Chances of Death: Seven Decks Book I

by S Bailey

  The greater the effect of the spell, the more power necessary.

  Words from different languages linked together would work.

  They did not need to activate the spell by speaking it out loud, but could just think the command.

  “Dammit, if we just had more time to learn more powers, getting back home would be guaranteed!” Jen thought to herself.

  Jen started comparing her findings with everything posted on the internet in the six months since the lottery first appeared. One blog described a man lifting a refrigerator over his head and easily throwing it at a police car. Another described someone in the ocean shouting a command and causing a water funnel to shoot up out of the waves.

  “Jen looked over the list of spells that one person had compiled. “Ice ray and heat ray, that makes sense,” Jen muttered to herself. “Talk to animals?! Get the fuck out. I want that. How do I get that?”

  Jen reviewed the different spells and some of the theories people came up with explaining why the spells did or didn’t work. As she had already discovered, it seemed like the actual words weren’t important, but rather the word association with the person’s intent.

  Surprisingly, a disabled man was somehow able to select his service dog as a companion, and the Seven Decks system teleported both him and his dog when his time came.

  One video showed a man implode a four-story office building on himself and about 30 swat team members who were trying to capture him. “Damn, he chose death over being turned into a lab rat. I guess he figured the government was just going to kill him in a few days anyways,” Jen thought. The blog also showed a short clip of the Rainbow teleporting the man’s body out of the morgue a few days later, even though he was already dead.

  After reviewing all the notes, Jen theorized that anyone could do any type of spell, but it was much easier and cost less mana if the spell was tied into their own knowledge, skills, and abilities.

  Jen evaluated her own skills “Let’s see…I’m good at intercepting wireless signals, computer code, hacking, languages, and what else…what magic powers would work well with my existing skills? Ugh, my skills are useless for magic!”

  Her thoughts were interrupted when she noticed Sam was having a bad dream in his bed against the far wall. Jen knew that Sam had PTSD from his days as a green beret, and later as a CIA direct-action termination agent. She wished she could help soothe his conscience, but he never talked about his past. She only knew about his pre-Kelly history because she had hacked into his file when she first started working for the agency back in college. She would never hack his private information now, she trusted Sam with her life. “Maybe I was paranoid before meeting Sam… nahhh” she thought.

  Jen sat up straight. “Hacking, intercepting, memories, thoughts… No way! Dammit, why is Sam the only one in the room right now! I’m going to have to wait until tomorrow…and we only have so many of those left.”

  After switching night watch with Jen, Sam spent his time studying different languages on the internet. “This is amazing: if I focus a little mana at the same time as I piece together and decrypt just a few of the words of a language, I can quickly get a basic understanding of and speak any foreign language.” Just then, Sam slapped the table, “What’s it called? Leveling? I think I just did that again.” As he read the message that appeared in his vision.

  ===

  Words of Understanding

  ===

  Level: 8 (Novice)

  ===

  Chapter 6:

  Going Wireless

  Jen had to admit she was a little jealous that Sam already leveled up his Words of Understanding skill, but she was still excited! She couldn’t wait to leave for the train and get headed south. She summed up their status as they were leaving the hotel room and heading to the train station “Twenty-eight days left. Two days to the border and another day and a half from there back to the States… assuming everything goes as planned. If not, our backup plan will get us to the States in six days. Then we’ll have three weeks to wrap things up and get ready for a 95% chance of death in The Decks.”

  Jen constantly waivered back and forth between the excitement of magic and the depression of impending death. They discussed the death odds that appeared in their stat screen, and they both agreed that they were not going to start making their decisions based on some system they didn’t completely understand. They didn’t ignore it, and did consider the odds, but ultimately, they were going to rely on their years of experience to make decisions.

  The train ride would take two days, and they purchased train tickets with a private room consisting of two small beds. Jen set up her laptop to hack the networks for monitoring any suspicious activity as they travelled. Sam set up his laptop and voice interceptor software with his headphones for monitoring. They would take turns monitoring suspicious tech activity while the other would monitor real life activity.

  After the train had been going for about 45 minutes, Jen looked over at Sam. “Stay alert for anything, I’m going to try something I thought of last night. It’s nothing dangerous, and I will let you know what it is, if it works out.”

  Sam shrugged, and said, “Sure.”

  Jen closed her eyes and pushed her mana into her senses. She focused on the wireless signals that she knew computers used and were everywhere. She felt like she could sense something but didn’t know how to access the data. Jen then brought up her stat screen and then quickly waved it aside while willing for another screen to appear, and it did, looking just like her laptop. “That is so cool!” she whispered to herself. She then spent some time with her mental laptop hacking the networks and comparing her mental laptop to her actual laptop.

  Jen excitedly whispered to Sam as she rubbed her temples, “It worked! Holy crap, I’ve got a laptop in my head, but damn, the mana battery in my mental laptop just ran out and left me with a headache from hell.”

  Sam’s forehead wrinkled with worry, “Are you OK, want some Excedrin?”

