Dale wasn't sure anymore how long they'd been holding him there, either hours or days. It felt like an interrogation but the questions made no sense. They were just grilling him about math problems, He knew there had to be a higher level to the line of questioning but he couldn't get past the silliness of their inquiries.
A new interrogator had just entered the room and seated himself across from Dale. He did not look happy with Dale. He looked like he wanted to kill him.
"How do we know you're not making it up," the angry man demanded. His jacket was weighed down with medals that just looked like small plastic buttons. They clicked and clacked together as he shook with anger. "What assurances can you give us that what you say is true? Do you expect us to follow you on faith alone?"
"I could show my work," Dale replied. "If I had something to count with. Like the buttons on your shirt. Do you mind?"
"These tokens represent the Dorgian squads I defeated on Dorga 7," the man was shouting and began to rise out of his seat. "And to take them off so you can play some silly math game-"
The angry man's bracelets gave a short electrical buzz that seemed to grab his attention. He looked over at the mirror wall and seated himself again.
"I just said something like the buttons. Something I can use to demonstrate."
The angry man looked over at the mirror again and raised his eyebrows.
On the other side of the glass, a group of researchers and engineers all turned their attention to a sharply dressed woman. She had only one button pinned to her jacket but it was a big one.
"Bring him a box of tokens from my office," she said to no one person in particular.
"At once, ma'am," two people in lab coats stammered simultaneously.
"Be quick about it," she added. "Commander Glabnok is growing impatient. He behaves erratically when he's like this."
She reached forward and gave a single knock on the glass with her knuckle.
Back in the interrogation room, Commander Glabnok smiled and nodded at the mirror. He leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms.
"While we wait, let's ask some more questions. Sally has five apples. She gives two of them to Tony. How many apples does she have?"
"Three."
"How can you be so sure? Also, she could be lying. But you're answering too quickly. You must have already been asked that one."
"It's possible," Dale shrugged. "They kinda all sound the same."
"Then let's try one you don't already know the answer to," Commander Glabnok sat upright in his chair and folded his hands together on the table. "Sally has two apples. She gives Tina three apples. How ma-"
"She can't."
"What did you just say?"
"Sally can't give her three apples."
"She has to! Sally gives Tina three apples! How many-"
"She can't. She doesn't have th-"
"Tina demands it!" Commander Glabnok's chair fell back as he shot up from the table. "If Sally doesn't give Tina three apples I will-"
The door to the room opened and a small man wearing a lab coat came in carrying a box. It clicked and clacked like the Commander's jacket as the man in the lab coat set it down in front of Dale. The Commander's eyes widened at the sight of the box. Thousands of tokens piled haphazardly in a cardboard box made the number on his shirt seem tiny.
"For showing your work," the man in the lab coat gestured to Dale before scurrying from the room.
"Let's start with the first problem you gave me," Dale reached into the box of plastic buttons and pulled five of them. He placed them on the table individually. Click, click, click, click, click. He looked up at the Commander who seemed to be running his own calculation in his head, possibly about how much fighting would have to take place to earn these plastic tokens. "Shall we proceed?"
"Yes, go on," the Commander righted his chair and sat down across from Dale.
"Sally has five apples."
Dale waits for Glabnok to acknowledge.
"Yes, that's been established."
"She gives Tony two apples." He slides two buttons forward.
"Mm-hmm."
"So, she has three left," Dale taps each on the plastic buttons with his index finger. "One, two, three."
"No the other problem," Glabnok demands. "The you couldn't seem to get right."
"Well, it wasn't that I couldn't get it right. It's just that it's not p-"
"Show your work, Dale of Earth," Glabnok insists. "Isn't that what the sniveling little lab rat told you to do. Show your work."
"Alright," Dale slides three of the buttons behind the cardboard box and places the other two between them on the table. Click, click. "Sally has two buttons."
"Tokens."
"Well, actually they were supposed to be apples. So, Sally has two apples."
"Right, apples."
"And Tina wants three apples."
"Tina demands three!"
"But Sally doesn't have that many-"
"She's lying!"
"No she only has two. So, she can't give-"
"Sally is lying about the tokens! Just give Tina the damn tokens! She's earned them," Commander Glabnok shoves his hands into the cardboard box and pulls out two fistfuls of plastic tokens. "There's so much. And she's been hoarding it. Keeping it from the others. From everyone. What else has she lied about? What other secrets has she- ahhh-"
The bracelets on Commander Glabnok's wrists lit up and began to hum loudly. His palms opened upward as he froze in pain. Hundreds of plastic buttons scattered across the floor.
