“Who do you have for the next bracket?”

“Blue’s the tops. Blue all the way, baby.”

“Y’all talkin’ Moresby still?”

The mention of Moresby takes you away from the Tenth Floor Lounge. The gilded ceilings turn moldy, wet with precipitation. Perspiration around the martini glass’s rim drips atop your index finger, the gin-citrus concoction drowning you on contact alone.

And yet, you strain your ears, hoping for something of value to spin from the mundane conversation of gamblers, the three of them once more arguing amongst themselves.

Patrons are posted in front of three-dimensional displays, digesting both aged liqueurs and statistical betting updates. Bleeding credits while licorice root alcohols drown their mistresses. By their looks, they’re gangsters, expensive suits and slick-backed hair. Others, politicians, awards and ribbons atop military dress, maliciously rewarded, kickbacks for incompetence. Then the killers. Successful gladiators, privateers, those that Ø glares at from the corners of her vision, mutually de-clawed predators, sizing up one another as politeness dictates.

She wonders if anyone’s peeking beneath her dress, spying her Narragansett. Although still unloaded, she can whip it like a club with enough force to split heads in two.

Like her, you’re part of the spectacle. Silently sat in front of the gladiatorial terminals. Planetary statistics spit in your direction, not limited to recaps of a certain jungle planet. Miniature facsimiles of gladiators murder one another in perpetuity, their labors reduced to highlights and commentary, replays covered in a thin film of rainfall that distorts the display with static. New Port Moresby’s doomed fighters are organized and labeled next to other murderers. Other gladiator leagues, ones lost among Echelon Space, their bloodstains stretching from lowly Featherston to bustling Busby and every other planet in between.

“Sure we are, and this guy’s about to lose another bet,” one gambler chides.

“Well now, I’m inclined to agree. I ain’t goin’ with anyone but White.”

“But the Blue’s, they’ve got cultivation. Training. A history of this stuff.”

“You ain’t know that. You ain’t never even been.”

“So what I’ve never been. Doesn’t mean I don’t know a killer when I see one. You know, one of my guys, he went to Moresby a couple years ago. You know, bookkeeping, practice. Wanted to make sure his handicapping is still as good as when he was a kid. I swear, the guy’s spread gets thick when it needs to, he's rolling in credits, but that’s why he went, you know? To make sure he still had the magic.” The whiskies at his side are guzzled. Empty crystal glasses effortlessly balance atop a stack of credits left in the open, one pilfered, lacking the thickness of a usual inch of wealth. Bloodshot eyes, sweaty from head to toe, double-breasted suit stained with sticky grain residue. “So he goes with this other kid of ours. Goofball, not worth the bullet to space him. But, still, okay kid. And while they’re on Moresby, they’re in some place, a city or something,” he waves his hands with confusion, conjuring the destination out of thin air.

“Yalaha County,” the companion whispers to the third, “Small. Eastern hemisphere, near—”

“Relax, it’s my story,” the storyteller sneers, flicking a hand. “So they’re in Yalaha County, checking up on the stats. Making sure nothing’s cooked without their permission. It’s in the middle of this forest or something, because they’re living in these treehouses, he says. Carved right into the trees, sleeping on bark beds. They climb up there every night, vines and all, like they’re tribals. Says he’s chasing aswangs away with machetes half the time. But later they’re out one night. It’s dark. They’re celebrating a job well done, so what. But after they leave this bar, and he swears this, this big thing shows up. Rolls up, drops down, who knows. It’s a plant. Or a tree, a, you know, a bush, something, comes up to them–”

The man jolts forward towards his audience. One hand, arm out, like a claw. The other, holding his drink, spills some thousand-credit scotch onto his stain-laden navy slacks.

“Bam!” he shouts, making the lady next to your mare flinch, desperately avoiding the gladiatrix’s furred wingspan as Ø attempts to flag down the auto-bartender once more at the bar across the room. “Takes a chunk out of the dumb kid’s leg. Snaps it in half at the kneecap. Swallows it whole. A plant did that! Imagine getting your arm ripped off by a flower! Death by tupelo! Now he’s stuck walking around with this peg leg thing, all because of one stupid trip to Moresby,” he lowers his voice, leaning into his story, flat teeth on display beneath his bald head, “but you know what the kid says when he gets back?”

