Ehije was almost glad to be back in his cell.

Almost.

Mr. Eight had what could generously be described as a very relaxed yet thorough way of conveying information. Rather than distill all the information they had received and conveying only the necessary bits, they opted to relay literally everything. Which amounted to a functional eternity of listening to Mr. Eight babble on about things that were tangentially related, redundant, or so specific and complicated that Ehije had no idea what they could possibly mean. By the time they were done, ironically Ehije was practically awake.

But that was fine. Because they had still gotten the basic gist of what Marie was trying to accomplish. And Ehije needed some time to dwell on it.

It all seemed so very… fake.

Yet it made so much sense.

Ehije, in his many years as a con-artist, knew better than most that people weren’t as simple as they sometimes appeared. They were never driven solely by greed or the desire to be comfortable (even though those qualities featured heavily in someone’s decision-making process) and were more often driven by an innate sense of deep-seated dissatisfaction. As a species, humanity did a very bad job ever being ‘satisfied’. They could be prosperous, happy, and even grateful; and yet nothing changed the fact that getting what you want was the fastest way to suddenly realize you wanted something else, or something more.

It’s a desire that had both driven humanity to its greatest heights, and eventually toppled it over into ruin. And it’s a universal desire that many con-artists were able to take advantage of in order to milk greater and greater sums from an enraptured victim.

Ehije had always assumed Marie Walker had been gripped by something similar. After all, creating a stable way to bridge and travel between dimensions was the holy grail of science. She could have sold that technology for more money than she could ever hope to spend and enjoy a life of luxury and an afterlife in the history books. Objectively, she had accomplished literally everything a person could have asked for years and years ago.

But the fact that her ultimate goal was to render her own earth-shaking invention obsolete was… well it felt like the kind of thing out of a pulp novel. It was such a cliche, a brilliant scientist who tries to destroy their own creation when they realize it could be used for evil. The twist here was, there was nothing inherently evil about her invention -- the possibilities it presented were nothing short of miraculous -- and so far no one was using it for anything especially evil, outside her own morally questionable experiments at the Silver Wheel and maybe whatever Helmut was doing, although he would have just found something equally awful to do regardless. So there was nothing for her to thwart; and in fact, almost nothing for her to even gain, except the knowledge that there was only one unfathomably enormous universe dwarfing a still insignificant speck of cosmic dust that they called humanity.

She must have been lying to Gene. Or at least not telling him everything.

There had to be more.

He was one day in jail away from finding out the truth. All he had to do was endure another sixteen hours of wakefulness before he could confront her face-to-face, play their game, and win everything that was going on in her mind, as well as his wish. But the thing about prison was that it was boring. There was nothing to distract his thoughts, nor a better use for his energy than feeding his temptations and his curiosity. In that environment, sixteen hours slowed to a crawl, and every time he was sure he’d spent five minutes, he’d check and find he’d barely passed one.

At this rate, he was going to have the longest, most painful day of his life, sitting in this goddamn cell, staring at a sluggish second hand making laps around a clock’s face.

But he could still make a phone call. He still had that right. Which was important, because in Mr. Eight’s overlong ramble, they revealed that Gene Oberman knew Marie Walker’s personal number. A number that Ehije had memorized.

He could just call her and ask.

If she was as cliched a villain as she seemed in Gene’s memories then she’d be far too happy to taunt the hero by flaunting her full plan in his face. Something along the lines of “since it’s too late to stop me you may as well know”, or however it was supposed to work. He had no reason to think she wouldn’t. And he didn’t see any problem with getting in touch with her before they had their match. Heck, in calling her, he might get something he could use against her, as long as he had a convincing enough story.

Thinking of a good story for knowing her private number and asking about her ultimate plan, at least, gave him something else to do with his time.

But while he was mid-brainstorm, a guard approached the cell, holding the same dingy phone.

“You’ve got a call.”

Ehije, somehow, knew who it was without being told. Because his life was a story now, and this was just what made sense.

He put the phone up to his ear.

“Yeah so you decided to call.”

It was Marie.

“...”

“Look sweetie, I’m kind of tapped into this kind of thing. What you decide to do or not in this dimension is arbitrary to me. You made a different decision in another dimension and I’m just so goddamn gossipy. Can’t keep these sweet lips shut to save my life.”

“...”

“But you know that’s kind of why I’m so keen on the Silver Wheel? Throws things for a loop. I tried really hard -- and I mean, really hard -- to find a dimension where Bruno won his match against Charlie? Doesn’t exist. It seems for all this hullabaloo about multiple dimensions, there’s only one Silver Wheel. Only one result. And that was important, y’know, because it was proof that my idea could even work. Before that I wasn’t sure if it would, like, destroy space-time or whatever if I flattened everything out? Like if it needed to work that way to even run? But it doesn’t. Just sorta… happened that way. But if the Silver Wheel can do it, we can do it too.”

“...”

“And look, I get it. I really do sweet pea.You’re not satisfied because it’s so simple. It’s so… so basic, right? And you’re like, this is Marie Walker, she’s gotta be up to something else, there’s gotta be more there. But there isn’t. It ever occur to you that maybe I like it because it’s so simple -- I mean, shit, it’s actually super fucking complicated from a mechanical standpoint, but I mean because it ultimately makes things more simple?”

“...”

“And you know, once it gets simple, that’s just the start. As soon as my actions have consequences we’ll start the real fun. The making the world better bit. It’s just hard to care about fixing this fucked up world when I could hop skip and jump to a better one, and frankly, apathy is terribly boring. I’m ready to start giving a shit, start being scared again, aren’t you?”

“...”

“Look at me, rambling -- sorry, it’s just so easy to get carried away these days. Have you been watching TV? I’m kind of in hot water right now. A lot of ‘people’ have been ‘dying horribly’ lately because ‘the veil between dimensions is thinning’ and now I’ve got a lot of big bad government men ‘throwing fits’ saying I need to ‘fix’ things. Not very urgently, of course. If oil companies could destroy the world consequence-free in the early 2000’s of course I can destroy the world consequence-free in the second half of the century. I have, like, 30% of Washington on my payroll. You might think I’d need more but peer pressure does the rest. Have you tried being super rich before, by the way? It’s great. Highly recommended.”

