Long Odds

By

Shane Griffin



Smash Words Edition Published by Poupichou Press

First Published in Print in Eclecticism 2010

Copyright Shane Griffin 2010











Smashwords Edition, License Notes


Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.




#
Isa walked along the street with her head down. She snuggled deeper into her heavy overcoat as she went. It was so cold it felt like it was about to snow again. Despite the chill weather the city streets were packed with people all looking for a good time, something to excite them and make them forget their mundane existences, just like every other night on Teklas. It was that quest for something different, for a little hope, for something better, that kept food in Isa’s stomach these days. 
Teklas was originally a mining and industrial colony which over the last ten years had seen a booming economy. A strong economy meant more money and more money meant more people came to Teklas. Like everything else in life the boom did not last forever and Isa for one had been feeling the pinch for some time now.
Isa stopped at a neon drenched street corner and waited patiently for the pedestrian signal to change. As she stood waiting another woman stepped up and stood close beside her. She was in her mid twenties much like Isa, though a head taller and not as slim or athletic.
Isa glanced sideways at the woman, but said nothing, they had to be careful not to look too obvious. Plain clothes cops weren’t the only things you had to worry about when working the streets.
The traffic on the street finally came to a halt and Isa crossed, with the other woman keeping pace beside her.
“Do you have them?” the woman asked quietly as they walked.
“Yes,” replied Isa discreetly. “Have you scouted out the block yet Tara?”
“I did this one and two either side, looks like we’re going to just have to keep our eyes open and stay on the move tonight. I saw at least three pairs of beat cops.”
Isa turned right after she had crossed the street and headed towards a small alley between two closed shops.  Tara followed close behind. With both of them looking around the street thoroughly, to make sure they were not being watched or attracting any attention, Isa made the exchange.
She opened her coat and slipped a portable poker machine to Tara. It was no bigger than a small envelope and not much thicker. Its bottom surface was metallic while its top surface was a luminescent colour touch screen.  
Tara grabbed it greedily.
“What odds is it set at?” she asked
“One in eight payout, with an eight hour expiry,” replied Isa sheepishly.
“What?” groaned Tara annoyed. 
“It’s the best Jous had, he won’t go higher anymore, he reckons it’s bad for business,” replied Isa.
“How much?” asked Tara with scepticism.
“He put the price up again, they were two fifty each,” said Isa then added hastily, “He’s still taxing us because of the one you lost last month when you got picked up by the cops.”
“Shit Isa! How do you expect us to make enough money to get off this dump of a planet with a one in eight that costs two fifty?” complained Tara shaking her head in frustration. “Screw this, I’m going to fix mine.”
Tara quickly pulled out a hacking tile that was slightly smaller than the pokie. She flipped the pokie over so the metallic surface was facing up and laid the hacking tile on top so the nano wireless connection between the two devices would open.
Isa looked on in concern.
“You’re going to burn it out Tara,” she said. Tara ignored her and kept tapping away at the touch screen on the hacking tile.
“No chance,” she replied confidently. “The burnout protection is only on the expiration timer not the core probability matrix. The guy I got this from hacks these all the time.”
“I hope you know how to reset it when you’re done because if Jous finds out you’ve been hacking the machines he’s going to get angry,” said Isa, absently rubbing the small scare on her left cheekbone where Jous had given her four stitches a few months back, for handing back a pokie with a cracked screen.
“It’s either this or go back to stripping!” replied Tara harshly. “You really want to go back to that? Or maybe back to the mines where you get double the amount of sleazy guys groping you in the dark for half the pay?”
“Maybe we could try and find IT work again?” suggested Isa.
“Forget it Isa the IT boom is over on Teklas. All of the infrastructure is built, they only need caretakers now. All the smart people left while they still had the money and the rest are left working the street. Just like us.” 
“We could still try,” mumbled Isa, wishing, not for the first time, that she had never come to Teklas.
“There, done,” said Tara smiling. “Now mine is a one in ten! You want me to do yours?”
“No way, I’m not risking it,” replied Isa.
“Why not, with your luck you’ll be fine. You always seem to slip under the cop’s radar. I don’t remember the last time they chased you.” 
“Ha ha,” replied Isa sarcastically. “Let’s go, it’s cold tonight, I need to keep moving to stay warm.”
The two of them entered the street and gradually worked the length of it, one on either side. At all times they were discreet and constantly moved around. Whenever they spotted beat cops they either blended into the crowd or simply moved on in the opposite direction. Everything had been going well for over an hour and Isa had thoughts of warm coffee on her mind.
“Chance your luck sir? It’s a one in eight machine,” she said flashing the pokie as she walked, making her way along the street. The man stopped and nodded excitedly.
“Excellent! I was hoping to come across one of you lot tonight.”
He held out his palm flat in front of her and she quickly swiped the back of the machine over it so it was able to scan his credit chip. The fellow then grabbed the pokie and accessed funds from his account and transferred them into it.
Isa ushered him off to the side and sheltered him from direct view by standing in front of him and opening her coat, pretending to fish around for something inside as the man played. 
With practiced ease Isa kept one eye on the man and the other on the street. The screen flashes reflected in the man’s eyes and gave his face an eerie glow. It always amazed Isa how much excitement the players got out of what was effectively a boring game of chance that was inevitably stacked in favour of the house. All for that one in several million chance of that one massive life changing payout.
The man quickly chewed through the fifty credits he had put on the machine and handed it back disappointed.
“You sure this thing is paying out at all?” he asked suspiciously.
“Oh yes sir,” assured Isa as she hastily brought up the payout history. “See sir just 15 minutes ago it paid two hundred and fifty credits.”
The man looked closely at the screen then shrugged.
“I guess it’s just not my night then. Sorry, but I think I’ll try another machine,” he said then briskly walked off.
Isa breathed a sigh of relief as she did whenever a customer challenged her. The illicit machines really were programmed to pay out minor amounts at one in eight odds, but gave zero chance of the major payout offered by the government sanctioned machines.

