“Welcome to the Silver Wheel. Ya thirsty?”

Cristina gasped as her eyes shot open.

The first thing she noticed was how cold it was. There was an indefensible chill in the air that seeped through her thick pajamas and assaulted her skin, making her shiver uncontrollably. The second thing she noted was that the air was muted and dead -- it didn’t smell rotten, just… nonexistent. There was no flavor or texture to it, like breathing in space. She hadn’t realized just how much sensation air offered until it was all stripped away. And finally, the third thing she noticed was “Heads will roll”, by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, playing on the radio.

“W-where am I?”

A sigh drew her attention to a well-dressed and very beautiful woman sitting at the head of the table she was apparently seated at. The table was wide and green, like a poker table, there were six boxes drawn on it, each one housing a picture of either a club, a diamond, a heart, a spade, an anchor, or a crown. It was barely illuminated with a flickering yellow light, that likewise barely illuminated the walls of the room.

“I just finished saying. Silver Wheel.”

“What’s a- no, let me out, let me out!”

It was times like these Ratna became annoyingly aware of how necessary Teresa and her weird calming pheromones were to this operation. No one ever hyperventilated like this when she was around.

“Look if you want to leave the door’s right ther-”

Aaand she’s gone.

Ratna huffed, and then groaned when another person immediately took her seat at the table.

“Welcome to the Silver-”

“AAAAAAAHHHH!”

“...Wheel.”

The problem with the Silver Wheel -- no, that’s not right, there’s way more than one problem with the Silver Wheel. A problem with the Silver Wheel is just how automated it is. While it was always possible for them -- and by ‘them’, she meant Teresa -- to invite people to this little ruined shack in the void, when it wasn’t being used, it was on the hunt for people to fill those seats. So even now, with only two employees (and one with a presentable and/or dicernable face), a messed-up bar, and the very clear signs of a graceless murder having happened a few feet away from the table, Ratna had to field the steady drip of dreamers who found themselves yanked into the seat of the Silver Wheel gambling house.

In some small way, it was a blessing the Silver Wheel looked, smelled, and felt like a murder shack. It made her job a whole lot easier when all she had to do was greet them and vaguely gesture in the direction out. But in a much larger way: she was getting kind of sick of being alone.Teresa had been gone for a while now. And Mr. Eight was not the best conversationalist. Plus, she was getting very tired of being screamed at, stuttered towards, and threatened. “Fight or flight” was a thing, and if she hadn’t been made so numb to being punched by Nikolay, she would have almost been offended at this point.

“Welcome to the Silver Wheel,” she automatically said when she heard a new set of lungs gasping in the chair opposite her, “you want a drink?”

“W-Who the hell are you?! Where the hell am I?! Where’s my wife?! What did you do to my wife?!”

She sighed.

“Open the door, then the door behind it. You’ll find your wife.”

And they were gone.

“Oof. I could go for that drink. Uh, I’ll take a…”

She paused.

“Fuck it. Let’s do something crazy. Cranberry juice. Straight-up. I’m not in the mood to drink-drink right now.”

She stared at the door for a few seconds. Eventually, it cracked open, and a long, slithering tendril wormed out from the bar, deftly balancing a silver tray with an immaculately polished glass filled to the brim with cranberry juice. She gratefully took the glass, and shouted ‘thanks’ as Mr. Eight, their new bartender and defacto waitress, dragged the tray back.

She turned her eyes to the chair in front of her, where a terrified old man was staring at her with owl eyes. He looked to be… well past 100. Which probably meant he was a man of means in the real world.

“...hate to break it to you, my dude, but that door is also the only exit.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yeah. Welcome to the Silver Wheel. You want something?”

He turned to the door, his entire body trembling uncontrollably. She snorted.

“So, uh, that’s a no, huh?”

“What even is… is this hell?”

“You think we’d be passing out drinks in hell, old man? It might not look like it right now but this is a gambling house. A respectable place. Almost no one gets tortured or killed here.”

She bit her lower lip.

“...statistically, I mean.”

“I…” inch by inch, he turned back to her, and the table they shared, “...I see this is a table for Crown and Anchor… yes.”

“Oh, you play?”

“When I was younger, and foolish, yes.”

“Well, maybe you’ll get the chance to play again tonight, if we can find you an opponent.”

“Am I gambling for my soul?”

“You’re really hung up on this ‘hell’ notion, huh?”

