by Harry Marku
it?” Eva held out for a shred of comprehension.
“Ryan is one of ten thousand players.”
“Oh.”
“It's legit and it's working for Ryan.”
“Got it,” Eva answered, “I won't mess it up.”
“I know you won't,” Mr. Farrell assured her with a confidence that Eva did not dare to believe.
Year 1
Courage
Ryan stared at the laptop screen, analyzing his design one last time. It had symmetry and cohesion and harmonically pulsed with a rhythm that he found mesmerizing. It was strangely beautiful—at least to his eyes.
On the floor beneath his desk were two open text books, one for introductory physics and another for introductory biochemistry, as well as a small binder that he'd printed at school. These loose-leaves came from an online encyclopedia and had information more advanced than his high school texts could offer. The math he needed to know was years beyond him but he'd also found a simplified series of equations on an MIT website that seemed to apply to what he had done. He substituted his numbers into the formulas and followed through with the algebra until he had a solution.
He checked that ledger of calculations, mostly scribbled onto the back of discarded homework handouts, for errors. A twinge of excitement grew within. Through the erasure marks and the crossed out numbers he cross-checked every line. He couldn't find any mistakes. The result agreed with his intuition. He was making a contribution and he knew it.
The design was simple. Maybe too simple, he worried but he couldn't conceive of a way to improve it.
Press Enter to submit your model, a dialogue box on the laptop display instructed.
It was 11 PM. His mom would be home soon and he didn't want her to know that he'd stayed up this late. She wouldn't approve of anything he obsessed over, no matter how educational it was, and she often disapproved of his constant game-playing.
Ryan sighed. His head was heavy with fatigue. He weighed the odds of going to bed against submitting his model. Eight AM classes were boring enough when he was well-rested... but if he didn't follow through with his submission someone else might have the same idea and get the credit.
His credit. It wasn't hard to decide to stay up longer in spite of the risk of being caught.
He heard a car approaching. It was probably his Mom.
He sped into action, pressing Enter and, as the model began uploading, hastily gathering his scraps of worksheets and dropping them into a disheveled stack alongside his bed. The floor was a mess but at least he had opened a path for his Mom to walk in.
The car passed by without slowing. Not Mom.
Ryan checked the laptop. It was lagging. Another car approached—the late shift was returning home—and Ryan fidgeted, hoping his submission hadn't stalled completely. Go! Go! He urged.
The car stopped—Ryan listened acutely as a door opened—but the sounds were muffled and distant. Next door. He sighed, then he caught his breath: It was his Mom's co-worker and sometimes she carpooled... Not today, he exhaled. Even so, his Mom wouldn't be far behind.
Suddenly the laptop flickered and its screen flashed, Entry Accepted. Ryan's felt a flush of excitement that made his arms tingle. He waited for the score but it seemed slow in forthcoming. He knew his Mom wasn't far away.
He gritted his teeth and made a responsible decision. He could always slam the laptop shut now that the model was in the queue—provided there wasn't an error... and retrieve the score in the morning. Several minutes passed by. The screen flashed repeatedly:
Please wait a moment.
A third car approached and suddenly he remembered that he was thirsty. Hurriedly, he dashed to get a glass of water, leaving the lights off in the trailer. Outside, the full moon shone brightly, bequeathing just enough light to make it to the kitchen without mishap. The car pulled into the driveway alongside their mobile home—his Mom was home—and the engine stopped. He poured a glass of water from the faucet and rushed back to bed, pulling his bedroom door shut behind him, nearly spilling his glass onto the hallway carpet.
The computer had not updated. The screen had stopped flashing. An analysis was not forthcoming.
A car door concussed shut and his Mom's shoes scraped against the ice-encrusted walkway—he'd forgotten to salt it and shovel it clean. By this time of night it would be treacherously slick. A pang of guilt swept over him. Sorry about the sidewalk, Mom, he thought, then, fearing her wrath on a second front, he resigned, I won't find out tonight. He snapped shut the laptop lid and slipped into bed, pulling the covers over himself to his shoulders. He shivered at the sudden cold.
