When Iva woke up, she wasn’t in the comfortable leather chairs of the coffee shop. She was in the back of the ambulance.

Her dog, Mr. Scruffles, had realized she had been drugged and made quite the fuss about it. This drew the attention of the coffee shop employees, who figured — not unreasonably — that Ture had tried to drug and possibly kidnap this wheelchair-bound blind girl. It was only his own bad luck (or poor execution) that led to him drugging himself as well. Horrified, they called an ambulance.

Iva didn’t suffer any long-term damage. Quite the opposite, in fact. Her story, as the blind, crippled girl who was almost kidnapped in broad daylight, went viral. She was asked to speak about her life and the challenges she faced on daytime talk-shows, and her story was so eloquent and moving that a crowdfunding campaign was launched to raise money for new legs and working eyes for her. It reached its goal, and within a matter of weeks, she could see her beloved dog, Mr. Scruffles, for the very first time, and take him for walks like she used to.

She’d later go on to be an inspirational speaker, getting paid to be shuttled around the world to talk to jam-packed conference halls about the power of perseverance and optimism, happily glossing over the fact that she had very much been defeated by her handicaps, and had only been “saved” by the man who had drugged her to take her to an interdimensional gambling house. It wasn’t what the audience wanted to hear. They wanted to hear how a positive attitude could get you through the darkest of times.

And that’s what she’d tell them.

As for what happened to the man who drugged her?

Well...

~*~

Mr. Eight was better at being Mr. Eight than Miss Nine was at being Miss Nine.

It just came down to a matter of experience, really. He’d been himself longer than she had, and he was more comfortable with his body and what it could do than she was. Still, despite the enormous gap in their experience, she was able to hold him off — just long enough for her unwilling partner to fulfill her end of the deal for her. Ehije had given her the one thing she wanted, and she had, in turn, satisfied his own request: assassinating Marie Walker.

Billie Eilish’s “No Time to Die” was playing on the radio.

“Fuck! Fucking fucking fuck!”

Mr. Eight disengaged from Miss Nine, and coiled into Marie Walker’s body, pulling out the bullet. Gene Oberman lowered the gun, which had already been rendered useless by Mr. Eight, who had dismantled it in the middle of his skirmish with Miss Nine.

“Holy… holy shit…!” Marie Walker gasped, “That… fucking hit my heart. You shot my fucking heart!”

“I missed your fucking heart,” he corrected her between big, obnoxious breaths, “otherwise you’d be dead.”

Mr. Eight kept himself plugged into her chest, white, mallow flesh mixing with the red to create a creamy pink foam that covered the wound. She was breathing hard, too. Her fingers were trembling. Her skin was pale. And a look of unadulterated, unrestrained fear had morphed over her face. A fear expressed so fearlessly, unrestrained, that it made it abundantly clear to all in the room that she had never truly known it before now.

“...I’m… I’m gonna fucking die. Who’s-” She turned to her employees, “who’s awake in our lab right now?! Can anyone- oh god, an employee- just like Charles, someone fucking shot me in the lab. Someone must have shot me in the lab. Oh my god. Oh my god. I’m going to die. I’m going to die.”

“It would certainly seem that way, Miss Walker,” Teresa noted quietly, standing over her with an unusually cold glare, “I only regret you dirtied the floor I worked so hard to clean.”

“Fuck. Fuck no, no no no, I can save this. I can fix this. Y-you!” She pointed to one of her employees, “Get to the table right fucking now! We’re playing! We’re playing for our lives!”

That employee, whose name and face Marie Walker had never taken the time to commit to memory, could only stagger backwards, and rush to the door. Marie Walker tried to lunge at her. She failed.

“Fuck! No! Come- you!” She turned to another employee.

“I’m not dying for you, Miss Walker,” he replied.

“Fuck, I’ll -- I’ll replace you! I’ll, I’ll pay your replacement! Your loved ones will live like fucking kings! Your wife and kids and your fucking whatever will be gods! Play me! Play me!”

“...I don’t have a wife.”

And he walked out the door.

“Are you fucking kidding me?! I don’t care! Jim! Fuck you, Jim!” She shouted after him, improvising a name on the spot, “I’ll… I’ll fucking… turn your dog into a… dick… worm that’ll rape your… fuck it’s hard to talk with a fucking hole in your chest!”

She slammed her back against the wall, leaning hard against it. She was grabbing her chest. Fingers digging into the ugly pink foam that had so imperfectly closed the wound.

Nothing Mr. Eight did could affect other dimensions. That was the whole reason she needed the Silver Wheel.

His life-saving foam was just a stopgap. She still had a hole in her chest. She was still going to die. She was still going to die.

Her eyes scanned the room. Miss Nine and Gene Oberman were gone: removed by Mr. Eight in his usual manner, returned to the waking world from which they had come. Iva was gone too. Presumably escorted out of the premises by Teresa, as a courtesy to the confused and dazed young woman, who had more than enough to contend with without Marie Walker’s pained, desperate screaming. Which only left the fucking dealer, that bitch of a waitress, and…

“...Ture.”

Ture had remained seated quietly, absorbed in his own world while Marie Walker’s had been falling apart around her. He looked shockingly calm, despite the gunshot, the screaming, and the roaring that was echoing in her ears, and the blindness that had so recently claimed him. He looked like a buddha. Or a yogi. Or whatever the hell they were called.

“Ture, let’s play,” she clawed over to the table, throwing herself into the chair opposite him, “Gimmie the life in that body. Your health. The… hole in my chest, however we can make this work! You’re gonna get a brand-new one soon anyway!”

Ture gently turned his face towards her. His eyes were open, but milky and empty. Like his soul had been sucked out. Marie Walker was wheezing. This pain was so different from the pain she normally felt. It felt suffocating. Bigger than the body that contained it. It was a pain that seeped through the mission she had burdened upon herself, and she felt her entire life’s efforts burning on her shoulders, closing in around her. Breathing was hard. It was painful. How could she have found Gene Oberman’s breathing so fucking charming?! This wasn’t genius. It was just pain.

“Makes sense, yeah,” he replied, “I can wager to take that hole in your chest, if you want. But what are you going to wager? We can’t play unless you wager something too.”

“Fucking twenty billion dollars?”

No chips appeared at the table. Marie Walker snorted.

“The fuck?!”

“Your money doesn’t mean that much to me, I guess,” Ture shrugged.

“Why are you so calm!? A woman’s just been shot?! Your boss! Shot! Care more!”

“This is your Silver Wheel, Marie Walker,” Teresa reminded her, bowing her head as she materialized next to her, “I’m afraid since you first arrived, this sort of thing has become quite routine.

“The fuck? Those were- those were- I- That was different! Dying here is- it’s, it’s permanent!”

“I believe for the vast majority of people, death in any circumstance is permanent,” Teresa replied.

“I’m not the majority of people, dumbass! Fine! All my money! Whatever!”

No chips appeared.

“Why are you making this difficult?! You’re just going to give up immediately, aren’t you?!”

“We had the same problem with Iva, Marie,” Ture replied tranquilly, “you still need to wager something I want.”

He blinked, slowly.

“...can you guess what I want, Marie?”

Marie Walker’s eyes shot open. Her lips curled into a pained, amused little grin. She slapped both hands against the table and leaned forward, hot, uneven, and blood-scented breath pushing against the tip of his nose.

“...the Silver Wheel?”