  She shook her head and replied, “No thanks. I’m fine, just need to relax a second, and…ohhh, I just received a system message about a new skill. It says…”

  ===

  Psychic

  ===

  Level: 3 (Novice)

  ===

  Psychic connection to the world around you. Nothing will be secret from you if you can master this skill.

  ===

  Sam asked, “How much were you able to see, before your brain needed rebooting.”

  “I accessed everything that I would normally access on my laptop, but maybe it would last longer if I just focused on one wireless network or one computer at a time.”

  Sam thought about Jen’s powers for a minute and then urged, “Maybe there are other things you can do with this psychic skill. Try reading minds or try reading my stat screen.”

  Jen gave a pained grin, but said, “Oooh, I like that idea. Let me rest for a few minutes and then I will try to and read your stat screen.”

  After half an hour she said, “O.K. I’m going to try and read your stats.” Jen couldn’t sense any type of signal, but she could sense the mana in his body.

  “Wow, I just thought about inspecting you and ‘Level 0” immediately appeared in my onboard with almost no effort”

  Sam replied, “That’s pretty cool, I’m going to try…there it is! It just worked for me when I ‘Inspected’ you.”

  “I want to know more than just your level. I’m going to try something else.” She replied. Jen didn’t try to inspect Sam this time, but tried to feel for his mana and “hack” into his ‘system’ by willing her mana to ‘pretend’ she was Sam, while at the same time, willing his full stat window to appear.

  “Got it! I can see everything!” Jen exclaimed with accomplishment.

  “That’s what she said!” Sam said chuckling.

  They tried several experiments over the next day on the train. Jen could only get a sense of people’s thoughts and emotions, but she could read Sam’s stat sheet a
nd system messages perfectly.

  Most importantly, they discovered if Sam wrote the word “Forget” on paper and powered it up, when the conductor would stop by for their tickets, he would look right at Sam and Jen, forget they were even there, and move on. The only problem was when the conductor lingered in the door too long, and the mana in the spell ran out, he would shake his head and ask for their tickets. Of course, this didn’t cause any problems because they had valid tickets.

  However, they were concerned about the border crossing because they would need to speak with customs agents for more than just a few minutes. Their papers “should” work, but after the email leak in Washington, there would definitely be extra soldiers everywhere along the borders looking for US agents trying to leave the country.

  At the train station before the last leg to the border, Sam purchased some crafting supplies for making necklaces. “Watch this, I’m twisting the wire into the words ‘forget me’ and attaching it to the bottom of this necklace. It’s a ‘forget me’ necklace, we could make a fortune with these,” Sam chuckled.

  Jen laughed and said, “You are so charming Sam!”

  Sam groaned, as he tossed Jen the finished necklace, “You need to leave the puns to me, Millennial. Now just power it up when needed.”

  A couple of hours later during lunch, Jen experimented with mind control by repeatedly sending a ‘message’ to Sam’s brain while he was eating lunch, “pick your nose!”

  “What the hell is that?” Sam said as he looked up from his sandwich.

  “What, did something happen?” replied Jen innocently.

  “Yea, it’s crazy! A message just appeared in my system screen telling me to ‘pick my nose’.”

  Jen giggled for a while before excitedly explaining to Sam what she had been trying to do.

  Sam replied, “That’s pretty neat, you can send me mental text messages. It’s like a form of telepathy. That could be extremely helpful to us!”

  After lunch, a little unexpected excitement happened when Jen tried to hack another passenger’s computer directly with her “on board” computer, it caused the passenger’s computer to…well, not explode, but turn to slag…like it received a really strong power surge from an outlet and partially melted.

  After about six more hours of testing, Sam stretched his arms in a wide circle and said, “I’ve got to sleep, Jen; I’m about to pass out. I’ve drained and charged my mana so many times, I feel like my insides are raw where the power leaves me. Plus, we now have two working prototypes that may not even be needed.”

  Jen expressed her frustration for the 100th time. “We’ve gotten some good results but just imagine what we could do with better materials and more time! We need to take advantage of the 12x growth rate we have for the next 30 days.”

  Sam’s only reply was pulling a blanket up over his shoulders and closing his eyes. He reviewed his most recent stat notice before falling asleep. He had increased another level in his Words of Power skill.

  ====================

  Words of Power

  ===

  The power of words can be expressed many ways

  ===

  Level: 9 (Novice)

  ===

  Words have real meaning no matter what form they take

  ===

  While Sam slept, Jen reviewed her notes from all their testing. She was now keeping her notes in her “onboard” mental computer as Sam called it. Her gaming nerd was getting pumped reading over what they had done and all her thoughts about the remaining possibilities.

  Notes:

  Sam had to change the necklace to read “Forget me, not Jen” and “Forget me, not Sam,” so that they could use the Words of Power “forget spell” while being together.

  Sam’s Words of Power spells worked far better than hers – obviously, he was a higher level

  Sam could charge the spell up with his mana even if she wrote the words, made the symbols, or twisted the wire, but again, they worked far better if he created the charm himself and powered it up.

