Triple Nine Date
Chapter 2: Let's Chat!
The first thing Meryl did after coming home at 10 p.m. was to switch on her crappy old computer, log in, and send a message to 'Knives', which was obviously a nickname. Nobody had such a name.
What should she say? She said she would take 2 days, but that was before her patience ran out. How could she… ah of course! Divine intervention! Then it wasn't her fault.
"Dear Mr. Millions, due to a stroke of luck, my problems all solved themselves. If you like, we can…"
A message popped up, just below hers.
"Yes, let's dive into the maze of logic."
What the…? She didn't even send her message. Then she noticed that there was no "send" button. She could ask Knives, but then he would know she had no idea what just happened.
She assumed she had missed the latest development regarding how chats worked and just typed a new message into the white box that had appeared below Knives' message. She greeted him politely, and then saw how a sentence of him appeared bit by bit. Ah, so that's how it works! Now she could act smart. No – she *was* smart. She figured it out! On her first try!
"Ok, so, what do you want to do?" appeared on her screen. That was almost too easy.
"I don't know, maybe watch a movie, go to a restaurant, maybe go into a zoo? But their prices are a rip off. $$10 per person. Come to think of it, it's too late for the movie. They stopped showing it last week. But the park! Yes! The old oak is very…."
She hesitated, but then thought that she didn't have anything to lose. There were hundreds of men waiting for her.
"Romantic."
Knives did not respond for an endless 10 seconds that felt like 20. Meryl was nervous like a little girl speaking in front of an audience for the first time.
"I understand. This will take a moment."
She stared at Knives' last message for 15 minutes, and it felt like one. Then he gave her the name of her home town. The name of the area she lived in, the cinema, the zoo, the park and the restaurant.
What should she do? How did he figure that out? Did he hack her computer?
"Too easy. Give me another one."
A-another what?
The cursor on the other side was blinking. Did it just challenge her? That little, blinking cursor? Was he playing a game? Was he a freak? Or just a nice guy, and this was a misunderstanding? Did Vash put in some info she wasn't aware of? That must be it. It was somewhere in her profile. He used her profile information.
"Ok, give me a minute."
What could she give him? What did he want, anyway? Was he some kind of detective? Ok then…
Meryl googled for the hardest riddles available on the desertnet. She picked the ones that were rated as the hardest, modified the problem without being aware of what she was doing and sent it to Knives.
He told her that this was unexpected and might take a while. 27 Minutes later, during which Meryl bit her nails off, he gave her an answer. She had no idea what he was talking about, but the choice of words indicated that Knives was sure about his answer. But maybe it was a trick. She just told him that she got tired and had to go to sleep, to which Knives responded:
"Wait a moment, please. Etiquette demands that you at least solve one riddle in return. Here is an easy one for you. Assume you can pose a binary question to an oracle. The oracle will either lie or tell the truth and will decide that for each question before you answer it. How can you force it to tell you always what you want to know?"
She had no idea. Instead, she felt the urge to cut the connection and pretend this conversation never happened.
"The neighbors' cat is stuck on the roof again, I have to help. Will answer tomorrow. Sorry."
And she logged out. Phew.
The next day, she was the first who appeared at work. Even before Vash, who usually arrived at 6 a.m. She needed him. She needed his brain. She would even pay him if necessary.