The door opened and a sharply dressed woman quickly closed the gap between the door and the frozen Commander. In one swift motion she produced a small stick from her pocket and pointed it at the Commander's chest. A beam of light shot into his chest and he collapsed on the floor with his eyes frozen open staring at the ceiling.
"Get in here and clean this mess up," she shouted. Two people in lab coats scurried into the room. "Tokens back in the box. Put him down the chute."
The two lab coats began dragging the stiff Commander over to a door along the far wall that looked just the right size and height for loading bodies into.
"And the tokens from his jacket," the sharply-dressed woman added. The two lab coats turned and looked at one another in disbelief. They didn't remove his plastic buttons right away. "You may each take one token."
They nodded, removed a button each from the Commander's chest and pinned it two their own. The sharply dressed woman introduced herself while the lab coats continued cleaning up.
"Hello, Dale of Earth," the sharply-dressed woman smiled. "I am the Director. I want to thank you, Dale. I think you'll be able to solve our little problem. Walk with me and I'll explain."
The Director led Dale through a series of corridors with doors, many of which had a screen next to them that read: Authorization Required. She explained that their ship had been hit with a solar upon entering the current solar system which caused a lot of the ships systems to reboot.
"And the old leaders of the ship, the Brainiacs I mentioned earlier, they made everything all secure and password protected," The Director explained. "But the wanted to make sure that it was a password the rest of us couldn't figure out. So, they used their special math language as a way to authorize certain systems."
They had arrived at a large door at the end of a hallway and she gestured to the panel next to it.
"I need your help accessing this room."
The screen was filled with complex math problems that Dale couldn't figure out. Calculus, maybe, but he wasn't sure.
"This is too difficult for me," Dale shrugged. "Sorry but I don't even understand it."
"Eh-hmm," the Director cleared her throat. "Did you catch that? Exam assistance requested."
A disembodied voice filled the hallway: EXAM ASSISTANCE ACTIVATED
The panel flickered and showed a picture of five apples.
SALLY HAS FIVE APPLES. SHE GIVE TWO APPLES TO TONY. HOW MANY APPLES DOES SHE HAVE?
"Three."
PLEASE SHOW YOUR WORK
Dale held up his hand with five fingers extended. He thing curled his thumb and pinky into his palm.
CORRECT. AUTHORIZATION CONFIRMED.
The door hissed as the large metal panels began to slide into the wall. Dale counted fourteen people rushing to the door as they entered.
"Oh, thank you," one cried out. "We're so hungry we thought we would die in here."
"The cafeteria is active for another hour," the Director said flatly. "Go eat."
"How'd you get the door open?" another person asked. "Must have taken some sort of Brainiac." He had his hand on a small stick identical to the one the Director used to kill Glabnok.
"This is Dale of Earth. He's helping us."
"Must be some sort of Brainiac-"
"Go eat."
They left Dale and the Director alone in what looked like a command center. Out the large window ahead of them was the pale blue dot Dale grew up on. And in the center of the room was what appeared to be a giant rifle pointed at the blue dot.
"I need you to unlock this," the Director gestured to the big gun.
Dale wandered forward staring at the blue dot.
"It's beautiful. I mean, pictures don't grasp the scale-"
"Dale, focus."
"You're going to destroy it."
"Have you ever seen a photon torpedo hit a rock that size? The spectacle is far greater and what some colored rock may look like."
"The human race is on that rock-"
"They're Brainiacs, Dale. They're bad and dangerous people. They have to go. Authorize the photon torpedo."
Dale scanned the room hoping to find another control panel as he approached the big gun. There, on a desk behind him was what he needed.
"Two minus one equals one," Dale shouted.
PLEASE SHOW YOUR WORK
"That's not what it's asking," the Director said. "Is it? It looks like four or five apples to me. One, two, three, four. Yeah, four. What are you doing?"
Dale held up two fingers in front of the Directors face.
"Two minus one."
He curled in his index finger.
"Fuck you."
CORRECT. SELF-DESTRUCT INITIATED
"Damn, Brainiac! Should have just killed you from the start."
