Short, Light, Free
chapter-7

The girl registered for Stanford University when she turned fifteen. She failed.

She tried again the next year. Success.

She was reported by the news to be a prodigy.

Of course, she studied computing.

But computing here involved the ancient computers that had long become obsolete.

When the news spread across campus, everyone felt that it was a great pity.

The girl participated in an interview.

“Why have you chosen to study old computers instead of supercomputers?” people asked.

The girl only smiled.

Two years later, sixty-third Genesis Hacking Competition.

The topic wasn’t new. Contestants had to attack the Pentagon.

A hacker with the user ID ‘gunner’ clinched first place with a stable three-point data lead.

And with this score, ‘gunner’ had successfully broken the world’s record from ten years ago.

It must be known that even the best supercomputer might not be able to function with such speed.

Just as the hackers and computer enthusiasts were discussing ‘gunner’ over tea, the first runner-up denounced the winner.

Reason being that the data was abnormal.

A team must’ve been working together on multiple computers.

This result couldn’t have been achieved alone.

The judging panel located ‘gunner’ through an IP address.

The panel confirmed that only one equipment had been connected and that the hacker worked from within Stanford’s campus.

News spread throughout the entire school and all the teachers made an extra effort in seeking ‘gunner’ out.

Though, they quickly realized that this ID could be fake since the best supercomputer in the university was apparently off during the competition.

Professors recovered some data from the supercomputer and went through them time and time again, confirming that it hadn’t been switched on at all on the day of the competition.

This strange matter became the talk of the town.

Until the sixth-fourth hacking competition.

‘Gunner’ won first place once again and performed even faster than the previous year.

Such speed was theoretically impossible.

Unless ‘gunner’ was already employing a more advanced supercomputer.

Of course, the organizers had paid more attention this time and had already recorded the precise location of the computer – a museum in the university.

The results were valid but there was a leak in competition data.

Enthusiasts formed teams to investigate the situation, only to realize that there was nothing in the museum.

Portable computers lacked such processing power and there was no supercomputer in the museum.

A hacking enthusiast started looking out for ordinary computers and received disapproving looks.

An ordinary computer was at least a few hundred times slower than a supercomputer, so how could it be?

But in a section within the museum that displayed old computers, they discovered that the computers have been piled together.

The investigators opened them up and found that these computers had been bound together through complex coding and calculations.

The computer, operating in zeroes and ones, had an Internet that simulated a that of a supercomputer’s.

This completely subverted the world’s knowledge of computers and the Internet.

But no one knew the creator of this equipment.

And there were only three students who registered for this outdated computer course.

It was even more ironic that this course was no longer a specialized one and was categorized under humanities.

After teaching students how to turn the computers on and off, the rest of the syllabus would be left to self-study.

Because these things were considered antique and art.

…

Science and Technological Immigration Company.

The girl looked at the materials in her hand, smiling.

It was a secret document belonging to the Pentagon.

The girl had gotten hold of this document more than a year back.

And no one had been interested in its content since the class A planet involved had already been extracted dry.

And this planet’s IP was exactly the same as that of a certain account user in her messaging software.

“Are you sure you’re willing to become a new citizen?” the receptionist asked in surprise.

“Yes.” The girl smiled.

“Although that newly discovered planet is suitable for human life, with our current rocket speed, it will take at least twenty years to get there. You can try freezing your egg and have a child through in vitro fertilization. That way you won’t have to spend twenty years alone,” the receptionist explained.

“Have I given an insufficient amount of money?” the girl questioned.

“No, no. It’s enough. I just want to present to you the ideal case scenario because it would be such a waste of life,” the receptionist continued.

She seemed to have more to say but the girl snatched the application form over and signed it.

It was a rising project for space immigrants to launch their frozen egg or sperm into another habitable planet to procreate through in vitro fertilization.

And the girl chose to launch herself into space.

For this space project, the girl has to wait for another year because she had been the one to anonymously propose this idea to the company.

Just like that, she sat in the cabin of the rocket and was launched into space.

Of course, her destination was a class S planet, and even the fastest rocket would take twenty years to get there.

The girl in the cryosleep cabin woke up with a smile. In her hand was the coordinates of the class A energy planet.

“It will take ten years to get there and another ten to get back,” the girl mumbled.

It took the interstellar travel company a month to realize that the money accounted to them was fake and invalid.

Even the girl’s name was bogus.

The careless receptionist stared at the deliberately crooked word on the application form: Gunner.

The company wanted to hack into the rocket’s system to reroute it.

However, they realized that in the past month, the technical staff had been watching a prerecorded video and simulated sequence of the rocket’s procedures and trajectory.

And the real rocket was no longer within their control and had long veered off course.

It had carried sufficient fuel and flown toward another destination.

The company did not know how the girl had managed to wake up from the deep sleep. They were even more puzzled by the fact that she had chosen to visit an unknown planet in a rocket that was bound for the newly colonized planet.

And the girl entered hypersleep once more, awaiting the day she would meet that uncle.