Past Results Do Not Guarantee Future Performance
Harvey Manning pushed open the door of "Styron's Collectibles." Inside, dust suffocated piles of antique nick knacks, most of which Manning, the only shopper, did not recognize. Bent over a cane, an old woman shuffled forward and shouted, "Welcome!"
"Mrs. Styron, I presume? We spoke on the phone!" Harvey shouted back.
"Ah yes! The collector from San Francisco! I'm afraid my collection is in rather poor shape! But very valuable since they never digitally archived this particular paper!"
Mrs. Styron feebly flipped over the corner of a canvas tarp. Manning stepped over and yanked the cover off with a great flourish. The room darkened gray with dust.
Harvey coughed till he cried. Mrs. Styron giggled.
"Here it is!" the grandmother shouted as she tapped a section marked "2006."
Harvey pulled out the heavy box. Opening it, air rushed into the container. Each page of the newspaper was protected by a vacuum sealed acid free mylar bag. The front page had yellowed to the color of urine but the words were clearly legible: "Mayor Daly Assassinated!" And there was the famous picture of Mrs. Daly dressed in a stunning evening gown her teary eyes barely visible behind her gloved hands.
"How much?" Harvey asked as a mere formality.
"Twelve Hundred!"
"OK." Harvey said even before Mrs. Styron had finished saying the price.
---
Tatsuo Nakata thumbed the safety and cocked the bolt of his jet black submachine gun. It was an angry habit that made his men nervous. Shotaro Kaneda, the old fool, had gone senile. Everyone saw it but nobody said or did anything. It was madness to invest such a large sum of money in a pipe dream venture. What next? Would Tatsuo be asked to hire Momotaro to protect the organization from the Oni? Bah! Kaneda was an old fool. But that's why Tatsuo was here: to make sure nothing went wrong. Nakata-san released the clip, counted the bullets then slid it back into place. The door buzzed open. Tatsuo and his men marched up the stairs.
---
"Please don't touch anything," Harvey begged. A fatter Japanese man with two pistols strapped to his body stopped leaning against a generator. The lab was so packed with gun totting yakuza that Manning couldn't move without bumping into someone.
"Nakata-san, I assure you all of this,” Manning waved his hand around the room, “is not necessary. The plan is foolproof."
Tatsuo Nakata snorted then said, "Manning-san, I have the highest confidence in both your abilities and the judgment of our leader, Kaneda-san. However, he has placed a sizable investment in your idea. He would be foolish not to ensure that everything goes according to plan."
Nakata's habit of flipping the safety on his submachine gun made Manning very nervous.
"Look at this,” Manning said and handed Nakata the old newspaper, “See the back page of the local section? It’s foolproof!" Nakata looked but didn't say anything.
"Ok then, shall we begin?" Manning asked.
The inventor slid into the steel box and pulled out his checklist. He wished he hadn't built a window into the device as Nakata's men all gathered around and stared at him through the glass. One even appeared to be taking notes. Finishing the checklist, he waved at Nakata then felt childish for doing so. Manning said a prayer then pushed the button.
---
Markus Wolf fiddled with his watch. Harvey Manning was late and Markus was afraid the crazy inventor wouldn’t show up at all. The offer sounded too good to be true.
Just as the lawyer was about to give up hope, Manning ran up apologizing for being late.
“Before we go any further, I usually request half the money up front as a … retainer,” Wolf said, trying to sound businesslike.
“Certainly, certainly!” Manning said and produced a check. To Wolf’s relief it was a cashier’s check.
“After you sir!” Wolf said and opened the door to the convenience store. An electronic buzzer announced their entrance to the bored cashier who didn’t bother to look up.
Manning said, “I’d like to buy a lottery ticket, please.”
---
Markus yawned. The sound stage was barren -- all concrete floors and exposed ceilings. The actual set however was well lit and warm. In a way, the sound stage was much like the lottery itself – a pleasant illusion surrounded by stark reality. Wolf looked around at the desperate people, most of whom had probably spent their social security checks for the useless papers they preciously clutched in their hands. The he looked at Manning. He didn’t feel as sorry for Manning as the man obviously had money, but what kind of a whack job hires a lawyer on the assumption they’re going to win the lottery? Certifiably crazy.
“So, when, I mean if, I win you’ll deposit all the money into the account I specified, right?” Manning asked.
“Uh, yes, of course,” Wolf replied. It was the third time Manning had asked essentially the same question. The instructions were pretty damn simple and hard to get wrong.