His eyes shifted to both sides. To the door that hid the monstrosity that ran the bar, and a bloody stain that reeked of the vodka Ratna had attempted to use to clean it. Also there were still tufts of hair and at least one tooth in the carpet. She made a mental note to pick those up later.

“...yes.”

“You just caught us at a bad time. The Silver Wheel is a place where you can gamble whatever you have for whatever you want, more or less. So, for example, you could gamble your singing voice for someone else’s… hair growth.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Dude,” she gestured to the door.

“...that’s extremely suspicious,” he amended his assessment.

“It’s legit. Trust me.”

“I didn’t get this old trusting beautiful women in dark rooms, miss.”

“Pfft. Sounds boring.”

“...I never said my life had no regrets…”

“Well! Then you’ll want to make sure you don’t regret this once in a lifetime chance. You might be old, decrepit, and whittling away your final years before your anticlimactic yet highly anticipated death, but you’re still alive now: which means you can still improve your life or the lives of those around you with some strategic gambling at the Silver Wheel! You sure you don’t want anything to drink?”

She took a sip.

“How did you kidnap me anyway?”

Ugh, she really missed Teresa’s pheromone thing. She briefly considered playing into it, and creating an elaborate explanation about how she snuck into his bedroom with a rag laced with chloroform, but in the end she was too exhausted to try to mess with him like that.

“Didn’t. This is a dream. Going through that door will wake you up.”

“That sounds like a trap…”

“Well, it’s true. Tell you what, wait another… minute. Minute and a half or so. Someone else will appear in the seat directly opposite you, and they’ll ask all the same annoying questions as you, if they don’t immediately book it for the door or punch me in the face.”

“...okay.”

They sat quietly. She continued to sip on her cranberry juice. “Don’t You Worry Child” by Swedish House Mafia started playing on the radio, which the unnamed old man seemed to appreciate. He opened his mouth a few times to say something, but seemed to reconsider each time, and eventually stopped trying. Mr. Eight used another extended tendril to take the glass of cranberry juice once it had been emptied, which she thanked him for. The old man fished for some cigarettes out of his pocket. He didn’t have any.

It took two minutes, give or take a few, for a second person to appear.

A younger woman. Barely nineteen, which seemed to be the youngest age the Silver Wheel would accept people: Ratna hadn’t seen a single soul here that hadn’t firmly finished puberty. She was dressed in black, with obviously fake black hair, and a bit too much black makeup around the eyes.

“Welcome to th-”

“Oh thank god I’m finally dead” the second guest expressed in perfect monotone.

“...hoo, I’ve got some bad news for you, lady,” Ratna said by way of introduction, “but this is actually the Silver Wheel. You ain’t dead. Neither of you are dead. You are in no danger of dying here.”

“Pfft,” the woman snorted, “fine, maybe I’m not dead, but you expect me to believe this creepy-ass murder shack isn’t going to kill me?”

“Just because something is creepy doesn’t mean it’s going to kill you. You want something to drink? ‘Cuz we’re fresh out of cyanide.”

“Who are you, anyway?”

Ratna let out an exaggerated groan while rolling her head around her shoulders.

“You know what, let’s start this over. Hi. Welcome to the Silver Wheel, you two. A magical gambling house you can only reach in your dreams. It is not, despite the bloodstains and the smell of rotting flesh, a murder house. The minute you get out of here you’ll be back in your beds and you’ll have forgotten you were ever here.”

The old man and the young woman exchanged glances. Having seen the woman just appear in front of him, the old man seemed more or less at peace with the situation. The woman seemed too ambivalent enough to her own self-preservation to care that much.

Still, she cared just enough.

“So why are there bloodstains and rotting flesh smells, then?”

Ratna leaned back.

“I’ll level with you kids, there was a murder here. A… considerable number of murders.”

“Wait…” the old man interjected, “that… that makes this a murder house, then.”

“It’s not like the house is dedicated to murder.”

“No house is dedicated to murder, except, like, a slaughterhouse. A house becomes christened a murder house once there’s been a murder there,” the woman followed up.

“Really? Semantics? That’s the game we’re playin’ here?” Ratna rapped her fingers across the table. “...fine. Y’all win. The Silver Wheel is a gambling and murder house, but neither of you are being murdered. In fact, you couldn’t hurt yourselves or each other if you tried. All I care about is helping you play a game together. Like any gambling house, you have to wager something, but since this one is magic, you can gamble anything about yourselves. Money. Possessions. Qualities. Talents. Whatever you want. Only exception is years. Can’t swap that or whatever.”

Both the old man and the young woman were listening. Ratna took the time to appreciate this before continuing.

