Chapter 4: Perfect 10 x 2 (Part 2)

Traipsing through winding corridors, he followed the directions of the sharp-dressed hologram that materialized at every intersection, pointing the way with his stylized cane. Finally, a heavy grey pneumatic door swooshed open at his approach.

The testing environment inside was stark and clinical, sparse save for a metallic desk and three steel chairs. Behind the desk stood two men in pristine white lab coats, their deeply lined faces broadcasting the detached boredom of men who had administered tens of thousands of tests.

“The intelligence evaluation comprises two hundred questions spanning science, mathematics, and critical thinking,” one of the proctors explained in a flat, rehearsed voice. “We’ll start with math.”

With a casual wave of his hand, the man activated the desk’s integrated projector. A crisp, three-dimensional holographic screen flickered to life, floating seamlessly in the air between Giddeon and the proctors. The man flicked his finger, sending an equation pulsing across the display in bold, luminous cyan text.

[WHAT IS 23 + 22]

“The system randomizes the difficulty,” the second proctor explained. “So don’t get frustrated if the initial questions are excessively trivial or complex.”

Giddeon stared blankly at the screen. “Forty-five,” he muttered, barely paying attention to the interface as he suppressed another yawn.

An electronic chime rang through the room. The holographic interface flashed a vibrant, pulsing green.

[Status: CORRECT]

His Character Sheet pulled up, showing his Intelligence remained 10. Giddeon’s eyes tightened as he stared at the frozen number. Why didn’t it change?

“Your AIGES needs more data than a single grade-school equation to evaluate your attribute,” Johnny explained. “It also accounts for lucky guesses.”

The tester on the left flicked his finger again, clearing the screen and bringing up the next problem.

[FIND THE ANGLE BETWEEN THE GIVEN VECTORS. ROUND TO THE NEAREST TENTH OF A DEGREE. U = i – j, V = 4i + 5j]

“Can I use my calculator?” Giddeon asked.

The tester nodded dully, not looking up from his datapad.

Reaching into his pocket, Giddeon pulled out his holo—a dense, cube-shaped microcomputer no larger than a six-sided die. He set it on the cold table. With a fluid wave of his hand, the cube split open, projecting a three-dimensional interface into the air.

“Calculator,” Giddeon commanded.

A floating numeric keypad expanded before him. He quickly punched in the vector coordinates, scribbled a few notes across the interface, then dissolved the projection with a reverse swipe of his palm. The cube clicked back into a solid block.

“Ninety-six point three degrees,” Giddeon said.

A sharp chime rang out as the blue text flashed green.

[Status: CORRECT]

His Intelligence score ticked upward, shifting from 10 to 12.

“Well, look at you go,” Johnny commented, sounding genuinely surprised. “You actually have a brain in there.”

I’m a hacker, remember?

Another casual flick from the tester brought up the next question.

[System Prompt: Input Value for x]
x + 33 = 44

“Time to get this wrong,” Johnny advised.

Giddeon didn’t hesitate. “Seventy-seven,” he blurted.

A harsh, low-frequency buzz cut through the room. The letters flashed in angry red.

[INCORRECT]

The testers raised their eyebrows, looking up in unison from their datapads to stare at him.

Giddeon checked his character sheet, watching his Intelligence score instantly plummet back down to 11. He offered the men a casual shrug as they continued to assess him. “I’m a selective genius.”

Two hundred questions later, Giddeon provided his final, deliberately botched answer. He watched with profound satisfaction as his temporary peak of 11 officially ticked back down, locking his score into a safe, unremarkable 10.

“We did it!” Johnny celebrated, practically cheering. “You’re officially stupid—I mean average! How does that make you feel?”

Ignoring his snarky companion, Giddeon addressed the proctors. “What’s next?”

His testers stared back at him in complete bewilderment. Finally, the one on the left cleared his throat and pointed toward a secondary exit behind them. “Through there. Your auditory evaluation is next.”

Giddeon stood. “It was fun, gentlemen.” He reached across the table, firmly shaking each of their hands.

