You Are a Ghost. (Sign Here Please) Page 19

  However, there are two fundamental differences between being mugged and going to a casino that makes the latter experience fun and enjoyable and the former distressing and potentially dangerous.

  First, there is the expectation that you might get something in return. In a casino environment, someone like Vince might reasonably believe that he would walk out better off than when he’d started. However unreasonable and ludicrous this expectation might be, particularly since the art of casino operation is built entirely around the practice of pulling money off of people to the point that it has been honed to a fine science, as long as Vince even slightly believes he might win, he will willingly go into a casino. Muggings, on the other hand, are entirely one-sided, with the transfer of cash going from the muggee to the mugger. Let this be a lesson to muggers: the way to get people to participate in their muggings more is to hint that by being mugged they might get a chance to win huge prizes. Muggers should insinuate that the victim is today’s hundredth mark, making them a lucky winner, or suggest that the victim might be able to turn the tables on the mugger and mug him instead. If it’s late in the day, the mugger might have money from many previous victims on him, meaning that the current victim could win a massive jackpot by turning things around. This strategy is sure to get people more enthusiastic about being mugged.

  Second, there is timescale. A mugger simply walks up to his victim and demands a lot of money, then walks (or runs) away once he has gotten it. In a casino, the money is taken slowly off of the victim, over a period of time, until they are finally ready to lose their whole house on a single roll at the craps table. This is an important distinction because the longer period of time allows a good time to be had by all. While casinos would prefer it if people just walked in, immediately spent all their money, and then left, they have found that the longer period of time is actually advantageous in getting people to surrender their worldly wealth. That’s why casinos are so often built in such a way that makes them hard to leave. The lesson here for muggers is that they should take time to ease their victims into the mugging, maybe demanding money a little at a time until the victim has none left, all the while reminding the muggee that he has chances to win fabulous prizes. The end result will be a more effective and enjoyable mugging all around.

  Additionally, Rulan’s Casino did not use money. Instead, it used forms. Vince didn’t know this, but he figured since he was out of money he had nothing left to lose. He was wrong, but then so are most people when they think that. You only have nothing left to lose when you’re dead, and since unlike Nathan, Vince was not dead, he still had plenty to lose. Vince didn’t know this either, and this is what made him the terminal loser that he was destined to be.

  Nathan, Vince, Brian, Travis, and Vince’s friend all stepped through the door to Rulan’s casino together. It sat there in the ubiquitous bureaucratic darkness like a beacon of light, lit up with flashing neon signs and huge columns of old-fashioned incandescent bulbs with a wattage that would have been illegal in most countries because of the navigation hazard its radiance posed to passing spacecraft. Loud, slightly annoying muzak drifted out from the doors and clashed badly with the cereal jingle that Nathan was humming. Just outside the front, bouncers in black suits stood with their arms crossed to keep out the kind of riff-raff you got in the afterlife. Behind them, a handful of employees in various costumes handed out fliers about the local shows and chatted amiably with the suckers who were just coming in.

  Travis surveyed all this and raised his eyebrows.

  “Are you sure that we can get a form to restore Nathan to life in this place?”

  “Positive,” Brian said. “It’s the only way to get that kind of form quickly. They don’t exactly grow on trees.”

  It was true that forms did not grow on trees; there was often an intermediate step wherein the tree branches were processed into paper before becoming forms. As part of a short-lived experiment, bureaucrats of ancient Phoenicia had once tried to create forms directly out of tree branches but found out that the splinters were more trouble than they were worth and went back to using clay and papyrus.

  “What kind of casino is this?” Vince asked, eyeing it. “I already said I don’t have any money.”

  “Don’t worry,” Brian told him. “You don’t need any. Let’s go inside.”

  They paced through the front gate, where an employee in a red vest standing behind the bouncers handed them each a small stack of forms.

  “A few 18A’s on the house,” the man said, tipping his hat to them. “Enjoy your stay in Rulan’s.”