“...”

“...oh, also, there’s a version of you who was so moved by some speech I gave that you told me we’re gonna play Texas Hold'em tonight. Looking forward to it sugar plum nice talk byeeeeeeee!”

She hung up.

He sat, absorbed in his own thoughts, for a considerably long time.

He came to some conclusions.

Marie Walker’s phone number wasn’t the only one he had gotten from Gene Oberman. And since she had called him, no one could accuse him of any wrongdoing if he were to make a call himself now.

So, with a lot weighing heavy on his mind, he dialed.

And he hoped they picked up.

~*~

The press on the other side of the door was anxious.

Not scared, anxious. Marie could taste the difference.

Marie didn’t know what drew most of those people to the field of journalism, but she would wager good money most of them had high ambitions in their youth of breaking ground on some amazing, life-changing situation, or being that brave face at the start of every action movie exposing the threat to the world. They had been waiting for most of their professional lives to be that person, the one who stands stern-faced in front of hot lights and demands the truth from some bumbling, deceptive figurehead, dismissing politics out of hand because this is bigger than that, dammit.

This was their moment. Not just an apocalypse, a sexy apocalypse. Urgent and enormous yet somehow still manageable. And every person out there wanted their turn to shout out the voice clip that would secure their spot in history.

Best not keep her people waiting, then.

She stepped out, looking grave. Still wearing pink, of course; she was a lady of principle, but grave nonetheless.

A few people jumped the gun a bit early, a few stray shouts escaping the crowd. That’s how excited they were, but the silence from everyone else reminded them of their place.

“...I’ve been keeping an eye on reports for a while now of some unexpected and entirely unplanned anomalies that have been reported around the world. The nature of which is… gruesome, and comes with some troubling implications. I’m sure you’ve all heard them too. I’m not here to merely acknowledge their existence, nor am I here to take responsibility for these occurrences. Given their erratic nature and unexpected appearance, I’m not sure it is possible to pinpoint the exact cause.”

There was a stir in the audience. They did not like that. Walker Industries basically monopolized all interdimensional travel and research. There wasn’t a single true competitor for them on the market. No one else but Walker Industries could possibly prove Walker Industries was responsible, and everyone in the room knew how messed up that was.

“No, I’m here because - please, settle down - I’m here because I want to assure a troubled public. Not only have I devoted my entire company’s substantial manpower and financial clout into determining the cause of these anomalies, I have also dedicated every waking moment of our time to figuring out a solution. And from that dedication, I am here to say that I have produced a solution that I am certain will address the problem.”

Cameras were snapping non-stop as she gestured for her assistants to pull out what appeared to be a model of the space needle, although it was far more jagged, and its spiral was decorated in gradient pink lights.

“At both poles of the earth, construction is already underway on two of these Prototype Interdimensional Nullification Kinetic pylons. Y’know. P.I.N.K pylons. With the express cooperation of every significant government and regulatory body. These pylons, when constructed, will stabilize the local fabric of space-time. But we understand that people will be anxious in the meantime, so we are already producing and preparing to distribute another very special invention: the Parallel Intervention Neural Killock band. Otherwise known as the P.I.N.K band. We’ve even got enough to hand out to you lovely people. These bands will be able to detect and prevent any potential unexpected and undesirable interdimensional crossings and immediately cancel them out. This’ll make sure that those incidents you’ve been seeing on the news won’t happen anymore.”

She drew out a small, unobtrusive band to illustrate this new technology. It was pink, and thin, and fashionably designed, and getting enough to cover the planet’s population had required her to strip several versions of earth, and a couple of meteors, to space dust.

“I’m sure you’re all aware that the technology behind these devices is as good as useless if we’re unable to get them into the hands of the people who need them. That’s why Walker Industries has created a third technology, one that is indisputably more impressive than the two I’ve already announced, to ensure that the distribution of the P.I.N.K band is both quick and thorough. We call it… the Paranatural Integration N’ Kinesis network. The P.I.N.K network. My marketing team struggled with that one.”

She had no visual aid for this technology. She just pointed up.

“The P.I.N.K network is, in brief, an elaborate network of advanced satellites that are already in orbit. Using technology forged in both this world and borrowed from more technically advanced versions of our planet, it’s able to track each and every living person and creature on this planet. We call it the P.I.N.K network. It’s really more like the eye of god.”

The room exploded. Of course she knew it was going to explode at this. It was good, from a moralistic standpoint, that the room exploded at this. People didn’t want anyone, let alone Marie Walker, being able to track every single person on the planet. It was a terrifying technology ripe for abuse. But Marie Walker needed to finish, and she needed the crowd to shut up, so she had one of the journalists in front, who happened to be her new best friend Ture, drop dead as his body merged instantly with another version of himself.

The shouting turned into screaming. Now it was on camera. Now the whole world had seen it.

And Marie Walker got to look like the hero, shouting for her people to distribute the P.I.N.K bands, which the journalists took eagerly, because liberty later is a small price to pay for security now.

With the P.I.N.K network up, the P.I.N.K pylons being constructed, and the P.I.N.K bands about to be distributed, Marie Walker was almost ready to launch the UCA.

All she needed now was to play a game of Texas Hold'em.

~*~

Marie Walker generally didn’t need much to sleep most nights. In fact, compared to similarly wealthy and guilty individuals, her late-night accommodations were relatively barren. She was most comfortable sleeping in a moving car. It was just something she picked up in her childhood, moving so often with her parents, back and forth across Canada. The jostle and the bumps of a moving car were peace and comfort when homes were scary and threatening. You were always moving away from danger in a car, but danger was always moving towards you when you sat still.

