“Ain’t Nobody”, sung by the one and only Chaka Khan, throbbed on the radio.

Teresa had a glass of Pinot Grigio held up to her chin, just shy of her lips. She was staring at the door outside, leaning against the wall. Her eyes were half-lit. Ture, despite himself, realized he was timing the seconds between her blinks. Her record was sitting at five minutes. If, at least, his timekeeping could be trusted: like any good casino, the Silver Wheel had no clocks anywhere on the premises.

But she’d been there for a while. He didn’t need a clock to know that.

It was making him… anxious.

“...do you… uh… blame me?”

She didn’t react to him. She didn’t react to anything. If it weren’t for the occasional, subtle way she adjusted her shoulder to stay comfortable, and the not-quite nonexistent ripple of her breath against the flat surface of the wine, Ture might have assumed she had died on her feet.

Oh. Wait. There. She blinked. Just before she could beat her old record, too.

“Do you blame me?”

“I heard you the first time,” she finally answered. Speaking into her drink.

“Then it would be helpful if you answered.”

She tilted her head back, and took her first drink of the wine since he had poured it for her. He watched her throat flex and tense as it glided down to her stomach. She finished it all in one swallow.

“No. I don’t,” she said. “Win or lose, he would have shook Charlie’s hand. It was his nature that killed him, not your cheating.”

“Pretty much.”

She twirled the glass in her hand.

“I need to set up for the next game,” she announced abruptly while dropping the empty glass to the ground. “Please do not disturb me.”

“Wait, that’s it?” He called after her, “We’re just moving on? Is that all you have to say?!”

But she was already closing the door behind her.

And for the first time ever since he’d arrived here, Ture heard it lock behind her.

He didn’t know it could do that.

----------------------------------------

Charlie woke up feeling good. Great, even. He couldn’t remember the last time he woke up feeling so good, and that was just a 15 minute power-nap. He practically hopped off the helicopter when it arrived at the airport, and he was in such a good mood, he actually took advantage of the full accommodations on Marie’s plane, partaking in a full three-course meal while enjoying a copious amount of oral sex, then falling asleep in post-orgasmal bliss. The good mood lasted well after the plane landed as well, although he was content to spend the helicopter ride to the lab catching up on work and reading up on this hitherto unknown New Zealand lab, which was where the “Silver Wheel pills” had first been developed. Their codename, apparently, was “The Royale Treatment”.

A little on the nose, as far as Charlie was concerned.

The lab, he would also learn, was hidden away in a complex in a privately-owned section of the Spenser mountain range, necessitating the helicopter ride. This was because unlike the rest of Walker Horizons and Bigger Skies, which were about exploring alternate universes, this laboratory was focused on finding and studying the ‘otherworlds’, of which the Silver Wheel was only one. The level of secrecy the facility employed was nothing short of astronomical: upon being hired, researchers would spend every minute of every day on-site until their contract expired or they quit, at which point their memories would be wiped and they would be returned to the world with an extremely generous paycheck and a vague explanation of the work they had done for their CV’s and resumes. The only people who actually remembered everything that lab had discovered were the director of the facility, one Doctor Gene Oberman, and Marie Walker herself.

It felt rather like a spy movie. Charlie didn’t have a theme song (maybe he could gamble for one) but he found himself humming a baseless tune as he eyeballed the steep, green inclines of the mountains, trying to look for any signs of civilization. Other than the odd hiker or trail, in any case. But he was not entirely unsurprised to find the helicopter slow, and then stop, on a naturally flat edge of one of the mountains, far, far away from anything that even looked remotely manmade.

He stepped out. It was cool and wet. The pilot was going over some small details regarding their arrival with his guide. Signing papers or something. He didn’t pay them much mind as he scanned the horizon, and the ground. Hunting again for any sign of this facility.

Now that they weren’t moving, it was considerably easier. There were a lot of small holes in the earth that were trying to look natural but were placed too deliberately, and were likely allowing fresh air to flush into the underground. Speaking of, there was a river in the crevasse between this mountain and its neighbor, and the flow of the water was barely but noticeably stronger when it reached a certain point: that must be where they flushed their waste. Good on them to clean it first, though, so there were no telltale signs of contamination. And of course, he could hear the faint buzz of electricity under his feet. All these observations were only possible thanks to his winnings at the Silver Wheel, but all the same he felt proud that he was keen enough to pick up on them.

“Ya ready, sir?” his obnoxiously Australian guide asked.

“Hm. Yes.”

“Alright then. Just a tick.”

The helicopter pilot was taking off. He knew of the location but it seemed they wouldn’t let him see where the door actually was, or how to open it. So the pair left behind watched it fly off, and when it was securely hidden behind another mountain the guide took one final look around before she tapped a button on the side of her watch: twice in a row, followed by a two second pause, then three times again.

They waited a few minutes with nothing to do but listen to the sound of the wind and the birds. Charlie appreciated how his guide never attempted to make small talk, or even to explain what was going on. She spoke when spoken to, or when necessary. The perfect underling and the perfect woman.

At ten minutes, a section of the ground lowered, and then parted, giving way to a small ladder. They had finally arrived.

“Sorry ahead a time, but most of this facility’s gonna be closed to ya. We’ll just be going straight to the observation hall.” The guide reported as she lead him through the comfortably wide halls of the facility. They had taken great care to make the place as homey as possible to help cope with the strain of living so far away from the sun for a full year. It was downright luxurious, even, from what little Charlie was able to glimpse: lots of plants growing along the walls, state-of-the-art entertainment and exercise options, and a lot of dogs. He nearly tripped over three just getting to his destination.

He hated dogs.

“You’ve been under the probes before, yeah?”

“Yes. The last time I went to the Silver Wheel.”

“Right, well, those probes are straight piss compared to what the dags here cooked up. We’ve been flat-out making them the bloody best probes in this reality or any other so with luck ya won’t be needing to go back after this go.”

“Hm. I just might anyway.”

