Sequence (8 page)

THEO's phone rings.

And a lucky streak that refuses to die.

THEO produces a coin.

Until now.

He flips it high in the air. Just as he's about to catch it, CYNTHIA reaches out. She catches the coin, inverts it onto the back of her hand. She and THEO lean in close.

Laboratory

MR. ADAMSON

How can you know what's going to happen?

DR. GUZMAN

We already know time is malleable. Maybe there is some molecular basis that lets us modulate a sequence of events.

MR. ADAMSON

But you just said order is everything.

DR. GUZMAN

Yes, but sequences can mutate. And Einstein said time has relativity. So what happens in a certain sequence through one person's eyes might happen in an alternate sequence for a different observer. And what if this warped chronology gives you a priori knowledge? And that's why the “lucky” person chooses red.

MR. ADAMSON

Maybe it's just intuition. A hunch.

DR. GUZMAN

But what is intuition? When someone flips a coin, what is that little voice in your head that says, choose tails. Is that your God or your Devil? Or is it déjà vu? Perhaps some people are born with the ability to see things differently. In a different sequence. And maybe
that's
the gene that you, that
we
, lack.

MR. ADAMSON

Well good luck finding that gene.

DR. GUZMAN

Actually, I think I found it. I happened to stumble upon its next-door neighbour.

Auditorium

CYNTHIA

No way! Thank God.

THEO

Thank God? For heads?

CYNTHIA

I knew it. Fibonacci Schmibonacci. Your guesses are completely random. Fibonacci was just…

THEO

A coincidence?

CYNTHIA

It was inevitable. Sooner or later you were bound to diverge. People don't just randomly roll mathematical sequences. It caught up with you. On the twenty-first time. Finally.

THEO

You're pretty happy about that.

CYNTHIA

Well, I was starting to wonder. I mean, what if it came up tails? What would this mean? That all of your picks have come from… somewhere else?

THEO

From God?

CYNTHIA

Who the hell knows? Turns out your picks came from nowhere. There was no predetermination. No spiritual or scientific questions to be pondered. Just a coin flip gone bad.

Pause.

You seem disappointed.

THEO

A little. I was kind of hoping it would come up tails.

CYNTHIA

You're sad because there is no spiritual reason for your lucky streak? You're not God's chosen one? You're just a statistical aberration?

THEO

Thanks. I feel a lot better now.

The phone starts to ring in the briefcase.

CYNTHIA

Sorry to disappoint you. But math is absolute. You can't mess with it. Sooner or later, probability will prevail.

CYNTHIA finds her autographed book, prepares to leave.

THEO snaps open the briefcase, reaches for his phone.

THEO

I liked it better when I was an instrument of God.

Laboratory

MR. ADAMSON

You're joking, right? You can't expect me to believe—

DR. GUZMAN

I understand your skepticism. I know it sounds implausible. There's a reason nobody in the department knows I'm working on this.

MR. ADAMSON

How exactly does somebody find the gene for luck?

DR. GUZMAN

I started with those lucky families. I played a hunch and discovered all the winners put on their pants left leg first. Then I analyzed their DNA and incorporated gene candidates into mice. And I went looking for the luckiest mouse.

MR. ADAMSON

How can you tell a lucky mouse from an unlucky mouse? The one with the most cheese?

DR. GUZMAN

Exactly! Now you're thinking like a scientist! I simply designed a random reward generator and identified the mouse with the most cheese.

MR. ADAMSON

Then you killed it?

DR. GUZMAN

Wouldn't you know, just as I was about to euthanize him, the phone rang and the lucky bastard got away.

MR. ADAMSON

Really?

DR. GUZMAN

No. I killed him! If some higher power wants you dead, you're dead, right? But I think I found it. On the X chromosome. Right next door to the PLO gene.

MR. ADAMSON

You've found the gene for luck?

DR. GUZMAN

First I need more data, or I will be discredited and put out to pasture for good. I don't have much time left. I need to find a control… an exceptionally unlucky human being.

Auditorium

THEO speaks into the phone.