“If you don’t want to play, you can leave now, no harm, no foul. But once you agree to play -- and you both agree on a fair wager -- then the game begins. And once the game begins, it’s an all-or-nothing affair: if you quit then you lose, and the other player wins. Cheating’s fine, but if you get caught, then you automatically lose. And… uh… yeah. You kids want to play?”

“Sure.”

“Why not?”

“...wait, for real?” Ratna blinked.

“I’ll be honest with you,” the old man smiled kindly, “I’m terrified and I don’t trust you won’t kill me if I say no.”

“And I don’t want to leave so I might as well play. A place this creepy is all kinds of thrilling.”

“Cool. Looks like I’ve found our new target demographic: goths and the accidentally blackmailed. Decide what y’all be gambling for. Tell me if you want a drink or something.”

“Magic”, by the Mystery Skulls, started playing on the radio. The two strangers turned to each other fully. The old man looked shockingly spritely, the kind of energy you don’t usually see in someone with so many folds in their skin. The woman, interestingly, was the more lethargic of the two, despite her youth.

“Do we need to introduce ourselves?”

“Can’t hurt.”

“Then allow me to begin. Darryn Navarro. I… own a landscaping company.”

“Myrtle Queen. Professional piece of shit.”

Darryn furrowed his brow at this, but couldn’t quite think of something to say to it. So he hurried along.

“I might be old but I still have needs. I want to be able to sleep comfortably again. So… I guess… in a manner befitting a murder house… could you perhaps gamble your healthy back?”

“Sure. Premature myelopathy sounds like fun,” the girl shrugged, “I want your parents.”

“...they are dead.”

“And I want them.”

“How… how would that work?”

“Dunno. But I promise you it will,” Ratna said.

“I… um… I… yes?”

“Then it’s settled!” their dealer announced, completely ignoring the man’s uncertain tone, “Myrtle will be gambling her healthy, youthful back for Darryn’s dead parents!”

At Ratna’s command, thirty chips appeared at each side of the table: Myrtle’s were bone-white, while Darryn’s were the silken ash of the grave. Both of them seemed more than a little surprised and uncomfortable at this spontaneous creation -- but at least Myrtle was now convinced of the magical nature of this place.

“Tonight’s game… is Crown and Anchor!”

Crown and Anchor, perhaps unsurprisingly, can date itself back to the golden age of nautical exploration: specifically, the early 18th century. It was a game created by British sailors, although it spread to both American and Australian sailors before long, popular to an extent thanks to its extremely uncomplicated rules and how relatively effortless it was to produce the objects needed for play. These days, the game is significantly less popular outside the Channel Islands and Bermuda, where the game is heavily regulated and only legal in very specific instances, such as agricultural shows or cricket matches.

The game is shockingly simple: you sit at a table with six symbols, the club, the heart, the spade, the diamond, an anchor, and a crown. On your turn, you place any number of chips on any number of those symbols, then roll three six-sided dice that have those same symbols on them. If one of the dice produces a symbol that matches where you’ve placed your chips, you get those chips back. For two dice, you get twice as many chips back from me, the dealer, and three times as many if all three dice get the same symbol.

“But let’s be honest: Crown and Anchor is pretty boring by itself, and not really designed for competitive play. Which is why the Silver Wheel spices things up with some extremely convoluted rules. So I hope y’all brought pens and papers.”

“Can I borrow som-”

“-First things first: the objective here isn’t actually to get more chips. Rather, you’re going to use the chips you’ve got to build a five-card poker hand. The person who makes the best hand will win the game. How’s that supposed to work, you might be wondering? It’s simple. Simple-ish. It’s not simple at all.”

“At the start of the round, you can put anywhere from two to eight chips on any number of spots. For the sake of this explanation, let’s say you put five chips on the club. Once everyone’s nice and ready, I’ll throw three dice, like normal Crown and Anchor. If no clubs pop up, you lose your chips. If one shows up, you get your chips back, like normal, but you also get a five of clubs to add to your ‘hand’. If two show up, you get ten chips, and two fives of clubs. So on. The game goes until both parties have five cards. If you manage to get more than five cards, you’ll have to discard old cards to make space for the new ones. And you have to play every round. Unless you can’t because you run out of chips or something. Then you don’t have to play because you lose.”

