“the control group”| mascot reveal | open
The whole time this happens, he fidgets with the Rubix cube.
There’s a dog. A very cute dog, admittedly, the kind he’d like as a pet. And there’s a message. And there’s a whole new set of layers poured over this scenario- each one causing more unease than the last. It complies into this messy feeling he feels coalesce. From the hollow field in his chest just below his sternum and spreading to the pit of his stomach, it spreads. Quickly. Not fear- no, he wouldn’t describe it as fear. Nonary doesn’t understand afraid. No. The feeling would be better and more aptly put, like a being on a boat during a storm spot. Swaying back and forth, a low feeling of sickness.
16 heroes. Cooped Up. Escape? Kill another. Don’t want that? Then only one of them could leave. Barriers. Powers canceled. Oh gosh, his brain was moving way too fast- faster than he could actually keep up with. His hands press into the facets of the cube, faster and faster does he play with it. X*Y*F to the negative first. Switch, flip flop, create a plus in the square. Corner swap. Edge swap. It’s all mindless nonsense to keep him busy. Is he breathing slower than usual? Probably. But he stops thinking. He stops thinking, and starts calculating. He’s breathing out, breathing out like he might need to sit down, but he’s locked in place.
Almost everyone in the world had some relation to another person. Remove those estranged, the post-mortem, water those statistics down to sixteen people. Outside that, there were simple principles. People hated being deprived of their liberty- something something, uh, reverse psychology, right? Right, right. Under the assumption that each killer yields only one victim, one average, that’s 0.000048% of the american populous who has ever committed murder. Now divide the current number of people held hostage here by the total population. . . 5.01724679e-8. Such a small number. Now let’s take that and multiply it by the percentage. 2.4082785e-14. It’s. . . Ridiculously small percentages someone here would be driven to murder. Especially considering everyone here IS a superhero. These aren’t normal people you could just stab.
Realistically, he should feel easy. No one, the figures say, would murder. Every killing has it’s reason, and this was not a good enough one. So why does he still fidget? 1, 3, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 31- Why does he recite all the prime numbers he cares to in ascending order? Why does he keep biting his thumb, thinking about the Menger Sponge? Infinite surface area, yet no volume. Is that was this is? A mathematical concept, poking more and more holes into the wood?
Of course not. Despite everything, he’s still █████ ███████. And so long as he’s here, a solution is as well.
“. . .” Think, Nonnie, think. He’s the leader here. Someone has to do something. . . Something, anything. But. He can’t quite get ahead of himself.
“KEHEHEHEHHEHEHEH!” He laughs. He simply and plainly laughs. God’s algorithm. A computational formula to deduct what moves to perform when solving a Rubix cube when relating the finished product to the completed one. “Really? You think just because you’ve trapped us here, we’re, we’re going to just drop like flies? Statistically impossible!” There is only one true solution, the solution that requires the least amount of steps. There are over forty three quintillion possible solutions because there are 43 quintillion possible starting points. “Ah, haahaha, haaahaHAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! As if! If anyone here dares try something, I’m waaaatching!”
. . . What even was that? Despite his monologue of sorts, the scientist flees the room, hand clasping the wired side of his head. He seems to mutter something under his breath. Geez, he feels sick, almost. But he can’t get sick. There’s no pathogen in him. But he goes to stand over those files, still sick. Still biting his thumb.
