Pierce’s prediction coming true surprised no one. She was the de facto expert on magic in the facility. What she didn't tell them is why they died. For a short time, when they were infused with magic, they became dependent on it. When the magic faded, they faded. She looked down at her hands. The aura she had known her entire life was missing. Her magic was fading, and she feared she would fade like the roses.

Getting home was becoming more important and more difficult. Even if she could find her item, the base was completely locked down. Apparently, there were rumblings that the dark being the called the Last of the Rogues had started developing a following. This Cult of Rogues had infiltrated several secure places of power. There would be no leaving until this was resolved.

She picked up the controller and started playing a game Alan had showed her. This one focused on sneaking; her favorite pastime. It was painfully obvious that the security systems she was interacting with were designed to be defeated. The guards never noticed any of their fellows missing, for example. There were major holes in the patrol routes. Security mechanisms were locked with riddles. Despite these limitations, she enjoyed this. It helped her focus.

Alan would be arriving soon to take her to game night. She had been intrigued by the overlap between her home and this fictional world they had created. This would also give her another opportunity to see the Old Man. She had managed to take his security badge using a technique she referred to as a delayed lift. A questionable maneuver that relied heavily on chance. The clip would be loosened to a point where a few jarring steps would knock it loose. Agitating the Old Man would ensure the steps be fast and fierce. He would be too distracted to notice it fall. The final trick was collecting it before anyone noticed. A lift wasn't a lift until the item was secured in hand.

The badge itself was useless in its current state. As she had been warned, a missing badge would be disabled the second it was reported. However, if a badge failed to function in the hands of the correct owner, it would be re-flashed to the proper codes. If a lost badge was discovered and flashed, there would be two badges. One of those badges would be in her hands. This is why it was critical that she saw the Old Man again.

She had found manipulating people remarkably easy. Alan was more helpful than he intended to be in this regard. She had told him how she spent time with a tribe of people who feasted on the "eyes of their enemies," and that "Dr. Rosenberg was her enemy." This was more or less true. Since they were in a jocular mood, they made a delicacy out of his eyes. Alan even used the Old Man's eye scan for maximum accuracy. The resulting eyes were modified so they wouldn't decay, or release any strong odors. She made the flavor match a hard-boiled egg. She figured she might have to pop a few in her mouth to be convincing, and the taste of raw eyeballs was not that appetizing. She would need the artist with blood-colored hair, and the scary bird machine for the final steps.

The issue with the security woman seems to have been forgotten. Her odd behavior was an aberration and did not continue. Pierce did not know exactly what happened, but if it had been her own world, she would have suspected possession. She would also be at tonight's activity, no doubt trying to probe further into Pierce's past as a thief. It will be an interesting exchange. The metal woman with the blades pegged her the second she walked through the portal, and she adopted a policy of honesty while she was here. At least when they ask questions.

Two guards were peering blindly into the darkness, trying to figure out the cause of the noise she had just created. Well trained guards would work as a pair. One would check the noise, while the one watched their back ensuring no thug with a blackjack could render them both unconscious. She briefly considered doing just this before deciding to push her avatar toward the unlocked door on the right. Once she was safely in shadow, she fired a distraction in the opposite direction and watched the two guards run off to investigate.

She chuckled at the incompetence of these guys. She saved her game and turned it off. She stood up and started walking around the room. Most of her stuff had been returned to her with the exception of the book. The smaller metal woman had read through it, and now it was in Alan's possession. He was quite interested in it, showing an aptitude of understanding that exceeded her own. He was running what he called a "deep learning algorithm" trying to tease out patterns and build upon them. To Pierce, it was just a cookbook with a little light theory, but in Alan's hands, it was a solid foundation.

She pulled the goggles from her forehead down to her eyes. Alan had helped her set these up and gave her enough understanding of how to use them for her purposes. With them, she managed to locate all the recording devices in her room. As she suspected, the one in the bathroom did not record video but heat. She made a point to take long hot showers daily, hoping that obscured her presence.

She started examining the “service drone access.” The corridor was a bit small, and most people would feel uncomfortable. This would not be a problem for her. What was a problem for her was the lock. The access was held shut by two magnetic blocks. One of these was fed by an energy storage unit, that also connected to external power. If she were to cut these, it appeared a suspended rod would fall into the door seizing it up. All that was complicated further by the fact that she couldn’t actually reach the parts. She had tried to interfere with the mechanism with magnets of her own to no success. She tried to follow a drone out, but it simply blocked the path.

