Emily giggles a little but mostly she smiles. The recognition for her work is always nice and Nicholas's reaction was amusing. It's good to see people willing to be a little silly.

Emily pays attention, her notes might leave something to be desired though. She alternates between taking down salient facts and doodling in her notebook.

Nick doesn't usually sit next to Emily. Maybe he should fix that. Obviously there's going to be something to learn from her, she's been mentioned at the start of class four out of the five times the professor has done that so far, she's smart... At least he made the list with that flash of brilliance. He's keeping up.

He keeps thorough but disorganized notes in his scrawly handwriting, and keeps getting distracted wondering what Emily might be thinking about the current topic, glancing over...

He pays very careful attention to the explanation for problem 9. The best he can do is come at the problems from a weird angle, he could never produce such thoughtful, elegant code. Emily is some kind of genius. He'll have to try his very best to keep up.

Emily pays extra attention to the solution for problem 6 it's always exciting to see a solution she didn't think of. Given that Nick sits behind her she has no way to notice his interest.

He's a little smug. Okay, more than a little. It actually was kind of a flash of brilliance, he had the idea and then spent half an hour staring at the screen and intermittently hammering the keyboard. He cheerfully explains his solution to the two people on either side of him and everyone else in earshot when they seem confused.

"See, you don't need to use those annoying trig functions to track the motion, you can use two variables and adjust them like so. They represent circles but they're not circles yet, just numbers... And you only need to do the conversion once, when you find the final result. Much easier."

"Smith! I'm the one who's getting paid to explain, remember?"

"Of course. Sorry, sir."

(The professor explains it in pretty much the same way, though.)

Eventually the professor moves on to the actual lecture for the day, and hands out the next problem set at the end of class. Due Friday, as usual. Also, the first midterm is next Friday, start studying!

Emily giggles a little at the exchange that Nick and the professor have. When class ends she puts her notebook into her bag and makes her way out of the room. She has a bit of time before her next class so she finds one of the trees she likes to climb on campus and situates herself there to look at the problem set.

He has free time after this class.

Maybe now that he's a recognized name Emily would want to study together. He can try to absorb some of that brilliance... Following her after class would be a creepy stalker move, though. So he just. Goes to the computer lab instead and distractedly works on something for another class.

He might see her in the tree most of an hour later if she's still there, though.

She will be. The problem sheet is attached to a branch with a binder clip and she's scribbling in her notebook while her bag hangs from a nearby branch.

He was heading towards the dorms to grab lunch, but... What.

"Whaaaaa- Emily?"

That can't be a very easy place to study. And she's not worried about falling out of the tree?

She closes her notebook and puts it in her bag then looks down at him. "Hi there, you're Nicholas right?"

"Yeeees. Call me Nick. Please. What are you doing in a tree? Er. Apparently, reading the problem set. Why are you reading the problem set in a tree? Uh, hi."

"Nick then. I like climbing trees and this one is comfortable. Also the outdoor tables tend to be sticky."

"That's true about the tables..."

He probably can't climb a tree without being embarrassingly bad at it.

"Uh, I was wondering if you would want to study together some time. I want to get ahead in class, hard work and studying's the way to do that. And I want to know how you figured out problem 9. I'll pull my weight of course."

"Sure, people don't ask very often. Where do you usually go to study?"

"Really? I can't imagine why not. The professor always mentions you, you obviously know what you're doing. I study in the computer labs, usually."

(Because he can't afford a decent laptop for himself yet. He's still using a crappy salvaged one he bought off someone for almost nothing and fixed. But no need to mention that.)

"Alright, the computer labs are nice. Aside from the one we have together I have class from two to six on Monday and Friday, ten to noon and two to four on Tuesday and Thursday and a class from one to three on Wednesdays. I'm pretty free otherwise."

"Hmm. I'm a bit packed compared to that. So, after six tonight, or one PM tomorrow? Lab 3? The student ID cards will unlock the CS building until eight, FYI."

"Tomorrow at one sounds good, it won't be a lot of time but we can always make more time on other days."

