Chapter 15 Unstable Equations
Chapter fifteen
Unstable Equations
Clover Hollow, Appalachia
Soren slipped into the room with only moments to spare before his early morning Systems Theory class.
He was still adjusting to married life, grateful to have been matched with an accommodating woman like Krystal.
As long as the Psychological Science major led the Institute’s basketball team in scoring, she was in no hurry to fulfill the Oracle’s reproduction requirement.
She was a good cook and pleasant company, but she wasn’t Nathan.
Nathan, he thought, grinding his teeth. I should forget about him. He’s not coming back.
By the time Soren slid into his seat, the room was already buzzing. A student in front of him leaned over to the one beside him. “Did you find a solution to that homework problem?”
“I swear it was a trick,” the other student whispered.
“There was no way the system could be stabilized,” grumbled Shania Darby. She’d seemed disappointed when Soren married Krystal. He wondered why.
All around the room, young men and women wore discouraged frowns, some scribbling in their notebooks, others trying to appear inconspicuous.
The assignment had been clear: analyze the nonlinear control system and determine whether a stable solution existed.
From the looks of it, most of the class had concluded it didn’t.
The clock struck eight, and Professor Jiro Sakamoto strode to the chalkboard, posture erect, expression severe, pointer clasped behind his back. “Who completed the assignment?”
The students passed curious glances among themselves, the silence stretching long enough to grow uncomfortable. Then Soren raised his hand.
“Mr. Delacroix. Come.”
Soren walked to the front, all eyes following him amid a few hushed murmurs. He bowed respectfully to the honored teacher. The shorter, older man returned the gesture.
Taking a bracing breath, Soren picked up the chalk and rewrote the equation—not as given but centered around its equilibrium point. “The problem isn’t that it’s unsolvable,” he said calmly. “It’s that you’re trying to solve it globally.”
He then linearized the system near the operating state and reduced the nonlinear terms. “Under these conditions, the behavior becomes predictable and controllable.” The solution emerged cleanly, almost elegantly.
When he stepped back, the system that had looked chaotic a moment earlier now sat neatly constrained, stable within defined bounds.
The professor stared at the board for a long moment before giving a satisfactory nod. “That,” he said to the room, “is how you stop a robot from tearing itself apart.”
Pencils scribbled frantically as the other students raced to copy down the creative solution.
Soren acted as though it was nothing, casually returning to his seat, but, inside, he radiated pride.
Father will be pleased with me when he learns how I’m excelling in Systems Theory, Advanced Mathematics, and Programming.
After class, Professor Sakamoto pulled him aside. The diminutive man’s short, black hair bore thicker stands than Soren’s, and his smoky uniform was more ornate. Soren wasn’t tall or muscular—not like Nathan had been—but he still outsized his instructor.
“Yes, sir?” he asked, holding his breath in anticipation. With Sakamoto, the students never knew whether they were in trouble.
“I hear you are an artist,” he said, his face a neutral slate. “That you like to paint.”
Art was Soren’s passion, though, in recent months, he’d not even found pleasure in capturing beauty on canvas, no matter how he tried.
His father dismissed his oils and watercolors as pedestrian, a pastime for lesser men who possessed inferior minds.
Is that what Sakamoto thought too? Would he reprimand Soren for wasting his time with paints?
He swallowed, glancing down at the gleam bouncing off his polished footwear. “Y-yes, sir. But it never interferes with my studies,” he added hastily, meeting his professor’s gaze.
Sakamoto nodded thoughtfully. “You should continue both. I believe the unique combination of your right-brain and left-brain talents makes you special. Only the blending of the technical and creative could produce the solution you presented today. Exercise them both, Mr. Delacroix, and you could go far. Now, don’t keep your mathematics teacher waiting. ”
A delighted smile lit his fair complexion. “Thank you, sir. I’ll do that.”
After the school day, Soren took a trolley to the stop nearest his building, bypassing his usual one in the arts district—the only colorful part of the city.
Banners hung limp in the still air, their inspirational words sagging in the heat of late summer.
“Unity is Strength.” “One Path, One People, One Cipher.” “Order is the Highest Adaptation.” Soren didn’t spare them a glance as the car rattled along on its tracks.
While a few citizens commented on the weather or produce prices, most sat in silence, reading or lost in thought. Soren was excited to tell Krystal about his triumph in Systems Theory and Professor Sakamoto’s encouraging words.
Exiting the electric trolley, he passed children in short pants and matching shirts marching in reserved lines toward their apartment buildings, mothers in straight, knee-length charcoal skirts or navy trousers, their hair worn neat, waiting at stoops and lobby doors to collect them.
An elderly gentleman walked his Frenchie on the opposite sidewalk.
After three cookie-cutter blocks, Soren arrived at his building—a five-story stone edifice void of decoration save a long banner displaying the national seal on its side.
He and Krystal were fortunate to have found a vacant one-bedroom conveniently located between the Institute and Unity Hall, home of the Core, where his father did important work.
Soren held the door open for a troop of schoolchildren, their backpacks weighing them down.
He practically sprinted up the stairs to room 208 and opened the door.
“Krystal, are you home?” A delicious aroma from the small kitchen answered his question a moment before she eased into the main room, an apron around her jeans and a checkered button-up shirt.
The corners of her mouth curled. “Word is all over the institute that my husband is a miracle worker. Jan is so jealous,” she added with a twinkle in her walnut eyes.
Jan, another basketballer, was Krystal’s not-so-secret girlfriend.
Soren had warned her about being careful, lest she fall out of favor with the shepherds and be expelled from the campus Unity House.