As the last syllable escaped her lips, thirty pure silver chips, in three piles of ten, materialized in front of her, glistening and pure. In front of Ture, thirty grass-green chips, with a single red dot in their center, appeared. He turned to his left, where he assumed they had appeared, and put his hand upon one of the piles. He smiled as the tips of his fingers glanced the plastic.

“I should have fucking known,” she laughed between gritted teeth,

“...frankly, I’m a little surprised myself.”

“You’re not just going to surrender, are you fuckboy?”

“...the heart wants what it wants.”

“I’d ask why, but I’m in a lot of pain and I don’t care. When I whoop your ass, Ture, you’d best forget any fucking notions of getting a new body after this one. You’re dead. You’re fucking dead.”

“You really need to expand your vocabulary.”

“Shut up!”

Ture wasn’t lying. He was a little surprised to find that he wanted the Silver Wheel, more so than he wanted money. He couldn’t even quite put his finger on why. He knew why he didn’t want the money, of course, he had plenty, and the allure of money wasn’t the real reason he even wanted to come back to life. All the things he wanted most — the sunshine, the grass, the wind, the ice cream — you could get that without much.

As for why he wanted the Silver Wheel? Maybe he wanted it because it was the only way he could save this body, and get his eyesight and legs back. If he was really going to be stuck with this body — win or lose, that’d be the case — it would be nice if it wasn’t blind, immobile, and doomed to die later that night anyway when he became another victim of Marie Walker’s fabricated dimensional crisis. Maybe he wanted it because he missed Ratna and Teresa. It had been a long time since he had seen them last, and it would be nice if he could catch up with them for real. And maybe actually enjoy his next hug with Teresa… somewhere with dimmer lights so she looked less off-putting.

Or maybe, just maybe, he fundamentally disagreed with Marie Walker’s plan.

Maybe he just wanted to stop her.

“What are we fucking playing, Ratna?” Marie Walker spun to her, “Make it fast!”

“So glad you asked,” Ratna replied, “it’s a pity we already used Texas Hold’em, but fortunately we have a nearly as climatic game in the backlog.”

She flashed a grin at both parties, and slapped a deck of cards in front of them. The plastic thud of her hand against the fabric-covered table somehow reverberated through the air, challenging the radio, which was playing “You Only Live Twice” by Nancy Sinatra.

“...I call it… Wolf Pack.”

“Wolf Pack”, which is known by no other name, was created in the Silver Wheel by Ratna, at a date that’s unknown because the Silver Wheel operates outside the standard realms of space and time, even if it is conventionally bound by it. She created it out of boredom between dealing other people’s games, play-tested it with Teresa, and thought this was as good a time as any to give it a real go, since both parties were familiar with the Silver Wheel and would be accustomed to playing games with radically different rules than they may otherwise be used to.

“In Wolf Pack, the goal of the game is to make the strongest ‘Wolf Pack’ possible with the four cards in your hand. Unlike poker, the strength of your wolf pack is determined by adding together the numerical value of the four cards you have: so a five, a seven, a two, and a ten would be worth twenty-four points. Jacks are eleven, queens are twelve, kings are thirteen, and aces are fourteen. You know, like you’d expect.

“So how do ya play? Well, I, the dealer, will deal y’all four cards at the start. Once you both ante two chips into the pot, I’ll throw down two face-up cards in the center of the table. Then, you both throw down a card from your hand on the table at the same time, face down, and then turn them face-up at my signal. The jerk who dropped the highest-value card ‘wins’ the round, and gets to pick which of the two cards in the center of the table they want to add to their hand. The loser gets the other, while the cards you threw down are discarded. If there’s a tie, suits will be graded by Razz rules — spades are the best, followed by hearts, diamonds, then clubs. You can choose to not put a card down, to “hold” your hand, but in doing so, your opponent is automatically deemed the winner, and can take whichever card they want. The remaining card is discarded, so if you don’t put a card down, you don’t get squat. The winner can decide if they want to bet something, and if they do, the loser can either call, raise — assuming the winner made a bet on that round — or attack.

“Unlike normal poker, there’s no folding, only attacking. When you attack, you reveal your hand to the other player and add up its value. The other player then ‘attacks’ back, and whoever has the most points wins whatever’s in the pot — their Wolf Pack was stronger. The cards are reshuffled into the deck, both players get dealt a new hand and we play again. Point ties are broken by who has the strongest single card in their pack. It’s important to note that you can only choose to attack if your opponent either bets or raises. If neither player attacks, or the winner doesn’t bet anything, then I put two more cards in the middle of the table, you all ante another chip, and we play again. Note that if you can’t ante for whatever reason, you can’t get any new cards during that round. Also, if nobody attacks for four rounds in a row,or both players decide to ‘hold’ their hands the same round, then both players are forced to attack. ”

“One last rule, but it’s an important one. Wolves are stronger when they complement each other, which in this case means your hand score will go up. These bonuses can overlap, so try to get as many as you can. Here’s a handy list to help you figure out score:”

Mixed pack — nothing added. Same breed (same suit) — +5 for three of a kind, +15 for four of a kind. Rainbow pack (one card from each suit) — +10 to score Same strength (same value) — +5 for two of a kind, +20 for three of a kind, +40 for four of a kind. Clear leadership (straight) — +20 to score Beta pack (2, 3, 4, and 5 of the same color) +40 points Alpha pack (2, 3, 4, and 5 of the same suit) +100 points

“And we play until we run out of chips or Marie Walker bleeds out. Any questions?”

“I have one,” Ture raised his hands, “I can’t see.”

“Not a question, but good point. Teresa, would you mind helping him?”

“Of course,” Teresa bowed her head, and positioned herself behind Ture, resting one hand against his shoulder, “I shall be his eyes during this game. I trust this is not objectionable, Marie Walker?”

“All of this sucks!”

“I am glad to hear it,” Teresa nodded, taking a seat next to Ture while keeping her hand daintily placed upon his shoulder. He appreciated its cold, corpse-like stiffness with an almost familiar fondness, but his mind was still trying to appreciate the minutiae of the game. From what he could tell, the real lynchpin of the game was how betting worked: to get the best cards, you’d have to give up the best cards, which also forbade you from attacking if you won. Dropping bad cards, on the other hand, was the only way you could attack, but losing that higher-card advantage when the other player took the better card meant you were almost always attacking into a hand that had the potential of being better than yours. A strong potential, even, since he couldn’t even attack unless the person who dropped the high card was confident enough in their hand to bet on it.

But that wasn’t the only problem. The bigger one was the fact that every card is “seen” by the other player — both the card you drop, and the card you replace it with. With four rounds to play before you were forced to attack each other, it’s entirely possible for the other player (particularly one as intelligent as Marie Walker) to know what all four cards in your hand are. The mental math wasn’t that hard, and even with a hole in her chest it was unlikely she’d be blind to any of this. She must have realized it too.

Of course, you could alway hold, but that could give your opponent four turns to make an even better hand, since they would be in control of if you could attack or not. Sure, you wouldn’t be able to bet anything, but if the game went the full four rounds you’d still be guaranteed a six-chip win, assuming the ante was two chips.

He didn’t like it. It really seemed like a game designed more to accommodate Marie’s strengths than his own, which made him question whose side Ratna was on. But then, it was equally likely that the issue of who would be better at what game had never even crossed her mind — she may have just picked this game because she wanted to see people play it.

Irreverent to the end. Good ol’ Ratna.

