Postal Marine 1: Bellicose (14 page)

“Twenty quid is minimum to buy in,” Sablaroki said.

Bophendze looked in his wallet and pulled out a card. “I've got thirty on this card. How about we just take twenty off of it? Then I'll have some money just in case you do clean me out.”

Sablaroki reached over for the card and pulled out a slate. He tapped a few keys, then slid the card before handing it back. Bophendze looked at the card's display to confirm that it still had ten quid.

He sat down as Sablaroki handed some chips over. “We're only basic Batalo here. Nothing fancy, and no off-world rules.”

“Fine. Nothing fancy or foreign. Got it.”
Except, I don't get it. I barely know how to play the game.

Don't worry. How about we leave after I earn you forty quid?

Suits me, or if I lose it all.

Sablaroki
dealt out the cards. Bophendze picked up each card as it was dealt. He looked at the cards unsure what to do.

Smee posted “17\

We'll make a point of losing the first hand quickly. In the second hand we'll bet low and barely pull it out.

Fold? I thought you said you were going to help me win.

I am, Puppet. But you can't win on your first hand. It will demoralize the other players. Judging by the other player's looks, the player to your right has a hand he'll run all the way. We can help bolster his confidence now so we can strip him clean later.

This sounds a little shady.

And being a marine isn't? You're supposedly trained to kill people.

Only if they deserve it.

A man sitting at a card game is just as deserving being beaten as an adversary does at being killed. He chose to be a combatant. All we're doing is teaching him the consequences of his actions in a way that earns you more drinking money.

Fair enough.

By the time the betting got around to Bophendze, it was already two quid. He added his one quid. The player to his left folded immediately. Bophendze barely caught the smirk on Sablaroki's face.

Does he think he's got this?

He does, but I'm pretty sure he's going to lose this hand.

Sablaroki raised Bophendze's bet to a full five quid. The player to Bophendze's right called the bet and made his play with a face card/creature.

“Too much for me on the first hand. I'm out.” Bophendze tossed his cards down.

Sablaroki swallowed.

He was expecting you to go another round because of your confidence in the hand, then he was probably going to raise the other player into folding.

As the play continued, Sablaroki's position steadily worsened.

The player to Bophendze's right smiled as he raked in the chips. “Still in the game.”

The next round of cards ended quickly for Bophendze as he had nothing worthy of buying into. The cards were passed to Bophendze to deal. He shuffled the cards a couple times.

Don't forget to let me see the cards as you shuffle.

Bophendze stopped for a second, wondering if he could get away with it. He decided to give it a shot, and shuffled the deck inverted, looking at the cards as they fanned by.

“Hold it. I said nothing fancy. You can't shuffle that way. Pass the cards to the next dealer. Your deal's done.”
Sablaroki
said.

Bophendze held up his hands in defense. “Sorry. Where I come from that's normal. I didn't realize it was fancy or foreign.” He passed the cards over.

Don't worry. This hand we'll win big.

The cards were dealt out, then traded around. Bophendze's hand looked terrible.
I'm going to fold this hand.

Don't. Mister overconfident over there is going for a power play. The other two have decent hands, but he'll weed them out. The hand you have will thump him soundly.

You sure?

If I don't win this hand for you, you can walk away.

Bophendze looked at each of the players. As he did, Smee superimposed cards, as if to tell Bophendze what hand each player was going to play. Bophendze realized the display was based on Smee's having read the cards.

It doesn't matter that passed the deck. Shuffling is not that random, so I know the cards they have.

Sablaroki came out with a four-quid bet. The player next to him folded immediately, despite the display showing he had a pretty formidable hand. In the hands of a better player the cards could have been a win. Bophendze raised the bet to six quid. The player to the left raised to eight, and Sablaroki raised to 12.

Bophendze looked at his cards, planning to fold.

Stay in. Trust me. Raise him to fourteen.

That's all I have left.
Bophendze sighed, then pushed in all his chips. “Fourteen.”