“What you do in your own time is your business, I just meant in any kind of formal capacity. Least, not in this facility.”

“I see.”

“Alright, ‘ere we are.”

The last time he had done this, it had been as straightforward an affair as these things could possibly be: they attached some sensors and probes to his body then put him to sleep. Since the Silver Wheel more or less duplicated what you wore when you fell asleep, they effectively had two sets of probes that measured not only everything they could about Charlie and his environment, but also any discrepancies between the two sets of data that the two sets of probes picked up. This room, however, was far more… intricate. They strapped probes to him, yes, but they also strapped him to a table, weaved wires through his body, put contact-sized cameras over his eyes (with accompanying microphone), and had several cameras recording him from every imaginable angle on every possible spectrum of light and energy. They could watch reality itself bend around him. Or at least, most of the bands that composed it.

“Comfortable?” A wiry voice asked from the speakers.

“No.”

“Sorry about that. Won’t matter in just a second.”

One of the two researchers in the room with him dropped a pill into his open mouth. He swallowed it dry.

Before he could even think about trying to resist the sleep-inducing effect of The Royale Treatment, he was already at the Silver Wheel. “Save My Soul” by Blue Sacramento was on the radio, although it was turned down lower than usual.

And suddenly he remembered why he was in such a good mood. And why Ture welcomed him by immediately throwing a bottle at his face. It was effortless to catch.

“Got a lot of nerve coming back here.” He spat.

“It’s my job,” he replied, putting the bottle on the bar, unharmed. “Besides. You should be happy to see me. Considering our deal.”

“I don’t fucking know if I want any part of a deal with you anymore.” Ture bore his teeth, but it was more like a cornered rat than a vicious tiger. “If that’s your idea of… fucking… helping people ‘leave’.”

“I wasn't trying to help him leave. I was trying to get rid of him. He was annoying, and Teresa is a much more agreeable dealer.”

Ture was so awestruck and frustrated by Charlie’s obstinance that he was left thoroughly silenced. Perfect.

“You can get indignant if you want. It won’t change what happened, but it might force me to re-evaluate our deal going forward. I need to know you’re still interested in leaving, and if you are, I need you to tell me what game we’ll be playing tonight.”

Ture had to chew through both his tongue and his outrage, and then take a big fat swallow of his extremely shaken ego, before he could muscle out his reply. The effort alone made his jaw go white.

“...yes, I’m still interested.”

“Good. And?”

“And I don’t know.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t know,” he repeated. “Teresa locked the door to the parlor behind her. I haven’t been able to see what she’s been doing. Setting up a game, or finding a new dealer… I have no idea.”

“Well I trust you can improvise.”

“...maybe.” He continued, “Juan liked me so he didn’t...notice. Guess you could call it turning a blind eye. But the bitch has. And if she catches me cheating again I could get in trouble.”

Charlie just rolled his eyes and left Ture at the bar. He was more trouble than he was worth right now. Instead, he knocked on the parlor door.

“Teresa. I’m here to play.”

No response for the first few seconds. But then…

“Of course, Charlie. Just one moment.”

The door clicked.

“Please come in.”

He waited for the door to open for him: but it wasn’t happening. It seemed the service of this place had gone down a bit since his last visit. So he stepped in by his own power, and was surprised to find the door immediately close behind him.

The parlor itself was looking decidedly… barren. The table where games were typically held was gone, and in its place, two wooden chairs turned to face one another. The room’s single light, which had been spotty and hazy in the best of times, swayed ominously, causing the shadows of those chairs to shift and meld, almost like streaks of watercolor that hadn’t dried quite yet.

Teresa was standing in the middle of the room. She bowed her head politely.

“Welcome to the Silver Wheel, Charlie. Please take a seat.”

He did not move. Something felt wrong about this. He took a step backwards, and bumped into Teresa, who now had her hands on his shoulders.

“Please. Take a seat.”

Teresa had never been friendly. Her demeanor, oftentimes, could be aptly described as the kind of cold that would leave arctic bears racing for warmth. That was what Charlie had liked most about her: she never invited more conversation from guests and her curt professionalism cut most shenanigans short in the space of a breath.

Today, however, she did not feel cold at all.

And that was worrying.

He resisted her efforts to guide him to a chair. He escaped, and put his back to the door.

“What’s going on?” he asked. His voice was steady but he did not feel steady.

“We’re here to play a game, of course. As you wished.”

“...I take it you want to be my opponent this time? Whatever it is you want to play, I refuse. I’m working now which means I need to play against other people.”

“I apologize for failing to properly convey the situation to you, Charlie.” She bowed once again. While her head was down, he put his hand on the door handle. It was locked. “I am not requesting a game with you. I am demanding one.”

“You can’t do that, I’m a guest here and-”

“-’Guests’ are invited and welcomed. You are neither. Therefore, I shall call you what you are: an intruder. Now… please… sit.”

It seemed he didn’t have a choice. He took a few steps forward and sat on one of the chairs. Teresa sat on the opposite one, facing him with her feet flat on the floor, and her hands flat on her lap. She looked like a porcelain doll. Maybe she had always been one, it was just impossible to notice considering how easily she slipped into the background, lurking in the areas of the Wheel where light seldom touched.

“The stakes of this game are very simple. If you win, you shall be our guest once more, and you may play to your heart's content. Lose, and you die. I hope you find the terms agreeable as they are non-negotiable.”

Whatever crawling, slowly inflating anxiety that may have swelled up in his chest vanished in an instant. The horror was in the mystery, and now that he knew what the stakes were, the weight of that gloom simply vanished. Besides, death wasn’t scary. He had done it once already and things turned out fine. There was no doubt he could do it again: with even less trouble this time, given he was currently safely strapped to a table at a laboratory.

The fact he could play for his freedom was also a source of confidence. If he could beat Juan at his own game, a game designed specifically to beat him, then he doubted there was anything she could concoct that could outwit or defeat him. She did not seem like the creative type to begin with. Just one of the many things he had once appreciated about her.

