I see the swarm cloud in front of the reflected smog. I shouldn't be able to, but there are tricks to it. It's like starlight, I assume. Glittering dust churning in a nonexistent wind, amorphous and blanketing. It's thick tonight as it gazes down upon us all. It knows what's in my pockets. It knows my thoughts, It knows what I'm planning, but since it is not an action, it can't do anything other than watch. It even knows what messages are being beamed right into my head. Lenny's still a bit salty that I'm not helping with his Classical Gas routine. Novak Condos is issuing a notice that my rent is past due, and will be charging an appropriate late fee. The swarm knows all. Then it gets bored and swims along to richer waters. Shame it's not a scavenger. I push it from my thoughts and go to work
"You all know the game," I say with my best bit of amateur theater, "You've seen it in movies. You've seen it in games. You already know the rules. Just pick the red card. It's totally not hard."
Decent crowd this evening. The Hornets v. Shadows game tomorrow night has pulled in a couple of bored die-hards who took a long weekend. The Friday night slackers who clocked out early are drunk enough to lose a bit of their reason. And the tourists who want to see the technological marvels of the city make up the bulk. Might not have the deepest pockets, but I have a good crop ahead of me.
The neon lights are on. They never turn off. I've roosted under a swirling logo for a pharmacy but out of view of the main window. The proprietor would probably be apathetic to my presence, but the controller corporation has a very specific tolerance level for con-artistry. But the higher powers do not know that. They cannot know that. The ever-present swarm, the corporations' little bugs, are off flitting in other parts of the city, buzzing against other neon signs, spilling other secrets, harvesting other bits of data to collect and categorize. I make another call out to the milling crowd and snag a few more in my net.
And I have a brave face front and center, eyes alight with opportunity and what looks like a stock ticker beamed straight to his cortex. Something goes up, something goes down, but it's all in the pursuit of a higher and higher number. And I am just one more avenue to that end.
The first hand is not honest, but it is helpful. The first show is the proper mix, one red, two black. The second is as well. Trickery comes in to play with the shuffle. Two black disappear and two red take their place. He doesn't notice it behind the mountain range of his positions. None of the others do as well. We all come to a stop and just wait for him to pick and choose.
"10 on right," he says as he adjusts that thin noose of a necktie.
"Are you sure," I ask because I have to be a bit of a bastard about this. It doesn't work if they love me. They all want to pay to shut me up. That's where the real money is. He nods and I see a dancing number go up and up and up.
I flip the cards and the world works as it should. He gets a red card and a fun little bump to his walking around money.
"Would you like to go again," I prompt. And the fish is off the hook with a shake of his head and a smug smirk. He might be the smartest man in the city right now, even smarter than me. But I gesture to the crowd and we get another on the line.
I play this one completely honest. I know it's the left, but the woman in the tight dress picks middle. I pick up the difference and I am slightly richer. She wants to play again and she can't seem to find the one thing she needs. It was in my sleeve. Shame she picked one of the black cards. I'm slightly richer now. She's slightly poorer, but judging by the gold embedded into her pores and the underlying circuitry, she deserves it.
It's amazing really. All those steps along the path to a transhumanism apotheosis and I can still just fool the bloody meat completely with a twitch and a wave. I'm sure that a few of the onboard computers even pick it up. Shame that the wetware can't interpret the system notices. I take another hand and I feel the crowd turn against me, just as they should.
I get another brave soul and I can feel the reason slowly ticking away in his nerves. This is the hand. If he loses this hand, then the game is actually rigged and no one should play. He'll expose the fraud and be lauded as a hero. I do like his jumper, that thick weave and heavy buttons a quarter a way down. He puts a full five hundred on the table, hanging on a knife's edge in the air between us. I can match that without even dipping into the reserve.
I force the hand and give him a black card. A look of fury crosses his face, but it is not quick enough.
"Fucking bullshit," says a voice from the back of the crowd. A few others even join in, voicing their own frustrations with even odds.
The crowd parts as another man cuts through. He's cute when he's mad. It doesn't help that he's shorter than me, a few pastel streaks cutting through his blond hair. His hoody's oversized and covered in paint stains. That's a bit of a mistake, showing his colors a bit too much, but I don't think anyone catches on. He's too much of a hero right now to have any such affiliations. I throw up my hands and give an apologetic smile. I put distance between myself and the table as he stalks right up to me, glaring and glowering and trying to be intimidating.
