InsaneJournal

Current mood:	accomplished
Entry tags:	gambler, keptverse

The Gambler - Part Six
This is the sixth part of the third story (first part, second part, third part, fourth part, fifth part) that began with The Games (six parts) and continued with The Network (one part), and The Players (seven parts)

The story may be regarded as fanfic set in poisontaster's Keptverse. I also updated the cast list here.

Part Seven, the last part of "The Gambler", is now complete and will be posted tomorrow. The next story is "The Pieces", another ensemble section, and the last story is "End Game", plus a couple of possible stand-alones in which neither Richard Kimble nor Sam Gerard appear. But I really need to stop writing this in order to write my Yuletide story, so I'm resolved: I won't start on "The Pieces" till I'm done with Yuletide, at least to first draft.


Part Six

When the door opened, Richard was standing by the wall below the window, his hands resting on the wall: he might have been leaning his face against it, but he turned quickly when he heard the door open.

“We’re going to have something to eat,” Gerard said. “Come here.”

Richard leant back against the wall. “I’m not hungry.”

“Did I ask you? Come here.”

Richard sat down. He folded his arms over his knees and his head bent down. He didn’t move.

Gerard was tired and angry enough that he didn’t feel any real hunger himself: he knew if he ate nothing now, he’d wake with a bellyache about five in the morning. He wanted to make sure Richard was fed.

“Richard,” Gerard said. He put a crack of command into it, and saw Richard twitch: not quite a move to get up, but nearly.

“What do you imagine I’m gonna do, Richard?” Gerard leaned against the open door. “Shut you in here because you’ve decided you want to play prisoner? Come over there and kick the shit out of you? It’s late, I’m tired, I’m gonna put a couple of sandwiches together for both of us and you can come right back here if you like, but if you sit there like that for even thirty more seconds I am putting you in cuffs and leg-irons and you are spending the night on the floor of my room. Got it?”

It was an unplanned threat, but Richard reacted to it: he lifted his head, looked at Gerard, and – within the half-minute – he was standing on his feet, swaying a little, his hands shoved into his pockets.

“Come here,” Gerard repeated, and Richard walked towards him. His face wasn’t passive any more. He looked angry. Maybe that was what he was trying to hide. Slaves weren’t supposed to be angry.

It made a good-looking change from passive. Gerard put his hand on Richard’s shoulder and steered him down the stairs. Richard kept his hands in his pockets; Gerard let him till they were all but at the kitchen door. The pager had been shoved down into the right-hand front pocket: Gerard took it away from him and pocketed it, before he made Richard sit in the chair with its back to the door, from which Richard couldn’t get up in a hurry without making some noise.

Gerard put together two cold meat sandwiches, layered with tomato, and left them on the counter while he checked out the pager. Richard had tried to use it to page two or three numbers, all of which would have to be checked against the ones Richard had tried the previous week, but then seemed to have spent at least some time on trying to crack the security code.

“Next time, don’t even try,” Gerard told Richard, pocketing the pager again. “Waste of your time.”

“And you keep me so busy,” Richard said, and seemed to choke, or sob: a deep gutteral noise, that might even have been a laugh.

Gerard sat down and pushed the plate at Richard, taking one himself. “Go on.” He waited until Richard had the sandwich in his hands. “You know, there’s goddam little you can do around here, and there’s even less I can trust you to do around here after the stunt you pulled last week.”

Richard stared at him for a moment, and then took a grim bite of the sandwich he was holding. Gerard nodded, and began to eat. For once, they both finished at almost the same time: Richard must have been hungry, for all his claims not to be.

“The runaways,” Richard said. “Did you catch them?”

“Yes, we did,” Gerard said.

“And they’re here,” Richard said. Not a question, this time. “You’re going to interrogate them. Find out who helped them.” He still sounded angry.

“That’s none of your business,” Gerard said, keeping his voice dead level. He stood up. “We’re going to bed now. So, where do you want to spend the night?”

Richard stared up at him. “Why do you ask?”

Gerard put his hand on the back of Richard’s neck, feeling collar and skin against his palm. “You’ve got a choice,” he said. He was finding Richard more attractive right now than he’d found him in a week of passive silence and invisible resistance. “I told you.”

Not like a window or like a mask,but with a kind of slow resignation, Richard’s face changed. His voice wasn’t angry, any more: it wasn’t anything. “With you, Sam.”

“The hell,” Gerard said briefly, and urged Richard to his feet. “Upstairs.”

The improvised sleeping mat and blanket was still in Gerard’s bedroom. Gerard let Richard use the bathroom, and handed him the bundle of blankets and comforter.

Richard stood still, ignoring Gerard’s touch pointing him at the door, “Why do you ask,” he said, not angrily as before: tired and flat. “Whatever I say…”

“I pay attention,” said Gerard. “Go on.” He did not trust this kind of resignation in Richard – that anger had been genuine – and he was tired and angry enough not to trust himself. There were four scared kids in cells on the other side of the house, without blankets or anything to drink or eat.



The three numbers Richard had tried to page were two doctors, Nicholls and Wahlund, and the third number also belonged to Chicago Memorial hospital, though the current holder wasn’t anyone Richard could have known.

Richard spent Sunday for the most part with earphones on the sofa in the lounge, ignored by Giles and Adam when they were there: they spent some time over on the other side of the house, and Gerard put Richard back in the holding cell while they made their report.

The two slaves were numb with terror, and it was impossible for either Giles or Adam to get much useful information out of them. They were fully expecting to be killed, of course: slaves knew nothing good happened to runaways.

