Free Search Terms: Alpha by Travis Hill

unchangeable?
    I closed both browsers in frustration. I was starting to freak myself out again. The urge to open the Qwerry page back up and search for my own date of death was almost overpowering, and that freaked me out more than anything else. I wasn’t normally morbid like that. I spent a few minutes calming down as best I could, then decided to do a much more in-depth experiment to see if I was crazy, or if the strange computer really could see into the future. My logical brain practically screamed at me that it was impossible, and I was the stupidest human ever born to even entertain the idea, but an underlying, barely conscious part of my mind shivered in fear because it knew the truth.
    I pulled out my spiral notebook and opened the Qwerry browser. I started at its version of ESPN’s site, going through the football scores. I began writing down not just scores, but details of the game. The Friday night NCAA feature game had Virginia Tech playing Florida State for the ACC Championship. According to the box score, the Seminoles’ DeShon Franklin would go 23/32 for 306 yards and three touchdown passes, and he’d also have 6 rushes for 82 yards and a touchdown, with Florida State winning the game 56-14.
    I moved on to the NBA and noted that tonight, Lebron James would score 30 points, snatch 11 rebounds, get 10 assists, to go along with his 7 steals, almost completing a rare quadruple-double. I could have chosen any of the NBA games, but a player almost achieving a Q-D was something that would stand out. In the NHL, Stamkos would have a hat trick and two assists as Tampa blew out Florida 6-1, but not before taking a slash on the hand and leaving the game, the later x-ray showing a broken thumb.
    As I was filling out half of a page with notes, stats, and scores, I happened to think of another way to test my theory. It was probably statistically impossible for all of the sports numbers I wrote down to happen in a sheer coincidence. However, the one thing I was sure of was that unless the computer could see into the future, there was no way it could simply guess what the Powerball and MegaMillions lottery numbers would be.
    Which of course made me pause and wonder if I shouldn’t check the numbers then run out and buy a ticket for Saturday night’s drawing. The temptation to do that was even stronger than looking up my own death. Being rich was nice, so I’d heard and had always believed, but I wanted to do it more for my parents. They’d worked their whole lives at jobs they liked, in my mom’s case truly loved, but neither made very much money, one of the pitfalls of being a public servant. I stared at the projection screen that displayed the winning numbers of both lottery jackpots for at least ten minutes while I fought within my own head about what to do.
    I definitely wasn’t the most moral person on the planet, but I felt like I was a pretty good kid. Man. I was twenty-one now, had lived a good life, had great parents, hadn’t done a lot of mean or harmful things to others (again, I was no angel either), and was confident that I had enough compassion to do things like care for sick and injured animals and help starving or homeless humans.
    I began to scheme about winning the lottery multiple times, or winning the big national lotteries then hitting all of the individual states that also had them. I could take all that money and do the world a ton of good. I could start foundations, corporations, hell, religions if I wanted to. Would it be a good thing to “cheat” and win maybe more than a billion dollars and put it all back into humanity?
    After my little euphoric mental wet dream came back to reality, I realized it was a stupid idea. Not because the money or help wouldn’t be appreciated, but because it was pretty goddamn suspicious that one person would be able to win fifteen, maybe twenty lotteries in the span of a month. Hell, a year, or even over five years. Eventually, and sooner rather than later,