Despite what could only be called an exemplary criminal record, Ehije had never actually been incarcerated before. Having recently undergone the process, he had to admit he wasn’t a big fan. Lots of pushing, shouting, and of course, waiting. Wait in the car. Wait in the interrogation room. Wait in the holding cells. Apparently new criminal reforms in the country meant that the process was a lot smoother and gentler for non-violent offenders, but when you’re caught straight-up murdering someone the way Ehije was, well, you get the old world treatment.

Again, not a fan.

Ehije could at least use all the time spent waiting to think up a story. A lie, of course, would be less than useless, there was no way he could convince even the most bribeable officer that he hadn’t committed a murder. Hell, with Ehije’s fake ID, emails, money orders, and correspondence with the Nigerian Cultural Center laid out, any idiot could figure out it was premeditated and malicious. But he at least needed a good reason why he decided to push the most influential post-Unilalianism artist in the world off a rented balcony.

It didn’t so much need to get him off the hook as it needed to slow down the investigation as much as humanly possible. He didn’t know if the Silver Wheel could protect him from all the people who were likely out for him now, and the longer he could stay out of the state prisons, the better. The last thing he wanted was to be Epsteined.

In the end, he settled on being a paid assassin. It was a reasonable enough story: Helmut was powerful enough to have enemies, a paid sponsor would explain how he got so much money out of thin air, and it would give him, a functional nobody, a reason to have a beef with a wealthy European he’d never met before. But more importantly, 1) it made him a middleman, which took the target off his back, and 2) by dropping a few vague hints and appearing ‘breakable’, it meant days were wasted trying to find out who actually hired him.

It served its purpose. But as the days stretched out to weeks, he was starting to grow concerned about the Silver Wheel: he knew he wouldn’t be brought back until Teresa returned, but could it really take this long for her to finish her chores?

Left alone with nothing but thoughts and anxiety, he started to gaslight himself. Wonder if maybe the whole experience, from Jack Kelly to now, was some really weird mixture of dreams, drugs, and coincidences. He knew that it wasn’t. But there was something so unreal about the reality of the situation that made it hard to swallow even now -- and worse, he already knew people could trick themselves into believing more with less. No crazy person ever really understands how crazy they are, if they realize it at all.

He clung to the concrete facts. If he was crazy, Helmut was crazy too (which wasn’t much of a comfort). He wouldn’t have been able to reach Helmut if it weren’t for the information he acquired in the Silver Wheel. He couldn’t have hallucinated or dreamt up a link between a German artist he didn’t know and a Canadian business mongul he barely cared about until very recently. It was all very real. But that made the nightly waits for his return trip all the more frustrating.

Thanks to his obfuscation and clear lack of threat, he had managed to spend all this time in detention centers. But his court case, cut and dry as it was, was fast approaching. Jail was on the horizon, and that was where his convictions would really be put to the test.

He found himself thinking about that while staring at the ceiling of his cell, which had been his home for the past three months. The Silver Wheel… it really had cursed him with misfortune. Tense gambling matches where his wit and quick thinking were the only things standing between himself and death… or worse. The results of which put him where he was today, away from his creature comforts, having lost almost all of his friends who weren’t that surprised to learn he had taken the final plunge into true infamy, with no real way to avoid a lifetime in prison should he not succeed. All for a vague promise of a wish.

Still. There were a whole lot of “what if’s” in there. What iffing were for the people he conned. He had to live in the “what now” world. He just wished he had a better plan than, literally, ‘sleep on it’.

“Hey. You have a phone call.”

He shook himself awake, only to wander into a brand-new cloud of confusion. Who the hell would be calling him? His last remaining friend had visited just the other day. And it’s not as if they spoke about anything meaningful -- just reports of what was going on, the gossip, some vague information about where he had moved what was left of his stuff. The plan was to sell it. Use the cash to help survive jail a bit longer. There was no reason to keep any of his old possessions -- he was either going to lose them forever or replace them with even better toys when he got out.

“Thank you.”

A cell phone was passed to him.

“Hello.”

This… was a voice he didn’t recognize. It was an older woman, posh, thickly accented. It was clear she was unfamiliar with speaking English, and yet she spoke it with perfect candor. Or at least, with such confidence he could think it was perfect.

“Who are you?”

“I am Olivia Beisner. The widow of the man you killed.”

“I see.”

She sounded rather calm. But her calmness wasn’t exactly infectious, and now Ehije was stuck in a situation he literally never thought he’d be in -- trapped in a phone call with the woman whose husband he killed. But Ehije wasn’t the type to pause in the face of befuddlement: he marched forward, bravely and obliviously.

“Well is there something I can do for you, Olivia?”

It was not always a good system.

“No, I wanted to say thank you. I don’t know why you killed my husband but you made the world a better place by doing so.”

“Oh. Well, that is a pleasant surprise. Thank you for saying so.”

“...yes. He… how you would say… was a murderous whale penis. He liked to talk a lot and say nothing, and do bad things and say it was art. A terrible man. I don’t understand why I would have married him.”

“If I had to guess, ma’am? Money.”

“The money was nice, yes, but still a mistake. Money makes people do all kinds of foolish things.”

“I would disagree that it was a mistake, ma’am. No one can blame you for wanting money. Money is everything.”

He was happy to talk to her. Eager, almost. It’s not as if he had anything else to do.

“No, I do not think so.”

“...with respect, ma’am, that’s the privileged opinion of someone who’s swamped with the stuff.”

“I know. Money can get you happiness, and comfort, and opportunity, and security. Helmut even used it to get love and freedom. But you can get those things without money too. Money is just… a shortcut.”

“I suppose, being that I am in prison, I have little choice but to hope you are right, ma’am.”

“For now, yes.”

And she hung up.

Cryptic, but also, entirely predictable. Ratna did promise that the Wheel would get him out of prison, wish or no wish. This almost felt like the Wheel itself was preparing for that situation. Like his life was a play and the Silver Wheel, through some cosmic happenstance, was the one writing its script. And he was just flailing about in the wake of its pen.

He imagined he was supposed to feel powerless. Bur more than anything, he was just glad he hadn’t been forgotten.

That thought alone did a great deal to help him fall asleep that night.

Only to open his eyes somewhere new.

He knew immediately it was the Silver Wheel -- there was nowhere else it could possibly be -- but this was not the Silver Wheel he had won from Nikolay. It was bright, for one. The grimy, flickering light that once swung above the poker table had been replaced by a glamorous silver chandelier which brilliantly illuminated the marble and gold leaf walls that were decorated with mirrors, pulsing white neon, and two tall, thin fountains that bubbled with water. The table itself was likewise grandiose, apparently carved out of ivory and lined with high-quality velvet that looked so soft you felt drowsy just looking at it. The door frame was outlined with gold-covered statues of snakes, and door itself looked like a gateway into heaven.