“‘But Ratna, what about the crown and anchor spots?’” she continued in a fake old man voice, “Those spots are special. First of all, you can only put chips on those spots if you have chips on one of the four spots with suits on them -- the heart, spade, diamond, and club, y’know. But secondly, they give you special powers. Winning chips on the crown spot raises the total number of chips you can put on the other spots, and thus, the value of the cards you can earn. So if you have three chips on the crown, and one dice comes up crown, congrats, you get your three chips back and now you can put anywhere from two to eleven chips on the other spots on the board for the rest of the game. Anchor does the opposite… for your opponent. So if Darryn ‘wins’ three chips on the anchor spot, then Myrtle can only put two to five chips on each spot from then on out. These add up and cancel each other out, so play smart.”

“Oh, and if you manage to get there: eleven chips are worth a Jack, twelve is a Queen, thirteen is a King, and fourteen is the Ace. Get it? Got it? Good.”

Both parties gave themselves some time to go over the rules.

Darryn pretty quickly pieced together at least why these changes were made. Fundamentally, there was no strategy in Crown and Anchor: it was entirely luck-based, and you couldn’t even really spread your bet like in roulette, since anything past a two-space spread was effectively just throwing away your money. This, while it could hardly be called Crown and Anchor anymore, at least gave them a reason to think about how much to gamble, and where to put their chips. Still, after a few seconds of thought, he realized the strategy at play here couldn’t be called that much more comprehensive, really: outside the crown and anchor spots themselves, there was no reason not to just pick one suit and stick to it. That way, assuming you didn’t get the world’s worst luck, you’d at least get a flush. Heck, four of a kind, already one of the best hands in poker, was technically extraordinarily easy to get as well. So from where he was sitting, the ‘winner’ would be either the person who had the balls to make bigger bets and get the more valuable four of a kind, or the person who lucked out when the ballsier person lost their chips.

Myrtle, on the other hand, knew a whole lot of nothing about gambling, but she wasn’t exactly a slouch in the brains department, either. And the way she figured, the Crown and Anchor spots were the key here. If they were using four-sided dice (they exist, they’re like pyramids), this game would already be rough — each dice would only have a 1 in 4 chance of landing on the spot you wanted. Not great odds. Add two more seemingly useless spots, those odds jump up to 1/6, which means more rolls than not, you’re probably losing chips. You could then just bet low and hope, but there were actually strategic ways she could use the Crown and Anchor spots… if she lucked out.

“No questions from me,” Myrtle sighed.

“I actually have one, if you don’t mind: who will put their chips down first?”

“Heeey, look at you, working that pruned-up brain of yours. That’s for the two of you to decide. But really, you can adjust your bets up until you both agree it’s time to play. It’s not like when you let go of your chips you can’t touch them again or anything.”

Darryn nodded with satisfaction, while Myrtle nodded with the tired ambivalence of a university student at a 6 am class.

“Very well. I can work with that.”

“Glad to hear it. If there’s nothing else, we might as well begin.”

“Plume”, by Caravan Palace, started playing on the radio. Darryn closed his eyes to appreciate the opening melody, and to help soothe his consternation, before turning to his opponent.

“Don’t think I’ll be going easy on you just because you’re a young lady.”

“S’ cool. But if you fuck me too hard I might start calling you daddy.”

Ratna was not-so-secretly rooting for the goth chick.

With Myrtle having successfully killed pre-chat banter through the sheer power of deadpan sarcasm, the two were forced to consider their wagers. Myrtle was tangentially aware that if she did plan to simply wait out Darryn and let him wager himself to death, she should wait for him to wager first to make sure she bet less. But she had already exercised most of her fucks at the ‘thinking up the plan’ stage, and she simply couldn’t scrounge up any more for the ‘executing the plan’ phase.

So she put five chips on the club, which just happened to be the closest symbol to her dominant hand.

Darryn looked at those five chips as if they held some secret meaning. He glared at them so intensely, he completely missed the apathetic thousand-yard stare of his opponent, which would have probably been a bigger tell. He muttered a few things to himself, and ultimately decided that he wanted to play big, so he put two chips on the spade and four on the crown.

“Everyone happy?”

Myrtle pondered for a minute, before putting four chips on the anchor.

“I am now.”

Darryn considered how the board changed, then nodded.

“Fine. Let’s roll.”

“Anyone wanna blow the dice a kiss before we throw?”

“I’m… good.”

“I’m not a whore.”

“Sure you are. Anyway, here we go!”

Ratna conjured three dice, which she rattled dramatically in her long, lithe fingers, her painted nails barely illuminated yet managing to bring at least a small measure of color to the dark, haunted room. When she had sufficiently ratcheted up tension in the room, she flicked her wrist and opened her hand, allowing the dice to bounce and fly across the table.