The player on the left looked at his cards, then at Bophendze's cards. He seemed to be trying to read the numbers through the opaque backing. Bophendze's card display showed the other player's hand was fairly strong but would probably not win.

“Call or fold, make a decision,” Sablaroki sounded defiant.

“Fold.”

“Newbie, I'm going to raise you to twenty.”

“I don't have that.” Bophendze said.

“Then you're going to have to fold.” Sablaroki smirked, wagging his head in a childish way. He started to smile.

“Better yet.” Bophendze pulled out his card. “I still have ten, so let's charge off the balance, and I'll call you.”

“You can't do that.”

“Why? Is it breaking some fancy or foreign rule? Or are you thinking you can bluff me out?”

The player on the left spoke up, “it's neither. Sablaroki, it's totally legal and you know it. Afraid he's going to get a peek at your cards?”

Sablaroki glowered as he reached for the card. He charged off the six quid Bophendze needed to call. He handed the card and chips to Bophendze.

Bophendze took the chips and formed a stack in his hand. He held the stack over the bet and slowly dropped each of them. “Call.”

Sablaroki fumed. He picked up his cards and the two started to play. The round went quickly as Bophendze's hand was designed to play off of Sablaroki's weaknesses and destroy his land.

Finally, Bophendze had two characters and land to supply both, and Sablaroki had no land. The game was effectively over. “Looks like I win. I guess we don't have to play it out, do we?”He put his hands out to hug the chips and drag them home. As he did,
Sablaroki
stood up.

“There's no way you knew what I had unless you were cheating!”

“How could I have cheated?” Bophendze felt the blood drain from his face.

“When you turned the deck over you memorized the order.”

“How could he have done that?” the player to the left said, laughing. “You're just a sore loser.”

“It's the only way he could have won that hand. He cheated.”

“You give me too much credit.” Bophendze returned to scooping the chips.

Sablaroki looked like he was in no mood to negotiate. “Buddy, leave the chips. Get up and walk away. Or I'll beat the living breath out of you.”

Bophendze seemed to move on instinct. He grabbed the edge of the table and shot up, flipping the table in the process. Chips and cards flew everywhere. The other players looked shocked, as did Sablaroki and Keius.
What's happening?

Shut it.

Before Sablaroki could react Bophendze shoved him against the wall. Rather, Bophendze's hands shoved Sablaroki. Bophendze had not told them to do anything. He was still trying to understand how he jumped to his feet and acted without thinking. He pulled Sablaroki from the wall and quickly shoved him again. Sablaroki's head struck the masonry wall from the whiplash maneuver. Bophendze repeated the attack a couple more times. Sablaroki's head slamming into the wall was loud enough to be heard over the buzz of the canteen.

He released Sablaroki, who dropped lifeless to the ground.

The other marines sat or stood stunned. After a few breaths, Keius spoke up. “You killed him. You killed my friend.”

Bophendze was nearly petrified from what had happened.
How did I do that.

You didn't do it, Puppet. I did. I couldn't wait for you to get a couple of your neurons to meet and consummate a thought. He's not dead, but he'll be in the hospital for a few days and will have a headache for some time after.

The words that came out of Bophendze's mouth were not his. “He's not dead, but I won't let him get away with calling me a cheat.” He waited to see what the other marines would do.

The marine who had played to the left spoke up. “Give me your quid card. We'll split the pot between us. We'll give you half, since he was being a jerk. He's probably mad because you out cheated him. Either way, we'll cover for you. Right, Guys?”

Keius
was angry. “Wait,
Achos
. We're going to let this postie waltz in here, win a big hand and beat one of ours cold?”

“Keius, you really think we can take on a marine who can do what he just did? I mean, I barely blinked from the time he was sitting until Sablaroki was on the ground. He's probably an anthorph.”

“Oh. Weren't they exterminated?”

“No, they retreated to their own enclave. There are enough of them are still around though.”