The lottery host appeared on set, all full of fake joviality. He bantered for a bit and drew nervously laughter from the crowd. A bored looking woman in a glittering, ill-fitting cocktail dress stepped forward. The lottery balls, each printed with a number from one to sixty, started spinning. Manning leaned forward in his seat. Wolf glanced at his client’s lottery ticket: “4-8-15-16-23-42” and wondered if he shouldn’t have bought those same numbers. It would only have been a buck… but too late. The woman in the cocktail dress had her hand over the lever. She was staring off stage waiting for a bald man with a stopwatch to give her a signal. The bald man dropped his hand, mouthed, “Now!” and the woman gave the lever a pull. A ball was sucked into the machine then rolled down a little ramp for everyone to see. The first ball: 56. Then: 58… 12 … 9… 28 ... 59. Wolf congratulated himself for asking for the money upfront as Manning’s numbers were all wrong.
---
Harvey Manning lay sweating in a hotel bed unable to sleep. His head overflowed with hypothesis and theories. What had gone wrong? The only plausible explanation was that the newspaper had printed the wrong numbers. Maybe they had accidentally printed yesterday’s numbers or the day before? Manning kicked himself for not having researched better. The next day’s paper might have had a correction!
The night passed quickly and before he knew it someone was sliding the morning paper into his room. He leapt up and threw open the door, startling the hotel worker who was dropping off the papers.
“Good morning sir. Very sad news – Mayor Daly was assassinated last night,” the woman said. Manning ignored her, flipped past the tragic picture of Mrs. Daly and rifled through the paper to the local section, back page.
The lottery section read: “9-12-28-56-58-59.” They were the same numbers that had been drawn the night before and different from the numbers in his copy of the newspaper. What the hell? He pulled out his lottery ticket and the old mylar bagged newspaper. Both ticket and paper read, “4-8-15-16-23-42.” Comparing the crisp new newspaper to the yellowing one, everything looked exactly the same – the lame front cover story about fishing holes, the printing error on the second page, the misspelling of “business” on page three. Everything was the same except for the lottery numbers. Had Mrs. Styron pulled a fast one on him? Had she given him a fake paper with the wrong numbers? But why would she do that? How could she have known what he was up to? It didn’t make any sense.
---
With his remaining cash, Manning bought drinks, the cheapest available. When his wallet was empty and his head buzzing, he stumbled from the bar and tripped into a bald headed man.
“Whoa there!” the man said, amused by Harvey’s drunken state. A dim light went off in Harvey’s head.
“I know you!” Harvey slurred.
“You do, do you?” the bald man said, laughing.
“You work at the lottery!” Harvey pronounced.
“Why yes I do!” the bald man replied. He paused for a moment. “Say, my friends and I are having a drink. Wanna join us?” he asked then winked to his friends.
Harvey sat at the bar and the bald man, trying to be sly, ordered the most foul tasting drink he could think of. The barman hesitated then poured the drink. But Harvey was no longer interested in drinking.
“What’s your job at the lottery?” Harvey asked.
“Oh, I’m just one of the accountants.”
“Then why were you at the filming last night?”
“Did you see me last night? Was I on TV?”
“No, I was at the live taping. If you’re only an accountant then why were you on set?”
The accountant thought for a bit then he leaned closer to Manning and whispered, “Don’t tell anyone this. This is so crazy I can’t believe I’m telling you. Anyway, my boss is absolutely convinced that in the future some time traveler is going to come back in time to buy a winning lottery ticket. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard, but the woman is absolutely obsessed with stopping this from happening! So, she came up with this crazy plan. Actually it’s a pretty clever plan when you think about it, except for the whole time travel thing. Anyway, so her plan is to have all of the numbers purchased for any given drawing influence the outcome of that drawing.”
Manning looked puzzled.
The accountant explained, “What I actually do is I take all the lottery numbers purchased and add them up. Then I take the ones place of that sum and wait that many seconds before drawing the first ball. So, if all the lottery numbers purchased add up to15,251, we’d let the balls fly around for 1 second before drawing. If the sum is15,252, we’d wait for 2 seconds. So, any time travelers buying tickets will change the time the balls move around, which changes the numbers that are drawn. Get it? Anyway, can you believe I got a raise for that? I got a raise for stopping time travelers from winning the lottery! Absurd!”
The lottery boss’ trick slowly pushed its way through Manning’s alcohol addled brain. When it arrived, Harvey Manning laughed then wept. Though she would never know it the lottery boss’ plan had worked brilliantly. By buying a lottery ticket, he had changed the outcome of the drawing, making himself lose.
From behind him, Manning heard a familiar voice ask, “Bartender, do you have any sake?” Then he heard the well-oiled click of a submachine gun.
