Red, Black, Black, Black, Red, Black, Red, Black, Black.

That’s the roulette wheel’s pattern. The data’s in, and his strategy is foolproof. It stutters, like the lift the Yakuza Underboss rides, jumping from floor to floor, transporting him to the Casino below.

The portly gangster has educated himself during his two weeks at the Punta del Muso. He’s memorized and perfected his strategy while licking monetary wounds under starlit evenings between firework displays, reflecting on his continuous defeats at the hands of the large, uncaring Wheel that lurks on the ground floor. It beckons at all hours.

While at sunset, away from the window to assuage his fear of heights, he’s meditated on mathematics, throat awash with private-chef-prepared bowls of bolhabaissa; plated next to freshly caught sea robin and spider crab boiled with bitter saffron and fennel and a bouquet garni, finally served alongside the Punta del Muso’s crusty baguettes and a rouille, flavored as always with a pinch of familiar shichimi spices at an imported markup.

At night, his vision spins with stress, fat sunburnt fingers cradling cigarettes and stuffing his face with seafood.

Holster empty at his armpit, his playthings are locked away. Two Yugumo six-shooters, antiques, poorly maintained and decorated with coral reef motifs. Unloaded, hiding, along with his personalized wakazashi sword. All stored within chestnut-colored rocaille cabinetry, hand-carved with his Family’s kamon symbol in preparation for his arrival, causing tension at his shoulders, the Underboss unable to truly feel safe.

Sure, he may not have his weaponry on hand, making him feel naked, weak, unable to perform with his usual calculating efficiency. But his gambling strategy is based on those same restrictive space-time disk-repancies, berthed as an unconscious extension of his unfamiliar gunpowder impotence.

In an ironic tour de force, he’ll use the same dangerous principles of theoretical physics to win back his cash, mouthing his mantra as chips flip through fingers like prayer beads.

And that’s a certainty.

Red, Red, Black, Black, Black, Red, Black, Black, Red.

After all, it must be. He’s nearly flat-broke. à sec, as his attendant mutters between filling his dishes with seafood slurry, stirring the pot every evening between taste-tests of her daily masterpiece, simmering blood-red broth dripping through her youthful pouting lips. Last night, she reminded him through uncaring off-color remarks that the dough from his weapons deal on Tiangong is almost spent.

Both his allocated kick-back and what he’s skimmed in secret.

Some vacation, right? He sighs behind a cigarette, filling the lift with smoke. The bellboy is used to the tobacco stench, yet the Underboss’s attendant wrinkles her nose in spite, snorting, over-performing her faux disgust.

One more cycle in the Casino, the Underboss assures himself. If he loses what he has on his person, he’ll leave the Punta del Muso for good. He won’t be entrapped with glittering debt, ones-and-zeroes instantly conjured by Fontvieille’s supra-digital lenders that only exist in reality as millstones around necks. The other boys he came with, the bossmen left fleeced, their one-way trips to Tiangong forcibly put on credit, just aren’t as savvy as he is.

More importantly, if he wins, if his strategy pays off…

Red, Black, Red, Black, Red, Black, Black, Red, Black.

His bony attendant hangs at his side. She ignores the Underboss’s pinching grip at her dark-skinned hips. The android’s androgynous black outfit compliments her short-cut dyed-black hair and fashionable absence of makeup. She’s bored beneath her hooded eyes, hiding natural seafoam irises and stinking of caraway and coriander.

Her assignment to the Underboss was because of her lack of temperament, and she performs her job with ruthless efficiency. She knows her mark is nearly out of cash. If he lingers in the Casino for an additional three-point-seven-five hours longer—statistically—his debts will rack, and he’ll reach the Punta del Muso’s pre-calculated financial point de non-retour.

The price-point has already been estimated, cobbled together from the chittering network of orbital satellites, passing back and forth files and data like plates of candied dates, lounging above, bookmaking Fontvieille’s planet-side statistics with a blasé sort of all-knowing supremacy.

In return for success, the attendant will receive some extra compensation, maybe even a formal commendation, title, or increased state allowance upon a successful job completed; a kick-back for earning, as per Fontvieille’s ancien tradition.