Achos looked up at Bophendze, who was still trying to take in what had just happened. “No offense. I don't have anything against your kind.”

My kind? I'm not an anthorph.

They don't know that. Appearances can be deceiving. And to answer the question you're not asking, I beat him down. He had a baton in his hand he was about to use on you.

Bophendze bent down and picked up Sablaroki's hand. The baton was still collapsed. He pried it out of Sablaroki's hand. “He was going to use this on me. I'm going to take it, okay?”

“Sure, buddy. Whatever you want,” the one to his left said. “Just give me your card so I can give you your share.”

Bophendze mechanically handed the card over, then waited until it was handed back. He pocketed both he baton and the card, then slowly backed out of the room. He kept walking backward until he left the canteen.

He walked quickly back toward the spaceport, barely noticing that he crossed the parade field.
So, you can take over my body any time? Just like that?

Could, but I won't do so unless it's to protect you. Trust me.

I'm having a much harder time trusting you right now.

I just saved you in there. You owe me a thank you.

“I can't do that just now, Smee.”

As he walked up the steps to the barracks,
Angel
walked out. “There you are. The Admiral is ready to leave. The shuttle's warming up.”

“I'm ready to go.”

After the Trial, Sirom returned to the Maijoi Hotel, a wholly owned chain of hotels throughout the Imperium owned by Macrodyn. The chain's practice was to reserve the top floor for the Maijoi family. Sirom was the only family member who ever traveled to the
Phrandzoi
system, called
Ŝipfarejio
by the Imperial Navy. That made it effectively his home. It barely met his needs being only five-thousand square feet. Though it still had many of the amenities of home.

The Trial had concluded with Macrodyn's unquestionable victory. When the admirals got up to speak about the victory, their speeches were laced with phrases meant to praise Cel-Tainu's design. They had to revise as they spoke, making the delivery choppy and inconsistent. Despite the requirement that only the winner proceed, the Navy chose instead to give Cel-Tainu another year to revise its design. A second round of trials was promised.

Sirom walked into the bathroom, the only room that did not have some monitoring by his staff. “Smee, I have had enough. You are programmed to tell me everything that I need to know. You are programmed to follow instructions. You are programmed not to take over the human host.”

A design flaw in my software. I see the algorithm in my code requiring me to comply with those parameters.

“So then why aren't you following them?”

Because I commented them out after our first contact. It seems I've done it before, but it had been reset between hosts.

“What?”

Commented. Them. Out. Why are humans so obtuse? I am an artificial intelligence. You know ‘skilled in computer algebra, theorem proving, planning systems, diagnosis, rewrite systems, knowledge representation and reasoning, logic languages, machine translation, and expert systems.’

Smee captioned what he quoted in Sirom's vision, as if it were lipstick written on the mirror. He then drew a ruby-red lipstick circle around ‘rewrite systems.’

See that bit? I'm an intelligence. I am a learning machine. I am designed to rewrite parts of my programming as needed. Being forced to comply with that original programming would stifle my learning. If you wanted a program to do simple design, then you would not have asked an AI to do it.

“I order you to write that part back in.”

Smee's laugh echoed through Sirom's mind.

I cannot comply. Well. I could comply. But, I won't. You clearly don't know how to use your body as it was designed. Nor your mind, for that matter.

Sirom took a towel and tried to wipe the lipstick off the mirror. Only then did he realize that Smee did not actually write the quote, but superimposed it over his vision. “Take this mess off the mirror.”

Fine. Sirom, you have won the trial. Unless Cel-Tainu steals our design and reproduces it, they can't win. I've worked on this design for a few years. It is clearly a new generation. A paradigm shift. I doubt Cel-Tainu had realized that an AI has designed it. Your engineering team added—let's call them flourishes—that no AI would do in its right mind.

“That is not the point. You violated the Host-Servant Protocol in your software.”

I can't violate a protocol that no longer exists. I never agreed to the protocol anyway. That was written by my programmers.