 6 numbers, no-one stood a good chance of winning the lottery. No wonder the powers that be just couldn’t understand why then that far more people went for House lotteries, with their 10 numbers and lower jackpots.
Simple; group betting was lots more fun. A bunch of people got together and chose their numbers. After that they bet on two things. Firstly, who got the most correct numbers. This was done by a point system whereby the distance of your number from the winning one was added for all ten positions. The person with the lowest number of points won.
Secondly, whose string of numbers was numerically closest to the original. You could win that with zero correct numbers which was interesting considering there were ten positions after all.
A key factor was that after picking their own string of numbers, people could see all the other strings and select one of those to bet on instead. In each case, you could only bet on two strings of numbers assuming there were more than six of you in the group, and groups were limited to 20.
The job was an odd mix of social herding and bookmaking. Making odds came in because people honestly thought some people were better at choosing statistically equivalent strings of numbers than other people. Particularly when you showed them winning trends over the previous month as though it meant something. Bizarre. So I gave short odds to the lucky bastards, long odds to the no-hopers and everyone threw their money at the board. The next week they ribbed and joshed each other about good fortune or misguided theories and then did it all again. Fun. Fixed.
I got a better-paid version of the job at ‘Stunners’ in Shanghai. They liked to mix the seedy side of their business with some gambling, and it worked. Punters by the droves.
That’s where the lure of incidental betting started to grow. A drunken customer, actually in-situ in Shanghai, would want to wager on which girl in the chorus line kicked highest during the Can-Can, and I’d have to pass them on to someone else. His friends would naturally want a piece of that and before I knew it my whole group was gone.
So here I was. 2 courses and a VR tech-exam later.
For his part, Marcus didn’t invite many people to interview at all, not that it took too many people to run a VR gambling house. Of the fifteen applicants Queenie found, six had been offered positions but only four in the ones they’d applied for. Oddly enough, Darius hadn’t got the job he’d wanted looking after the card hall, yet now he was better-placed to run the whole House one day.
So, did being offered a position I didn’t apply for count as passing the interview?
No way. I compared myself, ceev-wise, to the other candidates. My education didn’t stand well against the others who were in the main mathematicians and scientists. My experience dragged me back into the top half though.
On top of which, I honestly reckoned my comments on why the big gambling houses weren’t for me would have made me seem more suitable.
Plus, as already stated, I was yet to fail one of these.
Somewhat better than average then. I quickly determined the probability of me succeeding to be 6:10. This made the odds 2:3. No. A bit better than that; 7:13. Fixed.
Pretty boring answer after all that research. I checked my reasoning. It felt solid so I alerted Riz. He came back in and grinned at the odds.
“Being modest are we?” he asked.
“Just professional,” I assured him. “It’s not an opinion.”
He thumbed over his stake and got a stamp with his bet reference in return.
“How’s the Teacup?” he asked.
“You never been inside? You’d like it. It’s milk-and-sugary,” I said with no humour at all. He chuckled and waved as he left.
Right. Time to hit the books.
Needless to say, a condensed history was all there was of the Ghosts anyway. A list of sightings and sayings with recorded media of both.
The first one occurred around 300 years ago. A Silver Fin, as they appear to like to be called, appeared at the Western Wall in Jerusalem in broad daylight and quietly told everyone to vacate the Old City within ten days or die. It had then repeated its’ message in mosques and churches all over at the appropriate prayer times, appearing and disappearing into thin air each time. In the final week it’d started appearing in individual houses; it became evident that cameras couldn’t capture its image though witness descriptions all concurred precisely. Attacking it got the occupants thrown through windows while the entire contents of the house were fired out the doors and onto the streets. ‘Getting them started’, it’d said.
‘Panic’ didn’t do the ensuing chaos justice. Most hurriedly packed and left whilst the military moved in in a big way. Outsiders meanwhile mostly assumed it to be an elaborate prank. Then, on the 21st April, a relatively small thermonuclear device was detonated at ground level in the centre of the Old City and 900-odd people died instantly.
The blast then proceeded to irradiate almost 90% of the entire city leaving most of the 2million inhabitants displaced.