  Nathan looked down at the 18A’s. They said: “Form 18A - Authorization to Have A Nice Day.”

  “Oh, that’s very nice of them to give us these for free,” Nathan said.

  “They expect us to lose them in the first few minutes,” Brian responded.

  “Out of curiosity, what are form 18B’s?” Travis asked. “Authorization to have a terrible day?”

  “No. Form 18B is a notice that you’ve had molten sulfur poured on your toilet seat. Still, I agree that you are likely to need an authorization to have a terrible day if molten sulfur has been poured on your toilet seat.”

  Brian paused and checked his watch again.

  “We must hurry,” he said.

  “Why?” asked Nathan.

  “Because we are running out of time.”

  “Before what?”

  “The deadline.”

  “Oh.”

  Brian’s plan for revenge on Nathan and Director Fulcher conformed to a very specific timetable. Nathan, who was not interested in that, wandered over to a slot machine. He put a form 18A in, which was sucked in through a small slot in the bottom, and then turned the arm. Three dials with brightly colored fruit on them spun around and around until three bananas showed on the wheel. The machine began to blink wildly with lights. “Fruit-tastic!” its voice announced, and it spat out a form, which Nathan scooped up.

  “It says this is a Form 365723 - Authorization to Eat Five Pounds of Chocolate And Gain No Weight,” Nathan said, cheerily reading off the top.

  Brian grabbed it from him.

  “You can’t eat five pounds of chocolate anyway. You’re still a ghost. We need to find our way to a game that will let us win the form we need.”

  He grabbed Vincent by the shirt collar and started to drag him over towards what looked like a large roulette wheel.

  “Ow,” Vince said. “I just stubbed my toe. What’s this game?”

  “It’s Form Roulette,” Brian said. “You pay a certain number of forms to play the game, then forms are placed on the roulette wheel along with all the others. The text on the forms are blanked and the wheel is then spun and at the end you have to sign the form in front of you without knowing what it is. It could be literally any contract, authorization, notice, or memorandum in the world. There are many ways to play the game, but for now let’s start with the house forms and see if you’re all you’re cracked up to be.”

  He sat Vincent down at the table, then directed Vincent’s friend to the other side, and handed the croupier a handful of their 18As. They were the only two people seated at the wheel.

  “Ready to spin,” the croupier said, and gave the wheel a tug. It spun to life in a whirr of colors, circling round and round.

  “What’s the point of this?” Travis asked.

  “If this Vince is as unlucky as you say, then he’ll draw the worst form and his friend will get a much better one. There’s usually only one really bad form in these sorts of games. If it works, then we’ll move on to the real thing. In one version of this game, you can up the wager to have the form you want placed onto the wheel. That’s the type of game we’re looking for.”

  The wheel continued to spin, the forms whistling as it turned.

  “And we are doing this because we are trying to win a form so Nathan, a cheery ghost, can get a body, so you can take revenge on him.”

  “Yes,” Brian agreed. “That is why. It is the order
in which these things must be done.”

  Travis shrugged his shoulders and said nothing. He knew better than to argue with bureaucrats. Apparently uninterested, he wandered off and did not stop to see the results of the roll.

  Finally, the wheel began to clatter to a halt. It stopped with one form in front of each of the two men at the table.

  “Sign your forms, gentlemen,” the croupier said. Vincent and his friend both picked up a silver pen on the side of the table and scrawled out their signatures on the dotted line. As soon as they had both done so, the rest of the contracts suddenly appeared.

  Vincent’s friend cheered.

  “Hooray,” he said. “I got livestock futures.”

  Vincent was less happy.

  “I signed a confession to having committed racketeering,” he observed unhappily.

  “You’re off to a bad start, but you’ll get it back,” Brian lied to him. Internally, he decided that this confirmed Vince’s luck was bad enough to use him as a pawn in the master plan. Now they just had to contrive to put Nathan’s form on the table.

  “I’d like to purchase a form to put on the table,” Brian told the croupier. “I want a form creating a replica body for a ghost.”