"Mrs. Styron, I presume? We spoke on the phone!" Harvey shouted back.
"Ah yes! The collector from San Francisco! I'm afraid my collection is in rather poor shape! But very valuable since they never digitally archived this particular paper!"
Mrs. Styron feebly flipped over the corner of a canvas tarp. Manning stepped over and yanked the cover off with a great flourish. The room darkened gray with dust.
Harvey coughed till he cried. Mrs. Styron giggled.
"Here it is!" the grandmother shouted as she tapped a section marked "2006."
Harvey pulled out the heavy box. Opening it, air rushed into the container. Each page of the newspaper was protected by a vacuum sealed acid free mylar bag. The front page had yellowed to the color of urine but the words were clearly legible: "Mayor Daly Assassinated!" And there was the famous picture of Mrs. Daly dressed in a stunning evening gown her teary eyes barely visible behind her gloved hands.
"How much?" Harvey asked as a mere formality.
"Twelve Hundred!"
"OK." Harvey said even before Mrs. Styron had finished saying the price.
---
Tatsuo Nakata thumbed the safety and cocked the bolt of his jet black submachine gun. It was an angry habit that made his men nervous. Shotaro Kaneda, the old fool, had gone senile. Everyone saw it but nobody said or did anything. It was madness to invest such a large sum of money in a pipe dream venture. What next? Would Tatsuo be asked to hire Momotaro to protect the organization from the Oni? Bah! Kaneda was an old fool. But that's why Tatsuo was here: to make sure nothing went wrong. Nakata-san released the clip, counted the bullets then slid it back into place. The door buzzed open. Tatsuo and his men marched up the stairs.
---
"Please don't touch anything," Harvey begged. A fatter Japanese man with two pistols strapped to his body stopped leaning against a generator. The lab was so packed with gun totting yakuza that Manning couldn't move without bumping into someone.
"Nakata-san, I assure you all of this,” Manning waved his hand around the room, “is not necessary. The plan is foolproof."
Tatsuo Nakata snorted then said, "Manning-san, I have the highest confidence in both your abilities and the judgment of our leader, Kaneda-san. However, he has placed a sizable investment in your idea. He would be foolish not to ensure that everything goes according to plan."
Nakata's habit of flipping the safety on his submachine gun made Manning very nervous.
"Look at this,” Manning said and handed Nakata the old newspaper, “See the back page of the local section? It’s foolproof!" Nakata looked but didn't say anything.
"Ok then, shall we begin?" Manning asked.
The inventor slid into the steel box and pulled out his checklist. He wished he hadn't built a window into the device as Nakata's men all gathered around and stared at him through the glass. One even appeared to be taking notes. Finishing the checklist, he waved at Nakata then felt childish for doing so. Manning said a prayer then pushed the button.
---
Markus Wolf fiddled with his watch. Harvey Manning was late and Markus was afraid the crazy inventor wouldn’t show up at all. The offer sounded too good to be true.
Just as the lawyer was about to give up hope, Manning ran up apologizing for being late.
“Before we go any further, I usually request half the money up front as a … retainer,” Wolf said, trying to sound businesslike.
“Certainly, certainly!” Manning said and produced a check. To Wolf’s relief it was a cashier’s check.
“After you sir!” Wolf said and opened the door to the convenience store. An electronic buzzer announced their entrance to the bored cashier who didn’t bother to look up.
Manning said, “I’d like to buy a lottery ticket, please.”
---
Markus yawned. The sound stage was barren -- all concrete floors and exposed ceilings. The actual set however was well lit and warm. In a way, the sound stage was much like the lottery itself – a pleasant illusion surrounded by stark reality. Wolf looked around at the desperate people, most of whom had probably spent their social security checks for the useless papers they preciously clutched in their hands. The he looked at Manning. He didn’t feel as sorry for Manning as the man obviously had money, but what kind of a whack job hires a lawyer on the assumption they’re going to win the lottery? Certifiably crazy.
“So, when, I mean if, I win you’ll deposit all the money into the account I specified, right?” Manning asked.
“Uh, yes, of course,” Wolf replied. It was the third time Manning had asked essentially the same question. The instructions were pretty damn simple and hard to get wrong.