“Are you up to this, Ture?” Teresa asked — she was looking at him, he could tell, thanks to the immense, piercing cold he felt on his cheek. He could also tell she was looking at him warmly, because it wasn’t as cold as he remembered.

“Let’s play and find out.”

Ratna’s pleasured growl could almost be heard over the radio, now playing “Writing’s on the Wall”, from Sam Smith, as the very first card clapped against the fabric of their table.

“Then let’s begin!”

Each player was dealt four cards. Marie Walker picked hers up with one hand, scrunching her brow as she tried to negotiate her mental capacity between remembering the rules and managing the immense pain in her chest. Teresa picked up theirs, held them before her, and used the fan of paper cards to hide her lips as she whispered what they had to Ture.

“A four of clubs, a four of hearts, a queen of spades, and a ten of spades.”

Thirty points worth of cards. And since they had a pair, it was boosted up to thirty-five. But the value of the cards didn’t mean much when you first looked at them: hand strength only mattered after someone made the first bet, because that was when it could be put to the test.

“How does Marie Walker look?”

“Pained.”

“...right.”

Ture was not used to this whole ‘being blind’ thing. Every time he blinked, a not-insignificant portion of his brain was convinced he’d see the Silver Wheel again, and everything would be back to normal. And every time he didn’t, he suffered the same intense yet brief shock. It really wasn’t coming back. He couldn’t help but wonder when all the times he told himself “it was gone for real” would finally sink in. Or how it would feel when it did.

“You kids ready?”

“How many times do I have to groan in pain for you to understand I’m kind of in a hurry?”

“Wouldn’t matter, I ain’t counting.”

“God, just deal!”

“First, ante.”

Both parties grabbed two chips and tossed them into the pot. Marie Walker with short, joyless motions, while Teresa did it with her usual cryptic grace.

Ratna moved with her usual cinematic, aggressive flourish, and her exaggerated motions at least made it easy for Ture to hear whenever she threw a card down. He knew she wasn’t doing it for his benefit, but he appreciated it anyway.

“She has dealt a jack of clubs and an eight of diamonds, Ture.”

Neither card was good for them, strictly speaking. If they replaced their four with the Jack they would enjoy a net gain of two points, but it seemed unlikely they could put down the four and expect to pick up the Jack. In which case…

“We should hold, I believe.”

“Yeah. We can’t give up our queen or risk losing our pair.”

“Alright, count of three, drop your wagers — one, two, three!”

Teresa didn’t drop any cards, but Marie Walker did, throwing down a five of diamonds. She didn’t appear to have put much thought into it: whether that was because of the pain or because she just knew what she was doing, Teresa couldn’t tell.

“Holding on the first round? Wusses. Marie Walker wins the betting phase.”

Ratna seemed disproportionately pleased with the opportunity to have her game played officially, which underwhelmed the magnitude of their game somewhat. Still, the gravity weighed heavily on Ture, who could feel Teresa’s shockingly rigid frame tense— and even hear her breathe — at the seat next to his. This was a last-second, last-ditch chance to stop Marie Walker. The culmination of plans upon plans. Even Teresa couldn’t avoid inching closer to the edge of her seat when Marie Walker grabbed the jack of clubs and slid it into her four-card hand.

“Alright. Want to bet something, team bleeding heart?”

On paper, it was Marie Walker who won that exchange. They didn’t know how many points she had, but they did know it was at least six more than the hand she started with. Meanwhile, they were still sitting at thirty-five, but having never played this game before they didn’t know if that was a winning number of points.

By Ture’s estimation, the average strength “hand” would be thirty-two -- that was to say, if you were to take the statistical average in the range of points each card could be worth (two to fourteen, so eight) and multiplied that by the number of cards in a hand, and disregarded any of the set bonuses, the lion’s share of hands would be in that range. By that measure, they had a better-than-average hand. But they also knew that Marie Walker had gotten rid of a lower-value card (thus removing it from the deck) and got a higher-value one.

So the real question was, if Marie Walker was confident enough in her hand to bet something, would they be willing to attack? Or would they chance another round?

Turned out, they would actually have to make that decision, as Marie Walker threw two more chips into the pot, allowing them to declare an attack if they so wished.

“What do you think?”

“...we could possibly go for a flush. Another four, or a queen or ten, would also dramatically increase our score.”

“...one more round, then.”

They called, but didn’t raise. So the next round began, and an additional chip had to be tossed into the pot, which was sitting at ten chips now.

“Alright then… will it be heaven or hell for our intrepid heroes in the next round?”

“Plural. Subtle.” Marie Walker growled.

Still, the question posed by their dealer would be answered when Ratna dropped an eight of diamonds and a five of clubs next: with the five of clubs, they could improve their hand score by exactly one point. Technically an improvement, but hardly the clear-cut gateway they would hope for.

“Alright, drop your wagers… now.”

The pair didn’t really need to discuss what to throw down: either one of the fours would do the job, and Teresa dropped the four of hearts simply because she already knew Marie had a club and she wanted to keep her knowledge of the other clubs in the deck at a minimum.

Marie Walker, unsurprisingly, abstained from wagering this round.

“And our fortunes reverse. Take your card, guys. Any bets?”

“No,” Teresa replied as she took the five of clubs.

“Then round three begins now.”

The pot was looking heavy with twelve chips now as both parties were forced to ante. They were only one round away from the hand being forced to end, but Ture was already feeling the pressure of the situation weighing on his shoulders. This wasn’t a time when he could afford to make any mistakes, and it seemed like every chip they put into the pot with a hand that wasn’t sure to win was another blunder in the making. But, as with most games like this… his biggest weapon was just his luck and his endurance.

All he could do now was hope the next card drop would be better.

“She dealt a five of spades and an ace of diamonds”

...that was not better.

Getting the ace would obviously give them the biggest score boost, but they could still get six points by swapping out their own four of clubs for the five: the question was if Marie could just use the ace to widen her presumed gap on them further.

“Drop the four. We’ll take whatever we can get.”

At the count of three, both parties dropped cards: Marie walker flipped up a ten of hearts, while they revealed their four of clubs: unsurprisingly, Marie took the ace, while they grabbed the five. Since she only got four more points (that they knew of) while they got six, they technically ‘won’ that round, and were sitting on forty-two points… Marie Walker had at least half of that, with the cards they knew she had.

She threw in another chip.

“A shockingly conservative bet.” Teresa noted aloud, “How very uncharacteristic of you.”

“Wow it’s almost like I’m more cautious since my life is on the fucking line.”

“You certainly did not encourage caution in your subordinates.”

“You can’t only be figuring out now I can be a little self-centered, can you? Now fucking attack or call or whatever.”

“Yes. ‘Or whatever’,” she repeated, glancing down at Ture before whispering “thoughts?”

Ture paused for a moment, remembering the cards that were in their hand… before he shook his head definitively, useless eyes narrowing.

“...we can’t expect to get a better hand than this. Attack.”

They knew, with that ace, Marie Walker could outbid them for anything. But losing any of their lower-valued cards would either rob them of their pair bonus or their flush bonus, which would almost certainly result in a net loss of cards for them. There was no better time to strike.

With Tina Turner’s “Golden Eye” accompanying them, Teresa dropped their wolf pack, snarling and hungry, onto the table: a five of clubs, a five of spades, a queen of spades, and a ten of spades: forty-two points in total, thanks to their pair and their mini-flush.