  However, the croupier shook his head.

  “I’m so sorry, sir, but there are no such forms in this casino.”

  “There aren’t?” Brian asked, thunderstruck.

  “No. We don’t have any.”

  For a moment, Brian was speechless. The well-ordered plan in his mind was falling apart like tissue paper under attack by an army of bears. Then, a familiar voice interrupted his reverie.

  “They don’t have such a form, but I do.”

  Brian whipped around.

  There, behind them, was none other than Director Fulcher. He was walking powerfully towards them. Brian goggled at him.

  “Hello,” Nathan said, waving to him. “Funny coincidence, meeting you here.”

  “It was no coincidence,” Fulcher said with his sharp grin.

  “Then how did you know I was here?”

  “The transit device you stole. Since you stole Ian’s device the first time, I had a hunch you might do the same again, so I installed a tracking device on it. Check the right side.”

  Nathan took out the 8-ball and checked it carefully. Near the right side, he found a teeny-tiny little form taped to it. Though he couldn’t read it, Brian knew it was a Form 375772 - Authorization To Track Object At All Times.

  Ignoring Brian’s look of shock and surprise, Director Fulcher sat down at the roulette wheel. He looked so natural and comfortable at the table that he might have been back in his own office. In one smooth motion, he reached into his jacket pocket and produced a form, which he laid down on the table.

  “This is the form you need to restore you to life in a new body, Mr. Haynes,” Fulcher said quietly.

  “Oh, thank you,” Nathan said cheerily. “I needed one of those. It’s very kind of you to give it to me.”

  He reached for it, but Fulcher pulled it out of his grasp.

  “I am not here to give it to you,” Fulcher said cooly. “Instead, I have a proposition for you. Since we’re both here, why don’t we leave the matter to chance?”

  “Who’s Chance?” Nathan asked cheerily.

  Fulcher held his head in his hands.

  “I cannot believe that I was ever tricked by a brain damaged idiot like you, Mr. Haynes. I’m saying that we should make a wager. I’ll put my form on the wheel. I’ll sign whatever form next comes up, and if it happens to be yours, you will have your replica body. However, I want something in return. You may recall, Mr. Haynes, that you and I had a contract that you deceived me into signing. If any other form comes up after this spin, then that contract - the one that nulls all forms that you sign - will itself be cancelled and annulled. To even the odds and make things fair, I’ll see to it that there are only two contracts on the wheel, so you have a 50/50 probability of defeating me. Is that agreed?”

  Nathan was not really listening, so he just started to nod his head.

  Brian elbowed him in the ribs.

  “He’s saying that if he wins then your contract with him is moot,” Brian said.

  “Oh, in that case, I have one condition,” Nathan added. “Vince here plays for you. Is that okay with you, Vincent?”

  Vincent was not really listening either. His hair had just spontaneously caught on fire.

  Fulcher watched Vincent with amusement while he and his friend tried to extinguish his hair, then broke into a cold, cruel smile.

  “Agreed, Mr. Haynes. Vincent will play for me. I delegate to him the power to sign on my behalf.”

  “Good,” Nathan said cheerily.

  “Now, shall we?”

  Director Fulcher plopped his form on the wheel. Obeying the terms of the bet, the croupier placed just one form on the other side of the table. Vincent sat in Director Fulcher’s place.

  “Spin,” Director Fulcher told the croupier.

  With a shrug, the man gave the wheel a powerful push, and it began to whizz merrily along its near-frictionless bearing, nevertheless clacking and spinning as it went.

  Fulcher began to chuckle. Nathan, feeling in quite a good mood himself, started to laugh too.

  “Why are you laughing?” Brian asked.

  Nathan shrugged. He turned to watch the wheel, which was still turning very fast.

