“Everyone, confirm that you’re ready,” Nic said solemnly.

“Let’s do this,” said Jarek.

“I am,” said Perri.

Shanti nodded once.

“It was my idea, so, naturally, yes,” said Maqsud.

Nic cracked the knuckle of his right middle finger. “Okay. Begin.”

“It’s just a game of Conk, Nic,” Max snickered, dealing out the playing cards one by one. “It’s not that serious.”

It was more than just a simple card game, though. This was their first game played together as a team, two days into their journey through the Devi distortion, or a wormhole as everyone but Max had taken to calling it. Nic couldn’t sleep at all during the first “night” of their voyage; he stayed up to stare out the front viewscreen from the living room at the distended tunnel of stars and galaxies warping around them, their destination bulging out ahead of them at the end of the cosmic corridor like a giant water droplet. It was impossible for Nic to wrap his head around it in real life, despite all his Space Studies lessons and even sims about faster-than-light travel.

“Can you explain the rules again?” Perri asked, fanning out her three-card hand.

“Conk is a game of matching suits,” Maqsud explained. “I trust everyone knows basic card game terminology, yes?” Everyone responded in the affirmative. “That wasn’t meant to sound snotty, sorry, I—it's just, we all learned from our classes growing up. Okay. Moving along. So, Conk is an old Martian variant of an even older Earth card game. You play with three cards and only three cards, drawing one at the start of your turn from either the top of the deck or the top of the face-up discard pile, and then you discard a card to maintain your three-card maximum. The goal of Conk is to have more points in your hand than any other player. Face cards are worth 10 each, numerical cards are worth their pip value, and Aces are high—worth 11. Since you can only count cards in the same suit, the highest possible hand value you can have is 31—an Ace and two 10s, meaning you’d lay out your hand immediately and all other players lose. If you have less than 31, but a good hand, say two faces and a 5 of the same suit, for example, you could Conk. Knock the table...” He did so twice. “...and everyone else gets one last hand. You can only Conk at the start of your turn, however.”

“This is a lot to keep track of,” Jarek said, shaking his head.

“Win conditions,” Nic added quietly, shuffling through his hand. “You should go over those.”

“Right,” Max replied, “well, 31 is an instant win and everyone else loses. It’s more of a loser-out type of game than racking up points to achieve victory. The way I’ve always played it, each person wagers three credits each, and the winner at the end of the game gets to keep them all. But I always played a holo version. Seeing as how we—” Jarek dug into his pants pocket and dumped out a crinkling plastic baggie of individually wrapped hard candies, which all rattled out onto the table. He divvied them up evenly, three to each player, and put the spares back into the sack. “That works. So, these are our tokens. Let’s say a player Conks and they have the highest hand value of the group. The player with the lowest hand value would have to pay one token into the winning pot. If a player gets a hand of 31, they win the round automatically, and all other players must each pay one token. Once you’re out of tokens, you lose. Winner is the last player standing. Make sense?”

“What if you have, like, a 19-point hand, and you knock the table right away?” Jarek asked. “I mean, Conk right away?” He glanced at his hand, then fanned it shut, holding the cards against his chest. “Just, like... I’m sayin’ hypothetically.”

“That is one strategy,” Max acknowledged with a nod of respect. “‘Fortune favors the brave.’ Phormio, by Terence. 2nd century BCE. That reminds me of another rule, though: if you Conk, and you finish the round with the lowest hand value of everyone, you must pay two of your tokens. And remember, once you Conk, all other players get another turn before the round is over. It’s a high risk, high reward strategy. You have to count on everyone else having a bad hand—or, at the very least, one person having a worse hand than you.”

Jarek scratched his head. “I don’t know, man. Does everyone else feel like they get this game? Maybe I’m just dumb.”

Nic shook his head. “Don’t feel dumb. There are a lot of rules to this.”

“I think I’ve got it,” said Perri, furrowing her brow and fidgeting in her seat. “Should we just start playing and learn as we go?”

Jarek chuckled. “Uh... Yeah, I guess so.”

Nic had let Maqsud pick the team’s first game together, but secretly it was Nic’s idea to play the game as both a team-building exercise and a way to learn more about his squadmates. This would teach him how they strategized, whether they were risk-takers or played it safe, how they learned from past mistakes, if they were gracious winners—or sore losers.

Nic had already spent much of the day studying his squadmates’ PPI Student Profiles, special access granted to him by RTIFIS—a privilege of being Squad Leader. He’d studied them all so hard that he practically committed their profiles to memory. They surfaced in his mind each time he looked at one of them around the plastic-metal dining room table.

