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This time, Chanti didn’t lean over to offer helpful explanations to Piper. She stayed hard focused as John laid down the cards one at a time. There were a lot more cards this go-around, where the marriage-in-the-crapper guy only got seven in total, and Chanti looked like she’d get the whole deck.

“This is what I see,” John started, and Chanti reached over and squeezed Piper’s hand under the table.

John pursed his lips and sighed heavily into his mic. “Yeah, it looks like you’ve got a lot of anxiety stemming from your job. I think your biggest fear is that you’ll be working for someone, and they’ll accuse you of something—something bad—while fulfilling your contract. Are those the kind of fearful thoughts you’re asking me about? Whether they’re founded or not?”

“Or that I’ll have the laws changed on me and put me, retroactively, in the wrong.”

John looked up from the cards. “Because there are no AI laws now, or not really any AI laws that would come to bear against you? You’re not personally doing anything—you’re sending your little AI agent off, and that agent is doing the bad thing—bidden or unbidden--and the agent can’t be held responsible because it’s a machine, right?”

“More or less, yeah.” Chanti was now squeezing Piper's fingers so hard that Piper’s knuckles ground against each other.

“Oh well, that’s not good.” John refocused on the cards. “My last sentence was for humanity in general, not for you specifically. Okay, let me see here. There’s a woman involved in your next steps. This isn’t a boss. It isn’t someone paying you. It isn’t a love interest. There’s a whole lot of chaos around her. She’s the one going to jail.” John looked up as the crowd gasped. “No, I’m just kidding. I didn’t pull cards for her. I was trying to be funny. It is true, though, Chanti, that there’s a woman who is close to you who’s involved somehow with your job. Do you know who I’m talking about?”

“No. This is kind of a boys’ club kind of position. I’m the only female.”

“Oh, okay. Huh.” John looked back at the cards. “There’s a woman who is the chaos agent. She’s here with this eight of swords. She doesn’t know what to do, but she’s a goody-two-shoes, isn’t she?”

“A goody …” Chanti said and looked over at Piper. “I don’t know what that means, do you?”

“Yeah, okay – generational phrase there.” John laughed. “She’s a person who doesn’t like to break the rules. Do you know who she is?”

“With work? No.”

“Okay. Yeah, I don’t know what to tell you. I think. I think … Now, don’t come back and ask me to be a witness for your trial. This isn’t legal advice. No, ‘Hey, John told me I wasn’t going to jail, so you should drop charges,’ right? That wouldn’t work out for you.” He stroked his hand down his beard. “Yeah, Chanti, there’s something here. It’s not jail. It’s something else. He held up the Tower card. Things could go boom.” John looked Chanti dead in the eye. “In this layout—I know this isn’t going to feel like a satisfying answer—but things can go very badly or brilliantly, and it all depends on this guy here. This knight. See him? See his sword?”

“I’m a lesbian,” Chanti said, though she wasn’t at all. “I’m not interested in any man’s sword.”

“Okay, good. Well. He doesn’t have anything to do with your paid work. But he is pivotal. And there is that chaos woman. And I’d say, yeah … Work looks fine for not going to jail or prison—I don’t know the difference, but I don’t think they’re synonyms. Let me put it this way: I don’t see incarceration, but I do see that you’ve got some friends that are kind of iffy. I’d start culling my contacts list if I were you. There. That’s about it.”

“Okay, thanks. What about her?” Chanti asked, tipping her head toward Piper.

Piper’s cheeks flamed red.

“Her?” John asked. “Like, is she an iffy friend from your spread you need to cull?”

“No, I’m not culling her under any circumstances. Just in general,” Chanti said. “She’s not going to ask a question, so that’s her question. One question per ticket, right?”

As John gathered up the cards and gave them a quick shuffle, three cards flew out of the deck: the Devil, the Tower, the Eight of Swords, reflected down from the mirror for everyone to see.

Piper felt like she’d just walked into her living room naked only to find that a surprise party of strangers had gathered there.

Piper was pretty much hating every second of this.

She didn’t know the specific meanings of those cards, but she did know they weren’t happy, judging by the iconography and hearing the gasps and groans from the audience.

“Oh, lady, I’m sorry.” John looked her dead in the eye. “Should I keep going to see what this pertains to?” he asked with a deep frown.

“No, thank you.” Piper waved her hand as if she were erasing all of it. Since she hadn’t asked a question and she hadn’t said her name, Piper wasn’t going to take those cards personally. She’d hold on to the card she’d chosen with Chanti, the Star: she was figuring things out. “I think that’s about all I can handle.”

“But this is your friend?” John asked Chanti with raised brows.

The audience swiveled in Piper’s direction.

Piper felt the whole room of tarot aficionados drawing a conclusion.

Were they right? Was it her?

Was she, Piper Phillips, Chanti’s chaos agent?