Still. He nodded somberly. As if her words mattered to him.

“If I have no choice. So what will we be playing?”

“The same game you played with Juan, of course.”

She reached into her breast pocket and pulled out a pristine, ivory-handled Ruger Blackhawk, a six-chamber revolver designed in 1955 to capitalize on the popularity of westerns.

“Roulette.”

“Russian Roulette”, as it’s often called, was first mentioned in a short story written in 1937 by a man named Georges Surdez for Collier’s magazine. It’s unknown if he invented the game himself or if it was based on some historical incident and he merely named it, but whatever the case, it’s been a staple of fiction ever since, and has even been played in real life by a few notable individuals, such as Malcolm X, Henry Graham Greene, and allegedly John Hinckley Jr.

“But at the Silver Wheel, we don’t play games of pure chance.” She repeated the words said so often before. But they were tinged with enmity this time. “Which is why we play a slightly different variation.”

She popped the chamber open with a single flick, then opened her other hand. There were two bullets in her palm -- .30 Carbines.

“At the start of the round, you may load either one or two bullets into the chamber. Then, you close the chamber and spin it.”

She slid both bullets into the chamber, next to each other in the cylinder. She snapped it shut with the same brisk flick, then gave it a quick spin.

“Unlike normal Russian Roulette, you do not need to point the chamber at your head. You may point it to any part of the body. However, the more vulnerable the body part, the more points it will be worth.”

She rested the gun against her knee.

“Limbs are one point.”

She raised it up, to her pelvis.

“Lower body is two.”

She raised it up again, to her chest.

“Upper body is three.”

She lowered it again, and pushed the barrel into her stomach.

“Stomach is four.”

She then rested the barrel against the side of her head. The steel of the gun was nearly the same color as her dead blue eyes.

“Head is five. If you pull the trigger and nothing happens…”

Her finger flexed. The trigger tightened. It resisted just enough so that she was only a hair’s width from actually firing the gun.

“...points are awarded to the endangered party. But if it goes off…”

She lowered the gun. It laxed in hand, pointing lazily to her lap.

“No points are awarded. If you put a second bullet in the chamber, you may pull it again before giving the gun to the other player. The game continues until one of us reaches twenty points. Or dies.”

“Hmm.” Charlie hummed. “...is that it? It seems very simple. Compared to your other games.”

“Those were Juan’s creations. Are you ready to play?”

He snorted. If there was one good thing about Juan’s games, it was that all the rules provided plenty of refuge for him to work his clever tricks. There was no way to cheat at this game even if he wanted to. He’d just have to load the chamber and pull the trigger.

“I don’t have much choice, do I?”

“You do not. We shall decide who goes first with a flip of a coin. Heads or tails?”

“Tails.”

With the gun on her lap, she retrieved a coin from her pocket and balanced it on her finger. “Arsonist’s Lullaby”, by Hozier, started playing on the radio as she flipped it. And as her eyes were locked onto the coin, he considered grabbing the gun from her lap. It would be fairly easy as far as he was concerned, but he wasn’t quite sure what he would accomplish by doing that. Anything he could think to do with the gun, he could do when she handed it to him during his turn. Besides, it would hardly help… he knew what this game was really about.

Every game in this place had a trick. Even something as simple as Russian Roulette.

“Tails. It seems you get to go first. Congratulations.”

She held the gun out to him. He stared at it, then his eyes darted up to hers.

“You think you’re pretty clever, don’t you?”

She didn’t say anything to that. But there was hate in her stare. Melting the ice in her cold blue eyes.

“You think I forgot about Mr. Eight? The moment I even lay a finger on that gun, he’s going to kill me for you. The only way to win this game is to not play, or hope you kill yourself first.”

She lowered the gun slightly.

“A reasonable concern. But you have my assurance that Mr. Eight will not interfere with our game. I have explained the situation to him and he consents to the terms.”

She was his enemy. But all the same, he trusted her. Maybe it was the beguiling perfume of the room that made her words seem especially believable, or maybe it was the fact that she seemed like the kind of person who valued honesty over practicality or tact. But whatever it was, he was relieved to find himself unmolested as he laid hands upon the revolver.

There were already two bullets in the chamber. That seemed reasonable. The more he shot, the sooner he’d get this game out of the way, live or die. He gave the chamber another spin, for good measure, then pressed the chamber against the side of his head.

He rested a finger against the trigger.

And then he paused.

He paused a bit longer.

And then he realized he wasn’t just pausing. His palms were white and cold. His eyes were squeezed shut. There was a boulder in his throat, and his heart was beating quickly. He felt his armpits sweating. His fingers were trembling. His breathing was short. And radiating from the barrel of the gun was a white-hot chill that extended through his skull like a spider’s web. Something that itched and throbbed, as if his brain was so busy bracing for a bullet that may or may not come it couldn’t do anything else.

He was paralyzed. He was scared.

He knew he had nothing to fear, empirically. But no brain was made purely of logic. The instinctual, animal side of his mind was screaming and thrashing and gnawing and doing everything it could to lift his finger from the trigger and point the barrel somewhere else. It was an uprising, and one he couldn’t ignore no matter how hard he tried to convince himself to pull the trigger.

He breathed deeply as the gun was lowered to his chest, and deeper still when he shifted the gun to his shoulder. It was fewer points. But he needed to warm up. Get accustomed to the click of an empty chamber… or get the shock of pain he’d need to shake his brain loose of all this rigid, preemptive adrenaline.

He squeezed his eyes shut, then the trigger.

Click.

He exhaled. Eased his finger from the trigger for a moment, giving that small peg of metal some space to breathe. Then, utilizing his lightly-used courage and adrenaline-fueled brashness, he pulled it again.

----------------------------------------

Marie’s phone went off once. It only ever went off once. Her assistant swiped it open to see who it was.

“Ma’am, it’s Dr. Oberman.”

