Chapter thirty seven - Like coins in a casino - Part two
Chishiya
I gazed at Niragi and nodded. I saw in the look on his face that he knew what I meant and nodded back before he walked away towards a more remote part of the casino. The plan had started.
I went to the Queen of Diamonds and smirked at her: 'I feel lucky today. What can you offer me?'
'Is that so?'
She raised her eyebrows and looked around. Most people already ran away from the moment the bell rang. Some, on the other hand, stood hesitantly in the lobby, not knowing what to do. She pointed at them and commanded: 'you. Come here. Let's play a game together. The more, the merrier, no?'
The four players looked around anxiously, but sighed and joined us at the round table. They didn't really have a choice.
'Sit down. I was thinking about playing a round of Black Jack, but I think that's more fun with four players. So sadly, two of us have to go. We'll solve that with another game, right?' she smiled a crazy smile.
She stood up and walked up to the bar. She went after it and asked us: 'what do y'all drink? Some shots? Let's do some shots. That suits the game we're playing first...'
She crouched behind the bar to look for something. I heard some bottles clinking before she stood up with a bottle of wodka and six small glasses in her hands. She slowly walked back up to the table and poured everyone a glass.
'Kanpai!' she cheered while raising hers and commanding us to do the same. The alcohol burned in my throat but I tried not to show it. She immediately poured me another drink and looked me in the eyes: 'let's toast to a fair game without betrayal.'
I swallowed, gave her a smile and I drank my glass in one go.
'My grandfather is Russian. My family moved here sixty years ago. I have never been to Russia. But I do have a connection with that country. My favourite Russian game? Roulette. Ha ha ha!' she laughed.
After that, she pulled a gun out of her knee-high panty's strap. She opened the cilinder and emptied the bullets, but one. She showed us, gave it a spin and clacked it back in place. She smirked: 'who wants to start?'
Niragi
After Chishiya nodded at me, I turned around and searched for the spin machine area. If I could sit there with my back turned to the others, close to a socket, I almost couldn't get caught.
I easily found a less lit place and sat down on the chair in front of the spin machine closest to the wall. I glared over my shoulder to make sure no one else was here and took the laptop out of my pants. I unwound the power cable from my torso and scanned the walls for an electrical outlet.
Fuck, yeah! I crawled there on my knees and plugged in my laptop before taking place on the chair again.
I put the pouch with coins on the little table next to the machine, arched my back over the laptop on my lap and acted like I was going to play. In reality, though, I opened a text document and started typing the HTML to break into this world. Just like I did in my everyday life as a game developer, but this time for real...
_______________________________________
<html lang = "jp">
</command>enter system = conductor>
</current status>waiting for acces>
Access loading...
45%
_______________________________________
Chishiya
She waved the gun nonchalantly at the player to my right and ordered him to start with the Russian roulette. He took the gun from her and held it in his hand while sweat dripped from his forehead. My gaze shifted from him to Hoseki and back. She could only smile a big grin while she patiently waited for him to put the gun against his head.
Seconds passed when she abruptly screamed: 'wait! I know how to make this game even more interesting!' We all jumped up from her sudden interruption and eyed at her, waiting for her to tell the idea.
Hoseki's red lips formed a big grin while she explained: 'everyone, bet a coin on the person you think will lose. Now.'
Everyone carefully grabbed a coin from their pouches and put it on the table. I looked at all of my fellow players individually and tried to decide who to vote for. This was a crucial decision since it could cost me my first rib... knowing who was going to start the round could be a benefit.
The kind of revolver we were playing with is a six-shooter: a gun with typically six chambers for firing. Five were empty. One was filled. The diameter of the cilinder was approximately five centimeters. After closing it with the bullet in place, she gave it a medium spin, not very hard, but not softly either. That means it should have fully spinned four times, maximum. The chance that the bullet ended up in the same place is almost zero...
... I focused on the gun and tried to calculate where the bullet would be with the information I had. I concluded that the bullet should land on the player to my left, or the one next to her. I especially hoped that it wouldn't end up in place when it was my turn.
'Pretty boy' she pulled me out of my pondering, 'what do you think? Who will lose first?'
I plucked my coin from the table, flicked it in the air and catched it again to impress her. But mostly to give myself some last seconds to decide what I should do. 'It's Chishiya, miss. And: easy. I vote for her' I confidently announced as I put the coin in front of the player to my left. I had to act confident and strong in front of the Queen. If I acted insecure, she could maybe suspect something. I just couldn't betray Niragi, I had to distract her to give him enough time to make our plan work.
The girl next to me felt offended and placed her bet on me. The Queen went around the circle and let everyone cast their vote. The person next to the girl joined me, the guy next to her voted on her and the person on my right voted for Hoseki herself. She didn't join the bet.
She announced: 'Chishiya. Since you placed your bet first, you may start with the Roulette as well. Good luck.'
I swallowed. I almost wanted to go against her, but I decided that wasn't a good idea. But now my calculation could be totally wrong. I took the revolver and pointed it at my temple. I looked right into her eyes. There was no choice but to just play the game and hope for the best.
Niragi
_______________________________________
</access denied>
</solution>try another method>
<back | try again>
_______________________________________
Shit! I hit the table with my fist. I sighed and dug in my head through all the information I could remember. Every code, every hack, every little word that the game masters could possibly have used to create the technology that shaped this world. There must be something I could try to make this work...
I deleted what I already typed and started over while glancing over my shoulder from time to time to see if no one could catch me.
_______________________________________
Access loading...
78%
_______________________________________
I tried and I tried. Sometimes, I got a bit further into the cyberspace of Borderland but I always almost immediately clashed against another stupid digital wall. It wasn't easy to crack, but I told myself I was a fucking genius master in this field and went on. Until I found the code and broke into the digital backside of Borderland. I opened a map and found the topview of Tokyo, full of red dots that marked every single drone that shot lasers.