“Ain’t got no idea.”

“He says they got one of mine,” and points to his leg, the tailored slacks, pantomiming a wooden peg, “so I got one of theirs as payback!”

You flinch. Ø silently screeches into your spinal cord. She’s out of cash again, liquor in both hands. She wants to shout across the room and tell you she’s headed back to your room for more. Liquidity for liquidity, she wants to proclaim over the heads of the hundreds of other guests entertaining themselves in the perpetual low-light lounge.

Beneath the crystal chandeliers, the crowds congregate amongst the embroidered chaise chairs. Some, you assume, were hand-crafted by Fervidora’s grandfather. Like her, snoring away above Merchants’ Street, sea breeze wafting through windows latched open.

“Wouldn’t sit here, if I were you,” whispers the man to your left. He’s got an accent. Its rhotic. Almost like a Boonslick flatlander with his blunt syllables. You haven’t paid him mind thus far, focused more on commotion and movement of the lounge, poised for reception of some delivered message.

Stolen novel; please report.

The man looks like you. Younger than most on the Tenth Floor, dressed in an eggshell linen jacket. But his looks worn, darker in the shadows like the crescent-shaped depressions beneath his eyes. His gelled hair is professional, but his wry grin is anything but, making you question his intentions.

“Why’s that?”

“Listen,” he shrugs. “Trust me, but only if you want. There’s an open seat here to my left, and I’d just suggest you take it.”

The storyteller to your right is in the midst of another tall tale, elbows gesticulating wildly. He’s pantomiming a rowboat, you assume, as you’re constantly jostled with each hit. With no other recourse, you accept the man’s invitation, taking your place on the stranger’s side.

“You have a drink, right?”

“Yeah, but what’re we waiting for?”

“Just watch. You’ll want a drink for sure,” he assures, the both of you impolitely staring at the man. “Unless you’ve seen it already.”

“Seen what?”

“What happens when you go bust.”

The three chattering men are none the wiser. They’re lost in excess, dribbling over with enjoyment, whooping with joy at another story of intergalactic gangster shenanigans. But the one man, the most talkative of the three, has lost more than most. Namely, the rest of his dough.

“Mercs,” your colleague prods. “Casino’s mercs.”

He points across the lounge. Towards the entrance, past the lounging ladies, ball gowns grenade blasts of satin, the empty bar, crowded by discarded top hats and emptied martini glasses. The mercs are from off-world. Tattooed around their eyes with solar imagery, clad in loose-fitting formal jackets. Sans hats, focused more on movement. Bodies wide at the shoulders, well-trained and swift. Former gladiators or pirates, you assume, like most hired swords.

They could never be Fontvieillains. Too brash as they growl excusez-mois, ruffling the bevies of ladies in their way. Too real and fleshy, unlike the auto-bartender, the lounge off-limits to those citizens who call the Department home.

And as the mercs approach the storyteller from behind, too loud with their accusation of insolvency, lacking the well-refined cultural disposition towards discretion.

“Leave?” the storyteller growls, “I’m not—”

Is all they need to hear.

The two mercenaries are finished within seconds. The hood is already over the man’s head. It’s puresilk, dyed navy, matching the specific tone of the storyteller’s jacket.

It muffles the punches laid against his neck, attempting to knock him unconscious as quietly as possible. Every swing is limited. A few centimeters back before rocketing forward. Professionals trained in the art of ejection.

The storyteller is off his feet, dragged, legs kicking, towards the service exit. It’s a scene that happens often enough. The regulars ignore the performance, understanding that the Fontvieillian mistress of luck gives as well as takes. In contrast, the débutantes tut-tut with disapproval. These newest arrivals to the Casino, the ones on their first visit, cover their empathetic anxieties with outward disapproval. They claim, most incorrectly, that they’ll never be caught in the same situation, silk garrote around the neck, dragged confined somewhere in the bowels of the hermitage to discuss the most embarrassing of topics—money—or a lack of it.