So, healthily incentivized, her thin fingers glide against the Underboss’s hips in turn. They disappear into his pantleg pockets, then beneath his long-tailed black tuxedo jacket, tracing his lumpy sunburnt chest, tattooed with windswept chrysanthemums, anemic bamboo forestry, and a singular smutty, giggly kirin across his breast, her sharpened antlers cast with silver rings, frame jutting out from an almond-shaped, flaming mandorla, scaled rear first.

The attendant’s digits tap the small metal case placed atop where his heart should be. She smiles, excavating the silver case etched with complex calligraphy, taking another few of his cigarettes without asking, placing one at her full lips, two more behind her ear.

But before she can light up, a twinge at her décolletage.

“Monsieur,” she complains through cork, “message for you.”

With a whirring mechanical finger, the living pager pokes at her collar. Gold-plated, it emits a small light across her thin neck. It vibrates, slightly, to notify the wearer of the inbound call, flickering like the matchstick sparkling at the attendant’s lips.

Sighing, the Underboss scans the empty lift. It’s decorated with wrought-iron vines that coil around the gilded compartment, the glittering garden appendages contrasting with murals of shapely muses toting Tommy guns. But he lingers on the youthful bellboy, back turned away, bouncing blonde curls dutifully seen and not heard.

“Stop worrying, Monsieur,” the android brays. “He won’t care.”

“It’s impolite,” the Underboss chides.

“You’re a guest of the Casino. Nobody will mind if you answer a call in public.”

“It’s the principle.”

“Well, maybe the message is important,” she nags from through her gap-toothed moue. “Ignore it. I don’t care anymore.”

Scowling, he kowtows as always, begrudgingly answering the call, inviting a three-dimensional document to project before the attendant. It’s a contract. One from the Casino, no doubt. Serif font rotates, reading aloud in a pleasing Provencal accent.

“Bonsoir, Monsieur Inoue,” the digital avocate begins.

The avocate’s intonation is cold. Reprimanding, familiar, digital speech pattern artificially constructed from auditory tidbits from a certain trial held on the moon of Teimei. Back from when the Underboss was only an apprentice criminal, pinched for burglary.

An off-brand voice reverberates through the lift with the mimicked pitch and tonality of his now-deceased grandmother, the Underboss’s dutiful character witness of years past. Her testimony turned into transcribed recording, reconstructed into an audio template, belts from the attendant’s collar. A product of Fontvieille’s all-encompassing data collection.

“How is your evening?” the familiar voice asks.

“Very nice,” he chokes, tone lowered in a display of reverence for the world’s natural quiet. “I’m enjoying my stay. Your Department’s hospitality is overwhelming.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The lift slows. With his soft hands, the bellboy opens the doors, lingering on the Eighth Floor, as if waiting for a passenger that never arrives. Then the same song-and-dance a floor below, on the Seventh Floor, where an attendant trots to deliver a fresh bouquet of peonies and sweetbriars. He’s handsome, hair naturally sun-bleached and trimmed short, tipping his cap to the Underboss’s aide, eliciting from the android a playful smile.

“Our records indicate your associates have left us prematurely. Is our hospitality too overwhelming?” the Casino’s ghostly echo asks from beyond gravity’s horizon.

“No,” he cuts, frowning as the doors open once more, to linger on the Sixth Floor, “not at all.”

“We’re happy to hear that,” the avocate exhales, proffering, “I’m pleased to offer, at present, our humble Department will extend a line of credit to you in return for a brief favor. As you may know, your attendant is disallowed from visiting the First Floor. We understand this is an abrupt request for assistance, and we apologize for the insulting manner of contact.”

“Not at all,” he reflexively replies. The trance is underway. He’s a marionette, already amicable, enthralled with Fontvieille’s system of passive control, subconsciously reacting as if the avocate’s artificially constructed voice were family.

“Thank you for your understanding,” the voice chirps. “Upon successful completion, if you’re willing to take our contract, we’ll be happy to extend your stay for an extra evening. In addition to a line of credit amounting to one-third your average cycle’s wagering.”

“Those are very generous terms.”

“We never low-ball our guests,” the avocate cackles. It’s the same wry, coughing, smoker’s laugh the Underboss remembers from childhood. He can’t seem to place the familiarity, but it leaves him pliable, reminded of home. “And in return, we ask that you approach the marked roulette table and wager on exactly eight spins.”