The lottery host appeared on set, all full of fake joviality. He bantered for a bit and drew nervously laughter from the crowd. A bored looking woman in a glittering, ill-fitting cocktail dress stepped forward. The lottery balls, each printed with a number from one to sixty, started spinning. Manning leaned forward in his seat. Wolf glanced at his client’s lottery ticket: “4-8-15-16-23-42” and wondered if he shouldn’t have bought those same numbers. It would only have been a buck… but too late. The woman in the cocktail dress had her hand over the lever. She was staring off stage waiting for a bald man with a stopwatch to give her a signal. The bald man dropped his hand, mouthed, “Now!” and the woman gave the lever a pull. A ball was sucked into the machine then rolled down a little ramp for everyone to see. The first ball: 56. Then: 58… 12 … 9… 28 ... 59. Wolf congratulated himself for asking for the money upfront as Manning’s numbers were all wrong.
---
Harvey Manning lay sweating in a hotel bed unable to sleep. His head overflowed with hypothesis and theories. What had gone wrong? The only plausible explanation was that the newspaper had printed the wrong numbers. Maybe they had accidentally printed yesterday’s numbers or the day before? Manning kicked himself for not having researched better. The next day’s paper might have had a correction!
The night passed quickly and before he knew it someone was sliding the morning paper into his room. He leapt up and threw open the door, startling the hotel worker who was dropping off the papers.
“Good morning sir. Very sad news – Mayor Daly was assassinated last night,” the woman said. Manning ignored her, flipped past the tragic picture of Mrs. Daly and rifled through the paper to the local section, back page.
The lottery section read: “9-12-28-56-58-59.” They were the same numbers that had been drawn the night before and different from the numbers in his copy of the newspaper. What the hell? He pulled out his lottery ticket and the old mylar bagged newspaper. Both ticket and paper read, “4-8-15-16-23-42.” Comparing the crisp new newspaper to the yellowing one, everything looked exactly the same – the lame front cover story about fishing holes, the printing error on the second page, the misspelling of “business” on page three. Everything was the same except for the lottery numbers. Had Mrs. Styron pulled a fast one on him? Had she given him a fake paper with the wrong numbers? But why would she do that? How could she have known what he was up to? It didn’t make any sense.
---
With his remaining cash, Manning bought drinks, the cheapest available. When his wallet was empty and his head buzzing, he stumbled from the bar and tripped into a bald headed man.
“Whoa there!” the man said, amused by Harvey’s drunken state. A dim light went off in Harvey’s head.
“I know you!” Harvey slurred.
“You do, do you?” the bald man said, laughing.
“You work at the lottery!” Harvey pronounced.
“Why yes I do!” the bald man replied. He paused for a moment. “Say, my friends and I are having a drink. Wanna join us?” he asked then winked to his friends.
Harvey sat at the bar and the bald man, trying to be sly, ordered the most foul tasting drink he could think of. The barman hesitated then poured the drink. But Harvey was no longer interested in drinking.
“What’s your job at the lottery?” Harvey asked.
“Oh, I’m just one of the accountants.”
“Then why were you at the filming last night?”
“Did you see me last night? Was I on TV?”
“No, I was at the live taping. If you’re only an accountant then why were you on set?”
The accountant thought for a bit then he leaned closer to Manning and whispered, “Don’t tell anyone this. This is so crazy I can’t believe I’m telling you. Anyway, my boss is absolutely convinced that in the future some time traveler is going to come back in time to buy a winning lottery ticket. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard, but the woman is absolutely obsessed with stopping this from happening! So, she came up with this crazy plan. Actually it’s a pretty clever plan when you think about it, except for the whole time travel thing. Anyway, so her plan is to have all of the numbers purchased for any given drawing influence the outcome of that drawing.”
Manning looked puzzled.
The accountant explained, “What I actually do is I take all the lottery numbers purchased and add them up. Then I take the ones place of that sum and wait that many seconds before drawing the first ball. So, if all the lottery numbers purchased add up to15,251, we’d let the balls fly around for 1 second before drawing. If the sum is15,252, we’d wait for 2 seconds. So, any time travelers buying tickets will change the time the balls move around, which changes the numbers that are drawn. Get it? Anyway, can you believe I got a raise for that? I got a raise for stopping time travelers from winning the lottery! Absurd!”
The lottery boss’ trick slowly pushed its way through Manning’s alcohol addled brain. When it arrived, Harvey Manning laughed then wept. Though she would never know it the lottery boss’ plan had worked brilliantly. By buying a lottery ticket, he had changed the outcome of the drawing, making himself lose.
From behind him, Manning heard a familiar voice ask, “Bartender, do you have any sake?” Then he heard the well-oiled click of a submachine gun.
posted by DoomGoober at 10:53 PM
1 Comments:
if he bought ten lotto tickets, the last digit of the total number bought wouldn't change, and he could still win.
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