Teresa and Ratna, at the very least, looked the same as they always had, although the extra lighting really highlighted how unusually seamless and uniform Teresa’s skin was. Which grew more unnerving the more he noticed it.

“Welcome back, Ehije.”

“...you two have been busy, I see.”

“Yeah, turns out, storing corpses in the floorboards tends to leave pretty nasty smells. Since we had to tear the place up anyway, I talked Teresa into some light renovations.”

“I am told we are going for a ‘Vegas’ aesthetic.”

“I have never been, but this is what I imagined,” he looked at the carpet, which was red and every bit as luxurious as what covered the table, “...but I must ask: does this not imply we do not plan to execute Marie?”

“That is a matter I would like to discuss with you, Ehije. But first.”

She put a hand on his shoulder, and she smiled.

“...thank you for getting rid of Nikolay and Helmut.”

Ehije shuddered.

“I appreciate the gesture, Teresa, but you scare me when you smile.”

“S’ pretty freaky.”

“Oh. I apologize, then.”

She removed her hand, and her smile.

“Would you like something to drink while we wait?”

“Did you get a new bartender?”

“Mr. Eight has agreed to the task.”

“...in that case, no.”

After Ratna ordered another hot chocolate for herself (judging by the pile of mugs on her end of the table, she hadn’t been shy about indulging her latest addiction), Teresa took a seat next to Ehije and laid her hands flat on the poker table.

“We have reason to believe Marie Walker will be coming back to the Silver Wheel of her own volition sometime in the near future. Obviously, waiting for Marie Walker to arrive so we may treat her as an invader would theoretically be to our advantage…”

“...but she’d be expecting that,” Ehije finished, and she nodded.

“Yes. We do not want to engage Marie Walker in the battlefield of her choosing. Not only would she be able to plan around it, but by the time she arrives it would likely already be too late to foil whatever she is attempting to do.”

“Wait,” Ehije raised a hand, “foil? Why do we care about foiling her? We just want her to leave the Silver Wheel alone, that was the plan.”

“The plan has now changed. My travels to other establishments similar to the Silver Wheel have made me moderately confident that she is attempting to do something catastrophic.”

“...moderately confident?”

“She has been specifically looking for establishments that fit two crieteria: ones that can reach and impact every single existing dimension parallel to her own, and ones that have an entity like Mr. Eight working in them. To the best of my knowledge, the Silver Wheel is the only establishment that employs such an entity, and thus, the only viable candidate for her plan.”

“And before you ask, apparently not even we know exactly what the hell a Mr. Eight is. Not even Mr. Eight really knows.”

“It is not a fair question. What exactly is a human? I very much doubt you could answer in a satisfactory way.”

“Assholes,” Ehije helpfully offered. Ratna shot him a thumbs up.

“...regardless. I feel, as you will be the one playing, the decision rests with you: should we invite Marie Walker and try to entice her to play now? Or shall we chance allowing her to come to us on her own terms?”

Ehije didn’t need much time to think: he had been doing little else during his time in prison, and was mostly just excited he had a chance to have all his thinking put to good use.

“Neither. Why go in blind? Let us invite someone else instead. Gene Oberman.”

Teresa furrowed her brow. It was clearly a conscious effort on her end.

“I am unfamiliar with that name.”

“Helmut name-dropped him before I killed him. He is apparently one of Marie’s most trusted confidants, or some such. If we invited him, perhaps we could offer him something in exchange for all his knowledge of Marie’s plans. And, armed with information, better prepare for our confrontation.”

“It seems you once again exceed our expectations, Ehije. That is a fantastic idea.”

“Yeah, congrats on the promotion from con man to killer, by the way.”

“Would you care to remind me who stabbed Nikolay thirty plus times?”

“Must have been you, I only stabbed him twenty-nine times.”

A tendril gingerly placed a hot cocoa in front of Ratna, who high-fived it by way of thanks.

“If we agree on this plan, then I do not see a reason to delay further.”

“Neither do I,” Ehije smirked, “The sooner we get this done, the sooner I can get out of jail and start living my new life.”

“In that case, let us begin.”

~*~

“...and in summation, we’re only a few days from being ready to transition the project to the final phase.”

These late-night phone calls with Marie Walker were the worst part of his day. He had never liked them, but now they were agonizing exercises in patience as he tried to keep his own mind focused on the tasks he was assigned to complete. And he never liked the assignments he was assigned to complete. They, too, strained at his extremely thin patience. They didn’t excite him the way they used to. They barely registered in him now. His obsession with and addiction to Miss Nine had rendered everything he had once loved completely null. There was still a part of him that was conscious enough to resent Miss Nine for spoiling his work, but most of him was so overwhelmingly enamored with her that he couldn’t use that resentment to pull himself away.

“That’s lovely,” Marie’s cantankerous voice crackled over the phone, “but there was one last, teeny-weeny little thing I wanted to ask you before I let you go, sweetie.”

“...yes, Miss Walker?”

“Did you, by any chance, happen to delete all our data on the 20:7 project like I instructed you to?”

His heart stopped in his chest. Even at his most lost, he had known he couldn’t keep this up forever. His work was suffering. His reports were lacking. His co-workers and employees were complaining. He knew he’d be caught sooner or later, but that didn’t mean he was ready for it. He had barely prepared at all. Such was the crippling nature of his addiction, he couldn’t even pull himself away from it to ensure he could continue to indulge it.

“...why do you ask?”

“I was rather hopeful you could dig it back up again, actually.”

He blinked. Several deep, excited breaths followed.

“...what?”

“Well, the 20:7 dimension is proving to be quite the thorn in my side. So much so I actually kind of regret canceling the project, since I could probably use that sweet, sweet data right about now. I’m not suggesting a full reboot, but if you could take it upon yourself to give the place another little peek-”

“-Of course!” his voice caught in his throat. He was crying. This was the best day of his life. “Whatever you want, Miss Walker!”

“Mhm. You know it’s just not as satisfying when you actually mean it. But here’s the fine print: the UCA isn’t working on 20:7. I need to know why. Or, lacking that, how I can distance it enough from our dimension to use the UCA safely without the risk of a crack. Think you can do that sweet stuff?”

“Of course. Of course!”

“Mm. Still too authentic. See you soon, baby-doll.”

She hung up. He stood and cried for a full ten minutes before crumpling to the ground. Caught or not, it didn’t matter anymore: Marie Walker wanted him to really investigate 20:7 now. He could stop hiding it. He could stop allowing his employees to distance themselves from Miss Nine. He could wield his full power as the director of Bigger Skies to sate his hunger and indulge his curiosity. He was going to eat some of Miss Nine and have the medical staff on-hand to ensure he didn’t die, just like he always wanted.

