“There was no way the system could be stabilized,” grumbled Shania Darby. She’d seemed disappointed when Soren married Krystal. He wondered why.
All around the room, young men and women wore discouraged frowns, some scribbling in their notebooks, others trying to appear inconspicuous. The assignment had been clear: analyze the nonlinear control system and determinewhether a stable solution existed. From the looks of it, most of the class had concluded it didn’t.
The clock struck eight, and Professor Jiro Sakamoto strode to the chalkboard, posture erect, expression severe, pointer clasped behind his back. “Who completed the assignment?”
The students passed curious glances among themselves, the silence stretching long enough to grow uncomfortable. Then Soren raised his hand.
“Mr. Delacroix. Come.”
Soren walked to the front, all eyes following him amid a few hushed murmurs. He bowed respectfully to the honored teacher. The shorter, older man returned the gesture.
Taking a bracing breath, Soren picked up the chalk and rewrote the equation—not as given but centered around its equilibrium point. “The problem isn’t that it’s unsolvable,” he said calmly. “It’s that you’re trying to solve it globally.”
He then linearized the system near the operating state and reduced the nonlinear terms. “Under these conditions, the behavior becomes predictable and controllable.” The solution emerged cleanly, almost elegantly. When he stepped back, the system that had looked chaotic a moment earlier now sat neatly constrained, stable within defined bounds.
The professor stared at the board for a long moment before giving a satisfactory nod. “That,” he said to the room, “is how you stop a robot from tearing itself apart.”
Pencils scribbled frantically as the other students raced to copy down the creative solution. Soren acted as though it was nothing, casually returning to his seat, but, inside, he radiated pride.Father will be pleased with me when he learns how I’m excelling in Systems Theory, Advanced Mathematics, and Programming.
After class, Professor Sakamoto pulled him aside. The diminutive man’s short, black hair bore thicker stands than Soren’s, and his smoky uniform was more ornate. Soren wasn’t tall or muscular—not like Nathan had been—but he still outsized his instructor.
“Yes, sir?” he asked, holding his breath in anticipation. With Sakamoto, the students never knew whether they were in trouble.
“I hear you are an artist,” he said, his face a neutral slate. “That you like to paint.”
Art was Soren’s passion, though, in recent months, he’d not even found pleasure in capturing beauty on canvas, no matter how he tried. His father dismissed his oils and watercolors as pedestrian, a pastime for lesser men who possessed inferior minds. Is that what Sakamoto thought too? Would he reprimand Soren for wasting his time with paints?
He swallowed, glancing down at the gleam bouncing off his polished footwear. “Y-yes, sir. But it never interferes with my studies,” he added hastily, meeting his professor’s gaze.
Sakamoto nodded thoughtfully. “You should continue both. I believe the unique combination of your right-brain and left-brain talents makes you special. Only the blending of the technical and creative could produce the solution you presented today. Exercise them both, Mr. Delacroix, and you could go far. Now, don’t keep your mathematics teacher waiting.”
A delighted smile lit his fair complexion. “Thank you, sir. I’ll do that.”
After the school day, Soren took a trolley to the stop nearest his building, bypassing his usual one in the arts district—the only colorful part of the city. Banners hung limp in the still air, their inspirational words sagging in the heat of late summer. “Unity is Strength.” “One Path, One People, One Cipher.” “Order is the Highest Adaptation.” Soren didn’t spare them a glance as the car rattled along on its tracks.
While a few citizens commented on the weather or produce prices, most sat in silence, reading or lost in thought. Soren was excited to tell Krystal about his triumph in Systems Theory and Professor Sakamoto’s encouraging words.
Exiting the electric trolley, he passed children in short pants and matching shirts marching in reserved lines toward their apartment buildings, mothers in straight, knee-length charcoal skirts or navy trousers, their hair worn neat, waiting at stoops and lobby doors to collect them. An elderly gentleman walked his Frenchie on the opposite sidewalk.
After three cookie-cutter blocks, Soren arrived at his building—a five-story stone edifice void of decoration save a long banner displaying the national seal on its side. He and Krystal were fortunate to have found a vacant one-bedroom conveniently located between the Institute and Unity Hall, home of the Core, where his father did important work.
Soren held the door open for a troop of schoolchildren, their backpacks weighing them down. He practically sprinted up the stairs to room 208 and opened the door. “Krystal, are you home?” A delicious aroma from the small kitchen answered his question a moment before she eased into the main room, an apron around her jeans and a checkered button-up shirt.
The corners of her mouth curled. “Word is all over the institute that my husband is a miracle worker. Jan is so jealous,” she added with a twinkle in her walnut eyes. Jan, another basketballer, was Krystal’s not-so-secret girlfriend. Soren had warned her about being careful, lest she fall out of favor with the shepherds and be expelled from the campus Unity House. He swore the rangy woman with her curly, dark blonde hair dressed like Nathan on purpose, though only indoors.
Citizens were allowed individuality behind locked doors. When they first moved in, Krystal encouraged him to paint whatever he wanted on the walls. He’d started a mural depicting Harmony Ridge, Nathan’s farming commune, but it made him melancholy. He painted over it with a sage roller.
Krystal draped her arms around his shoulders and kissed his cheek. “Her husband can barely get a toaster to function, while I’ve landed the cream of the crop. Now, I have news for you.” Her good humor turned serious. “The Red River Republic has invaded Verdancia.”
“What?” Soren pulled back in horror, his eyes flashing as he sucked in an unsteady breath.
“I’m sure it will be made public once the Ministry gains more details,” she explained.
“Then how do you know about it?” Nathan’s face flashed across Soren’s mind, their days and nights spent together fast-forwarding in a blur of heat and emotion. Unwilling to obey the Oracle’s mandate, his lover had fled the country for Verdancia, where he could live “free.”
“Don’t fret, Soren,” she said impatiently. “This is a fortunate turn of events. Our enemies will kill each other, therefore posing no more threat to us.”
His head reeling, Soren sank into the nearest chair, pierced by the knowledge that Nathan’s life could be in danger. In an instant, he rethought everything—Nathan urging him to come along, his reasons for staying behind. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.