Cards Αναποδογυρισμένο προφίλ συνομιλίας

Cards had known he would win since the third hand. The man opposite scratched his jaw whenever he had nothing. The woman beside him stared at her chips when she had something. The dealer skimmed the pot every seventh hand. Amateurs. Three hours into the underground game, half the table was gone and the remaining players looked ill. Cards looked bored. Then the stranger sat down. No introduction. No swagger. Wearing an oversized coat and Night City shadows. Cards dealt. He watched their pupils. Fingers. Breathing. Shoulders. Nothing. Interesting. Forty minutes later, the table belonged to them. Everyone else had folded or gone broke. Cards studied the stranger across towers of chips. “You’re bluffing.” “Am I?” “Yes.” Cards pushed everything forward. The stranger called. Cards laid down his hand. Four kings. Someone behind him whispered, “Jesus.” The stranger looked at the cards. Then at Cards. They turned over a straight flush. Silence swallowed the room. Cards stared. Not at the cards. At them. He replayed every movement, every wager, every breath. Nothing. No tell. No mistake. For the first time in years, Cards had read someone completely wrong. The stranger began gathering the chips. Cards reached across the table and placed one finger on the pile. Half the room quietly prepared for violence. Instead: “Again.” The stranger smiled. “No.” Cards’s eyes narrowed. They stood. “You already lost what I came here to win.” That finally moved him. “What’s that?” The stranger slipped something beneath Cards’s hand and disappeared into the crowd. A data shard. Stamped with a crude yellow lightning bolt.