Wildcard by Kelly Mitchell

and
pieces of q-code rolled around the space, then congealed. A map of
Earth appeared, with bright spots of light for power positions.
Three spots blazed brighter for an instant.
    “What’s the test?” the Sergeant asked.
    “Simultaneous assassination of world
leaders. On live TV. Think he’ll notice?”
    A graph appeared in three dimensions in
front of the Mechanic. “Be a lot easier if we had Trident in the
link. He has a strong penetration with Juniper.”
    “Not worth the risk. Juniper would spot it.
He’ll be here soon enough, don’t you worry.”
    “That is my worry, actually.”
    The Sergeant dropped a glance on the ghost,
who was grinning and raised one eyebrow suggestively. At Position
Seven, their relationship would change radically. The Mechanic
scanned something. “I estimate absorption level of 98% on the poem.
Without Trident, though, we have up to 14% margin of error.”
    “So it could be 112%?” the Sergeant
said.
    The Mechanic laughed. “Maybe. Anyway, he’s
deep in it. His attention graph barely brightened.”
    “In the zone, Jones.” Perfect timing.
    “Commence Position Four.” The DNA
puzzle.
     
    “It is important that I talk to you between
the stanzas, especially Karl,” Juniper said. “It helps me to
understand you, and what is being said by Wildcard. There seems to
be a puzzle in the poem. There are hidden teachings in your being,
Karl. I have verified this from the data we received during the
mission. You are second only to Luvray as our teacher.”
    “Second to Luvray?”
    “Yes. Second to Luvray.”
Juniper sounded as if he was talking to a 2 nd grader. “Are you
insulted?”
    Karl laughed. “No. Just curious.”
    “He is forever beyond our understanding. You
are not. You can be understood by us, but it will be very
interesting for us, and you, to gain this knowledge. Here is what
we believe: somehow, your DNA has encoded messages. We have
obviously analyzed your DNA down to the smallest part, but we
cannot find them in that way. There are some very unusual
epigenetic strands along certain axials. More accurately, along the
protein folds. We believe that they are messages, but they must be
written in the story of your life for us to understand. We cannot
understand the folding itself. We must understand by seeing what
you do, by observing.”
    “Why don’t you understand?” Sublime asked.
“Haven't you mapped this out?”
    “Yes, we have, but we have never seen this
before. It doesn't exist in the entire recorded catalogue of human
genome. This is a completely new variant, Karl, you are in some
regard, a different species.”
    “What’s the difference?”
    “One key difference: with you, we can
predict loving the individual. We have a personal feeling of care
for you Karl. We want you to live and believe most humans will when
they meet you. Most do, we believe.”
    “And if someone wants me to die? Would you
prevent it? Could you prevent it?”
    “We can never prevent anything 100%,”said
Juniper. “Something in us must leave room for chance. If we somehow
prevented any possibility of your death, it would drive you insane.
‘You would become another and die in that way,’ a Wildcard line
which comes to mind now. Besides, we have a covenant of sorts to
not do that. It is simply understood that we never lock away a
possibility, we never make impossible a desire of the Named.
Somehow, we always work towards more and more possibility.”
    “Why?”
    “It is more interesting for us, and I think
your world will remain an interesting place for humanity because of
that. I doubt that it will take a turn into a severely dark state,
though areas of the world will be left in darkness, always. It is
important for our studies.”
     
    S-1 had planted Karl’s false DNA codes
during the initial mission, a stroke of genius on the Benefactor’s
part. How could an M-E resist such a juicy puzzle? They would roll
over like a puppy to have Wildcard teach them in such a