As he wiggled to get warm he lifted his head off the pillow and listened. There was a new, disconcerting sound. The laptop fan had loudly spun up.
The trailer shook and rattled—Eva had opened the front door—and screeched as she forced it closed against its misshapen aluminum frame.
Most nights the inelegant sounds of living in a mobile home were embarrassing but tonight Ryan was grateful for its cover. The floor creaked cheaply beneath Eva's movements, and he pictured her as she doffed her winter coat and then, a tin rattle from the window frames as she hung it onto a clothes-tree. The metallic complaints repeated as she removed her boots and placed them onto an entryway carpet. He hoped they were drowning out the mechanical telltale from the fan.
Then all was silent—except for the start up of a softer whirring from the hibernating laptop hard drive—and Ryan buried his head into his pillow, stifling the exasperated gasp that involuntarily hissed through his teeth. The closed bedroom door was paper thin and more of a sounding board than an acoustic barrier. He was about to get caught again.
Ryan clenched his teeth in frustration: There was no end to the noises, no results and no shoveled walkway. She would be furious. He imagined her standing in the hallway, listening with her sharp ears, taking a long, deep breath as it gradually dawned on her that her only son was probably still awake and had been irresponsible staying up playing a stupid computer game. He would probably lose the laptop for a month.
Then the laptop silenced. Everything was silent. Ryan cocked an ear, held his breath to hear better and steeled himself for a stern scolding. But Eva shuffled about the entryway, placed something heavy onto their kitchen table and sighed. She sounded lonely. “Another day,” she whispered. Her voice was weary. She hadn't heard anything.
Ryan instantly forgot his own worries. She said that every night at the end of her shift. He pursed his lips and felt bad for her.
The hallway thumped heavily with approaching footsteps. He lay stock still, pretending to be asleep. A moment later she softly opened his door and gazed on his prostrate form. Ryan viewed her through eye slits. She was smiling. His heart warmed. She noticed the open books on the floor. Her face redressed and he nearly jumped, expecting to be roused from bed and interrogated. But the look on her face was something other than anger.
Eva was flabbergasted. Her son had not shown this kind of initiative in years. As she stood in the threshold, the befuddlement turned to relief and then to pride. Ryan's future had turned an optimistic corner.
“Good-night, Son,” she said, “I wish I could have been here with you.”
With that benediction Eva returned to the kitchen to fix herself a snack before heading to bed. Long before the lights went out Ryan was fast asleep.
Potential
Ryan awoke very late the next morning, and only because Eva was shaking him and reminding him that he had to get to school by eight AM. He reluctantly arose and stumbled through his morning routine.
Eva knew better than to leave him be. Once Ryan was dressed she shepherded him—with his eyes half open—to the breakfast table, fed him and then launched him out the front door toward school with his backpack slung over his shoulder carrying all his school books but missing his lunch. He never had a chance to check the laptop.
Eva's prodding was of no effect, Ryan was late for his eight AM class and spent half the period in the scho
ol's office obtaining a late slip. The balance of the day improved little; he was groggy, he couldn't pay attention, and he couldn't stop thinking about his entry in the game. In every class he watched the clock and yearned for freedom and a chance to measure his score, all the while promising himself he would retire early tonight.
When at last he did get home, famished and exhausted, he passed by the kitchen and a sandwich his mom had prepared for him, immediately grabbed the laptop and pressed the power button. As quickly as the laptop re-awakened he checked his email for updates.
There was one. At 4 AM the university's computer had sent his results.
What took so long? he wondered as he opened the email.
Design accepted, it read. Then Ryan's eyes bugged out.
Rank and placement: 1 Score: TBD
Ryan felt a surge of pride. He'd submitted the best design to date. He had made a contribution.
As usual there was an executable file attached to the email. Ryan ran it. His molecule withstood every challenge the software threw at it. At the end of the simulated testing there was a new message.
Thank you for your participation. Dr. Jankowiak.
The message of gratitude hovered on the black background of the laptop flat screen, waiting for him to acknowledge its receipt.
Ryan hit Okay and the message disappeared. The professor had written him personally. Ryan wondered what it meant, if anything.
Year 5
Honorable Mention
"Professor Jankowiak,