A Matter of Timing

I’ve always known luck runs through me like a double-edged current—good when I need it, bad when I least expect it. I’ve dodged it where I could, sidestepping casinos and cliff edges alike, but when cornered, my luck pulls stunts that’d make a statistician weep. It’s not skill, not fate—just a weird, stubborn streak that’s kept me alive through more scrapes than I care to count.


It started with a game of Risk, years back, against a guy named Kessler. He was a numbers savant, the kind who crunched codes for some shadowy agency—secrets so dense most people wouldn’t know where to start. Kessler loved dice games, not to play, but to watch. He’d sit there, eyes glinting, tallying every roll in his head like a human abacus. That night, he’d tweaked Risk for us: attackers and defenders could roll up to three six-sided dice if they had the troops to back it. Standard stuff, except I was feeling it— that itch of luck buzzing under my skin.


“My five-man army’s taking Asia,” I declared, grinning at his 19 defenders sprawled across the board. Kessler raised an eyebrow, but I saw the flicker of glee in him. He lived for outliers. I rolled, he rolled, and the table went quiet. Sixes stacked my way like they were magnetized; his dice flopped like wet clay. When the dust settled, I marched into Asia with one guy left standing—battered, but enough to crack his chokehold on the continent. Kessler didn’t curse or sulk. He laughed, a sharp, delighted bark, and said, “I’ve got to see more of this.”


He dragged me into a dice-heavy RPG next—hundreds of throws, endless stats. My head was pounding, a migraine chewing my temples, but he promised snacks and friends already deep in the campaign. I caved. Kessler DM’d, rolling for monsters, traps, gods. Didn’t matter who tossed the dice—me, him, the party—my luck warped the odds. Critical hits on d20s, fumbles for foes, improbable saves. After months, I quit; my head couldn’t take it. But Kessler? He fed every roll into some program at his job. Next thing I knew, I was in a database—some list of “lucky assets.” My Boy Scout past, CPR cert, survival merit badge, and a rap sheet of near-death escapes I didn’t even remember sealed it. They bumped me high on a roster for gigs where luck was gold.


That’s how I ended up here, arm outstretched over an opalescent keypad that shimmered like a living thing. Beyond it, a portal loomed—a wall of liquid light, ten feet thick, rippling between our world and whatever waited next. It was massive, big enough to swallow a Starship Superheavy sideways, and our tracked mothership—The Halcyon—was a squat beast ready to roll through. Two hundred of us, plus landers and gear, packed to kickstart humanity’s next branch. The portal cycled every 3 to 5 seconds, a kaleidoscope of planets flickering beyond—jungles, deserts, oceans, voids. They’d clocked it for years, 7.51 cycles before repeats. Millions of worlds, maybe billions, and no pattern to crack.


Each ship got a “luck ratio,” a metric Kessler’s ilk cooked up. Halcyon scored low—brilliant engineers, botanists, medics, but dice-rollers who’d crap out at Vegas. Me? I was the wild card, slotted in the “luck hatch”—a sealed pod up front, tradition for the one who picked the plunge. My job was simple: hit the squarish button when it felt right. No pressure, right? Just the lives of 199 others riding on my gut, plus our shot at a green world over a lava pit. We could theoretically hunker down, grow food, wait 7.51 years for Earth’s window to reopen, but I’d rather not test that math.


The keypad pulsed, flattening oddly when I squinted at it, like it knew I was guessing. The portal flipped—crimson dunes, then a gray sea, then—there. Brilliant green, threaded with river valleys so vast they dwarfed the Mississippi, glinting under twin suns. My headache flared, but that buzz kicked in. “This one,” I muttered, and slapped the button.


The ship lurched, a gut-punch of acceleration pinning me to the pod’s wall. My suit creaked, helm fogging as Halcyon barreled through the portal. The water-wall swallowed us, a roar of static and light, then—silence. We rolled out onto mossy soil, airlocks hissing. The green stretched endless, rivers carving the horizon. Cheers crackled over comms, but I stayed quiet, tapping my temple out of habit.


We’d report back—radio squelch if the colony stuck, or in person if this paradise turned sour. Kessler’s database pegged me as lucky, but I’d survived enough bad rolls to know it’s a coin toss out here. Still, the rivers gleamed, and my gut settled. Maybe this time, luck landed heads-up.


“Wish us luck,” I whispered to no one, and stepped out to see what we’d won.