The main exit had a similar lock. It had some extras pieces to integrate the eye scanner. Breaching this door had a bigger issue. The drone that sat outside who she and Alan had taken to calling Trooper Bob never tired. Bob was friendly but didn’t seem to be easily manipulated. Anything out of the normal, Iris and Kimiko would be alerted instantaneously. Ultimately, the problem was the same. If she left the room, they would know she wasn’t in it. She didn’t fully understand how the locks worked. The second she left the room; they could track her anywhere she went.

She moved the goggles back to her forehead. While she pondered her potential escape routes, there was a chime at the door. She walked over to the door a pressed the button to allow entry. Alan, the red woman, and the metal woman all walked in. The woman, whose name sounded like Check-Off, reached into her pocket and pulled out a small carved figure.

Pierce took the item and started examining it. What she held in her hand was a carving of a beautiful tall woman. She had blue hair and bunny ears. She wore an elegant dress. In her hands was a lyre. The most striking part was the eyes. They were Pierce's eyes. How she got such fine detail without magic was beyond Pierce. She didn't know the full capabilities of technology, but she suspected this was pure skill.

“This is powerful,” Pierce said. “Thank you.”

Chekov smiled and bowed. "This room is a little bare. How would you feel about painting to warm it up?"

Pierce's smile faltered a little bit. She never had a place to decorate, and these walls were no more hers than any previous walls since she had left the Acadamy. She was a nomad, and a home wasn't something that she had. "Can it be a small one? Like, could be fit in a pocket?"

“I thought your pockets were magic?” Chekhov quipped. “Of course, and I can put it in a special frame so that you don’t have to worry about damage.”

“My pockets are magic, but I still have to rummage around in them to find stuff. Your stuff is good. I’ve seen things made with magic that weren’t quite as good.” Pierce turned toward Jaye. “How are you?”

“I’m still adjusting to my new perspective. Alan warned me what could happen. I should have better prepared myself.”

“She will be fine once her software adjusts,” Alan said. “She now has a separate data stream for each type of vision, with a standard camera taking priority. Before there was a pre-processor that combined the information for her, based on what she wanted. Now she has to do that separately. Enough time passes, she will be able to do it instinctively just like she used to. Her interpretation software just needs to retrain.”

Pierce nodded as if she understood that. Jaye couldn't see like she used to, just like Pierce. Time may enable her to operate at the same capacity she did before. She understood that Jaye did this to avoid mind control. Apparently, her kind is particularly susceptible to this. The other ironwoman had witnessed these dangers first hand. Pierce wondered why Alan, who always wore those glasses, and Kimiko, who had machine parts in her, were not more concerned with this. Of course, signs show that Kimiko might actually be compromised. Something Iris had mentioned to her on the first day here.

“Are you having any success finding holes in our security?” Alan asked.

Pierce looked at him and smiled. “It got harder when you stopped answering questions you shouldn’t, but I’ve found several ways out of this room. Unfortunately, I do not have the skill set to exploit them. Without magic, I feel pretty much helpless.”

“Why are we encouraging the interloper to escape?” Jaye asked.

Alan laughed. “An untested security system will have holes,” he explained. “Pierce, a thief from another dimension, has a new perspective on security that we didn’t have when building it.”

“For a thief, you aren’t very shy about it,” Chekhov said.

Pierce grabbed a small bag of dice from a table. “Well, you pretty much had me pegged from the beginning. If I am going to get home. I need you to trust me. In order to do that, I have to be honest.”

“Her logic is sound,” Jaye said. “Should we get a move on?”

“I think I am ready,” Pierce responded. Alan opened the door. They left with Chekhov leading the way. Jaye followed Pierce, and Alan took up the rear.

“You said that thieving was a legitimate profession,” Chekhov said as they traveled down the hallways. “How does that work?”

“I mean... if you get caught... there are still punishments. I may have exaggerated a bit. The thief's guild tends to spread some of the ill-begotten wealth around. This tends to endear them to the poorer folk. There is a huge disparity between the rich and the poor, especially when one considers some can do magic others can't. Good thieves balance that power.”

“Kimiko would point out you are still committing an immoral act and justifying it with ‘good deeds.’ You claim to be addressing inequality, but your charity comes at the expense of others.”