“You want me to gamble?”

The lift lingers on the Fourth Floor. The bellboy sticks his head into the hallways, walls plastered with antique paper of curling fig leaves, as the ancients would have decorated. He taps his foot intently, as if waiting for someone to arrive. A string quartet’s off-beat improvisations are heard bouncing off wallpaper. The Underboss questions once more, “that’s all?”

“No, nothing more, Monsieur. Just a few wagers at a certain table. Complimentary, of course. Any winnings will be yours, as well. Afterwards, you’re welcome to go about your business.”

The Underboss pauses. His thin black hairpiece dances with his contorting eyebrows. He’s heard of offerings like this, for the select few. A little work, in exchange for erased debts, additional amenities, lines of credit extended.

But there must be some consideration on his part, too. Contracts are not without risk, like anything else on Fontvieille, where the spread’s too thin to be seen with the naked eye, stakes invisible to the average visitor. Layered within archaic slimeball customs.

Accepting would be a big bet, one that—

“Monsieur,” the android loudly chides, her eyes squinting with disappointment, arrogant crow’s feet at her cheeks, “Are you going to make a decision? We’re nearly at the Casino’s floor. And because I cannot go with you—”

“Quiet,” he growls, tapering to a whisper, “I’m thinking.”

“All you do is think! Thinking, eating, wasting away, that’s all you’re good for!”

“Hey,” he snaps, matching her tone, “you watch that mouth of yours!”

The lift drops. With a bellboy’s hum, the Fourth Floor disappears before the Third jolts to an abrupt stop. Blonde curls bounce beneath red cap, leaving the Underboss’s footing unstable against the whiplash.

“Fifteen seconds, Monsieur,” the digital avocate sing-songs, as his grandmother used to nitpick, mocking from beyond the pale, “lest the contract’s offer expire.”

“Or else what?” the attendant plays. “You’re not man enough to even accept a simple contrat. One to gamble, of all things! Why,” she yowls, “just last night, when you called me to your room, and you couldn’t—”

“Alright!” he shouts. He accepts the contract with the flash of a digital signature. It disappears, encoded for future legal reference, compiled into digital directories, vanishing under the holographic waves of sparkling section signs. Filed forever without even a thank-you. “And no more from you,” the Underboss growls, “understand me? I’m a dangerous man.”

Smoke leaks from the android’s nostrils. Her response is dismissive as she swats away his grabbing hands. She’s already looking elsewhere, perpetually out-of-reach as the Underboss’s arm candy is meant to be.

“Sure you are,” she hisses as the lift settles at the ground floor, “and don’t worry, you won’t be getting anything more from me tonight. Enjoy the Casino. Bonne chance,” she sniggers.

The bellboy puffs his young chest.

“First Floor,” he announces with his boyish smile, “Casino—”

“I know where we are!” shouts the Underboss.

With a brief apology, he barrels onto the Casino’s floor, dodging a whizzing auto-bartender, nearly splattering several-thousand-credits worth of cocktails. Through a curt bow of shameful apologies to the unthinking robot, he spots his attendant disappearing behind the elevator’s wrought-iron doors. She taps a bare wrist, mockingly tracking time, vanishing below, lowering towards the attendants’ exit.

The Underboss stews. Alone, without the prying eyes of his fellow Yakuza or assigned attendant, he’s left to his devices. More importantly, he’s left under the watchful eyes of the Casino.

He’s their man. On contract to complete their job. Bonobic auto-bartenders scan his vibrations, echolocating his gait, pinpointing his exact whereabouts through sonar and predicting his next ten steps in advance.

With their intel, crowds begin to recede, physical impediments disappearing like the passage of time in the always-lit Casino. Track-affixed bartenders avoid his path, careening in wide arcs. Gamblers, enticed by subtle lights or noises, are drawn away from his loafers’ tracks, departing with their chips in hand, acting as unconscious participants in the artificial ecosystem of subconscious control.

But as the polite Underboss stomps, conscious of his mission, he’s pushed to an emotional limit. Maybe it’s his attendant’s smarminess drilling into his gut. The visceral lack of funds. A forgotten family member’s echo filling him with dread.

Or, worse for the Casino, worries that go beyond quantifiable statistics collected within his all-knowing file, into the abhorrent realm of the unpredictable.

