A high-stakes card room in a Spire residential tower in Chicago's River North, accessible by invitation only and operated by a fixer named Constantine Borg-Osei who treats poker as a diplomatic tool. The Table (nobody calls it by its full name) is where deals happen — not at the card game, but around it. The poker is real and the stakes are significant (minimum buy-in: 5,000 Quanta), but the game is the lubricant, not the purpose. The purpose is putting people in a room together who wouldn't otherwise meet, in a context that encourages risk assessment, bluffing, and the reading of human behavior. Business gets done at The Table that couldn't get done in any boardroom.

The room itself is modest by Spire standards: a single table, good lighting, comfortable chairs, and a bar stocked with spirits that cost more than most Shelf apartments. Constantine deals personally, which gives him access to every conversation and every dynamic in the room, a position he leverages with the subtlety of a career intelligence operative. Regular players include corponation executives, fixers, senior military contractors, and the occasional Shelf operative who has earned enough reputation to warrant an invitation. The Table's only rule is that all disputes — card-related or otherwise — are resolved at the table. Nothing leaves the room unfinished.