She was in the back of her limo now. In her nighties. Staring out idly at rolling wheat fields. Nursing a glass of Irish cream while the late-night news conveyed confused and terrified reports of her earlier press conference. Panic was the order of the day. Not Marie’s intention, but an expected by-product of a necessary operation. All the other Maries had confirmed: this was the universe they were going to keep. It was final now. This was the lucky winner.

The decision hadn’t been made lightly. There were dimensions that were better than this one, of course. Where the world wasn’t fucked by climate change and inequality, or where space was a well-explored frontier and humanity was one of dozens of intelligent beings that ruled over the stars, or even ones where Marie Walker was something of a god-queen, worshiped and loved by all. But this dimension was… a fixer-upper. There was a lot of untapped potential in ruin. Desperate times could cause brilliant minds to create brilliant solutions that will save the day. Or, more likely, they could give opportunities for evil people to take advantage of insecurity and fear to gain more power.

So the winning attribute of this branch of dimensions was the fact that they would be interesting, at the very least.

She took a sip. She smiled to herself.

Then her phone rang.

If her personal phone was ringing it could only be one of two people. And it couldn’t be Gene, since the poor idiot had lost most of his memory at the Silver Wheel. She had been amusing herself watching him stagger around the recently-abandoned laboratory he used to work at like he was in a horror movie. He functionally was.

But still, she picked up.

“Ture, honey, this better be important. I’m detoxing.”

“You were the one to tell me to tell you when I have a problem with a body. This one’s right arm isn’t working.”

“Ture, dear, sweetie, pumpkin, ramen packet, it doesn’t matter right now. We’re almost done.”

“...I thought you still had to hand out the whatevers.”

“The pylons need to be finished first, silly boy. If we don’t isolate this dimension first we’ll just have a whole bunch of worlds with a whole bunch of pinks and we’ll be back where we started. Fortunately, we’ll be finished with them sooner than planned.”

“So that means tonight you’ll be going to the Wheel again? You don’t have the pills though.”

“Mhm. I thought I’d need them but a little bird told me I’m getting an invite tonight. Which means our little Royale Treatment babies are about to be useless. Be a dear and throw them out, would you?”

“What if you don’t get an invite?”

“...I’ll make more.”

“Fine.”

“Thanks doll. But before you hang up on me, I do have one little something I’d like to ask.”

“Ok.

“Texas Hold'em. You’re more of a gambler than I am, I’d appreciate some tips from a pro.”

There was some silence from the other end of the phone.

“...you want to make your big plays when you’re the big blind. Since I assume whoever goes first will alternate, you should play conservatively when it’s your turn. Your two down cards -- the holes -- are key to winning. Don’t be shy about folding right away if you’ve got bad hole cards, but if you do it every time, you’ll be very easy to read. Ehije is very good at bluffing, but he’s not as good as he thinks at knowing when he’s being bluffed. I already know you’re a good liar, you’ll want to use that.”

“Look at you. Such a pro.”

“That’s barely the basics. Texas Hold'em is the biggest game there is, more has been written about it than any other kind of poker. It’s kind of funny they’ve been saving it for last.”

“I do appreciate some sexy drama. And I do hate to keep them waiting, so if you could just…”

“Right, right.”

And Ture hung up.

Of course, it was all well and good to know how to play Texas Hold'em, but at the Silver Wheel, your ability to gamble well was rarely the deciding factor in if you won or not. What mattered more was if you had a system, and she had a system that would blow their little minds.

She finished her drink. She turned off her TV. She closed her eyes.

And she let the motion of the car carry her to the Silver Wheel.

Her eyes opened to Turmoil, by Sonny Moore.

“Not to be that girl, but was Ture the only one here who knew what good music is?”

Teresa, who was about to open with the usual greeting and invitation to drink, closed her mouth into a firm, hateful scowl.

“I like what you did with the place, though. Way less murder shack vibes.”

She flashed a smile to her opponent, a man she didn’t recognize on the other end of the table. She knew it must have been Ehije, however. He even looked like an Ehije. She wondered how it was anyone could hear one of his alibis and actually believe him.

“Was that your call, boss?”

Ehije returned her grin with one of his own, and wow, what a smile it was. Some idiot once said you had to practice something for 10,000 hours before you could call yourself a master, and if that was true (which it wasn’t) this guy had been smiling for twice that long. Practicing it, refining it, making it as glamorous yet disarming as humanly possible. She didn’t doubt for a moment this was just one of his array of smiles, an arsenal of expressions he could pull out whenever he needed them. She genuinely admired it.

“This was Teresa’s idea, actually. She’s full of good ideas.”

“Mhm. I know. Big fan of her murder policies. Really opened some doors for me. Although it’s made my head of HR want to kill me, you know how hard it is to find good executives, lackeys, and art-obsessed celebrities?”

“I can only imagine.”

“I wouldn’t, it’s very boring,” she nodded to Teresa, “Hey get me a whiskey sour, or something that would pair well with the cold glares you keep giving me. With lemon. Or lime. I don’t care it’s the whiskey part I care about.”

Teresa turned around and walked briskly to the bar. Marie watched her leave.

“...so, what’s the deal, then? Ownership of the wheel in exchange for… my memories? The pills? Tell me how you’re gonna work this monkey's paw.”

“This is an ostentatious moment for us both, Marie Walker, a moment that will culminate in either the success of my quest or the completion of your dream. Why rush it? I’d like to know a little more about this goal of yours anyway. Having learned what I have, I’m almost tempted to find your ideas… agreeable.”

“Son you ain’t tempted shit. When Marie Walker wants to tempt you, you’ll know. You’re just curious. And possibly buying time.”

He shrugged.

“If you’re that suspicious of me so soon, you’re hardly going to have any fun tonight.”

She paused, cocked her head to the side, and finally ended with a whistle.

“Man, you are good at this, I’ll give you that. Alright, fine, I’ll do the villainous monologue thing. Buuuuut if you think there’s more to my plan then you really haven’t been paying attention. This is it. That’s all there is. Collapse the dimensions, and make the one. It may seem like this giant, earth-changing thing to you but really it’s just another stepping stone. I got other shit I wanna do but it has to wait till this is done first.”