The first die landed on a club. The second, a heart. The third, a spade.

“Looks like you both kind of sucked that round,” Ratna announced, “Myrtle loses the 4 chips she had on the anchor, but gains a five of clubs. Darryn loses harder, losing the four chips he put on the crown, but got a two of spades. In case you both really suck at math, that means you both have twenty-six chips left to gamble with.”

Ratna collected the lost chips, returned the rest, and, drawing from a deck under the table, gave each player the card they had won — seemingly just for the effect of it. Darryn held his close to his chest, while Myrtle just dropped it on the table, face-up.

“Ugh. This is pretty intense. I didn’t go to sleep to be more stressed out” Myrtle broke the ice with lip bubbles that doubled as a sigh.

“Is this game already getting to you?” her older opponent pushed.

“...I mean yeah that’s what I just said.”

“I, uh… I guess you did.”

“Can’t help it. I really shouldn’tve wagered my spine… after all, ‘s my oldest friend. Always got my back.”

Ratna didn’t like Myrtle anymore.

“Well if you’re nervous now, wait until I turn this game around.”

“You got a plan, old man?”

“Of course. And if you don’t, you’d better… watch your back.”

“Eeeyyy. You’re alright,” Myrtle grinned, shooting him some finger guns.

Ratna hated them both at that exact moment, but avoided saying as much, lest they start thinking that puns were the reason this place was so bloody and corpse-filled. So she just chewed on her lower lip and kept her words to herself, allowing the players to re-evaluate their strategies.

Darryn was behind with cards, but that was okay: with his loss this round, he realized that there was an even better way to win the game, and he was fairly confident he could pull it off… he just needed to create his perfect opportunity.

Myrtle, on the other hand, let the gears in her head turn as she stared at her five of clubs. A few strategies floated into and out of her head, but ultimately, she decided that it was just a game of luck — and if she wanted to win, she would just play the hand that had the best odds and cross her fingers.

He put two chips on the spade spot, and one chip on the crown.

She put four chips on the club.

“...neither of you are saying or doing anything. So… you’re good?”

“Yeh.”

“Roll when ready, captain.”

Ratna reared back her hand, shook it three times for good measure, and let the dice roll free. The first landed on the heart, the second showed an anchor… and the third showed a crown. Darryn’s eyes lit up, and an old, throaty laugh broke out of his lips.

“Got you now, little girl.”

“Wow. And I thought Ratna was the creepy one,” Myrtle whistled.

“Ah, I could only aspire to be that creepy,” Ratna hummed, “Anyway. Neither of you get a card, but Darryn only loses two chips, while Myrtle loses four. Darryn still gets the edge, though, because now he can wager nine chips instead of eight.”

The chips were taken. Myrtle’s stack was sitting at 22. Darryn had 24, and — to his mild irritation — a cheap ‘you’re a star’ sticker slapped onto his shirt by Ratna, to ‘mark’ his extra chip privilege. But that extra chip would be the key to his success.

“Before we start the next round, could I take you up on that drink offer, Ratna? A coffee. With two sugars. Hold the cream.”

“About damn time. You want anything too, Myrtle?”

“Hot chocolate.”

Ratna looked at Myrtle as if she were a savior haloed in golden light.

“Christ why did I never order that- Yo! Two hot chocolates! And a coffee! Two lumps no cream!”

She paused.

“Don’t forget the marshmallows! The small ones!”

She didn’t know if they had marshmallows, but she was absolutely beaming when she turned back to the pair of players. The cynicism that had once sharpened her crude edges seemed somewhat softer now as she rocked impatiently in her seat for the drinks. Darryn, who was also checking the door with every other glance, tilted his head slightly to his opponent, who was staring enviously at his sticker. He ignored that.

“Did I… did I ask you why you want my parents? I cannot remember.”

“Nope. You asked how it would work, not why.”

“...well… I am asking now.”

“I’m pretty subtle about it, so I wouldn’t blame you for not noticing I’m a touch, uh, apathetic. I can’t think of anything I’d want from an old dude, but I would like to shake things up in my life — you know like surprising yourself by shopping online while you’re drunk. But imagine: waking up one day and finding out my parents are actually super-dead strangers? Sounds exciting. I’d get all wrapped up in that and my life would be way more mysterious and cool. Could be fun.”

