2.02

The hexagonal suspension field gleamed blue before me as I considered the cards in my hand. Rattie had already played two face-down cards into the suspension field; I had yet to play anything. Given my current hand of a ten of sabers, a three of coins, and the Evil One, I could have played them face-up for a total of negative twenty two, one point from one of three winning hands. Unfortunately, I didn't know what cards Rattie had played, or the one in her hand. It was possible - even probable - that she had a better hand given the two cards she'd suspended already and the game's duration so far. It was her turn, so according to the rules only I could call. Frowning at those two face-down cards, I passed.

Still in her own turn, Ratty called the shifting phase and the simplistic droid brain behind the game gave a signal for the shifting phase. For a moment nothing happened, then the Evil One, the card with the devil's skull imagery and a worth of negative fifteen began to shift. That was the randomness inherent in Sabacc; unless played into the suspension field, any of a player's three cards could change in the shifting phase, possibly improving a hand, or making it far worse. In my case, the Dark One became a Queen, value of positive two. My new hand now had a value of negative five; a far cry from the negative or positive twenty-three of a victorious hand. And yet, I had a good feeling about this.

We entered Ratty's drawing phase, and my tutor droid exchanged the one card in her hand with another from the deck, then ended her turn. That was the drawback of the two cards she had suspended; she might have locked their values, waiting for a third card to net her a winning total, but there was an opportunity cost of a less fluid hand, one where randomness had less of an impact. And now it was my turn.

"All in," I said, trusting in that good feeling. Ratty gave me a dirty look, which I tried to match with total innocence; she was entirely unconvinced.

"Pass, mistress," she droned mechanically.

"Spoilsport." What was her problem? We were playing with virtual credits, anyway.

I didn't have a winning hand. Hell, she could probably beat all three of my cards with one of hers. And yet... Instead of laying down my cards I smiled, then signalled the shifting phase. My ten of sabers vanished, replaced by the Fool. Its value? Zero. But that was unimportant. I was tempted to play my hand now and claim the pot, or even suspend my cards, but some whisper in the back of my mind urged patience. I ended my turn.

Ratty stared at me suspiciously for a few moments, then bet the rest of her credits. Something had changed, and from the droid's uncharacteristic actions it was something significant. Already all-in, there wasn't much more I could do about it - or wanted to. Ratty suspended her third card, tilted her head at me, then sighed mechanically.

"You have a winning hand again, don't you mistress?" Not waiting for my response, she triggered the shifting phase.

All of Ratty's cards were suspended; whatever hand she had wasn't going to change. All of mine were at hand, subject to the whims of the random number generator. Even though I had a winning hand, this was about to change... and Ratty knew it; she'd played like that deliberately. The Queen card in my hand shifted, going through sixty images in an instant... then stopped, becoming the two of Coins; value positive two.

"Pure Sabacc," Ratty said, revealing her hand of ten of Flasks, six of Flasks, and seven of Coins, total of positive twenty-three. A winning hand, and one that beat negative twenty-three; positive values won over equal negative ones.

"Not so fast, Ratty!"

I smirked, then showed her my own hand; The Fool, value of zero, two of Coins, value of positive two, three of Coins, value of positive three. They might only add up to positive five... but they were also the so-called Idiot's Array. Their values taken sequentially literally wrote 0-2-3, which was also considered twenty-three and the best possible hand.

"I should have known," the droid said dejectedly. Did droids have feelings? I didn't know; I wasn't a cyberneticist or programmer with a specialization in artificial intelligence. Ratty certainly seemed to be, though.

"This is impossible, mistress!!!" she protested. "There must be something wrong with the random number generator!"

"You know it isn't, Ratty," I said, smiling broadly. "What's the verdict so far? Go ahead and look at the records."

My droid tutor did so, checking the archive of every card drawn and discarded for both of us, every randomization. The results were conclusive.

"Ninety-five point four-five-two percent favourable draws and shifts."

xxxx xxxx xxxx

​

My new gambling streak had started over a month ago with a simple exercise. Ratty was to show me a series of simple, distinct images and symbols for a short period of time, just long enough for me to memorise what they were. Then she'd shuffle them, and reveal them at random one by one, with brief pauses between draws. My job? Try to guess what the next image would be in the short time before it was revealed. We'd started with only ten images, reshuffling after every guess. On average, people would be guessing correctly one image in ten. I was guessing correctly four or five.

Being a droid, Ratty was weirded out at the consistently odd results. With further repetitions, the percentage of correct guesses even seemed to be increasing, especially when I was actively trying to predict them rather than answering randomly. Determined to find the error that messed with statistics and natural laws, Ratty had increased the number of images. In fact, she'd started using a library of images too hard for me to memorize, and randomly drawing images from sources she had not shown me. Yet my guesses remained correct, holding steady at sixty-eight point twenty-six percent for random answers to random draws, and ninety-five point forty-four percent for focused answers to random draws.

What Ratty did not know and I had failed to explain was that such image-guessing was the basic Force-Sensitivity test. That I got better results when I tried to guess meant that I knew I was Force-Sensitive, and was at some level using my abilities consciously. I might not be Anakin Skywalker - the kid had guessed (or would guess) every image correctly when the Jedi Council issued/would issue the test - but I was still vastly luckier than the average person, or even especially lucky but still normal individuals. That this luck would also take the form of precognition, that focusing on guessing what would happen would, at some level, actually let me sense the immediate future.

So we had started with more complex games. Poker, instead of just predicting images. Hangman, instead of just guessing words. Giving the answer to long multiplication or division faster than was physically possible for either people or droids to calculate by outright guessing it. We'd even broken into Father's room and liquor stash a few times. This step wasn't merely about testing my Force-predictions, but seeing whether I could consciously use them to create concrete advantages in real life - such as winning games, breaking codes, or skipping boring math homework.

Sabacc, with its higher stakes, active opposition, strategy elements, and answers that changed in response to both players' actions was orders of magnitude harder to get right. Ratty had soundly beaten me in the beginning, mostly because she was a droid with no tells if she didn't want to have them, and yours truly never being particularly good at hiding said tells. My precognition steadily improved though, as far as Sabacc was concerned; the more we played, the further from the statistical average could I bend the game.

Now I could win consistently if I wanted to, at least against unimaginative opponents like Ratty where my dismal skill in dissembling was no big deal. And the more I used this new skill, the limits of how much I could push the odds overall slowly increased, too.

Trying the same thing on real-world applications, in cases where there were no clear-cut answers defined by simple math formulas, had met with considerably less success. Shooting at targets while blindfolded showed a statistically abnormal but far from perfect accuracy, and having Ratty shoot me instead had proven dodging with my eyes closed only worked half the time... at least for now. There was no way to guess how far I could develop on my own, extradimensional knowledge of the Force or no.

I needed to find a tutor, or at least information about further lessons...