The Ballroom

"We'll do our best today and every day until we win the jackpot."

In a near‑future Quebec, years after separation from Canada has plunged the province into economic collapse, Montreal is a city of shuttered storefronts, skeletal grocery shelves, and huddled figures warming themselves over barrel fires. The Imperial Meridian Hotel — once a jewel on Sherbrooke Street — stands as a monument to bygone grandeur, its grand ballroom reborn as a gambling hall where the desperate gather.