“Well, I don’t mind saying that’s fairly twisted and selfish, young lady. Did you even once consider, young lady, how it would make your parents feel to ‘discover’ you are not their daughter? Or how it would impact my life to learn I have a sister, or to lose my own parents? If this place is what it claims to be, you have a responsibility to think about the impact of your desire. Clearly, you haven’t. I almost feel like I’m obligated to defeat you now, moralistically.”

Myrtle’s first thought was that every word out of his mouth was bullshit, since he was asking her, a young person with a whole life ahead of her, to inherit back problems that would plague her for her entire life and cause her to be a burden to her loved ones. Just so he could sleep a bit more comfortably for the remaining… two weeks he had left? It looked like he had two weeks before he died. Max three.

Myrtle’s second thought was that she really didn’t care and thus kept it to herself. Although she did snort when, while having these thoughts, “Paralyzer”, by Finger Eleven, started playing on the radio.

Myrtle didn’t get the chance to have a third thought, as the sweet scent of warm, liquid chocolate started to waft into her nose. A smile crossed her face, and she nodded thanks to the pale, blue-eyed stranger who had given it to her.

“And a coffee for the gentleman,” she reported in a somehow relaxing monotone.

“Oh. Oh shit. Teresa! Teresa, I-”

The dealer stood up, looking flustered. The white-haired woman turned to her, and while her expression remained unchanged, her eyes… they grew a bit… jagged. Jagged enough to shut the once smug dealer up instantly.

“By all means, continue your game. I will be tending to the Silver Wheel in the meantime. Feel free to join me once the game has reached its conclusion.”

“Eer… right. You, uh, you guys ready?”

Neither Myrtle or Darryn knew where this Teresa person came from, but they didn’t seem to mind at all either. In fact, her sudden appearance seemed to unwind their knotted nerves more than agitate them. As if she was a breath of normalcy in an otherwise insane situation for some inexplicable reason.

“Sure, sure,” Darryn grinned into his coffee, putting two more chips on the spade, and nine on the anchor, “Let’s go.”

Myrtle whistled.

“Woo. Lookit that.”

Well now she felt rather silly. She had considered putting some chips on the anchor last round, but decided it would be safer to keep her chips. Turned out that was a mistake, because with nine chips on the anchor, she was kind of trapped. If even one die came up anchor, she’d be unable to bet, and that probably meant she would lose. At least, judging by the extremely canine grin Ratna was flashing her.

So that kind of put her in a spot. She could just ignore it and hope no anchors come up, but if she did that, he’d have at least one more round to pull this stunt again before he ran out of chips, and that seemed more than a little risky: with six rolls in total and a 1 in 6 chance of any of those dice landing anchor… her odds probably weren’t great. On the other hand, she could put eight chips on the crown. If she was lucky, she would get a nice buffer between herself and any future failure, which would force him to re-evaluate his strategy. If they were both ‘lucky’, she would lose only one chip maximum, and she could prolong the game. Or it could accomplish nothing.

She couldn’t even try to get him back. Or rather, if she tried, they would need to get two anchors in the same roll, and then she would still lose anyway because she had fewer chips than him. No wonder he was so confident.

She took a sip of her hot cocoa. It was pretty good.

Darryn took a sip of his coffee and wondered why there were marshmallows in it.

Myrtle finally decided. Five chips on the club. And eight on the crown.

“Gotta admit, not a bad move, old man.”

“Let that be a lesson to you: one moment of weakness and-”

“-Yeah okay shut up,” Ratna interrupted. “Let’s roll!”

Despite herself, Myrtle found the tiniest pearl of excitement stirring in her gut as Ratna started to swirl the plastic cubes in her hand, rattling them around rhythmically in anticipation of the throw. Once they had been sufficiently jostled, and Darryn and Myrtle were at the edge of their seats, she threw the dice in a tall, wide arch, so they would crash into the table like stones from the sky.

The first dice landed on a diamond.

The second landed on a heart.

And the third… an anchor.

“Welp. That’s that then. I guess Darryn wins.”

“Damn.”

“How wonderful!”

“...yeah these things are usually more climactic,” Ratna admitted with a shrug, “So… y’all can finish your drinks then leave I guess.”

“Hmm. How bad are your back problems?” Myrtle asked, nursing her cocoa, although the moment she did a sharp pain ran through her spine, a pain that abruptly melted into a severe discomfort, as if her bones were made of too-sharp steel, “Ahh. Ah. There it is. Fuck. That’s uncomfortable.”

“Sleep with a pillow under your hips, it will help.”

