The Boundless Sublime (29 page)

As the lift doors opened, a roar of tinny music, clacking chips and human voices swept over me. It was utterly
overwhelming, and for a moment I hesitated. I could go back up to the quietness of the hotel room. Just for a moment. To gather my thoughts. I wasn’t ready for this. The lights – all bright, all flashing, all artificial. The swirls of light on poker machines and patterned dresses and the riotous carpet. The smells of alcohol and perfume and plastic. It was too much.

Welling shoved me in the back, pushing me out onto the casino floor. ‘Keep it together,’ he muttered between clenched teeth.

We walked past bank after bank of poker machines, each one with its own jaunty, jangling music and flashing lights. Despite the noise, the casino was relatively quiet – it was still morning. A handful of toxicants sat at the poker machines, mostly sagging men with vacant stares and older women clutching handbags. They were barely people, just withered husks, mindlessly pressing a button, over and over. What was the point of being alive? I longed for the Institute, for the simplicity of my days, for the feeling of belonging, of higher purpose. I was so lucky to have it. These toxicants had nothing. They were passing time before the inevitability of death, being eaten alive by their own internal acids.

Overhead, grand coloured swoops of orange and gold gave the room a dim, intimate glow. Waitresses sailed past us carrying trays of drinks, as if in here, mornings didn’t exist, and it was always happy hour. Occasionally there was a shout of delight or dismay from a gaming table. It was a prison, hidden away from natural light and air. Toxicants voluntarily filling their bellies with poison, their brains with emptiness, their actuality with lead.

Black-suited security guards were everywhere, and I felt my heart rate increase as their eyes slid over me. Were they really Quintus Septum agents? Would they see past my disguise?

Someone was shouting behind me, calling out a name. I walked on.

‘Ruby!’ A hand grabbed my elbow and I spun around.

Ruby
.

It was someone I had once known, a million years ago. One of Mum’s friends, from a book club she’d been part of. Her face was caked in foundation which sank into her wrinkles, forming powdery beige crevasses. Her lipstick was bleeding into the lines around her mouth, and her teeth were stained yellow from cigarettes and coffee.

Ruby
.

The woman peered at me, leaning in. Her perfume was cloyingly sweet, and made me long for lungfuls of fresh air. I held my breath so as not to be polluted by her any further. Her eyes drilled into mine, and it was as though she could see right through me. Then she shook her head and released my elbow.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I thought you were someone else.’

She walked away, and Welling came up beside me. ‘What did she want?’ he hissed.

‘Nothing,’ I told him. ‘She thought I was someone else.’

‘Are you sure? She didn’t plant anything on you? A tracking device?’

I shook my head. ‘It was a misunderstanding.’

Welling hunched his shoulders uneasily. ‘Be careful. The Quintus Septum have eyes everywhere. We must be vigilant.’

We split up, Pippa, Welling and I each heading to a different blackjack table. Stan was stationed at a poker machine positioned where he could see all of us. Once the count on our table got really favourable, we were to signal Stan, who would then pass the signal on to the others. They’d come
over to the hot table and we’d all bet high. That way we were increasing our odds of winning.

I found a table over in a dimly lit corner of the casino floor, near the toilets. A bored croupier sat looking at his phone. I checked to make sure I could see Stan, took a deep breath and slid onto a stool.

‘Bet?’ the croupier asked.

I stared at my stack of chips. How much to bet? Five dollars? Ten? A hundred? Welling had given me two hundred dollars in chips – but I’d forgotten how I was supposed to start.

The croupier sighed and rolled his eyes. The sounds of the casino rose around me like a tidal wave of noise – dinging, humming, squealing. Laughter and screams and such an overwhelming press of humanity – flesh and machines all clanging and pinging and overflowing with grease and money and electricity. Bile rose in my throat, and I teetered on my stool. I was going to faint. My ears were ringing and the lurid carpet heaved around me in ripples and waves. I couldn’t do it. I needed quiet and fresh air.

‘Are you okay?’ asked the croupier. ‘Do you need a glass of water?’

I did, desperately, but I wasn’t going to drink the poison that he called water. Why hadn’t I brought a bottle of sulphurous water with me? I shook my head at him and smiled weakly.

I could do this. I was special. I was close to sublime. I was the master of my flesh-body, not a slave to it.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. I pictured Daddy’s calm, smiling face, and felt my racing heart slow.

I was here for him. For Daddy. He believed in me. I had to prove him right. I was special. I was
extraordinary.

Daddy’s face blurred and shifted, and became Fox.

Fox.

Fox was a traitor.

But I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t banish his face.

I still loved him.

I knew it was weak. My feelings for Fox were all tangled up in the cravings of my body and I couldn’t separate out which parts of him I loved with my mind, and which parts I loved with my heart and my blood.

My heart ached, but it was good to
feel
. Anton’s face swam into view as well, and Mum’s, and Dad’s. I breathed deeply, and my muscles relaxed. The noise and clamour of the casino faded into silence, and I opened my eyes.

‘Are you okay?’ the croupier asked again.

I smiled at him. ‘Yes. I’m okay.’

I selected a chip from my stack and slid it across the green felt of the table. The croupier dealt me two cards – a Jack and a Queen, and two for himself, face down. With a deft movement he flipped one of his cards over – a nine. I passed my hand over the cards like Welling had taught me, indicating I wanted to stand. The croupier flipped the other card over – a King. I had won! My twenty dollars was now forty. I could do this. I kept ten back and bet with thirty.

