Marco followed Vex through the corridors of the Para D facility. His legs were still sore, his ribs aching with each step, but he could move. The gray clothes they'd given him fit well enough—simple, functional, unmarked.
They passed through a security door that required Vex's handprint, then down a flight of stairs.
"How big is this place?" Marco asked.
"Big," Vex said without elaborating. "We've got training facilities, medical, research labs, living quarters. Everything we need to operate independently."
"And the government doesn't know about this?" Said Marco taken it all in.
Vex glanced back at him with a slight smile. "The government knows paradox's exist. They just don't know where we are. Or how many of us there are. Or what we're actually capable of." She shrugged. "It's a mutually beneficial arrangement. We handle threats they can't, and they pretend we don't exist. Sometimes there's issues" she said with sadness underneath.
They reached another door. Vex pressed her hand to the panel and it slid open.
The training room beyond was smaller than the one where Kínitos and Monti had been tested. No heavy equipment. No impact-resistant walls. Just open space with mats on the floor and a few pieces of furniture scattered around—chairs, tables, boxes.
Dante was already there, leaning against the wall with his tablet. He looked up as they entered.
"The prodigal son," Dante said with a grin.
"Ready to learn what you can actually do?"
Marco's jaw tightened slightly at the comment, but he nodded.
"Good attitude," Vex said, walking to the center of the room. "First things first. Show us what you can do naturally."
She pulled a coin from her pocket and tossed it to Marco.He caught it reflexively—a quarter, worn and scratched.
"Flip it," Vex said.
Marco looked at the coin, then at her. "That's it?"
"For now, yeah. Flip it. Call it in the air."
Marco shrugged and flipped the coin with his thumb. It spun through the air, glinting under the fluorescent lights.
"Heads," Marco called. A slight earth came from his chest.
The coin landed in his palm.
Heads.
"Again," Vex said.
Marco flipped it. "Tails." Once again the slight warmth came back.
Tails.
"Again. Ten times. Call it every time."
Marco flipped the coin ten times in rapid succession, calling each one before it landed.
Heads. Tails. Heads. Heads. Tails. Tails. Heads. Tails. Heads. Tails. Every single one correct.
His chest was hot, not hot that it hurts but the warmth of a hot meal, or the sun's kisses.
Dante whistled low. "Okay, that's not luck. That's your paradox."
"I've always been good at this," Marco said, looking at the coin. "Thought it was just… I don't know. Good instincts. Or mother Fortia" he said with a smile.
"It's more than that," Vex said. "You're unconsciously manipulating probability. You're making the coin land how you want it to. Or you're predicting the outcome and calling it correctly. Either way, you're bending the rules."
She gestured to a table across the room.
"Now try something harder. See those dice?"
A pair of standard six-sided dice sat on the table.
"Roll them," Vex said. "But before you do, tell me what you want to roll. And make it happen."
Marco walked to the table, studying the dice. "What, like… snake eyes?"
"If that's what you want." She said simply
Marco picked up the dice, feeling their weight. He'd rolled dice before—in games, in deals, making decisions when options were equal. And yeah, he'd been lucky. But he'd never tried to control it.
He focused, trying to feel for that sensation he'd felt at The Stack when the purple smoke had erupted from him. That buzzing beneath his skin. There. Faint, but present. He rolled the dice.
They clattered across the table, bounced off the edge, and came to rest. One and one. Snake eyes.
"Again," Vex said. "Different number."
"Boxcars. Double sixes."
Marco rolled. The dice tumbled, spun—
Six and six.
Dante checked his tablet. "He's not even straining. His energy output is barely fluctuating. He's doing this like it's breathing."
"Because it is," Vex said. "He's been doing this his whole life without knowing it. The coin flips, the lucky breaks, the deals that always seemed to work out—" She looked at Marco. "You've been a paradox user for a while. You just never knew what to call it."
Marco stared at the dice. "So what, I just… make things go my way?"
"In the simplest terms, yes," Vex said. "But it's more complex than that. Parrondo's paradox isn't just about luck. It's about combining losing strategies to create winning outcomes. Taking two bad options and finding a third path."
She walked to one of the boxes and pulled out a deck of cards. "Let's test your limits."
She shuffled the deck thoroughly, then set it on the table. "Cut the deck. Tell me what card you'll reveal. Then do it."
Marco thought for a moment. "Ace of spades."
He cut the deck.
Ace of spades.
"Again. Different card." Said Vex
"Queen of hearts." Marco answered back
Cut. Queen of hearts.
