tempting luck

The notifications with the grades would not arrive until 8 in the afternoon; he still had an hour ahead of him, but he would not stay to see the revelry that the approved cadets or the future officers formed; he had failed only the right questions so as not to be suspicious in the theoretical tests, and this time in the practical part, even hand-to-hand combat, his Achilles heel would not be a problem, he had managed to defeat Hercules, a true fighting maniac.

There was something that Eneas wanted more than the grades, more than anything, something that until yesterday was impossible: hugging his mother. That morning he was able to save her, although between solving the fine with the Guardians and the exam schedule, he couldn't do what he wanted most to hug her... hug her after more than a year of her death... keep her alive.

Although this brought him a new concern, when the decision was made to evacuate and, despite the Saitan bombings, a large part of the population was still alive, the mother ships that were enabled did not have the capacity to save them all, despite the tragic end. , which only Eneas knew at that moment what would happen if he did not change anything. There was a controversial decision: the great powers put a price on life, except for the military, essential personnel, and politicians; the rest of the positions were auctioned off to the highest bidder. The minimum cost of a place reached the impossible figure of one hundred million Kukris, something that ninety percent of the population could not afford even if they worked their entire lives.

A future for the rich, life had a price, unfortunately, and that was something that not even an aspiring officer could change, in this life he could try to be a hero, change the course of the battle, or influence the officers to do something different He didn't even know if it would be possible, but what a nobody like him couldn't change in any way is that life had and would have a price.

However, his memory returned to something that had happened that same day in his previous life: while he was at home crying after returning from the morgue, there was a news story that reached him through the news channels he was on. Subscribed... There had been a winner of the universal lottery who had bought the ticket at a lottery dispenser on the other side of the city of Troy just an hour before the drawing, which was at twelve at night.

Eneas didn't remember the complete number; that would be an absurd feat. The draw on each ticket had a number between one and 999,999,999,999. Normally, it wasn't anyone's turn; it could take years or months until someone's turn , with which the money in the pot accumulated to astronomical figures... That time the price was two billion Kukris, a real fortune... and enough to pay for the value of his mother's life when the end came.

If the guesser had bought it at eleven at night, he had plenty of time to snatch it away... The system of random allocation of tickets had been abandoned several years ago, to prevent hackers from making a fortune for free, as had already happened. Many times, the tickets were printed on glass with a unique encoded fingerprint and all the security systems they could implement...

Eneas only remembered the ending, a five, but he didn't remember anything else...

"Oh my, how many universal lottery tickets can I buy with what is left in my account?"

"With what is left in the account, you can buy up to 22 tickets, but you will be left with nothing."

"So few? Well, we'll have to try our luck."

After paying the fine in the morning Eneas could consider himself truly poor, but he did not worry about his maintenance since tomorrow he would live, eat and dine at the officer academy, he did not have to worry about that in the coming months. 

The Amaru roared as he crossed the streets with the great skyscrapers of Troy. It was impossible to remember the complete number, but he just had to remember some detail... something in the numbering that was striking...

Two sevens in a row... in the winning number somewhere, there were two sevens in a row...

He parked the Amaru and entered the convenience store that served as a lottery ticket issuer. The clerk looked him up and down as soon as he entered. Robberies were not uncommon in that area.

"What do you want?"

"How many universal lottery tickets do you have that end in 5?"

"An intuition?"

The unpleasant clerk laughed as the large rear screen displayed the screens, with the tickets ending in 5. Twelve hundred tickets appeared on rotating screens.

"Ogmios scores all those who have two sevens in a row"

The clerk was getting impatient, and several customers were starting to queue behind Eneas.

"Come on, kid, decide once and for all that it's not that difficult, and if not, go somewhere else because I have clients waiting."

Eneas ignored the clerk; the final list of tickets ending in five and with two sevens in a row was 105. Shit, I needed some other clue. Remember, Eneas, Remember, remember... the winning number was neither a high number nor a low one. Which meant I had to start with at least a zero. After filtering, only 43 tickets remained on the list.

Well, a fifty percent chance was better than nothing. Eneas was selecting the numbers that sounded better or were more recognizable in his head, discarding the numbers with too many striking coincidences.

The clerk became desperate; the process was not fast; he had to enter the number into his console, and the printed glass plate came out through a dispenser...

When Eneas left, the seller, with a sarcastic smile, dared to say something to Eneas.

"Boy, remember to bring them back when they don't touch you; they will give you back half a kukri for each one…"

He was a real asshole...

The Amaru took the shortest path to the city of Elysium; he would celebrate with his mother, as they had agreed in his past life, if he passed the entrance into the officers' school.

The notification with the final grade caught her just as he had crossed the city limit and could then activate the turbo yet.

"Congratulations! Your access grade is 92; you have managed to access the officers' school. Report to the north pavilion tomorrow at 10 to begin your training as an officer."