Marie smiled at the news. It was always exciting when Gene called. That either meant he discovered something he couldn’t wait to tell her about in his weekly reports, or something had gone horribly, horribly wrong. Either was fine for her. Broke up the monotony. Something she needed now more than ever, considering she was currently being driven through the District of Columbia for her seventh senate hearing in the past two years. There were only so many times she could tell those old, technologically-illiterate idiots that she was not going to destroy the fabric of space-time and that God wasn’t real anyway so there’s no harm in her playing it.

If anything, she should be commended for filling the vacancy.

“Pick up, pick up!” She crossed her legs and leaned forward like a housewife eager for the latest neighborhood gossip about who’s fucking her husband. “This ought to be ju-icy.”

She put the phone to her ear.

“Marie. Marie we’ve got a situation.”

“That’s what I pay you for darling. Situations. Would be boring if we didn’t have any.”

“Not the fun kind of situation, I’m afraid.”

“That’s all perspective. But fine, enough flirting. What’s up.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Gene always breathed really, really heavily, like he just finished sprinting an entire marathon. It was loud and unsubtle and intrusive in the worst of ways and Marie loved it. She was a firm believer (well, “hoper” -- she firmly hoped) that genius was always married with eccentricity and his over-the-top breathing was one of the main reasons she hired him. It turned out to be a smart decision for a number of reasons, and now his breathing was just icing on the cake.

“There’s an armed gunman in the room with Charlie.”

She needed a moment to adjust to the news. She started gnawing one of her fake, pink fingernails. She was piecing together what was happening, two steps ahead of Gene’s own explanation, which did little but elaborate on the facts she had already figured out.

“We keep two personnel in the room with Charlie at all times to monitor vitals and do other essential tasks. Almost immediately after we put him under… one of them pulled out a revolver. Must have stolen it from the guards. He’s ranting about how immoral we’re being, spitting on god and that manner of nonsense… he just shot Charlie in the shoulder.”

She bit down hard on the fingernail. She pulled to feel the tension of her skin as it tried to keep the nail in place. She was grinning.

“Listen to me, sweetie. Gene. Have your people tried talking to him?”

“Not yet. We just sealed the door.”

“Good. Make sure no one says a word to this man. No matter what he threatens, remain absolutely silent. Observe the room carefully with all the instruments. It’ll sort itself out by the end. Pinky swear.”

“What if he kills Charlie?”

“We can get another.”

“...yes, I suppose we can. Whatever you say.”

“Mmmm. Say that again.”

“...whatever you say.”

“Ngh, mama likes. Alright, gotta go. Keep me posted. Love you darling.”

She blew a kiss into the receiver and hung up on him as he tried to process that. Then, she pocketed the phone. She wanted to be at his disposal if he should ever call again.

“Oh, it’s gonna be a good day,” she sighed as she slouched back in her seat, “Play something snappy, Carla. Gimmie some hot latin beats. Something I can move my feet to, that'll stick in my head during proceedings.”

“Um… Mambo Number Five?”

“Ladies and gentlemen.” She grinned, pulling so hard on her nail she ripped it straight off the finger. Skin hung loose from the bottom and blood dripped onto her lap until she started to chew it. “Always gotta start with that, Carla. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mambo Number Five.”

----------------------------------------

There was a version of Charlie, who, sitting in prison for a white-collar crime, was accidentally shot in the shoulder by a patrolling guard messing with his handgun.

There was another version of Charlie, who, while fixing the shed in his backyard, tripped and landed hard on a nail, which rammed straight through his shoulder.

Another where robbers attacked his bank and shot him in the shoulder.

A vengeful ex-lover bursting in on him with his latest paramour.

Some idiot threw a knife in his kitchen and it wedged into his shoulder.

There were hunting accidents, firing range mishaps, unlikely ricochets, muggings, assassination attempts, car crashes, explosions, animal attacks, exercise mishaps, battles, antique misfires, gang threats, home invaders, erupting pipes, unfortunate falls with worse landings, safety rigging failures, poorly-conceived stunts, diseases, messy arrests, suicide attempts, mishandled evidence, surgeries, infections, parasites, faulty equipment, mistaken identities, and billions upon billions of other ways that it happened.

But it was always the same-sized hole in the same place on his body at the exact same time for every single Charlie that ever was.

And he could feel it.

“What…” he groaned between clenched teeth, tears and bullet-sized sweat dripping down his face as he grabbed the hole in his shoulder. The gun was on the ground. “...what the fuck was that?”

Teresa stared blankly at his wound before slowly lowering herself and picking the gun off the ground. She popped it open, and emptied the chamber.

“Tell me something, Charlie.” She spoke as if he wasn’t shivering in pain just two feet away from her. “What do you think you are, right now? If your body is in your dimension, what are you playing with?”

“...I… I don’t fucking know.” He was trying to think, but it was hard. He had no idea how much bullets hurt. Without the adrenaline to numb the pain, he could feel every severed nerve burning the entire left side of his body. He drooled as he he spoke. “A… a projection of my consciousness. That’s… what Marie told me.”

“Hmm. Not completely. It would be more accurate to call it your soul, but even that is not quite correct.” She re-loaded the chamber with a single bullet -- a .480 Ruger this time -- and snapped the gun shut. “Are you aware of the theory of Forms?”

His mind was static. He spat on the ground, then released a random, pained moan, but didn’t reply.

“It was a theory conjored by Plato that reality is merely an imperfect reflection of a perfect world. This perfect world contains the perfect versions of all things, and other things in all other worlds are mere imperfect ‘shadows’. To simplify things immensely -- the ‘you’ that is currently strapped to a table is but one of your shadows. While the ‘you’ at the Silver Wheel is the quintessential, perfect Charlie, who is merely borrowing his consciousness.”

She spun the barrel. It clicked, clicked, clicked, before it slowed and stopped. The same way he believed her when she said the gun was safe, he believed all the insane things she was saying now. There was an irrefutable certainty to it. It was like trying to argue fire with the sun.