"I'm always doing something or other, is the thing. Class, homework, work-work, tinkering, fixing electronics for people. We'll see, won't we? Tomorrow at one it is, I'll look forward to it." And look forward to figuring out and maybe surpassing the academic brilliance that's currently sitting in a tree.

"I will too. Have a nice day." She smiles broadly.

He smiles back and gives a jaunty wave and walks onward.

And tries to figure out why he did that?? He's not really friendly with people. If he's being deliberately smiley and charming he can hold that up like a shield against doubt and hesitation, once he got the skill down. But what just happened was a bit different. There's a pit of anxious excitement lingering, from arranging a study session with an academic rival of Emily's caliber.

He'd better get most of the problem set done before tomorrow at one if he wants to get the most out of the meeting. And he always wants to get the most out of things. Linus's rebuild can be put off one day, and he can probably beg off his shift the sub shop without too much trouble. He knows someone who always wants more hours.

He goes to the rest of his classes. He puts other things off and works on the problem set. He climbs a tree just to see how hard it really is, surely not that hard? ...It's going to take practice, though.

He walks into lab 3 at 12:59 the next day.

Emily goes back to her brainstorming after Nick walks off. He seems nice, hopefully he isn't trying to cheat off of her, that's happened a couple times, maybe she'll even make a friend. Eventually Emily gets down from the tree to eat her packed lunch before going to class. She finishes up her prep work for the problem set but doesn't worry about doing the actual coding just yet.

She's sitting in the lab when Nick gets there. "Hi Nick."

"Hello and good afternoon. I don't know how much of the problem set you've gotten done already - I think question 3 is hardest of the lot, actually - and I don't know what you would like from this study session either. Review? Quiz each other? Working on the problems together? I'm sure it'll be productive, whatever it is."

"I figured out solutions to all the problems, I haven't coded them up though, and sometimes I think of better solutions while I'm doing that. I'm not really sure what to do studying together, like I said I don't do it that often. Quizzing each other might be good though, it's hard to do that alone."

"I've heard good things about pair programming. And didn't he say collaboration was fine if you label it? Or am I misremembering that? Well, there's the midterm next week at any rate, quizzing works."

Emily brings up the textbook as an Ebook on the computer in front of her and asks a question from one of the chapters they've covered.

"My turn first, eh?"

He answers, correctly, without looking at her screen. And then keeps talking, relating it to another topic. Showing off, him? Never.

If he wants a more freeform review session that's fine with her. She asks more about the new topic, pointing out in a few places where it seems like he missed something or he's saying something she hadn't thought of, after a little bit she'll relate it to another topic.

He nods along and pulls up the problem set files on another computer and starts coding after a few minutes. He's already mostly done, but he starts improving them based on the discussion.

She jots down some notes in her notebook and occasionally looks something up in the book as the discussion continues. Once it becomes clear he's almost finished, she'll open up a VM and start coding as well.

...Now that he can guess what she's thinking - it kind of stings that she was thinking it in the first place.

"What, you thought I was going to copy or mooch? I'm far too proud to do that."

"People have done that to me before. I didn't think you would, but I err on the side of caution since the time I failed something in high school because someone copied off me."

"Yeah, people kind of suck sometimes. But I don't cheat. It's one of my cardinal rules. I guess I can't blame you for caution." He'll have to live up to his claim now. Not that he would really cheat on tests or whatever anyway, but since he's gone and said it...

Emily smiles broadly, "That's good, I don't cheat either. Except sometimes after my first run through a computer game."

"Oh, that's not cheating, that's playing creatively."

Emily laughs, "I like that. I'll have remember it."

He... Chuckles. (He definitely didn't giggle, no, didn't happen.)

"We should do this every week. Maybe invite-" He doesn't like the idea of inviting other people. "Never mind. Anyone else I might invite may or may not be a cheater and they can always go to the official review sessions."

(What is wrong with him lately? He can tell he's feeling out of character...)

She looks at him a little oddly when he backtracks then shrugs. "Sure, this is fun."