All for Marie Walker, yes. She wanted it now. It was okay now.

He could barely fall asleep that night, but in the end, his body couldn’t keep up with the fever of his brain.

At least, until his eyes opened up to a blinding, glamorous light, the sound of a fountain, and “GHUNGROO” by War.

“Welcome to the Silver Wheel. Can I get you a drink?”

Gene Oberman took one look around, his breathing hard and loud and distracting. His eyes glazed past Ehije and Ratna, and only settled when he saw Teresa.

“...how did you find me?”

Teresa did not answer.

“Did you want a drink, sir?”

“How did you find me?!”

“I think I will field that one,” Ehije leaned forward, forcing Gene to begrudgingly turn his direction, “as I was the one who found you. Your former friend Helmut had very loose lips.”

“I see. I see. So it wasn’t through Miss Nine. That’s curious. That’s interesting.”

He turned back to Teresa, “Strawberry Fanta.”

“Right away, sir.”

“Right. Okay. Well. I trust you want me because I know about the Silver Wheel, of course. You want to kill me, like you killed Helmut and Nikolay.”

“Not quite correct, sir. We’re more than happy to let you live. All we want to do is get rid of the pills, and to learn of Marie’s plans. We don’t need your life: just whatever you have in your head.”

“I see. I see. And so we play a game for them, of course. But there’s nothing you have I want.”

A glass bottle of Strawberry Fanta was carefully placed in front of Gene. He barely registered its existence. Ehije leaned forward, folding his hands in front of him.

“Are you sure? Are you aware that I own the Silver Wheel? You could win it from me. And I happen to know already that Marie Walker needs it. And even if you have no loyalty to her, having free reign of this place must be at least moderately tempting for a man of your tastes.”

Gene took another deep breath. Ehije was able to keep his face perfectly static, and not betray how annoying he found the man’s almost comically exaggerated breathing. It was like he was chewing with his mouth full, all the time.

“Tempting? Sure. But the fact you’re here and they’re not means you won whatever games you played against them. That suggests some level of skill. I, meanwhile, am not a gambler. Why would I risk such important information playing games I know I’m bad at?”

He paused for a second.

“...also, who are you? I know of Teresa, and Mr. Eight, and your new dealer Ratna, but you are a new face. A replacement for Ture, perhaps?”

“You can call me Samuel-”

“-Oh my god,” Ratna rolled her eyes, “Just use your real name, dude, I can’t keep up with this shit.”

“...fine. I am Ehije. The Silver Wheel chose me to be their champion in their little war against Marie Walker and her lackeys.”

“I understand. Well, as interesting as that is, I have no real interest in participating in your scheme,” Gene stood up, shaking his head, “I have important work to get back to. Good day.”

“Wait, before you go, I’m sure you’d be-” Ehije tried, but Gene was already heading for the door. “-we can offer you more than just the Wheel!”

Gene, however, was unflappable.

“You can pick the game.”

Gene opened the door to the bar.

Ehije stood up to follow.

“We’ll just keep re-inviting you, Gene. You’ll never get a good night’s sleep again!”

Gene closed the door behind him.

Ehije stared at the door for a few seconds, then sat back down with a huff.

“...that was not very dignified, Ehije,” Teresa noted, picking up the completely untouched bottle of Strawberry Fanta.

“Fuck. I thought for sure he would want the Wheel.”

“It would appear he does not.”

“Hell, if we’re being honest, he’s probably the smartest motherfucker we’ve invited,” Ratna smirked, “Sucks for us, though. Guess we have to decide what to do about Marie blind.”

“I am not ready to give up on Gene yet. There must be something we can use to lure him into a game.”

“How do you suppose you’ll figure that out?” Ratna probed, “Dude lives in a secret lab. Even when he forgets all about this it’s not like you can find him on Facebook or whatever. And if we re-invite him he’ll remember being here again so we can’t exactly use that as a chance to probe him. Face it, Ehije, we fucked it up.”

“...perhaps we have been worrying prematurely,” Teresa smiled knowingly, “Ehije, it would be prudent of you to check in on Mr. Eight.”

Ehije didn’t like that idea, but nodded anyway.

The bar was every bit as glamorous as the parlor: it had shed its grungy, dive atmosphere for something more sophisticated and eloquent. Lights shone with champagne gold, the floor was made of an orange-and-gold metallic epoxy, and the bar itself, on top of being decorated with gold leaf and hazy blue lights, enjoyed a much larger display case -- which didn’t hold any more drinks, but rather, allowed each bottle to have a little space to show itself off, so one could more clearly and easily appreciate the artistic contours of the glasswork. There was even an “employee of the month” plaque, which had Teresa’s face printed on it, because she had honestly assessed that she was the best employee.

The area behind the bar was spacious, which was good, because Mr. Eight needed the room. Not only to accommodate their enormous (if fluctuating) size, but also to put some distance between itself and Gene Oberman, who had stopped mid-march to stare obsessively at it.

“...I see something has caught your interest.” Ehije slyly observed, “Maybe you’d be willing to play a game now?”

Gene pulled his lips back into a hungry, carnivorous grin -- a smile that rivaled and surpassed their own wolf of a dealer’s. It was the kind of smile that could only be produced by the sickest minds, whose depravity stemmed from a pure and unadulterated love for the object of their obsession.

And he pointed at Mr. Eight.

“...against it. Yes.”

Ehije looked at Mr. Eight. Mr. Eight looked at Ehije.

“...fine by me.”

~*~

Mr. Eight couldn’t sit on the chair, so it stood awkwardly at the end of the table. Every fluxuating square inch of its body fidgeted, as if trying to recoil from Gene’s demented stare. The man was drooling. Drops of saliva fell from his chin and stained the table. For some reason, it was grosser to Ratna than the old blood stains.

“So, uh… what will you be gambling for?”

Mr. Eight didn’t want to do this. It had never gambled before. It could barely even hold cards. But it understood how important Gene’s knowledge was to stop Marie Walker, and it didn’t want to be accused of not being a team player. After all: it was shooting for that employee of the month plaque.

Teresa put a cool hand on what could be called the equivalent of its back, in relationship with the table. It relaxed, then tensed, then relaxed again. It found her rigidity comforting, and enjoyed flexing itself against such solidity.

“I’ll give you all my knowledge of Marie Walker and her plans if you win. But if I win… if I win, I want Mr. Eight to take me to the same wonderful place he took Miss Nine. I want to become like your Mr. Eight. That’s fine, right? Those are fine terms?”

