by Ellen Mint
“Hello, love. First time?” a sweet voice asked me. I yanked my eyes from the enemy picking up what looked like chalk and approaching the board. The voice sounded as if it’d been aged in a kitchen that baked chocolate chip cookies all day. And it came out of a ribbed trashcan perched upon a four-legged body with six arms sticking out of the sides.
“I’m here to…to input new data,” I said, trying to find eyes on the entirely metal robot. Or was it a creature inside a suit?
It snickered as if the idea of me being here was funny. “Pertaining to…?”
“P equals NP,” I said, straightening up.
“We’re full up on alphabets at the moment, but if you’d like to consult with—”
“If a polynomial problem can be solved in non-polynomial time,” I interrupted, causing the flailing fingers to freeze. The trashcan head slowly rotated to possibly face me.
“Are you telling me you wish to input the same data as the Kirkan Shiban?”
“Ye…yes?” Would they let me? Did Nolan intend for me to run past Shiban? Had I already failed?
“We have a data off!” the robot screamed and slammed down on a red button.
The utilitarian fluorescent lights plunged to a dramatic burst of purples from the floor. Sparkles shot out of little tubes placed along the edges. Not glitter or fireworks. No, it looked like little bubbles of white light danced through the air as music descended from above.
“This way, dearie. This way,” the robot said while cracking open the desk and shoving me through.
Every eye swiveled to me. Even Shiban paused in drawing out my formulas on the board to stare in surprise. “Well, this is a rather dramatic end,” she said with a chuckle.
The robot left me standing to Shiban’s right and staring up at the screen that cut through the darkness like a lighthouse warning of a storm. I strained my neck trying to see if there were any instructions written on it, but the entire surface was smooth.
“What do I…?” I began when I spotted a white cylinder similar to what Shiban held. Grabbing it up before the Kirkan tried to steal it, I approached the floating screen.
I thought I’d just have to hand over the disc. They’d run the same algorithm I did, and boom, instant riches. Sweat dripped down my back as I stared at the board a mile above my head and bounced the end of the cyberchalk against it. Two dots appeared and embedded into the blue screen.
Damn it. I didn’t mean to do that. Reaching forward, I moved to try and erase the mess, but my hand did nothing.
The terrifying robotic chuckle broke beside me and I swerved to spot Shiban still dutifully copying down what she bought. “You have to get it right on your first try. No erasing. No changing a single line. Good luck, human.”
Shit. Shaking, I placed the chalk to the screen and started with “P equals NP. I will prove how with…”
“What is this?!” a voice howled from behind me. I tried to ignore it and continue on with my explanation when a wet rag slapped into the screen beside my hand. Yelping, I leaped into the air to find the trashcan robot staring at me.
How I knew it was staring at me was a question only philosophers could answer, but I shrunk away and pulled the cyberchalk from the board.
“You must write your answer in galactic code,” the robot secretary said.
“But I…” Shit. I turned to glare at the screen I barely started on. “I don’t know it.” All of that work, the tears, the pain, and to get stopped up here because of a language barrier?
The Kirkan chuckled as if she knew all along what would happen. But the Oracle, it promised… How could it even get above ten percent if that was the rule?
“Wait, wait!”
My head raised along with my hopes as Nolan ran down the aisle, his hand waving for the robot guardian. “She can use a neural interface. The rules state that any species with pertinent information may make use of the neural interface.”
“What?” Shiban paused in stealing my work to slap her tentacles closer to Nolan trapped behind the desk. “No.”
“He is correct,” the robot guardian declared, stepping between them.
“You’d listen to a Yaxha’s words?”
“When he is technically correct, yes,” the guardian said while prodding a button. A panel opened under the screen and two wires fell out. “You may hold the neural attachments in your hand or mouth whenever ready.”
What? I picked up both by the plastic-shielding middle, letting the stripped ends dangle freely. What did I have to do? How? Why couldn’t I just hand over my disc and be done with this?