Marie Walker’s eyes flashed over their hand… before she snorted, a mix of relief and arrogance, as her own wolf pack was unleashed upon them: a jack of clubs, an ace of diamonds, a queen of hearts, and a jack of diamonds: through sheer brute force and a pair of Jacks, she had fifty-three points.

“The first round… goes to Marie.”

Only six of Ture’s chips were absorbed into Marie Walker’s pile, but the effect of the exchange was immediate: a dull but intense pain as chunks of his chest started to flake away, gorging through his body, and filling Marie’s own gaping hole. She exhaled with a momentary but intense relief, and shook her head a little bit, as if refreshing herself for the next round.

“Dying sucks. I can’t believe poor people do this all the time.”

A bottle of tequila was placed in front of her on a silver platter, as well as an ornate drinking glass. She ignored the glass, but started inhaling the drink itself, as if it could somehow replace the blood that her veins burned for. She didn’t stop to breathe until she was half done, and it was only because her body forced her to cough.

“Fuck. Deal. Deal, dammit.”

Four chips, total, were thrown into the middle of the table. Four cards went to each side of the table. Four cards were examined on both sides of the table. But only one side had to whisper what they had, under their nonexistent breath.

“A nine of spades, a two of hearts, a nine of diamonds, and an eight of hearts.”

“Pretty good. We can bet the two and attack this round if we wanted. Take back an early lead.”

“That may be advisable.”

“...this is nice.”

Ture didn’t know it, but Teresa looked at him with no shortage of surprise.

“Is it?”

“How come we never played together when I was working here?”

“You were an employee, Ture. You had obligations.”

“Can’t you take that stick out of your nonexistent ass just this once? It’s not like we’ll be seeing each other again after this.”

She smiled.

“I will take it under consideration.”

“And here comes the face-up cards. Read ‘em and weep.”

Ratna dropped a king of diamonds and a four of clubs. Another large split. Which put a damper on his original plan. Giving up the two for the four would mean a guaranteed two extra points — making their hand worth thirty-five points — but it would give Marie the king, which would be bad. They would get more points swapping their current nine for the king, but that all depended on if they could even get it.

“Ture. We must drop the two, as planned.”

“...what?”

“Marie Walker is in too much pain to hide her expression. And it’s taking her too long to agonize over what card to put down. She must need that King but not be in a position to take it decisively. In which case, she is likely to simply act to try to deny us the king. Dropping the two, we can only get more points. Dropping something higher puts us at too great a risk.”

“Stop talking!” Marie Walker slapped a card down. Ture nodded, and Teresa put down the two.

“And flip!”

At the same time that Ture and Teresa revealed their two of hearts, Marie Walker revealed her own king of hearts: she had, indeed, opted to try to deny them the king at the cost of getting a pair. They claimed their four. She claimed her king.

“Are you gonna-”

“No, obviously,” she growled, all but confirming she had a bad hand.

Two more chips were anted, two more cards were dealt: an ace of clubs and an eight of spades.

A win-win hand for them. There was nothing they could wager that wouldn’t net them a huge point lead. The ace would get them at least ten more points, if they managed to win it with their four, but even if they lost and got the eight, getting two pairs would boost their score by an impressive nine points: making the grand total forty-four points.

“But we can only attack if we both lose the bet and Marie is confident enough to attack.”

“Marie Walker put down her card quickly. She no doubt sees this as an opportunity to get rid of one of the lower cards for something better. She will likely lose the wager even if we put down the four.”

Attacking in Wolf Pack was tricky. You had to win the wager, yet your opponent had to be confident enough to bet something. Unlike in normal poker, a bet couldn’t be used as a simple intimidation tactic: you had no choice but to confront your opponent no matter what, so there was no incentive to wager unless you really think you can win. If Marie Walker’s hand was really as bad as it seemed, it was unlikely she would wager anything, and make it more likely that the next round she could improve her own hand… or force their own hand to get worse.

Still. No matter how you looked at it, trading a four for an eight was a good move. And it’s not as if she would know they had a pair already. Maybe they’d be surprised.

So they dropped their four of clubs.

“And a one and a two and a flip!”

As Teresa predicted, Marie had dropped a two. They revealed their four, and thus, won the round. Taking the eight would give them a good chunk of points and allow Marie Walker to have the ace, which might make her bold enough to attack… but she, unfortunately, wasn’t an idiot, and she would safely assume that if they weren’t taking the better card, they must be taking the worse card for a reason.

Plus, taking the ace would make them “safe” in the coming betting round, so… they grabbed it. And she took the eight.

“We’ll bet two more.”

Marie Walker contorted her face in thought, watching those two bloody chips fall into the pot with a mild clatter. There were two more rounds of betting to go, and all she knew was that they had an ace in their hand — the other three cards were a mystery. The two of them knew she had a king and an eight (at least twenty-one points), but could safely assume the other cards in her hand weren’t great either. The real question was if she felt she could make her hand better before that happened.

She dropped her cards on the table, sighing: an eight of spades, a seven of diamonds, a three of clubs, and the King of diamonds Thirty-one points. Much less than their forty-five.

A noticeable chunk of Ture’s chest started to mend. And Marie Walker moaned as her pain intensified once again.

The back and forth of life and death.

~*~

“Of course, the primary purpose of this strategy meeting is simply to waste Marie’s time.”

Both Tersa and Ture were in the bar, having made some excuse (over Marie’s loud and pained protests) that they needed a system to work on improving their coordination. The dealer had approved of it immediately because of course she would, and the two of them were conferring to the tune of “Another Way to Die”, by Alicia Keys & Jack White.

“The more pain she’s in, the quicker her temper, and the easier she will be to manipulate. You understand this, correct?”

“Yeah, I do…” Ture drew his words out…

“Good.”

“...I don’t understand why you’re carrying me, though.”

Teresa looked at him, cradled in her arms, bridal-style.

“Your legs do not work, Ture. This was the most efficient way to transport you.”

“Was it… the only way?”

“I suppose I could have carried you over the shoulder, if that would be more agreeable to your outdated masculine sensibilities.” Teresa cracked a smile. Not that he would know by sight, but he could hear the slight uptilt in her voice that indicated good humor.

“What would you know about gender norms? You barely even have one.”

“And yet you are blushing, so I must be feminine enough.”

He was, in fact, blushing. And the two of them stood motionless for a while, listening to the music, letting more time pass in each other’s company before Ture eventually, and carefully, put away the silence that had been building between them.

“It’s… good to see you again, Teresa. Or it was. Until, you know.”

“I understood what you were trying to say, Ture. The feeling is mutual.”

“Aren’t you mad at me, though?”

“Of course not. You have always served yourself first and foremost. I knew that before I grew fond of you. Why would I be mad at you for acting like yourself?”

“...wow that’s… a pretty wholesome way of saying you expected me to be a shit.”

“For what it is worth, Ture, if that is what you believe you will be happy to hear you have surprised me today.”

He shook his head, still smiling.

“Ha, well… I wouldn’t keep her waiting long, she’ll change the rules like Nikolay did.”

“Yes. Back to the table, then.”

The door opened up for them as Teresa carried him back into the room. Mr. Eight was visible again, working on Marie Walker to ease her pains, but his efforts were largely unappreciated by her, judging by the fact she was actively trying to avoid looking at him, let alone thanking him.

“Sit down. Let’s fucking get this out of the way.”

“You seem more composed now, Marie,” Teresa noted as she rested Ture on the seat next to hers, “Or at least more energetic.”

