There I stood, outside the building I intended to rob. From an outside glance, it looked normal, but my mission suggested otherwise. The organization that hired me seems to believe there’s crucial intel inside. However, it was just a basic convenience store with an LED sign reading “Closed,” flickering to face the exterior and a solitary light dimly shining from within. The building was medium in height, but the store seemed to pertain to only one floor of the structure. I knew little about what I was dealing with but decided to act cautiously, considering my cosmic misfortune. The front door was locked, of course. Around the side of the building, deep into an alleyway to the store’s left side, was a black metal door. The alley was as desolate as the city streets as if life cowered from the surrounding area.

While I planned for the job, the block and the city itself struck me as peculiar. It was slightly underpopulated, and the businesses and residents of the area suffered from random and devastating occurrences. I had seen newspaper headlines of building collapses, floodings, fires, and bouts of illness that seemed to stretch across town. Even with all that, the news reports seemed scarce, and financial records unimpeded. Somehow it remained unnoticed and unaffected by the catastrophes. Next to it, there was a ladder. I scaled it after confirming its integrity, and quickly I was at the top of the building. I pondered what could be on the floors above the store: apartments, offices, something malicious? The city was a tame place, not a suspectable location for anything hostile. If there really was valuable information in this neglected brick building, then I suppose it’s a pretty good hiding spot. I began to doubt the people who hired me since the location was inconspicuous, but something unnerved me; it was unsettling. As someone who’s spent years ascertaining the harmless from the threats, I thought this building was absolutely not normal. Whether this was another aspect of luck’s force running through my body or a skill developed from constant and necessary judgment, my instinct pleaded with me to get as far away as possible. And yet, there I was, searching for a way in.                

I scoured the roof. It was unattended and untouched as if no one had ever been there. There was a fire escape down the far side, and I carefully scaled its scaffolding. The closest window was dusty and closed shut. Peeking through the dust-tinted glass, I saw an utterly uninhabited room. There was some furniture and basic decor but no indication of a living person: no food, no cans, nothing. I picked the lock of the window and budged the resistant frame open. It took the shove of a shoulder, which split the stubborn wood and shoved the unwilling pane upward, but I managed to budge a foot of space. I had to squeeze my way into the dull and barren apartment. It was like a shell of a real home, a husk, an imitation of a living space. It lacked the presence of life, and a pit sunk in my stomach as I delved deeper. I tiptoed to the vacant apartment’s door. Coming out revealed an equally uninhabited hallway. Not a whisper radiated from the rooms along the hall, each door as unlively as the last. The abandoned apartments made the hairs on my back stand. It was like the entire thing had been put up for appearances, like some sort of plastic doll house, a charade intended to keep a secret; a secret I didn’t even know, and once again, I walked into the untold darkness because of a duty. I have to because this is my only option. This is the only work I can fulfill, which always seems to leave me with the short end of the stick in my business deals. 

I found a staircase and made my way down. There were a couple of flights before I reached the convenience store floor. This was the only part of the location that was used, and the entrance from the stairs creaked open as I pulled the door. Unquestionably closed, I made my way into the dark store, but down at the far end, the flickering light bulb remained illuminated. I made my way toward the light, which shone from an open closet. As I approached, a mechanical whirring hummed from below the floor. It was the faintest sign that I was making progress. I entered the little closet, and my gut told me something was worth looking for here. I looked up at the candescent bulb above me, pulling on its chain, causing a click. A wooden square panel on the ground squeaked open, and at the same time, the bulb above me popped. Glass rained over my head. The burst of shards shocked my core, and I managed to shut my eyelids just before they pierced. The tiny pieces stabbed my skin, but I prevented becoming blind. I picked the bits from my skin, which hurt, but I still had my vision. However, when I opened my eyes again, it did not seem so important that I could see. I stood in complete darkness and shook the rest of the shards off my clothes and face, continuing blindly.

The unsealed wood panel beneath my feet lifted with the glass-breaking chain tug. I slithered my fingers under it and urged the trapdoor open. I could hardly see after the breakage of the bulb, so I headed into a pit of darkness. I prayed that the shattering was not heard by whoever may be waiting wherever this door may lead. Down the trapdoor came an unlit tunnel where my feet glided across its hard metal surface. The cold tunnel spanned for some time, eventually exposing my eyes to a light shining around a nearby corner. The mechanical whirring became louder and louder as I approached, and I continued despite the goosebumps on my arms and the pit in my stomach. I poked my head around the corner of the edge of the tunnel. There was a basic room with a man sleeping inside. He looked like a security guard, sitting on a rolling chair and surrounded by monitors from a camera system, with his head craned back and snoring. One of the screens flickered from being on to blackness. The rest of the monitors appeared to survey a large facility, with industrial machines, moving devices, and multiple workers traversing their areas. It seemed I was in for way more than I had planned, but I was far too deep into it now. The intel I was looking for was supposed to be in the admin office of the location, wherever that may be. I just needed to get to the rest of the facility, which I strongly suspected was behind the locked door at the end of this security room. For a guy with bad luck, everything seemed convenient. So, I made my way down the room and passed the guard; and as I reached the door at the end, my heart sank as a noise came from behind me... “Ah-choo!”

