The casino floor collapsed.

  Tables, lights, velvet, chips—everything fell away like scenery at the end of a play. The marble cracked open beneath John’s feet and the entire room peeled back into darkness.

  Not empty darkness.

  Structured darkness.

  Grids.

  Probability lines.

  A vast lattice of glowing equations stretching in every direction like the skeleton of reality itself.

  John stood on a small circular platform floating in the middle of it.

  “Well,” he said.

  “That’s new.”

  A shape formed in front of him.

  Not a person.

  Not a dealer.

  Something much larger.

  It resembled a massive silhouette made of spinning card decks, roulette wheels, and collapsing stars.

  The House.

  The voice that spoke was not loud.

  It simply existed everywhere.

  “Player anomaly.”

  John crossed his arms.

  “Yeah?”

  “You have defeated the tables.”

  “Correct.”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “You have defeated the dealers.”

  “Also correct.”

  “You have defeated the Pit Boss.”

  John nodded.

  “Guy had a great suit though.”

  The cosmic structure pulsed once.

  “That stage of correction has failed.”

  John looked around at the infinite lattice.

  “So what’s next?”

  For a moment nothing moved.

  Then a small pedestal rose between them.

  On top of it were three glowing symbols.

  A fist.

  A sheet.

  A pair of blades.

  John stared.

  “You’re kidding.”

  The House answered calmly.

  “Rock.”

  “Paper.”

  “Scissors.”

  John burst out laughing.

  “You escalated cosmic probability warfare…”

  “…to playground rules?”

  “This game predates probability systems,” the House replied.

  “Outcome resolution: absolute.”

  The symbols hovered between them.

  The rules wrote themselves into existence above the platform.

  COSMIC RESOLUTION GAME

  Best of one.

  Winner determines outcome of anomaly correction.

  Possible results:

  Rock – Planetary collapse

  Paper – Timeline overwrite

  Scissors – Localized annihilation

  John squinted at the scoreboard.

  “Those seem a little extreme.”

  “The stakes are proportional to the anomaly.”

  The House continued.

  “You may select one outcome.”

  John cracked his knuckles.

  “Alright.”

  The House formed a massive glowing hand from spinning galaxies.

  “On three.”

  John lifted his own hand.

  “One.”

  The lattice trembled.

  “Two.”

  Stars in the distance flickered out.

  “Three.”

  Both hands moved.

  The cosmic hand of the House slammed down.

  Rock.

  A massive stone symbol the size of a moon appeared between them.

  John opened his hand.

  Paper.

  Except it wasn’t paper.

  It was an ace.

  A glowing card unfolded across the void like a banner.

  The cosmic rock stopped.

  The scoreboard flickered.

  Then it tried to compute the result.

  Rock vs Paper.

  House loses.

  Except the symbol John played was not technically paper.

  It was an ace.

  The system hesitated.

  “Paper is not an ace.”

  John shrugged.

  “Close enough.”

  The lattice around them began to collapse.

  Equations shattered.

  Probability lines snapped like wires.

  The House spoke again.

  For the first time its voice contained something new.

  Confusion.

  “This outcome cannot resolve.”

  John leaned back against the pedestal.

  “You keep saying that.”

  The scoreboard tried again.

  RESULT: PLAYER WIN

  The cosmic rock shattered into dust.

  Stars reappeared.

  The lattice rebooted.

  And the House realized something terrible.

  Even when it stopped playing games—

  John Six Aces still found a way to win.

  John brushed imaginary dust from his hands.

  “So,” he said.

  “Best two out of three?”

  For a very long moment the universe said nothing.

  Because the House had just learned a fundamental problem.

  You cannot beat a player who keeps bringing new rules to the table.