It was at about this point, that Troy began screaming. Not physically, of course, but mentally. If it had been physically, he hoped, that Adam would have helpfully asked him to stop.

“What?” Esme said. “Who is he cheating? He is losing right now!”

“Cheating doesn't mean that you are winning. It means that you are breaking the rules,” Francis stated.

This was bad. Adam was being quiet. Troy needed to do something. Anything.

What would Adam do? He would be logical about it all.

So. The problem was this; Francis was accusing Troy of cheating. In its current form, it was baseless. Francis had not brought forth any damning evidence. To counteract the validity of his current, unexplained accusation, Troy would need to point out this face.

'State this. I don't understand-', Troy could hear Adam begin to say, but he was already well on his way to answering.

“How am I cheating?” Troy pointed out. “And, like Esme said, why am I not winning?”

Francis sat still, unmoved by Troy's defence. If anything was to be said, he even seemed… happier?

“I repeat, cheating does not mean that one has to win. Cheating implies breaking rules,” Francis repeated. “And, you are cheating by communicating with an outside source. The earpiece in your ear is how you've been communicating.”

Obscenities were unwillingly portraying themselves, inside Troy's psyche. Why hasn't he realized that the other players would have eyes? Of course, they would notice something wrong, when a literal earpiece, which is commonly used to communicate over longer distances.

Troy needed to get himself out of this. But how?

Adam's thinking time. The reasoning for why he was cheating, was due to the existence of the earpiece in his ear. Troy could not refute the last part. They could all see that it was an earpiece. But… but, he could still deny its use.

“I'm not using it to speak with others,” Troy defended. “And, you haven't seen me talk.”

Perfect!

“You don't need to speak if you want to communicate with others,” Zep pointed out. “Also, if you are not using it to talk to others, what are you using it for?”

Not as perfect!

“Music!”, Troy blurted out without putting much thought into it. He immediately regretted it. What kind of excuse was that? He could hear music, without even using external devices.

Well, Troy has been able to do so, since a short while ago. Before he had one of the newer versions of brain implants, he hadn't been able to have too much functionality to work with.

“Prove it”, Zep said, with an unrelenting tone. “Prove that you're hearing music.”

Okay, Troy could maybe do that.

“How would you prefer it?” Troy asked. “Do I say the name of the song I'm currently listening to or something?”

Song names were a speciality of his. If they just agreed, about his idea of proving his innocence as valid-

“That can easily be faked”, Zep pointed out, much to Troy's annoyance. Not that he showed that, of course.

“Then, how exactly am I going to prove it?” Troy asked, his voice gaining a slight edge.

“Simple”, Darlow said, joining the discussion. “Just give the earpiece to Zep, and she can have a little listen.”

Why would Darlow say such a thing?

“That sounds good”, Zep stated, before looking directly into Troy's eyes. “Troy, give me the earpiece.”

Troy hesitated. What should he do?

Adam was being quiet. Why was he being quiet? Why wasn't he helping? Was this all one of those experiments of his? Troy wanted to signal for Adam to make the next statement for him. He had done it for Troy earlier, so why would now be any different?

…

But, nothing came from within. Troy was left alone.

“Troy,” Charlie said, finally joining in on the conversation. His tone was duller than Troy had ever heard from Charlie before. “Give her the earpiece.”

He was done. Troy was getting found out no matter what. No matter what he said, it would end up in two ways. He would adamantly refuse, and get called a cheater by default. Or, he would give the earpiece to Zep, where she would most likely not hear anything. When asked why she couldn't, Troy would answer that it was tied to him and that it would work with anyone other than him. Or, it would end up with Adam right out trying to speak with Zep. Everything would end up, with Troy being called a cheater.

But, if he just gave up the earpiece, he would prolong the inevitable.

Troy swiftly peeled the earpiece of his left ear. He murmured a few words to himself, before handing it to Zep over the table. He just hoped judgement would be swift, and that he would be asked to leave immediately. The casino would likely also ban him if he was lucky. Cheating in a casino likely had more serious consequences than that.

Troy didn't even want to think about it, but his mind just kept generating more images of the presumed future. He would get kicked out of the group, kicked out of the casino, he would lose his job for trying to scam co-workers, and likely get a law-suit against him from the government, for his breach of contract. His life was hereby ruined. And, that was if he was lucky.

Zep eyed the earpiece for a few seconds, before taking a hold of her shirt and polishing the earpiece with it.

“For the love of all that is good, clean this thing once a while. And clean those ears, while you're at it. This thing is too nasty,” Zep said, with a slightly disgusted expression on her face.

Oh, just shoot him in the head! Troy was already dead, for all rights. The suffering just needed to end, and not get dragged out.

Slowly, with care, Zep put on the earpiece. Troy said goodbye to his chances. He had been hoping she would refuse to wear it, with its lack of cleanliness.

First, nothing showed on Zep's face. Then surprise, quickly followed by quiet amusement. Did she have a hidden side of sadism?

“Never, throughout my whole life, would I have taken you as a lover of classical music,” Zep said, with genuine amusement.

What?

…

No, what, Troy did not understand, the words that were coming out of her mouth.

“What do you mean?” Troy asked, his voice not hiding his bafflement.

“Well, it isn't to sound like I only view stereotypes or anything, but people your age mostly listen to music that was made in the last century. This… this is very old. I don't even think I'm exaggerating when I say that this recording of the music being played is made in the early twenty-tens at the youngest.

This didn't make any sense. Where the hell was the music coming from?

“Classical music, you say?” Charlie asked. “Hey, Zep, would you mind, if I have a listen to that?”

Was Adam playing it? Could he play it? Troy was pretty sure, that there had been no inclusion of instruments in any of the previous tests.

“Sure”, Zep said, handing it over to Charlie, who swiftly put it to their ear.