“To damage your quintessential self is no small thing. Doing so redefines what the perfect ‘you’ is, which causes a ripple effect across all your shadows. That is why Mr. Eight is so diligent at protecting people in this establishment from hurting themselves or others… to spare them such a terrible, terrible fate.”

She pushed the barrel against the side of her head. She remained as still and porcelain as she had always been. Did she have nerves of steel, or even nerves at all? He had no idea.

“But he’s not here to protect you now.”

She pulled.

Click.

“Five-one. My favor. Your turn.”

She tried to hand him the gun. But the moment it was presented to him, he stumbled back with a gasp, as if the gun was the most terrible thing he’d seen in his entire life, an eldritch shape his mind couldn’t comprehend. He fell to the ground and pushed himself away from the weapon while still being unable to look away from it. His eyes were trembling in their sockets, and he was crying.

“K-keep that… that thing away from me!”

“You will never win if you do not play.” She stood up, and started to walk towards him, the gun held out to him the whole time. He continued to drag himself away. Shaking his head.

“This is insane, this is… this is fucked up! This is fucking insane! I don’t deserve this! I’ve done nothing to deserve this!”

“It seems you’re confused again, Charlie.” She tilted her head. He swore he could hear the gears in her neck move. “No one said you deserved this.”

His back hit the wall, where the darkness reigned. He could run no further. With the sole light in the room behind her, it was her silhouette that leaned over him, barely illuminated enough to see his own reflection in her dispassionate blue eyes. The gun was pushed against his chest.

“It’s just the way it is,” she whispered.

“Through the Valley”, sung by Shawn James, was playing. But he could barely hear it this far from the door, with his heart beating so loudly in his chest. One hand clawed against the floor, while the lame one cupped the gun. His shoulder, his arm, his body, was still wracked in agony. But it was next to nothing compared to the maelstrom in his mind. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t think. The one means he had used to assure victory in the past was being stolen from him by fear.

He had to think. He had to think!

He exhaled sharply. His fingers slipping on his sweat and nonstop trembling, he popped open the chamber to see where the bullet was. He closed it again, then ‘spun’ the chamber. One. Two. Three. Four notches. It was small and it was measured. But it could possibly constitute a spin.

And he pointed the gun at Teresa.

He wasn’t surprised to find her expression unchanged.

“Think hard before you pull the trigger, Charlie. That was not a proper spin of the chamber. To pull the trigger would be to cheat. Which means you’d lose.”

“Only... if you’re around to call me out on it.”

“That is correct.”

She leaned forward. Resting her forehead against the barrel of the gun.

“But are you certain it will kill me?”

His breath caught in his throat as her half-lit, glassy eyes dared him. There has never been a doll that would die if shot in the head. As long as glue and tape and imagination existed, she would always live on, even if you emptied an entire magazine into her glass face. Charlie did not know if she was actually a doll or if that was merely his own imagination going into overdrive due to stress. But he didn’t doubt for a second that no matter what she was, she wasn’t human.

He was having a hard time aiming, even with the gun resting directly on her forehead. She was so close but he couldn’t feel or even hear her breath. Or even see the subtle rise and fall of her chest. Had she even blinked once since he had walked into the room?

“...fuck you.” He moaned, lowering the gun and spinning the barrel, for real this time. He watched it spin while his brain did the same, trying to find some... out. The rules were too simple to exploit. He could try shooting the door or the glass, but leaving the room would count as a forfeit. And he doubted Ture could do anything…

...wait…

His breathing and his heartbeat grew quicker.

“Hey.” The hand with the gun went slack. “Do me a favor, eh? Let Ture bring me a goddamn drink. I could really use one right now.”

“Drinks are for guests. You are not a guest.”

“Oh, fuck off with that.” He laughed anxiously. “Fuck off with that. Please. Look at me. What harm could a drink do? Please.”

She didn’t answer right away. He leaned forward. He had to capitalize on this brief respite: he needed this drink.

“It’s what Juan would have done.”

She twitched. He touched a nerve he once doubted she even had. He was certain she would have tensed if her body wasn’t already as stiff as a corpse. She stood up, her silhouette looming motionless over him, and he heard the door to the bar ‘click’, unlocking itself though whatever strange force she used to compel it. Moments later, Ture poked his head in, a bottle of vodka in his hand. Popov.

“Goddamn.” Ture loudly whispered. All other commentary, however, was kept to himself. He lobbed the bottle to Teresa, who caught it without even a quick backward glance. She then dropped it on Charlie’s chest.

The door clicked shut behind Ture.

“Thank you.” Charlie parodied genuine thanks as he ripped the cap off the bottle with his teeth and took an enormous swallow of the stuff, dragging himself to his feet as well. Ugh. It was awful. Like hand sanitizer diluted with lake water. But he’d take what he could get.

He took another chug. But this one he didn’t swallow.

He spat it. A spray of heavy, saliva-laced alcohol directly into Teresa’s face.

Teresa finally fucking blinked.

She scrunched her eyes shut as the vodka splashed on her face, protecting her eyes and whatever other openings she could. Her hands raised, too late to stop the alcohol, but just in time to wipe off her face. And while she was still scrubbing, he raised the gun’s barrel at her and pulled the trigger.

Bang.

The .480 Ruger has a diameter of 12.1 mm and a length of 41.9 mm. On average, it moves at a speed of 410 meters per second, and delivers 1,783 joules of energy on contact: it was so powerful, it was often used to hunt bears and ensure the kill was quick and painless. In fact, at this close range against a fairly frail target, the bullet would be moving with such speed and power that it would go straight through the body, producing an exit wound larger than a baseball. In short: it was not the kind of bullet you fucked with, or walked away from.

Teresa was not the exception to this rule. She was on the ground.

Charlie shivered as he dropped the gun, a thrill and a terror and a chill he couldn’t explain running through his body. He did not feel good. He did not feel good at all. Not just because he’d been shot in the shoulder, or because he had just murdered Teresa: quite the opposite. If he knew she was dead he’d have been over the moon. But the cold, steel claws of anxiety continued to rake slowly against his heart, because he did not see a single drop of blood or a single shard of bone anywhere in a room that should have been drenched in it.