“Your magical eldritch abomination, on top of being the source of all my problems is also the temporary can of WD-40 my shot ass needs to keep going,” Marie noted with a humorless hiss, “And if we keep evening out in this dumb game we’re going to be here all night. So I’ve put away ‘pained’ Marie for ‘serious’ Marie. Let’s get this over with.”

“Maybe serious Marie should have come out sooner.”

“Maybe Ture can keep his opinions to himself?”

A beat.

“...actually, fuck it, I want to know something: why the hell are we doing this again?” She asked, her once white-hot rage having simmered down to a seething, desperate anger, chilling proportionately to the slowly draining color in her face, “we had a good thing going, Ture. I wasn’t doing you any harm. I kept my promises. And you never cared about morality before now. The hell are you thinking?”

As she spoke, the cards were dealt. Teresa and Ture had a three and a six of spades, an eight and king of hearts, and the cards they were bidding for were an eight of diamonds and a queen of spades. Four chips sat in the center of the table, waiting to be claimed as they deliberated their move.

“...I guess…” he pondered as Teresa put their three of spades down, “...I guess it was Iva. I didn’t come here planning to do this. But Iva reminded me that when I pick a side I’m generally picking the bad one. And I’m tired of feeling guilty.”

They both flipped their cards. Marie dropped a three as well, but hers was a club. Teresa and Ture won the round, and to avoid revealing the fact they had an eight in-hand, took the queen. It added up to the same net total of points in any case, so they were sitting on a cool thirty-nine points.

Teresa bet two chips, and Marie called and raised by another two: so Ture had Teresa immediately attack when she told him she sensed mild frustration in Marie’s face — and in doing so, Marie revealed an ace of hearts, a nine of diamonds, and two eights — a club and a diamond. All together, her points added up to forty-four: only narrowly winning out thanks to her pair.

“Guilty? Heh. Fuck me, I’m so sick of that line, that… word. You’re not the first employee to turn on me because of it. And let me feed you some of the bullshit I’ve fed them over the years.”

The cards were collected and reshuffled. Ratna was staying quiet.

“We’re not killing anyone, just stripping away some redundancy. We’re preventing a dimensional overload in the finite space of reality. We’re bringing back true purpose and choice to our daily lives, we’re ensuring that free will exists, we’re trying to signal to a more powerful being… year after year I’ve had to grapple with that fuck called guilt to get people to do their goddamn jobs. You know how much it sucks to hear I have to do it now, too? So damn close to the end?”

“Can’t say I do,” Ture argued as the cards were dealt, one at a time, “but it sounds like you spent a lot of your life ignoring all the people telling you this was a bad idea, and making up lies because you know your real motivation is bullshit.”

“Bullshit? Making up excuses was a courtesy,” Marie grew more venomous as her wounds slowly healed, and Ture’s slowly deepened, “I owe my employees exactly two things, a paycheck and insurance. Everything after that is just me being nice. I don’t owe anyone a friggen’ monologue. The universe is big, god’s a lie, and exactly no one who matters can judge me for what I do with my own fucking brilliance.”

They had a five of spades, a two and a nine of diamonds, and a ten of hearts. The first face-up cards on the table were a ten and a six of diamonds.

“Everyone can judge you!” Ture replied — his words lacking any bite, but still carrying heat as he realized, much to his surprise, that he actually cared about winning this argument, “If there’s no god then the universe is owned by everyone. You don’t get to flex your big brain, plant a flag on reality, and say you can do with it what you want. Just by existing we own a slice and deserve a say!”

They dropped the five of spades. Marie dropped a queen of hearts and took the ten of diamonds. The pair grabbed the leftover six, and called when Marie bet three more chips.

“Pff- owned? You sound like a child,” Marie laughed as they were both forced to ante another chip, “Ownership is nothing but a fancy word for respect, and I don’t know if you’ve figured this out, but neither this world nor any other has done a damn thing to deserve mine. And glass houses pal — if you gave a shit about who ‘owns’ what, you wouldn’t be walking around in someone else’s body.”

The next two cards were dealt. A five of diamonds and a ten of clubs. In theory, they wanted the five. In practice, they already knew she had a ten and didn’t want her to grab another. In any case, it would leave them with no extra points in the best case, or less in the worst: and they were running out of time to turn around what was honestly a mediocre hand.

“Ture,” Teresa whispered, “We could put down the ten, but I do not think we can win with-”

“-When did I ever say I was a role model? I’m not attacking you from a moral high ground, I’m attacking you as someone who rather likes reality and would rather you stop fucking with it. And I’m attacking you as someone who thinks the way you define if something has ‘value’ or ‘meaning’ utterly stupid. Infinite universes or just one, something ‘matters’ if you want it to. That’s it! That’s all there is to it! And everyone figured it out but you.”

There was a beat, and Ture looked to Teresa.

“Well? Put it down!”

Teresa paused, frowned, and dropped the ten of hearts. Surprisingly, Teresa abstained from betting any cards, so she automatically lost the round. They got a ten, but no change in hand value. They didn’t bet, and anted another chip as the third round began.

“Haha, wow! I wish I had that privilege,” Marie leaned forward, “I wish I was stupid enough to be able to believe that shit. But that’s the problem with this big ol’ brain of mine, for everything it can do, it can’t whittle down everything I know into something that can fit into that tiny skull of yours. I can explain it over and over again but-”

“-Holy shit you two, either kiss already or play the damn game!” Ratna interrupted, dealing a two and an eight of spades next.

“...”

“...ugh.”

The two cards on offer weren’t exactly appealing to Teresa or Ture. And apparently, Marie felt the same way, because when it came time to bet neither party put down cards.

So, they were forced to attack.

Teresa laid down their hand: a nine, a six, and a two of diamonds, and a ten of clubs. Only worth thirty-two points thanks to having three of the same suit.

Marie Walker dropped two tens, of diamonds and spades, a nine of clubs, and a eight of hearts. Shy of a straight, but still worth forty-two points. More than enough to win the round, and to cause the gash in Ture’s chest to deepen significantly. He hunched forward, his unfocused eyes still burning holes into Marie, who for the first time since she was shot managed to sit up straight, even if she was huffing in pain.

“Ah. Fuck, that’s better. I’d have hoped you’d do better for our final confrontation, Ture. As boss fights go you’re really letting me down.”

“That’s my line.”

“Oh, because I’m your actual boss. Well in deference to the wordplay I’ll wait till after this game to fire you.”

Four more chips into the pot. Teresa and Ture were down to less than half. Ture anxiously fingered the fourteen chips hanging between him and what little life he had left. Teresa stared on.

“Fuck, it hurts to breathe,” he muttered.

“That is unfortunate. Please conserve your breath, then. It would perhaps be better if I took over from here out anyway,” Teresa put a hand on his, squeezing, “If Marie Walker would not object, of course.”

“Why the hell not. Let’s settle two scores at once, eh?” Marie Walker smirked as the cards were dealt, “Heck, why not add Ratna to your team, too? Make it a threefer.”

“Don’t tempt me,” their dealer retorted.

Teresa flipped up her hand, not bothering to communicate it to Ture, who between his blindness, his crippled limbs, and the growing gash in his chest, was in no position to focus on the game. With a static expression, she gazed at her hand: a queen, ace, and king of spades, and a seven of clubs. Her starting hand had graced her with 51 points. A hand that was almost certain to win any attack.

Now, Teresa only needed to milk it for as many chips as possible.