"Do it five times. Call all five cards before you cut." Said Vex
Marco closed his eyes, focusing on that buzzing sensation. He could feel the paradox energy now—faint purple wisps starting to leak from his hands.
"Seven of clubs. Three of diamonds. King of spades. Two of hearts. Jack of clubs."
He cut the deck five times in rapid succession.
Seven of clubs. Three of diamonds. King of spades. Two of hearts. Jack of clubs.
Every single one correct. Dante was staring at his tablet in disbelief. While Marco chest was burning hot as if in a sauna.
"Damn thats some real crazy skills"
"You're already operating at a level most people take months to reach. Your control is instinctive. Precise." Said Vex
Marco looked down at his hands. Purple smoke was definitely visible now, curling around his fingers like living mist.
"So what's the advanced stuff?" he asked.
"You said there's more."
Vex smiled. "The advanced stuff is where it gets interesting. Right now, you're manipulating small-scale probability. Dice, cards, coin flips. Things with clear binary outcomes."
She gestured around the room. "But what about bigger things? What about making something unlikely happen? Or making something likely not happen?"
She pointed to a chair across the room. "See that chair? It's sitting there, stable, four legs on the ground. The probability of it spontaneously falling over right now is basically zero."
"So?" Marco replied confused
"So make it fall over."
Marco looked at the chair. "How?"
"Change the probability," Vex said. "Right now, there's a zero percent chance that chair tips over on its own. You need to shift that probability. Make the unlikely become likely. And then make it happen."
Marco focused on the chair. He could feel the paradox energy flowing through him now, responding to his intent.
In his mind, he visualized it—probabilities shifting, outcomes changing. The stable chair becoming unstable. The unlikely becoming inevitable.
Purple smoke gathered around his hands, thicker now. The chair… wobbled. Just slightly. One leg lifting a fraction of an inch off the ground. His chest was burning now hot as if splashed with boiling water.
Then it fell. The chair tipped sideways and clattered to the floor.
Dante's eyes were wide. "Holy shit. He just changed physical probability."
"That's the real power of Parrondo's paradox," Vex said. "You don't just get lucky. You make reality lucky for you. You bend probability itself."
Marco was breathing harder now, the energy expenditure catching up to him. "That… that took a lot more than the dice."
"Because you're fighting physics," Dante explained, checking his tablet. "The dice and cards were already in motion, already random. Easy to nudge. But making a stable object unstable? That's rewriting causality. Much harder."
Vex walked over and set the chair upright again. "The more unlikely something is, the more energy it costs. And the bigger the change, the more drain on your reserves."
She looked at Marco seriously. "But here's the thing. You've got natural talent. Raw ability that most paradox users would kill for. With training, you could become one of the most dangerous people in this room."
"How dangerous?" Marco asked, face pale and locking eyes with Vex.
Vex's expression was unreadable. "Let's just say there's a reason the man in white wanted you. Probability manipulation at a high level?" She shook her head. "You could make bullets miss. Make enemies trip at the exact wrong moment. Make deals succeed that should have failed. Make people win battles they should have lost."
She paused. "Or make them lose battles they should have won."
The implications hung in the air.
Marco looked down at his hands again, watching the purple smoke fade as he stopped channeling energy.
"My father always said I was his lucky charm," he said quietly.
"He was right," Vex said. "Just not the way he thought."
Dante cleared his throat. "Okay, so. Bad news and good news. Bad news: you're gonna need to train this. A lot. Right now you can do small stuff easily, but the big applications will drain you fast. You need to build up your capacity and efficiency."
"And the good news?" Marco questioned, raising an eyebrow.
Dante grinned. "Good news is you're already better than most two-star users I've tested. You've got the raw talent. You just need the control."
Vex nodded. "We'll train you. Teach you how to use this without burning yourself out. How to apply it strategically instead of just making dice rolls go your way."
She looked at him seriously. "But you need to understand something. This ability? It can save your life. Or it can make you a target. People will want to use you. Control you. The man in white. Your father. Others we haven't even encountered yet."
Marco met her eyes. "So what do I do?"
"You learn," Vex said simply. "You get good enough that nobody can use you. Good enough that you make your own choices."
She held out her hand. "And for now? You decide if you want to keep training with us. Or walk away and take your chances."
Marco looked at her outstretched hand.
He thought about his father. About the Saint Patro. About everything he'd believed his whole life.
Then he thought about the man in white. The vampires. The spaceship. The purple smoke that had saved his life in that bathroom.
He reached out and shook her hand.
"I want to learn," Marco said.
Vex smiled. "Good. Because we've got a lot of work to do."