Double or Nothing, Part 1

Mark keyed in the code to lock the scooter down, and hopped off. The garage's automated machinery swallowed it down as if it were a tasty morsel. Mark always felt a pang watching that happen, for in his mind the scooter was a tasty morsel, a sleek, fast machine he'd spent long hours rebuilding and tuning until it was more an extension of his own mind and body than a separate piece of hardware. He knew the garage would disgorge it on command when he returned in a few hours, for Harvey's Hangers and Hot Pads was the most reputable garage company on Iskandar. Resolutely he turned his back on the garage's Acceptor pad and walked toward today's goal: The Riviera. The Riviera spread itself over a thousand square feet of the outer shell of Iskandar, and projected two floors beyond the shell. Prime real estate. Mark walked across to its innermost floor, styled to look like the top deck of a world-bound riverboat, complete with railings and things called life-preservers, which served no practical function here on the inside of Iskandar, but certainly added ambiance. The Riviera's owners had installed a full motion holoplate on the corridor's ceiling and walls, and the illusion that one was sailing down a river on some wild planetary surface was spoiled only by the fact that you couldn't actually lean over the railing. Mark nodded to the greeter standing by the staircase on the otherwise deserted "deck". "Evening, Frisk," he said. "Evening, Mark," Frish replied, nodding back politely. "Come to try your luck again?" Mark grinned, "Sure, it's got to turn sometime, doesn't it?" "That what they all say," Frisk replied, shaking his head in mock concern. "Just have a good time, and don't bet it all." "I only bet it all on a sure thing," Mark replied, and added silently to himself, or when I have no choice. Descending the stairs, the boat theme continued, with the vast, mostly open expanse of the second floor mimicking a riverboat casino. Tables were spread out at comfortable intervals, and every one was surrounded by well dressed people either chattering excitedly, or watching the turn of a wheel or the fall of cards in a quiet hush. Beautiful, scantily clad men and women circulated through the crowd or hovered at the elbows of serious gamblers in a tradition as time honored as that of the Gambling House itself. Mark walked over to the outer wall, looking out through the diamondite windows across the surface of Iskandar. There were no other projections in the immediate vicinity of the Riviera, for which the owners paid quite a premium. A little farther away similar two and three floor projections could be seen, and in the distance were the long extrusions of the heavy grav industrial towers. Beyond them, clearly visible through the crystal clarity of full vacuum, soared the mile high tower the residents of Iskandar called the Light House. At its tip strobed the beacon that marked Iskandar's position to all craft that might be navigating through local space. Mark looked downward and outward, searching for one such that he had been told would be arriving at this time. He accessed the data feed from Worster's, one of the firms that handled traffic control around Iskandar, and his inner HUD drew a flashing circle around a tiny dot making its way from the horizon toward the Riviera. Mark watched long enough that his auxmod could calculate the trajectory itself, and confirm the data from Worster's, and then headed for the stair to the third floor, where the dock was located. As he emerged onto the outer deck he was assailed by a barrage of advertising. Unlike the single purpose deck above, this level tried to be everything to everyone, providing shops and outlets for any conceivable service an incoming arrival might have, from restaurants to a furniture showroom.