It felt like time for a break and she was about to cross the street to see if Tara wanted to stop for coffee when she heard someone shout from off to her left. She spun in alarm towards the sound to see two cops racing down the opposite sidewalk directly towards Tara. Tara saw them too, but when she tried to run she was held firmly in place by her last customer, a rather burly tattooed man who was clearly not very happy.
“You’re not going anywhere with five hundred credits of mine still in that machine bitch!” the man shouted.
Tara was madly trying to wrestle her arm free from the man while at the same time extracting the pokie from him. The cops were rapidly closing despite the heavy crowd. If Tara got caught running pokies again she would be dumped into the foundries for three months slave work for sure.
Even though it was going to put herself in direct danger Isa shoved her machine into her coat pocket and sprinted across the street, narrowly dodging oncoming traffic as she went. One of the cops noticed the commotion and pointed at her. The other cop was already shouting into his radio and calling for backup. Fortunately Isa was much closer to Tara than the cops and reached her first.
The man struggling with Tara did not see Isa approach from behind and was caught completely off guard by Isa’s mighty kick between his legs and up into his groin.
The man crumpled to the ground with an agonising moan. Unfortunately he dropped the pokie at the same time as he let go of Tara and it fell to the footpath directly underneath him. Tara tried in vain to roll the man off it, but he was firmly locked into the foetal position and not going anywhere.
“Leave it Tara! Let’s go!,” cried Isa as she started off down the street away from the cops.
Tara glimpsed back to see the cops where only yards away and quickly gave up on retrieving her pokie. She leapt up over the man and sprinted after Isa. Isa lead the way rapidly down the street using her slim build and nimble athleticism to weave efficiently through the crowd. Tara was not as fit and quickly lagged behind.
Isa reached the next intersection and intentionally waited for Tara to catch up.
“You go left I’ll go right,” she said and they went opposite directions. Splitting up was always the best option since cops never split up during a chase unless there was more than one pair of them. That would give Tara a fifty fifty chance of getting away.
Isa jogged a short way down the less crowded side street and looked back at the intersection. Tara was right, the cops never normally followed Isa, so she was surprised when she saw them both round the bend and head in her direction, shouting out for her to stop. With Tara having lost yet another pokie and the night only young there was no chance Isa was stopping. 
Isa sprinted flat out, leaving nothing in reserve as she tried desperately to get some distance between her and the cops. She burst through the next intersection oblivious to the traffic flow. It was sheer luck that she made it across without being run over.
She cut right as soon as she crossed the street. She was getting close to one of her well used escape routes. If she could just make it into the maze of backstreets in the red light district, another old stomping ground of hers, she would be safe.
With the cops now lagging behind, but still in pursuit, she weaved into a heavy part of the crowd, stopped momentarily and crouched down. She ran in the low crouch across the flow of people and into a narrow alleyway that was used by the city’s waste removal robots. 
The alleyway opened out into a nearly deserted street. It was at the edge of an old information technology precinct that had been long condemned and awaiting absorption into the commercial district. Something that was unlikely to happen in the near future while the economy was so bad.
Isa did not look back, while she was confident that the police could not have seen her duck down the alley she pressed on at a jog down to the far end of the dead end street.
She stopped at the door of an old three story building that still had a dull and rusty sign hanging above the main entry. It read “Interstellar Server Solutions”. Isa smiled, she never thought her old work place would ever be a sight for sore eyes until she had started using it as an escape route. 
She pushed gently on the double doors, but to her surprise nothing happened. Alarmed she pushed more firmly. Still nothing, so she threw her shoulder into it. It was no use, it was locked shut, which should have been impossible because she had broken the lock over six months ago.
She cursed her luck. What were the chances of someone finding and fixing the lock to an abandoned building?
Her luck got even worse a few seconds later as the two, heavily sweating and awfully annoyed, cops came running out of the alleyway behind her. It did not take them long to spot her and also to realise they were now blocking her only way out.
They spread out a bit and slowed down in their approach with the clear intention of boxing her in. Isa was not about to give up that easily however and she sprinted down one side of the street away from them, trying each front door as she went. 
