Redeeming The Golden Ticket To Life

[POV Bai Chang]

I started to design a code for the contest. Something that will blow Feling and will snoop around their system to collect data in sly. While I asked 'Jiffy' to train Cyrus.

It is hard to believe that he is over twenty years old. As he behaves like a teenager. It is surprisingly difficult to react to him. As I don't know, how to treat him? Should I treat him like a teenager or as an adult? 

I find it troublesome. So I handed this mess to 'Jiffy', anything happens, I can say it's 'Jiffy' fault.

('Sorry Jiffy, to make you the sacrificial lamb here!') 

I gave 'Jiffy' some basic firewalls to help train Cyrus. Well for one, they are basic for us, but for others, it is way above basic.

When I reprimanded him I saw a gleam in his eyes, like he is sorry he disappointed his teacher or mentor. I searched what memory I had from Bai Chang but I am sure I never met Cyrus face to face. So why is he treating me as a mentor?

Though I am designing a program code for the contest, still I kept an eye out for Cyrus. To help him if he gets too stuck.

The whole evening went by with the typing sound on the keyboards accompanying us. It was late when I finished the first layer of the code for the contest. I have to place security against pickle codes and yaml.load, it is a little tricky to do it while not giving away the uniqueness of the code too much. After all, we don't want to get killed for the unassuming treasure we have instead we need to make our enemies pay for their folly.

"It's dinner time, have something to eat first, then you may continue."

I look at the door. There, Qiang is standing sporting a simple polo shirt and track pants. 

"I will be there in a few moments," I replied.

"Okay see you in a bit," as he moved away from the door he said, "Cyrus joined us for dinner tonight, no excuses," and he left us to our respective work.

***

At the dinner table, 

"Eat some more Bai Chang. You hardly ate anything tonight." He turned to Zhang Wei and said, "Get another bowl of Abalone soup and a small bowl of porridge for her."

"No, not anymore," I weakly protested.

"He is right Bai Chang, you hardly ate anything for dinner. While you are eating, concentrate on your food, not on your work. Got it." Zhang Wei added. 

"Even you Cyrus, focus on the food you eat. You look undernourished for someone who works in my company. Don't ruin the name of my company. One look at you and people will say that I do not pay you enough for your food." Qiang lightly admonished Cyrus.

"Yes boss"

Poor Cyrus, he is really taking the heat here from my side, as these two would not force me to eat too much.

To me, he looks healthy but as he is lanky he looks leaner than he is.

We have our dinner in peace.

Then after dinner, Zhang Wei helps us gather our dishes while me and Cyrus, we take off to the study room on the ground floor to finish our respective programming goals. 

****

It is well into the night. I look over my shoulder, Cyrus is still stuck at level four firewall. Though he is halfway there. 

('He has the potential, he is rough around the edges but a little more training will fix it.')

I look back to my codes. They are coming together impressively. 

Still, a lot more has to be tweaked to make it acceptable to this technologically backward century. Sometimes I really do wish for gadgets from my world. They would be so easy to deal with. It sure is time-efficient to use.

As I write more codes my mind drifts to my first coding classes.

*******

"Dad, it is so boring, I don't want to learn."

"Here baby darling, daddy will make it fun for you, come here." He called the little girl wearing her hair in double-sided braids.

"First let us start with some number problems, you don't like to find factorials for probability right? I will teach you a cheat script to calculate them."

"Are you serious daddy?" the little girl asked with expectations.

"Have I ever lied to you? Bring your laptop let me teach you the trick," he said.

The little girl ran inside and after some time she came out, carrying a laptop bag.

"Here, now teach me fast." the little girl huffed and puffed, her cheeks red.

"Here, open this command prompt," he pointed and the little girl followed her directions.

.

.

.

"Now write the script."