“Trini.” Nolan waved a hand at me, catching my panicking gaze. “All you have to do is hold those wires and explain what you know. Tell whatever you see how the algorithm works.”
“Nolan…” I began when he pressed his folded palms to his lips.
“You can. I have faith in you, always,” he said and blew me a kiss.
I can do it. I just have to touch some alien technology with the word neural in it and explain my data. No problem. Deep breaths.
“I cannot find any record of a Trini in the collection sphere. What is her residential and galactic coordinate information?” the robot asked.
“I’ll enter it,” Nolan said and leaned over her.
“Do not forget to include the full name for Title Owner,” the guardian reminded him, causing Nolan’s scales to shift to a bright red.
I couldn’t see what he entered into the computer, who’d get the credit when this was over. I didn’t have time to worry. A flash of flailing limbs tried to draw my attention to the Kirkan working fast to beat me. Forget it. Forget them.
Grabbing one end of the wire, I prepared myself to calmly explain how to solve a complex problem in simple time. With one last look to Nolan, I touched the other and everything vanished.
CHAPTER TWENTY
WHITE SEEPED INTO my senses, pulverized my vision, and drenched down my throat. Whiter than a blank piece of paper for an author fighting against writer’s block. Whiter than a polar bear hiding amongst the snows of the arctic.
I pulled in a breath, expecting it to smell like frosted air and Elmer’s glue, but the scent of overworked electronics answered instead. Did that mean the real world was still out there? Or did I die the second I touched the two wires?
I tried to raise my hands, but nothing happened. I couldn’t see them even though I felt my limbs lift to my face. Okay, Trini, panicking might be smart now.
“Hello,” a cheery voice broke through the blank slate, causing me to spin around.
My body turned, but all I saw was the same endless, unmarked white as I did so. It sent my brain reeling until I caught a pair of brunette pigtails. That snagged through my cerebellum like a nail scratched over a pane of glass. Drifting my vision down, a little girl stood before me.
She held a melting ice cream cone, the yellow treat dripping down her hand as she slowly licked it. At most seven or eight years old, she wore a puffy rainbow coat and a pink skirt. I kept staring in confusion as the young girl swirled her lips around her ice cream.
“Who are you?” I gasped. “How did I…did you get here?”
“I’m your data input file,” she said, her chubby cheeks lifting in a quick smile before she returned to the melting ice cream.
“What does that mean?”
“Boy, you’re a thick one,” the child sneered and rolled her eyes.
Wait. Nolan said I’d have to explain my data. Did he mean to a child? Oh, no. I tried to blink through the rising anxiety building in my heart. I didn’t know how to talk to kids. Obviously. A bead of yellow ice cream dribbled down the girl’s arm and toward the floor. But the second it left her body, it vanished, leaving only the endless whiteness behind.
“Okay,” I said, “let’s start at the beginning. Polynomial problems are those with a degree of…”
“Do you think he likes you?” she interrupted, knocking me off-kilter.
“What? Who?”
She shot me
an eyeful and shook her head. “You know who. Duh.”
Shit. How did she…? My cheeks burned hot and I tried to cover them both with my hands. But, I couldn’t see anything of my body, only the quickly annoying child.
“I mean…” She drew her tongue along the length of the cone and continued torturing me. “Even if you pull this off, big if here, he’ll be rich. Fancy alien who can buy whatever he wants. Why would he keep you?”
She stared at me, daring me to question her brilliant insight. And, as I watched back, the blue of her irises transformed into the planet earth. My twin homes rotated counterclockwise in her eyes, opening up an ache in my stomach.
“Well, it’s…he…”
“Of course, if you do fail right here in front of everyone, he’s even less likely to keep you. Ship you right back to your planet without even saying goodbye. Makes sense, right?”
No. Nolan…
“After all, he was always going to take this from you, one way or the other. And you made it easy for him, asked him to. That’s practically telling him ‘Please, use me, then throw me away.’”