Bad luck again. The guard’s eyes were now wide open. The buffoon sneezed himself awake, and after realizing his lousiness for sleeping on the job, he immediately checked the cameras. His eyes darted from each monitor, and then he sighed in relief. Before he resumed his work, he took a glance around the room. He made eye contact with me as he swiveled in his chair, and like a deer in headlights, I stared back at him. His eyes shot open, and he rushed out of his chair, his hand hovering over his holster.

Infuriated, he shouted, “Who the hell are you?”

Almost instantly, I spat out, “I’m the technician. Are you serious? C’mon, first I walk in here, and you’re dozing off; now you’re acting like you own the damn place? I was sent to fix the broken screen, you fool,” I pointed at the flickering monitor. His face reddened, and his hands came away from his holster.

He stammered, “So sorry. Um, go ahead. Sorry,” the embarrassed guard sat back in his chair, face half covered by his palm. I nodded. I suppose the shock and embarrassment of the situation prevented him from noticing my completely unofficial outfit, but now I just had to play the part. I walked toward the screen, attempting to hold my composure. I tapped on the glass and pretended, nervously proceeding, knowing I was losing my cover-up. As I fumbled with the monitor, the guard’s eyes returned to me. I began to feel his gaze, his stare like intensifying laser beams on my skin.

Breaking through the tense air, I cleared my throat, “So, how long has it been like this?” I gestured towards the screen.

He stood back up, eyebrows furrowed, responding, “Mm… A couple of weeks.” 

“Hmph,” I sighed, “Interesting.” His stare did not falter.

“Yeah. Interesting. Anyways, do you have some kind of ID you can show me?” He looked suspiciously. Whether it was an attempt at recuperating from his damaged pride or legitimate skepticism, I had to think of a response fast. I glanced at him, then back at the computer and feigned concentration, “Um, sure. It’s in my back pocket. Go for it.”

I pretended to analyze the monitor’s right side. He smugly strutted behind me, and as he extended his hand to my empty pocket, I fired my elbow backward. His nose cracked, and he stumbled back, completely stunned, blood leaking before him as his eyes widened in shock. I delivered another fist to his face causing him to fall to the floor. He reached for his gun. I slammed my foot on top of his hand and grabbed it first. I pointed the weapon at the dumbfounded man, who held his gushing nose, and I cocked my fist one more time.

The unconscious guard was slumped beneath the computer desk, stripped of his weapon, clothes, key ring, and dignity. With my new outfit, I made my way toward the facility’s door, which opened to white walls and hallways at the turn of one of the keys. I took a deep breath and stepped from the room and into the hallway. It was time to be perfect. The facility was bustling like any typical workplace, a couple men were walking in each direction, but none seemed to mind me. I need to pass as one of them. Now the whirring was louder than ever, and I could see a spinning cannon-like, futuristic machine through a glass window in the hall. Men surrounded its structure, working in dark hazmat-like suits. Its whirring rang through the building, but the employees who walked back, forth, and around me didn’t seem to mind its resonating sound. In fact, they seemed invigorated by it. Without a clue where to look, I took a guess and walked left of the room I came from, closing the door behind me. Above the doorway, it read “Security Office.” 

I walked as composed as possible, receiving a few glances but not appearing overly appalling to the people who walked by. Their white coats starkly contrasted my blue security uniform, making me stand out far more than I would like. I walked until I could find the admin’s office but continued without knowing its location. Walking around the corner of the hallway and further down the complex, a man in glasses and a coat passed me. As I brushed by him, he looked up at my straight face, side-eying me briefly with a questioning look. Then he grimaced and kept walking by without saying a word. Like before, I got an immense feeling of distrust in my gut. My hair stood on end, and my nerves skyrocketed. I did not like that man, but it didn’t matter. I had to keep going for my job, my life, and everyone who wanted me to simply die from an accident. I had to prove that I was more than my bad luck. And finally, I found a door that read “Admin Office” above it. This was proof that I was capable, the evidence that I could co-inhabit this world. It was time to prove myself.

