//------------------------------// // Bovian Rhapsody Part One - A Game of Chance // Story: Wild Card // by Barrel-of-fun //------------------------------// Edited by: PieisGood4U Blazinblade7 fireshadow11 Waking up in a jail cell is not a pleasant experience, being left there for hours on end was even less so. I was getting pretty tired at being held at her Majesty's ‘leisure’. I wondered what exactly was going to happen to me. I couldn’t help but call to mind how some clopfics started in a similar situation to this. Princess Luna enters and says softly “Oh, thou art such a dashing creature, and so daring and handsome. Swiftly, thou must have thy way with me!” I could remember various bits and pieces about earlier. I remember drinking quite a lot and I think I started a fight or something. I vaguely recall singing and for me that usually ends in violence. Was Princess Luna there or did my drunken mind make that up? Then I remember nothing for a while, but I do distinctly remember hitting something, and the feeling of overwhelming shame for doing so. Did I hit Princess Luna? I was vaguely aware that I may have committed some kind of social faux pas. How much did I drink? I've had some pretty bad hangovers before but none so bad that the pain travelled from my head to my chest, it almost feels like I was punched in the ribs. That must have been some really strong booze. Moving on from my past mistakes, this is a very secure cell they have me in. They really spared no expense on my containment. The lock on the door was a solid thing and, after a quick attempt at picking the lock, proved to be magically enchanted to reset the lock periodically. I could probably pick it, but it would take a while and the guard patrols would definitely notice me fiddling with it. The bars on the window were solid in their mounting, no chance of removing those, even if I did then the seventy foot drop would probably be a challenge. This would be so much easier if they hadn’t confiscated all my stuff. I had some really nice tools in there that would be a great help right now. My inspection of my holding cell was cut short as I heard the door unlocked and pushed slowly open. I turned to see who my visitor was, expecting some stern guard captain or maybe even the Princess herself. What I got was... different. Blocking the open entrance to my cell was a Jersey cow, her red and black mottling mostly covered by a conservative black business suit. Reassuring the guard that she would be fine she stepped forward, the door slamming shut behind her with a booming finality. “Well, I was expecting Princess Luna wearing something slinky but I suppose I can work with this. How can I help you?” She stepped forward, placing a briefcase-like saddlebag that she had been carrying onto the table in the centre of the room, before sitting down and adjusting her suit. After this she fixed me with a careful stare and answered me. “The question is how I can help you, Mister...Ace is it? You appear to have gotten yourself into a spot of bother with the authorities. I have a certain amount of influence available to me, should I choose to exercise such sway with the locals.” “Judging by that wide flank I’d say you have a lot of sway about you. You appear to have me at a bit of a disadvantage. You know my name but I am ignorant of yours.” Strange, usually when I insulted people they showed some anger. A small twitch of a facial muscle. A brief glint in the eye. No one takes an insult well, some people just suppress their anger quicker than others. But with the cow in front of me I got nothing. She has one hell of a poker face. Instead she just ignored my quip and plowed on with the conversation. “You may call me Missy. I have been informed that you arrived with some travelling companions, a minotaur called Iron Will and one Summer Storm, correct?” “Yeah... I swear if you’ve done anything to them...” “Relax, Mister Ace, they’re quite fine. I wish I could say the same about the guard captain they have been demanding your release from.” I felt strangely cheered at this, even going so far as to let a small grin slip onto my face. Not only were my friends trying to get me out but they were also making one of my captor’s days a living hell. I really couldn’t ask for better friends. “Now, then,” she pulled some papers from her bag, “I have some reports stating that you were involved in an incident near the Northern Border. Sixty-four refugees from a Diamond Dog slave camp arrived in White Tail, along with yourself and your two friends. They all gave corroborating evidence that you were instrumental in their escape.” Damn those ponies. I wanted to stay out of the limelight. She shuffled her papers some more. “Upon arriving in White Tail you investigated the unusual behaviour of one Swirling Runes, discovering that she had been kidnapped and replaced by the Changeling General known as Velvet. You assisted in her capture as well as the liberation of the real Swirling Runes, correct?” “Well I don’t like to brag. I mostly just got used as a punching bag by Velvet whilst everyone else ran around saving the day." “It is clear from these reports that you have done Equestria at least a small service. What I would like to ask is this, would you like to do more?” “Pardon?” A government recruitment? Well I can honestly say that was more unexpected than the sexy Luna thing. Usually governments want as little as possible to do with people like me. The majority of my interactions with government officials in the past went along the lines of ‘Stop criminal scum!’ “I represent a new initiative in the government. An initiative that looks to safeguard Equestria’s future. We are examining ways to improve current Equestrian lifestyle as well as preventing any threats to it, both external and internal. I believe that you could greatly assist with this.” “How exactly would I be assisting?” Naturally, I was wary. I don’t trust government agents, especially ones in suits who appear out of nowhere with a seemingly no strings attached deal. I swear if she was wearing full black sunglasses then I would be tearing the bars off the window with my bare hands in an attempt to escape. “That depends on your precise skillset. The report says you not only managed to defeat an enraged minotaur, but also dealt with a mutated Diamond Dog Alpha. How did you manage this?” “I just got lucky is all,” giving her my best cocky grin. “Lucky enough to survive two encounters that would have killed almost anyone else? I doubt anyone is that lucky.” “I am. You could say that the goddess Fortuna smiles upon me” Was that a flicker of recognition I saw in her eyes at one of Lady Lucks aliases? Her face, which had so far been set into an emotionless mask, allowed a small smile to grace its features. “There are two rather different sorts of things which are commonly referred to as ‘luck’ or ‘chance’,” she said, sounding somewhat like a professor. “One is the truly basic unpredictability on the most basic level, where indeterminacy is a physical fact. The other is simply the more ordinary aspects of the universe, quite comprehensible, but which somepony is currently unaware of: the Hidden Variables.” “...You’ve lost me, what exactly are you saying now?” “Were I to flip a coin, the instant after it left my hoof, its course would be the fixed product of its momentum, gravity, and local air currents - and if you measured all those factors, you would be able to predict how the coin would land. But if you lacked knowledge of those details, if those Variables were Hidden from you - then you would be as unable to predict the coinflip as before it left my grasp. But your lack of knowledge about the coin’s course does not mean that the course itself is indeterminate. ‘Luck’, in this case, which covers almost all of ordinary life, simply refers to your own state of mind, not to anything in the actual, physical universe.” “Okay...I think I got all that. So what do you intend to do about my claim of ‘Luck’?” “How about we put it to the test?” She reached back into her saddlecase, her hoof returning with a box of cards attached to the other end. I never bothered to ask but how do they do that with hooves? Before I could ponder this, she had continued, “I propose a particular game of chance. The rules are quite simple.” She placed the cards down on the table in between us. "We can use my deck, or one of yours, if you prefer. You can shuffle, or I can, or both - I want you to feel comfortable that I'm giving you every chance to put your presumed luck at play. There's an even chance that any given card is red or black. So, for three cards, there are eight possibilities, such as red-red-red, or black-black-black, and so on. The game - Penny’s Game, I think it's called - is fairly simple. Pick a sequence of three colors. Then I'll pick a sequence, and then we start flipping cards from the top of the deck. Whenever your sequence comes up, you get a trick, and hold onto those cards. When my sequence comes up, I get the trick. If you get more tricks than me, you win. Got it? So, what sequence would you prefer?" “I think I’ll chose red-red-red.” God, this is the weirdest job interview I’ve ever been to. In fact, this is the first job interview I’ve ever been to, maybe they’re all like this. “Very well. I’ll take black-red-red. Would you like to shuffle?” I compiled, it would probably be quite hard for her to shuffle with hooves. I gave them a special theatrical shuffle that I saved for my shows, the cards jumping between my hands and seemed to dance around. After a few seconds of this I placed the cards back in their place between us. Missy nodded her head towards the cards, indicating that I should go first. I was happy to oblige and swiped the top three cards, laying them out on the table. Queen of Hearts, Ten of Diamonds, Three of Hearts. “Point to me I believe. Believe me yet?” “One test is not sufficient evidence; we shall continue.” She took the next three cards and received a point for getting Eight of Clubs followed by Four of Diamonds and a King of Hearts. “See?” After running through the whole deck, a total of seven tricks were gotten - and Missy only picked up the one. “Now that is interesting,” she murmured. “While the rules I described may have seemed to give us each an equal chance of winning, certain subtleties meant that, when we started playing, I had roughly a ninety-nine point five chance of getting at least as many tricks as you. A minor part of that was priming you to pick one of the triplet sequences - but the major part was that, by my choosing my sequence after yours, I had the opportunity to pick one that had the greatest chance of beating it. A ‘nontransitive game’, is the technical term. No matter what sequence you chose, I had, at a minimum, a nine-in-ten chance of at least drawing, and an eight-in-ten chance of winning.” “What can I say?” I asked, spreading my arms in a nonchalant shrug “Luck just loves me.” “This level of evidence is only, hm, thirteen decibans, or roughly four bits worth; while that’s certainly impressive, your initial claim was implausible enough that I assigned it a rather low confidence of being true - somewhere around minus thirty decibans.” “I have absolutely no idea what a deciban is but I get the impression it means you don’t believe me. Okay, how about this, you got another deck of cards with you?” She nodded and lifted another deck out of the case. “Alright, I’m going to mix these two decks together and then we’ll play