After a moment, Charlie's face lit up, just like Zep had on previously.

“Forget calling it classical music. This is the wonders of Tchaikovsky!”, Charlie proclaimed.

“And how exactly do you know that?” Esme asked. “With all your usual brags about your antique Jackie Mclean vinyl, I didn't think old, Russian music would be your secondary style.”

“Anything is a secondary style if you have as much willpower as me. But, that isn't important,” Charlie said, before turning his attention over to the confounded specimen. “Troy, how do you switch songs on this thing?”

A question about the technicalities of something, which Troy didn't even realize exist. Or, if one wanted to be more specific, didn't know Adam would act like.

“Ah, you can't really change the song,” Troy explained, being careful about not digging himself a larger grave. “You need to just wait for the song to finish. Not the greatest design choice, I know.”

Adding unnecessary details to a lie made it more believable, right? It worked in this instance, at the least.

“Of course, it's like that”, Charlie said, with a sad tone. “I just don't understand it! Why is design valued so highly, in comparison to pure functionality? Sure, it looks sleek and all, but that doesn't mean that they can just take away the core concepts of these things. Honestly, haven't they heard of idea theory?”

“We are getting away from the point of this pause in the game”, Francis said, with a loud yet still stoic voice.

“Yeah, yeah,” Charlie said, with a dismissive tone. “Francis, I think you were a bit early on the trigger with this one. The earpiece is just a very fancy sound player. No cheating is happening with this crap.”

“I still think he's cheating,” Francis pressed on. “If not with the earpiece, then in some other way. I just know it.”

“If it wasn't the earpiece, then we can't reasonably know, what it was,” Esme pointed out. Troy was being a smart person, and just letting the people around him discuss his fate. “This doesn't give you a lot of rope to pull on, Francis.”

Like before, if Francis had any opinion on, what was said, he didn't let it show.

“Fine. We can leave it at that,” Francis finally amended.

Oh, how elated those words of his made Troy feel. If this was an animated film, this would be the time, where he would break into-

“But, I still have one demand,” he continued in his speech. “We play a game, where Troy does not have access to the earpiece.

“Excuse me, what?” Troy instantly responded. “How would that make any sense?”

This could not happen. He was so close, in getting out of this without any repercussions. Troy couldn't back down now, of all times.

“No, no, Francis has a point with that one”, Darlow began. “On that first part, at least. We can lay down the final nail on this subject if we test out this.”

“Didn't we just prove, that he wasn't cheating with the earpiece?” Zep said. “I think you two are just shooting in dark, at this point.”

Oh, how Troy wanted to kiss her. In a show of gratitude, of course.

“That's what I'm saying”, Darlow confirmed, making a few people show confused expressions. “If we do this, there will be no way that Troy could have cheated, where we would have been able to notice. If we do this, we can all lay this matter down, and put the focus back where it belongs; The game we're supposed to be currently playing!”

Zep narrowed her eyes, before just sighing while relaxing back into her seat.

“Fine”, Zep finally stated, before looking over at Charlie. “Keep holding onto that earpiece, until the end of this game. If Troy plays like he usually does, we'll call this whole thing done.”

“Righto”, Charlie said, with a small army salute.

Nobody seemed to have objections to this. Except for Troy, of course, but he couldn't bring that up.

“Is all that fine with you Troy?” Zep asked him.

An opportunity to downplay himself presented itself to him. Troy needed to take it, no matter the shame it may bring.

“Yeah, sure, it's fine”, Troy said relentingly. “Fair warning, though, this put me a bit out of the zone. I may not be too active for a short while.”

“That's fine”, Darlow said encouragingly. “As long as you at least play with the same style, we'll accept it, as a true play, and not a cheat.”

Was that last part meant to be encouraging? Because it was not working on Troy.

“Thanks”, Troy said gratuitously.

“Enough talking, now”, Esme said. “Can we get back to the fun part?”

“Sure”, Charlie confirmed. “Francis, it's your go.”

And the game was back on, with Troy not having any of the much-needed assistance. The worst part of it all was the fact that he was expected to play the same way.

Troy had not been paying attention! How was it expected that he perfectly mimicked actions, which he had never seen before?

Francis nodded at Charlie's direction, before throwing in a single token worth fifty.

As the coin flew to the small pile of casino tokens, the earlier past flew through Troy's mind. Earlier, just before the first three cards had been revealed, Adam had made Troy raise the minimum bet to fifty tokens.

That had to mean something, right?

Troy itched to check his cards. If he just saw them, he could see what he was playing with. There had to be some reason that Adam had been acting the way he had.

Unless, it was just another try, at forcing the others to fold, through sheer numbers. But… That hadn't gone too well the last two tries, so it wouldn't make sense to try again.

Yet, with that mindset, it would make even more sense to do so. No man with reason would try a failed method when one knew that it would fail.

The playstyle could be justified if Troy just saw those damn cards! But, he just couldn't do that. If he showed any need to show his cards to himself, it would imply that he didn't know them himself. After this talk about cheating, it would imply that he had had no reason to even know them before, which would just fuel the fire even more.

No. Troy would just need to play, with the assumption, that Adam wanted to play to higher numbers. All the examples, which he could think of, implied the need for higher numbers being betted. If it was faking having high cards, Troy would need to show he felt confident. If he actually had good cards, he would need to rile up the betting amounts, so he could get a decent amount out of it all.

“Bet”, Darlow said, throwing in a fifty too, simultaneously causing Troy to get out of his own head, and back into the game. Luckily for him, Darlow had been thinking about his choices for more than a couple of seconds. Earlier, the others would have probably asked him to speed up the whole process, but now they just waited in silence, as patient as a stereotypical monk.

…

Why was Troy suddenly thinking of his choices in music?