“And you want to do this because… you think actions are meaningless the way things are now.”

“Make War” from The First to Last started playing just as Teresa put a whiskey sour in front of Marie. She took a drink immediately, and emptied the glass in almost one swallow.

“Shit music… anyway, great job reiterating what the class already knows. Here’s a fun game, you tell me how I’m supposed to be satisfied with a world where I’ve accomplished everything and nothing at the exact same time, no matter what I do.”

“I suppose that’s one way to look at it.”

“It’s the only way to look at it. I’m gonna go full hipster here and say that you just don’t get it. But, but don’t worry. You might not know this, but I’m an educator at heart, and I’ll help you figure out what I’m talking about once we start playing. Which, uh, segues real smooth like into my condition for even agreeing to play.”

Ehije raised his eyebrows. Ratna, who had been there the whole time, shrugged.

“...okay, what?” she asked.

“When we play — on top of all the normal rules, you know, winner takes all, no cheating all that — I want to add ‘no surrendering’. If you give up before the game’s over, you don’t just lose, you die. That’s how we’ll do this. I wanna play the whole game, no quitting or taking backsies, and what can I say: I got a lot of unresolved self-loathing that only some good ol’ death gambling can satisfy. Got it?”

This was suspicious, and both Ratna and Ehije made no secret of looking suspicious. But something about Ehije’s face also hinted at a well-disguised confidence, as if he had a plan already in play, and after a few more seconds of fake deliberation, he nodded.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Very well. But it’s unnecessary: I have too much skin in this game to give up now.”

“You? Skin? Son, you’ve already won the biggest lottery in history. Your dimension -- our dimension -- that was the lucky winner, my dude. Win or lose, assuming you don’t surrender, you get out of this game alive. Hell, to show there’s no bad blood, I’ll even bail you outta jail when we’re done. Free of charge. If you’re not dead. And if I win because otherwise I’ll forget.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“I know. I’m just so damn nice. Anyway, fuck banter, we can chat while we play. I’m gonna go ahead and wager all my knowledge of the Silver Wheel, alternate dimensions, Walker Horizons tech, the Royale pill, all of it. You win, it’s yours, I’m outta the game for good and will probably become some kind of eccentric potato farmer.”

“And I wager ownership of the Silver Wheel Gambling House.”

As he finished speaking, thirty brilliant silver chips materialized in front of him on the poker table. And at the exact same time, thirty neon pink chips dropped on the table in front of her, shimmering with the celestial sheen of the stars. Marie gasped at the sight of her own chips, and gleefully started playing with them while Ratna took center stage.

“Well, since we’re all good to go… tonight’s game is none other than the one, the only… Texas Hold'em!”

Texas Hold'em is the most popular and influential game of poker currently in the world, with gambling halls all across the globe having entire tables and tournaments dedicated to this complex and strategic game. While the true origins of the game are lost to time, in May of 2007 the Texas State Legislature officially recognized Robstown, Texas as the game’s birthplace, dating it sometime in the early 20th century. While it stayed in the Lone Star state for a time, it migrated to the Vegas strip in 1963 at the California Club, spreading quickly to other clubs, although the only casino to offer the game was the Gold Nugget. However, after being played in the very first Poker tournament (which would become the World Series of Poker in 1970), it was so beloved that journalist Tom Thackrey suggested that a no-limit game of Texas Hold'em should be the main event. The owners agreed, and from there, Texas Hold'em was destined for greatness.

“Texas Hold'em has a lot of different variants to its rules. At the Silver Wheel, we play no limit, which means you can bet whatever you want. Since we have a dealer and just two players -- which isn’t normally a thing for Hold'em -- you two will just be alternating who’s the big blind and who’s the small blind: big blind starts the round putting two chips into the pot, and small blind only has to put one in. Since no one’s left of the big blind, small blind gets first bid. Y’all will flip for who’s big blind first.

“Once the game starts, I’ll deal two hole cards to each of you, starting with whoever’s small blind. Since there’s only two players, the small blind gets to decide if they want to play the round: if they don’t, everyone gets their chips back, no problem. If they do, they have to either match or raise the big blind. Assuming they do that and everyone’s called, and I’ll flop three community cards into the center of the table, and you’ll have the first proper round of betting. Then I’ll add a fourth community card, called the turn, you’ll bet again, and then finally a fifth -- the river -- followed by the final round of betting. Assuming we make it to this point, both players reveal their hands, make the best five-card hands possible with what they have available, and a winner is declared. We shuffle, the blinds swap, and we keep going till someone can’t play anymore.

“The Silver Wheel has only one rule to add to this otherwise prestigious game: ties. If both of you are stupid enough to play the board -- which is to say, your best hand consists entirely of the five community cards -- then we’ll draw one more card for each of you, and those cards will exclusively determine the winner of the round. Like in Razz, suits will be the tiebreakers: clubs are the most highly-valued suit, followed by diamonds, hearts, and finally spades. This rule exclusively exists to keep the game moving.

“Any questions?”

“Yeah why do you suck?” Marie raised her hand, “Just kidding, I know why already.”

“I am fine.”

“Haha, we’ll see about that,” Ratna hummed.

Marie Walker leaned back in her chair, as aloof as she’d been every day of her life since she realized nothing matters, which happened well before she started plunging the depths of the multiverse. She supposed she should have felt at least a modicum of excitement or anticipation or something, given how this was the culmination of all her efforts, but it was hard to get too worked up over it. For one, she still had to do something about that pesky Miss Nine, and more importantly, the game was already over.

To the surprise of no one, Marie Walker had already figured out that Teresa and Ehije were going to cheat. And she knew exactly how.

To their credit, it was a pretty good system, probably something inspired by all the cheating Ture and Charlie did back in the day. And it was a real testament to how much of a threat they considered her, that they would redesign the whole Silver Wheel just to pull off this one little cheat, and she was nothing if not a sucker for flattery.