“Imagine you are a baker. If you want to make bread, you have to acquire the ingredients. You have to have an oven. You have to fuel the oven to make heat and produce the bread. To make enough to sell, you have to spend a significant portion of your day cooking the bread. Then you have to take the bread to the market place to sell. Let me ask you a question, what is better? Fresh bread or bread that’s been sitting around for hours?

“Fresh of course,” Alan responded.

“Now you live a world with magic. Without magic, there seems to be one unshakable truth. You can’t get anything without getting something in return.”

“Thermodynamics,” Jaye said.

“With magic, to make bread, you just need a little magic. Using the magic that attaches to a single piece of wheat you can make tenfold the bread the baker makes in a single day. Your bread is always fresh because you can make it in seconds. And you never have to throw any away. There is no rhyme or reason why some people can do magic and others can’t. Some of it is inherited. Some people can do it without much effort. Some people train forever and can never do even a simple spark. There are those that go from nothing to becoming some of the most powerful wizards you have ever known. What do you do? If the magic bread is freely given, no baker can make money. Even if magic bread is sold, a baker cannot compete. You can encourage people to buy true baked goods, but magic goods are cheaper. Too many people need cheap goods that are of better quality. You can ban the sale of magic goods. This becomes impossible to enforce. With magic travel, people can set up shop outside of city limits and bring customers to them.”

“I fail to see how stealing stuff addresses this problem,” Chekhov responded.

“One percent of the population can do at-will casting. Ten percent can do it with reagents. A little over half can cast magic if it is prepared by others. Those that do magic resent those that don’t. Everybody always trying to get them to solve their problems. Those that can’t resent those that do, because everything they do is a struggle, and there is no path for them to upward in life. Magic can make lots of things, but it can’t really make land to live. I mean it can, but not in a distributable way. If a thief takes magic bread and only magic bread, the cost of the bread must increase to compensate. If a thief can take the magic used to make the bread, as I can, it actually puts the cost of magic bread relative to true baked bread. The stolen bread is then distributed to the poor, so they don’t need to afford the more expensive bread.”

"I'm not sure that's how economics works," Alan said.

Pierce shrugged. “I could just be moralizing an immoral act, as Kimiko would say. I mean, it is thief guild propaganda.”

"It seems like magic causes a lot of the same difficulties that automation and agents did when they first came on the scene," Jaye said. "There were protests and riots. Crime skyrocketed as people lost their jobs to machines. Eventually, we solved it with universal basic income and a greater appreciation of the arts. An agent can paint as good as Chekhov, even emulate her. But It could never be Chekhov." Chekhov smiled at this as she opened the door to enter the breakroom.

"Actually," Alan said, "the technology to migrate consciousness from human to an agent is available. People just aren't eager to be the first one."

“I’m sure that would be a bit disconcerting,” Jaye said as she followed Chekhov through the door.

"What's even more disconcerting," Alan said as he held the door for Pierce, "is that the other way is also possible. You think you lost something when I changed the way you process visual information. Wait till you are calculating at the speed of a human."

Kimiko and Rosenberg were already waiting for them in the room. Rosenberg was drinking a beverage. She pushed a chair next to him. Standing on the chair, she once again pushed herself into his personal space. She started sniffing at his drink. "What is this?" she asked.

Rosenberg, discombobulated, moved away. “It’s called cola.” She attempted to put her finger in the liquid. He jerked it away quickly, spilling some on his chest. Pierce made an awkward attempt to wipe some of the soda off of him. While the spectacle she had created was going on, she swapped the badges. She tossed a glance at Kimiko and Jaye to see if they had noticed anything. Pierce understood that Jaye’s compromised vision might have played a role in her success. Kimiko was preoccupied with the inner battle going on inside her head. She had improved at hiding this, even from Chekhov who was the most observant of Kimiko’s behavior.

“I’m sorry,” she said and jumped off the chair.

"Little sprite has no manners," Rosenberg said. Pierce wasn't very fond of being called a sprite, a common dig at her stature. Taking insults from the mark was par for the course.

“I’m sorry, I come from a different world. There are many things here I am not used too.” This was pure rubbish. Alan, who knew her best, laughed at this.

