Billionaire Cashback System: I Can't Go Broke!-Chapter 41: Losing Gamble

It started with a decision that seemed completely reasonable at the time.

The bar had two sections — a main floor and a lower level with a separate entrance around the side that had, according to Mike, better seating. While they were sorting out who wanted what to drink, Sophie mentioned she’d seen a spa two blocks over that she’d been meaning to try and did Iralis want to come.

Iralis looked at the bar. Looked at the spa direction. "Yes," she said.

They both looked at the men.

"You’ll be fine," Sophie said.

"Completely fine," Ryan said.

This was the last fully accurate statement made for approximately three hours.

---

The lower level of the bar had better seating. It also had, as Mike discovered within six minutes of sitting down, a man named Gerald at the adjacent table who apparently knew Mike’s cousin and who, through a chain of conversational logic that Ryan couldn’t fully reconstruct, offered the three of them something from a small tin he produced from his jacket.

In the tin – was weed.

"Gerald," Mike said, looking at the tin. "We’re professionals."

"It’s fine," Gerald said.

Mike looked at Ryan. Ryan looked at Danny. Danny was already looking at the tin.

They all had the occasional recreational smoke in college, who didn’t. However that was a habit that died as they got pushed into the real world.

"Last time I had this," Danny said, "was senior year."

"Same," Mike said.

They looked to their boss, as if knowing this was something only Ryan could approve.

Ryan thought about Thursday and Diana. About the IRS meeting. About all the reasons this was not a sensible decision.

"Small amount," he said.

Gerald nodded approvingly.

---

Twenty-five minutes later the three of them were sitting in a different configuration than before, having moved to a slightly different area of the lower level for reasons that had made complete sense when the decision was made and were now unclear.

"The thing about software," Danny said, with the focused intensity of someone making a point of great importance, "is that it wants to be understood. It genuinely wants to. It’s just — people approach it wrong. They approach it like it’s a tool. But it’s more like a — like a — "

He paused.

"A language," Ryan said.

Danny pointed at him. "A language. Yes. It’s trying to say something and most people aren’t — they’re not listening right."

"Bridges," Mike said.

Both of them looked at him.

"That’s what we’re building," Mike said. "Bridge. Because nobody was listening right."

A pause.

"That’s actually good," Ryan said.

"Write that down," Danny said. "That’s the tagline. That’s literally the tagline."

Mike looked for something to write on. Found a coaster. Wrote on it. Looked at what he’d written.

"I wrote it in the wrong order."

"It’s fine," Ryan said.

"It doesn’t make grammatical sense now."

"Keep the coaster," Danny said. "We’ll fix it Thursday."

A man appeared at their table. Not Gerald. Someone else, wearing what appeared to be a high visibility vest over regular clothes, which was not a combination that suggested a formal establishment.

"You boys want to see something?" he said.

They should have said no, but at this point they were high enough to not know better, and from here the evening’s trajectory became difficult to predict.

---

The something was four blocks away, down a set of stairs that went below a restaurant that appeared to be open and functioning normally on the street level, through a door that required the high visibility vest man to knock twice and pause and knock once more, and into a space that was warm and loud and smelled like sawdust and something else Ryan couldn’t identify.

It was a large basement.

In the center of it was a pit.

In the pit, currently circling each other with significant mutual displeasure, were two wild boars.

Ryan stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked at this.

"What," he said.

"Incredible," Mike said beside him, with the reverence of a man in a cathedral.

Danny said nothing. He was already being pulled toward the near side of the pit by the high visibility vest man, who appeared to have transformed into a host of some kind, gesturing broadly at the proceedings.

There was a small crowd.

Twenty, maybe thirty people, standing around the pit at varying distances.

A man near the far wall was writing things in a notebook and taking cash from people with brisk efficiency, he was someone used to running a transaction-heavy operation.

"This is illegal," Ryan said.

"Everything interesting is illegal," Mike said.

"That’s not — that’s not a principle I’ve adopted."

"Ryan." Mike put a hand on his shoulder. "There are two wild boars in a basement in New York City. This is a once in a lifetime experience."

Ryan looked at the boars.

They were, he had to admit, genuinely impressive animals. Enormous, bristled, moving around the pit with a kind of dense purposeful energy that suggested they were not happy about the situation but had committed to it regardless.

A man beside them said, unprompted, "The grey one’s been undefeated for six weeks."

Mike turned to him. "Yeah? Which is the grey one?"

The man pointed.

Mike studied both boars with focus, conducting genuine analysis. He turned to Ryan. "The other one looks faster."

"Mike."

"Five hundred."

"Mike, we are not — "

"We’re already here, Ryan. We’re already in the basement. The moral ship has sailed."

Ryan looked at the boars. Looked at the notebook man taking bets. Looked at Danny, who had somehow acquired a drink and was talking to a woman near the wall as comfortable as someone who had fully accepted the situation.

"Five thousand," Ryan said. "The fast one."

Mike stared at him. "I said five hundred."

"I’m going bigger."

"You just said we shouldn’t be here."

"I’m already here," Ryan said. "The moral ship has sailed."

Mike looked at him for a long moment.

Then they both went to the notebook man.

---

The fast boar lost in four minutes.

It wasn’t close. The grey one, the undefeated one, absorbed the fast boar’s initial energy and then did something that Ryan couldn’t fully follow from his position but which resulted in the fast boar deciding it was finished.

Five thousand dollars. Gone.

"Okay," Ryan said.

"Okay," Mike agreed.

The crowd around them shifted — some leaving, some paying out, the low hum of a small economy completing a transaction.

The owner of the losing boar was a heavyset man in a track suit who had been standing at the near wall and was now walking toward the pit with an expression Ryan recognized as belonging to a category of mood that preceded bad decisions.

He reached the pit wall. Looked at his boar, which was sitting in the far corner of the pit conducting its own internal review.

He said something in a language Ryan didn’t speak.

Then he reached into the back of his tracksuit pants and produced a handgun.

The room went very quiet and very still.

The world blurred.