THEO

It's me. Put everything on tails.

CYNTHIA gasps, drops her book.

Laboratory

DR. GUZMAN

It's easy to find lucky people. But how do you find the unlucky ones? The unluckiest of them die. Usually in freak accidents, like playing with loaded guns.

DR. GUZMAN rummages through a drawer. MR. ADAMSON moves closer.

MR. ADAMSON

So you need to get lucky to find an unlucky person to validate your luck gene? That's a bit ironic.

DR. GUZMAN

Irony is like luck. Not everybody who thinks they got it got it.

MR. ADAMSON

I'll have to remember that.

MR. ADAMSON steals the door key from her lab-coat pocket.

DR. GUZMAN

It seems you
do
have something I want, Mr. Adamson.

DR. GUZMAN produces a tourniquet.

Your blood.

Auditorium

CYNTHIA

What the hell? Your coin said heads.

THEO

Call it a hunch.

CYNTHIA

A hunch? How much money did you bet?

THEO

All of it. Eight hundred and fifty million. Give or take.

CYNTHIA

Holy shit. Eight hundred and fifty million dollars. On tails. On a hunch. How could you bet against your lucky coin flip?

THEO

How could I bet against Fibonacci?

Laboratory

MR. ADAMSON

I couldn't do that.

DR. GUZMAN

Your DNA would be most useful for my research.

MR. ADAMSON

That's why you wanted to see me. You needed me for your research.

DR. GUZMAN

First I needed to establish if you were, in fact, luck deficient. Or if you were cheating. I think I have my answer.

MR. ADAMSON

Right. Yes, I'm starting to understand.

DR. GUZMAN

I'm not asking you to believe the science. I probably wouldn't myself. I'm just asking you for some blood.

MR. ADAMSON

Have you even thought about the implications of what you're doing? I mean, what if, God forbid, you're right?

DR. GUZMAN

Did you know that Nobel Prize winners live two years longer than nominees?

MR. ADAMSON

Dr. Guzman, who wants an unlucky child?

Auditorium

CYNTHIA

I wouldn't. I'd just take the money and run.

THEO

Run where? Do what?

CYNTHIA

How much does it cost to cure a genetic disease?

THEO

When I die, all my money is being left to medical research.

CYNTHIA

Really?

THEO

Eye research.

CYNTHIA

Why eye research?

THEO

I knew someone.

CYNTHIA

I'm going blind.

THEO

What do you mean?

CYNTHIA

Retinitis pigmentosa. RP. You lose your peripheral vision.

THEO

That's your genetic disease? RP?

CYNTHIA

Yes. That's quite a…

THEO

Coincidence?

CYNTHIA

I need to open the envelope.

THEO

No. You don't.

CYNTHIA

I'll be legally blind by the time I'm forty. How can I let that happen to my daughter? Knowingly.

THEO

Did
your
mom know you had the gene? Did she know you were going to go blind one day?

CYNTHIA

No.

THEO

What if she did? What if she had an envelope, just like yours, and she had opened it? What would she have done?

CYNTHIA

That's not a fair question.

THEO

I'll tell you what she
should
have done. She should have torn up that envelope. Because if she had opened it, you wouldn't be here today…

The phone rings.

And I would have chosen heads. When I should have chosen…

THEO answers his phone.

Laboratory

MR. ADAMSON

Nobody. Nobody wants an unlucky child. People kill innocent babies for lots of reasons. Now you want to add bad luck to that list?

DR. GUZMAN

I'm just trying to help people who are less fortunate. Like you.

MR. ADAMSON

I am not less fortunate.

MR. ADAMSON moves toward the door.

DR. GUZMAN

Oh but you are. You have lost the ability to walk. This is not an advantageous adaptation. It's a lethal mutation.

She writes on the board: lethal

You have returned to that primordial ocean. You will not procreate. Your genes stop here. You are the
definition
of less fortunate. Have we not proven that to your satisfaction?

DR. GUZMAN grabs a fistful of coins from her beaker.