“Ah, man, I have regrets. I think I’d rather have been murdered.”

“I do apologize for the state of the Silver Wheel,” Teresa, the waitress, bowed apologetically, “please let me know if there is some way I can compensate you for any discomfort you may have felt during your game.”

“I could go for a new fucking back.”

“Please let me know if there’s some way within my power I can compensate you for any discomfort you may have felt during your game.”

“...I’d take another cocoa?”

“Right away.”

In the end, Darryn learned his current physician was a crook, hired someone new, and with a few invasive surgeries and new medications, had his back problems fixed at the expense of his now-sued ex-doctor.

Myrtle slipped on ice and fell the exact wrong way.

And Ratna was making another go at the bloodstains in the carpet.

“...and finally he says ‘paper’ just before Nikolay punches him and then he caught it as I said three. We won the game and then I did a lot of stabbing.”

“Yes. I can see that.”

Teresa almost sounded impressed.

“Since then he’s been in prison for the whole murdering Oberman thing, and we’ve just sort of been waiting around for you, I guess. Where have you been, exactly?”

Teresa was working on shuttling all the bodies they had hidden under the floorboards outside, with the help of Mr. Eight. There was no shortage of things to clean: broken glass, human teeth, stains caused by of all kinds of fluids on just about every surface, the air itself needed refreshing, there were scuffs and marks on the walls, some lights clearly needed replacing, and the poker table itself — amorphous as it was — definitely needed some attention. Fortunately, with Teresa around, they could more precisely control the flow of sleeping people into the Silver Wheel, which was to say, throttle it to zero. When Ehije wasn’t around, she was the owner, after all.

“I went to get a new body. However, the Boss wanted to know why I needed a new one so soon, so I had to explain the situation to them. Once that was complete, I did my utmost to satisfy Nikolay’s request, until I was given back control of the Silver Wheel. Then I came back as soon as I could.”

“...as soon as you could?”

“Yes. Circumstances withheld me for a time.”

“...you gonna elaborate?”

“In the process of servicing Nikolay’s demands, I came to discover that other owners were being solicited and harassed by Marie Walker in the same way we have. It appears she is in the process of searching for an ideal candidate to perform a certain operation. It also appears so far, the Silver Wheel is the most ideal candidate.”

“I could stand for more elaboration here.”

“As could I. But that is the extent of my knowledge. With it, I can safely assume Marie Walker will be visiting the Silver Wheel of her own volition in the near future.”

“Well, wait, that’s great. She’ll be an intruder, we can just get her with one of our ‘fuck you’ games and that’s that.”

“I am less certain it will be so easy. We shall formulate our plan more properly with Hakeem.”

“Oh, right about that. His name’s Ehije, apparently.”

“...oh. How curious. Ehije, then. But I would hate to bring him here while this place is in such a state. Let us continue to clean, for the time being.”

“Uh, sure. But one quick question: who’s going to be our bartender?”

“I suppose that responsibility will fall upon me now.”

Ratna puckered her lips.

“You? Do you even know how to mix drinks?”

“I cannot imagine it is difficult.”

“Really? Prove it. Bring me a Shirley Temple.”

Teresa stopped what she was doing and matched Ratna’s stare for a half-second before turning around and walking briskly to the bar. Ratna watched her go, and stared at the door. Waiting. Waiting for a shockingly long time. Even Mr. Eight was staring at the door now, for as much as they could really ‘stare’.

It took longer than they expected for Teresa to come back empty-handed.

“It would appear we do not have any Shirley Temple.”

“We… wait, we don’t have ginger ale and syrup?”

“Of course we do.”

“...so you can make a Shirley Temple.”

“There were no bottles in the bar with that label, Ratna,” Teresa stared at her as if she were the dumb one.

“How long have you worked here again?”

Teresa went back to cleaning, and Ratna followed suit, although she could hardly be accused of paying attention to the stains.

“I have no idea what you seek to imply with that question, but if you are suggesting Mr. Eight retain bartending duties I suppose I have little choice but to accept these terms. If you agree to them, Mr. Eight.”

Mr. Eight agreed to keep bartending, since apparently they were the only one who could.

“Then it is agreed. Let us resume cleaning.”

“We never really stopped, boss.”

“Then let us cease discussion.”

“Yeah I missed you too.”

~*~

“Seven Nation Army” thrummed in his ears. He tapped his foot in time with the drum.