The first two cards were dealt: an eight of clubs and a five of hearts. But it didn’t matter. Teresa was going to wager the seven of clubs just to make sure the game didn’t end on the off-chance Marie didn’t want either of the cards. That didn’t turn out to be a problem: at the count of three, Marie dropped a card as well: the five of spades.

Teresa took the eight. Marie took the five. She was sitting on 52 points now.

“I shall bet two chips.”

“I’ll raise by two more.”

The pot grew to twelve chips. Neither of them attacked. Teresa and Ture were sitting on eight chips in total now. Dangerously close to ending the game entirely. Teresa made a note of this urgent lack of chips silently, and threw another chip into the pot to pay for the next round. Marie did the same.

“We’re getting pretty close to the climax, huh?”

Teresa didn’t reply.

“Heh. In spite of everything I can’t help but still like you.”

“I wish the feeling was mutual.”

Ratna dealt the next two cards: a queen of hearts and a seven of spades. With that seven, Teresa would have four spades, increasing her overall score by nine points: giving her the nearly unbeatable score of 61. She didn’t so much as crack a smile at the thought.

They each dropped a card. Teresa had put down her eight of clubs. Marie, a king of clubs.

Marie must have a flush too, Teresa reasoned, to give up such a powerful card: if she had swapped her five of hearts for that queen she would have gotten seven more points: the only reason Teresa could assume she wouldn’t do that is if she wanted to keep the hearts.

So they both had flushes. But Teresa also knew Marie’s flush had a five in it. Teresa was more than willing to bet her flush was worth more.

And more than willing to bet Marie thought the exact same thing about her own hand.

“I’ll bet three more.”

Teresa dropped the chips into the pot. There were only four chips on her side of the table now. There was a lull in the air as the radio breathed between songs. Marie Walker paused.

It was the end of the second round. They had two more chances to draw, if they wanted them. In theory, either of them could still improve their hand: Marie had at least one low-value heart card she could replace with something stronger. Teresa’s seven of spades could stand to be replaced, and if she was lucky enough to get a jack of spades, she’d get a straight, which would net her an additional 24 whopping points: giving her a hand that could only be defeated by this game’s equivalent to the royal flush, an Alpha pack.

But Marie plotted. If she attacked and lost now, she’d still have a noticeable lead on them. If she waited it out, she clearly thought the possibility existed of finishing them off this round.

Her eyes darted between her chips, and the deck of slightly-worn cards in front of Ratna. Her breathing was rasped, but calm. Moreso than Ture, whose blindness and pain were acting in conjunction to flll him with a growing sense of dread. The unbearable silence at the table only agitated his anxieties. Teresa put her hand on his again.

“...heh,” Marie chuckled, dropping her cards face-up on the table, “I can’t believe people do this for fun. This is the most stressed I’ve been in my life.”

Marie’s hand was, for lack of a better word, phenomenal. A five, a queen, a king, and a nine, all of hearts. All together, it was worth 54 points. And Teresa could plainly see why she hesitated: if she could replace that five with a ten in the next two rounds, she could have gotten the elusive straight-flush, which would have actually won the round.

But she didn’t.

Teresa dropped her hand: the queen, king, ace, and seven of spades. Still worth 61 points.

“Aaand Teresa wins by the slim margin of seven points. A narrow lead, but like lyin’ bitches say, it ain’t the size that counts.”

“If you had bet less I might have played through,” Marie had the audacity to offer advice, twirling her pink hair with pink fingernails, “but there was no other explanation for why you would bet three for ‘winning’ a seven of spades.”

Teresa didn’t reply.She merely nodded curtly and appreciatively at Ratna when she pushed her winnings to her side of the table, easing Ture’s suffering significantly and bringing a greater share of the pain back into Marie’s bosom. She flinched, coughing as the wound grew deeper once again.

“How do you feel, Ture?”

“That was too fucking close.”

“If it was not close, we would not have gotten so many chips back.”

“...ugh.”

They were back. The jaws of defeat were still dangerously pinched into their throats, threatening to puncture the skin, but the grip loosened, and they could both breathe slightly easier.

“Have you calmed down enough to play again, Ture?”

“Sure, but feel free to veto me.”

“As you wish.”

The next hand was dealt. Two chips were submitted on each side.

Teresa and Ture got a ten and queen of clubs, and an eight and four of hearts. Only 34 points, but it had potential to get a lot better, with the right cards. Marie appeared a bit irritated. But then, losing that last hand must have been more frustrating than her cocked smile dared betray.

She caught Teresa staring. She smiled.

Ratna dealt a jack of hearts and a king of diamonds for them to bet on.

The move here was obvious: trading the four for the jack would net them the most immediate points, increasing their total points by seven, and put them in a position to get a straight, if a nine or another king was drawn. Still, Teresa conferred with Ture, and when she had his tacit approval, she nodded to Ratna, who started the countdown.

They dropped their four of hearts. Marie dropped a jack of clubs, and grabbed the king of diamonds. They had gotten their jack, and from what little they could tell, won the trade, since Marie had only gotten two extra points for certain.

Marie took a breath that was supposed to be deep, but was painfully shallow. There was no good way to get shot in the chest, it seemed.

“...say, Ture.”

“What?”

“...what would it take to get you to give up?”

“You mean to die?”

“Yeah. What would I have to promise you to make you do that.”

Teresa noticed the tips of her opponent’s fingers were quivering. Maybe it was from the pain. Maybe it was because she knew that she was technically bleeding out in the waking world. Or maybe it was because her whole dream was still a few bad hands away from being crushed underfoot. A moment of unwilling empathy, perhaps, for the billions of people she had so often sneered at, whose lives were likewise terribly vulnerable to the winds of ill fortune.

“I dunno. I’d like to not die, is the thing. Seemed like I didn’t get to do a whole lot of living before this.”

“Yeah, well, that’s your fucking fault.” ”

He thought.

“I’m not sure there’s anything.” He shook his head, “You could promise to stop your plan here, but you care about it more than your life. Plus you lie all the time. I-”

“You’re thinking too small,” she huffed, “think of me like your personal fucking genie, alright? All the brain power I’ve dedicated to this mission won’t have a direction when this is all over. I’ll be freed up to do anything with it and I won’t especially care what it is. Think about it. The woman with the smarts to destroy over a trillion-trillion universes, at your fucking command. I’ll even bring you back as a freebie. You’ve got that nomad soul, die now or in a few hours I can still put you in a body.”

“Wow,” he half-laughed, a smile genuine enough to catch Teresa’s eye growing on his face, “It was only a few minutes ago you said I was dead for sure. What happened to all that pride?”

“I stopped caring! This is stressful and… and dumb!” She shouted, flinching at the pain, “Fuck, if this was your fucked-up tactic to get more shit out of me, fine! You win! I’m yours to command, just… give up! I’m begging you here, Ture!”

Ture, in response, shrugged.

“I’ll think about it. Are you going to deal or not?”

Marie Walker hissed in growing frustration. Teresa, whose static expression leaned towards concern, remained there as they called Marie’s two-chip bet. They didn’t raise, and soon had to throw an extra chip in as the ante for the following round.

Calling, however, turned out to be a mistake.

Because at the top of the second round, Ratna revealed a two of diamonds, and a two of spades.

There was no way either of them would bet to take one of those cards.

And if they both refused to wager, they would attack automatically.

