Callsign: King - Blackout

21

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Graham Brown felt a moment of uncertainty.

He was only peripherally aware of the life and death struggle going on a few feet away. It didn’t really matter which man survived-King or his mysterious abductor-since both intended the same fate for him. He might not get another chance to do this.

He thought about Pradesh’s earlier exhortation and recalled his own counter-argument. The probability of success would be drastically diminished if he did this. All his carefully laid plans were contingent upon the quantum devices being utilized in a specific manner. A deviation would have unpredictable results.

But wasn’t that the true nature of gambling? Wasn’t that the very thing that had motivated him to embrace this plan in the first place? Bold risks, uncertain outcomes…a final grand game of chance that would put his unique abilities to the ultimate test.

King had been more right that he would ever know. Brown had indeed won the game, won every game. He had played so expertly that there was no longer any satisfaction at all in the victory.

Maybe it’s better this way, he thought, and tapped the “Y” on the screen.