He was sitting in economy on a flight between Mexico City and Hanoi. He had just finished adjusting his life insurance, editing his will, and settling the affairs of his estate. He wasn’t an especially old man, and there was nothing he planned to do that was especially risky — he just told his wife that some news reports got him thinking on the subject of death and it’s not like him to postpone when he got it in his mind to do something. And that was true, so it satisfied her, and she gave him a kiss and, when he was gone, double-checked his insurance and will to make sure she was still part of it.

She was. In fact, the only real changes he made were that he increased his benefits and disinvested most of his stock portfolio, re-investing in the food and water industry. It was technically an ill-advised move, but he insisted that he had excellent reason to assume these industries would be booming soon and he wanted to snag his cut of the pie early. There was nothing anyone could say that would talk him out of it. Nor was there anyone who was interested enough to figure out that everything he did was to further separate himself from his earlier ties to Walker Industries. Those connections, while tedious and paper-thin even at the best of times, were now completely severed. He had nothing to do with Marie Walker or her commercialization of the exploration of parallel worlds.

He had a story if anyone had ever noticed or asked. But nobody had noticed or asked.

He took a deep breath, and adjusted his seat again. He was too tall for these miserably small seats, but at least the flight was only two hours. He reflected on the past few months: he had spent a lot of time doing a lot of things that nobody had really noticed, actually. It was as if he were such a perfect cog in such a perfect machine that as long as he continued to keep his teeth aligned with the gears adjacent to him, no one cared what else he did. There was no one, not even his wife or his mistress or even his business partners, who were keeping careful tabs on him or making note of the incongruities. As long as the boat didn’t shake, he could do anything he wanted on it. It was a weird sort of freedom via smallness that he could really appreciate, even though he was far from a ‘small’ person. Compared to the other people traveling in economy, he metaphorically loomed. But even a giant is just another human in a room full of peers.

There had to be a term for this. Herd camouflage? That sounded right. He was too lazy to check for real.

His eyes opened to the sound of “Leaving on a Jet Plane” by John Denver. That was his alarm, and it was going off.

Welp. Now was the time.

Elrick Swayze yawned, walked into the aisle for maximum visibility, and then violently dropped dead.

Unfortunately, the people next to him had to bare witness to his gruesome end: he had doubled himself spontaneously and lethally. A second head had merged almost exactly onto his existing one, creating a fleshy afterimage that extended out of him. Two sets of teeth. Two tongues. Two pairs of eyes, which had merged into bloody-blue heart shapes. Four arms, four legs, two torsos and two pelvises. It was as if an identical twin had tried to pass through his body, and they both died halfway-through, impaled on one another.

Passengers panicked, cried, and vomited. The plane needed to schedule an emergency landing. The body was hidden under countless blankets to avoid upsetting anyone else until trained hands and eyes could witness the corpse. It was something they had never seen before. Something they, doctors and surgeons who had worked on the human body for dozens of years, couldn’t even begin to explain.

But Marie Walker, who happened to have donated an enormous sum to this hospital and just happened to be touring a wing renamed after her, could.

With a paling face and a terrified stutter, she explained that this man had overlapped with a parallel version of himself.

The veil between worlds, it seemed, was thinning.

And she immediately excused herself.

~*~

“Woo, you leave an ugly corpse.”

“You pick my bodies.”

Ture always had a sore throat when jumping between bodies, and he didn’t know why.

“Yeah look my pool isn’t huge. And thanks to your demanding ass, if I use too much from this pool o’ bodies, people will start to connect the dots.”

“I’m kind of surprised to hear you have that much faith in people.”

“You kidding? I’m a people and I’m great.

“...are you sure?”

“Oooh, implying I’m not human. That’s real clever. A+ banter right there, tell fucking Tarantino he’s been bested” she snorted, spinning on her heel to grab a bagel from her assistant, who was mistakenly power-walking the wrong direction.

“You wanted to blow the whole plane up.”

“Which would have been safer for both of us since no one could have pinpointed the anomaly to one of Helmut’s ex-patrons, thank you very much. Can’t you see babe, it was for us.”

“You’ll figure something out.”

“I did. Blow the whole plane up.”

“...”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not mad sweetie. There’ll be more planes where that came from.”

“Ugh. I’m going to read this new body’s profile. Enjoy your PR hellstorm.”

“That’s the plan sweetums. Sending kisses!”

She smacked her lips into her holophone until he hung up on her, which was one of the most satisfying sounds in the world. One of. The most satisfying sound in the world, of course, was anything said or sung by the baritone ear-fuck that was the late Stan Rogers.

Now there was a man who knew how to die in an plane.