Reading Other Topics

"Not chaos-like together crushed and bruised, But as the world, harmoniously confused, Where order in variety we see, And where, though all things differ, all agree"
-Alexander Pope

Fun with numbers

gigglegurl42: Hello. a/s/l?

John stared at the newly opened window. "Another one," he thought dismissingly.

JonzRus: Sry, but I've got class in 5 min. Can't talk.

gigglegurl42: Is there anything I can say to get you to talk with me, pretty plz?!

JonzRus: Is there anything I can say to get you to stop writing me?

gigglegurl42: No. ^_^

John had to smirk at little. At least she was honest. John grabbed his bookbag and started placing his textbooks inside, all the meanwhile counting casually down.. 5.. 4.. 3.. 2..
*bring*

gigglegurl42: I like you. ^_^

"And I think you're one card short of a full deck," John casually said into the monitor.

gigglegurl42: ..lets start the interview.

"Wait, what?", John said as he scratched the back of his head for a moment and began typing.

JonzRus: What interview?

gigglegurl42: Did you know that 92% of all men between the ages 21 and 30 respond in that exact manner? How cute. ^_^

John stared at the letters for a moment. "How'd she know I was between 21 and 30?"

gigglegurl42: If you're in a hurry, then you'll be pleasantly surprised to know that the first phase of the interview will be quick. If you pass the first phase, you'll hardly care about going to your classes for the second phase. ^_^

gigglegurl42: Ready?

John had to admit he was intrigued. This girl must know him, but how? And why the hell did she want an interview? He wasn't going job hunting. Even if he were, what kind of job interviewer would do an interview on yahoo instant messenger of all things? And how the hell did she know his age?

John was a notoriously curious person. His parents had always told him he was dissembling anything with screws when he was only three years old. When asked why he was doing so, he would always reply with complicated questions about the innerworkings of the device that often not even his parents could answer without looking it up. His parents fed his thirst for knowledge, though after an incident in which he disassembled the television, he was encouraged to pursue his quest in books. He spent most of his childhood in libraries, absorbing anything he could find. At the age of 12, he was enrolled into a school for the gifted and at the age of 16, he was accepted into MIT.

He looked at his watch. At this rate, he was going to be late for a lesson on programming theory. He'd probably miss what was always a very thorough session and he'd have to make up for it later. Though, he hadn't missed any until now, and he still didn't have the answers to his questions. John typed and studied the 'Enter' key a moment longer before he finally pressed it.

JonzRus: Ready.

gigglegurl42: If a chicken and a half can lay an egg and a half in a day and a half, how many hens does it take to lay six eggs in six days?

John thought for a moment.

JonzRus: A chicken and a half.

gigglegurl42: Your plane crashes in the middle of a winter blizzard with no help in sight. Equipment available includes a lantern, a piece of wood, and a candle. With only a single match, which do you light first?

John smirks and types.

JonzRus: The match, of course.

gigglegurl42: You and two of your friends order coffee. Joe orders his with milk, Bill takes his plain, and you take yours decaffinated. When the coffee arrives, one is served in a cup different than the other two. Whose is it?

John types without hesitation.

JonzRus: It's mine, as if it were Joe's, you wouldn't be able to distinguish between Bill's coffee and my own, and if it were Bill's, it wouldn't make any sense to serve a normal coffee in a special cup unless it were requested.

gigglegurl42: Very good, John. You've passed the first phase. ^_^

John stood up nervously. "How did you guess my name?! Who is this girl?!" John leans forward and begins to type.. "How did you.."

gigglegurl42: Phase two begins now. I'm sure you'll make it. I've got a good feeling about you. ^_^

gigglegurl42 has disconnected.

"That was weird..." John said aloud. John took a deep sigh and slouched back down into his chair. He glanced at his watch. "I'm late.."

A blue flash caught his eye from the monitor. He looked up only to discover his computer had pulled the blue screen of death on him. "Oh hell, what now?" he thought to himself.

As he looked closer, John noticed that it wasn't the blue screen of death but rather a message that read, "Your PC has been hijacked. If you want it back in working condition, you'll have to solve this riddle. Don't try to reboot as the boot sector of your disc has been overwritten by a program that will delete the contents of your computer. Fail to answer the riddle within the time limit or answer incorrectly, and the computer will reboot. Good luck. You have 19 seconds remaining."

John's eyes widened. 18..17..16.. "FUCK!"
He quickly glanced down to the riddle below which read, "12789126631255612?"

"Don't panick.. don't panick! Fuck! How am I supposed to know the answer to that?! How am I supposed to know the answer to that!?!" 8..7..6..

John studied the number and as if by sudden inspiration, he wrote 12. The countdown stopped, and John let out a huge sigh. "Thank god! All those pages of my thesis.. I seriously need to backup more often.."

The countdown continued.. 3.. 2.. 1.. "Oh god!" he screamed, when suddenly the message flashed on his screen which read, "Fooled you! Haha! Knew you could do it. Btw, they call me Bibi. See ya soon! ^_^"

John's draw dropped. The screen returned back to its normal state with yahoo messenger open. "What the hell was that all about!?" And almost as an afterthought, added, "And how the hell did I know the answer to that problem, anyway?"

