A (menagerie of bar regulars) discuss old mysteries over a card game.

The noise of clinking glasses mixed with the throbbing cyber-techno-trap-mix coming out of the neon-lit jukebox in the corner, and competed with the many raised voices.

For as long as history had existed, there were bars, and people having arguments over cards.

"T-There's no fuckin' way he survived that! Ex-military or not, the guy's not a machine. They didn't even HAVE neuro-wiring back then, let alone full-body prosthesis!"

A nekomata's white ears twitched as he spoke, one of his hands idly flicking the cards in his hand. To his right, a small glass of cream soda had been left alone long enough to sweat. To his left, a small pile of colorful plastic chips had dwindled compared to what it was when the game started.

A thick cloud of various kinds of smoke hung over the table.

"That's bullshit, Mikhail. It's not like he wound up in the middle of nowhere."

Across from the nervous cat-boy, the rich and sultry voice of a boa-grade lamia commanded the attention of the table. She gently pushed a stack of two chips forward with immaculate, pink-tipped nails, letting them linger on the red plastic for slightly longer than was strictly necessary. Her sharp eyes flicked to the duo of cards in her hand, then over to the white-haired boy, listening to his reasoning intently despite her disinterested, sharp expression.

"You'd know better than anyone here what the cold can do to a person, Dhara. Let's assume- foolishly, I might add- that he didn't experience a very sudden deceleration from terminal velocity, and managed to use his chute properly. Hell, I'd say that's even worse for the poor guy. He had no boots, no compass, no fucking clue where he was, and nothing more than a glorified housecoat and a bag full of very suspicious money. He was dead well before the search teams even knew where to look."

As he spoke, the boy threw in his own set of two chips. It put a significantly larger dent in his pool than it had for his opponents, but it was still just a call. Nothing to fret over- no matter how nervous he still looked.

"I think... you're all missing the point. None of that matters."

This time, it was the extra-buxom and nearly-silent human girl to his left that added her two cents- and chips- to the ever-growing pool. Her gloomy, sullen expression didn't quite match with the sinful softness of her frame or her choice in cleavage-exposing keyhole sweater, though her extra-pale complexion and deeply purple color scheme complimented both.

"Consider what we know. We know that D. B. hijacked that plane, we know what he had with him at the time, and we know that he jumped out of that plane, with two hundred thousand dollars and an old parachute."

"Yeah, we've been over the basics a hundred times, Aria. What are you getting at?"

The all-purple girl huffed, mustering what would have been a glare at Mikhail if not for her lazy, half-lidded expression. The continual motion of her chest, even long after she'd heaved that sigh, ensured he didn't notice it.

"Is that really all you're taking as fact, though? Think about the details. You remember how the crew said they could feel the plane's balance shift part of the way through the flight? Imagine yourself in that position. You must be so frustrated, so afraid. It took over two hours just to get your salvation in the air again, and that's changed everything. Your plan is in shambles, but it's all you have left- so you pop open that hatch, and you feel the icy weather on your skin, and you stare out into the looming, all-consuming dark, not even really knowing what all those points of light are, not knowing if you'll land among them or not. Can you really make that jump? Or do you hesitate? How long does it take for you to build up your courage?"

Aria's eyes practically glowed with inquisitive fervor, though Mikhail was saved by the final member of the game finally adding something to the conversation.

Though, she didn't do it with her voice. Just the rattling of chips. With one hand holding up her head, she knocked her other all-titanium-and-carbon-weave knuckle against the soft felt table, as if to draw everyone's attention back to the fact that there was a game in progress.

"Yeah, yeah. I get it, Cacophony, I just want to see where she goes with this, okay?"

Dhara's lengthy tail flicked towards the table, the very tip brushing up against a trio of cards and flipping them over as it passed. For a brief moment, all four players fell silent, still as statues as they looked over the new cards, comparing them to those still in their hands, running the odds of victory through over and over in their minds.

"Just like this game, there's facts, and there's assumptions. There's possibilities, and wishful thinking. The scenario I just wove captured all of your attention... but the moment you started thinking like that, you already lost~ For all I know, D. B. was swept out by the change in cabin pressure as soon as the aft hatch was opened. Maybe he chose the parachute he did because it looked tougher. Maybe he didn’t know as much as we think he did."

The group stayed quiet for a few moments more, at least until Dhara pushed another duo of chips forward on the table.

"So what you're saying is, it doesn't matter if he survived or not?"

"Precisely. After that leap of faith, D. B. ceased to exist. Whether or not that's because he survived, and got away with it all, or because he died in whatever brutal fashion you prefer, is entirely immaterial."

After one more glance at her cards, Aria sighed again, and placed them face-down on the table.

"As inconsequential as my hand. Even if you knew what was in it, it wouldn't solve the mystery. That lies in the pot- or, in David Bois’ case, the money. People disappear all the time... but nearly two hundred thousand dollars, in relatively small denominations, with known serial numbers, simply ceasing to exist?"

Cacophony shook her head, and Aria nodded.

"That's right. That money didn't disappear- at least, not completely. Three bundles of it showed up in a place it had no right to be, almost a decade later. That's the real mystery."

Mikhail put one finger to his small pile of chips, and thought long and hard.