He swore the rangy woman with her curly, dark blonde hair dressed like Nathan on purpose, though only indoors.
Citizens were allowed individuality behind locked doors. When they first moved in, Krystal encouraged him to paint whatever he wanted on the walls. He’d started a mural depicting Harmony Ridge, Nathan’s farming commune, but it made him melancholy. He painted over it with a sage roller.
Krystal draped her arms around his shoulders and kissed his cheek. “Her husband can barely get a toaster to function, while I’ve landed the cream of the crop. Now, I have news for you.” Her good humor turned serious. “The Red River Republic has invaded Verdancia.”
“What?” Soren pulled back in horror, his eyes flashing as he sucked in an unsteady breath.
“I’m sure it will be made public once the Ministry gains more details,” she explained.
“Then how do you know about it?” Nathan’s face flashed across Soren’s mind, their days and nights spent together fast-forwarding in a blur of heat and emotion. Unwilling to obey the Oracle’s mandate, his lover had fled the country for Verdancia, where he could live “free.”
“Don’t fret, Soren,” she said impatiently. “This is a fortunate turn of events. Our enemies will kill each other, therefore posing no more threat to us.”
His head reeling, Soren sank into the nearest chair, pierced by the knowledge that Nathan’s life could be in danger. In an instant, he rethought everything—Nathan urging him to come along, his reasons for staying behind. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.
“Why do they have to be our enemies? The world is too small and too fragile to have enemies.”
She shrugged. “Your father sits on the College of Ministers, an oligarch of Appalachia; mine does not. Ask him.”
Soren straightened, his gray eyes hardening to granite. “One day, I’ll take his place. With power and influence, I’ll see things change.”
Krystal crossed to him, brushing his cheek with a gentle touch.
“We will see things change. Come eat, husband. I’ll be leaving soon for the library and then basketball practice.
” She took his hand, guiding him to his feet.
“Can you pick up the cleaning before having a drink with your friends down at Hernando’s? ”
He followed her to the table. “Sure, but I might not go. I should study and paint—paint eloquent equations and algorithms in resplendent colors that will pave my way to power.”
She placed a steaming plate before Soren and sat beside him at the corner of the small table.
“Good. I’ll call my friend Neville from psychology to come over around eight.
He’s more of a lover than a fighter too, if you get my drift.
” She snuck a glance at him as she forked in a bite of potatoes. “I think you’ll get along splendidly.”
“What do I have in common with a psychology student?” he asked, already formulating the unique painting in his mind’s eye.
“Soren.” She laid a hand on his shoulder, catching his full attention. “You can’t pine over that farmer forever. I’m your wife, and it’s my job to ensure you’re happy and successful. You rise, I rise, remember?”
Her meaning smacked Soren between the eyes, and he blushed. “Oh.”
“I swear,” she said with an affectionate laugh. “You geniuses are all alike. A billion revved-up brain cells, yet no clue what lies right in front of your nose. I’ll be having fun. It’s only fair you are as well.”
Soren laughed and shook his head. He thought Krystal must be the perfect wife. “I told Nathan he should stay. If he’d have ended up with half the wife I was blessed with—”
“Uh, uh, uh,” she chided, wagging a finger at him. “That traitor left you, defected to our enemy. If he thought half as much about you as you do him, don’t you think he would have stayed?”
Her words arrested Soren, and he paused to consider them.
“We have first loves for a reason,” she explained.
“They teach us what we like, what we don’t like, what to do and not do for a relationship to last. First loves are simply that—first loves, not only loves.
Do you think Nathan sits around at night dreaming of you?
He’s moved on, I say. You need to do the same. ”
“You’re probably right.” Soren’s appetite, his thrill of accomplishment, his plans of orchestrating change all drifted away, like clouds on a breeze, leaving him empty. “Neville, you say?”
Krystal grinned. “He’s perfect for you. He plays the guitar and sings, and he’s quite handsome, in an effeminate kind of way.
Sorry, he isn’t brawny like Nathan, but that’s what you have me for.
Besides, someone entirely different who you won’t be comparing with your ex is exactly what the doctor ordered. ”
Soren rubbed his temple. “OK, invite him over. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt just to meet the guy.”
This felt all kinds of strange, having his wife fix him up with another man.
But when you have a boat sailing this smoothly, why rock it?
What if Nathan has moved on? He could be banging another man right now and enjoying it.
The thought hardened Soren’s heart, creating jealousy and bitterness over a fictional account … or maybe not. Who knew?
The Republic has invaded Verdancia. It still seemed unreal. I’ll ask my father about it … tomorrow.
“Excellent!” Krystal exclaimed, taking her empty plate from the table.
“I’ll probably make it home, but, if not, you can fix yourself breakfast. Or …
” She passed by Soren, where he sat with half his meal still on the plate, and brushed his shoulders.
In a teasingly wicked tone, she whispered in his ear, “Get Neville to make it for you.”
With a quick kiss on his cheek, Krystal—who had at some point changed into a black and silver warmup suit—tugged her gym bag over her shoulder and padded to the door in her athletic shoes. With a flip of her unfashionably long and bouncy tawny mane, she left him to his deliberations.
Professor Sakamoto said I was special, talented.
I can make a difference, and I don’t need Nathan to do it.
He ran off to Verdancia. That was his choice.
Well, I have choices too, and I choose to give this guy a chance.
Krystal is the best psychology student at the institute, so if she picked him for me, there must be a reason.
Soren took his plate to the kitchen, making a mental list of things to do before Neville arrived at eight. Showering was on the list.