“...you… fucking bitch.” He mouthed, staggering forward to her motionless body. “You’re… still alive, aren’t you?”

Now that he was closer, he could see her face: there was, indeed, a hole right between her eyes, which were milky and unfocused as she lay in a tangle of limbs. But there was no blood. No meat. No loose skin or ripped flesh or even a single misplaced hair. It was just… darkness.

He kicked her.

“Get up!”

He sobbed as he continued to slam his foot into her side. He was stupid enough to actually start hoping she was really dead. It was impossible and she needed to wake up to prove him right. How long would she keep toying with him like this? He kicked her again and again, and then he threw the open bottle of vodka onto her chest, which spilled onto the floor.

“I said get up!”

Another kick to the side. Her body was shockingly heavy for her size. It felt like kicking a sack of potatoes.

“Look at me!”

She didn’t move. He stopped kicking. His breath itself shivered as he took a step away from her. Was it… was she… actually dead? He looked at the door, checking if maybe it had opened. It was still closed. Music still streamed into the room. He still swam in the smell of perfume and gunpowder and spilled alcohol and sweat. His breath was still short and pained.

...slowly, he turned back to her corpse.

She still hadn’t moved. But her eyes were turned to him, and were in perfect focus.

“Pity,” she said as she slowly stood up, adjusting her limbs like a marionette untangling itself. “The gun went off, so no points for me.”

“Y-you can’t prove I cheated!” Charlie pointed out preemptively as he jumped away from her, hyperventilating as she finally straightened herself out. The hole in her head had gotten bigger, but even as she stood up, he found no trace of anything lurking behind her face. It wasn’t merely empty, it was just like the void outside, consuming and obtuse. Just looking at it made his head hurt. “You couldn’t see! You couldn’t see if I fixed the chamber!”

She snapped her neck into place. Then bowed her head.

“So it seems.”

She picked up the gun, and emptied the chamber. “Used to the Darkness”, by Des Rocs, was playing on the radio.

“My turn.”

She flicked open the chamber and pulled out two more bullets: .44 magnum rounds. On top of everything else it seemed the caliber of the bullets in play were random as well. Charlie couldn’t imagine a single good reason for that other than to fuck with him, or maybe to force him to only aim for his head when the bullet was weak enough that he could theoretically survive. Whatever the case, she slid the bullets into the chamber so that there was one empty space between them, and snapped it shut.

This was bullshit. This was bullshit! If she could survive getting shot in the head, then this was hardly a risk for her. He was the only one in danger here, he was the only one actually gambling! If she couldn’t die and all other avenues were dead ends, then… that meant the only way he could possibly get out of this situation… was to actually play. He had to actually win.

She pressed the gun against her forehead and pulled.

Click.

“Ten points for me.”

She then pointed the gun to his leg and pulled the trigger.

Bang

He could blame his getting shot a second time on the unusual placement of the bullets: if you miss with your first shot and both bullets are next to each other, then there’s only a one-quarter chance you’ll get a bullet with the next pull of the trigger, since there’s only one possible chamber that could be empty before you reach the two loaded chambers. If you put a space between the bullets, however, there are two empty chambers before a loaded one: which doubles the odds of getting shot on the second pull, assuming you don’t re-spin the chamber.

He could blame that, but he was too busy screaming on the ground, clutching the cavernous, bloody hole where his knee had once been. He threw up a little in his mouth.

“And you’re still stuck at one.”

He couldn’t breathe from the pain. His fingers were squeezing the inside of his leg and brushing against his shattered bone, but he could barely register how gross he should have found that. And with two holes in him, he had lost a lot of blood. He was cold. His muscles were an aching purgatory between the twitchy throb of adrenaline and an unbearable weariness. More than anything, he just wanted to go home.

“Marie…” He half-moaned, half-screamed, half-dead. “Marie, I know you’re watching… do something… get me out of here… Marie…!”

There was no response. Of course there was no response. The microphones were one-way. And time spent in the Silver Wheel was often in flux. Either faster or slower as the situation warranted. So there would be some delay anyway.

But he couldn’t help it.

“Marie… come on… please…!”

Nothing happened.

Teresa was kneeling in front of him, the gun presented flat in her outstretched hands. He hated being this close to her, hated seeing the enormous hole in her head so dark no light could escape from it. If the pain didn’t make him want to vomit, the sight of her definitely did. He unsteadily grabbed the gun and held it awkwardly in his bloodied hand.

“You can only hope to win now if you pull the trigger twice. I’ve taken the liberty of putting two bullets in there for you.”

He popped the chamber open. There were, indeed, two bullets. And as an apparent sign of mercy, they were adjacent to one another. He gently pushed the chamber closed again. His blood stained the beautiful steel of the barrel.

“...is it…” his voice was hoarse and weak from screaming, “...too late to apologize for killing Juan?”

“Of course not. But I wouldn’t care.”

“...in that case… I wish I had thrown you off with him.”

He spun the chamber. As much as he hated to admit it, she was right: if he was going to have any chance of surviving, he’d need to take both shots this turn. He didn’t want to, though. He wanted to close his eyes and take a nap. He wanted to be back on the plane. He wanted to be anywhere but here.

The gun was so damn heavy he could barely point it at his own head. That’s what he wanted to blame the shaking on. But he was scared. He was still so scared. He was in pain but he still wanted to live so badly, that’s what multiplied the pain and fear to unbearable levels. It was so much easier when he didn’t care. When he thought he was invincible. When he thought he had time.

But he still had a strand of silk to climb out of this hell and get his life back, and to grab it he had to pull. The. Trigger.

Click.

He exhaled for the first time in his entire life.

“You now have six points. Are you pulling again?”

“...yes.”