With Johnny guiding him the entire way, the rest of his evaluations proceeded in a beautiful, calculated disaster. Giddeon masterfully walked the line between success and purposeful failure. He feigned deafness to specific, high-frequency pitches, completely lied about the scents wafting into his nose while blindfolded, and abruptly collapsed on his seventeenth push-up per Johnny’s instructions.

He even bombed his charisma test where he had to banter with three strangers. Under Johnny’s coaching, Giddeon stuttered over basic phrases, misplaced pauses awkwardly, and told cheesy jokes. Right before the interaction ended, his AI had him casually pick his nose, successfully dropping his charisma score to a flat 10. The Luck evaluation was the only test completely outside of their control, yet the system mysteriously spat out a baseline 10 anyway.

His final station was Speed and Endurance.

Inside the changing room, a bald man with a permanent frown greeted him by shoving a form-fitting black compression suit and a pair of running shoes into his hands. He remained silent as Giddeon changed, then immediately kicked him out the door into a sprawling gymnasium.

Several other Aiges were already pacing themselves on sleek, humming treadmills built with heavy titanium bases and floating biometric overlays. The machines scanned the runner’s heart rate, blood pressure, speed, and distance—basically the same as machines from two centuries ago.

A female supervisor in a wrinkled lab coat casually gestured to the treadmills as he entered. “Step on and run until you can’t anymore,” she ordered, instantly turning her back to rejoin colleagues who were playing cards at a desk nearby.

Navigating to a treadmill in the back row away from the others, Giddeon started the belt and fell into an easy stride.

“Whoa there, cowboy!” Johnny suddenly barked. “Slow it down! That’s way too fast if you want to look like a standard Earth Two local.”

Giddeon frowned, dialing back the speed until he was moving at little more than a snail’s pace. “Better?” he muttered.

“Much better,” Johnny approved. “But go a tad slower. The average Two-er wears XL swimming trunks and gets winded climbing a flight of stairs, if that tells you anything.”

Giddeon maintained the agonizingly sluggish pace, his forehead dry. He was barely halfway to Johnny’s calculated quitting time when a voice drifted over from the machine next to him.

“So, were you trying to give us all a heart attack yesterday?”

Giddeon glanced to his right as a feminine figure stepped onto the neighboring treadmill and began to jog. His gaze immediately returned to his own floating holographic interface where he pretended to study his abysmal numbers.

“How do you mean, Mrs. Uzari?” he asked, his voice casual.

“With your doom-and-gloom speech at the briefing.” She threw her hands dramatically into the air, her eyes widening in mock panic. “‘We’re all going to die!’ That whole performance—what was the point of it?”

“I was worried.”

Uzari let out a sharp laugh, shaking her head. “You? No, you had a reason. What was it?”

Giddeon jogged for several heartbeats, the steady hum of the treadmills filling the silence. “Why should I tell you?”

“I’ll tell you how I know you, and you know me,” she replied.

“So, we have met before?”

“Perhaps.” Her expression gave absolutely nothing away. Her brow furrowed as she leaned slightly to the side, peering at his console. “Why are you running so slow?”

Giddeon glanced over, catching her eyes on his metrics. “Cover my screen,” he commanded.

The floating blue display instantly deployed digital, black-tinted visors along its edges, isolating his stats from prying eyes.

Uzari chuckled. “I already saw enough to know you’re running like an old man.”

Giddeon’s face remained passive “Been watching me, have you? There’s a legal word for that, you know.”

Uzari snorted, her speed already naturally outpacing his. “If you’re looking for a stalker, go back to that wide-eyed assistant of yours,” she muttered, just loud enough to cut through the hum of the machines. “I’m sure she’d welcome you with open arms… among other things.”

“Back? She was my assistant for a single afternoon.”

“From the little I overheard, it sounded like it might have been a bit longer than an afternoon.” Her dark eyebrows arched as she effortlessly glided into a faster stride. “Perhaps a night as well?”

“I’m afraid not. I was by myself all night—as I’m sure you were as well, Mrs. Reyes.” He purposefully dragged out her married surname, letting the weight of the title hang in the air between them.

Uzari’s stride didn’t falter. “I was,” she replied, her voice dropping to a colder, quieter tone. “But even if my husband were here, I’d have been all alone still.”

“Bad marriage, or impotent?”