  “You shouldn’t be laughing,” Fulcher said with a malicious grin. “I know why you chose Vincent to play for me.” He clapped a hand on Vincent’s shoulder. “Did you think I would have come to this casino without researching exactly what you were up to here? Vincent is one of the most unlucky men alive. His bureaucratic luck rating gives him an astonishing negative eight leprechauns, one of the lowest luckiness ratings I remember ever reviewing. But Vincent will not save you. He will not enable you to win this wager, worthless excuse for a human being though he is-”

  “Hey,” Vince objected, while tamping out the fire that had spread to his coat sleeve.

  “No. Luck only applies to chance. This matter is outside the domain of luck and within that of certainty. Nothing Vincent does will change that outcome, even if he is a piece of living trash-”

  “Hey!” Vincent objected again. “I’m just having a bad day, okay? And that baby was much tougher than I was. That’s why I thought I should just fork over my wallet.”

  “Luck has nothing to do with the outcome here,” Fulcher said.

  The wheel was winding down but had not yet stopped.

  Director Fulcher paused and turned.

  “You know, they say you can’t beat the house. I’ve heard a rumor that this game is fixed - that the boss in the next pit controls who gets what outcomes. Do you think that’s true?”

  Brian caught on the fastest.

  “You didn’t!” he muttered.

  “I did,” Fulcher said. “I rigged this game. All games are rigged, some more than others, so I was determined to see this one rigged in my favor. It was over from the very start. Brian, I knew you betrayed me long ago. I sent you to keep an eye on Nathan to get you out of my hair. I knew you would suggest Rulan’s Casino as a way to get Nathan a new body, so I took pre-emptive measures. The casino has obligingly agreed to fix the spin on my behalf. I do not leave matters of this importance to chance - bureaucracy, Mr. Haynes, is too big to be left to chance.”

  “Who’s Chance again?” Nathan asked happily.

  “A cousin of Luck, the elusive temptress who has deserted you. You have already lost this game because I rigged it, and now I will revoke the contract you imposed on me, which has been a black stain over my directorship. Getting rid of it will most likely rid me of my shame and appease Overdirector Powell, while also enabling me to eventually force you to sign your 21B and put your papers in order. I said I would see you processed, Mr. Haynes, and now I will. This is your Waterloo.”

  “That reminds me, I met Napoleon a few hours ago.”

  Fulch
er sighed heavily.

  “I cannot tell you what a burden will be lifted from my shoulders when I defeat you.”

  The wheel had clacked to a halt and a form was now sitting directly in front of Vincent, who lifted his silver pen and signed.

  As soon as he did, text wrote itself across the contract, drawing new patterns in the paper like the spreading of a spider’s web. The top of the form said:

  “Form 80899: Ad-Hoc Instrument to Create a Replica Body For Mr. Nathan Haynes of Dead Donkey Nevada For Use In a Casino Wager.”

  And there was Vincent’s signature on the bottom of it.

  Fulcher goggled at it.

  “But how?” he demanded. “The game - I rigged it.”

  “As you say, all games are rigged, some more than others, so the trick to winning is to make sure they’re rigged in your favor. I knew you would rig it. I re-rigged it.” Travis, who had said all this, was walking speedily towards Fulcher from a tangent angle. Fulcher boggled at him.

  “Bureaucrats like you never play fair except when required by statute,” Travis continued, as Fulcher seemed to be momentarily speechless. “I knew that. Nathan didn’t, so I decided to help him out.”

  “But how did you get rid of the pit boss?”

  Travis drew himself up.

  “Simple. I convinced him that there was no such thing as gambling. Then, once he’d deserted his post, I simply used the controls that he was using to rig the game to alter things in our favor.”

  “Damn you,” Director Fulcher swore at him. “I know you. You’re Travis Erwin Habsworth. Why must you always get in our way, and in the way of good order and administration in the universe?”

  “Because I am a crusader against bureaucracy, and I am determined to see this innocent man freed from your clutches,” Travis said, gesturing to Nathan. “Call it a hobby. Now, we have beaten you once again. So with that, I will take my leave, Director Fulcher. Have fun facing your superiors and explaining what has happened this time.”