The Game of Luck

by Catherine Cerveny

  But I’d stopped listening, swiveling to Alexei, knowing my eyes were huge and horrified. Death? People had died in the CN-net reboot if they hadn’t logged out in time? That couldn’t be possible. I’d always thought of the CN-net as a massive gaming world—fun for a few hours but ultimately frivolous. But it was all so much more complex than I’d realized. Lives were in the balance. How could I have known that? Me, who’d existed as flat-file for most of her life.

  However, others had known. They must have understood the potential existed for lives to be lost and hadn’t cared. And now people I’d never know or have anything to do with were dead. How many, I wondered. Oh gods, how many died in the race to control the luck gene?

  I was so shocked, I couldn’t articulate how this realization made me feel. I would be mad later—so mad I’d want to strike out with rage, enough to swallow the world and get back at whomever had done this. But right then, I could only look at Alexei in mute helplessness. This went beyond missing family members. In just a few seconds, things had suddenly become so much worse.

  A swooping dizziness overcame me, like my entire insides had given way, the news too crushing for one person’s understanding to support. The sensation of drowning hit me, and it occurred to me that I looked at Alexei as if from down a very long, dark tunnel where the edges faded to black. I knew I was fainting, which annoyed me. Fainting let you opt out of reality, and I shouldn’t be allowed such a luxury. Bodies were piling up around me in morbid stacks, all victims of the luck gene’s imperative to win at all costs. Those I cared about, like Granny G. Those I considered enemies, like Konstantin Belikov. Family I would never have a chance to understand, like my mother or the clones of me she’d created and manipulated. And now random strangers I would never know.

  Someone caught me before I could crack my head on the cement floor. I heard swearing, all of it in Russian. Also lots of excited dog barking from Feodor. I lost the thread of it as I focused on the sound of my own breathing.

  When I opened my eyes, I was in Alexei’s arms and against his chest. He looked frantic while Karol babbled incoherently, straining in the grip of the chain-breaker holding him. One of the female tech-meds pulled on Karol’s sleeve and urged him to shut up. The other tried to calm Feodor, who’d gone berserk, while the second chain-breaker loomed over them. I’d say all of thirty seconds had passed, which went to show that it didn’t take long for all hell to break loose.

  “I’m fine. Honest. I don’t know what came over me,” I blurted, rushing to assure everyone I was perfectly okay.

  “You’re not as recovered from the CN-net as you claimed.” Alexei rested his forehead on mine a moment. “Worrying about you is going to be the death of me.”

  “Alexei, what did we stumble into?”

  “I don’t know, but we’ll find out,” he whispered, forehead still on mine.

  “Did we cause this? Did the luck gene—”

  “Nyet,” he said forcefully. “This wasn’t our fault. Don’t blame yourself for something you had no control over or because your gut didn’t warn you. This is not your guilt to carry. This was caused by someone selfish, self-indulgent, who doesn’t think through the consequences.”

  “What if they did and didn’t care?”

  “Then that makes it worse.”

  I let his words sink in, not sure being absolved from guilt should be so simple. Damn the luck gene! It controlled my life, manipulating the world around me, caring about nothing but its own survival. How could he say this wasn’t my fault if not for that one bit of DNA?

  I wanted to tell him I didn’t deserve an easy way out. Instead, I said, “You can put me down. I can stand on my own.”

  That earned me a long, measured look before he set me down, making it clear he wasn’t on board with my self-diagnosis. With a few terse commands in Russian, he cleared the room of everyone but him, myself, and Karol. Even Feodor got the boot. Karol looked on the verge of wetting himself.

  “Felicia’s implants, Karol,” Alexei said, voice low and dangerous. “Ensure they’re in proper working order.”

  “Yes, of course, Gospodin Petriv. I just need the…the imager,” he said, fumbling over to his work station, so panicked he didn’t know what he looked for.

  “There will be fallout from this,” I murmured as I watched Karol search blindly. “There’s going to be investigations and probes. One Gov will want to get to the bottom of what happened.”

