Distribution Probability

Friday, March 10th.
6:34PM.

Region 12 Conversion Lottery Headquarters.

The office was half empty now. A few stragglers stared at the monitors glowing. New desktop PCs, still wrapped in plastic, were in the midst of being installed in the room next door. System Lottery Analyst Jess Han was one of the few still working.

He had aged out of Lottery eligibility the previous year, a fact that still bought a wave of relief washing over his shoulders whenever he felt the stress creep back up. Not that Jess would ever admit that happiness to anyone. While not illegal, it was still a societal belief that anyone who was...overly joyful about dodging the butcher's blade was looked down on as a shirk and the possessor of a serious moral failing. It would be especially looked down as he worked for the Lottery.

Jess stretched his fingers and yawned. There was a ping on his work groupchat application. He shifted his mouse cursor and clicked on the notification pop up.

It was his supervisor. A priority alert accompanied the message.

"Jess, we've just gotten revised numbers from Central Branch. They want Region 12 lottery numbers boosted by about 12%. Grain harvest projections arent looking great, so they need to cover that shortfall."

He tapped out an affirmative, then moused over to the National Lottery Probabilities widget. A few clicks of the mouse and Region 12 would have 4000 more newly minted Animals next Monday than they were a couple minutes ago. Jess pressed the enter key, logged the action and went back to reviewing Processing Center weekly metrics. Idly, Jess started thinking about dinner and the ice cold beer in his fridge.


Friday, March 10th.
6:35PM.

Alyssa Kwon was thinking about her future. On her bedroom desk, an acceptance letter from a prestigious university. Her grades were good enough for that, although not to the extremes that would have gotten her a full ride scholarship, all expenses paid. The other letter was a warning from the bank, addressed to her parents. The economic downturn had left both jobless, and payments on the house had been put toward simply putting food on the table. The bank had given a one week deadline before they would take the house.

She stared at her phone. The cracked screen displayed the online web portal for Volunteer Conversion. She had filled out all the forms. All that was left was to tap on the "Accept and Send" button. Trembling, her finger hovered above the screen.

Once more, Alyssa reviewed the benefits of volunteering herself. An immediate direct deposit payment towards assigned beneficiaries. A tax rebate. A portion of debt forgiven. The removal of a large expense from the household. Then, she went back over the university acceptance. The up front costs, the need to travel across the country. It would take 5 years to complete her degree, all the while there would be the constant chance of Lottery conversion. Lottery conversions did not recieve an immediate cash infusion for beneficiaries.

The math won out.

Her finger pressed the screen. The phone pulsed.
Alyssa's watch shifted red a few seconds later.

Alyssa Kwon, now known in the Conversion database as Animal USDA-AK557872.
Age 18. Height 4'6". Weight 128lbs. Blood type: O. Prior sexual partners, zero.

IQ of 122. Several 1st place positions at math olympiads starting from age 8. 4.0GPA. A passion for space travel had lead to her application towards the lead aerospace engineering program in the country. Instead, economic insecurity lead Alyssa to a very different program.