Death to Murphy - Chapter Two: Law #2, and Seamus’ powers revealed.

Law #2: No matter what the odds, they are not as good or bad as you think, or would like.

 

            To demonstrate: You enter a lottery of some sort where names are placed into a hat and then drawn out, the winners’ name read aloud.  Math tells you your odds of winning are, say, one out of ten.  Add the Murphy Factor and suddenly your odds of winning are one out of a billion, and will be the last name drawn virtually every time.

To expound: Tell me about the last time you went camping.  Tell me that as soon as you are all packed, loaded, and about five miles down the road to your pleasant rendezvous with Mother Nature, when sudden memory strikes you about some trinket you left at home, perhaps a certain tool.  Tell me how you said to yourself, “Now, what are the odds that I’ll end up needing it this time?”  Experience tells you that out of the last one hundred camping trips you took, and remembered to bring the given tool, you never ended up using it.  Your odds of needing it are pretty slim; therefore, in your haste to vacation and do nothing at all, you turn not back to fetch it.  Formula for disaster, for Murphy rears his hoary head and laughs.  One-hundred percent of the time this occurs, from all my extensive research, you will end up in despair for want of the Trinket Unbrought, very likely trapped completely naked smelling of fish guts in a sinking boat with no paddle in a lake full of blood-thirsty pike with a hungry she-grizzly pacing to and fro on the shore . . . or something thereabouts.

With the Murphy Factor in place, odds are nothing more than a misguided approximation of reality that we faultily use both in aiding us for judgment purposes, as well as for a false sense of comfort.  This isn’t to say, however, that the Murphy Factor dictates the odds.  Rather, the Murphy Factor has its function upon the odds.  To return to the lottery, recall that your chances of having your name drawn first were one in ten.

So say the odds.

In a vacuum.

A vacuum with magical force fields specifically designed to ward against Murphy’s all-ailing power . . . somehow.

Now lower your vacuum shields, add the Factor, and suddenly your odds are one in ten that your name will nearly be drawn first.  That’s an almost insurmountable difference.  But one we all must deal with.

            My superpower also functions in accordance with odds.  But as opposed to Murphy, whose power modifies the odds in a spatial fashion, my power dictates the odds in a linear fashion.  For you see, I hold within my hands the power of Chained Events.

 

Pause for revered silence.

 

            To explain.  At 9:43 this morning, I kicked a pebble precisely 1,172 centimeters down the street, and just as my hunger pains kicked in at 12:37 this afternoon, a smoked turkey panini sandwich flew out of a window, still hot, and landed precisely in my outstretched hands.  These events were “Linked” by “Events” which were “Chained.”  And they all fell into place, one thing after another in just the right way at just the right time to supply my needs (and I do love a smoked turkey panini sandwich!  The avocado slices simply waltz on fungiform!).  Usually, all I see – or rather, care to see – is the Alpha and the Omega events.  The condition I initially modify, and the end result, where the Chain saves my skin in some way or another.  The real advantage is that I can see to a degree what the end result will be when I make the original change.  I can also foresee when my actions could lead to disaster or other unwanted results.  As a few examples, I could have caused two bouts of genocide in Switzerland by punting a stray cat; and by switching a red and gray sock on a laundry line, I could have been sovereign ruler of Ethiopia.  There are many Events I opt to pass on.  But I’m always on the lookout.  Needless to say, whenever elections come up, I’m extra busy walking the streets, looking for just the right Chain.

            You may wonder why I have never found the right Link to bring myself to unlimited power and wealth untold.  The honest answer is, I have.  Plenty of times.  But why would a fellow who has panini sandwiches flung at him, has a warm place to sleep for free every night, and receives a fresh pair of socks and knickers nearly every day by personal design, never having to work an honest day in his life or do any laundry, ever want his life to change?