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proposal
    JJ — this msg just came out of nowhere. Who the hells this guy? Does this sound like something vyable? And how did he get this address, thought you said it was private?
    [Machine 1267, main floor, Double Six Casino: Milk | Carol]
    From up here Milk can monitor the whole place: every blind corner, the gaps between a patron’s fingers. A croupier’s blink, the tone of a bartender’s voice, blood jumping all nervous in a young gambler’s veins.
    Black one-way glass fronts the tiny booth. In its surface Milk is a pale streak hovering over screens and consoles. A bank of monitors brings the whole room under his gaze. He checks the drive, aligns the scent vials, adjusts his silver airbox, double-checks the cables snaking off into the casino’s ventilation system. The set-up is not ideal. Milk’s equipment is factory fresh and customised, but the casino’s gear is older; where the two meet, he’s had to improvise with duct tape. And the boss had shot him a hard-eyed look when he’d said he always works alone. The guard was eventually sent away, but in his place is the black stare of a surveillance camera. Milk glares back, then looks away. He works best invisible.
    Ignore it. Focus . The Milkboy is ready. For luck he’s wearing new sneakers, immaculate white Pumas. He reminds himself that no one else on this planet can claim his particular mix of skill and intuition. The world is on the verge of realising this. That funny-looking journo with the hair gel who’s been hanging round lately: recognition-wise, he’s just a sign of things to come.
    The floor is busy, and it’s impossible to watch everywhere at once. He needs one average gambler, midway between a first-timer and a lost cause, to be the room’s emotional barometer. Once a mood starts to roll through a space a strange kind of automated beauty will take over. Tune your test bunny, goes the theory, and the rest will follow.
    He scans the patrons, searching for his subject, your typical punter. A couple of excitable young guys, look like students, probably first-timers — no use, too green. Man in a tracksuit with thinning hair, tattoos poking out of his sleeves, watching the croupier with a starving look — no, too desperate. A woman with a long blonde ponytail, retro-style polka-dot dress, shapely legs crossed atop her stool, tapping mechanically at her machine, sipping a martini with an apple slice … He zooms in — no. Older than she’d looked, spike heels and face worn hard from a tough life, that ruined look of women who’ve survived too much; sex worker, most likely, long-termer. Not her.
    Then Carol’s face fills a monitor screen: tidy eyebrows, complimentary cocktail. Just past the middle of her life, plays a bit of this, a bit of that — hopeful, but not a complete sucker. Never had a fancy job or shot junk up her arm. An optimistic tilt to her head, a hint of individual will behind that familiar foolish gleam. Perfect. Milk checks his controls, clears his mind and zooms in.
    baseline check: heart rate 72 | base spend: $2 per min …
    glow: soft amber | low metal slush | gold tumble plastic cup | bird chirps tiny bells | spend: $4 per min …
    scent: four-leaf clover | glow: warm amber | subsonic: applause | low gold slush | $5 per min …
    jasmine | dreamsound 14 | smell of velvet | tickle of dice | skin of a dark-haired man | gunpowder | heart rate 86 | $8 per min …
    Oh yes, thinks Milk. Very nice.
    [Intercept: internal msg system: casino owner | operations manager]
    To: [email protected]
    From: [email protected]
    Subject: Re: Fw: proposal
    No idea, Frank, your address is protected. Never heard of this guy, dunno what his game is. But I’m curious. What you think?
    [Machine 942, main floor, Double Six Casino: Carol]
    Three cherries, thinks Carol, three cherries means I cut my hair into a bob and stop eating cheese after seven p.m. (causes