Read Online The Machine Awakes by Adam Christopher - Free Book Online Page A

those unlucky in the asteroid fields drawn to the complex game that married advanced mathematics with pure random luck. The puzzles made you feel like you were actually doing something, that your years of interstellar navigation gave you some kind of edge on the calculations, while there was enough blind chance to make it dangerous. Kodiak had been familiar with the game long before he had arrived at Helprin’s Gambit, but it was here that he had learned just how popular it was among the nouveau riche, who threw nauseating amounts of credits at it, even if most of them didn’t really understand the principles behind the game. Any opportunity he’d had over the last three months, he’d read up on the game and its rules, downloading a version to his maintenance datapad and playing as often as he could. He’d never got that good at it, but he knew he didn’t need to be. For the big game, he had a little help.
    The dealer accepted his bet. There was a smattering of applause, which Kodiak saluted by draining the fiery liquid in his glass and lifting the empty tumbler high above his head. Holy smokes, what was that stuff? It tasted like sweet wild strawberry, with just a trace of shuttle engine coolant.
    While he grinned at the crowd around him, the HUD in his glasses spun as a face recognition algorithm ran matches on everyone in sight, comparing the casino guests with the central register of employees held by the station’s computer. That was a little add-on Kodiak had thought of only yesterday, along with a quick little screening override that prevented the AI of his glasses—and the HUD it powered—from being picked up by any security scanners in the room. Both additions were, he now realized, absolutely essential. While the screening jammer went on in the background, the facial would alert him immediately if any undercover security agent came within his eye line.
    The three-dimensional projection of the Sentallion game board hovering over the table shuffled the players’ pieces; then the thirty-thirty square came up with a score of 93 percent on Kodiak’s last calculation. He’d won. He laughed as the dealer pushed a large pile of chips toward him, the shocked look on his face not entirely fraudulent, while his AI glasses chimed, indicating that the next bet would go against him so as not to create a suspiciously long winning streak.
    To the cheers of the spectators, Kodiak selected a single chip—a sliver of clear blue plastic, the logo of Helprin’s Gambit embedded within in glittering gold—and slid it forward on the table. One hundred thousand credits. It was a lot of money to lose on the next play, but two more rounds after that he would win it back, and more besides. A couple more plays after that and it would be time to high-tail it off the platform and hide in the shadow of an asteroid, watching while Helprin’s empire suffered a financial meltdown.
    The holographic Sentallion game board realigned itself, presenting a new challenge to the players. There were three seated on Kodiak’s left. They were all men, each dressed, like him, in scarlet evening wear. Two were young—younger than Kodiak by something close to twenty years, he thought to his own chagrin; exactly the kind of annoying rich kids he was pretending to be. The third man was much older, sixty at least, the tattoos covering his face and bare arms—and the jewelry studding his nose, ears, eyebrows—suggesting he was, or had been, a starminer. The real deal.
    The first young man reached forward into the air in front of him and traced some lines on the puzzle board, solving his equation. The grid tilted toward player two, who did the same. Then the grid aligned itself to the older man with the tattoos. The mathematical puzzles on the grid were randomly generated—when Kodiak’s hack wasn’t at work, anyway—and the level of difficulty fluctuated. The game might have