The boy and girl are curious immediately when they hear her conundrum, which is automatically a bad sign, and then they're like, "Okay, you can talk to her but we get to watch." Which isn't a bad sign so much as an engraved invitation to Badness. And then immediately, the Badness: Vesta running a roulette table that is a specific kind of roulette you might have heard about. V-world is so dumb, and so, so awesome.

As Annalee's excellent-as-expected coverage notes, she's very Mondo 2000. Which is to say, she looks exactly like an internet nerd with a coterie would imagine herself circa 1993: Fried hair, conspicuously latex/leather apparel, more eye makeup than you can shake a stick at... But still with that moderately Wiccan "I have n+1 cats" thing happening.

As I've often said, cyberpunk-which-never-existed died when Jane Child left us for Tokyo to make it real, just like riot-grrl-which-never-existed died when Courtney Love left us for the better crazier place where she still takes residence. Her Own Private Tokyo, if you will. I alone still love her, but I don't expect anybody to go there with me, and anyway this is not the show to talk about that, so let's go. Bets placed.

Tamara freaks, Hot Girl #122 licks her lips while looking a lot like the Blood Ties girl, whom I spotted recently on both Legend Of The Seeker and Life Unexpected. Rando True Blood-looking dude with a goatee is also very horny for death, because the Matrix is so gross that you become a terrorist or else just give in. Tamara, watching this now -- I thought she was so innocent because she couldn't afford a holoband in life, but Lacy has one and Joe took one or something similar away from Willie last week -- seems like she's already heading the STO's direction, because it's so creepy.

Then they grip, pull their hair back, put the guns to their temples, and fire. The guy derezzes, everybody cheers, somebody wins. Tammy's confused by his disappearance, more for our benefit than for making narrative sense, so somebody explains how that works, for the first of many times so we understand her entire plotline coming up. "Gone where?" Wherever, some boy says. Maybe home. Tamara's like, "That's my jam," and steps up on Vesta at the table, who goes, "You're the girl who can't get out. People have been talking about you," while counting her money, even though this comes off like a lie because Tad/Heracles like just explained her. Either way, proper for the tone and proper for the interaction. "Look, I need to get outside. I need to go home. Can you please help me?" Vesta suggests she simply take off her band, Tamara squeals about how she can't, and Vesta pulls out a gun and immediately shoots her through the middle.