Red, Red, Red, Black, Red, Black, Red, Red, Black.

Nonetheless, he needs something uncharacteristic, something unexpected to cloud his mind, to reverse his judgement and make him relax.

A drink.

But Fontvieille’s ecosystem refuses. Auto-bartenders avoid his presence. He’s never requested a drink, and based on past data, he’s never wanted one in his life. So the robots refract away, the Casino’s predictive magic unable to accommodate deviation from the Underboss’s mission and unwilling to understand without data inputted.

This leaves him standing, hands clasped behind back, waiting for the algorithmic world to reorient itself to his needs. It’s a painful experience. He shuffles with embarrassment, the feeling of autonomy foreign on the polished Casino floors, nearly ripping him from the Punta del Muso’s entrancing nature of control.

For Fontvieille, it’s precious seconds lost.

Below, a petulant gap-toothed attendant’s collar plinks with urgent notifications, requesting further data. Auto-bartenders rewire, the Underboss’s unknown alcoholic preferences compiled and re-compiled based on basic physiognomic traits, his assumed alcohol tolerance predicated with pre-randomized data plucked onto probability plots. A bartender whirrs, chemically modifying its output on the subatomic level, its current list of priorities erased prioriting the gestation of a solution to continue the Underboss on his way, to ensure his contract comes to fruition as the Casino both anticipates and demands.

A sake.

Warmed. Unfiltered, pulpy with rice residue. Fruity yet bitter, reminding him of liquor he’d serve as a child to his own bossmen; scowling, growling Yakuza leaders wearing tailored suits and hand-me-down tracksuits, legs criss-crossed before plasticwood tables in cramped office-spaces-cum-dojos, some missing fingers, others eyepatched, pelt and pale skin tainted with imagery of cresting waves and sultry babes.

Once delivered to his hands, it relaxes on his throat, like his grandmother’s home-brewed loose-leaf tea, served with a chiding fuss and slurped to emptiness in the four-room tenement where he once lived with seven other siblings, one parent, three grandparents, and an unmarried uncle.

Fontvieille’s ecosystem has succeeded once more. He’s placated, as all visitors are meant to be. And, drink in hand, the Underboss finally saunters towards the contract’s destination; a familiar roulette table, lorded over by chittering gamblers, including a One-Armed Man, and another in a Fez.

Lips wet, sake trawled across discolored gums, the Underboss smiles. His sigh of relief is one of a somnambulist, sleep-walking on contract through a Fontvieille’s mesmerizing dreamscape, his entrancing made possible through the perfect analysis of trillions of invisible variables. Ones drawn-up into a tangible contract to benefit him personally, dutifully offered through familiar tonalities, evoking an overbearing sort of safety.

It’s a feeling the Punta del Muso has succeeded in cultivating for generations. All thanks to the networks of information above, satellites glittering like artificial constellations, their craft of bookmaking extended over time into an unconscious societal control, a pleasureful panopticon.

For Fontvieille, the contrat is perfect, just like the Underboss’s gambling strategy.

Red, Black, Black… Black?

Heated porcelain at his lips, he’s forgotten the pattern already. He squints, pursing eyebrows in thought. But as he squeezes around the roulette table, shuffling through passerby, he’s unknowingly traversed into bad odds. Into an unfamiliar realm of chance that exists physically between your mare and the One-Armed Man.

Because as dutifully as the Underboss has performed, he’s late.

His slothful gait has turned out to be slightly too slow for the contract to be completed according to the fine-print. Fontvieille’s databases curse in silence. The Casino’s predetermined mechanisms have been rendered useless, and instead of arriving between your mare and the One-Armed Man at an exact time to act as a living byobu, a tattooed and sweaty folding screen, to prevent a conflict from arising, the Underboss is too late. The two men have recognized the disheveled former pirate queen her lackey in tow.

One-point-two-six seconds too late, to be exact.

Conversely, unlike the Casino’s perfectly drawn-up predictive contracts, the One-Armed Man’s swing of a hooked arm occurs exactly when it decides to be thrown, aimed at the mare whose oblong look of inebriated surprise is momentarily blocked by a passerby, an Underboss with sake at his lips, smiling, at zen.

The Underboss’s cheekbone breaks on impact.