Balot tilted her head. Of course she did.
“So, what makes words?”
–Mouths…and pencils?
“Yes. And computer keyboards, and voice recorders, and sign language, and so on. But how were the words themselves made? What caused the words to be created?”
–God did.
Ashley paused his shuffle to say, “No, but you’re not far off.”
He conversed skillfully, as if that were the true role of a dealer. At the same time, Balot sensed Oeufcoque draw out the yolk from the million-dollar chip. As she participated in Ashley’s conversation, she was careful not to lose the tension and rhythm of the game.
“Let me tell you a story. Some time ago, a large amount of research was conducted in an attempt to teach computers to speak like humans. The laws governing language were programmed in, and when people talked to them, the computers would respond with computer answers. But it didn’t go very well. If the words spoken to the computer were even a little wrong, all kinds of problems would result. Even though they taught the computers human language, the human side was flawed. To solve the problem, they introduced all sorts of new laws into the computer, but it was all of no use.”
–Why did people want computers to learn how to talk?
“Haven’t you ever tried to use a computer without the benefit of language recognition? If computers malfunctioned after every little email, what would happen? Isn’t your own voice thanks to a computer?”
–So how did they teach the computers?
“They shuffled the words.”
–They shuffled them?
“They gathered up twenty years of newspapers and fed all of the articles into the computer. Millions and millions of words entered sentence by sentence. From that, they instructed the computers to determine which words had the highest probability of following each word. The words most likely to follow ‘Hi’ were ‘how are you doing?’ And so on.”
–So it’s based on probabilities.
“Yes, the probability of occurrence. That’s how computers understand words. And there are no flaws. No matter what word they encounter, they learn from it, and they learn how to use it. That’s how language recognition software finally became robust enough for the commercial market.”
–You’re saying we speak by chance?
Ashley grinned like a man atop a mountain welcoming another climber to the summit.
“The fact that we even exist is by chance. Don’t you think that’s a miracle? Chance is the most essential thing given by God to man. And humans, we strange creatures, find our own foundation within that chance. It’s inevitability.”
–What do you mean, inevitability?
“These cards, for example—the number of cards in this deck is determined, right?”
–Right.
“But sometimes it increases and decreases, right?”
–Right.
As Balot answered, she realized it was a self-implication of cheating. She looked at him with a surprised expression.
“But the cards are the cards. A never-before-seen upcard won’t just suddenly appear. There’s no ‘B’ card after the ace. It’s only a game because you know what cards are in the stack. Just like our words, the order of the cards comes about by chance. But when it settles into shape, an inevitability is created. Without chance, there would be nothing.”
Balot nodded. She noticed that Ashley’s artful shuffle was nearing its finale. And his speech was too.
“Dam up a river, and the water will overflow. Split it into tributaries and the volume of water in the main branch will lessen. And without any rain, it will dry up. Inevitably. Luck is like the flow of a river. The issue isn’t whether or not the flow really exists. The question is, will the river keep flowing? We all live inside the flow of the river. And if there are those who drown in the river, some of them will drag down the swimmers so that they alone float. But what the river has to teach us is that once you become a part of the flow, you become the river itself.”
The last words perfectly coincided with the readying of the deck. Ashley placed the red card in front of the stack and looked at Balot. Fondness glimmered in his gaze.
Balot took the red card and, in a declaration of respect to the dealer and his finely crafted stack of cards, inserted it squarely into the center of the deck. The cards were already full of her influence, just as the words exchanged between two friends differed from the words others used to talk to them.
Ashley cut the cards. It happened in an instant. And within that instant, the dizzying swirl of numbers underneath Balot’s arms had already begun to respond. The order and probabilities of the cards were nearly squeezed onto a single point. It was as Bell said. Balot’s only chance was to strive to be who she should be.
She placed her chips—the amount required to draw out her moment of victory.
The cards came. Ashley’s upcard, a queen.
Balot’s cards, A-5. Balot hit: 7.
Again she hit: 6. Nineteen. She stayed.
Ashley kept up his smooth rhythm like the game was a conversation and their cards the words. They understood each other completely, and he had no need to pause.
Ashley’s hole card was a 6. With the queen, he had sixteen.
He drew another card and found a 2. But that was it. Balot won.
Ashley counted out her winnings and placed them beside her pot.
She took half of the chips and added them to her bet.
–Next hand.
The next hand, Balot received a J-9 and stayed.
Ashley’s upcard was a king, his hole card an 8. Balot won.
In the next hand, Balot had a 9-4, drawing an 8. Ashley’s upcard was a 10 and his hole card, a king. Balot won.
Neither Balot nor Ashley made any comment about Balot’s sudden winning streak.
Beneath Balot’s arms, Oeufcoque crunched the numbers and adapted his display. His powers of calculation were now a part of her. And Balot’s senses passed through to Oeufcoque. Hit or stay. Split or double down. They reached the same decisions simultaneously, and each time the answer came from place. A place they had constructed over all the previous games, a wave just big enough to win on. She was entranced, but it was natural to her now, and she wouldn’t have known it unless she looked back. Balot did what she had to. That was the answer. And yet, it wasn’t enough.
The fifth hand ended. Balot had won them all.
The stack of chips in her pot grew ever larger.
At times, it supported her as she pushed through the game, and at other times, it was a burden.
The answers reached by Balot and Oeufcoque had leveled out.
Like her fifty-percent answers to Ashley’s carjack question.
After the seventh hand ended in Balot’s win, Ashley suddenly interjected.
“Do you remember our talk about the hitchhiker?”
Balot glanced up at him and nodded.
“There’s more to the story. Can I tell you?”
He placed her winnings beside her pot as if to say, I’m not trying to get in the way of the game.
Balot nodded and added a third of her winnings to the pot.
–Yes, please tell me.
“I don’t usually tell anyone this.”
The cards came.
“I had an older brother. My only brother. He was irreplaceable.”
His upcard, a king. Balot’s cards, A-8.
“One day, he saw a hitchhiker on the side of the road. He stopped his car and let the man in.”