He didn’t need to aim at his head. The one extra point he’d get if he did would do him no good. If the caliber of the bullet was small enough -- oh god he didn’t know the caliber -- it wouldn’t be… immediately fatal to shoot his own stomach, tying up the score. It would hurt like hell, but he was already in so much pain he could hardly imagine it would matter. Maybe it’d even make losing a bit more appealing.

He lowered the gun and pushed it into his stomach. He expected some give from his soft body, and he remembered very suddenly that he had a six pack. Just one of the many things he had won earlier. He barely had the chance to use it.

He flinched and prepared for the worst.

He pulled.

Click.

“Ten points. It seems we’re tied.”

He threw the gun limply at her. She caught it mid-air with a graceful swipe of her hand, but was otherwise motionless. She remained kneeling over him, in a nearly mockingly maternal manner. She slapped the side of the barrel to check the bullets chambered within.

“How are you feeling, Charlie?”

“Fuck you.”

He was flat on the ground now. He didn’t have the energy to even try to sit up. Teresa, and the sole light of the room that illuminated her, were only in his peripheral vision that way. He could still watch as she pulled out each bullet, examining it carefully in the dim light, before sliding it back in. Next to each other as before. As she did, she gave it a spin. Some of his blood was on her fingers now.

She licked it off.

“Do you wonder where you’ll go when you die, Charlie?”

He didn’t answer. She pressed the barrel of the gun against the side of her head.

“Some people go to dark places when they die. The kind of place that Mr. Eight comes from.”

She pulled the trigger. Click. She had fifteen points now. If she pulled the trigger again and there was no gunshot, he would die. If there was, he had a chance, however small, of making it back home.

“Others,” she continued, “Go to light places. That is where I come from.”

She popped open the barrel of the gun again. He slowly forced himself to sit back up. To see what exactly she was doing.

“And there are others who wind up places like here. People like Juan and Ture, who have to do a bit more work before they can move on. Juan had been doing a good job. I was…”

She paused for a moment to reflect. Her face furrowed into something like… sadness. But then she rotated the chamber with the same deliberate pace that Charlie had done earlier, ensuring that her next shot would contain a live bullet.

“...I was looking forward to taking him home someday.”

“Y-you can’t just… you can’t just place a bullet there! It’s cheating!” He gasped, trying to drag himself away again. He didn’t get far: she straddled his hips and sat down on his stomach, pinning him to the ground.

She placed the gun to his forehead.

“But when I pull this trigger, you will not go to a dark place, or a light place, or any place at all. You’ll simply… stop.”

“Y-you just admitted it!” His eyes were wide. He sobbed as he tried to buck free from under her. His struggle was weak and pale. A shadow. “You’re going to cheat! I-I win! I win! I get to live! I… I get to…”

“Yes.” She agreed.

Bang.

“...you win.”

----------------------------------------

Do you know how hard it is to masturbate in the Senate's bathrooms?

It’s damn hard. On the surface they were just normal bathrooms, at least the public ones. A chamber of porcelain chairs and cheap metal walls and floors that reeked of pine-scented floor soap. The kind of soap that made the floor wet and reflective but could never actually clean the small gaps between the dull gray tiles. But there was a subtle subtext to the place that, for however unobtrusive it might be, was impossible to ignore. It smelled old, and not in the charming kind of way, but the moldy and sad and dated kind of way. You could smell the leftover perfume and deodorant that were over-applied to some lobbyists’ sweating armpits fifteen minutes ago. And the senate building itself was just… choking on its own self-importance. There was not a single place in the whole US of A more disassociated with reality than the senate, and that disassociation even bled into the bathrooms.

So naturally, Marie had made it a point to try to do it every time she was here. It was never enthusiastic or enjoyable, but she was defiant and bored and frankly it would make for a fun chapter of her autobiography, when she got around to writing it.

She was in the middle of that when her phone rang. She picked up with one hand.

“What’s the latest, doc?”

“...Marie, this is… this is amazing. I’m sending you some pictures, give it… just look.”

She checked her phone’s screen and scanned the photos.

Her other hand stopped.

“...don’t play with me, Gene. Jesus Fuckface Christ, the hell is this? Give me all the details.”

“...well… we did as you said. We sealed the door and we just watched. The gunman was furious. His demands got louder. He got madder. Soon he shot Charlie in the leg. After that he shot Charlie in the face, and he died. Almost immediately afterwards, the gunman -- he was Doctor Ibern Cartman, by the way -- appeared lucid again, and shot himself in the head.”

“Told ya.”

“But as you asked, we kept a close eye on the instruments, and the data we received… it was unlike anything we had ever seen before. As you can see, Charlie isn’t just dead: every version of him we’ve been able to find and track is dead, too. Killed the exact same way, with a hole in his shoulder, a hole in his leg, and finally, in his face.”

“...I see…”

“...but that’s not all. We were able to extract the video from his time at the Wheel. And… I’ll just let you see it. I’ll send you the file now.”

She put him on hold, and pulled up the video. She watched the whole thing without saying a word, barely breathing, until the very end: where Teresa, still straddling Charlie, leaned over his face and wiped some blood away from his eye, so she could be clearly seen by the cameras in his contacts.

“I wish to inform everyone watching that there will be some new rules at the Silver Wheel Gambling House,” she reported stoically. The heat had left her now, and she was as mechanical as ever before. “Those who have our invitation shall be treated cordially, as guests, as they always have. Those who wish to visit our establishment without an invitation shall still be happily received: however, they shall play different games, with different rules, and significantly higher stakes.”

She smiled.

“I look forward to serving you.”

And the video cut out.

Marie Walker held the phone in her hand a few minutes longer before she took Gene Oberman off hold. Just thinking.

“Gene, darling, I want to shift around some priorities. I want Bigger Skies completely dedicated to Project Royale. With a small team dedicated to finding my alternates, of course. Scrap everything else, reallocate talent, find something for everyone to do.”