Mr. Eight paused considerably before agreeing to the deal. Two sets of 30 chips appeared on the table: in front of Oberman, pink and black in an almost ice-cream swirl. And for Mr. Eight, chips of an indescribable color and pattern that seemed to vanish the moment you weren’t looking directly at them.

“...okay. Well today’s game is Razz.”

Poker, historically, was played with a 20-card deck, and was inspired (some say) by either the french game “Poque” or the Persian game of “As-Nas”. It was only at the middle of the 19th century that the deck would be expanded into a full 52-card deck. Stud poker was the first kind to take advantage of these new decks, but Razz almost immediately followed suit. Popular on Mississippi riverboats through the 19th and early 20th century, Razz eventually fell out of favor to more traditional stud poker, like 5-card draw, and community card poker, like Texas Hold ‘Em. However, Razz maintained a minor presence in the poker world, even creating a legend out of Greek card shark Archie Karas, who in 1992 used Razz to turn 50 dollars into 30,000, and later that 30,000 into 7 million. He would go on to earn up to 40 million over a span of 3 years, only to lose it all soon afterwards, all at Las Vegas.

“Razz is played a lot like seven-card stud. We’ll deal seven cards to you both -- four up, three down -- and you’ll use those cards to make the best five-card hand possible. However, whereas in normal poker the point is to make the highest-value hand possible, in Razz, you want to make the lowest-value hand possible. So you don’t want pairs, kings, queens, nothing like that. Fortunately in Razz, we don’t count straights or flushes, so that makes your jobs a little bit easier.”

“Razz has a few more noteworthy rules. For one, aces are all low. For two, in the very likely event of a tie, suits are dealbreakers: Clubs are the highest-value suit -- which means you don’t want them -- followed by diamonds, hearts, and finally spades. So spades good, clubs bad.”

“At the start of the round, I’ll deal you both three cards. One face up first, then two face down. The person with the highest-value face-up card makes the first bet. Once you both make your bets, I’ll deal another face-up card to you each, y’all make your bets, yadda yadda, we continue this way until the seventh card is dealt, which we do face-down again. Make your final bets, show your hands, y’’ll get it, unless you don’t, in which case I’m here for questions.”

Both players stared at each other. Gene daringly. Mr. Eight curiously.

“I understand perfectly.”

Mr. Eight confirmed they understood.

“Alright then, final rules rundown, no getting caught cheating, it’s all or nothing, if you leave you lose, the same ol’ same ol’, now ante two chips.”

While “Sakhiyaan”, by Maninder Buttar started playing on the radio, both parties submitted their chips: Gene with a flick of his wrist, while Mr. Eight placed each chip down one at a time using a number of temporary extensions to itself. The four-chip pot was meager, but Gene was already staring at it hungrily.

Ehije was wildly uncomfortable, and excused himself to the bar.

“Yo if you’re going to bitch out bring me some hot chocolate or something!” Ratna called back to him as she dealt the first three cards.

Mr. Eight got a five and two of diamonds face-down, but the king of spades face-up. Gene, on the other hand, had a five of hearts face-up.

“Looks like Mr. Eight is betting first. Whadya say, slugger, wanna bet with those cards?”

Mr Eight inspected the face-down cards while simultaneously examining their opponent with their plethora of senses. They did not like examining their opponent with their plethora of senses. Gene Oberman was an unpleasant human, and Mr. Eight wasn’t quite sure how to cope with that. Mr. Eight was unaccustomed to disliking the human collection. Generally he found the human collection charming -- cute, almost. They were such a simple collection, each group within the whole operating under very strict laws and with extreme dedication to their purpose, and yet they were still somehow comically inept at doing their tasks and failed all the time. Mr. Eight enjoyed humans in the same way a famous artist would post the scribbles of their child on the fridge: there was a level of incompetence that managed to overcome its own uselessness and become endearing.

But the collection that made up Gene Oberman was… uncanny. Their frame and outer collection was as cute as any other human’s, but the inside-collection was just a little too well put-together, which when combined with the flaws of the outer frame, made him uncomfortable to gaze upon. Humans were not designed to house such insides. It was an ill fit for them, and Gene Oberman’s clear insanity was evidence of this.

Mr. Eight pitied the inside collection for what it had forced upon itself, and pitied the outside collection for being unable to escape the catastrophe that the inside collection was putting it through.

But more than anything else, Mr. Eight wondered why these collections were so keen on card games. The laws were arbitrary and the ‘fun’ was abstract. Mr. Eight could not grasp the point of these aberrations, but it understood the simple logic that the more chips it put into the pot, the more chips Gene would have to put into the pot, and Gene having fewer chips was the objective.

So they tried to move all their chips into the pot, until both Teresa and Ratna shouted “no!”. Teresa even put a hand on their back again.

“No, Mr. Eight. Please only wager reasonably.”

This seemed reasonable to Mr. Eight.

“I would suggest something small, if you wish to wager. Remember that in addition to wanting Gene to have fewer chips, you must also ensure you do not lose chips.”

Mr. Eight retracted their chips, and only put two into the pot. Gene called.

“Will… it… need coaching the whole game?”

Mr. Eight assured the unpleasant Gene Oberman it would only require help if it failed to grasp the uniquely alien logic of how these card games were supposed to operate.

“It is extremely fascinating how you manage to communicate without either words or body language. Even watching you do it, I’m not quite sure how it’s possible.”

Mr. Eight invited Ratna to deal again, as it didn’t know where that line of inquiry was going and it didn’t want to find out. Gene Oberman’s inside collection would simply need to come to terms with the fact that accepting phenomenon and understanding phenomenon were sometimes paradoxical objectives.

Ratna dealt Mr. Eight an eight of spades. Gene got a nine of clubs.

“Mr. Eight still has the high cards showing, so he gets the privilege of betting first.”

Mr. Eight understood that it wanted a low-ranking hand. It also understood that ‘hands’ were made of five cards. Presumably because there were five digits to a human hand as well. They had four cards now, and through the rest of the round, would get three more. But what it failed to understand was why they would bet now. They had incomplete data. They didn’t know what cards they would get, nor the three vital cards that their opponents had. What were they supposed to use as a basis for their wager, if it wasn’t to reduce the number of chips on their opponent’s side of the table?

It was an arbitrary decision, but this was also an arbitrary activity. Maybe humanity reveled in the arbitrary? Considering they were but one tiny collection on a slightly larger collection spinning within an enormous universe, they likely had little choice in the matter. If they didn’t have the arbitrary they didn’t have anything at all.

Mr. Eight embraced that attitude and arbitrarily wagered five chips. Gene called. And Ratna sighed.

Ehije sure was taking his time with that cocoa.

Ratna dealt the next cards. Mr. Eight got a nine of diamonds, whereas Gene got the King of diamonds.