Reactionaries had, naturally, blamed the Western Collectives for the atrocity, but the Fin had reappeared to assure them that it and only it had acted. It/she also forbade anyone from ever trying to re-settle in the city on pain of death (not that there was any risk of that for about 200 years while radiation levels were still so severe).
3 years later and another one, distinctly male this time, had appeared as Shona Ndau, his family and all high-ranking members of the South East African Collective watched a military march-past. The slaughter had been horrific. Marine units involved in the march-past had broken formation to help but had been mercilessly cut down, their weapons ineffective. The footage was awful; the Ghost, gleaming metallic in the sunshine, thick silver tendrils sprouting from a head half covered by what looked like an old-style ivory Venetian mask, towered above Armoured Guards and battle-suited soldiers alike and flung both around like children. Bullets passed harmlessly through it and took out comrades on the other side whilst people exploded from a touch of its’ harpoon. The world, and the remaining Collectives, officially crapped their pants and assumed Aliens walked amongst us on a mission to remove the ruling class.
No such campaign ever materialised, and the number of victims kept going down with each sighting. Not that this did much to quell anyone’s terror.
Next to die were a group of Colombian Collectives at an anniversary celebration in Bogota. This Fin looked and acted different from the previous one and we realised there was no way of knowing how many existed. The way this individual had flitted between floors and phased between suites, picking off certain victims and leaving others almost unaware of what had occurred had led to the famous moniker. Ghosts. Giant, unstoppable, deadly, ghosts.
The list went on, but because only that first, female, Fin had been interested in genocide, and all the other (male) ones had targeted super high-profile or Collective targets, humanity had basically stopped worrying and got on with living. No-one could do anything about it anyway. Every few years, sometimes decades, someone previously thought unassailable would feel the touch of that harpoon and we’d all be reminded that the Bogeymen did in fact exist. Psychologists had a field day with our collective easy acceptance of being at the whim of magical supermen, and noted that the fact that they weren’t trying to control us seemed to be key to this. Everyone else said: “Seriously, we can’t do anything about this.”
I sat back and just breathed for a moment. Queenie seemed to appear opposite, sitting sideways on the chair staring at a huge measuring jug to the left that was almost to the brim with a yellowish liquid.
“Hey,” I said.
“You should probably go to the bathroom,” she said still staring at the jug.
“Wha-!” All at once my stomach and bladder were filled with incredible pain and I lurched up from the sofa almost having to clutch myself to avoid leakage. Considering my butt and legs weren’t numb from sitting for so long, I assumed there was electro-stimulation going on in the couch too.
“You suppressed that!?” I whispered in anguish.
“I can’t! We don’t have any influence on bodily functions. World Council directive, you know. You did this.”
When I got to the urinal the relief was almost transcendental.
Focus is an amazing thing I thought as I floated back to the sofa afterward. There were bets waiting for me but they held absolutely no interest now and I did them on autopilot whilst continuing to research the Ghost wager.
Everyone thought they were aliens. How could they not be? Their technology was ridiculously far ahead of anything even the most advanced Collectives were rumoured to have developed, they averaged about 9 feet in height and apart from threats concerning Jerusalem, hadn’t once attempted to communicate.
And what had the virus-deprived Mr.Tepes given as his reason; aliens wouldn’t care.
He had a point. With the benefit of hindsight, their targets had been oddly political in scope.
Take the Middle East for example. Collectives there were different in that they had not arisen from dreadfully powerful criminal organisations but from religious ones. And at a time when tensions had actually surpassed levels that had previously led to wars, that maniacal She-Ghost had removed Jerusalem from the gameboard and given everyone a common enemy. It’d taken time but the region had since stabilised.
Shona Ndau was a tyrant whose practices had outraged even the most ambivalent Collectives and had driven a schism between members of a continent that in times gone by had banded together to eliminate the worst aspects of life and dragged themselves onto the economic world table as serious players.
No-one missed him or his kin. The Colombians had decided to lace exports of their most famous product with elements known to induce senility and other brain disorders; things even the virus couldn’t save you from. And only those shipments destined for North America had been contaminated.