“Scrap them? We’ve already invested millions into-”

“-I said, scrap them”

“Even Project 20:7? You can’t mean that too, I-”

“I’m not going to repeat myself again, Dr. Oberman.” Her tone took a sudden, violent turn into harshness… just enough to cut down what was left of his protesting. “...on top of that, I think it’s time we finally start sharing The Royale Treatment with the world. Send a bottle of forty pills to Helmut Beisner… and another to Nikolay Kondrashin. Send them a copy of the video as well.”

“...what are you thinking?”

“Oh, sweetie, you and I are going to have a very long talk about what I’m thinking. But for now, just do what I say, alright?”

“Yes. Very good.”

“Ah. Music to my goddamn ears. The recess will be over soon so I have to go, but I’ll be over first thing to discuss the details in-person. Wear something pretty.”

She could hear him roll his eyes from here.

“Cya soon.”

She hung up, and slipped the phone back into her pocket, then ripped out another one of her fingernails, smiling ear to ear.

This, it seemed, was going to be a very, very good day.

----------------------------------------

“You, uh… sure did a number on him.”

“Mhm.”

Teresa was massaging some of the blood out of her uniform with a wet rag. It was taking a considerable amount of time, but when you didn’t have a proper washing machine, and she categorically refused to strip, it was the best she could do. It would no doubt be worse when they had to clean the carpet. And the wall. And the ceiling. And the chairs. And all the other places Charlie had been inconsiderate enough to bleed all over.

She’d make Ture do it.

The bartender tapped the corpse with the tip of his leather shoe.

“I appreciate you not helping him cheat, by the way.”

Teresa’s words were grudging and bitter, but Ture smiled sadly, as if she had said it earnestly.

“Well, I thought about playing the Brown Soldier Klick classic ‘Don’t Get Shot’, but I figured he probably picked up on that already.”

He laughed at his own joke. Teresa didn’t.

“Anyway.” Teresa stopped dabbing her sleeve and started to scrub at her collar, “I’m going to need you to clean up this mess. I’m going to be away for a short time.”

“Wait, wait, back the fuck up.” He crossed his arms. “For one, I ain’t cleaning up your goddamn murder. Finish the job yourself. Second of all, you can’t leave. You said that yourself.”

“That is incorrect.” She shook her head. “I said you couldn’t leave. I, however, need to fix my face and then find a new dealer. And I do not want to scare our new co-worker with a bleeding corpse in the middle of the parlor.”

“...tell you what, I’ll throw his corpse into the void, but I won’t scrub the floor.”

“You’ll do all of it, Ture.”

“The carpet is red already. I’ll do the walls and I’ll pick up the bullets but I’m not scrubbing the floor.”

“Ture.”

“I ain’t fucking cleaning the floor.”

They locked eyes and hot glares for a few daring moments.

And Teresa finally broke with a demure sigh.

“...fine. I’ll clean the floor.”

Ture grinned smugly.

“Alright. Have fun on your little trip… ‘boss’.”

She didn’t respond; merely walking out of the parlor into the bar, where she put on her seldom-used coat. She opened the door to the void, but before she stepped out, she double-checked herself -- there were still a lot of little stains all over her. And she knew her pants had at least one big splash of blood on them from straddling Charlie. It would be easier, at this rate, to simply get a new outfit from the higher-ups.

She looked at her right hand, and saw all the tiny specks of blood that still clung to her porcelain skin. Like freckles.

She smiled.

And she stepped out into the void, walking down the darkness with the ease of walking down the stairs, before she vanished into the inky blackness completely.

There was a very small number of candidates who qualified to work at the Silver Wheel. That was typically the case. But this time, she had no use for a gentle soul who was in need for a chance at redemption. This time, she needed more: she needed a warrior.

She needed a wolf.

She knew exactly who she wanted for the job.

----------------------------------------

“W-where am I?”

Panic was the first reaction, always. Thus far, very few people ever sat down to the table and opened their eyes calmly. Which was reasonable. It was all very reasonable to want to shout and scream and rush for the exit. And yet, up until recently, no one had. The panic came, and the panic passed, aided by the mellow atmosphere and scented smoke that wafted around them. It was designed to subdue the most violent of reactions. But nothing could subdue the confusion.

“Feeling Good”, the cover sung by Muse, was playing on the radio.

“Welcome to the new and improved Silver Wheel Gambling House.” A white-haired, porcelain-skinned waitress bowed to the confused young man, who couldn’t have been a day over nineteen. “Would you like something to drink, sir?”

Typically, Teresa was the first thing they registered, other than the general atmosphere of a classy, upscale establishment. She had a pretty, youthful face underlined by an obvious yet unobtrusive layer of makeup, paling her skin and plumping her lips to a brilliant shade of red. Her clothes were sharp and professional, form-fitting, and looked shockingly new, as if each thread had just conjured into existence and hadn’t had the chance to be stained by even a single speck of adventurous dust. She had vivid blue eyes, and she moved like someone who had a long-estranged, but slowly improving, relationship with the spotlight.

The next thing guests would notice, by and by, was their surroundings, as they scanned the room for details. It looked like a casino, but with most all the lights stripped away and only one table. The smell of alcohol, lingering cigarette smoke, gunpowder and blood stained the heavy air. The few lights that were on were dull and yellow, hanging low from the ceiling, illuminating a few key features of the room:

A seat, just for them.

Their opponent, in this case a thirty year-old woman in a construction uniform.

And the dealer, a young Indian woman with violent brown eyes that clashed with the impish smile on her thin pale lips.

“What’s… what’s the Silver Wheel?” the young man asked.

And the dealer laughed.

“I’ll tell you from experience, kid... It’s the time of your life.”

She leaned forward.

“Lemmie introduce you properly. I’m your dealer, Ratna, and this here is a one-of-a-kind gambling parlor: where your dreams, or your nightmares, come to life with the roll of a dice.”

And she bared her teeth like a hungry wolf.

“...so… you wanna play?”

It’s a new dawn

It’s a new day

It’s a new life for me…

...and I’m feelin’ good.