“Diamond outranks spade. Gene, you have first bet.”

Gene looked at his cards, glowered, and folded.

Mr. Eight didn’t understand the decision-making process there but it rather wished it had bet everything earlier.

Ehije found the milk easily enough, but the powdered chocolate was nowhere to be found. Every drawer just had spoons. A frankly unreasonable number of spoons. He knew it was a bar but holy shit why not just wash the spoons instead of stockpiling so many single-use silver spoons?

“If you are looking for the chocolate, it is in the inside door of the refrigerator.”

“Hm?”

Teresa was standing in front of the bar. The door had never opened. This was normal.

“Who would keep the chocolate there...”

“We do not use powdered chocolate. We melt chocolate in heated milk.”

“I suppose I should have guessed.”

He pulled out the chocolate. It was frozen to a stick, but even cold, it had a certain richness to it that made his mouth water. He prepared two mugs instead of the one, and started to heat the milk.

“We need a plan, Ehije.”

“I thought this was the plan.”

“We need a plan to ensure Mr. Eight’s victory. Their mind -- or at least their equivalent -- does not function the same way yours or mine does. The nuance of the game is completely lost on them. It is entirely possible for Dr. Oberman to win.”

“I will confess that I have not watched much of the game. But the way Dr. Oberman composes himself makes me believe he is either the world’s greatest bluffer -- in which case, we were always doomed to lose -- or he is every bit as incompetent as Mr. Eight.”

“I am not comfortable with 50/50 odds, Ehije.”

“And I’m not comfortable trying to cheat a brilliant scientist. He has more reason than most to assume we’d cheat. And just because he is bad at card games does not mean he’s unobservent.”

Teresa was silent.

“The way I see it, it is far safer to simply let the game play out. Even if we lose, when Dr. Oberman transforms, he may well lose any allegiance he has with Marie Walker. Then he may reveal her plan of his own volition.”

“Or he will be able to assist her more directly with her own plan. Do not forget she needs The Silver Wheel specifically because of Mr. Eight’s presence here. It is not unlikely the knowledge he would gain from his transformation could be helpful to her endeavors.”

Ehije was silent, but not as long as Teresa was.

“...very well, but then how do you propose we help him cheat? You just said his mind works differently from yours or mine. Say I got behind Dr. Oberman and signaled he had a two -- would Mr. Eight be able to figure out making a V-shape with my fingers means a two?”

“I suppose not. But you are our champion, Ehije. I trust you can be cleverer than that.”

He ran a hand over his face and sighed into his palm. While he tried to wrap his head around the situation, she helpfully walked behind the bar, prepared the two hot chocolates, and took one back to Ratna.

He took the other and stared hard into the marshmallows.

Mr. Eight indeed had no skill, but in a game like Razz, luck can still carry you a good distance.

In fact, it had won every round so far. Gene folded immediately after the second hand was dealt, and after Ratna dealt them each their fourth card in the third he folded yet again. Thanks to sheer dumb luck, Mr. Eight had an enormous lead of 47 chips to Gene’s 13.

Mr. Eight was thankful that Ratna had been able to successfully reproduce these results while shuffling the deck, intentionally or otherwise, as that was the only thing that seemed to be causing its many victories so far.

Still, it seems she was unable to reproduce these effects forever. From their understanding of the game, their current 4-card hand was moderately undesirable. It had a seven of diamonds and an eight of hearts face-down, and face-up, a seven of clubs and an ace of hearts. Gene, meanwhile, had an ace of clubs and a five of diamonds showing.

There were ten chips in the pot so far. As before, all of them were thanks to Mr. Eight’s arbitrary betting.

But despite how far behind he was, Gene Oberman did not seem unhappy. Perhaps because his inside collection was also aware that the factors that decide who won or lost was also arbitrary, and thus being upset over it was illogical.

“Mr. Eight, have I already told you how I find the way you speak… fascinating?”

Mr. Eight tried to look busy by checking its face-down cards again.

“It’s the funniest thing, but the longer I stay here with you, it’s like I understand more and more of what you say… you are a blooming flower, and every second a new petal unfolds itself before me…”

Mr. Eight did not do well with metaphors, and made no effort to understand what Gene Oberman was trying to communicate.

“Can I ask you again why you don’t like me?”

Mr. Eight didn’t want to say, of course. Because it would be difficult to articulate in a way that an inside collection like Gene’s would understand, accept, or even comprehend. Most humans didn’t even want to hear they were collections. For some reason this notion of individualism had sunk into them and they considered themselves a singular whole, despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary.

“So when you say I’m a collection, you mean I’m made up of trillions of living cells, right? Or is it that my current body is an amalgamation of trillions of different versions of myself? Or maybe it is both?”

Mr. Eight stopped.

“You do not have an inside voice, do you, Mr. Eight?”

Mr. Eight started to recoil.

“You narrate everything you do and see in your own… strange… way. It’s like a bat… you send the sound out… and it hits the environment and returns to you as expressions that I can hear.”

Mr. Eight was so unfamiliar with these kinds of dimensions, even now, mentally processing what they do is necessary to logically interact with the world around it. But Gene Oberman shouldn’t be able to understand it. Not even Ratna or Teresa were able to do it to this level -- typically they only understood what it wished for them to understand. If they did grasp everything, they would no doubt have gotten very annoyed by Mr. Eight’s constant narration of events.

“I’ve been studying Miss Nine for a long time, Mr. Eight, in a probing and invasive way that Ratna and Teresa would no doubt find appalling. I’ve even experimented on myself to become closer to it. And this, my… my perfect self… seems far more acute than my old body. It’s like reading a book, being in a room with you.”

“The hell are you two talking about?” Ratna asked, although she was ignored by Gene. Mr. Eight assured her that things were fine and Gene was just crazy.

“So… should I deal?”

“By all means…” Gene purred.

“Please never purr again.”

Two cards. Mr. Eight got a ten of clubs. Gene received two of spades. His good hand got even better. Maybe it would not be to Mr. Eight’s advantage to continue to bet chips at this stage.

“Eight, you’ve still got the high hand. You gonna make a bet?”

Mr. Eight, for the first time this match, did not make a bet.

“You’ve suddenly gotten a lot less talkative,” Gene Oberman preened, sliding three of his remaining eight chips into the pot, “Are you afraid of me now, Mr. Eight?”

Mr. Eight, as was mandatory to play the game, submitted three chips into the pot.

“But if you don’t talk, Mr. Eight, how will you be able to play? Will you know what card you get next if you don’t… narrate it?”