It was possible to win a hand of Wolf Pack with 41 points, but both Ture and Teresa were certain this wasn’t going to be one of those hands: and when they dropped their ten of clubs, queen of clubs, eight of hearts, and jack of hearts, they were countered with Marie’s eight, queen, nine, and king, all of diamonds.

41 points vs 57 points. Not even close.

And Marie had another convincing lead.

“A View to A Kill”, by Duran Duran, unwelcomely hammered on the radio as Ratna started collecting the cards, both parties staring at each other. Marie, with increasing desperation as the clock achingly counted down in her world, and Ture and Teresa as it seemed increasingly unlikely they could actually put an end to Marie’s genocidal plans.

Not even Ratna smiled, although that might be because “A View to Kill” by Duran Duran was playing, and it’s a very bad song.

“Why the frown?” Teresa asked as the cards were dealt, “is this not exactly what you wanted?”

“This isn’t even remotely close to what I wanted. I don’t even like gambling.”

“But you wanted things to matter, by your own twisted logic,” Ture followed up, “And by that logic this is the first thing you’ve ever done in your life that matters. This stress, knowing you only have one shot to make this work, one chance… this is exactly what you were looking for.”

Teresa picked up their cards. Two aces, of clubs and spades, a ten of hearts, and a six of clubs. Forty-nine points in their first draw. The perfect opportunity to even out the score and start turning things around. Especially since Marie seemed to stare at her hand for slightly longer than a glance.

It wasn’t the mental math that slowed her down. It was deciding what to do with the cards.

“You know, I’d really like to say you’re wrong out of raw, unadulterated spite,” Marie snorted, “but fuck me if you’re right. This is what I wanted, I should really be having more fun with it. All my life, every little step I took, led up to this moment where things finally matter. I guess… that’s refreshing. It’d be a lot more refreshing if it wasn’t playing cards with people who I hate.”

“You’re wrong, you know,” Ture said as Ratna dealt the first two cards to bid on — a five of spades and an ace of hearts. Obviously, Ture and Teresa wanted the ace, but they paused for a moment to consider if it was worth sacrificing one of their aces to ensure Marie didn’t get it, or to risk losing it by betting the lower-value ten for the eternally enticing three of a kind, “I think everything you’ve done before this has mattered. Even by your own stupid logic.”

“Yeah, well, we already established you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Fuck off, I do. You think life is meaningless because there are trillions of alternate realities, and between all of them I do everything, so the decision to do or not do something is meaningless, right?”

“More or less,”

They dropped their cards: in the end, Ture and Teresa had decided to risk playing the ten of hearts — at least if they were stuck with the five they’d have three spades and the score would even out. Fortunately, their gamble paid off — Marie Walker had only dropped a two of hearts, so they were able to claim the ace and she was stuck with the five of spades. With three aces and a six of clubs, Ture and Teresa had a whooping 68 points in their hand. As before, now their job was to milk as many chips as they could from Marie.

They wagered three chips. Marie, a bit surprisingly, called.

“I think that’s great,” Ture continued as the next two cards were laid out to bet on, two sixes, of diamonds and spades, “It means if I make someone smile, even if there are versions of me that don’t, there are still trillions, quadrillions of versions of me that do. That’s trillions, quadrillions of smiles. Just because there’s a quadrillion sunny days doesn’t mean the one I’m enjoying is less special. Just because it’s raining in another quadrillion universes doesn’t mean my sun isn’t shining now.”

He paused for a reply, but it was not Marie who spoke next.

“I have worked at the Silver Wheel for a long time, Marie Walker. I have not kept track of the dates nor do I intend to estimate the duration. I have had the privilege of hosting countless individuals, and working alongside dozens more as transitional employees. I cannot honestly say I remember each one well, nor that I have always had the wisdom to try to remedy that. But I can assure you that if you have undertaken this whole mission out of a love of humanity and a desire to see their lives given purpose, you need not have. Humanity does not need purpose as there is no goal to strive for. Humanity does not need meaning because there is nothing to define. I have learned that humanity is a self-contained miracle. A wonder that exists to awe itself. Just as the stars do not need a reason to be beautiful, and there is no ‘purpose’ behind the bright, blue sky, humanity does not need a reason or purpose to be worth marveling at.”

Marie Walker was silent, her fingers gently stroking the faces of the chips in front of her. She tapped on their edges a few times, looking to one of the well-lit corners of the Silver Wheel.

“...Ratna, are we going to play?” She finally asked.

“Oh. Uh, kinda thought you were gonna talk. It’s like your thing.”

“Pink is my thing. Talking is my antidote for a word sick with stupid.”

They threw down their wagers: Teresa and Ture had bet their six of clubs, as they had nothing to lose in the effort, and Marie Walker put down a queen of clubs, surprisingly enough. She took the six of diamonds… which probably meant she had some kind of straight. But a straight would only be worth twenty points — it couldn’t hope to fill the gap that separated them. Still, Marie bet two, and Teresa and Ture called. Tempted to raise, but they ultimately decided not to scare her off.

Round three began. There were sixteen chips in the pot once they made their antes. Ture and Teresa were sitting on eight chips, but a hand worth 68 points.

A film of sweat was starting to appear on Marie’s brow. Her paling fingers trembled, both cold and stressed.

At the center of the table, Ratna dealt a three of diamonds and a five of hearts. There was no way to improve their score with that hand, but they didn’t want to pass to end the round prematurely — not when they could hopefully milk more chips out of Marie.

“...you know,” Marie started, fingers stopping cold over her brilliantly silver chips, “the best day of my life was when I first pierced the veil between dimensions. Not because it was a scientific first or anything, not because it was the culmination of all my hard work… hell, a lot of dimensions were doing the dimension-hopping thing before I did, I knew that before I even started. But the reason I liked it was because… fuck, I could finally meet myself. Meet someone else who ‘got it’. I hoped that maybe I wouldn’t be so damn alone if I could just surround myself with myself. Other bad bitches who ‘got it’. The size, the scope, the hopelessness of doing anything. Because no one else does. No matter how many times I say it or explain it it just doesn’t punch through their thick, stupid skulls.”

As they expected, Marie didn’t wager. They put down their six of spades, though, and in turn got the five of hearts. They were sitting on 67 points now, and Ture made the decision to push their luck: Marie seemed like she was waiting for something. They wagered five. She called.

“Are you trying to give me second thoughts? Well, it’s working,” she said, trembling as she looked down at her cards, and the meager three chips on their side of the table “I’ve second-guessed myself every step of the way for a long time. But let me tell you what I told myself so many times throughout my journey here: even if the multiverse didn’t disqualify the meaning of my actions, giving up before I’m finished definitely would. Everything that’s led up to this has to have been for something more than a revelation and an apology letter. It would be an insult to the people I’ve hurt and killed to get this far.

“Ture, Teresa, I am going to win this game.” She snarled, “And I will finish what I started.”

The fourth round began. They anted their chips, and Ratna dealt a jack of diamonds and a four of spades.

Either card would work for them. If Marie Walker did have a straight, which seemed incredibly likely, then the highest value card in her hand could only be eight, and even if she had a straight-flush, the most points she could possibly have was seventy-one — technically she could have won with that last round, but clearly she had designs to empty their side of the table to make it a decisive blow… a design that backfired with that jack. Once they grabbed that jack, they’d have 83 points. And there was no way Marie could beat them.

“Alright, drop your cards in three, two… and now.”

Ture and Teresa dropped their five of hearts

Marie dropped a six of diamonds.

And she took the four of spades.

