I see a machine.
Adorned with bright flashing lights and colours, it has all the bells and whistles it needs to accomplish a specific job.
Its purpose to entice people, to attract them.
For the machine is a Giving Machine, and the more it gives, the better its owner fares.
By design, the Giving Machine is engineered to prey on the weak-willed and desperate of the lower levels of Arcadia. By design, it is a very effective machine. People flock, to and fro and pay their hard-earned credits for the chance of a jackpot.
Sometimes they win, just enough to keep them crawling back and opening up their wallets.
More often than not, they lose.
Even when they do lose, as they do, the bells and whistles play, the bright lights shine and a nice release of dopamine keeps its victims trapped. Promising them the one thing that they do not have.
It gives them hope.
Or so they think.
Really, it slowly strips them of their dignity, taking more than it gives. For it is designed that way.
It has a specific job, this Giving Machine. To entice people to play, and to ensure that the House always wins in the end.
The rich of Arcadia get richer.
What poor gamblers don’t understand is life’s designed that way.
Intentionally.
In Arcadia, there are many desperate enough to try their hand at the Giving Machine in hopes of a jackpot. The backs of the downtrodden keep this world turning and Zeus in power.
You fancy yourself a part of that wheel, don’t you Caesar?
You like to think of yourself as the House, El Fuego, the one that always wins. He who gets what he wants, every time. Even if he has to take it by force. You see yourself as the one calling the shots. The kingpin, large and in charge of everything within your club.
But you’re not the House.
You’re simply a machine that the house uses to accomplish its goals. Club 40 is merely the bright lights, bells and whistles you use to entice the downtrodden.
By design, you offer your clientele just enough to taste freedom, to feel like you’re the one rolling in the money.
But you forget whose house it really is and who truly pulls the strings.
No matter how in control of your circumstances you think you are, you’re just another paying mark. Another wheel in the machine of the rich, just like Colt Ramsey and his investigation. Just like Drexl and his ladies of the night.
Part of the House’s game.
I am no fool, Caesar, whose livelihood you can extort.
My hope lies in places you cannot touch because you are blind to what I can see.
I cannot sense the flashing lights or bright colours of Club 40, but I can smell the stench of bullshit.
And you reek.
I cannot be swayed by the Giving Machine.
No.
I am the one that brings the House down, by not buying into the false hope that you serve.
I see you, Giving Machine.