Mr. Eight felt as though its privacy was being violated, and, in their stress, suddenly understood why people folded in Razz: ending the round early would prematurely relieve stress. Even if it ultimately lead to an undesirable outcome in the game itself, it would have the immediate impact of alleviating the more pressing stress of carrying a presumed bad hand.

Mr. Eight was very stressed right now, so it folded to see if that would help.

It did not.

“You made the right call, Mr. Eight. I would have won that round anyway. My pair of fives is better than your pair of sevens.”

Ratna and Teresa exchanged a look. Ratna was confused as hell. Teresa looked gravely concerned. Mr. Eight was trying very hard to think as little as possible. Ratna took back the cards and slid chips back to Gene: Mr. Eight still had a lead with 39 chips, but Gene was back to a healthy 21 chips now. Also, he could functionally read Mr. Eight’s mind now, a development even the enigmatic Mr. Eight didn’t quite understand.

All the same, Mr. Eight was no longer ambivalent to this game, and very much wanted it to end. In fact, Mr. Eight was very much disinterested in even winning, as it did not want any part of Mr. Oberman’s inside collection inside of it.

Ehije stepped back out, taking several deep breaths, and holding a piping hot mug of cocoa.

“Alright boys. Ante up.”

Gene oberman put two chips into the pot. Mr. Eight, after getting a nudge from Teresa, did the same.

Ratna dealt the cards for the next round. Gene Oberman got a face-up three of spades. Mr. Eight got a face-up ace of diamonds, and two face-down cards.

Mr. Eight did not want to look at the face-down cards. If it did, Gene Oberman would know what was in its hand, and that, it understood but didn’t quite understand, was disadvantageous.

“Oh, no, you really must not think of it that way. Whether you win or not this round has already been decided by Ratna’s shuffling, as you had already observed. You’ve already submitted chips, Mr. Eight…”

Gene Oberman slid forward four more chips into the pot.

“And if you do not play you have no chance of winning them back.”

It would be illogical to forfeit if it were predetermined to win. But it would be advantageous to forfeit now if it were predetermined to lose. It did not have the data it needed to make a sound decision, and it would never have that data regardless of if it looked at the cards that were face-down in front of it: merely observing them would not change what they were.

The decision was still maddeningly arbitrary. But since it had already submitted two chips to the pot, a simple risk-cost analysis would determine that between certainly losing some chips, or possibly gaining more chips, the latter was the most reasonable outcome. Especially since folding did not reduce stress the way it had hoped.

So Mr. Eight put four chips into the pot.

Two more cards were drawn. A six of diamonds for Mr. Eight. An Ace of spades for Gene Oberman.

“Mr. Eight’s got the high card. You wanna bet first?”

Mr. Eight did not, but Gene Oberman threw a whopping ten chips into the pot with a giant smile on his face. Mr. Eight, who was very bad at poker, pushed ten chips in as well. Ehije and Ratna groaned. Teresa looked to Ehije with growing urgency.

Ehije seemed rather stressed himself.

“...this cocoa needs something stronger,” he grumbled, and started back to the bar.

But then, he tripped. The mug flew out of his hands. And a wave of boiling hot cocoa soared towards Gene Oberman.

Mr. Eight, first and foremost the bouncer of The Silver Wheel, was between them instantly, preventing Gene Oberman from receiving any burns. While it was there, it also caught the mug, and stopped Ehije from falling to the ground. It corrected him, and gingerly placed the now-empty mug into Ehije’s hand.

Gene Oberman looked awed.

“...that was… very impressive, Mr. Eight.”

Mr. Eight reminded Gene Oberman that this was its job.

“Yes… yes, I remember now. Charlie said you were there to protect the patrons… presumably to prevent any harm from coming to their… perfect selves…” Gene Oberman noted with increasingly heavy breathing, “that was the whole reason you were brought here.”

Mr. Eight returned to its side of the table.

Gene Oberman looked like he was having a hard time seeing straight with how heavy he was breathing.

“...uh… you alright there, Gene?” Ratna asked, dealing two more cards: Gene Oberman got a Queen of clubs, while Mr. Eight got a Queen of hearts.

“...yes. Yes, I am fine,” he wheezed, “Teresa, my dear, I would love a… love a steaming, piping hot cup of tea. Bring me some, would you?”

Teresa bowed, and retired to the bar.

“...um… okay, well, six out-ranks three, so, Mr. Eight, you get to bet first.”

Mr. Eight did not bet.

“Aaand asthma attack over here?”

“I am quite alright, thank you.”

“...guess we’re moving right along.”

Gene got a King of spades. Mr. Eight got an Ace of clubs. They now had an exposed pair. This was bad, as it was possible they had another ace or six, in their face-down cards. If this was the case, they would probably lose.

Gene Oberman must have been aware of this. But he was staring at the door to the bar with feverish desperation for reasons only his inside collection seemed aware of. His outside collection showed no signs of needing tea or even hydration.

Mr. Eight decided to not make any wagers.

“Alright, and Gene?”

Gene did not answer.

“...Gene?”

The door to the bar opened. Teresa walked through, balancing a tray with a cup of steaming hot tea. Gene Oberman fidgeted in his seat as the glass was put in front of him, and then, turning to face Mr. Eight, attempted to pour the boiling water directly onto his crotch.

Mr. Eight would have liked to have let it happen, but Mr. Eight couldn’t abide the outside collection getting harmed for having the misfortune of being attached to a damaged inside collection. So Mr. Eight intervened, and Gene Oberman moaned loudly in the process.

“Fucking fuck- that is not okay!” Ratna looked disturbed, and then looked away.

Teresa bowed her head slightly, to put herself at a more even level with Gene Oberman, who was nothing but a mass of heavy breathing and post-orgasmal twitching.

“Sir, I will ask you to refrain from engaging in any more self-harm.”

The words passed through one ear to the other. Gene Oberman, instead, tried to slam his head into the table with such savage intent he could have very well gashed his forehead. As before, Mr. Eight’s sympathy for the outside collection, and all the more sane versions of Gene Oberman out there, forced Mr. Eight to intervene, wrapping a restraining limb around his head. Gene Oberman pulled his wrist to his teeth to rip out his veins, and Mr. Eight was forced to gag him. Gene’s tongue started to lick at Mr. Eight. His eyes rolled to the back of his head. He was dry-humping the air as he tried to break his foot against the heavy wood of the Poker Table. Mr. Eight had to further entwine itself in order to protect Gene Oberman from himself, and in the process, give him exactly what he wanted.

Mr. Eight could not ‘feel sick’ the way humans did, but it felt the Mr. Eight version of the equivalent.

At least, until Teresa put a hand on them and offered them a smile.

“...you have thrown out others for less, Mr. Eight.”

The lights above them flickered out. The room was engulfed in black.