Pierce moved back to the table and took her traditional standing position in the seat. Rosenberg, still frustrated with his spilled drink, took his seat next to her. Everybody else followed suit. A loud rattle filled the room as Pierce dumped her dice on the table. Chekhov handed her a sheet of paper.

Kimiko grabbed the piece of paper an inch away from Pierce’s reaching hand. “Two eighteens, and nothing below a twelve?” She remarked. “How did you manage such rolls?” She handed the paper back to Pierce.

“I watched her roll them,” Chekhov said. “Those are legitimate stats.”

Pierce looked at the numbers that defined her bard. Eighteen was the absolute highest she could roll for character-creation. She managed to get it twice. Her character was extremely charismatic and dexterous, capable of manipulating people and objects with the greatest of ease. Her intelligence and wisdom weren't too far behind. Her lowest stat, constitution, which was the basis of survivability, was a twelve. She never really considered cheating but doesn't blame anyone for thinking she did.

There was a rapid plink as she rolled her D20 across on the table. The tinkling sound increased until it stopped on an eighteen. Jaye reached out a picked up the dice. She spun it in her hand. "Alan, my visual acuity seems off. This dice is balanced, but it did not roll as predicted." She rolled the dice across the table back at Pierce. "Seven?" she said as the dice came to rest precisely at seven.

Pierce grabbed the dice a peered at it closely. She twirled it in her hand. Nothing there but an ordinary twenty-sided dice. She waved her hand in front of her face, looking for signs of trails. No special aura. Jaye’s response to her roll suggested more at play than kinetic physics. “What are the chances you would be wrong?”

“Before the change one in twenty billion,” Jaye said.

“After the change, you shouldn’t be any worse than Kimiko,” Alan said.

Kimiko looked up from whatever thought had been consuming their attention. “What?”

“Did you notice anything odd about Pierce’s roll?” Jaye asked.

“I wasn’t paying attention, I’m sorry.”

Alan let out a deep breath. “In theory, Kimiko’s error rate is one in three hundred forty-thousand. A far cry from Jaye’s accuracy, but pretty infinitesimal when it comes to the practicality of it. When she isn’t distracted of course.”

"Curious," Pierce said. "Pre-magic, I doubt that our world was much different than this one. The first observable difference was when some people appeared to succeed despite poor decision making. Enterprising people started testing this. People showing success with poor choices, and people showing failure with good ones. They were tested with games played around tables much like this one. There was definitely a discrepancy in what some called fortune or luck."

Rosenberg was shaking his head at the absurd story. Even after the rose demonstration, he doubted that there was anything going on.

Pierce continued, "As magic gained prominence, the effect of luck disappeared. There were several thoughts as to why. It was thought that luck was the result of proto-magic attempting to fulfill the will of the person. I want a high roll; I get a high roll. When magic started being more deliberate, then it ceased modifying luck. That's one idea anyway. Critics say it lacks explanatory power for cursed luck."

“Cursed luck?” Alan asked.

"There is magic and there is curse. If magic is stored long term is sours and turns to curse. If someone attempts to push magic beyond its limits, it cracks and becomes curse. If the caster is unusually angry or sad, you get curse. Differences are subtle, the effects are the same. There is the intentional curse which can be a combination of any of the other causes plus extra. Those are a real pain to de-curse, and some items get locked away in a vault and forgotten about because there are simply no other options." She thought back to the item she had lifted from the vault. The item that was still roaming around here somewhere, despite everyone's best attempts to locate it.

"Another idea is that luck became indistinguishable as most people had it. It didn't matter if you were lucky, it mattered if you were luckier than the other guy. Again, it doesn't account for cursed luck. And then there is the theory of high luck. It might become unlucky to be considered to have an unfair advantage via luck. A broken wheel may seem unlucky, but if you avoid a disaster as a result, then you are lucky. The problem with this is that one can still magically augment their luck. It behaves in every way proto-magic did."

“That’s a bunch of rubbish,” Rosenberg said. “Luck is nothing more than people seeing patterns in random chance.”

“That was the prevailing theory during pre-magic,” Pierce responded. “If I had access to them, I would happily share the studies with you. Improbable clusters centered around individuals: A theory of luck. It showed extremely rare things consistently happening to certain people.

“Extremely rare is not zero,” Rosenberg responded.

"There is a non-zero chance that you could phase through your chair, but I don't think you would dismiss it so quickly," Jaye said.

