Balot slowly raised her head and sensed the dealer’s presence. She wondered if drawing her senses into his fingers alone had been a part of his strategy.
Quietly, she said,
–Stay.
Ashley casually flipped over his hole card.
A 4. With 8, that made twelve. He drew an ace and then a 7.
“A loss—”
–And a push.
Balot completed his sentence. There wasn’t a meaning behind it—she just wanted to see how the dealer would react. She wanted to sense his movements, his mood, everything. Ashley shrugged.
“Precisely.”
Balot grinned at him. At first, he looked taken aback, then he returned the smile. At the same time, he swept up the Doctor’s chips.
The cards came. Ashley’s upcard, a jack.
The Doctor’s cards were 5-9. He drew an 8 and bust.
Balot kept her senses upon Ashley and transmitted everything to Oeufcoque.
On her left arm, along with the running tally of the true count, the tactical instructions, and other data, was a hastily compiled report of information on the dealer.
Balot’s cards were 8-J. Somewhere, she felt Ashley’s pulse.
–Hit.
Ashley responded without delay. His movements casual—truly, those were the iron wall.
Balot had drawn a 2.
–Stay.
Following Balot’s choice, Ashley revealed his hole card.
Two jacks—twenty.
Something was matching up, she sensed. In the following hand, the Doctor didn’t bust, but his J-8 was defeated before Ashley’s and Balot’s twenties.
“It seems like we’re starting to see whom luck favors,” Ashley said, sweeping up the cards. “Those who take even the slightest wrong turn will find themselves immediately parted from luck. She’s nearly impossible to latch on to. No one can ridicule those whom luck has deserted, for it is just that easy for her to leave you.”
He spoke as if the Doctor’s loss had been his plan all along. It certainly wasn’t out of the realm of possibility for that man.
But the Doctor knew his role. He knew what he had to do.
He lowered his bets and determinedly went bust.
Balot bet the same amount again and again. The game wouldn’t end.
Ashley turned an upcard. It was a 6. The Doctor received a 3 and a 9.
“I’ll double down,” stated the Doctor, stacking his chips.
Ashley, as if faced with no other choice but to pull the trigger, handed him his card. A queen. A bust. A cruel defeat, but the Doctor didn’t seem to be concerned with what he had lost.
Balot, with a 4-7, drew a 6. Seventeen. Ashley revealed his hole card: 5-6. He drew an ace, then a 5. Push.
03
The Doctor slowly rose. He patted Balot on the shoulder and said, “I’ll leave my luck to her.”
He offered her his chips, then turned to Ashley and said, laughing, “And I’ll leave my bad luck with you.”
His actions were the turning point in the game. The order of the cards attested to it.
He retired from the game as soon as he had seen the balance in the cards—if he hadn’t hit, Balot would have won. And if he hadn’t even been there, Ashley would have had twenty-one.
“From this point forward,” stated the Doctor, “I’m just an innocent bystander. Well, a bystander who has an effect on the game. A far-off phenomenon causing a massive local effect—a butterfly effect. And my defeat is the butterfly.”
“The butterfly?”
“It’s a metaphor for a theory of causality. A small occurrence, a butterfly flying on the eastern coast, can trigger far bigger events—a typhoon on the western shores. And I think we are about to prove the many-body problem far more clearly than it has ever been shown before.”
Ashley shrugged his shoulders with apparent disinterest.
“You’re always welcome to join back in.”
The Doctor nodded and patted Balot’s shoulder once more. His message clear: You don’t have a shield anymore. Balot looked him in the eyes and asked her most pressing question.
–Do you think I can win?
“Maybe not right away. But there’s one on his side and two on ours. With our combined luck, you’ll win for sure.”
Balot nodded. By two, he had meant Balot and Oeufcoque.
The Doctor pushed in his chair and stood behind Balot, next to Bell Wing, ready to watch over the game.
Ashley and Balot were now sitting face to face.
The crowd around the table continued to grow in size, one by one, drawn in by the spectacle.
Bell Wing had nothing left to say.
The cards were dealt. Ashley’s upcard, 6. Balot had Q-4.
So this is how the game has changed, she thought. Up until then, the cards had presented easy choices, but now that the Doctor had left his seat, she found herself faced with a tough decision.
But Oeufcoque’s tactical analysis was steadfast. All she had to do was continue onward.
She hit. A card came—2. Sixteen. Not enough.
She hit again. Ashley’s hand flashed, revealing the next card: 4.
–Stay.
Ashley kept on moving.
His hole card was a 3. He drew another and scored an ace. Twenty.
“We have a push.”
Balot steadied her breath, quietly awaiting the next hand.
Ashley’s upcard came, an ace.
Balot had an 8-3. She almost pressed on with a double down, but at the last moment, she hesitated.
Oeufcoque’s tactical analysis displayed double down, but the girl worried about not being able to draw any more cards. If only she didn’t have to draw any more. If she didn’t have to make that choice, maybe she could have found some peace of mind.
Balot focused on her cards as if she were judging the entire world in a courthouse.
Then, with the sense that she had overcome her paralyzing fear, she declared the hit. A 5 card came. She felt she had made the right decision.
She hit again. The card that came was a 5. Twenty-one.
Holding in a sudden wave of relief, she announced her stay.
Ashley turned over his hole card. A jack. Blackjack.
Balot groaned. The noise was soft, yet her vocal chords were taut, as if she had screamed.
Ashley announced the tie and within moments had begun the next round.
His upcard, a jack. Balot had a queen and a king.
The tactics displayed on her right arm instantly calculated her winning percentage along with her losing percentage and the amount her chips would change. Ashley’s pulse was there too, with not even the slightest fluctuation.
The dealer had squelched her brief moment of self-victory.
Or so Balot thought, as she was once again unable to move.
Balot stayed. Ashley revealed his cards. The sharp tip of the ace pointed straight at her. Blackjack.
It was her first loss. Her chips were taken away. But it was still all right. The amount she was to bet plunged lower. But it was forgivable.
Ashley’s next upcard, however, wasn’t.
An ace. Something inside Balot’s chest clenched tight, grating against her.
Balot had K-4. If she hadn’t hit earlier, she’d have a twenty-one now.
Where did I go wrong? She couldn’t hold back her thoughts. I never made the wrong decision. But what else could it be called but that?
What’s wrong is this table with this man, Ashley, standing at it. The difference of just one card was chasing her to a certain defeat.
Balot composed her feelings and hit. Her card, a 2. Sixteen.
That number weighed frightfully heavy. Her tactics called for a stay. It was displayed right next to the true count.