And when they came back up, both Gene Oberman and Mr. Eight were gone.

Gene Oberman had forfeit.

~*~

“It’s funny because Gene would have won.”

Ratna was flipping through the deck, finishing the game for both missing players. Mr. Eight’s final hand would have been a four of spades, a Jack and Ace of clubs, an Ace, six, and five of diamonds, and a Queen of hearts. Dropping one of the Aces and the Queen, their hand would have been Jack of clubs high.

Gene Oberman, on the other hand, had an Ace, three, and King of spades, a five and queen of clubs, two of hearts, and a Jack of diamonds. Dropping the King and Queen, his hand would have been Jack of diamonds high. Clubs out-rank diamonds, so Gene would have won the round.

“And since our boy is so terrible at poker, he would have just called himself to death.”

“One would think that even an alien being would get an inkling of how to gamble if it spent countless years watching others do it,” Ehije, who looked less than satisfied, stared hard at the cards. If he had been playing, it would have been a slaughter: Gene didn’t apparently understand the concept of a poker face, and it was clear that neither of them was taking the time to figure out the odds and using that to inform how they wagered. But… ‘credit’ to Gene where it was due, that was the reason he had refused to play until he had seen something his deranged, addicted mind simply couldn’t resist. Plus, Gene was just good enough at poker (and… “reading” Mr. Eight, whatever that meant) to know he was better at it than his opponent, and that he could functionally win the game with one good hand.

But it wasn’t luck that had won them this game. Bad poker face or not, even if Gene Oberman had taken better care to hide his face and his breathing, there was one thing he couldn’t as easily hide: his erection. The moment Ehije made the unfortunate observation that Gene had the world’s biggest chubby from staring at Mr. Eight, he realized Gene’s obsession with Mr. Eight transcended mere scientific curiosity. Knowing that Mr. Eight would also be forced to intervene if something were to endanger Gene’s perfect self, Ehije was able to plant the seeds of Gene’s destruction with a feigned trip and a hot cup of cocoa.

So they had beaten three of Marie Walker’s henchmen by exploiting their rage, narcissism, and obsession, respectively. Ehije wondered if Marie Walker herself had any critical foil he could exploit, or if his only option against her was to actually gamble.

“Mr. Eight was never watching the game, Ehije. He was preoccupied watching the players,” Teresa defended their bouncer, who was still missing in action, “which is why I must congratulate you on your plan, as much as I am certain Mr. Eight did not appreciate it.”

Ehije was going to say something, but then stopped.

“...what is it, ‘they’ or ‘he’. Pronoun-wise, I mean.”

“Do you think it is relevant?”

“You switch. Usually it’s they but sometimes you say ‘he’. And you do not speak carelessly.”

“Yes. Because sometimes Mr. Eight is closer to a ‘he’ than a ‘they’.”

“...I find that frustratingly vague yet completely believable.”

“In any case, would you care for a drink while we wait for her to return?”

Teresa’s smiling was the only clue Ehije had that she was teasing him now.

“I am fine, thank you.”

He turned back to Ratna, who was shuffling the deck. She had practiced hands, calluses at the tips and joints of her fingers, and was starting to put some real finesse into the act. Judging by the look on her face, it was less to impress the guests as it was a vain attempt to keep herself entertained.

She noticed him staring.

“I’m a she. Only pronoun I need.”

“I was actually admiring your technique.”

“Thanks it’s my one admirable talent.” She slid the deck below the table, before putting her feet up on it, “since ‘tits’ aren’t a talent and killing yourself isn’t an olympic sport yet.”

“Hm.”

“Yep.”

Both of them sat quietly. “Tere Jism” by Sara Khan & Angad Hasija was playing on the Radio. Not that Ehije knew what it was called. Teresa returned soon afterward, a glass of white wine in her hands.

“Ratna, take your feet off the table.”

Ratna did.

The silence resumed.

“...man, I’m diggin’ this chemistry,” Ratna pursed her lips, “Hey, Ehije, you’re a con-artist. Charm me or something. Sweet talk me into giving you money or something.”

“I could never, Ratna, you’re too smart to be charmed.”

“Haha, why yo- oooh, I see what you did there.”

“Exactly my point.”

Fortunately, they didn’t have to keep this up any longer. Mr. Eight returned, and while Ehjie was happy to have a relief from the small talk, he still couldn’t call himself a big fan of this eldritch being. No matter how much he stared at him, he never got… better. Palatable. Even when Ehije was certain he had seen everything Mr. Eight’s body could offer, he would notice something new and alien and uncomfortable that would fill him with a brand-new kind of sickness.

Mr. Eight expressed displeasure with Ehije’s plan.

“Be that as it may, Mr. Eight, it worked. You would have been incapable of winning that game yourself.”

Mr. Eight reminded Teresa that if he had gotten to bet his whole hand in the first round they would have won.

“Unless he didn’t call. In which case, you would have won fewer chips than you ultimately did.”

Mr. Eight had nothing to say to that.

“Look, the hows do not matter. You got to learn Marie Walker’s plan, right? So what is it? Why does she want The Silver Wheel?” Ehije pressed, in an effort to sate his curiosity, to move past the subject, and avoid a confrontation with the bouncer.

Mr. Eight confirmed that it did know Marie Walker’s ultimate goal.

And he delivered that information exactly how he had received it.

~*~

It was about eleven years ago, when Gene Oberman took over for Bigger Skies laboratory, that he was first informed, almost casually, about Marie Walker’s ultimate plan. It was a night he would never forget: they were eating at a shockingly pedestrian restaurant in New Zealand, in cheap clothes, after having finished touring the secret underground laboratory she had constructed specifically for him. It wasn’t her first secret underground laboratory, but it was her most ambitious, and her first one in the southern hemisphere.

She had ordered five plates of french fries and an extra-large milkshake. Gene Oberman had contented himself with chicken nuggets and a burger. Gene Oberman remembered being disgusted by the way she would literally dump the milkshake over the french fries and ate them with a fork, as if it were some kind of salad.

But while that was the biggest reason he found it memorable, it wasn’t the only reason.

“Soooo…” she started, trailing the word like a shy girl on an awkward first date, “how do you feel about… genocide?”

Gene Oberman took a bite of a chicken nugget.

“...to what end?” He followed up, “How do I feel about it as a fact of life? As a tool? As a process?”

“Ah, that’s what I like about you, Mr. Oberman, most people here would have been gut-reaction ‘it’s bad’ or cracked a joke or something. You ask for context. You pry. How is it a wonderful mouth-breather like you is single?”

This was before Gene Oberman hated Marie Walker enough to respect her. He was not attracted to her -- again, the french fry thing -- but he blushed nonetheless.

“It’s a mystery I guess.”