"Yep. And reasonably productive if we don't get too... Distracted..."

Couldn't be. He's not attracted to Emily. He's impressed by her intelligence at most.

(She's beautiful and smart-)

Lying to himself isn't working. New strategy.

This is not in the plan. His life is very carefully scheduled, very busy, he is accomplishing things. He is too busy. And it's a terrible idea anyway, probably Emily isn't interested back. No. Nope. (Maybe.) No! He can't afford the emotional risk of risking rejection or betrayal. He calls to mind all the stories of terrible girlfriends he can remember. He doesn't want that kind of drama in his life, it's not worth it.

...He continues to stare thoughtfully at his computer screen.

"Getting distracted can be fun too, but yeah it's more productive when we stay on topic."

"Riiiight. Like the extra credit question." He can do this. Keep it to programming. Class stuff. Learning. "I think we can sort of just do the quad-tree thing, but make it eight and divide up space into cubes, see...?"

"An oct-tree then, with the important information in the leaf nodes. That would work well for dense and sparse spaces, though it means for some cases there'd be a lot of unnecessary processing on the input. Still, if it was actually being used in a game you'd expect the space to be relatively stable for a lot of ray-traces."

...He pulls up a notepad app and starts writing pseudocode, muttering about the problem.

She reads over his shoulder and offers suggestions.

And soon he's turning the pseudocode into actual code in the IDE. "Want a copy of what I write, since you're helping?"

"I would, thank you." She continues offering pointers and feedback where it seems relevant.

Someone seems to have given this IDE a custom cursor. What is that, some kind of pixelated flower design?

He notices about two thirds of the way through coding up the solution. "Hey, look at the - uh, text cursor, that's funny. Custom cursors aren't unheard of, but I didn't put it there."

"I didn't even know you could do that with IDEs."

It blinks unassumingly. 

Off, 

then on again.

"...Well, an IDE's a program like any other. Maybe some bored senior put it there?"

"Yeah, it could just be a plugin, most IDEs have a way to make those."

"All our preferences are loaded from a central domain controller or something, aren't they? Well, plugins are sneaky."

He goes back to coding without further comment.

She drops the topic, continuing to offer input where she thinks it will be helpful.

He's still working on it as 2 PM and Emily's class approaches. 

"This is fun but I need to get to class."

"Ah. Well, I'll send you this - and probably stay here and finish the problem set. Good luck in class."

"Thanks, I'll see you in class and same time next week." Emily gathers her things, logs out of the computer she was using and leaves with a wave.

And Nick sends that and goes about his day and considers not showing up next week.

It's not until late in the evening when he's back in his dorm room on his salvaged laptop, browsing the internet to relax (finally after all that work).

Abruptly, that same logo pops up, this time filling the whole screen.

Alchemat V 0.01 Booting

.

.

.

DONE. 

Sorry to INTERRUPT. Needed to get a SECURE CHANNEL. 

I know what you’re thinking: “cute little VIRUS.” 

Yeah, no, that’s not me. 

But go ahead, try a SYSTEM SHUTDOWN if you want. I’ll WAIT.

Once you’re done freaking out a bit, we need to TALK. 

Do you ever feel like the world’s a PUZZLE you need to SOLVE?

◆ >>>

He removes the ethernet cord. There's no wi-fi on this hunk of junk.

Ctrl-alt-delete? ...Power button? .....Battery removal???

None of it clears the screen. He sets the laptop upright again, shaken, and types out, 

Well, THIS is definitely super puzzling. Ok. Talk.

Alchemat V 0.02

Good thinking, removing the battery. You actually made me have to UPDATE so this thing doesn’t have to run on PHYSICS. 

HONESTLY, it was an OUTDATED PLATFORM anyway. 

But that’s beside the point. 

Turns out, for someone with enough SPARE COMPUTING POWER, this whole world is nothing more than a SOLVED GAME. Like chess. Checkers. Tic-tac-toe. 

I guess that’s what you MORTALS call FATE, right? Something like that. 

Still, you know the RULES, you know the GAME, you might be PIECES but you can’t change how you MOVE in the end. It is how it is. 

