Rustline Hold didn't announce itself.
No sign. No wall. No gate pretending to be authority.
It just… appeared.
Buildings rose out of the dust the way bad ideas did—incremental, stubborn, already halfway wrong by the time you noticed them. Scrap-metal fronts welded onto old concrete bones. Casino husks with their neon torn out, letters missing like teeth. Canvas awnings stretched low, patched and repatched until the original color didn't matter.
People moved through it all without hurry.
That was the first rule Cole felt.
Nobody rushed in Rustline.
Rushing meant you hadn't learned yet.
Dusty slowed as soon as they crossed the invisible line where road stopped being road and started being counted. His ears angled, then adjusted again, like he was tuning to a frequency that didn't want to stay still.
Cole felt it too.
A pressure, but spread out.
Not the House leaning close.
The House watching from everywhere.
Text ghosted at the edge of his sight—not messages, not offers. Just markers. Tallies ticking without numbers.
OBSERVATION ACTIVEZONE STATUS: OPEN ACCOUNTING
Cole didn't acknowledge it.
You didn't nod at vultures.
He tied the mule near a collapsed slot hall where the concrete still held shade. The animal didn't fight it. Just stood, head low, chewing nothing.
Dusty stayed at Cole's knee.
They walked.
The town smelled like sweat, metal, and old water. Underneath it all—ink. Always ink. Cards had been printed here once. Burned here. Buried here.
Eyes followed Cole, but never long.
Not fear.
Appraisal.
He passed a pair of men arguing softly beside a broken roulette wheel set up as a table. One man's voice shook. The other's didn't.
Cole slowed just enough to hear.
"—said just a little," the shaking one said. "Just enough to clear it."
The calm one shook his head. "You said sleep. You said one night."
"I didn't think it'd—"
"House don't care what you think."
They both went quiet when Cole passed.
Dusty's hackles lifted, then settled.
Cole didn't stop walking.
He followed the sound instead.
A low murmur, like a crowd that didn't want to be counted as one.
It led him into an open square that had once been a parking lot. Lines still faint on the ground. White ghosts under dirt.
Three tables were set up there.
Not House tables.
Local ones.
Wood mismatched. Chairs uneven. Cards worn soft from hands that had sweated on them too long.
People stood around each, close but not touching.
Witnesses.
Cole took a place near the edge.
Dusty lay down at his feet, chin on paws, eyes never still.
At the nearest table, two women sat across from each other.
One young. One not.
No Dealer.
No system text.
Just cards.
The older woman's hands shook as she shuffled. Not nerves. Fatigue. Deep.
The younger one watched with her jaw set, eyes too bright.
They dealt.
Five cards each.
No chips. No money.
Cole felt the House register it anyway.
WAGER TYPE: UNFORMALSTAKES: DECLARED
The older woman looked at her hand and closed her eyes for half a second.
When she opened them, something in her posture had already gone.
She laid her cards down.
The younger woman frowned, then spread hers.
A straight.
Low, but clean.
The crowd murmured once, quiet and controlled.
The House did not intervene.
The older woman inhaled, then exhaled slowly.
"Alright," she said. "Alright."
She stood.
Didn't stagger.
Didn't argue.
Just… stood there, suddenly uncertain what came next.
The younger woman waited.
The older one blinked.
Once.
Twice.
"What was it," she asked. "What did I—"
The younger woman didn't smile.
"You don't remember?" she asked gently.
The older woman laughed, small and confused. "Remember what?"
Silence hit the square like a held breath.
Cole felt something cold pass over his shoulders.
The younger woman swallowed.
"You said your sister's name," she said. "You said if you lost, you'd give it up. Just the name. You said you were tired of carrying it."
The older woman stared at her.
Then looked around, like the answer might be on someone else's face.
"I don't have a sister," she said.
The crowd didn't react.
That was worse.
The younger woman's eyes shone, not with victory. With something closer to grief.
"She raised you," she said. "After the flood."
The older woman frowned, the expression unfamiliar on her own face.
"That doesn't sound right," she said.
She rubbed her arms, suddenly cold.
Cole felt his jaw tighten.
The House spoke, not in words.
In confirmation.
LOSS RECORDEDCOST APPLIED: MEMORY (SPECIFIC)
The older woman walked away a moment later, moving like someone who'd stepped into the wrong day.
No one followed her.
No one comforted her.
That wasn't how Rustline worked.
The younger woman sat alone at the table, staring at the cards like they'd bitten her.
Cole turned away.
Dusty rose and moved with him.
They didn't speak.
They crossed the square toward the far edge where shade pooled thicker and the sound thinned.
Cole leaned against a concrete pillar and watched.
People played.
People lost.
People won.
Nobody celebrated.
Nobody screamed.
Rustline didn't bleed fast.
It bled slow.
A man passed Cole, rubbing his eyes hard like he was trying to wake up from something that didn't count as sleep anymore.
A woman laughed too loudly at nothing and didn't stop when no one joined her.
A boy sat on a crate counting chips he didn't remember earning.
Cole felt the pull then.
Subtle.
A suggestion wearing the shape of an invitation.
He turned.
A table sat under a half-collapsed awning near the edge of the square.
Cleaner than the others.
Smaller.
Empty.
One chair pulled out.
Waiting.
No Dealer.
No crowd.
Just a handwritten placard nailed to the table leg.
NOTHING TABLELOW STAKESQUICK HAND
Dusty growled.
Not loud.
Definitive.
Cole read the sign again.
Nothing tables were lies.
They always took something you didn't know you needed until later.
He felt the House watching now.
Not leaning.
Measuring.
Text slid in, thin as thread.
OPTION AVAILABLEPARTICIPATION: VOLUNTARYDECLINE: DEFERRED RISK
Deferred.
That word had weight.
He stepped closer anyway.
Looked at the chair.
Looked at the deck sitting in the center of the table.
Worn. Soft edges. Honest in a way honesty didn't matter.
A man approached from the side.
Not a Dealer.
Local.
Thin. Sun-burned. Eyes too alert for someone who slept well.
"You sitting?" the man asked.
Cole shook his head once.
"No."
The man studied him, then nodded.
"Smart," he said.
He reached for the chair.
The House flickered.
DECLINE LOGGEDSTATUS: DEFERRED RISK
Cole felt it like a pressure shift inside his chest.
Not pain.
Interest accruing.
The man sat.
Another local joined him.
They dealt.
Cole didn't watch the hand.
He didn't need to.
He walked.
Rustline unfolded around him.
Alleys that bent wrong.
Rooms with too many chairs.
A bar where the mirrors didn't reflect the same people twice.
He felt the Ace against his ribs, cold and patient.
Dusty stayed close, brushing his leg every few steps like he was checking Cole was still solid.
They reached the far edge of town where buildings thinned and the land tried to remember what it used to be.
Cole stopped.
Looked back.
Rustline didn't look hostile.
It didn't look welcoming either.
It looked hungry, but disciplined.
A place that knew how to wait.
Text flickered one last time, quiet and precise.
DEFERRED RISK CONFIRMEDCOLLECTION WINDOW: UNDETERMINED
Cole exhaled.
"Yeah," he said softly. "Figures."
Dusty looked up at him.
Cole rested a hand on the dog's head.
Warm.
Real.
Still.
They turned back toward the heart of Rustline.
Toward tables that hadn't decided what they wanted yet.
And somewhere under the town, something old shifted its weight and smiled without a mouth.