Olive was sitting in a class of ten children. The lowest had scored 156 and Elias Thornhill, the highest excepting Olive of course, had scored 173. Hadron, one of the five leaders of the Center, a mid 40’s looking fellow with light brown hair, hazel eyes, and an incurably serious expression, was teaching.
“You are all top seed, and we will consequently be covering ground very quickly. Every one of you can handle this class, and I won’t tolerate slackers. Intelligence is no substitute for knowledge!” Hadron exclaimed. Olive rolled her eyes.
Now, a hadron is an elementary particle that is subject to the strong nuclear interaction, and this explained the man Hadron very well- although why parents would willingly name their child Hadron is beyond anyone’s guess.
Hadron was emotionally inert except when subjected to a strong interaction. In fact, he was so serious, that despite his genius, he had no wit whatever and was constantly being the butt of jokes by his peers, mostly because his inability to understand the joke would result no offense taken. And it was for this reason, his utter seriousness and inability to appreciate or even get a joke, that he was chosen to teach top seed first-year cadets. Discipline first, fun and games afterwards.
Olive sat the whole first class and didn’t participate one iota.
A week later, in a hallway, the Premier and Hadron were talking.
“It’s been a week and Olive hasn’t said a word; She doesn’t even take notes. I’m frankly worried.” Hadron proffered.
“Maybe she’s bored…”
“How can she be bored if she’s not even listening?” Hadron asked incredulously.
“Did you know she has perfect visual and auditory recall? I doubt she’s not listening. I personally suspect she has a perfect memory of every word you’ve ever said in her presence. Actually, to put it bluntly, I’m certain that she’s listening; however, if you aren’t certain, I suggest you ascertain,” the Premier said.
Olive was sitting absentmindedly while playing with her star pin. Hadron droned on and on.
“In fact, the energy taken from one hydrogen atom could power the matter transformation of millions of atoms. The implications were obvious. Food and water could be made from air; cancerous tissue could be converted to water. Etc. Barbara went on to develop a method for controlling the matter manipulation with one’s mind. Based on this technology…”
Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
“Olive! Pay attention!”
The class snickered.
“Professor, I am paying attention…”
“Really?” asked Hadron, “Then prove it! Repeat what I just said.”
Olive stood up, looked Hadron straight in the eyes, and said, “Of course professor…” then coughed and sardonically mimicked Hadron’s droning voice… “In fact, the energy taken from one hydrogen atom could power the matter manipulation of millions of atoms. The implications were obvious. Food and water could be made from air; cancerous tissue could be converted to water. Barbara went on to develop a method for controlling the matter manipulation with one’s mind. Based on this technology… Olive! Pay attention!” The children rolled with laughter, and then quickly stifled themselves.
“I believed you finished there,” Olive stated matter-of-factly. The sound of muffled giggles could be heard everywhere.
Olive then suggested, “Or perhaps you wanted Wednesday’s lecture?” and imitating Hadron yet again to the pleasure of the class, “Einsteinian physics was as yet incomplete. Scientists were toying with various theories, most notably string theory, to fill the gap…”
“Enough Olive! You’ve made your point,” Hadron interjected dejectedly. The class laughed again.
“Back to the lecture, class!” and Hadron banged the desk and went back to work.
Little did he know that by insisting she speak, he was inviting Olive to make the class, and its poor teacher by extension, her toy.
Another Day
“Who knows what ΔS≥0 means?” Hadron asked the class, manifesting a visual of the equation in the air.
There were no takers.
“Olive, can you tell me?”
“That the change of entropy in a system, ‘S’, is always greater than or equal to zero. It is the Second Law of Thermodynamics, first formally expressed in 1824 of the Middle Era by Sadi Carnot.”
“Excellent Olive. And why might this law be important?”
“Thermodynamically, it explains why you constantly reheat your tea. Biologically, it implies that all energy gradients will disappear and all life will die!”
“Olive!”
“My apologies, professor.”
“Thank you,” Hadron sighed in relief.
“And philosophically it means,” Olive said seizing the moment of quiet, “CHAOS RULES!!!” At which she jumped out of the desk and started running around intentionally bumping into things like a highly excited gas molecule.
The class immediately joined her, descending the room into complete chaos as all ten 5 year old bodies ran around like crazy bumping into everything.
Hadron put his heads in his hands, shed a solitary tear, and muttered to himself, “Chaos indeed.”
Another Day
“I can’t take it anymore Premier. You simply have to do something!” Hadron begged.
“It’s only been two weeks, it can’t possibly be that bad.”
“You have no idea. Yesterday she used a series of tiny logical inferences to sandbag me into the conclusion that I was really just a chimpanzee in a fancy suit! I didn’t see it. I walked right into it. It was humiliating. I couldn’t even rebuke her because the actual logic of each step of the slippery slope was flawless!”
At this point Hadron started crying. The Premier realized he had a very real problem on his hands.