Heads or tails, Mr. Adamson? If you get just one coin right, I'll let you go. But if you don't…

MR. ADAMSON

You get my blood.

DR. GUZMAN

What do you say?

MR. ADAMSON moves to the door. He stops, thinks. He flips his astragalus.

MR. ADAMSON

It says tails.

DR. GUZMAN

But what do
yo
u
say?

MR. ADAMSON takes a long look at the door, at the key hidden in his hand, at his astragalus. He spins to face DR. GUZMAN.

MR. ADAMSON

I say…

DR. GUZMAN throws her fistful of coins into the air.

MR. ADAMSON & THEO

Tails.

The coins crash to the floor.

Auditorium

THEO hangs up the phone slowly.

THEO

It was tails.

CYNTHIA

Are you telling me you just won 1.7
billion
dollars?

THEO

Fibonacci was right.

CYNTHIA

Fibonacci was right.

THEO

What does this mean?

THEO and CYNTHIA stare at the board.

CYNTHIA

It means you can't lose.

Laboratory

DR. GUZMAN

You can't win, as they say, if you don't play.

MR. ADAMSON moves around the room in a tightening spiral. He checks each coin on the ground. DR. GUZMAN slides in behind him, pushes his wheelchair.

So we all play. Even you, Mr. Adamson. Only money can't buy you a couple of new legs. That's the lottery you're really playing? That's what you covet.

MR. ADAMSON

If it's God's will.

DR. GUZMAN

Well, you've got to be a little lucky to win, don't you? Maybe I can help.

MR. ADAMSON

I don't need your help. I'm betting on God.

MR. ADAMSON climbs desperately out of the wheelchair, falls to the floor.

Frantically, he checks each coin on the ground.

DR. GUZMAN

That was Pascal's Wager. He said even though the existence of God cannot be determined, we should wager as though God exists. Because that way you have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

MR. ADAMSON

Exactly.

DR. GUZMAN

Only Pascal went
mad
. Mr. Adamson, you're not in a wheelchair because of some divine plan. You were just at the wrong place at the wrong time.

MR. ADAMSON

No! That's not what happened.

DR. GUZMAN

Your bone-dice is nothing but a meaningless coin flip. God has no plans for you because he doesn't exist.

MR. ADAMSON

How do you know that?

DR. GUZMAN

Because luck is embedded in our DNA. So we don't need to invoke anything from above or from beyond. How did life begin? God? Or luck. You don't need both. They're mutually exclusive. It's the chicken
or
the egg. So which is it? Decide for yourself. I say, in the beginning,
in our blood
, there was luck.

MR. ADAMSON slumps against his wheelchair, still on the floor.

MR. ADAMSON

Not a single tails.

DR. GUZMAN

What are the odds?

MR. ADAMSON rolls up his sleeve.

MR. ADAMSON

If I give you my blood, will you give me back my briefcase?

DR. GUZMAN produces a syringe and tourniquet.

DR. GUZMAN

Not only that. I will, one day, repair your defective gene. I will make you walk again.

She ties the tourniquet.

If I'm right, you will become the luckiest man alive.

DR. GUZMAN jabs the needle into his arm.

Auditorium

CYNTHIA

You really can't lose.

THEO

What if… I get a stake in your test?

THEO produces the gun. He loads it.

What if this time, I use
six
bullets?

Laboratory

DR. GUZMAN

Quick and painless.

She snaps off the tourniquet.

Thank you, Mr. Adamson.

DR. GUZMAN pulls his id card from her pocket. She glances at it, returns it.

Theodore. Gift of God.

MR. ADAMSON

How did you know that?

DR. GUZMAN

I had a goldfish named Theodore.

Auditorium

CYNTHIA

Theo. Please just—

THEO

Open the envelope. Open it.

THEO lifts the gun to his head.

Laboratory

DR. GUZMAN hands MR. ADAMSON his briefcase.

DR. GUZMAN

I have to know. What's the combination?

MR. ADAMSON

One one two, three five eight.

DR. GUZMAN

Really? Why that number?

MR. ADAMSON shows her his watch.