“I’ll start and show you know how it’s done,” said Max, and he took the liberty of drawing the first card from the top of the deck.

NAME MAQSUD “MAX” HAKIM DOB 7 Oct 2608 HT/WT 162cm/56kg SEX/GEND M/M HAIR/EYE STRAIGHT BLACK/AMBER DISTING. CHAR. TATTOO (ARABIC LETTER “MIM”, ISOLATED FORM, INNER RIGHT WRIST, SELF-DONE) HERITAGE AYRUS (C27), UMAR (C25), IUXTA (C24), MARS (C23) GPA/EXIT EXAM 3.3 / 100% PSYCH (DEP. / SEL. ANX.) | LVL 2 – OBSERV. CONCERN LIFETIME LEISURE SIMS ELVENCHANT (2508HRS), ARCHEROUS (2012HRS), RAUMSCHACH (840HRS)

Maqsud took a different card from his hand and laid it down on the discard pile, a 4 of Clubs. “We proceed clockwise, so Perri, you’re up next.”

He doesn’t want Clubs, Nic thought. Either that, or it was the lowest Club he had. He’s confident because he knows the game. No stress. Maybe he’s not the kind of person who cares that much about winning or losing. Nic couldn’t relate.

“Okay,” said Perri, “I will... draw.” She also took a card from the top of the deck, looked at it, and then set that same card down on the discard pile—a 9 of Spades.

NAME PEREGRINE “PERRI” MARKEY DOB 10 Oct 2608 HT/WT 160cm/59kg SEX/GEND F/F HAIR/EYE BLOND/BLUE DISTING. CHAR. TATTOO (PEREGRINE FALCON OUTLINE, UPPER LEFT BREAST, SELF-DONE) HERITAGE AYRUS (C26), IUXTA (C24) GPA/EXIT EXAM 3.8 / 92% PSYCH NONE | LVL 1 – WELL-ADJUSTED LIFETIME LEISURE SIMS FURFLOWER ISLAND (2123HRS), RACE ROYALE (1861HRS), ELVENCHANT (1102HRS)

Nic watched her scrutinizing her hand. That was a 9, so she must not have any Spades. Otherwise, that would be a good card to keep. I’m guessing she either has one of each of the other three suits, or maybe she’s got a pair of the same suit. Hard to tell this early.

“Shanti, you’re up,” said Max, but Shanti was already moving. She reached to pick up the 9 of Spades Perri had discarded.

NAME SHANTI ARGALL DOB 4 Oct 2608 HT/WT 164cm/49kg SEX/GEND F/F HAIR/EYE STRAIGHT BLACK/BROWN DISTING. CHAR. SCAR (INNER LEFT FOREARM, SCRATCH, SELF-INF.), SCAR (LEFT OUTER WRIST, BITE, SELF-INF.), SCAR (RIGHT OUTER WRIST, BITE, SELF-INF.) HERITAGE AYRUS (C25), TITAN (C24), LUNA (C22) GPA/EXIT EXAM 2.9 / 88% PSYCH (DEP. / ANX. / AUT. / HAB.) | LVL 3 – MOD. CONCERN* PSYCH. (CONT.) *WEEKLY EVALS LIFETIME LEISURE SIMS ELVENCHANT (3906HRS), HYDE N SEEK (3611HRS), CHECKERS (2989HRS)

Shanti replaced the card she had picked up with a 2 of Clubs. Then she took in the rest of the squad with a gun-shy look around the table, ultimately returning her gaze to her three cards.

An easy card to discard, thought Nic. Probably the lowest in her hand. The 9 of Spades is a good card, but if she picked it up, she must either already have Spades, or she doesn’t have much of anything else and she’s willing to bet on a new suit. I’m just speculating, though. She doesn’t seem to trust us yet. Or maybe she doesn’t like people in general. Can’t say.

“My go,” said Jarek. A slight grin clued Nic in that despite his newness and self-assessed ineptitude at the game, he was still having fun so far. Could be a good sign that he rises to a challenge, Nic appraised him. That makes two of us.

NAME JAREK MITCHELL DOB 2 Oct 2608 HT/WT 194cm/94kg SEX/GEND M/M HAIR/EYE COARSE BLACK/BROWN DISTING. CHAR. NONE HERITAGE AYRUS (C26), MARS (C23) GPA/EXIT EXAM 3.9 / 90% PSYCH NONE | LVL 1 – WELL-ADJUSTED LIFETIME LEISURE SIMS BAZOOKA BRAWL (1847HRS), COWBOY 3092 (1550HRS), FURFLOWER ISLAND (935HRS)

Jarek grabbed the 2 of Clubs from the discard pile and laid down an 8 of Hearts. “You’re up, Squad Leader,” he said, bumping Nic with a friendly elbow. Nic could tell that by calling him that, he was somehow both ribbing and genuflecting to him at the same time. A few days of being dubbed Squad Leader did not a leader make. Still, it inflated Nic’s ego a bit to be called that—and magnified the weight on his shoulders.