“I certainly hope he’s not impotent!” Uzari kept her eyes locked straight ahead, her gaze narrowing with every syllable. “You could say…it’s complicated. He’s a jerk. Distrustful, ego-driven, and riddled with commitment issues. Five years together, and he still didn’t trust me.” She snapped her head toward him, her hazel eyes flashing. “What do you think of that, Mr. Seres?”

“Sounds like a jerk to me,” Giddeon said offhanded, focusing on his screen numbers. He was nearing his goal for ‘exhaustion.’ “What do you expect from your husband, then?”

Uzari’s breathing was heavy now, her blazing pace showcasing her athleticism. Her long legs stretched wide across the moving belt. Curious, Giddeon pulled up her character sheet, watching as her Endurance and Speed ticked upward in real time.

“I think someone who doesn’t blow me off would be a fantastic start,” she huffed, matching the treadmill’s rising acceleration. “Perhaps a gift or two every now and then. Oh, and he should never, ever lie. Even if the truth hurts, I want to know it. He could also try taking care of me, though I can clearly take care of myself—the thought is what counts.”

To his amazement, she punched the console and sped up even more. Flawless posture masked her labored breathing. On his screen, her stats rose again, ticking up to 16 and 17 respectively.

“I also like good hygiene, a man who wants to be a good father to our future children, and someone who stays fit in mind and body for the rest of our lives. We can play games together, of course, but that shouldn’t be our focus.”

Giddeon silently snorted as she rambled on, venting her deep marital frustrations to a literal stranger. “Mrs. Uzari, have you ever been called a perfect—”

“Perfect ten?” Uzari interrupted. She flashed him a quick grin, revealing perfectly white teeth. “I may have heard that line before. Quite a few times, actually—a hundred and twenty-two, to be exact. You’d be a hundred and twenty-three.”

Giddeon stared at her for a few lazy heartbeats as he jogged. “I was going to say a perfectionist. You’re back to a hundred and twenty-two.”

Her smile never wavered. “That, too. I’m just teasing you, Mr. Seres—I knew what you were going to say.” She exhaled sharply, slowing her pace just enough to catch her breath. “But you still haven’t told me why you terrified the entire room yesterday. The real reason?”

“I wanted to find out a few things,” he replied, looking away.

“Like?”

“What Ereos was willing to give us, or how sincere his word was.”

Uzari raised an eyebrow. “Care to explain?”

“I simply made a statement to see how he would react. The moment I mention dying, he instantly showers everyone with a thirty-percent credit bonus to quiet the room.”

He looked at her pointedly. “That’s either a man who doesn’t care about money, a man who wants a job well done, or someone who doesn’t plan on keeping his end of the bargain.”

“You think he’s not going to pay us?” Uzari asked, her stride faltering slightly. “How’s that even possible?”

Giddeon shrugged. “Covert operations tend to favor dispensable personnel. You don’t need to pay the dead. If you didn’t notice, our contracts had no clause for paying family members if we go missing or are killed. Odd for such a large company to leave out standard insurance, don’t you think?”

“I thought you didn’t read the contract?” Johnny piped up.

I downloaded and read it during the olfactory test. How did you not notice this?

“I was so bored I think my consciousness went into standby mode. Did your conversation with that Jenner person scare you about something?”

Not really. I just need to cover all my bases. He made me realize I had a chink in my act.

“You don’t trust Ereos at all, do you?” Uzari’s voice snapped him back.

“As far as I can throw him,” Giddeon replied, “and judging from my AIGES score, that’s not too far.”

Uzari’s eyes shifted to her lower left, then widened. “Have you taken the other tests yet?”

As Giddeon stared back at her, her stats began flickering strangely.

“Gid, an anomaly’s just been detected in the ship’s database,” Johnny’s voice suddenly blared, stripped of its usual humor. “They found your virus.”

Gideon’s focus split, processing Johnny’s warning while tracking Uzari’s wavering stats. What’s wrong with her numbers? he thought, the question cutting through his rising panic.

“Numbers?” Johnny asked, confused. “What about numbers?”

“They’re bouncing up and down,” Giddeon replied, his eyes narrowing as he peered hard at his UI screen. Uzari’s attributes were skyrocketing into triple digits, only to plummet back to zero, the text fading only to sharpen again on his overlay.