But yeah. Turned out, the cards were chipped, and this brand-new poker table was an overlarge computer in disguise that would scan the cards she got and feed that sexy data to Ehije. Brutal stuff. Really. And she would have fallen for it too, were it not for that alternate version of Ehije who had told her about what game they’d be playing. He also let slip how they planned to cheat. So. That was awkward for them, eh?

Still, she’d wait a bit before she dropped that knowledge bomb.

There was something she wanted to see first.

Ratna pulled out a coin, silver and very pretty, and balanced it on her thumb.

“Boss babe is our guest, so courtesy dictates you get to call,” Ratna said.

“Heads. And make it flip as many times as possible.”

“Really? You struck me more as a tails-up kind of girl,” Ratna smirked.

“There’s merit to that. I’m rich enough to not need to bother with head.”

“Lucky bitch.”

She flipped. The coin spun very gracefully in the air, hanging for a bit at the peak for Marie’s pleasure, before it landed in Ratna’s hand.

“...heads. So oral-averse Marie is the small blind, and bids second.”

“Sweet.”

Marie submitted one chip into the pot, while Ehije put in two. After Ratna shuffled the deck, they both received two face-down cards, and both flipped them up to give them a look.

Marie had a two of spades and a two of clubs. A pair, which probably had a name in Texas Hold'em because every opening combination had a name. She didn’t care what it was, though.

She put another chip on the table, making the game official.

“Alright. Game on!”

After burning a card, Ratna dealt three more to the center of the table: a four of hearts, an Ace of clubs, and a two of diamonds.

“Alright, game off.” Marie immediately replied, folding on the spot.

As “Miracle” by CHVRCHES started playing over the radio, both Ehije and Ratna exchanged a glance. It wasn’t uncommon for someone to fold so soon, if their hand was really that bad, it just… wasn’t what they were expecting, clearly.

“Oookay, an early lead for the Silver Wheel.”

She grabbed the chips, the two radiant silver chips and the two cosmic pink chips, and slid them over to Ehije’s side of the table.

Ehije stopped breathing.

“...yeah. Yeah. You feel that?”

Ehije grasped his chest with one hand, and the edge of the table with the other. He started to convulse, as if he had to throw up, but couldn’t, since something else was clogging his airways.

“Mmmm. Let it sink in.”

“What the hell-” Ratna started, but was interrupted when Marie Walker slid over to her side of the table and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“Hey, so, here’s a fun fact: did you know that neuroscientists have guestimated that the average human brain can store anywhere between 10 and 100 terabytes of information? Probably less, since a lot of that information is already being used for, like, vital bodily functions.”

Ratna furrowed her brow. Marie Walker laughed, and knocked on her head. Ehije finally found the strength to breathe, but was hyperventilating and sweating. Tears were welling in the corners of his eyes.

“Haha, you goose. Think of all the universes I’ve explored in some form or another -- trillions, remember? What makes me different from your average fuck is that I don’t just see that number and think ‘big’. My sexy, genetically enhanced, genius brain can actually comprehend it. Completely, down to the granular level, each individual universe and all the little ways it’s different -- and that takes up waaaay more than a few terabytes. We’re trying to cram a lake’s worth of information into a water balloon’s worth of memory. How you holding up there?”

“Hnnnnggg-!”

“Haha. Chin up. That’s only one-fifteenth of everything that’s up here, buddy. We’ve got a long way to go, me and you.”

There was no natural situation one could get in that would cause one to learn so much, so quickly, and so perfectly commit it to memory. So while the initial impact of his first-turn victory on his brain verged on the supernatural, now that it was between his ears, as uncomfortable as it was Ehije could start processing it the way brains do. Networks between neurons that had once supported memories started to wither to accommodate the flood of information which had been deemed more urgent and necessary. To decide which neurons were the least important, they used an invisible, instinctual priority list. His mother, his father, his name, where he was, they all managed to remain. But other things were either lost in the influx of raw information surging into him, or so muddied by their arrival he could barely make sense of them. How had he gotten his money? Where did he even live? Did he know how to drive? Those, and so many other questions, emerged and vanished under a swollen tide of information and data. Trying to categorize or manage it was like trying to sort water by temperature as it exploded out of a dam.

But while sorting water bursting out of a dam was impossible, it was equally impossible to avoid getting wet. He was immersed in the enormous swollen quantities of data that were filling his brain. Not just data, but comprehension. He didn’t see thousands of universes as climbing numbers, but as thousands of different night skies stretched out in front of him, a billion points of light he could identify and name and explore, simultaneously and immediately. They had as much presence as the fingers on his hand, and even with the fragment of comprehension he had received, he could see the world around him expanding like an inflating kaleidoscope.

And the larger it became, the smaller and smaller he became.

He felt an utter, crushing smallness he could have never imagined before.

It was impossible to describe, or escape. It went beyond irrelevance into territories of functional non-existence. His entire life, and everything he had ever done, wasn’t swallowed by the enormity of the many universes that unfolded before him: they were completely unmoved by them. There was simply nothing to swallow. A gnat throwing itself against the largest mountains would make a bigger imprint on the stone than his every life effort had made to the universe.

And this… was only a tiny fraction of what Marie Walker had in her mind?!

“Ehije, you alright buddy?”

It was Ratna. He was sweating. He nodded.

He stared at the door. Of course, now it made sense why she wanted to kill anyone who tried to quit. She wanted to make him suffer. She was being a sadist. Otherwise she could have just given up the first round and trusted him to forfeit.

But at least he still remembered that rule. That, at least, wasn’t lost to him.

“...I see what you’re doing, Marie Walker,” he finally spoke, “but if you thought that was enough to defeat me, you were wrong.”

“Oh?”

“Maybe you’ve proven your point. But even if my life has been inconsequential before now, this game, which shall preserve the size you are showing me, is important. This is a once-in-an-eternity chance to be the first and only human being who did something that mattered. So I am not giving up.”

“You’re tougher than you look, big guy.”

