Hello, friends, and welcome to Sleep Tight Stories.
Lew is bored and doesn't want to do his history homework.
Red has gone to a meeting with the gang and Blue was not invited.
He just wants to take a break.
But when he opens his laptop, the trouble begins.
The Chronicles of Blue The Perfect Score.
Blue slumped at his desk after school staring at his Earth history homework.
The American Revolution was fine, he guessed, but it wasn't math.
It wasn't science.
It was just memorizing stuff that already happened.
Red breezed past his open door.
You look bored.
Why don't you read some Earth literature?
Why don't you read Earth literature?
I'm busy.
Mystery club meeting.
Blue sat up.
You never invite me to those.
You're too young.
Also annoying.
She grabbed her backpack.
I could help.
Blue, no.
She was already heading down the hall.
Right.
Red got to solve mysteries with her gang.
She even complained they were too obvious and could solve them with a Mars tablet in a minute.
Then why did she get to have all the fun while he rotted away doing homework about dead Earth people?
Blue opened his laptop.
A sticky note from Mom was stuck to the screen.
Remember, no breaking into Earth systems.
Mom.
He peeled it off, sighing.
Yeah, yeah.
For about ten minutes...
He actually tried to focus on his history homework.
The Continental Congress did this thing, then that thing, then some other thing that led to a war everybody already knew about.
His brain felt like it was falling asleep.
Blue minimized the homework document and opened a new browser tab.
Just for a break, just to look at something actually interesting.
Earth Science websites.
Math forums.
That's when the Caltech banner ad caught his eye.
Mathematical reasoning challenge.
Think you can solve the unsolvable?
Blue clicked before he could stop himself.
Annual online competition.
Notoriously difficult.
Famous for being unsolvable.
No one had ever gotten a perfect score before.
Universities used it to find gifted students.
Blue read the description.
Advanced pattern recognition, algorithmic thinking, multivariable logic, problems that push the boundaries of human reasoning.
His fingers were already itching.
Just to look, just to see what Earth considers impossible.
He clicked through to the problems.
There was a security verification.
Not like a password, more like a system check.
Blue found an alternate route through their server structure.
Not technically hacking if he was just finding another door, right?
The actual test loaded.
Problem one, 30 seconds.
Problem two, he was already seeing the pattern before he finished reading it.
Problem three?
Oh, this is just the Fibonacci variant with the.
Before he knew it, he'd worked through all 20 problems.
Each one clicked into place like puzzle pieces his brain had been waiting for.
His mind finally felt awake.
The final pattern, the impossible one that had stumped mathematicians forever, took him 43 seconds.
Blue stared at his screen.
Perfect score.
100 out of 100.
First person ever.
Blue leaned back in his chair, staring at the perfect score on his screen.
His heart was doing that fast thing it did when he just cracked something difficult.
For about 30 seconds, he felt amazing.
Then his brain caught up with what he'd actually done.
The submit button was at the bottom of the screen, glowing blue and innocent looking.
Blue stared at it.
He wasn't going to press it, obviously.
That would be incredibly stupid.
A perfect score would flag him immediately.
They'd want interviews, news coverage, probably TV appearances.
Mystery Kid solves impossible math tests. was exactly the attention they couldn't have.
He should close the window, delete his answers, pretend this never happened.
His cursor hovered over exit without saving.
Red's voice came from the hallway.
Lou, have you seen my... She burst through his door without knocking.
Never knocked?
Phone charger?
Blue jumped about a foot.
His hand jerked.
Click.
The screen changed.
Submission received.
Thank you for participating in the Caltech Mathematical Reasoning Challenge.
Blue stared.
Red stared.
What did you just?
I submitted it.
Submitted what?
Blue turned the laptop around with shaking hands.
Red read the screen.
Her eyes got wider.
Is that... Did you just get a perfect score on the... I didn't mean to submit it!
How do you accidentally... You burst in without knocking!
This is a shared hallway.
They were both panicking now.
Red grabbed his desk chair.
Okay, okay, we can fix this.
Can you unsend it?
Blue frantically clicked through menus.
There's no unsend button.
Can you hack it back?
I'm not supposed to hack things anymore.
Blue, this is an emergency.
I know it's an emergency.
I'm the one who accidentally became the first person to ever... Okay, stop.
Stop.
Red took a breath.
Think.
You're good at computers.
There has to be a way.
Blue's fingers were already moving across the keyboard.
There's always a way.
Blue pulled up the submission database.
His fingers flew across the keyboard.
Red paced behind him.
What if they trace it?
What if they want to interview you?
What if... I know.
I'm working on it.
He got into the system surprisingly easily.
Earth security, once again, was embarrassing.
He found his submission right there in the database.
But he couldn't just delete it.
There were logs, backups, verification timestamps, digital fingerprints everywhere.
Okay, new plan.
Red stopped pacing.
What new plan?
Blue opened his email.
We can say it was a computer error.
He typed furiously.
Dear Caltech administration, my little brother accidentally submitted.
Don't call me your big sister in the email.
Do you want to help or not?
They sent it.
Waited five minutes that felt like five hours.
Auto reply pinged back.
Thank you for contacting us.
All completion entries are final and cannot be withdrawn.
Okay, next plan.
Blue logged back into the test system.
I'll change my answers, make them slightly wrong.
Will that work?
It has to work.
He changed problem 17's answer to something close but incorrect.
Changed problem 19 to a different solution, that was technically wrong but looked reasonable.
He hit save.
The screen flashed red.
Alert, mathematical improbability detected.
What does that mean?
Blue read the error message, his stomach sinking.
The system flags corrections that are statistically impossible given the original problem-solving pattern.
In English...
It knows I got them right the first time and I'm making them wrong on purpose.
The algorithm can tell.
Red flopped onto his bed.
We're doomed.
Mom's going to kill us.
The AID is going to relocate us.
We'll have to move to a different planet.
Wait.
Blue's brain was spinning.
What if the submission just disappeared?
Red sat up.
How?
System glitch.
Database corruption happens all the time with Earth systems.
Can you make that happen?
Blue's fingers were already moving.
I can try.
Blue worked carefully, not deleting his entry.
That would leave traces in the logs, but making it look like a routine database error.
Corrupted file packet.
Failed upload sequence.
Network timeout during submission.
His entry wouldn't be deleted.
It would just never have existed in the first place.
There.
Red leaned over his shoulder.
Did it work?
Blue refreshed the leaderboard page.
His name was gone.
His score was gone.
No record of his submission anywhere.
It worked.
They both exhaled at the same time.
And then there was a long silence.
That was actually kind of impressive, Red said quietly.
The test, I mean.
Solving it.
Blue looked up.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Don't tell anyone I said that.
Wouldn't dream of it, Stinky Head.
She threw his pillow at him.
Got up to leave, then stopped at the door.
You know, maybe you're not too young for Mystery Club.
Blue's head snapped up.
Really?
Maybe, if you promise to knock before entering my room.
You never knock on my door.
But she was already gone, and Blue was grinning.
Blue stared at his blank laptop screen.
His brain was tired but satisfied.
He'd solved the impossible problem, even if no one would ever know.
Mom appeared in the doorway with a plate of snacks.
How was your day?
Uneventful.
Mom gave him a look, the kind that said she knew exactly how uneventful his day had been.
She always knew.
Somehow, she always knew.
Good news. she said, setting down the plate.
Keep it that way.
Blue grinned.
And that is the end of our story.
Good night.
Sleep tight.