"It's luck," I say, "One in three. Those aren't the best odds, I admit, but not impossible."
"Oh, shut the fuck up," he says. He's put on his favorite makeup today, heavier on one eye with a sharp drop like a sad clown. He's also wearing my favorite lipstick, but that is truly chance.
I gesture to the table. We all hold our collective breath like a crystal as he reaches. The first he turns over is black. The rage spikes and I get another sharp blade to the heart as he turns against me one more time. I mask the rising panic as he reaches for the last one.
It's red. He turns it over and there's a red queen gazing up at the bewildered faces, the neon lights, the flitting drones, the invisible beams of raw data telling everyone everything all the time. The odds weren't in the man's favor, that's all. I can't control everything.
But the instigator keeps glaring at me like I did something wrong. I haven't tampered with the cards since I stepped away from the table. He batters the crowd aside again, taking their frustration with him. And my gaze on his ass as he sways it back and forth for me. Maybe. I think it's actually a ploy to get me to look at his hand with three fingers extended. That's enough time to get a good little payday out of this. We'll be long gone by the time the swarm decides to collect again.
---
I look at my ghost account and like how full it is. I probably could fit some dessert in there if I cram it in, but I don't want a tummy ache. The cards are in my pocket, my jacket's pulled up tight and I am happy as a clam as I just wait on a new street corner on the other side of the tracks.
It's a cool night for once. It's hard to say where one heat wave ends and another begins most of the time, but a few get a shock of cold before winter rolls in. Then we get one true snow fall before another blast of the furnace melts it all away. I hate it. I want more snow. Then we can all wear huge coats with pockets, easy for picking. But I make do, even with the eyes always on me.
Every official statement says you can't actually see the swarm. It's trillions and trillions of microscopic machines, cleaning our air, washing our windows, giving us the necessary tips and tricks to make life seamless as we navigate towards our synergistic future, hand in hand, meat and metal infused with one another. I believe that they believe it. But I can still taste it, feel the little bits of metal scrape against my teeth, a few of the more unfortunate ones crunch under my bite like a mouthful of sand. My tongue can't pick up their taste. My fingers can't feel their needling probes. But I make do. I snap my gum and catch a few more of the thinning herd. My secrets stay with me. There is no suspicious transaction. There is no thought of illicit gambling. A bunch of strangers just decided to give me random increments of money over the course of about 3 hours.
I'm sitting under a new piece of graffiti, still sticky and wet. It's a head, carved open at the back, with puppet strings trailing off to a drone. It's not subtle. It's not supposed to be subtle. There's a good use of color and composition, the pink of the brain meeting a cool blue metal of wires and plates. I don't like it. But it is prominent enough to work as a landmark and it does that work very well.
I see my partner round a corner and brighten up. He's carrying a plastic bag as well, no doubt an attempt to win my affections with sweet treats. I kick my feet against my perch like a giddy little kid and he has to try and play it cool. He can't hide his smile. He also can't hide much in those painted on jeans, but that's also a plus.
"And there's tonight's star, ladies and gentlemen, the lovely, the talented, Diss," I say, projecting to the back row. Nobody claps. There's only a white cat perched on a balcony a good 5 stories up. We get a flick of the tail before it decides that we are not important.
"Oh, shut up, Sal," he sighs as he starts rummaging in the bag, "and you don't have to call me that here. Danny works just fine. I don't call you Shrapnel when we're alone."
"You don't and I forgive you. But you were still fantastic. You were really struggling with the card trick."
"My teacher sucks ass. As soon as I could figure it out on my own, then it started to click. I got you the orange one."
"And you even know my favorite. And the voodoo chips?"
"And the voodoo chips."
He tosses me a tall aluminum can and a crinkly bag of cellophane, both just as obnoxious as the mural behind me. Danny joins me on my little brick perch, his own can of strawberry sludge and wasabi peas as his own treat. He keeps glancing back up behind us.
"That's a really good piece," he says, "I think that's one of Jordan's. She said she put something new up around here."
"I'm glad you like it," I say, through my first sip, "I'm getting better at finding your guys' work. Still haven't found one of yours."
"I don't put mine up in easy to find spots. That's my point. It can be anywhere. There are a lot of barren corners of this city, and people should take the time to actually seek them out. If I have to be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow then I can be that. You just wanted to hear me monologue about art theory again didn't you?"