'What the...' I whispered. Then I heard a gunshot.
Chishiya
A sharp pain stung in my side. My calculation was correct. But it just moved one person since the Queen decided to start with me instead of the guy to my right. So my bet was placed on the wrong girl and the first rib cracker clapped and dug into my flesh. It was soundless, but I heard which players were wrong too by their pained screams. Two of them doubled over. One started to puke from the sudden pain. I tried to stay calm. I tightened my grip on the edge of the table until my knuckles turned white. I did everything to regulate my pain. I didn't want to show that I was wrong.
That bitch grinned at me and nodded. 'Smart' she formed with her lips. She collected the coins and we started over. Five players was still too much for her ideal game of Black Jack.
'In a casino' she said, 'a poker face is a valuable thing to be able to keep up. Eyes tell everything. And after all these years, I am trained to see whether people are keeping something from me or not. I see every spark of betrayal in ones eyes... So I wouldn't dare to try anything.'
Her words scared me. Was she hinting towards the plan Niragi and I were executing?
She spinned the cilinder again and asked me which person I chose to vote on. I sighed and reached over to her, spreading my hand in a gesture to imply I wanted to start with the roulette again. And she gave me the gun. This time, I knew for real who was the first to shoot: me. So I could make a better calculation. I eyed at the other players and shoved my second coin towards the person sitting on the right of the Queen.
After everyone placed their bet, we played the second round. Of course, the gun didn't fire a bullet during my turn so I handed it to the next one while smirking. She was safe too. The one after her was already dead, so she clumsily gave the gun to the Queen, reaching over the bleeding body.
Hoseki pointed the gun at her temple and grinned. Before she pulled the trigger, she took another shot of wodka. Nothing. She passed the gun to the one I voted for and...
Niragi
With pained screams in the background, I scrolled and clicked through everything I could find: logs, previous games, names of the people who died, even visum days of the people that were still alive. I found Chishiya's name and mine. Next to them was a tiny photo of us. I scrolled all the way up again and found that loser Arisu as well. What if I just deleted him...?
I decided that I wouldn't do that. Instead, I went back to the map with drones and copied their tags to another HTML document. If I could control the drones, we just had to find out where the game master was hiding and we would be able to eliminate her by piercing her head!
Fuck, yeah. We could just walk up to that bitch, take her crown and make ourselves the new kings of Borderland! Ha ha ha!
Chishiya
'May I ask,' the Queen of Diamonds smiled, 'how do you decide? You seemed so confident in your choice. What's your secret?'
She had proposed to take a small break from the game. The two lifeless bodies were still sitting around the table, their heads laying on the table top with a trickle of blood coming out of the side. The rest of the players went to the bathroom, probably to inspect their new injuries from the rib crackers. The two of us were sitting at the bar.
I grinned and wiggled the small glass so the liquid inside made a whirl. 'I just use my brain' I simply replied.
'I see. Unlike your best friend, you're not a man of many words, aren't you? If I only could see what's going on in your head. I would love to follow your way of thinking' she said.
My cat-like eyes gazed at her from the side. 'Can I ask you something in return?' I asked her.
'Yes.'
'Why did you make thís choice after you finished all the games?' I asked.
She raised her eyebrows in surprise: 'you know about the chóice?'
'I do' I bluffed.
Enji had told me he was offered a choice after he finished all the games. He said he chose to become a citizen of Borderland, but he never told me what the other options were. The Queen of Diamonds wasn't dumb, so she wouldn't give me the information if she knew I didn't know it yet. But she was also talkative. Therefor, I tried to act like I already knew everything and was just trying to make a conversation with her.
'Well... Like I told you before, I earned a lot of money with my casino. In the beginning, it was fun. I could buy a big, luxurious house, an expensive car, I could throw big parties, ... Nothing was too much. But having that big amount of money didn't excite me anymore, after a while. Nothing excited me anymore. Until I came to Borderland. After playing my first game, I remembered what it was like to feel that adrenaline rush through my body...' she had dreamy eyes while reminiscing about her past.
I hummed: 'so why didn't you choose the other option?'
'I didn't want to go back to that what people call 'the real world'. When I heard there was a way to stay here forever, I felt so lucky! I said yes, I tracked down my casino in Borderland and I reopened it for all players to enjoy!' she smiled a big smile.
So... the choice was saying yes or no to staying in Borderland? If that was right, staying meant becoming a citizen and leaving meant... going back to our world.
The new information hit me like a bombshell. Before everything, I hated the real world. I would have loved to be anywhere but there. Even in Borderland. In the beginning, I loved Borderland. I loved the games and the challenge that they gave me. And I loved seeing those bad people die because of the games. I also loved them because I didn't care about my life. There was nothing to live for anyway.
But everything changed. I still loved the games. Or at least, the challenging aspect. But I must admit that I became afraid to die. From the moment I got the connection with Niragi I have now, I wanted to stay alive. I wanted to live with Niragi. In the real world. With what I know now... I'd choose to go back to the new world. With Niragi. And be boyfriends. And show him my house and my favourite music.
Would Niragi choose the same?
[End of chapter thirty seven]
_______________________________________
Hi y'all. Tell me, did you enjoy reading this part? Originally, I wanted to make this game just two parts long but I decided to split it anyways because it was getting too long already! Also, lately, I was wondering if anyone actually once reread my book so far? It would be an honor, so I'd love to know if you'd ever reread this! You're always welcome to comment on chapters, even if it isn't your first time reading anymore! I love to receive comments... ;) Anyways, I hope you are excited for the next part! Votes and comments are appreciated, as always. Love, Midnightwritings.
Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: Truyen2U.Com