Damn it. I felt my hands land around my ears, but they couldn’t dampen the girl’s callous voice.
“You lied to him. Pretended you’re fine giving him what he wanted. Not that it matters because,” she paused to glare at the ice cream, “your time is almost up.”
What? Oh. Oh no, I had to finish before she did. And over half the ice cream was already gone. Damn it! Focus.
Why was she being so cruel? Wasn’t she supposed to learn?
My mouth hung open, uncertainty rushing through my veins as I watched the girl hovering in more ice cream. She felt strangely familiar. I knew that coat. Yes. It’d hung behind my bedroom door, not because it was mine, but…
She didn’t look like Ava, because she didn’t look like me when I was a kid. But, as the girl continued eating, I spotted the similarities. It was Ava through a photoshop filter, all the bumps and edges smoothed out and whitened.
No. Worse than that. It was how I’d wanted to look. Normal. Popular. Beautiful.
“Trini,” a muffled voice called through the endless expanse. “Come on, Trin.”
“Nolan?” I said, trying to swerve my head around to find him amongst the nothing. My tiny counterpart snorted at the idea and kept eating.
“You can do this. I know you can.”
“No, I can’t. I don’t even know where to start!” I shouted. Not that it mattered. He couldn’t hear me in this void.
“This was always yours. Your research, your project, your work, your mind. Believe in it as much as I believe in you,” he said.
I closed my eyes, feeling the lids cinch even though the white expanse never darkened. Pulling in a breath, I thought back to my long nights sitting in bed eating cold pop tarts and plugging data. Sneaking in a quick lunch at my desk to keep fussing with my latest idea. Nolan rubbing my shoulders while I worked through the last of the algorithm on his ship.
“A polynomial problem is a complex issue…”
“Boring!” the small girl shouted, trying to throw me off, but I shook my head.
“Hardly. With this knowledge, one could compute massive calculations in seconds. So sit down and listen,” I said, locking my hands behind my back.
The girl’s eyes widened, and she dutifully sat on nothing. I ignored her floating in the void as I launched into the full lecture on how my theory worked. As I dove deeper, a whiteboard appeared behind me. I didn’t even blink to pick up a marker and begin jotting down formulas.
All the while, the girl kept a tight watch on me. She’d try to interject at first, but I blew it off. “Save your questions for the end,” was all I needed to silence her.
Before I knew it, I stood at a keyboard and began typing in my algorithm while a massive screen appeared behind me. “As you can see, by designing an algorithm to fractally digest the problem into easier to solve…”
A great horn burst through my lecture bubble. I whipped my head around at nothing when a voice droned from heaven, “Shiban has entered her data. Compiling an answer.”
What? No! But there was still ice cream remaining, and… It doesn’t matter.
I lost.
My chin dipped down, dragging the mouse cursor with. Dread rose in my stomach, but as my gaze drifted over I spotted the little girl sitting in rapt attention. My hand cinched tighter around the green marker.
“As you can see,” I repeated, diving back into my proof. Yes, Shiban beat me, but I still had this accomplishment. I figured this out. I got the universe one step closer to a greater understanding of the mysteries of life. And that was something they could never take away.
“Warning: Error Detected. Data cannot be inputted.”
I stared at my imaginary computer, but it was running fine. My head whipped around, trying to find the source, when the girl spoke up for the first time in an hour, “Seems you get a second chance.”
Shiban didn’t enter it right and couldn’t catch the error because she didn’t understand it. The girl tipped her head, causing her pigtails to shake, “So, you think you can get it in the first go?”
Shaking off the fear, I walked to the board. I had no intention of giving up now. “As you can see here…”
Time passed. I felt it in my limbs growing weary, my eyes burning from an unusual strain, and the increasing volume of voices beyond me. At first, I tried to tune them out, but they began to grow to a dull roar. Cheers and cries echoed from the aliens watching me do battle with a Kirkan. I couldn’t hear any single voice amongst the commotion, but I wanted to believe Nolan was there.
