There was nothing I could use to heat myself with, which forced me to rely on my own body heat. This made me realize that the purpose of the IVs was twofold. They were drugging me, but they were also taking away the very thing that I used to power my transformations, my body heat. Either Dempsey had gotten really lucky with his methods of holding people or he knew enough about people like me to know how to contain me. But are there other people like me? Well, this was Dempsey so I was going to lean towards the probability that he had the necessary experience to contain someone like me. Perfect, this was just what I needed.
The conversation I was trying to hear was still only a jumble in my hazy mind. I was able to pick out the occasional word, but nothing made any kind of sense. So, I turned my attention away from this source of frustration and focused on my bonds. These were rapidly turning into just another nightmare. I didn’t have enough body heat to make my bonds disappear, but then I didn’t need to make them disappear; I just needed them to be slightly loosened. But, I was unable to focus on the necessary mental image of the loosened ropes or handcuffs and apply them to the real world as I was used to doing. Even with the limited body heat I had, I wasn’t in any real danger of killing myself in the attempt. But the drugs were more than likely interfering with my ability.
Angered by the impotence of my gift, I quickly turned my attention towards physically testing my bonds. I knew it was going to be futile but I had to try. After all it was either a little pain now or probable death later. Right on cue, as soon as I tried to inch my arm in any direction I received twin pinches emanating from the shunts in my arms. Knowing I wasn’t going to get out of my bonds, I forced myself to concentrate once again on the nearby conversation. Who knew, maybe I would get lucky and be able to hear something helpful.
I kept my eyes closed and tried to stretch my hearing beyond its normal limits. Surprisingly I was able to isolate one of the voices and managed to pluck out a couple of words, “…cameras were…” It was nice to be proven right, even if it was too late to help. But hey, better late than never. But all this knowledge did was dredge up more questions, and one of them I was happy to be able to ask myself. Why am I still breathing?
Dempsey didn’t look kindly upon cheaters, period. So as I sat there in the chill air and attempted to listen to the faint echo of conversation, the stories about the man’s ruthlessness started running through my mind. Of all the ones that I had heard, the most horrific was from the tournament six years ago. The poor fool who had been caught…I shook my head in an attempt to dislodge the thought, there was no need to depress myself any further. I was in enough trouble without thinking about other idiots who had fallen afoul of Dempsey… though, to be completely fair, I now needed to lump myself into that group.
As I thought about my situation some more, I realized that if I was right and the cameras had been installed in the final table, then that meant my original information that the tables had no cameras had been correct. Therefore, armed with nothing more than suspicion, Dempsey forced an unintended break so as to rig a table with cameras. The fact that he normally had the tables removed when no longer needed just played into the man’s favor. It wouldn’t have taken much effort on Dempsey’s part to obtain the cameras and modify the table just to catch me playing honestly. Had I really been that lucky? Or, was it the manner in which I had revealed my winning hands, the production involved, that had motivated Dempsey’s actions?
As I replayed highlights from the tournament in my head I could see how some of my winning hands might seem very suspicious, especially to a man like Dempsey. The fact that Dempsey’s actions were based off a false assumption disgusted me. Yes, he had managed to catch me in the act of cheating, but it had only been honest play that had brought me under his scrutiny, which ultimately exposed my sole misstep. If I had simply taken what I had been dealt I would have honestly taken second place. While not the jackpot, it still would have been good money, but, for some reason, I had convinced myself that I had to win it all. The worst part was that now, as I looked back at all of the little inconsistencies, they made an unfortunate amount of sense.
As I started to grow more and more depressed I decided to once again turn my attention back to my confinement. There was always a way out, you just needed the willpower to pay the cost. Now, I just needed to figure out what the cost of my escape would be. From my previous failed attempts I knew that there was no heat source available and I didn’t have enough warmth inside of me to power even a simple transformation. The metal of my chair must have been pre-chilled because it was simply another source of cold leaching away precious body heat. I started to worry about freezing to death. But then, since I was most likely dead anyway, maybe I could tap just a little more of my heat and risk lapsing back into unconsciousness or death.
With another breath, I started groping for any body heat that I could grab. I figured that it would be best to start with the ropes, it would be easier than trying to alter the metal. I soon found myself merely cursing Dempsey’s ingenuity. Despite the cold, I should have been able to alter something. Whatever was flowing into me through the IVs had to be what was keeping me from using my gift. I had nothing. Rather, all I had was the information that Dempsey had experience dealing with people like me. I found this anything but comforting.