With a sinking heart she quickly reached the last building in the street, a huge abandoned computer chip manufacturing plant. It had several large locked roller doors across its front, but on the far corner she spotted her last chance, a small service door.
She ran directly over to it and to her amazement the key had been left in the lock! The cops apparently saw it too and broke back into a sprint again. Before they reached her however, she was through the door and locking it from the inside.
Isa spun around and laid her back against the door as the cops pounded on it and yelled from the other side. The door flexed as the cops pushed on it. It was alarmingly flimsy and Isa knew it would not keep them at bay for long. The problem was, now that she was inside, everything was jet black and even after her eyes adjusted she could not see a thing.
“Wow Isa, how are you going to get yourself out of this one?” she asked herself quietly. No sooner had the words left her mouth when a single light came on.
It blinked to life through a doorway on the other side of the small room that she now found herself in. The dusty fluorescent globe flickered and buzzed. Isa quickly looked either side of her to check she had not bumped a light switch, but the walls were bare. 
She left the door and crossed the empty room. The light was at the start of a long narrow corridor. The light was so dull that she could not see more than a few feet down it, but as soon as she stepped out of the room another light buzzed to life. It was the next light in the corridor.
Isa froze. Although it was probably just some old sensor system that was designed to save energy outside of office hours she could not resist calling out just in case.
“Hello, is there anyone there?”
The only response was another light flickering on a little further down the corridor. The hairs on the back of Isa’s neck stood up when this happened. She had not moved this time. For a few moments she stood rooted in place and contemplated giving herself up to the cops. 
She started to turn around and the lights behind and directly above her went out. A moment later the remainder of the corridor lights all came on at once. 
Behind her she heard the entry door start to crack as the cops tried to force their way through again. Suddenly resolute she crossed her fingers and followed the lights, hoping that what she was walking into was not worse than what she getting out of.
The lights lead her through a maze of rooms, old offices and corridors. She climbed up stairs, then downstairs and changed directions so many times that she was quickly disorientated. The whole time she was at the mercy of the lights that came on ahead of her and blinked out as she passed.
After what seemed like an eternity she came to a closed door. The lights stopped outside it and did not change. She guessed that meant she was supposed to go through so she grabbed the handle and turned it. The door was not locked and she opened it. 
The room she stepped into was small, it had a small desk in its centre and behind the desk was another door. The room was lit by two things, one very dull desk lamp and the eerie glow from an ancient looking laptop. The young man sitting behind desk and the laptop looked up at Isa as she entered and gave her a nervous if knowing smile.
“Hi, my name is Chance,” he said nervously, extending his hand as he stood up. Isa just stared at him not really knowing what to say or think. He retracted his hand clearly embarrassed. “Um, sorry, but can you shut the door behind you?”
Isa creased her brow still trying to figure out the situation, but at the same time shoved the door closed. As it clunked shut the man appeared to relax a little. He was a tallish guy and fairly thin. He was wearing a dark tee-shirt and old jeans and sneakers. His hair was jet black, most likely dyed, and hung in a long ponytail. His eyes were such a dark brown that at first glance he looked as though his pupils were fully dilated all the time. He looked a little older than Isa, maybe late twenties possibly early thirties.
He looked back and forth between Isa and his computer as he cleared his throat. Isa beat him to the punch though, she needed to figure what this was all about fast.
“Are you the guy who was been playing with the lights?”
“Um, yes,” he replied, sitting down again in front of the laptop and clacking away at the keyboard.
“Why?” she demanded, as she looked longingly at the door on the other side of the room and wondering if it lead to a way out.
“Well that’s a little complicated,” he replied looking up from the screen at her again.
“The short answer will do fine,” replied Isa.
He attempted a friendly and disarming smile, but Isa did not fall for it and her face remained stern.
“Your friend played around with the odds on her machine. She should not have done that. It mucks everything up,” he said.
“How do you know about my friend?”
“That would require the longer answer,” he retorted with just a hint of sarcasm. “The important thing is, that when she did that, she put you both in danger so I helped you. That is how you got here.”
“Have you been stalking us or something?” demanded Isa edging towards a clear run at the rear door. 