  Alexei picked up one of my hands, kissing the palm. “They won’t find what they’re looking for, but the Consortium is where they’ll go to place the blame.”

  “But that’s not right. That’s not how it happened. We need to do something or tell someone or…”

  I bit my lip, unable to work through all the consequences and next steps. I needed my cards for that, but they were out of reach. At home. At the office. But not here. Not where I could touch them and reassure myself I was in control.

  “What do we do now?” I managed.

  “I’ll investigate, and I promise you, no one will be dragged off to a cell on Phobos,” he said, twining his fingers through mine.

  “Not even if One Gov manufactures proof?”

  “Not even then.”

  “Found it!” Karol announced with forced brightness, holding up what looked like a silver marble.

  I watched the Consortium’s chief tech-med approach, noting how his hands shook. This nervousness went above and beyond his normal dislike of me, up to a level I’d rarely seen. It felt on par with the time his screwup allowed me to discover the homunculus Alexei had kept secret from me in Brazil. Mr. Pennyworth had been the Consortium’s attempt at creating an artificial human body, with the end goal being everyone could upload their minds, discard their biological tethers, and theoretically live forever. Alexei, using some freaky post-human abilities I didn’t fully understand, had been the first test pilot for the program. When I learned the truth, I’d been horrified and disgusted. To discover he’d been keeping so many secrets from me had shattered my faith in Alexei before we’d even had a chance to become an “us.”

  Secrets…

  All thoughts about the CN-net reboot shifted aside to make room for a sudden and terrible idea—was Karol keeping another secret? Karol faltered under my scrutiny. His hand trembled so badly, he dropped the imager and it bounced across the concrete floor. His skin seemed to pale despite his Tru-Tan. My gut leaped into action, urging me on as if scenting blood in the water. He was hiding something, and I bet a thousand gold notes I knew exactly what that something might be.

  “Karol, how are the embryos coming? Alexei said he talked to you about fertilizing the eggs I’d had frozen.”

  Once again, I had the opportunity to witness sheer terror in human form. Karol went rigid with fear. I could practically smell the stink on him as he started to sweat, actually saw a droplet of it roll down his cheek.

  “The project has been given highest priority, and my people are working on it now.”

  “It’s a baby, not a project,” I said, eyes narrowing. “Why aren’t you working on it?”

  “My specialization is biology and tech fusion, but I’m not a geneticist by trade. I leave the finer details to those who work for me,” he sputtered, the words tumbling out of his mouth one after the other in anxious haste.

  Beside me, Alexei went very still, his hand rigid in mine. It almost felt like he was pulling away, and because of that—because something between us had shifted—I let him go.

  “How is work progressing?” I continued.

  “These things take time. We need to be careful with the DNA sequencing so we properly augment the desired characteristics.”

  “I’m not interested in augmentations. It doesn’t even matter if it’s a girl or boy,” I said, feeling my gut kick me again, pushing me to ask the hard questions. “One Gov’s fertility clinics can prepare an embryo in twenty-four hours. I expect the Consortium geneticists can do the same. It’s been several sols, Karol. Shouldn’t you h
ave something by now?”

  “It’s more difficult than we anticipated. Successful results are more elusive than we thought.”

  I frowned, Karol’s terror hitting me hard enough that I felt its impact deep in my chest.

  “What does that mean—successful results are elusive? What exactly are you trying to say, Karol? Why is it more difficult than you anticipated?”

  I felt Alexei’s hand on my arm, tugging me back because apparently I’d advanced on Karol. He all but cringed in front of me. And my hands…Gods, my hands were reaching to grab the lapels of his lab coat.

  “Felicia, let him explain,” Alexei urged, his voice an ocean of calm. “We need to understand what’s happened here.”

  “I already understand,” I said, trying to shake him off. “Damn it, Alexei, let me go!”