If the world should blow itself up,the last audible voice would be an expert saying it can't be done

You didn't tell me you were writing another one of you stories!! and you're my husband!!! I wonder how many other things you're hiding from me! :D
But please now, write more because I want to know how it ends!! Oh and btw. the first part reminded me of something ;) Your turn to guess what now :)

Un bacio è un'apostrofo rosa scritto tra le parole "ti amo".

*rolls eyes* Don't try making parallels that don't exist, my dear.

Introduction

John slept badly that night. He dreamt he was in a library studying for something of incredible importance. He couldn't quite put his finger on what it was that was so important, but he knew it would have saved lives. Perhaps even the world was at stake. The sensation was much like the feeling one gets when you've been made to realize something, but you can't seem to put it into words, except the sensation for John was amplified tenfold. To make it worse, for some reason he noticed an enormous clock ticking away behind him. The harder he tried to concentrate, the louder the ticking became until it was unbearable when suddenly all the pages of his notes became scribbled by infinite ^_^ of different colors and shapes followed by an intollerable giggling of a little girl.

He woke up in a cold sweat, his arms and legs entangled with the sheets in impossible positions. He leaned forward to catch his breath and sat there in the bed until it passed when he heard a low male voice.

"You've always known you were special, didn't you?"

John froze and his heart jumped into his throat. "Who's there!?"

The voice said, "It seems Bibi has taken a liking to you, so here I am to meet you in the flesh."

John remained frozen in the bed, undecided on whether he should attempt to turn on the lights to reveal the intruder or stay in the dark to stay hidden. "How'd the hell did you get in my room!?"

The voice simply said, "Irrelevant. There are far more important questions to ask."

John thought for a moment. "How did I get the answer right to that question?"

The voice paused for a moment, and John got the distinct impression it was because he was smiling to his response. "Bingo. Now I shall tell you what you're dying to know."

"You have a gift, and no, I'm not referring to your intelligence, though your intelligence is largely attributed to the fact that you have this talent. No, I'm referring to your ability to predict that number from a seemingly random sequence. And, to your typical person, that's precisely what it is.. random. However, if that were all there was to it, you wouldn't have been able to guess correctly the number unless if by chance, which is extremely improbable."

"They say that the left hemisphere of the brain manages logic and language and that most people are left-brain dominant, which means the right-hemisphere is largely unused. The right hemisphere seems to complement the left hemisphere with everything else, which is normally associated with imagery and 'big picture' thinking. This you probably already know. What you don't know is that if your average person's left brain were as developed as their right brain, they'd hardly be able to speak, let alone use the bathroom without pissing on themselves." The voice paused and the slow glow of a cigarette butt gleamed briefly in the corner of the room farthest from the door.

"If you've ever had a brilliant idea that you had a hard time explaining to your friends because you couldn't put it into words, you've used this vastly potent and unused portion of your brain. The fact is, the right hemisphere is responsible for the superb ideas you get while eating lunch or sitting on the pot or any other time in which you're not trying to think. In essence, it's your zone of inspiration. However, nobody knows how it works. It is one of the least understood aspects of the brain. Your talent is that you use that spark everyday which strikes most people once every month at best. As a result, many of the patterns you can solve are those in which you don't even know why it is the right answer. You simply know." The cigarette glowed again in the dark, casting a dull light on the intruder's face. John tried to imagine the approximate positioning of the light switch in his room.

"The talent grows far deeper than that. If you practice, your ability to predict patterns tends to grant you other abilities as well. You'd be amazed at the kind of things you can accomplish once you begin to see the patterns as well as we do."

John spoke up for the first time, "We?"

"Yes, we call ourselves the Chaos Harvesters, or at least that's what Render calls us. You'll meet all of us soon enough if you want to join. Though I warn you, if you decide to join us, you'll be hunted. They track me where ever I go, and I let them see as much as I want them to see."

"Who?"

"All in due time.."

John quickly reaches for the light switch only to find a hand blocking his path. Upon realization, John instinctively leaped back and fell backwards off his bed and onto the floor.

"I told you. There are all sorts of interesting abilities associated with this talent," the mysterious voice said now next to the door.

"How did you..!?"

"Once you can predict patterns in numbers, you begin to see the patterns in behavior as well."

"Then you went to the door on a.. on a.."

"Hunch? No. A hunch implies I'd be wrong. I've practiced long enough know what comes next and long enough to know you wanted to turn on the light rather than escape, because your curiosity got the better of you. Am I right?"

John's heart raced, but he gradually and steadily got back on his feet despite the weakness in his knees. "I.."

The mysterious man hit the light switch. He was a tall lanky man in his 30s with an unkept hair style and stubble facial hair. "They call me Tash," he said as he extended his hand to John.

John stood there for a moment, taking all of it in, then reached out and grabbed his hand. "John, but then I bet you already knew that, didn't you?"

If the world should blow itself up,the last audible voice would be an expert saying it can't be done