  The wire necklaces are able to be charged 5 times before they become brittle and break apart.

  Sam could either power up the necklace 5 separate times, where they would work about one-minute each, or he could slowly and continually channel power into the spell for about 5 minutes.

  Jen could use and activate a necklace that Sam made and powered up, but not quite as well as he could.

  Jen’s “on-board” computer was able to type messages into Sam’s stat screen that he could read

  Not good to mix magic with modern technology.

  Chapter 7:

  Returning

  “Wow, I’m so glad we’ve finally made it back. Your necklaces caused that border guard to look right at his folder with our picture, look up, forget what he was doing, and wave us right through,” Jen said, as they were pulling their luggage off the conveyor belt at the San Francisco International airport.

  “I can’t believe it took me almost the rest of the trip to finally get the psych skill, and even now I can only message you.” Sam complained as they were heading to pick up the rental car outside.

  Jen looked at him sympathetically and said, “Boomers just aren’t good at learning new things, old man.”

  On the long flight back to the US, Jen had created an itinerary, training schedule, and a packing list for when they got back. Sam could tell that Jen was going “all-in” on the theory that they could improve their odds of survival, and that she wanted to be ready. Unfortunately, Sam knew that her hyper planning and training was to keep her mind off her shithead family.

  Sam was contemplating Jen’s situation while they were standing in line for a car rental. Jen’s family refused to take her calls or respond to any of her emails over the last few days, and she was pleading with them to meet with her. Sam thought, “I wish I had enough time to go kick the shit out of them.” But Sam knew he was going to spend every moment with Jen, doing anything she planned and keep her spirits up. She was the only real family he had left. In a very selfish way, he was happy that this would give him more time to spend with her before their time was up.

  They both agreed it was worth the risk to go by Kelly’s grave, but they were not willing to risk going back to either of their homes. They didn’t want to spend their last days with reports and debriefings on their escape back to the U.S., and they certainly weren’t going to tell the agency they were Lottos.

  After praying a promise to Kelly’s grave that she would take care of Sam, Jen wiped her tears and went back to the car to give Sam some privacy. Sam was holding a lock of Kelly’s hair against his cheek as he sobbed and spilled his heart out. Sam knew they couldn’t stay there all night and was trying to pull himself together. “It just never gets easier missing you.” He sobbed a little longer.

  It was a quiet ride to Sam’s hidden bug-out cabin; they both needed time to heal some of the emotional wounds they had just re-opened visiting Kelly.

  Chapter 8:

  Reasonably Paranoid

  “Sam, you are such a paranoid old-man prepper,” Jen said, as they were removing a trap door, to access all his hidden weapons and gear. Jen thought it was hilarious that the trap door was under a gun cabinet that contained a couple of Walmart shotguns. Jen knew that Sam was not gun-crazy like that security contractor Chang. Chang would talk your ear off about weapons day and night. However, Sam was paranoid, so even though he didn’t talk about them all the time, he felt the need to have them, and lots of them.

  “My God you have a shit load of weapons here,” Jen said, as she walked down wooden steps into a small basement area.

  Sam started pulling some of the weapons out of their racks and said, “I’m going to create a gun bag for each of us with similar caliber weapons, so we can …..”

  Jen listened half-heartedly as Sam discussed the packing lists and ammo, and then she realized the major problem with Sam’s bug-out cabin supplies, and she said, “Sam, that’s not everything.”
<
br />   He looked offended and replied sarcastically, “Of course it’s not everything; I have several caches buried in the surrounding forest and extra gear in my other cabin, but we wouldn’t be able to use all of them even if someone from the government or a mega-corporation found us.”

  Jen was both shocked and confused by his response, and said, “Wait, let’s back up for just a second. You have more weapons buried in the forest and a second bug-out cabin? Or are you just fucking with me?”

  Sam sadly shook his head at her and said, “You damn Millennials don’t know what it means to be prepared. You’re just all kind of sad, really.”

  Jen was dumbfounded. This seemed a little crazy even for Sam. Jen replied sarcastically, “Okay Boomer, you just keep telling yourself that I’m the weirdo. Anyways, back on topic, the real issue is, you don’t have any tech. We need tech gear for me to train with, and all you have is zombie apocalypse gear.”

  By the end of the day, Jen had created a plan that had them exercising to build up their strength, speed, or stamina every minute, or training their skills on the tens of thousands of dollars of tech gear they were going to purchase. It wasn’t like either of them were worried about their credit card balances.

  Sam insisted that Jen go through several gun drills and make sure her weapons were sighted in. Jen carried a weapon most of the time, had extensive training with weapons, and qualified with them 2 or 3 times a year, but relatively speaking, she rarely fired a gun. Sam had always told her that, “If an intel gatherer ends up in a gunfight, they screwed up somewhere.”

  Jen was using her psych skill to interact with the wireless signals to power up three drones and fly them overhead as they were starting their morning run through the forest, and said, “It’s pretty definite, I can use my mana to interact with wireless signals, but if I try to tap directly into either the tech, the batteries, or the electrical components, it all just turns to slag.”