He couldn’t help but think back to his own profile, which RTIFIS had also allowed him to peruse at his will.

NAME NICOLAS SIEGFRIED DOB 2 Oct 2608 HT/WT 182cm/81kg SEX/GEND M/M HAIR/EYE BROWN/GREEN DISTING. CHAR. SCAR (CHIN, ACCIDENT) HERITAGE AYRUS (C26), MARS (C24) GPA/EXIT EXAM 4.0 / 98.5% PSYCH (MALADAPTIVE PERFECTIONISM + REL. ANX., REL. DEP.) | LVL 2 – OBSERV. CONCERN LIFETIME LEISURE SIMS TRIGGER POINT (2525HRS), ELVENCHANT (2291HRS), CHESS (1384HRS)

Nic picked up the 8 of Hearts. Perfect, he thought. Have these Clubs. I don’t think you’ll want ‘em, though. He discarded a 7 of Clubs. When he looked up, he saw Maqsud was looking back at him, a small, reserved smirk on his face. He could see the gears turning behind his amber eyes.

“‘You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.’”

“That’s, uh, Plato, right?” asked Jarek.

“Richard Lingard. 1600s. Common misconception.”

“Very common, I’m sure,” Nic snorted. “You’re up.”

To his surprise, Max picked up the 7 of Clubs and set down a 4 of Hearts in its place. His squadmate winked at him before turning his attention to Perri. Okay, he’s got a cocky streak in him, Nic judged, just like the kind I get when I’m confident about winning. Not only is he watching everyone else like me, he’s watching me watch him. I played chess. He played Raumschach... Don’t let him get in your head. There are no stakes here. Just candy and intel.

Perri picked up Maqsud’s discarded 4 of Hearts from the discard pile. A 4 is not great. She must need Hearts. Let’s see what she gets rid of now. The blonde set down an Ace of Spades. Ouch. She’s not paying attention. Either that, or she’s stacked with Hearts and just couldn’t hold onto it. I still have no idea why she would get rid of 12 points over the last two turns—unless she started with the Ace of Hearts and then another Heart. That has to be it. She drew a 9 of Spades, but with an Ace, that only would have been 11, so she must have a 10 or a face card that’s a Heart. She started with a high hand. I wonder why she didn’t Conk right away then. Maybe she’s not an aggressive player.

Shanti picked up the Ace of Spades... and then discarded the 9 of the same suit. Okay, she’s rocking a pretty high hand now. But getting rid of the same suit makes no sense... unless—

Shanti laid out her hand on the table. An Ace, King, and 10 of Spades. She said nothing and barely even looked up from her cards.

“Wow,” said Maqsud, genuine surprise in his voice. “Um... Well played, Shanti. She wins the hand automatically. She’s earned one token from each of us.”

“Dang, dude!” Jarek exclaimed. “Well, I wasn’t gonna win that one anyway.”

Everyone grabbed one of their candies and underhand-tossed or rolled them across the table to the hand’s winner. Shanti flinched slightly, her right eye twitching as her winnings were paid out, and she politely gathered them into a pile once everyone was done. Then everyone passed their hands to Perri, who had grabbed the deck and discard pile as well.

Shanti didn’t Conk either, Nic thought, despite having... He crunched the numbers and the play-by-play in his head. She had 20 points in the beginning. I guess that’s still somewhat low to Conk right out of the gate. Not a risk-taker. Prefers to fly under the radar. I can respect that. “Good job, Shanti. Everybody get ready for the next hand. I’m liking this game so far!”

“I had a feeling you would, Nic,” Maqsud said with a conspiratorial look. Maybe he thinks we’re the smartest ones here, Nic thought. Or maybe he’s just trying to kiss up to me. I can’t tell what this guy’s angle is. I have a feeling it’ll take more than an hour of play to figure him out.

Before Perri could finish shuffling the cards, the Corvette’s lighting changed angles—like spotlights on a stage, they swiveled toward the living room. The screen activated and RTIFIS appeared on it in 2D hologram form.

said RTIFIS. Everyone rose from the table with differing senses of urgency, Nic being the fastest.

“Pause the game for now,” said Nic. “Let’s get eyes on our first mission, Team Scarlet. RTIFIS, play Assignment Beacon.”