My next hand was a six and a Queen – sixteen. Had Welling said to stand on sixteen? Or was it seventeen? I tapped the table and the croupier dealt me another card. A four. He busted out at twenty-four on his own hand, and suddenly my thirty dollars was sixty.

I won the next round too, and the one after that. It seemed to come naturally – keeping the mental tally of the high and low cards felt effortless, and the chips kept sliding across the table to me. I lost a few, but I placed my bets carefully and before long I was slowly, steadily, making some serious money. The endless drills Welling had put us through were
paying off. Even though I was dealing with cards now, instead of elements, the count was familiar and comforting. I felt myself settle into the rhythm of the technic.

After thirty minutes, I leaned back on my stool and surveyed my little pile of chips. One thousand six hundred dollars. I had never owned that much money in my life.

I bet with more confidence, taking more risks and betting larger amounts when the card count got high. I kept a meticulous count, waiting for the magic number to appear so I could signal Stan and get the others to come over. Before long I had five thousand dollars in chips, and was still going strong.

Daddy had been right. It couldn’t be this easy for everyone, or else casinos would all be broke. It was
me
. It was my own innate powers of thought and analysis, unlocked and free as I approached sublimation.

My five thousand dollars quickly became ten thousand.

‘Wow,’ said the croupier, not so bored now. ‘You’re having a lucky day.’

Foolish toxicant. There was no such thing as luck.

He turned over another card, and my mental tally reached +6. Power zinged through me. It was time. I glanced over to Stan, then casually lifted a hand and slipped my ponytail from its elastic, letting my hair settle around my shoulders. Stan stood up and moved sideways to the next poker machine.

I slowed my betting, waiting for the others to join me. Welling arrived first, then Pippa. They ignored me, other than a polite nod of greeting. As far as anyone was concerned, we were complete strangers. They settled at the table and laid bets. Big bets. Thousands of dollars.

‘Sir? Madam?’ said the croupier. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to try one of the private rooms?’

‘Perhaps in a moment,’ said Welling. ‘I’d like to play a couple of hands here first.’

The croupier shrugged, and looked at me expectantly.

I divided my chips in half, kept five thousand, and slid the rest into the centre of the table.

The croupier raised his eyebrows, but dealt anyway. He dealt himself a Jack. Welling got low cards – fourteen. He waved his hand, a frown wrinkling his face. My mental tally climbed to +8. Pippa busted out.

It was up to me.

And I had two Queens.

Two Queens. Welling had told me never to split tens – but I
knew
that the cards in the deck were high. If I split, then I would win big. Really big.

The avocation was the most powerful I had ever experienced. It shook me to my core, and in an instant, I
knew
. My hands didn’t tremble as I pushed the remainder of my chips into the centre of the table. I was going to win. I was going to win twenty thousand dollars, and I would take it back to the Institute and Daddy would smile his knowing smile at me, and tell me that he always knew I was special.

‘Split,’ I said to the croupier.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked, looking at me as if I was crazy.

I nodded. I’d never been more sure of anything in my life.

The croupier dealt me an eight and a ten. Eighteen and twenty. He had the Jack, but it didn’t matter. I was going to win.

‘Stand,’ I told him.

He flipped over his other card. A five, putting him at fifteen. I nearly whooped with joy. He’d bust on his next card. It was guaranteed. Power coursed through my veins.
I felt like I could rise above the table and fly right out of the casino. I was everything.

The croupier flipped over a six.

A six.

I heard Welling suck air in through his teeth.

I stared at the croupier’s hand. The Jack. The five. The six. Twenty-one.

‘Sorry,’ he said, pulling out a little rake and whisking away my chips with a practised flick.

I stared at the bare green felt in front of me. I had lost. But the count had been so high! And then … fives and sixes? It didn’t make sense. I’d followed all the rules. I’d done everything Welling had told me to. But I’d lost.

I’d lost everything.

Welling and Pippa slid off their chairs and disappeared. Stan had gone too. I was on my own.

‘You were trying to count cards, weren’t you?’ asked the croupier. ‘It won’t work here. We use eight decks at once and a shuffling machine.’

His words washed over me like waves of static. I had lost everything. Everything.

‘Bad luck,’ said the croupier.

I stood up from the table. ‘There’s no such thing as luck,’ I told him numbly.

We gathered in the hotel room, but nobody really knew what to say. We’d started the day with nearly a thousand dollars between us. Now we had nothing. What would we tell Daddy?

‘Why didn’t it work?’ asked Pippa. ‘What went wrong?’

Welling shook his head, but didn’t say anything.

‘I mean, I thought we had it all worked out,’ said Pippa.
‘The counting thing. Did we do it wrong? Did Hera make a mistake?’

I hadn’t made a mistake. My count had been perfect. My strategy had been perfect. But we had lost. I had lost.

‘Because I thought the technic was supposed to be foolproof.’ Pippa continued, oblivious to our shock and silence. ‘I mean, Daddy said we’d definitely win, right? Was Daddy wrong?’

I slapped her, my hand snapping out and striking her cheek before my brain could even register what I was doing.

‘Daddy wasn’t wrong,’ I hissed at her. ‘Daddy isn’t wrong.
We’re
wrong.
We
failed him.
Us
. We weren’t good enough. Weren’t pure enough.’