“But by all means, keep folding. If Ratna has reason to suspect you’re giving up, even within the mechanics of the game, you would break your own rules, and would be killed. So I recommend you stop messing around and start playing for real.”

Marie Walker didn’t look convinced.

“Yep. Surrendering by folding every round is every bit as obvious as walking away. Just so you know,” Ratna clarified.

“Aww. Well, I guess if you make a bed, you gotta get fucked in it. Alright, game time. Round two. Let’s go.”

The cards from the first round were collected, shuffled, then re-dealt. She was big blind this time, putting two more chips into the pot, and while Ehije decided if he would match it, she checked out her own hand.

Ace of spades, and eight of clubs.

His eyes shifted to Teresa, who was staring at her feet, silent and subservient, waiting for the players to make a drink order.

But she was doing more than just that, of course.

He was supposed to be cheating right now.

If things had gone according to plan, Marie Walker should know he’s cheating. She should be working under the assumption that the table is a computer that would read her cards when she set them down. That was his understanding too, until recently. But Teresa had anticipated that a version of himself might leak that information, so he wasn’t told what the real scheme was until he arrived here earlier tonight. The computer plot was apparently little more than a red herring, and the fact that Marie Walker wasn’t letting her cards touch the table was proof that it had worked.

But the real trick was something far cleverer.

He submitted the second chip. The game was on.

“Hokay, so we’re doing this? Alright, works for me.”

Ratna, after burning the top card, threw out three community cards: an eight of spades, a nine of diamonds, and a five of clubs. Ehije already had a pair.

“Marie, you wanna bet something?”

“Yeah sure. One existential nightmare,” she tossed a chip into the pot.

Ehije threw a chip in as well. He didn’t have a bad enough opening hand to warrant immediately giving up, and he couldn’t have Marie throwing his words back at him.

He glanced at Teresa briefly before locking eyes with Marie Walker. “The One that Got Away” by The Civil Wars, was playing on the radio now, but he was having a hard time giving it much thought. He was having a hard time focusing on anything.

“Y'all good? Can we keep going?” Ratna pressed.

Marie Walker nodded. A king of spades.

“Y’know…” she mused, “you might not believe me when I say this, but I really do like it here.”

“You’re right, I don’t,” he replied dryly, watching her stir her chips with her immaculately polished finger. Deciding, deliberating, if she wanted to wager something.

“What’s not to like, though? Free drinks. Nice staff. And it’s the one place I’ve found where there’s some real damn randomness. Roll a dice in the Silver Wheel and five more versions don’t spawn with different results: it is what it is. ‘S real nice. Didn’t we kinda talk about that earlier?”

She picked up four chips and tossed them into the pot. Ehije collapsed his hand, shuffling the two cards randomly before throwing them back to Ratna, who looked at them before adding them back into the deck.

“Nope. I’m out.”

“Awww. Boo.”

He made sure her two pink chips that were in his collection were passed over to her: and immediately, he could feel relief rushing through his brain as the information it promised was pulled away from his mind. It was as if a thousand weights had lifted off his skull at once. Music wasn’t just sound. He mattered again. And the word “billion” was just seven letters and a vague notion, not a concrete, conceivable object.

But this next round would be where things get… difficult.

Ehije had the small blind, and threw one chip into the pot. Marie threw two. The cards were collected, shuffled as before, and dealt. He got a seven of hearts and a Queen of hearts. Marie Walker continued to snatch her cards out of Ratna’s hands, ensuring the cards never made contact with the table.

Ratna seemed more amused by this than irritated.

“Ehije. Like your hand enough to play with it?”

He looked at Teresa, who was looking directly at him. Her cold eyes bored into his.

“...fine.”

He submitted a chip. Marie Walker sighed.

“Boring,” she declared, and with an enormous grin, threw four chips into the pot.

Blankly, Ehije matched her bet.

“Wow, you look so serious, buddy. Teresa,” she wheeled around to look at the waitress, “are you sure this is the best Chosen one you could get? He’s so… lifeless. And sad. Think he’s still dwelling on the immeasurable inconsequentialism of our existence? Be honest. Girl talk.”

Teresa stood stoic.

“Ugh. Y’all are so lame. But for real, man, you don’t even know the half of it,” she turned back to him, stirring her chips with her pink fingernails, “Just how much… mmph is out there. People are sort of, like, designed to assume their lives matter. We’re raised to admire people. Moments in history. Told we can do anything, change the world, all that shit. And that’s all true! We can! All throughout history people have managed, through single moments or a lifetime of hard work, to change the world, to leave their mark! ‘S just… we’re never taught to understand just how… you know… small our world is. Grand scheme of things, it’s not that much bigger than we are. And if it were just surrounded by a whole lot of nothing, that’d be one thing. Nothing doesn’t matter — no matter how much nothing’s out there, it all adds up to zero, and even our little blue dot would be the center of the universe. But the world isn’t surrounded by nothing, it’s surrounded by enormous and beautiful.. something. And every atom of that something doesn’t care. And it’s when you realize we’re being ignored by something, oof, that’s when it hits, right?”

“That’s what’s so funny about what you were saying earlier. First human to do something that matters? Don’t kid yourself. All that something out there will never care about or be moved by you no matter what you do. You’re not gravity, or energy, or anything big enough to matter. Win or lose, the both of us, this whole damn game? It’s nothing. A whole lot of nothing.”

“...I-”

“Shut up a sec, Ratna, sweetheart, you gonna deal sometime? You can deal while I monologue you know. It’s not against the law.”

After burning a card, Ratna threw down a three of hearts, a four of spades, and an eight of hearts. One heart away from a flush.

“Better. Now what were you saying?”

“...I do not envy you, Marie Walker. In fact, I would almost say I pity you. But not because you have been cursed with a mind that is capable of such terrifying… perception. But rather, because your masochism is apparently boundless. You saw the vastness of this great and terrible universe, more than enough to inspire the purpose you now pursue, and yet you said ‘more’. You bloated your mind with the enormity of reality well beyond necessary, and while it may be an effective weapon against me, I have to question why you did it to yourself. I-”

Marie Walker submitted an extra chip into the pot.