RocketteLawnchair t1_iwz8g9t wrote
Reply to [WP] "The new species call themselves 'humans', and while their intelligence is on the low end when it comes to interstellar civilisations, their pure mathematical knowledge is far superior to the entire galactic community's." by Mabi19_
Dale wasn't sure anymore how long they'd been holding him there, either hours or days. It felt like an interrogation but the questions made no sense. They were just grilling him about math problems, He knew there had to be a higher level to the line of questioning but he couldn't get past the silliness of their inquiries.
A new interrogator had just entered the room and seated himself across from Dale. He did not look happy with Dale. He looked like he wanted to kill him.
"How do we know you're not making it up," the angry man demanded. His jacket was weighed down with medals that just looked like small plastic buttons. They clicked and clacked together as he shook with anger. "What assurances can you give us that what you say is true? Do you expect us to follow you on faith alone?"
"I could show my work," Dale replied. "If I had something to count with. Like the buttons on your shirt. Do you mind?"
"These tokens represent the Dorgian squads I defeated on Dorga 7," the man was shouting and began to rise out of his seat. "And to take them off so you can play some silly math game-"
The angry man's bracelets gave a short electrical buzz that seemed to grab his attention. He looked over at the mirror wall and seated himself again.
"I just said something like the buttons. Something I can use to demonstrate."
The angry man looked over at the mirror again and raised his eyebrows.
On the other side of the glass, a group of researchers and engineers all turned their attention to a sharply dressed woman. She had only one button pinned to her jacket but it was a big one.
"Bring him a box of tokens from my office," she said to no one person in particular.
"At once, ma'am," two people in lab coats stammered simultaneously.
"Be quick about it," she added. "Commander Glabnok is growing impatient. He behaves erratically when he's like this."
She reached forward and gave a single knock on the glass with her knuckle.
Back in the interrogation room, Commander Glabnok smiled and nodded at the mirror. He leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms.
"While we wait, let's ask some more questions. Sally has five apples. She gives two of them to Tony. How many apples does she have?"
"Three."
"How can you be so sure? Also, she could be lying. But you're answering too quickly. You must have already been asked that one."
"It's possible," Dale shrugged. "They kinda all sound the same."
"Then let's try one you don't already know the answer to," Commander Glabnok sat upright in his chair and folded his hands together on the table. "Sally has two apples. She gives Tina three apples. How ma-"
"She can't."
"What did you just say?"
"Sally can't give her three apples."
"She has to! Sally gives Tina three apples! How many-"
"She can't. She doesn't have th-"
"Tina demands it!" Commander Glabnok's chair fell back as he shot up from the table. "If Sally doesn't give Tina three apples I will-"
The door to the room opened and a small man wearing a lab coat came in carrying a box. It clicked and clacked like the Commander's jacket as the man in the lab coat set it down in front of Dale. The Commander's eyes widened at the sight of the box. Thousands of tokens piled haphazardly in a cardboard box made the number on his shirt seem tiny.
"For showing your work," the man in the lab coat gestured to Dale before scurrying from the room.
"Let's start with the first problem you gave me," Dale reached into the box of plastic buttons and pulled five of them. He placed them on the table individually. Click, click, click, click, click. He looked up at the Commander who seemed to be running his own calculation in his head, possibly about how much fighting would have to take place to earn these plastic tokens. "Shall we proceed?"
"Yes, go on," the Commander righted his chair and sat down across from Dale.
"Sally has five apples."
Dale waits for Glabnok to acknowledge.
"Yes, that's been established."
"She gives Tony two apples." He slides two buttons forward.
"Mm-hmm."
"So, she has three left," Dale taps each on the plastic buttons with his index finger. "One, two, three."
"No the other problem," Glabnok demands. "The you couldn't seem to get right."
"Well, it wasn't that I couldn't get it right. It's just that it's not p-"
"Show your work, Dale of Earth," Glabnok insists. "Isn't that what the sniveling little lab rat told you to do. Show your work."
"Alright," Dale slides three of the buttons behind the cardboard box and places the other two between them on the table. Click, click. "Sally has two buttons."
"Tokens."
"Well, actually they were supposed to be apples. So, Sally has two apples."
"Right, apples."
"And Tina wants three apples."
"Tina demands three!"
"But Sally doesn't have that many-"
"She's lying!"
