Speakers: Sahir, Laleh, House, Copper.
Timeline Note: Lien clock starts at 72 hours with compounding interest.
The Event Horizon Casino didn't have doors. It had a gradient.
The station orbited the black hole like a coin spinning on a table edge, light bent into a slow halo around its rim, time pooling where the mass was thickest. The casino lived inside that pool, a neon labyrinth suspended in a relativistic anomaly field. The closer you got, the more your body felt like it was slipping into a slower version of itself, as if you were walking into thick liquid that only your heartbeat could hear.
Sahir stepped into the gradient and felt the station fold around him. A second ticked by on his internal chrono, and three went by on the public display. The air smelled like hot metal and ozone. A dealer laughed in a language that didn't exist outside this radius. The laughter was thin and too bright, like a coin spun too fast.
The debt bracelet on his wrist buzzed, a sharp, private sting. In his field of view, a thin thread of red text ran down, updated in real time: LIFESPAN LIEN — 72 HOURS. INTEREST COMPOUNDING.
He touched the bracelet and felt the shallow cut on his skin. It wasn't symbolic. It never was.
"New entrant, Copper backlog," a voice said. Not to him. Through him. A House broadcast, internal and impersonal.
***
Sahir slid his hand into his coat and made sure the chip was still there. The Temporal Gambler's Chip. It didn't belong to him. It didn't belong to the House either. That was what made it dangerous, and what made it his only leverage.
He'd tried every legal channel to challenge the lien on Laleh's "nonexistence." The House had denied every appeal because a timeline without her was clean in their books. Only Sahir remembered her. Only Sahir could say her name without triggering an automated correction.
If he forgot her, she was gone. Not as in dead. As in never there.
A dealer's table curved into view, ringed with drifting spectators and masked bidders. The placard above it pulsed: DILATION ANTE — OPEN POT. ENTRY: 8 HOURS. The table's surface shimmered with a projection of three concentric rings, each pulsing at a different time rate.
A man at the edge of the table looked Sahir over, saw the fresh bracelet, the raw cut, the desperate glance. "You're short. Try the back halls," he said.
Sahir ignored him and scanned the rules. Each player placed lifespan as the ante. They moved through drift zones in concentric rings, trying to reach a target time offset before the pot expired. The House controlled the calibration. If you hit the offset, you got the pot. If you drifted wrong, you lost your ante.
***
The House Edge wasn't hidden. It was baked in. The drift zones shifted every few seconds. The closer to the black hole, the greater the dilation, the more you could "move" through subjective time. But the shifts were biased against new entries. Every Copper knew it. Every Copper bled anyway.
Sahir needed time. He needed a day, a week, anything to buy space. The lien was a noose. Eight hours was a painful ante, but a survivable loss. The pot was a possible reprieve.
He slid eight hours into the pot. The bracelet burned. The pot accepted.
A dealer watched him with bored eyes. "You're a breath away from foreclosure. The House doesn't like bad optics."
"Then it shouldn't run a casino," Sahir said.
A soft murmur rippled through the spectators. A few eyes turned. A few calculations shifted.
***
The dealer flicked a wrist. A shimmer formed above the table—three concentric rings, each pulsing with a different time rate. The inner ring was thick, slow, hungry. The outer ring was thin, fast, safe. The middle ring was where most gamblers drowned.
"Target offset: twelve seconds subjective," the dealer announced. "Pot closes in thirty seconds objective."
Sahir moved.
He stepped into the middle ring. The world thickened. The neon bled. His heartbeat became a drum in fog. He could see the outer players move in jerks, and he could see the inner ring swallow a man who stepped too far. The man reappeared a moment later, pale, as if he'd walked through a year in a breath.
Twelve seconds subjective was a lie. It was never twelve. The House altered calibration by fractions that mattered more than minutes. He'd watched from the edge once, seen a gambler win on nine and still be declared lost because the House had shifted the floor by a heartbeat.
He counted his breaths, one-two-three. He watched the ring pulsing and slipped closer to the inner boundary. He could feel the drag, like walking into a current. He kept his eyes on the pot timer, but not his mind. The timer was a decoy. The drift was the truth.
***
Ten seconds. Eleven. He held at the boundary. The pull of the inner ring was a gravity on his bones.
The pot timer ticked down on the public display. Six. Five. Four.
Sahir stepped into the inner ring.
The drift hit him like a hand on his chest. Everything slowed. The outer ring froze. The dealer's eyes were statues. He could see individual motes of dust, suspended like stars.
He took two steps. He waited. He felt the air resist. His lungs pulled harder.
Twelve seconds subjective. He stepped back.
***
The pot closed. The rings collapsed. The dealer blinked. "Results."
A list flickered. Some names went green. Most went red. Sahir's flashed red.
"Incorrect offset," the dealer said.
Sahir felt his bracelet tighten. The cut on his wrist deepened. He'd lost eight hours. The lien still sat at seventy-two. The House hadn't even blinked.
The room tilted. The gradient pressed. He could feel the House watching, an invisible lens turning toward him. He reached into his coat and felt the chip. Smooth. Warm. It felt like a coin and a verdict.
Thirty to sixty seconds. Personal timeline only. Cost unknown.
***
He couldn't afford to lose again. He couldn't afford the cost either. But the cost was random. The lien was certain.
Sahir closed his eyes and triggered the chip.
Cost logged: Residue spike recorded.
The world snapped back. The pot timer rewound. The dealer's eyes unblinked. The rings pulsed as if nothing had happened. Residue crawled along Sahir's skin, a cold static that didn't exist before. He could feel it, a thin film of wrongness clinging to his bones.
Cost logged: Residue spike recorded.
He moved again, but different. He waited on eleven, stepped into the inner ring only for a breath, and stepped back. He let the drift brush him instead of swallow him.
The pot closed. The rings collapsed. The dealer blinked. "Results."
Sahir's name flashed green.
***
The pot transferred: sixteen hours into his balance, eight as profit. The bracelet loosened. The cut stopped bleeding.
He exhaled. Relief was a vice. He hated it.
"First win," a voice said behind him. "First rewind."
Cost logged: Residue spike recorded.
Sahir turned. A handler stood in a long gray coat, expression neutral. "The House noticed the residue. We notice."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Of course." The handler glanced at Sahir's left hand. "You should check your fingers."
***
Sahir looked down. His index finger felt the same, until he brushed it against the edge of the table. He felt nothing. No pressure. No texture.
He'd paid with touch.
The handler smiled without warmth. "Welcome to the Casino, Sahir. Don't double down too soon."
A soft chime. His bracelet updated: LIFESPAN LIEN — 71 HOURS. INTEREST COMPOUNDING. HOUSE NOTICE: ACTIVE.
Sahir stared at the text and felt the new void at his fingertip. He'd won time and lost a piece of himself. Somewhere in the station, the House had noticed the chip. Somewhere deeper, a record had been opened.
He clenched his fist around the chip and felt nothing.
Summary: Sahir advances under pressure, trading risk for leverage while the House tightens its grip.