“I mean, when it first started happening, it was a novelty and could be argued against. Then there was the era of luck. The effects were indisputable. Someone with full cursed luck couldn’t be helped. You give them money; they would be robbed, they would lose it, and once the government who backed the currency went under. They couldn’t die. A large portion of them attempted suicide, to no avail. Weapons would fail to discharge. People would tie weights to their legs and throw themselves into the ocean, only to have their legs eaten off by sea creatures where they floated back to the surface. When people attempted to starve themselves en masse, raiding armies of well-meaning folks force-fed their nearly unconscious bodies."

“Depression wasn’t limited to those with bad luck. People with good luck felt helpless trying to help these people. There was also the idea that they didn’t earn what they achieved. Eventually, binding fates became a thing. The first intentional magic. A person whose luck was good would tie their fate to one of curse. Something good happening to one, must require something good to the other. This usually resulted in the death of both parties, but to those suffering, this was a preferable alternative.”

"If we assume that proto-magic or luck is here," Alan asked. "How do we test it?"

“We roll the dice,” Chekhov said. “Compare it to Jaye’s model.”

“What if there is a problem with my model?” Jaye asked.

“I will pay better attention,” Kimiko said. “If we are in agreement, our models are sound.”

“I’m not even sure if there is something there to test,” Pierce said. She continued examining the dice. Still not seeing any signs of mystical influence.

“Then we would be back where we started, no new information, no change,” Chekhov said. “Everybody roll.” There was a distinct tumbling sound as 6 dice bounced on the table. Pierce noticed a spark reorient the dice as it left her hand.

When all the dice came to a rest, Jaye asked, “Did you catch that?”

“Yeah, Pierce’s dice took a weird turn.”

“Come on!” Rosenberg said, “she has shown she has exemplary motor control. She could be manipulating the dice!”

“I mean, sure, experts in prestidigitation can fool Jaye’s sensors,” Alan said, “and I have seen Pierce do some pretty impressive things.”

Pierce picked up the dice on the table reading the impressive twenty sticking on the top. She knew magic intervened in that roll, but she wondered if she could pull off the feat otherwise. The idea that some of her talents came from magic putting the thumb on the scale was a little disconcerting. She tossed the dice again. This time she focused on preventing luck from interfering with the roll while imparting a specific spin on the dice. There was no jolt shifting the dice, but the spin did the trick. It landed on a respectable seventeen.

“I caught that one,” Kimiko said after a moment.

“Me too, but the way she made it move does lend credence to Rosenberg’s theory.”

Pierce moved her legs out from under her and thumped down into her seat with her arms crossed. She was somewhat disappointed that she was unable to fool them. She was equally disappointed that her attempt had been good enough that she had now cast doubt on the previous examples. Even more egregious, she doubted herself. She knew from years of experience that she could do things with her hands without thinking about them. The spark of energy could have been her imagination. “We need to see if we can get the effect to act without my interaction. Doc? Would that suit you?”

Rosenberg considered the question. “If we can come up with a way where the dice cannot be influenced other than your ‘luck.’ I will concede that this phenomenon requires further investigation.”

“I assume you don’t believe in magic, then you will admit I am not controlling it with my mind. I suspect people would notice if I attempted to blow on it.”

“Well pushing it with your mind is something we could consider a positive result,” Jaye said, “and yes, you would have to be preternaturally covert to blow on the dice without our detection.”

"Preternatural covert is one of my talents... Okay, Alan will roll for me. He is going to roll against Jaye. Kimiko, keep watching me for funny business. Alan, I am betting on you to win this roll-off."

“What’s the bet?” Alan asked.

“Respect from Rosenberg,” Pierce responded. There was a laugh around the table.

“Interesting, how confident are you this will work?”

“Sixty, seventy percent.”

“If this is going to be convincing, I am going to require a harder contest,” Rosenberg said.

“Okay,” Alan said, “No game mode.”

They rolled the dice. There was distinct energy that flowed from Pierce to Alan and Jaye. The dice bounced and plopped on the table. Alan's came to rest first. There was a frown on his face when it came up five. Jaye's appeared to come to rest on the twenty, but tumbled one more time and landed on four.

“Do you think that is repeatable?” Alan asked.

Jaye reached for the dice on the table. Her hand came in contact with Chekhov’s drink and knocked it over.

Pierce looked forebodingly at the spilled drink. "I don't think we should."