–Tweedledum helped me. I never would have been able to work it out on my own. There’s a strict ban on taking the chips out of the casino, and other than at the big Shows the punters rarely get a chance to see them.
“They’re probably there as a way for other companies in the OctoberCorp group to secrete away some of their accumulated funds. They deposit a million dollars in the casino as a way of laundering money. At the same time, it’s great for the casino as the chip becomes an ostentatious sign that the casino has funds in reserve.”
–Yup. It looks like they were doing exactly as you say, Doctor.
“But to go out of your way to hide your memories in there…”
–I looked at the production records for the chips, and there were traces of evidence that they had been made specially. The records themselves had been deleted, but there were still fragments of data flying around, so I reconstructed them.
“Amazing. I know you had the might of all of Paradise’s facilities behind you, and Tweedledum’s support, but even so it’s pretty incredible that you managed all that in just a few hours.”
–I wouldn’t mind trying it again sometime.
Balot laughed as she spoke. The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Violation of Commonwealth law and aggravated hacking—you’re looking at up to twenty years in prison. If you don’t play your cards right you won’t be able to go near another computer for almost half a century, either. So just do me one small favor, will you—don’t go near that thing again unless absolutely necessary.”
–I’m sorry.
Balot seemed to grow smaller. She’d been told off for something similar by Oeufcoque not that long ago, and here she was doing it again. She needed to wield her power from a state of readiness. She was done with abusing power. She felt truly ashamed.
“No, don’t feel sorry. It just means that, in reality, you’ve taken a whole load of risk upon yourself, and you need to be ready for that. So, back to those million-dollar chips—how many of them are there?”
–Twelve in the whole casino.
“That’s quite a lot…all containing Shell’s memories?”
–No, just four of them. The ones that have the OctoberCorp company emblem stamped on them. They’re made by special order.
“I see…”
–What are we going to do? Steal them?
She was half joking, but—
“Robbing a casino is just as tricky as robbing a bank, you see. Burglary should be our last resort.”
Balot was a little surprised that the Doctor took her question seriously.
“We could ask the DA to conduct an official investigation, but once Shell works out what we’re up to it’ll be too easy for him to palm his chips off somewhere else. And if Shell warns OctoberCorp, we’ll be letting the big fish get away. We need to move carefully. Let’s see if we can be granted special search privileges—but no…” The Doctor muttered to himself in this vein for a while.
Then, all of a sudden, “Hmm. I think the best thing for starters is to head on in as if we’re ordinary punters.” He grinned at Balot. It was somewhat disconcerting—almost as if he were raring to go, looking forward to the prospect.
“Balot… I’m going to ask Oeufcoque too. I think he will agree with my decision, but—”
–Yes? What?
“Have you ever played at a casino before?”
–No. I’ve been inside them with men, but I always just stood next to the man as he played.
“Do you know the rules to poker and roulette? What about blackjack or baccarat?”
–Um… I know the rules to snap?
“Lesson number two, then,” said the Doctor. “As soon as Apprentice Private Investigator Ms. Rune-Balot learns how to brew a proper cup of coffee, it’ll be time for her to move on to her next object of study, methinks. How about it, young lady?”
–Can I ask you something?
“What is it?”
–Do you like gambling, Doctor?
The Doctor flexed his fingers. He tried to wear a solemn expression, but he couldn’t prevent a wide smile from breaking out across his face.
“Let me see. Gambling is the ultimate thrill—a game of intellect, but also aesthetics. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world.”
Balot was not convinced.
Chapter 7
ROTOR
01
Balot was close to tears.
As a result, she didn’t even notice that Oeufcoque had woken up and that his capsule was open.
Such was the intensity of the Doctor’s training program. On gambling.
The basics she learned from the legal eCasinos, and she was introduced to all sorts of games.
The eCasinos had their own individual variations on the rules, and Balot learned about the various discrepancies. Everything was reinforced further through a number of practice hands with the Doctor. Blackjack, baccarat, poker, high-ball, low-ball, high-low split. On top of that, she also learned the ins and outs of wheel of fortune, roulette, and the slot machines.
So far so good. But this was where the Doctor’s lecture really started.
“Right.” The Doctor started writing on a blank form, gleefully scribbling down some formulae and drawing up a table. “Let’s talk game theory. As we have seen, with a finite game it’s possible to express everything in normal-form. For a finite zero-sum game, we represent everything in normal-form and then work out what sort of strategy the other players are likely to employ—this would seem the logical way to approach things. So, let’s examine the logical criteria and try and work out where the game’s equilibrium lies.”
Creases appeared above Balot’s eyebrows, and she nodded. The Doctor was trying to teach her something. How to win at gambling. The problem was that she had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Still, she listened as best she could.
“So, let’s express this normal-form game as a payoff matrix. We assign the numbers 1 to n to your various strategies, and on the other side we do the same for my strategies. This way we can clearly demonstrate through the matrix how your decision influences my payoff, and vice versa. Logically, each player should take the action that maximizes his potential payoff. In other words, you can think about all sorts of possible moves, but in the end the matrix will reveal your optimal strategy. This is what we call equilibrium analysis.”
As the Doctor spoke he wrote down a list of letters of the alphabet. Letters with numbers beside them. The plus and minus symbols were fine, easy enough to follow. But then all sorts of other symbols started appearing, and Balot soon lost track of what they meant, or whether the letters meant anything or whether they were code for something else…
“But what happens when the players have the opportunity to cooperate? Let’s take a look at so-called cooperative games. The theory is simple. The player’s obvious strategy will be to choose one of a number of finite moves, taking into consideration the logical move that the other player is likely to make so that they can optimize their mutual payoff.”
Balot was starting to feel that the Doctor was becoming ever-so-slightly ostentatious in his display of knowledge. But she kept at it, listening as intently as she could.