The room was a medium-sized personal office. There was a computer inside. I walked to it and sat before the screen, preparing to scour whatever files and data I may find. But of course, as I turned it on, it asked for a passcode. I needed to find a way in, and as some sort of divine intervention or cosmic joke, the door knob to the room also turned open. I cocked my head up, and my heart became full of dread as I saw who had come before me. A man wearing glasses stood straight at the center of the doorway, the same employee who passed me in the hall with his wicked grin. The light reflected sharply off his lenses, keeping his eyes from meeting mine, but I didn’t need to see them to know what they looked like. I knew from how I felt, completely exposed in an office chair, caught and trapped like a mouse. The dread I felt told me he knew it too, his head angled down at me and his smile unfettered. It was like I was a piece of injured prey, unable to prevent whatever came next. He slowly placed another foot into the room, stepping out of the door’s shadow and into my field of view. Now I could read his nametag — “Dr. Richards.” The way he stood told me everything I needed to know, and as he stepped in and closed the door behind him, I felt like I was stuck in a cage with a lion. My instincts screamed.

“And what’s a security guard doing in here?” He seemed like he was stifling a laugh. I didn’t respond.

“You know, I expected someone would try to break in eventually. I guess now I know we need to upgrade our security, don’t I? I suppose I should thank you for informing me, but now I’m wondering, what are you doing here? Stealing our research? Hah.” It seemed like a joke to him. I didn’t respond but stood out of my chair and looked back at him. I tried to appear confident, like he wasn’t holding all the power, but the tightness of my grip on the coin in my pocket told me the truth. I was terrified.

Standing up didn’t phase him either, and he uttered, “So, what’s in the pocket?” Sheepishly, I pulled out the double-sided coin and presented it on my palm. I finally said, “A coin.”

His smile grew, and his eyes lit up under his glasses. He chirped, “I’ll tell you what, flip that in the air. If you win, I’ll let you leave. If you lose? I’ll call more guards and no one will hear from you ever again. I’ll let you call it. Sound fair?” Despite his obvious joy, his intense gaze didn’t falter, either. This was a resoundingly demented game he wanted to play, but for once, I had the advantage.

“Okay,” I said with a smile of my own. He still didn’t know the nature of my coin. Its double faces had to guarantee me a win if I showed it to him, right? I placed it on top of my thumb and called heads, launching the coin into the air and going to catch it, but as it descended to me, it slid through my fingers and landed on the ground, rolling before the doctor’s feet. The coin stayed in place without tilting over, vertically standing on its side. This was, possibly, my most unlucky moment, with the only chance being to win and still having the coin land sideways. 

Dr. Richards inspected each side of the coin from its position by his feet, looking at each headed end. “Aww, how neat? And you still managed to lose.” He extended his foot, placing his leather boot on top of the upright coin. “Do you know what we do here? Do you know what kind of research we do? Do you know the danger of tampering with the most unpredictable force on Earth? We control luck, fate, chance — whatever you want to call it. The measurement of likelihood, the ability for something tremendously fortunate or unfortunate to occur, we have mastered it,” he gestured to the hall in the direction of the whirring machine, basking in its low hum, “Mastered it!”

Suddenly everything made sense: the coin flip, my gut feelings, the spontaneous disasters around town, the financial success of the area, the high pay I was offered, and the empty shell of a building above. My jaw dropped in astonishment. He suggested that they had discovered how to alter luckiness, that they had made the force malleable to their desires. They found a way to control it, and this man has clearly used it for his own power. 

Dr. Richards took a step closer. I drew the gun from my holster and pointed it at the man. He faced the barrel with his unwavering grin. Hating that it had come to this, I pulled the trigger. Click, and again, click. 

Click. Click. Click. 

I stopped, shocked. I was helpless now. I knew the gun had ammo, so what happened? Dr. Richards was practically exploding with excitement. Amused by my crippling odds, an ear-to-ear smile developed across his face. He teased me, “How unlucky for you.” 

The gun must have jammed — but five times in a row, five? It couldn’t be possible. Yet, he had all the luck in the world, and I had none. As I played these games with him, every chance I had became more and more unrealistic. How could I win against a man like Dr. Richards? Men like him don’t need precaution. They don’t doubt themselves because the world bends to their will. They don’t require perfection like I do. But how could I be perfect? Truthfully, how could I be perfect when Dr. Richards could defy any odds, crushing me, like taking candy from a baby? As he took a step closer, everything seemed insurmountable against me, and I had to think of something quickly. How could I possibly defeat him?

There was only one strategy that could work. I needed to speak to him like I had the upper hand, with the utmost confidence and faith in my words. That was the only way I could threaten him, and the only way I could even the odds. I just had to make him believe. “I would be careful if I were you,” I warned, taking a flash drive from my pocket. I planned to use it to copy the computer data for my job. I now clutched it like it was the ace up my sleeve, like it was the key out of here. All I needed was for him to believe it. 