Writing the last equation on the board, I stepped back. “And that is how P can equal NP,” I said and bowed my head to end it all.
The little girl, her ice cream cone nearly gnawed down to the nub, rose to her legs. She walked up to the board and placed an eye right to it. “Are you sure that’s it?”
I glanced up at my work and watched as the whiteboard grew ten feet tall. It quickly filled with every word I’d uttered in this void. God, it was immense. What if I missed something? Or misspoke? I’d have to start all over and…
“The Kirkan is preparing to upload her answer,” the voice boomed.
Nodding, with my gaze only on my work, I said, “It is.”
“Answer inputted,” the girl said, and she vanished into a puff of smoke.
Pain zapped through my brain, causing my hands to unclench and reach up to my stinging eyes. Instantly, the white void vanished and I returned to my body that’d been locked in the same stance for God knew how long.
Shit! I pitched to the side, every muscle drained to wet spaghetti from the strain when warm arms cinched around my waist.
“Whoa,” Nolan said, doubling his hold thanks to his extra elbows. “Careful there.” He turned his head, those eternal starry eyes gazing at me.
“You’re here,” I stuttered, feeling as weak as a kitten.
“Of course.” He smiled with his lips and helped to put me on my feet.
Pain burst up my clenched hands, but I ignored it to focus on Nolan. “Did I…?”
“We’re still waiting. Neural transfers take longer to check because they have to be translated.”
“There!” Shiban shouted and slammed on a button beside her massive wall of text.
“The Kirkan has inputted new data,” the voice announced.
Which meant that if I failed, and she fixed her mistake, she’d win. There was no second chance this time. I stared at my knotted fingers, my tongue banging away at the roof of my mouth.
“Trini,” Nolan whispered behind me. Slowly, his hands smoothed over the top of mine. The delicate scales between his fingers swept over and through mine as he pressed both our palms together in prayer. “Whatever happens…”
“Yes?” I turned to see only him, so I wouldn’t have to face the bad news.
“New data added to the Galactic Bank!” the voice announced, setting off a flurry of clapping and
hooting. “A polynomial problem can be solved in non-polynomial time.”
“Who did it? Who won?” I asked, whipping my head around.
Rising from the desk came the trashcan robot. She carried a small device that looked like a compact mirror and spoke into it, “The Title Owner for the now recognized P equaling NP is… I cannot pronounce that.”
All three of us turned around to gaze at the name appearing in fifty-foot tall letters on the screen.
Trini Martinez.
“No fucking way!” I shrieked, kicking into the air. Tears started instantly, the salt burning in my worn-out eyes, but I didn’t care as I folded into Nolan’s arms.
“You did it,” he said, his cheek pressed to the top of my head while I kept bouncing in place.
“Wait. What about the…residuals? I thought you were going to take the credit?” I placed my hand to his chest and stared up into his eyes.
Nolan drew both of his thumbs to the middle of my forehead and circled them down my cheeks. “I couldn’t take it from you. This is yours. The entire universe will know that Trini Martinez solved the once unsolvable problem.”
Leaping off my feet, I tried to wrap my arms around Nolan’s shoulders and pull him to me. He brushed the nubs of his forehead tendrils against mine, our eyes meeting in a space no one else could share, and we moved to kiss.
“Congratulations,” the dreaded voice from the box said, freezing me in place. In all the confusion, I forgot that the Kirkan still stood beside me. What would she do? Try to kill me? Steal the money from Nolan? Take the credit herself?
Terrified, I whipped my head over to the black stain on the universe only to find a hand hanging between us. She glanced at it, then back at me with her red eyes. “Is this not the human custom?”
“It…” Pulling in a calming breath while keeping a tight watch on the tentacles, I took the smaller fingers in mine. “It is.”
“You fought well to the end,” she said, wafting our conjoined hands back and forth instead of shaking them. But that was enough contact for me and I let go.