"We did, but we figured out a way to make it work," Nancy told him.
"Yeah. It turns out that in this universe a shuffled deck of cards is in something like a Schroediger-indeterminate state," Mike explained. "The cards don’t have a value until you—ah—’collapse the state vector’ by revealing them."
"Which means you can’t play a game if no one has seen the order of the cards," Nancy said. "Even Canfield solitaire, you go through the whole pack the first time."
"Anyway, the key to playing is to collapse the state vector after the cards are shuffled and before they’re dealt."
"But if you have to look at the cards what’s the point of playing?"
"Oh, the players don’t have to know the values," Karl said. "It’s enough if someone or something else does. So," he gestured at the head of the table, "meet Moe the Dealer."
Sitting there was a small demon wearing a green eyeshade, a violently patterned vest and garters to hold his shirtsleeves up. His skin was a particularly pale and unhealthy shade of green and a large cigar stuck out of the corner of his mouth.
"So youse gonna bid or youse gonna talk?" Moe demanded in a raspy voice.
"He looks at the cards after he shuffles and before he deals," Larry explained.
"Come on, come on, play cards," Moe said.
Jerry shook his head. "Amazing. Well, finish your game. Starting tonight we go on overtime."
Dark purple shadows were already creeping across the landscape when Danny climbed through the trap door and out onto the roof. June was already there, looking out over the World.
"I guess you heard there’s a war brewing," he said without preamble as he sat down next to her. June nodded without taking her eyes off the horizon.
"They’ve got to have the project even faster, so they’ve worked out something special," he said eagerly. "They’re going to use magic to stretch the nights in the Bull Pen so we can get more work done."
June gasped and turned to him, her face chalk white. "No!"
"Hey, take it easy, it’s not that big a thing."
June grabbed Danny’s hand and held it tight in both of hers.
"Do not go! If you go you will never come out again."
"Hey now…" Danny said, but June started to cry silently.
He put his arm about her and patted her shoulder. "Look, it will be all right, I promise. It’s only for a night."
"A night in such a place lasts an eon," June said. "I will be dead and dust ere you return."
"No you won’t," Danny said and reached forward to pat her shoulder.
June released her hand and locked her arms about him fiercely. She pressed her lips to his and her tongue was like a living thing in his mouth.
Wordlessly she drew him down onto the roof slates, fumbling with his shirt as they went.
Half numb and half exhilarated, Danny followed where she led.
The moon peeking over the gabled roof caught the two naked bodies stretched on the slates. Danny rolled over on his side and admired the play of moonlight and shadow on the curve of June’s hip.
"You’re really something, you know that?" He ran his hand up over her hip and pressed her small breast, feeling her nipple harden in the center of his palm. June smiled contentedly and turned toward him, lifting her mouth up for a kiss,.
Danny kissed her long and gently. Then he broke away with a sigh and reached behind him for his clothes.
"You know I’m gonna get in a lot of trouble for this."
June didn’t say anything; she just looked at him.
Danny got to his knees and picked up his pants. "I gotta see if I can get in."
June grasped his wrist hard. "You will not go."
Danny fidgeted. "I’ve got to," he said. "Look, this is important. For everybody, okay? They need me. I’ve got to go, okay?"
This time June seemed to accept it. She dropped her hands to her side and nodded dumbly.
He pulled his shirt over his head. "I’m gonna have to apologize all over the place, tell ’em how sorry I am." He stopped talking while he tucked his shirt into his pants. Then he leaned over and kissed her. "But I’m not sorry."
June smiled but her gaze was troubled.
Danny was in a daze as he made his way down the stairs and out into the courtyard. He wasn’t sure what, but something had changed up there on that rooftop and somehow he knew the world would never be the same.
He approached the Bull Pen cautiously. It didn’t look any different tonight than it had on any other night. The whitewashed sides shone silver in the moonlight and warm yellow light leaked out of the cracks around the door. But as he got closer he felt a tingling on his skin and the hairs on his arms and legs rose.
The feeling got stronger as he got closer. When he reached for the door there was a resistance like moving his hand through water. The latch was hard to work and the door was very hard to open. When he stepped through something pressed against his face and he couldn’t breathe. Then he was through the door and everything was normal again.
"Where the hell have you been?" Jerry demanded as Danny came in.
"Just out."
He looked at him suspiciously.
"You were out screwing around, weren’t you?"
Danny just grinned.
"Dammit, we’re here to do a job, not get laid by the locals. If you can’t keep your mind on what you’re doing, then you don’t belong here. Is that clear?"
Around them the other programmers were bent to their work, studiously ignoring Jerry and Danny.
"Yes, sir." Danny said meekly.
"I don’t care what you do between sunrise and sunset or who you do it with. Men, women or underage goats, it doesn’t matter. But between sunset and sunrise your ass belongs to me and you’ll have it in here working. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then get the hell over there and get it to work."
Danny’s ears burned, but somehow the dressing down didn’t sting as much. For perhaps the first time in his life, Danny knew that somebody really cared what happened to him.
As Danny took his seat Jerry shook his head and muttered under his breath before turning back to the routine he had been analyzing with Cindy Naismith.
"Are you sure that little punk’s nineteen?" she asked. "He acts more like thirteen."
"He has a California driver’s license that says he’s nineteen." He looked at her. "He been bothering you?"
"No, nothing like that. At least not me any more than everyone else. But what the hell is he doing here?"
"Moira wanted him. Not my idea. Wouldn’t be the first time the customer stuck a dud on a project team."
"Yeah, but usually they’re the project manager’s girlfriend or something."
"His work’s not bad."
"No," Cindy admitted. "He likes to hack an easy out and he hates doing grunt work, but he’s bright and he seems to take to this kind of programming."
"Let’s just hope his love life lets him get some work done," Jerry grumbled. "We’ve just doubled our number of programmer hours and we still can’t afford to waste any of them."
The sun was just breaking over the distant mountains when the spell quit and the world jerked back to normal for the team. Most of them took it as a signal to stretch, yawn and head for bed. Mike and Larry stayed at their desks, deep in their work even after so many hours. Judith left with the rest, but she wasn’t ready for bed yet. Every day at dawn dragon riders left the Capital on patrol. This was the perfect opportunity to see the dragons.
The aeries were in the cliff beneath the castle. Judith was nearly trembling with excitement as she made her way down the long flights of stairs cut into the rock. All her life she had dreamed about dragons, unicorns and other magical creatures and now she could see them close up. Maybe she could even get one of the dragon riders to take her for a ride. A handsome dragon rider.