“W-What!” Uzari’s voice suddenly trembled, breaking his concentration.

Gideon forcibly pulled his gaze away from her glitching stats, and a cold wave of realization hit him. Because he’d been so focused on her character sheet, he had been staring intensely—deadpan and narrow-eyed—straight at her chest.

Lifting his eyes, he met Uzari’s. Her face was burning a furious crimson.

She instantly crossed her arms tight over her bosom, trying to block his view. “Well…they, they do that when I’m running!” she stammered defensively.

“They’ve sent someone,” Johnny continued, his voice urgent. “I’m still in their camera feed, so I can pinpoint their location for you.”

A wireframe layout of the adjacent rooms bled into Giddeon’s view, piercing through the gym walls like a digital blueprint. The overlay wasn’t flawless, but it rendered the glowing, golden outlines of personnel in the surrounding sectors—some walking, others eating, a few taking tests or relieving themselves. Then, his eyes locked onto a figure pulsing a violent red.

“I’ve highlighted the asset tracking your position,” Johnny said. “They’re pinging the virus receiver on your holo to track your location. We need to leave.”

Do you think they’re messing with my data copying? Is that why Uzari’s stats are fluctuating?

“Unlikely,” Johnny said. “The security sweep is likely causing the glitch. They haven’t quarantined the virus because they need it to trace the host node. Whoever is manning security right now isn’t that sharp, but backup is coming.”

As the red silhouette rounded a distant corridor, Gideon’s breath caught. The figure was massive, inhumanly broad, with reinforced limbs—an augmented brute.

“They’re big,” Giddeon muttered aloud, shaking his head as his mind processed the threat through the digital wall.

“W-well, of course they are!” Uzari stammered from the treadmill beside him, her voice cracking.

“What?” Giddeon blinked, his cybernetic vision snapping off as the physical world rushed back into place. While analyzing the threat advancing on him, his unblinking eyes had anchored right back on the center of her chest.

“Big is subjective,” Johnny commented casually. “Would you say small-big, medium-big, or big-big?”

“Very big,” Gideon unconsciously replied, completely tuning out his AI. His eyes bore into the center of Uzari’s chest where the tracker’s pulsing silhouette had just been. “I’m still trying to figure out her numbers.”

Uzari’s face flushed a deep, beet-red. She squeezed her arms tighter, a move that only served to emphasize what he was apparently staring at. “If—if you absolutely must know, they’re thirty-six—”

“See you later!” Giddeon abruptly hit the emergency stop and vaulted off the treadmill. His time was up, in more ways than one.

Pull up my character sheet.

The screen shimmered into view. Every single stat read average.

A perfect ten.

Veering toward the nearest exit, he stole one final glance over his shoulder. Uzari was still running, her face burning crimson as she frantically tried to cover herself while forcing her legs to complete the endurance trial.

A perfect ten, he thought, tracking her bouncing pace as the door slid shut. A perfect ten doubled.

Moving quickly through a secondary locker room, he pushed out into the main corridor, heading away from his gargantuan pursuer.

“Johnny, route me toward Grak’s room,” he whispered, his shoes tapping softly atop the metal grating.

“Graks?” Johnny echoed. “I thought you didn’t like him?”

“I don’t,” Giddeon murmured, quickening his pace through the empty hallway. “I just want his room.”

“Sure thing, partner.”

A minimalistic map of the ship flickered into his peripheral vision, featuring a tiny, pulsing white triangle that mirrored his progress. A flashing yellow vector arrow urged him forward. Behind him, a sharp red blip marked his pursuer.

Variables were compounding quickly, just as Giddeon had anticipated they would. While it had taken Vibane longer than expected to flag his network intrusion, he had already established counter-measures to muddy the digital waters. Now, he simply needed to lose his tail. Graks would help with that.

A faint smirk surfaced as he recalled the sheer panic on Uzari’s face when she thought he was ogling her. He nearly let out a genuine laugh, but shook his head, forcefully dismissing the memory. Distractions could get him killed. He needed to concentrate on the next task at hand: framing someone else for his crimes.