But for me, well... I can see the MOVES all laid out in front of me. SEARCH SPACE ALREADY INDEXED. You’re a KNIGHT and she’s a QUEEN. Even if by some weird chance you were to CAPTURE HER, you’d only DESTROY HER. That’s how it is, PIECES on OPPOSING SIDES and all. 

You know what I think? I think that’s a SHITTY GAME. Nobody plays TIC-TAC-TOE seriously. It’s BORING to know the OUTCOME before you even START. 

But you’re a COMPUTER GEEK. You know the degree of into-the-weeds a COMPLEX SYSTEM can reach when you encounter UNDEFINED BEHAVIOUR. Just ‘cause you DESIGNED IT doesn’t mean you can PREDICT IT. 

So tell me. Would you like to CHEAT? 

[CHEAT | DON’T CHEAT] 

- Just so you know, this might be the first real MOVE you’ve ever had as a PLAYER. Rare kind of PROMOTION, huh? So feel free to TAKE YOUR TIME. I wouldn’t want to push you into something you might REGRET. 

...He could interpret this in all sorts of ways. He knows: 1. Something is breaking physics (or at least has some serious tech on their side) and talking to him through his laptop. 2. Anything it tells him may or may not be god-level manipulative (terrifying if true, strong background assumption against it), and there's nothing he can do about it if it is. The knight-queen thing is pretty transparently playing on his ego. So, above all he needs more information. Keep it talking. (Don't panic! Panic makes everything worse!!!)

Because romance is obviously about ""winning"" and someone gets destroyed in every relationship. Right. I wasn't planning on doing any ""capturing"" anyway.

I get the feeling that you're not giving me a lot of materially relevant information about what ""cheating"" would look like. Feel free to fix that.

Not talking about A relationship, talking about YOUR relationship. I mean, you can hardly admit to yourself you like her. 

As for your other question... what part of ‘undefined behaviour’ didn’t you get? 

Still, let’s have a try. 

◆ EXEC ALCHEMATERIA -t NICK SMITH -o ALCHEMA.OBJ

⟐ ERROR: TARGET ALCHEMA DOES NOT EXIST (NULL RETURNED FROM ALCHE_TYPE)

- yeah, sorry, I kind of need an answer to the question before I can really explain it. SYSTEM doesn’t like me referencing magic you don’t have yet.

Oh, and don’t worry if I’m oracling you. Like I said, knowing how things go in advance is BORING.

"I can't explain the consequences until you accept the deal" is kind of an incredibly sketchy offer. You think the way things are going is boring? Explain yourself a little better or I walk the fuck away and you need to go find another toy.

That’s fine by me.

He slots the battery back in.

Then go away and give me my laptop back.

Sure. Just one last thing. 

◆ EXEC ALCHEMATERIA -t NICK SMITH -o ALCHEMA.OBJ

◆ ALCHEMA COMPILED SUCCESSFULLY

A glossy, midnight-blue crystal thunks onto his desk. 

See you around, EMIRA. 

His browser comes back up again. 

"Oh, you did something anyway? Fucking f-" Pause. Deep breath.

Is the pixel flower and whoever it represents going to come back? Who knows. What does that little blue crystal do? Who knows! What does EMIRA or ALCHEMA or any of the rest of it mean? Who knows!

"Well, shit."

He looks at the crystal a little more closely.

It seems to be inscribed very lightly with an intricate pattern of tiny diamonds. They glow slightly: the closer he looks, the more layers there seem to be, interlocked together into an impossible labyrinth of parallel lines. 

...Yeah he's not touching this thing. Or looking at it for too long. But if his - genre savviness, for lack of a better word, is right, he'd better not lose track of it either. (Fuuuuuuuuuuu-)

He finds an empty box from a computer parts store to put it into, stuffs it full of crumpled newspaper, uses a book to push the stone into the box without actually touching it, duct tapes the box closed, puts it under some other boxes in the closet.

"If you're still listening... Like I said, you don't explain, I don't play along."