The Forrester kid was still angry even after twelve hours: and the Channing kid cracked like an egg.

“She found out Tam and Bo were seeing each other,” Adam said. “She thought it was all very romantic. She wanted to help them get away. She talked Stephanie into letting them use her house as a first stop, thinking it was far enough away they wouldn’t be searched for there, and then arranged to go away and not take Tam with her.”

“Ridge Forrester is marked down as an abolitionist by Commerce. Someone who didn’t like him much put his name on the list. Could have been any one of his three ex-wives,” Gerard said, with some grim humour. “Or this would likely never have come to our attention.”

“Is there anything we can do?”

“I want to get Willow to run the numbers for us,” Gerard said, without answering the question. “Add it up.”



Gerard's office on the safe side had a window on to the garden. When he was doing the administrative work, Gerard never looked out: his desk faced a wall.

The phone rang: it was the admin office in Commerce.

"We'd like to congratulate you on your extraction of the five subjects you were sent last week," the cool voice said.

Gerard had never met any of them. They always spoke in the plural. He had been expecting this call today.

"Thank you very much," Gerard said. He went on listening, looking out of the window at the wired wall and the grey grass.

"My team did good work," Gerard said finally. "We could do better, if next time, we get subjects that haven't been so damaged. Especially in the mouth."

There was a pause. The cool voice said "We find it best to ensure other resources are aware of the severity of the consequences involved. Your methods are very effective, Mr Gerard, but in effect a subject sent to you simply disappears: there is no ...sensory impact."

"I appreciate that," Gerard said. "But you understand, the quality of the information we can provide is dependent on the quality of the subjects you provide."

"We are very impressed with the quality of your work even subject to those restrictions. We have passed on our recommendations to Devlin-MacGregor, based on the situation discovered by your report."

"Thank you very much," Gerard said again. He reached out a hand to the cool glass of the window, leaned against it. "Can I ask what your recommendation was?"

"Decimation of the labour at the contaminated site," the voice from Commerce said. "We saw the need to send a strong message."

"I appreciate that," Gerard said. "That site is twenty thousand slaves, isn't it? More or less."

"That's correct, Mr Gerard. We feel that the loss of two thousand resources falls within acceptable limits. Agents of Commerce will of course be on hand to see the lossage is carried out humanely."

Gerard sat down at his desk. A file was open on his computer screen: it was something about running costs. In one empty field, he entered the figures for two million. "Well, that'll send a message," he said. In the next, the figures for twenty thousand. "Do you suppose this company, Devlin-Macgregor, will want to follow through?"Under the first field, he entered the formula to calculate 10%, and copied it into the next field. "It's a pretty extravagant message. They're a robust company. Of course I appreciate the significance of our information, but with two thousand slaves you run the risk of taking out some valuable properties." In another field, he entered the formula to subtract one result from the other.

"I am sure that Devlin-MacGregor will ensure that the less valuable slaves will be predominantly chosen," the voice from Commerce said. "We shall strongly recommend that they resolve the situation. We wish to thank you for the report which drew our attention to the risks inherent in this situation."

"Yeah," Gerard said, "My team do good work. Glad to hear you appreciate the information we provide."

The conversation was really over: they exchanged a few more compliments, and Gerard set the phone down. He sat still, staring at the figures on the screen, feeling cold in his stomach, a little breathless. He glanced at his watch: it was half past eleven. He closed the file, without saving the data he had just entered.

Downstairs, over the other side of the house, George, Willow, Adam and Giles were all in the lounge, all working. Dana was running medical tests in the clinic, figuring out the death reports for the four prisoners; they’d need two at least, and she might as well do all four while Willow was running the numbers. Gerard had meant to let Richard out for lunch: the work he had to do this afternoon he could do at his desk in the lounge. He hadn’t slept with Richard last night, either.

Richard was sitting on the floor, his hands fallen between his knees, his head back against the wall. He was looking at the door when Gerard came in.

Gerard closed the door behind himself, with a solid thump. Richard looked startled. He didn't get up, but his hands shifted, as if he were thinking about it.

"Don't move," Gerard said. He came over. Nothing much was clear to him that he wanted, but he could have this. "Shift your ass, I want to sit down behind you."

He sat down, leaned back against the wall, and put his arms round Richard. There was no more than an instant's unwilled resistance: Richard leaned back, his head against Gerard's shoulder, instead of the wall.

Holding Richard like this, Gerard could feel the bones of his shoulders digging in: each breath he took, like warmth inside him: the beating of his heart. His whole and solid body, alive, unharmed.

"Do you know the difference between twenty thousand and two hundred thousand?"

Richard's voice sounded creaky. "One hundred and eighty thousand."

"One number is a lot bigger than the other," Gerard said. "But they're both very big numbers. Aren't they?"

"I suppose so."

"I don't have an answer for you," Gerard said. "It ought to make a difference that one number's a lot bigger. I guess it does. It really does." He tightened his grip on Richard.

"It usually does," Richard said. He tilted his head to look at Gerard. Gerard turned his head away.

"The thing is..." Gerard said, and his voice trailed off.

Telling the kids about the situation was something that couldn't be helped. It seemed unlikely that Commerce would manage to keep it entirely out of the news.

Or even if they did: Willow, of all his kids, would find out anyway.

"Sam, are you all right?"

"Fine," Gerard said. He felt distantly startled. "I'm good. How about you?"

"I'm good," Richard said.

"That's fine. I'm just going to sit here and hold you, okay? I'm not going to hurt you. Not at all."


to part 7