"This," he said, "is called a synergizer. That's how we do it."

"Who's 'we'?" I asked in puzzlement. "And that's how you do what?"

"It's how the TPC keeps the peace. You may have heard of us."

I was pretty sure I was not only in over my head, but in water I didn't want to be in to begin with.

 "Wait a minute, Mr. Vacca. You asked me here to join a super-secret government public relations company - What are you talking about?"

Vacca chuckled. "That's just what we tell people. You could interpret what we do as public relations, because we adjust people's perceptions about the world. It's just that we do it for real. And we do it with the tech in that synergizer."

"I think you'd better show me."

He raised an eyebrow. "I just did. Don't you remember getting angry about the prospect of working for the military?"

That was odd. "Yeah," I said. "But then?"

He nodded. "It just faded."

I looked at him, then at the gizmo again. When I started to reach for it, he grabbed it and held it between his fingers, with the emblem facing me.

"The TPC logo really says it all, if you know how to read it." He traced the vertical line coming up from the bottom. "What we do is poke our head out of the situation and look around, look at the possible ways that some event could turn out, and pick one."

"Like??" I fished.

"Like your initial reaction to my offer."

"My??"

Vacca nodded. "I engaged the synergizer when we sat down. It generated a field around me that let me see the flow of events around you. I saw the fight you were about to start, and nudged you in another direction. Pretty simple, really."

I stared at the thing for a moment. "Prove it."

"I was hoping you'd say that."

Vacca pulled out a pair of dice. "Random chance, right?"

"Unless they're loaded," I said.

"Or unless you have one of these. Go ahead, roll them."

The dice appeared to be normal. I rolled several times, and got a variety of results. Then he pressed his thumb to the thing and started to cue me when to toss. I got snake eyes every time.

"So," I ventured, "how do I get one of those things?"

"Simple. Join the TPC."

Needless to say, I took the job.