“No, no,” reassured Chance. “Although I have watched you plenty of times before, at the internet cafe when you come in to see Jous.”
Isa stopped and looked at him more closely. “I don’t ever remember seeing you there.”
“No, I know,” he mumbled to himself solemnly.
“Look, I don’t know what game Jous has you playing spying on us, but I’m leaving ok. Thanks for the help with the cops.”
Isa sprang past Chance who remained sitting at his laptop. His only reaction was to tap at a coupled of keys.
As she reached the door and grabbed the handle he swivelled around in his chair.
“What do you think the odds would be that the door lock would temporarily jam?” he said smiling.
Isa tried the door handle, but it was jammed tight. Without pause she spun back around and went straight for the other door. Chance swivelled around in his chair again watching her.
“Strangely enough, the odds of two doors jamming are actually not the square of one another, but rather an exponential.”
Isa tried the door she had come through initially. Bile rose in her stomach when its handle would not budge either. 
“Let me out of here!” she spat angrily as she tried in vain to open the door.
“Sorry,” he said a little crest fallen. “That little trick was supposed to impress you not scare you. Nonetheless I can’t let you go yet, it’s not safe.”
Isa strode back to the desk and leaned across it trying to sound menacing.
“Why the hell have you brought me here?”
He looked at the laptop screen then breathed a sigh of relief.
“Finally! I mean there was an eighty percent chance you would ask me that before it was too late, so I did not want to fiddle with it, but another two minutes and I would have had to do something myself.” 
“Listen, Chance wasn’t it? If you don’t either let me go right now or at least start making some sense I am going to hurt you with that ancient stone tablet you have there.”
Chance reacted by pulling the laptop towards him and cradling it like an infant in danger.
“No! Don’t do that, this thing’s a prototype. You know, one of a kind and I’m not sure I could rebuild it. Anyway to answer your question I brought you here to keep you safe. You see I’m a mathematician or at least I was until I got into programming and ended up stuck on Teklas out of work. This little baby here I call Nexat,” he smiled and waved his hands around the laptop melodramatically. Isa’s brow creased further as her patience wore even thinner. “Anyway, um...well I have always had this love for probability, which landed me hacking and reprogramming the machines for cash. Thing is, a mathematician who can hack and program who has lots of time on his hands leads to a lot of tinkering. To cut a long story short I worked out a way to control probability...inherent probability.”
“Inherent probability? I have never heard of that.”
“That’s because I made up the term,” he grinned. “It’s the chance that things will happen to you. For example the chances the cops would follow you and not your friend when you split up were fifty fifty right. I worked out a way to predict that and also change it.”
“So you’re trying to tell me you can control everything that’s going to happen in the future,” she said incredulously.
“No. I can predict the probability of what might happen in the future and I can modify it in the present. So yes, for the most part, I can make things happen the way I want them to. Unless something is a sure thing, you can’t modify things that have one hundred percent probability.”
“Prove it,” demanded Isa.
“I already did with the doors and the lights.”
“You could have set them up, you will need to do a lot more to convince me of a claim like that.”
Chance sighed deeply and reluctantly tapped away at the laptop again. “You know, it was a sure thing you would want me to prove it to you the hard way, but I’m still annoyed you’re actually making me do it.”
“Maybe you should just let me go then,” replied Isa sarcastically.
“Ok,” said Chance ignoring the jibe. “Those two cops have been wandering around the building with their flashlights looking for you. They were about to give up, but I fiddled the odds of the lights coming on completely of their own accord, just like I did for you. They will be here in about a minute. Once they arrive at that door it’s a sure thing they will come through it and find us, I can’t change that part. When they do I’ll make one last change and we need to make a break for the door. One of the cops will pull his weapon and fire at you. He’s apparently a good shot because the chance of him hitting you is about ninety eight percent. The chance of his gun blowing up in his hand and stunning them both instead is literally billions to one, but not a sure thing. I’ll swap the two around, equilibrium stays in check and we get away.”
Isa was about to tell him he was mad when there were shouts from outside the door. It was the cops and they were threatening to break the door down. Isa looked at Chance, her eyes wide and her skin crawling.
He smiled nervously and grabbed his laptop, still open and at the ready and moved to the back door.
“Um, this will only work if you come over here with me.”
Isa stepped briskly around the desk and stood with Chance. As she reached him the cops burst through the door.