They got their Jack of diamonds. They had a hand worth a daunting 83 points, and yet, the memory of the start of the round, when Marie Walker had grabbed the five of spades, flashed like a big, throbbing red light in their heads. There was only one reason Marie Walker would have stuck this out for so long: she had been waiting for one specific card since the very first round, and lady luck had seen it fit to deliver it to her.

Marie Walker pushed what remained of her chips, all thirty-one, into the center of the table. Dwarfing Teresa and Ture’s meager two chips, a cruel, victorious grin raked across her ghost-like face, underlined by the smudged pink lipstick that still clung to her.

Teresa put a hand on Ture’s, and squeezed.

Ture sighed, and then snorted, and then placed his hand on the last, worthless chips he had left. They couldn’t play with only two chips. They could ante for the next round, but that was it: Marie Walker would have everything she needed to simply bulldoze them at that point.

“...we tried, Teresa.”

“We did, Ture.”

“Thanks for being my eyes.”

“Thank you for… everything.”

He pushed the two chips into the pot.

“Bring it, you pink cunt.”

Their packs were revealed. Ture and Teresa had three aces, of hearts, of clubs, and of spades, and a jack of diamonds to even out their score to 83 points.

Marie Walker had a two, three, four, and five of spades. The Alpha Pack. Worth 149 points, put together. It wasn’t even a contest.

Marie Walker had won.

The hole in her chest vanished, filling miraculously with flesh and blood, while a hole bored into Ture, merciless and brutal, blood exploding from his chest as he gasped, grasping at it as agony wracked his body. Teresa held him up and pressed his face to her cold, unmoving chest, while Marie Walker stood up and adjusted her clothes.

“Haha, oh my god. Oh my god. Holy shit, Ture, you fucking idiot. You… asshole! Putting me through all that! Just to prove a point or… to impress Teresa? Fuck I don’t get it dude, but you know what? Doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. You can go to the woods and eat bear shit, because I am so done with these fucking games. Fuck! Asshole. Motherfucker.”

“Northwest Passage”, by Stan Rogers, was playing on the radio.

“I need to make sure I’m not bleeding out in my world,” Marie calmed down a little bit, brushing down her clothes, “but I’ll be right back, sweeties, so please don’t die before I do. I’d really like to throw some booze into that wound. Rub it in. Make you scream. I think I’ve earned that little treat, right? Haha, asshole.”

She briskly walked past them, her footfalls silent and empty, the sound of Stan Roger’s most iconic, prolific song marking her passage to a brave new world. Mr. Eight had taken their place next to Ture, attempting to alleviate his pain the way they had for Marie Walker, but she stopped him with a flick of her wrist.

“Don’t wear yourself out on him, dear, I’ll need you at full strength for what comes next.”

The door swung open as Marie Walker passed through it, but before it could close again, Ratna interjected.

“I wouldn’t be in such a hurry to leave, ya lumpy bitch.”

Marie paused, turning around to peer into the gambling hall. Teresa continued to hold Ture to her chest, wordlessly rocking him back and forth as he gasped, blind and crippled and wracked in a familiar pain, the last of his borrowed life slipping through his fingers. Mr. Eight had consumed a corner of the place to themself, a twitching, flexing, anxious entity that didn’t dare vanish yet didn’t want to stand in the light. And Ratna, her face half-shadowed by the unblinking light above her, her lips pulled back in a wolfish grin, staring back with eyes lit up in a bloody lust.

“...what’s got you in such a good mood?” Marie asked cautiously, cracking open the door, “I knew you didn’t get along with Ture but I was pretty sure you weren’t rooting for me.”

“Gosh, I wonder,” Ratna hummed, leaning forward, “Do you remember the rules of the Silver Wheel?”

“...I… yes. Yes I do. No cheating. You lose if you quit. You can’t gamble…”

She paused, face scrunched in thought.

“...you can’t gamble for time,” Ratna finished her thought, “No years. No months. No seconds of your life. You’re stuck with the time you get.”

Marie Walker slammed the door open.

“What are you saying?!”

“Exactly what it sounds like,” Ratna replied, “You may have gotten rid of that hole, but the Silver Wheel doesn’t operate the way you want. You were dead the moment you got shot in the chest — your time has been spent. You’re not getting it back.”

She laughed. A loud, yippish, gleeful laugh, one that made Marie Walker recoil.

“All you’ve done is give yourself a pretty corpse.”

Marie turned to stare at the back of Teresa’s head. She felt cold staring at it, but it wasn’t the familiar cold that seeped from Teresa’s every pore, that prohibitive but comfortable chill that Marie had always silently envied. The cold she felt now was the most common cold there ever was, a cold shared by billions of humans throughout all of history. A cold that briefly unifies every soul through every corner of history and possibility.

“Teresa… is that true?”

Teresa didn’t answer. Her head remained craned over Ture, who was straining to say something, anything, so his last words could be more inspiring than “Bring it, cunt”.

“Teresa I order you to answer me!”

Teresa slowly turned to face Marie. There was no joy or victory in her face, but there was still the faintest ghost of a smile pulled up on her dead face.

“Yes, Miss Walker. It is true. As we speak, the last of your life is dripping from your living body. Soon you will vanish. Your ambitions will be unfulfilled, and your ‘soul’ will go to a very dark place.”

She turned back to Ture, squeezing his hand as she rocked his body gently against hers. “For what little it is worth, Miss Walker, your life will still have had a tremendous impact on the universe.”

Marie grabbed the first bottle she could find behind the bar. A thick, heavy bottle of champagne. Something she had set aside for herself for when she had finished her work. She didn’t know anything about it, just that it had a pink label and that was good enough for her.

She raised it high and smashed it into the back of Teresa’s skull. With a dull crack, it caved, but Teresa didn’t react.

“You have changed the world you lived in for the worse.”

Marie hammered into Teresa’s skull again. One of her eyes popped out, falling on Ture’s bleeding chest, as porcelain chunks started hanging off her destroyed scalp.

“You’ve gotten countless people across every reality mercilessly killed.”

Marie screamed, slamming the bottle for a third time. It exploded, sending broken glass across the floor of the Silver Wheel, and doused herself, Ture, and Teresa in the frothing alcohol. More of Teresa’s face was demolished, leaving only a pair of painted cheeks and a pair of moving lips.

“And you’ve robbed me of two dear friends.”

“Shut up shut up shut up!”

Marie smashed what was left of the bottle against what was left of Teresa’s head. Glass and porcelain went flying, leaving Teresa with nothing but an empty void bleeding from her neck, and Marie with hands poxed with broken glass and her own blood.

She was panting. She was shivering.

Teresa remained seated, cradling Ture’s motionless face in one palm, while the other gently clasped his cold, empty hand.

“Fuck this place,” Marie hissed, staggering backwards, clumsy hand groping at her hip until she pulled out the silver key, the representation of her ownership of the Silver Wheel, “fuck you, Ratna, and double-fuck you, Mr. Eight, and triple-fuck you, Teresa, and the biggest fuck you in the goddamn multiverse for… that asshat Oberman.”

Ratna said nothing. She only watched, amused and delighted, as Marie staggered out to the bar, Stan Rogers urging her to bravely explore the well-traveled path that every human before her has ventured, and stood before the black void that hung ever-present right beyond the walls of the Silver Wheel.

“So, I’m going to a dark place, huh?” She muttered, chucking the key into the void ahead of her, watching it vanish into the darkness below her.

And she snorted.

“...bring it on, cunt.”