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The phone on Rutledge’s desk buzzed He pressed a button “Yes?”

“Sir, LVPD are here,” cah the speaker “They say you called them?”

“Yes, send them up” He terminated the call and looked back to Su”

She knew from earlier that the elevator ride took about ninety seconds She had that long re She slapped both hands down on his desk “At a prearranged time, a couple of years from now, all of the randoram them to do that from the start”

He frowned Was that a spark of interest? “Define ‘fail’”

“They’ll all output a steady strea theetting the same ‘random’ number every tiht even re the same result every use That’s even worse—especially if it happens to be a player-win Every casino in toould be in utter chaos”

He looked to the ceiling, realization dawning “Except the Babylon”

“Right! Not the Babylon” She pointed at him “Because you already have a different systerade Lucky you Then what happens, Mr Rutledge? What happens when the Babylon is the only casino in Vegas with functioning machines?”

“We get all the customers Every last one” He downed his scotch and spun his chair to face the cityscape “And our competitors lose hundreds of millions of dollars”

She crept around his desk “It would take them tio back to the old non-quantum randomizers By then everyone will have quantuenerators They’d have to set up a central quantum computer randomizer like you have”

He pinched his chin “The spike in demand for those systems would slow everyone down even more We’d probably have a week,market Hmm”

She stood beside hi town “Of course, well before that day, ed for new identities, and you will have paid us a large sum of money Say, ten ain”

He remained quiet

“This is an opportunity, Mr Rutledge It coe reward I think you’re a gambler at heart What do you say?”

The elevator dinged, and the doors opened Two policeh the reception area and into the office One was young and wiry, while the other was at least twenty years older The older officer, obviously the one in charge, said, “We got a call saying you needed us?”