“Hold it right there!” one of them shouted.
“Sorry no can do,” replied Chance as he hit the enter key on his laptop then grabbed the door and flung it open.
“Stop or I’ll shoot!” replied the lead cop pulling his weapon. Isa stood frozen for a second, but Chance grabbed her firmly and dragged her out the door behind him. The cop pulled the trigger, there was a crackling noise and then a loud bang as his weapon malfunctioned and exploded in his hand. The shockwave propelled Isa through the doorway and hard against Chance’s back. Both cops were knocked out by the blast. In the same grimly fascinated way that passer’s by look at a fatal car accident Isa spun back around and looked back into the room. 
She was awakened from her daze by a gentle hand on her arm.
“Come on we need to get going. Don’t worry about them they’ll be fine, although awfully pissed off.”
Isa let Chance lead them through several more corridors and rooms until they finally reached the street again. Chance kept them going at a brisk pace back towards the rabbit warren of slums, brothels and pubs that Isa had originally been trying to get to. Occasionally Chance would tap at a few keys, presumably changing the odds on something crucial.
When they finally reached the crowds again Chance slowed down and smiled.
“We are safe now, at least for the moment. Come on, I know a pretty quiet bar close to here where we can get a beer, or something stronger if you like.”
“Ok,” replied Isa still dumbfounded.
They reached the small bar, went inside and sat down in a corner away from the street. Her mind now having had a little more time to digest things Isa perked up. She ordered a vodka, she needed more than beer. Chance sat opposite, his laptop open in front of him, as though he was anticipating her question.
“If you can change what will happen to you, then why are you on Teklas and not rigging the lottery or something?” she asked, still trying to determine if Chance was somehow trying to scam her.
“That’s also complicated,” he replied shyly.
“Try me,” she insisted. He looked at his laptop screen and creased his brow, his face was disappointed.
“You know I really thought that saving you from the cops would have improved the odds more that you would believe what I’m about to tell you.”
“Sometimes you just have to trust your luck,” she replied impatiently.
“Fine. Once I worked out the power of what I had discovered I put a lot of thought on how best to use it to my advantage. I was just about to set things in motion to get off this rock. Then you walked into that internet cafe to rent a pokie from Jous,” he said timidly, not looking directly at her. “As soon as I laid eyes on you I knew I wanted to meet you. It’s silly I know, but even though I have the power to manipulate anyone or anything in my favour, I was too scared to talk to you.”
“So you manufactured this?” she asked accusingly.
“Oh no,” he replied hastily. “Your friend Tara caused you’re your problems tonight. Like everything else in the universe probability is in constant equilibrium. When you take from one side you need to give back to the other. That’s why its never good to hack the machines, you are just asking for bad luck.”
“How did you know I would need help then?”
“Because I have been watching you,’ he admitted then when Isa’s brow creased again he quickly added, “But only recently. At first I wasn’t. For about six weeks straight I sat at the cafe every day waiting for you to come in to see Jous. I never once during that time looked at or touched any of the odds that related to you or my chances with you. I was just hoping you would notice me of your own accord. Then one day you turned up with stitches on your face. I found out later that it was Jous who did that to you. I was so angry with him that I changed a few odds around so that his regular chicken curry gave him severe gastro for a week.”
Isa smiled at that and let out a brief giggle.
“I remember that, I thought it was just Karma,” she said.
“Close, it was me. Anyway after that I did start checking on you. I was worried something bad might happen. From that point on I have been kind of looking out for you. Didn’t you notice that for the last six months you always manage to avoid the cops?”
“But why?”
“I am about to become the most powerful man in the entire universe and I wanted someone to share it with. Someone who wants to share it with me willingly. Someone beautiful, like you.” 
It was Isa’s turn to blush and shift nervously in her seat. She was very flattered by the romantic concept, but it all seemed too surreal to her. She had to get some space and have some time to think. She decided it was time to ditch Chance and find Tara again.
“After all the excitement tonight I really need to pee, excuse me for a minute or two.”
Isa slipped out from behind the table and headed for the ladies room.
Chance sat tensely in front of his laptop as he scrolled through various number streams. It was close to an even chance that Isa would come back. His fingers hovered tantalisingly close to the keys yet he resisted the urge to tamper with fate. He really wanted her to fall for him or her own volition. Instead he forcibly crossed his fingers. Something he had not had to do for a very long time.