“-You gonna bet anything, sweetheart?”

“...yes.”

Ehije, with considerable hesitation, slid three chips into the pot.

“...l am under the impression -- and correct me if I am wrong -- that you were looking for something.”

“Wow, big brain time over here, huh?”

“You spent all that time searching for the Silver Wheel, were you not?”

Ehije hadn’t known Marie Walker for long, so he couldn’t appreciate the look of surprise that struck across her face like a bolt of lightning. But Ratna and Teresa had, and did. She even stopped stirring her chips.

“...that somethin’ Gene told you while you had him over?”

“A magician never reveals his secrets, Marie Walker.”

It was not Gene Oberman who let slip that nugget of information. It was another soul. Rebecca Wu. Technically the first person to step into the Silver Wheel without an invitation. Only Teresa and Mr. Eight had seen the woman, and heard her off-handed remark, but it had left such a strong impression that they could weaponize it, even now.

“...alright, let’s play, then.”

She matched his three by submitting two more to the pot. There were eighteen chips there now. A weighty sum of knowledge… or a hefty chunk of the Silver Wheel.

“As you know, the Silver Wheel erases the memories of people who come here. And neither Teresa nor Mr. Eight remember seeing you before. What I want to know is how you knew this place existed before you even got here?”

“...looking to plug a hole, I take it?”

“I finish what I start.”

“Ah, wish all my lovers could say the same,” she sighed dramatically, resting her chin against her hand, “but why bother asking? You’ll find out once you win the game, won’t you? And if you lose, then it’s not your problem anymore. Have a little patience, bucko. Also, are we ready for the next card? Cuz I’m ready for the next card.”

“Could you pick one colloquial nickname and stick with it?” Ratna sighed, before nodding to Ehije .He paused.

He stared at the eight of hearts. He had four hearts. One more for a flush.

If he won, though… he’d be getting a lot of pink chips from Marie. The toll that would take on his mind was… unimaginable.

But he had no choice but to endure for now.

“...ok. Deal it.”

“Lame. But I’m also lame so let’s go.”

Ratna rolled her eyes, burned a second card, and dealt… a nine of hearts.

He had his flush.

“Accepting all bets.”

Marie Walker, thinking for a second, flicked a single chip into the pot.

Breathing heavily, sweat beading on his forehead, he matched her one by sliding ten chips forward. He only had eleven chips left, but he knew his flush would win. Marie Walker watched the pot grow, and raised an eyebrow.

“Ten chips, huh? You ready to deal with ten more chips, Ehije?”

She grabbed a stack of nine chips and slid them forward -- not enough to join the pot, not enough for Ratna to consider it calling his bet, but enough to taunt him. To underline just how many chips that actually was. Nine, plus her nine other chips already in the pot.

“That’s more than half of my chips, Ehije. That’s more than half of my knowledge. Two chips were enough to make you sick. Eighteen, though -- maybe it’ll break your brain. Maybe you won’t feel anything, because it’ll just… snap all the little gears you’ve got turning up there. Is that what you’re hoping for?”

She chuckled, then pulled her chips back.

“That’d be no fun at all. Let’s see how you deal with the ten before we do any big boy bets, shall we?”

She folded.

“...oh shit no no n-”

Ehije would have fallen to the floor, if Teresa hadn’t been behind him to catch him. She held him up and steady while his body convulsed, his eyelids opening and closing rapidly as his eyes seized in their sockets.

“...y’know I always took advantage of the whole ‘multiple dimension’ thing. ‘S not just my knowledge and memories up here, but all the knowledge and memories of all the different Maries I had helping me. Throw in picture-perfect memory and the aforementioned tampering with my brain-meat, the shit inside my skull is pretty hard to cope with, yeah?”

She grinned with a shrug.

“Don’t even know what to do with all this extra space I’ve got. Beyoncé trivia, maybe?”

“Christ…” Ratna whispered.

“He’ll be fine. He might not know who or where he is anymore, but he’ll process it eventually. You should really start worrying after fifteen chips or so. That’ll be the breaking point.”

“It is fine, Ratna,” Teresa assured her with a determined coldness, “If Ehije must be sacrificed, so be it. He will see this game through.”

“Oof. Cold.”

“There is nothing cold about sacrificing one for the many. On the contrary, it is efficient.”

“Oh? Interesting choice of words there, Teresa. You mean you’re not just doing this for the Silver Wheel?” Marie pried.

Teresa was under no obligation to answer, and did not. Instead, she laid Ehije gently on the floor, took his seat, and after double-checking what was in his hand, pushed Ehije’s cards towards Ratna.

“As the owner of the Silver Wheel, I am his employee, and thus, can act as his representative. I will continue the game in his stead,” she announced, pulling the chips closer.

“...oh, you’re just pulling that out of your nonexistent ass,” Marie laughed, “that’s cheating, Teresa. That’s some grade-A bullshit right there.”

“Perhaps it is ‘bullshit’. But it is ‘bullshit’ that your former minion Nikolay employed frequently during his tenure as the owner of this establishment.”

“Wow, he was no fun.”

“Indeed, he was not.”

Marie Walker sighed, and slid her own cards towards Ratna, who then started to shuffle them the same way as before.

“I believe you are the small blind this turn, Marie Walker. Please submit your chip to the pot.”

Marie Walker took a single pink chip, and tossed it into the pot rather carelessly. As Teresa put her own chips in the pot, she shook her head.

“...nope, you know what, this just isn’t as much fun anymore. I’m just gonna end the game here, sorry.”

“You are forfeiting?” Teresa suggested, almost like a goad.

“Nah, nah. I know you kids are cheating. Ehije told me already.”

“Oh? And how are we cheating, may I ask?”

She snorted. “You Know My Name”, by Chris Cornell, was playing on the radio now. Marie Walker seemed to appreciate this music a lot more, with how she nodded her head to the rhythm.