  When I couldn’t free myself from that viselike grip, my gaze whipped to his. I was pissed, outraged, scared—so many emotions and none of them good. Each one would only make the situation worse, but I didn’t care. Our eyes met. His expression had gone flat and unreadable. I hadn’t seen that look in ages, and the fact I saw it now turned my paranoid fear into hard reality. And when he let me go, to me, that confirmed it. This was real. It was happening.

  I turned back to Karol. “You tried to fertilize the eggs and none of them took. That’s what you’re trying to say in your roundabout way, isn’t it? It didn’t work. It’s never going to work.”

  Karol looked like a broken man who couldn’t even save his own life. “We tried several techniques and used all the samples, but none were successful. It’s as the earlier Consortium research showed. Fertilization is not possible. The samples aren’t compatible with each other.”

  “You used all the eggs and didn’t get a single fertilized embryo? But I have the luck gene. It’s supposed to work. Monique’s research said it would work and she was a freaking genius!” My voice came out shrill and hysterical. “I thought Belikov had doctored the Consortium’s records. Felipe was sure Belikov had lied so he could keep what he claimed was Consortium property under his control.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to tell you. All the samples are either inert or destroyed. The fertilization won’t take. My team has tried everything to coax a positive result, but with no success. Perhaps if we harvested more samples, we could implement another round of tests,” Karol suggested.

  “More eggs? I don’t have some goddamn endless supply to donate. You’ve already harvested fifteen. How many more do you want?” I rounded on Alexei. “Did you know about this? Were you covering it up and keeping it from me? Gods, don’t tell me you were lying again.”

  It was a terrible thing to say, yet I couldn’t prevent the hateful words from spilling out. He’d lied in the past. Gods, more than lied! Why shouldn’t I expect more of the same? Except I was supposed to know better, be better. He was trying to change. Given our history, it was the cruelest thing I could say to him. We both knew it. I’d gone too far.

  Alexei’s expression hardened and he became a shard of icy, rational calm. “I suspected this might happen, but there was no opportunity to follow up with Karol,” he said. “The Callisto preparations are taking more time and resources than I anticipated, and this slipped my mind.”

  Bullshit it slipped your mind, I wanted to scream. Fuck Callisto! Who cares about some goddamn moon nobody but you gives a shit about when everything is falling apart right here in front of us? Fuck you and your damn redemption. But I didn’t say those words. I had enough sense left to say nothing, even if my face gave me away. I’d lied to myself long enough. This dream was over.

  The Wheel of Fortune had turned and I lay beneath it, shattered.

  The fight went out of me. The anger faded and I felt myself droop without it.

  “I see. Then I guess we’re done here,” I heard myself say.

  My head bowed and loose strands of hair escaped from my braid to obscure my eyes. Curiously, I didn’t cry. My eyes were dry and I had a clear view of the industrial concrete floor. Maybe I would cry later. Now I just felt numb.

  Karol asked, “Do you still want your implants scanned? I’ve found the imager.”

  It seemed like such a trivial, stupid thing, but I nodded and stood mutely while Karol pressed the marble-sized imager to the implants. We all listened as it beeped and cleared the implants of any malfunctions, though the imager showed they needed a software update.

  “Later,” I said absently when Karol asked if I wanted to begin the update. “I can’t sit through a download right now.”

  I turned to leave, bumbling my way through the lab. Alexei caught up to me and we walked out, not touching as we entered the secure elevator that would take us to the main floor.

  “A flight-limo will take you home,” he said as the elevator ascended.

  I rubbed a hand over my tired eyes. “I’m sorry I accused you of lying. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “No, but even if you hadn’t said the words, you would have thought them. Who would fault you? After all, we know I’ve done worse.”

  The tone was calm and reasonable, hiding everything and giving away nothing. But I knew better. He may not let me see it, but I’d hurt him.

  Silence fell again, remaining between us until we were at the flight-limo, flanked as always by chain-breakers. One held Feodor’s leash, and I might have laughed at the put-out expression on the dog’s face, but it didn’t feel like the time for laughing. Instead, I picked him up and cradled him in my arms. I must have hugged him too tightly because he squirmed and nipped at me. Awkwardly, I got the two of us in the flight-limo and onto the bench seat.