In the ensuing silence, one of the storyteller's audience turns to you, wide-eyed, finishing his glass of whiskey as he stands, laughing before grabbing his fifth, sixth.

“Well I certainly ain’t never bettin’ on Blue no more. No siree!”

The somber atmosphere is swept away with another rotation of brackets. Bets are thrown anew, without regard to the storyteller’s departure. As it should be, most claim.

“How’d you know?” You question your new drinking partner.

“You can tell by the outfit. Guy had been here for days. Hadn’t left, slept right here in front of the terminals. Was only a matter of time,” he muses. “He cashed out. Couldn’t meet his mark. Out of dough, whatever you want to call it. But, hey, first time here, right?”

“How can you tell?”

“How? Look at you. You’re still wearing your landing jacket. A linen suit here in the Casino? Come on, you’re a sore thumb,” he smiles, gesturing towards his own outfit, nearly a mirror of yours, “believe me, I’d know if you look like a bum.”

“Here I thought the tailors were supposed to be good.”

“Tailors?” he questions.

“Sure. Just had these made. Whole wardrobe too, actually.”

“Really? Big swinger, huh?” he smiles, dragging the conversation forward, engaging you now more than ever. “Well here’s some advice, then: when you cash out, and not if, when, hiding out in the Casino isn’t as smart a move as it seems. Yeah, the attendants can’t get you, and the Casino’s aristocrats don’t have the stones to get you themselves, but it’s a waiting game. A matter of time before two off-world fighters come for the weekend, blowing the pots they just won in rigged matches. If you’re the Marquis of Roulettes, and you want a guy off your demesne, you’re willing to throw a complimentary room, or another bottle of champagne with an imported girlie, at a couple fighters. Keeps the house’s hands clean, right?”

“Sure,” you commiserate, noticing that your former chair is already filled, the gargoyle’s ball gown dress spilling across the laps of those next to her, none the wiser as she watches another Featherston duel with gritted fangs. She roots for Green.

“Well, you’ll get used to it,” he assures. “Name’s Charlie,” he says, extending his hand for a firm handshake, as foreign as it is.

“Boonslick?” you ask, attempting to ascertain his Echelon accent and mannerisms.

“No, but close. Goshen. Never had someone guess Boonslick, of all planets.”

“Well I was just there. Thought it was a coincidence.”

“Boonslick,” he scoffs, “can’t imagine you visited for pleasure.”

“You’re right. Work.”

“Work, huh? I thought it was looking for more tailors,” the man clicks his lips, ignoring the sore loser to his right, the gargoyle ripping her wagers in half, stuffing them into the empty glass of scotch left by the seat’s previous doomed occupant. “So what’s your trade?”

“Piracy,” you assert with a shrug. “Well, piracy is part of it. Courier work, equity negotiation, gladiator matches. A few different jobs, I guess. First time someone’s asked, really.”

“And you do that all at once?” he jokes.

“Well, just in the past month, at least.”

“Huh,” Charlie entertains. “Pick your own targets?”

“No, I just take orders.”

“Me too,” he nods with lucidity, “from the big man up top.”

Charlie’s smile glints with understanding. A sporting empathy. He’s an appendage, part of a larger system. Like you, like your mare, entities trapped in the fritillus of fate, bouncing against one another before being unleashed with purpose.

You nod, confident that you’ve found your contact. The next domino to hit, after the Baronne’s heavy-handed suggestions. You’re right after all—you’re here on Fontvieille with purpose, not just for fun.

“Here I thought I was the only person on the payroll,” you joke with familiarity.

“Yeah,” he laughs. “But, hey, they like it when you act like you’re all alone, right? Comes with the territory, I guess. Maybe that’s why I don’t make the big decisions,” he finished his drink with gusto. “Well, since you’re new, how about a tour? I’d be happy to show you some ins-and-outs of the Casino.”

“No need. My attendant already showed me around.”

“Not what I mean,” he contests. “I mean show you off. Get you in front of some people. Decision makers, you know?”

“Sure,” you nod, “that’s the whole reason we’re here, right?”

“To make moves? Get some action? You can bet on it.”

“I mean, that’s the whole reason you struck up conversation.”

“Sure,” Charlie smiles. “Must be fate, right?”