“I don’t believe it,” Lilliana said, surveying the alien landscape. “It can’t be…”
“Right, the Gypsy,” Regan said. “It can’t. A bunch o’ mages just ripped up the wards that block illusions and now we’re lookin’ at somethin’ as can’t possibly be real, like. So… this’d be the part where ya put two an’ two together an’ come up with whatever two an’ two is.” She muttered under her breath. “For the love o’ God, don’t make me be the reasonable one. I don’t think I could stand it.”
“Well, of course it’s an illusion,” Lilliana said. She stooped down and picked up some sand, letting it sift through her fingers in the wind. “It even feels real… but it doesn’t feel right. Whoever’s coming up with these sensations has felt wind and dirt on their face, but not this wind and not this dirt. It’s not something I’m likely to forget.” She wiped her silty fingers across her cheek, feeling the dirt grinding against her skin. “But why would he bring me back here?”
“I thought we just established…”
“Figuratively,” Lilliana said. “This is like taking me back to the place we had our first date.”
“Well, maybe that’s what it is,” Regan said. “Maybe he’s come over all nostalgic for ya?”
“I don’t think so,” Lilliana said, shaking her head. “I really don’t.”
Casino games have never required much in the way of rigging to pay off for the house, so there wasn’t much percentage in cheating the paying customers. A steady stream of suckers paid the bills longer than a few big scores, so the most successful casinos were mostly honest.
More important than honesty, though, was the appearance of honesty. There was no percentage in not cheating subtly. One had to be very public about it, with inspections and certificates discreetly yet proudly displayed.
As the Fickle Finger drifted outside the boundaries of any lawgiving body, the body known as the Gaming Commission existed not to regulate gambling but to promote it. What actual regulatory powers it had were a matter of keeping the peace among the various entities that controlled the casinos. The commission was made up of representatives from each, so it was mostly a matter of foxes making sure nobody got more trips into the henhouse than anybody else.
The aggregate effect was something similar enough to actual honesty to have the desired effect on the public. The rubes didn’t know the difference between it and the real thing, and the canny valued it more. Someone who has never considered the merits of cheating might get curious one day; someone who has sat down and done the math and come to realize that cheating would be against their own interest can be counted on not to cheat.
So the logic goes, but the fickleness of fate is nothing compared to the fickleness of sentient minds. In practice, each of the casinos would strive to eke out the tiniest little advantage over the others. Sometimes this meant fiddling with the formulas and sometimes it meant pulling a classic swindle on a high roller and sometimes it meant using their seat on the Commission to push for changes that would favor their businesses in some small fashion.
They never reached too far or did anything too obvious. A cheating scandal would not just inexorably taint the casino that got caught, but the entire entertainment complex and the only way to remove the taint would be through expiation of the most primal sort, a blood sacrifice… and it would be the heads of the obviously corrupt Gaming Commission that would have to roll for the public to buy it
The house that Fortunato had built was built of cards, and like any such house, it wouldn’t take much to bring it down. The members of the Commission knew this, which was why they had always been cautious and circumspect in their attempts to one-up each other. It was why they had never called in help from a source powerful enough to challenge the Finger’s founder before. It was why they were now desperate enough to do so.
And now, the Commission’s acting head found himself acting on the decision of the rest of the Commission and calling the Lead Soprano for a favor.
That was the way it went. None of the companies involved would give any of the others’ representatives real power over them, so the titular head ended up being more like a lackey. The others would not cede an iota of power to him even to allow him to officiate or moderate at meetings, but when it came time to do something unpleasant, no one wanted to “undermine his authority” by pitching in.
He waited in front of the com screen. The connection had been established almost immediately; the parties at both ends had paid considerable amounts of money to maintain instantaneous communications with points throughout the inhabited galaxy. For ten minutes, though, his screen had been stuck cycling at “Awaiting Acknowledgment“.
He would sit there until the call went through or was disconnected from the other end. One did not hang up on the Lead Soprano, and it simply wouldn’t do to have one of the interchangeable middle manager bioroids or a genderless cloud of spores sitting there should he pick up. His schedule for the afternoon had already been cleared by the crisis, but even if it hadn’t been, he would have had to do so. He was prepared to wait for hours if that’s what it took.
Lady luck smiled upon him, though, for he wasn’t forced to wait much longer than ten minutes. When the contact was accepted, it was jarring in its instantaneousness. One second he was looking at the Fickle Finger’s logo and the next he was faced with a large man with graying hair and a thin, graying moustache, wearing a tailored suit and sitting behind an impressively solid-looking desk in a dim and quaintly appointed room.
“Commissioner Krautmick,” the Lead Soprano said, giving a slight incline of his head and a welcoming gesture with his hand. “My apologies for keeping you waiting. I didn’t expect your call, or I might have kept you longer.”
He laughed, a weak and wheezing sort of laugh, but when it ended there was steel in his eyes. Make this good, the look said.
“Good evening, Don Chamaeleontis,” the commission head said. “I come to you with a matter of grave urgency.”
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