re: INITIATIVE [Detective Fiction]

[#04.5]

Chelsea also had this overwhelming aura around her, like Chris. Though the aura might seem to make you feel like a lowly worthless person, their pleasant personalities made up for their condescending aura (then again, this "condescending" effects of the aura are not because of their actions, but rather because of how the people around them saw them as).

'So it really did cause a concussion?!' L yelled in his thoughts, though his face remained blank.

"Oh, it's fine, I didn't feel most of the pain since I was unconscious the whole time, anyway." He nonchalantly said. Chris cracked a broken smile as he attempted to fill in the empty awkward atmosphere. For sure, Chris wasn't sure if that statement was sarcastic or not.

"Told you he'd take it pleasantly," Ardee butted in, chuckling slightly.

"So? You need help or something?" L asked.

"Ah, though this is just a consultation, I would like a mathematician's solution to the problem I had in mind," Chris answered, still standing by the clubroom doorway.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Take a seat." Said Joshua.

"Are any of you a programmer by any chance?" He asked, walking an even pace towards the chair on the end of the table, in front of Ardee.

"Oh, I might have an idea," Joshua said. Though L had already witnessed what he was capable of, it surprised him that he was very modest. Then again, someone as meek-looking as him would be expected to be just like that.

"Ah that's good news," Chris answered. He had already seemed to have sat comfortably, but he slightly stood and pulled his chair closer, as if getting ready for a very long monologue.

"My father is the CEO of LeoTech, as you may or may not know. I've been helping my father every now and then, and I sort of came across a difficult problem I might not be able to solve on my own. I could ask father, but he seemed particularly busy these days," he started to explain, placing his elbows down to the table as he seamlessly intertwined it, looking like a boss of a company.

It was no mystery to anyone that a CEO of a company as large as LeoTech was bound to face such complicated problems aside from internal affairs. People with that kind of authority are sure to be targets of heresy. Chris' father was probably dealing with problems such as scandalous accusations and surreptitious government attacks, among financial and regulatory problems of the company.

"The problem was the design of a particular program. This software is supposed to be showcased at a scheduled convention where LeoTech is to be of a major involvement. We were mistaken to conclude that it won't have any trouble anymore after thousands of hours allocated to eliminating software bugs. The problem however, was not with bugs. The software even had no bugs, but the problem was with the core system itself." Chris started to explain.

"The system works by utilizing two core node strings to peer through the encryption. Though I cannot disclose the main purpose of the software, I can, however, tell you how it works." He said, summoning his Dpad and started to draw a three-dimensional sketch. Obviously, he attempted to illustrate the flow of the program. He drew two rectangles and labeled it A and B, and drew ten random symbols around the two rectangles.

"Let's label the two core node strings as A and B. These symbols scattered across represent the unidentified nodes around the data-scape."

"Unidentified?" Joshua raised an eyebrow, as if to ask, 'What? Why would that even happen?'

"Yes. Unfortunately, the design of the program rendered us completely blind from the data of these scattered nodes. But what we do know is that out of these 10 nodes, 4 nodes have an active status while the rest are deactivated. What we can do is assign these nodes to either of the two core node strings, regardless of any inequality to the number of nodes. What will matter in the end is that the two core node strings must have an equal number of inactive nodes for the system to successfully start."

"You can change the statuses of any nodes, right? You just have to execute a .bat file and choose specific nodes," Joshua suggested.

"Yes, but the problem is, we wouldn't know if the nodes we changed were previously active, now inactive, or were previously inactive, now active." Chris answered.

To sum it all up, the program needed the two of its core node strings, A and B, to have an equal number of inactive nodes, be it greater than or equal to zero. Best-case scenario, the random assigning of nodes might end up in a 5-5 division: each core nodes having two active nodes, therefore each having an equal number of three inactive nodes, but that's too farfetched to be expected. The number of nodes for each core strings didn't matter, so they could have 1-9, 3-7 or 4-6 divisions, so long as these divisions have an equal number of inactive nodes, greater than or equal to zero. Obviously, it would take forever to simulate each and every possible combination, so there must be a way to hasten the troubleshooting.

"I see. So basically, what you need to do is find out which nodes to assign on which core string, and which nodes to change so that the two core strings would have an equal number of inactive nodes?" Concluded Joshua.

"Exactly."

Only the two seemed to have been conversing, yet L and Ardee weren't exactly out of the picture either, despite the bulk programming language thrown in front of them.

While Joshua appeared to have been thinking (he was looking down while rubbing his chin), he might've probably been completely at loss, and was just pretending to think.

"Unfortunately, our head programmer is on vacation, and the consultant I've contacted might take a while before he actually gets to listen to the problem. So, I was hoping I could get any insight on how to solve the problem. Should the program fail to perform at the demonstration, it would surely have a great impact on the reputation of the company," explained Chris.

"Not that I'm putting pressure, or anything," he laughed shallowly.

L threw a sharp glare at Ardee, as if saying 'What are you doing? This isn't a math-related course!' But Ardee was only grinning, as if to reply 'Eh, sounded like math to me,'

Technically, programming does involve a lot of math, but this problem was more on the analytical side than computing.

Joshua was still staring at the table. L, on the other hand, started to think.

'To simplify this programming dilemma, the rectangles A and B are like containers where nodes are to be placed, like coins. Like in the problem, we can say that there are ten coins, six of them are faced down, while the rest are heads up. It is also given that we're in a dark room, and we can flip the coins, albeit blindly. Now, how do we sort these coins on each container so that the two containers would have an equal number of faced down coins?'

The answer was simple. Well at least, it was for Axel.

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