I threw the flash drive to my feet and hovered my boot over it, nearly mimicking the way he stepped on my coin. At first, he was confused, analyzing my actions and trying to understand them. 

He asked, “Why do you think I should be scared of that?”

“Because,” I told him, “this is all that is left of your precious research.”

He didn’t believe me, but he held an engrossed gaze. I had to sell him, “Right before I came here, I took a little trip to your server room, and I wiped every single thing there. It’s all gone, except for what I copied on this little hard drive…” I moved my boot closer to the drive. His mind seemed to race as he reveled in the absurdity of what had occurred before him.

He was clearly in disbelief, but I held my intensity. The sincerity of my threat had to be enough to convince him; otherwise, I had nothing else. I motioned my foot towards the drive threateningly. At long last, the doctor cracked. “Don’t! Fine! What do you want?”

I was calling the shots now. “Well, Doctor. Before you interrupted me, I came here to gather the last thing I needed from this computer. If you wouldn’t mind, could you log in for me?” I gestured to the seat and smiled at him. 

His eyes remained glued to the little piece of hardware just beneath my shoe. I spat, “Do this, and you keep your work.”

Bitterly, he sat in the chair. I moved the blank flash drive to the desk and kept the butt of the gun over it. If it couldn’t shoot, I’d find a different use for it. “Now do it,” I demanded.

His eyes darted between me, the screen, and his little device. He seemed to forget the incredible luck in his favor, and his mental state shifted to anger and resentment. My complete confidence clouded his mind, and he was hatefully doing what I wanted. “You will regret this, I’ll make sure,” he warned as he logged in. 

I cocked the gun back and in the direction of the flash drive, “Now open every important file, document, email, and scrap of data. I want it all.”

His hate-filled eyes continued their glare, but he reluctantly did what I demanded. Through the fear of losing his work and his power, he couldn’t even see he’d been played. I was now holding back my own laughter. I had created leverage from nothing, and it made me want to howl. I kept up my commanding and confident appearance, but now I felt ecstatic as the lucky Dr. Richards had just felt moments ago. The man who wickedly smiled at me, this undefeatable man, was now at my mercy. He could beat me in every single way because he possessed the one thing I lacked, but now he bent to my will. My life had led up to this moment. My entire struggle had led to this longshot victory. I felt lucky for once, but I knew this was not luck. It was my demeanor, my confidence, and my perfection that got the job done. I conquered my bad luck.

He finished his last few computer movements and then looked up at me. He hissed, “I did it. Now move your filthy hand and give back my research.” Along with anger, I saw hope in his eyes as he stared discontentedly.

I slowly lifted the handgun away from his work. Then, with a quick jolt, I swung the butt end at his head. He blacked out quickly. Maybe it was his luck that helped him go down fast, to ease the pain of receiving more blows. The once unbeatable doctor lay limp in the chair, shamefully. I wished I could have destroyed his research, but now, I had to do what I came here for. I plugged the unused flash drive into his computer, copying all the research, reports, and information he opened for me. Before leaving, I grabbed my coin from the floor. I kept my head up on the walk back to the security room, walking briskly and with newfound confidence. The confidence I felt now wasn’t pretending; it was earned through perfection, planning, and victory. I returned to security, checked the guard’s unconscious body, and grabbed my hidden clothes. I found Dr. Richards on one of the monitors, and he was already rubbing his head, regaining consciousness. I knew I had to leave fast, and dashed from the room. Before anyone but Dr. Richards and a singular guard knew about me, I was already gone. I exited the tunnel, out the hatch, and into the convenience store. The key ring from the guard had one for the black metal door into the alley, which I opened and exited through. I was out. 

I ran for five blocks, far from the husk of an apartment, the convenience store, and the hidden underground laboratory. I left with some special information in my pocket, the very answer to the thing that has controlled my entire life. The answer to luck; the equations, the hypotheses, the evidence, every trial and calculation, the struggle to achieve power over the world’s nature. Here it was, in my pocket, next to my coin. Everything I had ever fought for, my struggle to keep breathing, to be perfect, to find work, to coexist with everyone else, and I had just stolen it. The power I held felt invigorating, but it was also scary. What would happen when I return this to my employers? Would luck’s force be completely demolished, eradicating it from reality and halting human development? Or, would luck be given to every member of society who wanted it, propelling mankind forward? Maybe my employers will keep it for themselves, abusing it just as Dr. Richards had. Or maybe, I could finally rid my body of the bad luck coursing through it. Without bad luck, I could be anything, do anything. I could live a normal life as no bad luckers have before. My life could be perfect. This was my chance to be perfect. This was my chance to get rid of my misfortune.

And it was all in my palm.