your little game again, but with some subtle differences. This time you only have to draw two cards but you have to correctly guess their name and suit. How ‘bout that?” “Hm - two specific cards out of one hundred and four, is odds of about one in twenty thousand. About forty-three decibans of evidence. From my initial appraisal, if you succeed, that would give you a total of around twenty-six decibans of your claim being true - or, in sum, four hundred to one in your favor. That would work quite well - if you can pull it off.” “Care to shuffle?” I asked, placing the cards in front of her. She then proceeded to split the cards into seven piles and shuffled each pile seven times. Damn, she was thorough. After ensuring that the cards were in a completely random order she combined the piles again and placed the finished result in the centre of the table. “How about you go first?” As a showman I knew that it is important to let the audience go first, so that you can show them up with your superior skill. She complied, thinking hard for a moment before deciding on her sequence. “King of clubs and seven of diamonds.” I smiled, she had ensured a split between as many suits as possible and split her guess up to contain the largest range of cards. It was a fairly probable guess, but I was aiming for something far riskier. “Ace of Spades twice.” I was hoping for some kind of display of shock at this, maybe even a gasp, but she simply raised an eyebrow again. She reached forward with her hoof and picked the two cards off the top of the deck, flipping them over before placing them on the table. A Jack of Spades reared its ugly head, swiftly followed by a Five of Hearts. “Aw, too bad. I guess that means my victory is assured.” “You certainly don’t lack for confidence.” “Yup, because I’ve got something you don’t.” I reached for my cards, but kept them facedown on the table to build some suspense up. “And that would be?” “The love of a very corrupt goddess... who likes to cheat.” With that, I flipped the cards over revealing that wonderful card that Motorhead had sung about. “Oh yeah! The Ace of Spades! The Ace of Spades!” An air guitar riff accompanied this exclamation. I may have been celebrating something that was essentially nothing more than luck but I was just happy that that had actually worked. Plus the look on Missy’s face was priceless. “Hmph. Very well - I bow to the evidence that you likely have some sort strange influence over probability. However, I wonder: what are its limitations? Can you do anything at all, or can a sufficiently determined person find ways to minimize what your good fortune can accomplish?” “What exactly did you have in mind to test this? Would you like me to leap from a high place and survive or something equally improbable?” “I’m just trying to think of a reasonably good test. Simply drawing cards would seem to be one of the places where magical luck has, if you will pardon the expression, the greatest chance of having the greatest effect. I tend to prefer games of either bluff or skill - poker or chess.” “Chess?” Was this some sort of subtle hint about the Chess Game? Could she be another piece? The Fortuna reference earlier certainly got her attention but I need a way to make sure. She began to rummage around in the case again, making me wonder just what exactly was in there. The moment her eyes left me to search for whatever she had in store next my left hand shot out, prepared to do a dishonest day's work. Missy had evidently found what she was looking for as she placed a wooden board down on the table, its surface covered with black and white squares. She pulled out a pair of pawns, one black and one white, showed them to me, hid them under her bag, then pulled her hooves out, holding one unseen pawn under each. I pointed to one, she lifted it, revealing the white piece. She then began to set up black pieces on her side, waving her hoof to show that I should do the same with the white. She finished before me and, even after I had managed to get all my pieces nicely aligned on their little squares, she continued to stare off into space. “Erm...you alright? What’re you doing?” “Playing against an abstract opponent requires a somewhat different mindset than playing against a live person.” “Right...hope you don’t mind me saying but I’ve always found chess to be a bit boring. How about we make it a little more exciting with a wager?” “What do you have in mind?” “How about this, if you win then I will sign onto your department as a freelance agent. I will send you any info I run across that could be used to help and you can send me on various missions should you require my services.” “That is what I came here to achieve. And if you win?” “Then you answer all my questions with complete honesty and clarity. How’s that sound?” Her face pulled into that small smile at this. “Agreeable - within the limit that I will say nothing which I believe will endanger anypony’s life. Is that acceptable?” “I think I can live with that.” “Then let us begin” This has been a crossover with DataPacRat's Myou've Gotta Be Kidding Me. I recommend you all go check it out. It is ridiculously intelligent, funny and updates every couple of days. In addition I have some bad news to give you guys. Due to the amount of work I have to do now, thanks to that infernal place known as college, I will be cutting the Wednesday update. You'll still get a regular Saturday update but next Wednesday, 03/10/2012, will be the last Wednesday update. I apologize for this but I can simply no longer keep up with the twice a week schedule with my current workload. I kind of feel like I'm letting it win, which I'm not at all happy about, but I see no other way I can make this work. Sorry, Barrel-of-fun.