#include [iostream]

using namespace std;

int main()

{

 unsigned int n;

 unsigned long long factorial = 1;

 cout [[ "Enter a positive integer: ";

 cin ]] n;

 for(int i = 1; i [=n; ++i)

 {

 factorial *= i;

 }

 cout [[ "Factorial of " [[ n [[ " = " [[ factorial; 

 return 0;

}

 "Now input any positive integer you like and run the script."

"Okay, let me enter something simple first." 

The girl entered a number and ran the script. An output showed on the screen.

Enter a positive integer: 12

Factorial of 12 = 479001600

"Woah! It works!" 

The girl clapped her hands, there was a shine in her eyes as if someone offered her the sweetest candy, and she loved candy - a lot.

"Daddy this is not the system language you were teaching me earlier. What language is it?"

"It is an archaic coding language. Nowadays it is almost obsolete," the father replied patiently.

"What is it called?" the little girl asked her daddy.

"It is called C++, do you want to learn?" 

Without any delay, the child replied, "Yes, I would love to. Does this only work this way?" she asked curiously.

"No, it can do many more things you want to see?"

"Yes!" the little girl exclaimed with excitement as she thought, now I don't have to do those long calculations for maths classes anymore.

"Here is another example -"

#include [iostream]

using namespace std;

int main()

{

 int rows, count = 0, count1 = 0, k = 0;

 cout [[ "Enter number of rows: ";

 cin ]] rows;

 for(int i = 1; i [= rows; ++i)

 {

 for(int space = 1; space [= rows-i; ++space)

 {

 cout [[ " ";

 ++count;

 }

 while(k != 2*i-1)

 {

 if (count [= rows-1)

 {

 cout [[ i+k [[ " ";

 ++count;

 }

 else

 {

 ++count1;

 cout [[ i+k-2*count1 [[ " ";

 }

 ++k;

 }

 count1 = count = k = 0;

 cout [[ endl;

 }

 return 0;

}

"What does it do daddy?" the little girl asked.

The father simply ran the script.

 1

 2 3 2

 3 4 5 4 3

 4 5 6 7 6 5 4

5 6 7 8 9 8 7 6 5

"Wow, so cool!" the girl clapped her little hands.

"Daddy, teach me this language. Huh.." the girl begged.

"You will get bored and not study seriously," the father replied.

"I promise, I will study it sincerely and I won't get bored or give up this time. I swear," the little girl added.

Then slowly the father taught the little girl coding from basics. First, they learned C++ then her father taught her Javascript. Then she was taught HTML and My SQL. The little girl started to enjoy coding. Then her father taught her python and finally the little girl grew up and turned a teenager and she taught the advanced system language all by herself.

She made mistakes along the way and would troubleshoot them herself. While her father witnessed her growth silently standing by her study door. Feeling so proud of his little girl, now that she is all growing up.

*******

Someone lightly shook me up.

I woke up from my memories of the past. I look around, I see Qiang looking at me all worried.

"I am alright, just drifted into old memories," I replied.

"Take some rest," he advised me.

"Seriously, I am alright. I will catch up on my sleep later. You go back to sleep, you have to go to the office tomorrow morning. You have a meeting with the government officials." I said my eyes drifted to the screen. A whole bunch of tightly packed written codes on the screen welcomed me.

He kissed my crown and went off to bed as I went back to coding.

***

For the rest of the week, I trained Cyrus.

I taught him some minor tricks and simple scripts of my future world. This would help him to break any codes. They are some universal codes that could be used to unravel some of the high-security firewalls in this century.

You had to see his face when he understood the codes in its entirety.

He was so psyched. At first, he was shocked dumb. Later as he wrapped his head around those basic codes he was all over the place, crying and behaving like a lunatic.

He promised he would never reveal these universal codes. He even asked Qiang to make a new NDA form for the same. To which of course Qiang agreed.

I really don't understand the hype around it. After all, for me, they are high-school grade codes.

(Shhh… do not reveal it outside but we kinda partially hacked 'Pentagon' two days back.)