"No she only has two. So, she can't give-"
"Sally is lying about the tokens! Just give Tina the damn tokens! She's earned them," Commander Glabnok shoves his hands into the cardboard box and pulls out two fistfuls of plastic tokens. "There's so much. And she's been hoarding it. Keeping it from the others. From everyone. What else has she lied about? What other secrets has she- ahhh-"
The bracelets on Commander Glabnok's wrists lit up and began to hum loudly. His palms opened upward as he froze in pain. Hundreds of plastic buttons scattered across the floor.
The door opened and a sharply dressed woman quickly closed the gap between the door and the frozen Commander. In one swift motion she produced a small stick from her pocket and pointed it at the Commander's chest. A beam of light shot into his chest and he collapsed on the floor with his eyes frozen open staring at the ceiling.
"Get in here and clean this mess up," she shouted. Two people in lab coats scurried into the room. "Tokens back in the box. Put him down the chute."
The two lab coats began dragging the stiff Commander over to a door along the far wall that looked just the right size and height for loading bodies into.
"And the tokens from his jacket," the sharply-dressed woman added. The two lab coats turned and looked at one another in disbelief. They didn't remove his plastic buttons right away. "You may each take one token."
They nodded, removed a button each from the Commander's chest and pinned it two their own. The sharply dressed woman introduced herself while the lab coats continued cleaning up.
"Hello, Dale of Earth," the sharply-dressed woman smiled. "I am the Director. I want to thank you, Dale. I think you'll be able to solve our little problem. Walk with me and I'll explain."
The Director led Dale through a series of corridors with doors, many of which had a screen next to them that read: Authorization Required. She explained that their ship had been hit with a solar upon entering the current solar system which caused a lot of the ships systems to reboot.
"And the old leaders of the ship, the Brainiacs I mentioned earlier, they made everything all secure and password protected," The Director explained. "But the wanted to make sure that it was a password the rest of us couldn't figure out. So, they used their special math language as a way to authorize certain systems."
They had arrived at a large door at the end of a hallway and she gestured to the panel next to it.
"I need your help accessing this room."
The screen was filled with complex math problems that Dale couldn't figure out. Calculus, maybe, but he wasn't sure.
"This is too difficult for me," Dale shrugged. "Sorry but I don't even understand it."
"Eh-hmm," the Director cleared her throat. "Did you catch that? Exam assistance requested."
A disembodied voice filled the hallway: EXAM ASSISTANCE ACTIVATED
The panel flickered and showed a picture of five apples.
SALLY HAS FIVE APPLES. SHE GIVE TWO APPLES TO TONY. HOW MANY APPLES DOES SHE HAVE?
"Three."
PLEASE SHOW YOUR WORK
Dale held up his hand with five fingers extended. He thing curled his thumb and pinky into his palm.
CORRECT. AUTHORIZATION CONFIRMED.
The door hissed as the large metal panels began to slide into the wall. Dale counted fourteen people rushing to the door as they entered.
"Oh, thank you," one cried out. "We're so hungry we thought we would die in here."
"The cafeteria is active for another hour," the Director said flatly. "Go eat."
"How'd you get the door open?" another person asked. "Must have taken some sort of Brainiac." He had his hand on a small stick identical to the one the Director used to kill Glabnok.
"This is Dale of Earth. He's helping us."
"Must be some sort of Brainiac-"
"Go eat."
They left Dale and the Director alone in what looked like a command center. Out the large window ahead of them was the pale blue dot Dale grew up on. And in the center of the room was what appeared to be a giant rifle pointed at the blue dot.
"I need you to unlock this," the Director gestured to the big gun.
Dale wandered forward staring at the blue dot.
"It's beautiful. I mean, pictures don't grasp the scale-"
"Dale, focus."
"You're going to destroy it."
"Have you ever seen a photon torpedo hit a rock that size? The spectacle is far greater and what some colored rock may look like."
"The human race is on that rock-"
"They're Brainiacs, Dale. They're bad and dangerous people. They have to go. Authorize the photon torpedo."
Dale scanned the room hoping to find another control panel as he approached the big gun. There, on a desk behind him was what he needed.
"Two minus one equals one," Dale shouted.
PLEASE SHOW YOUR WORK
"That's not what it's asking," the Director said. "Is it? It looks like four or five apples to me. One, two, three, four. Yeah, four. What are you doing?"
Dale held up two fingers in front of the Directors face.
"Two minus one."
He curled in his index finger.
"Fuck you."
CORRECT. SELF-DESTRUCT INITIATED
"Damn, Brainiac! Should have just killed you from the start."