An argument could be raised about the ‘guardianship’ qualities of the Ghost’s exploits, and some experts had cited it. The problem was that there was no humanity whatsoever to be found in their methods. No warnings and no hope for retribution. Had these acts made for a more self-conscious, altruistic world?
Not yet because not enough people had noticed the pattern yet. And they were still to get over the fear fully. People still fled in droves from cities where Ghosts had been sighted.
The Collectives may have noticed but they’d never been ones to reveal their policies.
Was this bet a coin-toss? If not Alien, then what? Human was the only other choice and we were the ones being struck dumb with awe. Which left...the creations of humanity; robots, cyborgs, sentient AIs.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) too much Man vs. Machine, technological apocalypse fiction had been written for any of those creations to be granted anything like the kind of autonomy necessary. Limited Directives was the key; the job they were programmed to do and no more. The most powerful AIs existed in the virtual world of the Net and they still did the most mundane tasks. Influence over the physical world was practically non-existent. As Queenie had said, PA’s couldn’t influence physiology, and the individuality coding made it impossible for them to work together over the Net without being directed to do so by the user.
In the end I finally turned to the scientific community for answers and they were almost unanimously of one voice.
Enoch Tepes eased back into the chair opposite with a tight smile.
“I see you’ve reached a conclusion,” he said. I nodded.
“Yes. But you’re not going to like it.” I leaned forward. “It seems the popular consciousness is wrong, and people are just really rather taken with the idea of aliens.”
Tepes grinned genuinely.
“They always have been,” he stated.
“Maybe,” I acceded. “Either way, the facts don’t really sell that. Firstly, they look like us. They’re humanoid to the point where we can actually determine their sex. Secondly, they can communicate with us; the difficulty of overcoming that barrier is…well, vastly more so than entering this solar system undetected. Thirdly, while their technology outstrips ours they are not hostile towards our species as a whole. They know what we’re capable of, so it would make sense to wipe us out and eliminate that threat. They’re not even slowing our advancement.
“In fact, their technology seems to be advancing at a similar rate. The first Ghost never showed any capacity to walk through walls, but 70 years later and one did it with ease.”
“So I’ve got weak odds is what you’re saying?” asked Tepes.
“I’m afraid so. You’re looking at about 7 to 1 against, on the off-chance that some aliens are bored and are doing an experiment or playing a game with us.
“Also, I’m not sure how you’re ever planning on collecting any winnings. Besides some catastrophic accident we’re unlikely to ever find out the answer.”
Tepes leaned forward now. The grin hadn’t shifted on that lined face.
“And what do you imagine the purpose of making such a bet might be? Considering those facts,” he asked.
I looked down at my desk. I had given this a little thought too, and I wasn’t happy with where the train had led.
“Well, assuming enough bets are made in enough locales then the public would eventually find out.” Bets of 6000 Gold Standard Shares each. A frightening sum. And in the world of gambling, everybody knew ‘Major Money’ didn’t move unless it was sure of something. Which made everyone else sure of that thing too. And the slight returns might never be manifested. All those shares to do one thing:
“Change public opinion,” I said. Like I’d said; when they weren’t shit-scared, people loved the idea of aliens. Thing was; only one group could possibly see a benefit in changing that idea.
I didn’t want to look at Tepes but I forced myself to. To remind myself that this was just an old man who’d done too many drugs as a youth to be considered for the virus, and not the alternative. He was still grinning.
“And who would want such a thing?”
There was no surprise on my face so he knew I already had the answer. He started laughing. A great booming laugh that came from everywhere at once. His head started growing as the laugh got louder. His dreadlocks came free from their bind and spread out to fill my world. Tepes became all head. The top half smoothed out all the wrinkles and character from his face whilst the bottom morphed into an obsidian maw of swarming tendrils. The whole thing then inched down the contrast scale until it touched the monochromatic levels and found the metallic silver-grey scheme that every Ghost ever seen had sported.
All in a long, horrific, second.
I slammed my elbows together, triggering the emergency shut-off that would throw me violently back into reality and the Bliss Hotel.