#

Isa walked directly to the back of the bathroom where there was a small window that opened out into the street. It would be tight, but with her slight figure she could squeeze out. She pushed it open, then hesitated. She wondered if it would be that bad to at least get to know the guy before she ran away. He was offering her a way off Teklas and a better life. Isa shook her head as though snapping out of a dream. She had always prided herself on being independent and self sufficient. The thought of never really knowing if what she was doing or feeling was of her own free will was too much to ignore. With some effort she squeezed out the window.

#

Back in the bar Chance’s shoulders slumped. He sighed and tapped at a few keys. He guessed some things just had to happen the hard way.

#

No sooner had Isa’s feet touched the footpath outside the bar when she felt a searing pain in the back of her neck. She remained conscious just long enough to realise that it was a cop’s stun weapon.

#

When Isa regained consciousness she found herself in a brightly lit hospital ward. In panic she sat up, but was firmly pressed back into her bed by a nearby nurse.
“Just relax miss,” chided the nurse.
“But I don’t remember how I got here,” said Isa frantically.
“You were stunned by a police officer by accident. Unfortunately he mistook you for a poker machine runner that he had been chasing. Worse still you had what we call a synaptic overload. It’s very rare, but some people react badly to the stun field. You’ll be ok, but you might find you have lost the last few weeks or even months of your memory.”
“What? No!” replied Isa desperately trying to focus her mind and remember something, anything. The last thing she could remember was losing her job long with her friend Tara at Interstellar. 
“I’ll give you something to relax you,” said the nurse gently noting Isa’s distress.
Very soon Isa started to relax and felt sleepy. The nurse left to tend other patients and for the first time Isa noticed a guy sitting on the other side of the room next to the bed of another patient, who appeared to be fast asleep.
“Wow,” she thought to herself. “What are the chances I’d end up in hospital and wake up with such an attractive looking guy not five feet from me?”
He looked up from an ancient looking laptop that he was working on and smiled at her.
“Hi,” she said smiling back. The guy stood up and walked over to her and nervously put his hand out. She shook it clumsily, feeling quite groggy.
“Hi my names Chance,” he said as he sat in a chair next to her and opened the laptop again.
“I’m Isa,” she replied, “Pleased to meet you.”
“Likewise,” he smiled.
“Just my luck, I meet a nice guy and I’m about to fall asleep.”
“Don’t worry I’ll be here every day visiting my brother Jous. He’s had some severe food poisoning and had to get this stomach pumped.” 


END