Guest of the UFO

Chapter 4

The next day, we were woken up and given jumpers of different coloreds. It had everything in it, including several ropes to pull on to modify the dressing. The first place we were taken to was the control system.

A grey haired man with a rolling gait and a pot belly seemed to be our professor. There were some staff in there, but as soon as he came, they all excused him. Everything we learnt that day, we were to put into practice without the help of the staff.

"Good morning, and welcome to your first class. I am professor Charles, and today, we would be understanding the algorithm's behind our transport. I am sure by now, you know the reason why you are here? It was not easy selecting people for this program. You of all people should know how grueling and competitive it was, to select only ten people from the entire globe. You must all be special. And a number of you might have an inflated sense of importance."

He peered at all of us. I was only curious. I had never seen anyone act in such a manner.

"I want to tell you that if you feel that way, it is better to drop out now and give your space to someone more deserving."

I heard a few whispers and the shuffling of feet behind me. It was obvious no one wanted such an option.

"The way I see it, there are a lot of things you would see that would humble you. And, we need collaboration from everyone. This is not a competition. But, we are always on the lookout for the most outstanding person. Demonstrating high intelligence and integrity would make you standout. News flash, we love that."

He walked to a wall and touched it. The wall seemed to come alive, like one of the digital blackboards. On it, a sequence of numbers ran vertically and horizontally for two seconds. Then, the screen went off.

"That, what you have just seen, is what holds a quarter of this entire program together. You have to know every single thing in there. Does anyone?"

There was a hush.

I raised my hands shakily. Professor Charles peered at me with his intense green eyes. "Yes?"

I cleared my throat. "There were five thousand seven hundred and five sequences there. And that is not all because the permutations of every number in there is also represented in the final algorithm, which makes the total up to millions."

I proceeded to recite the first hundred, without a mistake. Somehow, by looking at it for the first two seconds, it seemed to get stamped into my brain.

When I stopped, professor Charles scoffed. He had an incredulous look in his eyes. Everyone in the class fell silent.

"What's your name?"

I pointed at my tag. "Emma Mckinny."

"Emma," Professor Charles began, "you demonstrate excellence in information learning. Keep it up."

I nodded.

Austin leaned in to whisper to me, "They are adding a few points to you. They're watching, you know. Bravo."

Akio gave me a thumbs up. Alyonna shot me a look I could not decipher.

"So," Professor Charles continued, I am quite certain you all have a knowledge of geo positioning and extraterrestrial geology?"

He continued to speak, filling us in on the numbers, the science behind them, and how they all fit into the grand scheme of our plan. Professor Charles was clearly in love with what he was doing because his eyes lit up and he became more and more animated as he spoke. The class lasted for three hours. After that, we all filed in for planetary studies. We were told beforehand that it was one of the most important classes we would take. We had to pay attention because the bulk of what we would do was going to be centered around our understanding of how the planets worked.