“Well, it’s the funniest thing. See, before the game, I talked a version of Ehije into telling me that this whole table was a computer and it was able to read my hole cards the minute I put them on the table. And I was like, that’s lame, right? But when we started playing, I realized that couldn’t be right. Ratna was willing to just hand me my cards. If she was really committed to this cheat she should have slid them to me. Seemed dumb that I could beat your whole high-tech plan by keeping my cards pinched between my fingers.”

Teresa stared at her opponent coldly.

“So, obviously, a red herring. But thankfully, this version of Ehije is every bit the lil’ snitch the other version of him was, and when he realized that every one of my chips was a jackhammer to the skull, he was probably like ‘I need Marie to win if I’m going to leave the Silver Wheel in one piece’. He also knew you’d throw him under the bus at the drop of a hat. Which you did, by the way. Stone cold bitch.”

Teresa twitched an eye towards Ehije, who was finally starting to calm down but remained on the floor.

“Course, he couldn’t give up. He’d die. And he couldn’t just flat-out tell me or you’d probably do something awful to him to shut him up. You have fantastic reaction speeds, you know. So he had to be smart about it. And credit where it’s due, he was. I could have ended the game two turns ago. I just didn’t because I’m a bitch. We’re twinsies!”

Teresa remained motionless, her face unmoving and unrevealing, which in itself was revealing, as Teresa had been taking such strides towards being more expressive and open with her burgeoning emotions.

Marie Walker pointed to Ratna.

“You’ve been using the Zarrow shuffle, haven’t you?”

The Zarrow shuffle was a technique developed by a magician named Herb Zarrow in 1940 that allowed you to convincingly “shuffle” a deck of cards in a way that literally no cards changed their position in the deck.

“It’s simple. You stacked the deck a specific way before the game started and mapped out exactly which cards would make up the top twelve cards of the deck each round of the game, and used the Zarrow shuffle to ensure that order didn’t change. Judging by the callouses on Ratna’s fingers, she’s been practicing this a lot, so she probably wouldn’t screw it up. With a standard 52 card deck, you could have ensured that the first four to five rounds, at least, went exactly as you wanted, although if you’re really good at it — and since Ratna had nothing better to do but practice — I’m sure you could squeeze more rounds than that out of this method.”

“All he had to do was fold fast on the rounds he was supposed to lose and bet big on the rounds he was supposed to win. With that kind of insider information, his victory would have been assured. Unfortunately for you, he didn’t have the guts to see it through.”

“You have no proof that’s the case,” Teresa pointed out coldly.

“Sure I do. Lemmie show you a magic trick: the bottom seven cards of the deck are, in order, the nine of hearts, the eight of hearts, the four of spades, the three of hearts, the five of clubs, and the six of spades.”

Ratna was obligated to flip over the deck, and reveal the bottom seven cards. It was exactly as Marie Walker had described.

“Either Ratna did a shitty job shuffling, or she did an excellent job shuffling. I’m going to say it was the latter. But of course, I never would have figured this out if it weren’t for my dear friend, Ehije. Round of applause to him.”

She gestured to the man on the ground, who was slowly blinking awake, moaning the whole time. Ten chips’ worth of her brain were jammed into his skull. He felt as if he were going to rip apart at the seams.

“I’m sure you’re curious how he did it? Think back on round two. The turn he folded. I’m sure that was on-script, so you didn’t really notice how he gave up immediately, right? But did you notice how he shuffled his cards before he gave them back to Ratna? I did. And Ratna did too. That’s why she had to look at his cards before she put them back into the deck. But no normal dealer ever has to check a player’s cards before they’re shuffled into the deck. She only had to do it this time to make sure the order was right, to ensure your strategy worked.”

Ratna looked down, sheepishly, but Teresa’s increasingly cold glare never left Marie Walker’s smug face.

“And before you wonder if it was intentional or not, of course it was. All game he never betrayed any kind of… twitch, like the way I mess with my chips. He even said ‘a magician never reveals his secrets’, which I like to think was a little nod to Herb Zarrow. This was intentional. It was a cry for help from a man who couldn’t endure being your sacrificial lamb. And… ultimately… I am nothing if not a merciful teacher.”

She leaned back. Both Ratna and Teresa were silent as Chris Cornell screamed the final lyrics to his song into the parlor.

“If you’re going to be salty, put it on the rim of my margarita. I want a margarita by the way.”

Marie Walker had won.

~*~

Gene Oberman was crying in a dark bathroom.

He had no idea what was going on — he woke up confused, scared, and trapped in an underground facility he didn’t recognize with a monster whose very sight was enough to send waves of cold terror down his spine. There was no one around to answer his cries, and every time he thought he found a way out, he discovered it was only a dead end.

He did, however, know he was being fucked with. His phone worked, but it only seemed capable of receiving calls, not making any. Despite the fact the lights were off, he knew the power worked, but none of the doors accepted his keycard (so he must have worked here?) and the cameras were all tracking his movements. Whatever hell this was, it was a hell someone had designed for him, although his mind was too fragmented to piece together who it might be and why. He knew… he worked for Marie Walker, and he was a quantum physicist, and he remembered everything he had done for his job before this one, but… it was like the past few years of his life had been cut out of his brain with a pair of scissors.

He briefly entertained the idea that he may have done this to himself. It seemed like the kind of mistake he’d sign up for.

But dwelling on how he got in this fucked up place would just drive him crazier than he was already going. He had food, he had water, and whatever that… thing was, it wasn’t chasing after him… yet…

He needed a plan. He needed help.

And that’s when his phone rang.

As far as he knew, this was his demented tormentor calling to taunt him. In fact, since no one else had tried to reach him before this point, that overwhelmingly seemed like the case. But he just needed to hear a voice right now. Any voice but his. Something that could hopefully anchor him to reality. Something that would assure him this either was -- or wasn’t -- some kind of disgusting coma-dream.

So he picked up.

“Hello, Gene Oberman,” a stranger’s voice reached him from the other end of the world -- he had no idea who he was, but he sounded vaguely… African?

“Allow me to explain…”