  Only after I’d slid inside did I realize Alexei hadn’t moved. He stood outside the flight-limo door, his face empty, his hands fisted at his sides. Clearly we weren’t going home together. I wondered how I felt about that, and decided I was too exhausted to care.

  Alexei asked, “Will you run your cards when you get home?”

  Run my cards? I wanted to laugh, but it would have sounded bitter and cynical. Alexei believed the accuracy of my predictions was a manifestation of my luck gene. The same gene that had led me down this twisted path to nowhere, with nothing at its end except broken dreams. What future could come from this? What was left when everything around me lay in ruins?

  Would I check my cards when I got home?

  “No,” I said before I pressed the button that would start the door’s automated slide and close it behind me. “There wouldn’t be any point.”

  10

  It was a struggle to climb out of bed the next sol. The only thing that kept me moving was knowing One Gov required a mandatory psychological evaluation and personality workup if I missed more than three sols of work in a row. While I hadn’t missed a sol yet, I wanted to keep it that way. I didn’t need some coworker grousing about my spotty attendance record, claiming I got special treatment because I was the Under-Secretary’s granddaughter. Things like this made me long for my shop. If I wanted to close for a week at a time because I felt like shit, no one complained—except Charlie Zero since it meant lost revenue. But I never had to worry about the AI queenmind judging me mentally incompetent.

  Alexei hadn’t come home last night. It happened sometimes if he was busy with a project, but he always let me know his schedule. This time, he hadn’t. It meant he was upset or mad, or both.

  I’d accused him of terrible things yesterday. I’d need to make it up to him but wasn’t sure how. It had been a hard blow. Reality had come crashing down—a reality I’d ignored for months. I’d always taken pride in the fact I never lied to myself. But this…I tried to believe I could have a baby with Alexei. If you fought hard enough for something, didn’t that mean you should get it? Flawed logic, but it was either that or admit the future I wanted wouldn’t happen.

  Yet deep down, I knew I’d always harbored doubts. After all, I was luck’s pawn. Luck didn’t care how things turned out or what I deserved. I was one tiny drop in a very large bucket of fa
te. I was destined to be manipulated and used, so why should this go in my favor? Why should I get the ending I wanted?

  After a quick breakfast my churning stomach didn’t want anyway, I went to work and discovered all hell had broken loose. The night before, I hadn’t done anything except play with the puppy and keep my thoughts empty. I hadn’t checked my cards or logged in to the CN-net. As a result, I had no idea what the fallout from the reboot had been. Turned out, being blissfully ignorant wasn’t such a bad thing. I’d barely walked into One Gov headquarters before I was summoned into an emergency staff meeting.

  I hurried to my office, tossed my belongings on my desk, and got Feodor settled into his dog bed. He lined up his toys, started attacking the eyes as usual, then curled up into a ball. And I launched myself to One Gov’s CN-net private virtual conference room.

  The meeting was already in progress. Even so, I wasn’t the only late arrival; other avatars popped into the room after me, Caleb Dekker being one of them. He took the seat beside me, the one where Brody usually sat. As for Brody, he stood at the front of the room, fielding questions from various department heads. All the big hitters were present—Secretary Arkell, my grandfather, Tanith, several Adjuncts from a variety of departments throughout the tri-system.

  I leaned over to Felipe. “Is this about the reboot?”

  He nodded, distracted. “I’ve been in crisis mode for over twelve hours. We’ve been trying to stay on top of the situation since it happened and as more details filter in.”

  Oh shit. Not good. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier? Maybe I could have done something to help.” Gods, I was such a liar.

  “Once we’d determined the impact, we implemented the disaster recovery plan and contacted the relevant staff. I knew you were safe, and since this isn’t your department, I had to shift my focus to where it was needed.”

  “Is it bad? Was anyone hurt?”