“Hmm. Well, you pretty boy, I mean as a tool.”

“I am ambivalent.” he answered immediately, “A genocide is what put these chicken nuggets on my plate, and probably the potatoes on yours. And if someone really wants to eradicate a group of people from the planet then they may as well do it efficiently.”

She forked more potatoes into her mouth. She made no effort to be graceful or clean in how she ate.

“Follow-up question, how do you feel about the genoicde of functionally 100% of all living creatures.”

“...it’s bad.”

“Okay well then this will be awkward because that’s kind of what I’m gunning for.”

He finished off his chicken nuggets. She was speaking too lightly for him to treat this with any kind of gravity.

“So you really are a mad scientist, then?”

“...I mean… obviously, yes, you think a sane person would eat french fries like this?” She snorted, shaking her head, “but no, no. It’s way more than just killing almost everything. There’s a reason for it. An important reason.”

“...okay.”

“Hey, hey, let’s go back to the car. I wanna play you something.”

Leaving three plates completely unfinished and drenched in warm ice-cream, Marie walked Gene Oberman back to her car -- literally, just a car, and a fairly old one at that -- and sat him down in the passenger side seat. He noticed, as they sat down, that this car had a CD player. A technology that was obsolete even when he was a child.

“Lean back. You gotta lean back, man. Close your eyes. Enjoy this dope jam.”

Gene Oberman did as he was told.

And Marie Walker started to play a song that consisted of one man singing with a small choir. A man with a baritone voice you simply don’t hear from modern singers. Something sad and hopeful and determined, about a man trying to follow the footsteps of great explorers by traveling the trails they had long ago conquered. It was plain, but rather beautiful, and moderately haunting, even if one of the backup singers sounded like a rat was occasionally biting his testicles.

It played for 4 minutes and 49 seconds before coming to an end.

“That shit right there was my jam growing up. ‘S called ‘Northwest Passage’, and it’s all about how everything is discovered and it’s too late to dream.”

“That… wasn’t what I got from it.”

“Yeah, well, you’re wrong. I heard this song as a kid and I got pissed. Figured, ‘shit, I gotta find my own northwest passage’. The deep sea is boring and space is empty so I was like, ‘fuck it’, and explored other dimensions. That’s how Walker Industries came about. You can clap if you’re moved.”

He didn’t clap. He stared at her from his reclined seat.

“And shit, man, I did it. I explored and I explored and I explored some more. Once you punch through the first interdimensional veil, gets easier and easier every time. I saw a lot of shit. And you’ll see a lot of shit too. And the more shit I saw, the more I realized how absolutely and depressingly meaningless it all was. And you’ll realize the same thing, too.”

“...hm.”

“Here, I’ll prove my point,” she reached rather carelessly to the back seat and pulled out a six chamber revolver. He was not surprised to see it, she had told him about it earlier today when he expressed concerns about how the bumpy road was probably bad for the suspension. She kept it locked and loaded at all times. Still, he was not happy to see it, and put a hand on the car door’s handle.

She put the gun to her forehead.

“Think it would matter if I shot myself?”

“...it would matter to me, I think I would be out of a job.” Gene Oberman sighed.

“Pfft. Okay, fine. But there are over nine billion people on this planet. I’m rich. I’m important. I have shareholders. But I’m still just one in nine billion. You take one penny out of a jar of nine billion and no one’s going to care. No one would even notice, right?”

“...I suppose.”

“Right, but by putting this gun to my head, I made two worlds. One where I shot myself, and one where I didn’t. So that’s not one dead person out of nine billion. That’s one dead person out of eighteen billion. Imagine taking a penny out of a jar full of eighteen billion pennies. Hell. Take a fistful. Take a thousand. No one would notice.”

“I think I understand.”

“Haha, no, you just think you do. I left three perfectly good plates of ice cream covered french fries in there. There’s a dimension where I only left two plates there. Otherwise, exactly the same. That’s four dimensions I just made now: in one, I ate two plates and shot myself, in another, I ate two plates and didn’t, in the third I ate three plates and shot myself, and in the fourth I ate three and didn’t. That’s two dead Marie Walkers out of thirty-six billion people. You could take two million goddamn pennies out of a jar with thirty-six billion in it and no one would bat an eye, who’s going to notice just two? No one. Not a goddamn person.”

“Really. I get it.”

“I had five plates of french fries there, Dr. Oberman. Do the math with me: if I made a different dimension for every plate I chose to eat, that would be six dimensions, including if I didn’t eat any at all. I put the gun to my head in all six of those dimensions, I’ve made twelve dimensions. What’s twelve times nine? One-hundred and eight. Times a billion, we have... “

“...a hundred and eight billion.” He finished for her.

“Six dead Maries out of a hundred and eight billion people,” she nodded, “but this is the elementary shit, Dr. Oberman. You have to consider every factor. What about each individual fry I ate? The order I ate the plates in? Or how many chicken nuggets you ordered? How many did you eat? Did the lady next to us sneeze or not? Were the chickens that were pureed for your nuggets Rhode Island Reds, Plymouth Rocks, or Cochins? Did your nose itch?”

“Add all those factors up. We get trillions of people. Start including all the decisions people are making all around the world, we get well into the quadrillions. When we consider the activities of animals and plants and aliens or whatever: Nonillions. You know how many goddamn ants there are, Dr. Oberman? So many fucking ants are making so many goddamn dimensions.”

“And you think that’s a lot? Remember: all these numbers are exponential. I created twelve different dimensions with my fries and this gun. And those dimensions spawn new dimensions. And those new dimensions spawn new dimensions. Biggest number ever conceived is Skewes’ Number. And as far as dimensions go, we’ve passed that number a long-ass time ago.”

She threw the gun behind her.

“Everything everyone has ever done is meaningless. If you don’t do something there’s a version of you out there who has. If there’s a version of you that’s happy there’s a version that’s sad. You can explore the sea and the sky and every inch of land and it doesn’t matter because someone has already beat you to it, and there’s so much goddamn sea and sky and land that what you discover literally doesn’t matter.”

“So. To sum it up. My goal, ultimately, is to make things matter again. I’ve already mapped out how dimensions split. I’m gonna stop it from happening, then trim the fat. Collapse them all into one neat dimension where there are only nine billion lives and each and every goddamn one matters.”

Gene Oberman was breathing heavily again, and even he wasn’t quite sure why.

“I just need a trigger. I know that somewhere, there’s a nexus from which everything sprouts. I just need to find it… or somewhere that can access that nexus and can impact every dimension simultaneously.”

She smiled. The first time, he realized, she had done so genuinely.

“Once we find that, we’re in fucking business.”

And she, and he, would later discover such a place.

At The Silver Wheel.