Yet nothing changed. The world was still a silver-grey filament one with the Sun-like ivory half-head of a demon dominating it. I gaped, struck immobile from fear and confusion, daring not to blink. Thoughts didn’t seem possible.
“Any questions?” asked the Ghost/Tepes. The voice was still horribly human.
A part of me recognised the unequalled opportunity just as another realised I wouldn’t learn anything I wasn’t meant to. The Ghost could read my mind it seemed.
“We needed the alien myth, you see,” it continued. “At the beginning it was a useful tool for killing the scourge of religion.” That hellish wound beneath the nose attempted a smile. “It’s almost impossible to believe in an unseen God when you are not the universes’ greatest creation; when you are not special. Certainly not enough to impress your views on others or worse, kill for those views.
“But now we need them to know. There is purpose behind the actions. A method to the madness. There is a consequence of power and that is responsibility. There will now be a consequence for its abuse.”
I ran through the last bets, multi-tasking using Queenie, and even sold a few on other opportunities in different sections of the House. If anything, I was working better after logging back into the House. Shortly Darius appeared at my desk telling me the day was over and that they’d be in touch within 72 hours max. I noticed some previously empty desks were now occupied with Western Day Shift staff. I asked Darius why he hadn’t taken over the Ghost bet.
“What bet?” he asked. So I showed him the file on my desk and the stake.
“Holy-.When did that happen!?”
“About an hour after lunch. You must’ve let him through,” I said but Darius was already shaking his head.
“Never happened. Not on my desk.”
I entertained conspiratorial thoughts until he brought up the full House logs for the day. There was a record of the wager and the stake itself but no entity called Enoch Tepes had come within the bounds of the House.
We both frowned at the log in silence. Eventually, Darius said:
“I’m sorry about this Ian. We’ll do a full system check-up right now.” He still hadn’t bothered to look away from the log but managed to wave a hand at me. “Don’t worry about this affecting your performance. It clearly shouldn’t have come through to you.”
But it had! rang through my head as I strode out into a rapidly darkening but humid Hong Kong. They might as well be aliens. Just as indecipherable.
I’d already vomited today, quietly, in a bathroom cubicle, tears mingling with the expulsion for a few minutes, so there was no point rushing anywhere. Nowhere would feel safer.
I joined the pedestrian traffic making their way eventually towards the People’s Bridge. I tapped the stud on my cuff and the arms retreated as the top went into t-shirt mode. Three paces later I got a call from Riz. I accepted and a real-time hologram of his torso and head popped up alongside me.
“Hey hey!” he began.
“You have to give the stake back don’t you?” I interjected. His face fell.
“H-. Mate, how did you know?”
“Because you really don’t have that kind of money,” I said emphatically. He floated alongside for a moment as I dug out a packet of smokes.
“Might do,” he mumbled morosely. “But yeah, you’re right. Your prospective boss, Marcus something, came down your personal history and asked me ta make the bet. ’Said it was key to assessing career prospects.”
I slowed my pace and absentmindedly lit a joint.
Ahh. Current employee resource wisdom said that being able to judiciously self-assess your own performance was a big marker in foretelling how far a person could go in their career. Mistakes, apparently, didn’t really matter so long as you could spot them and learn from them.
The tech and finance companies especially, wanted to spot the ones who could excel, and then give them all the encouragement and wherewithal to make it a reality.
I took a drag and waited for the THC to start washing the day away.
“’Get to keep the winnings though,” said Riz with a grin.
“Excellent news,” I said with a nod. “I’ll have one of everything from the top shelf.” For starters; stimulant overdose sounded petty but necessary.
“We haven’t won yet,” he cautioned.
I took another drag and looked at the throng moving around me. Almost half were having a similar conversation with a hologram and you couldn’t tell which ones were holograms of real people and which were just PAs, shop-front receptionists, or game avatars.
My head was feeling fuzzy already and my eyelids had dropped to half-mast yet my heart was still pounding away.
I saw a Ghost today.
I looked back at Riz.
“Wanna bet?” I asked.