Handshakes at the doorway
The elevator ride seemed faster than usual as Em, Hero, Py, Saylah, and Yves played around with possible reasons for Euclid's most recent return to the realm of cryptography hermits. He had been working on a few projects that were more secretive than normal recently. Py would tease him when they saw each other and ask about the "sewer gators" since Euclid would not be reachable in the murkiness of wherever he was.
Py wanted to pick Euclid up at his place because it was just three doors away from his, but when Eu didn't answer it was clear they would have to go where he might be. Euclid had told everyone who paid for his time that it would not be for sale during the last two weeks of this month. Py knew better than to assume Euclid would just sit around and wait for everyone to show up. Not being home meant there would only be one place to find him. The long walk to his workspace came with large amounts of street food. Hero made sure to get extra for Euclid; she always looked out for everyone. If this walk to Euclid was any clue on what the next two weeks would be like, they would all need another week of vacation just to recover.
Reaching the building where Euclid made his lab the crew packed into an elevator that still had to be manually operated. The operator knew everyone and joined in the chaos as they all exchanged meaningful small talk and big laughs. Reaching their floor the elevator came to a stop and the heavy diamond pattern of copper slid into a mirror of vertical bars. Stepping out a strange feeling of something not being quite right flowed over them like steam from a hot shower rolling into a cool room.
The office lights that were still on confirmed that Euclid was here and most likely in his lab, but the sensation also hinted at the possibility of him bailing out of the trip. First, they needed to see him which meant getting into the locked lab. Py passed the first BioScan and Em provided the second needed to override the lockout. As the door swung open on its axis, they saw what the energy was telling them. The ordinarily sterile and minimalistic room looked like the soon to be emptied hoarder's home with Euclid in an off-centered nucleus of the chaos.
Euclid was visibly shaken, and it was clear that their plans for the upcoming weeks were in imminent danger. As Py looked at Hero it was clear that she sensed it too, but their shared gaze was silently hopeful. If Euclid got frustrated enough, he'd just abandon the mess and leave with them. That hope evaporated as soon as Em broke the silence and vomited the words everyone wanted to say but didn't.
OH…MY…GAWD! What the actual hell happened here!?! It looks like math had sex with a demon that threw up everywhere!
Hero punched Em's arm as her eyes widened and lips pursed in a way that said, shut up you know this is not the right time for that. A stifled gasp slipped out of Saylah that was part shock from Em, and part worry for Euclid.
Euclid: I wish there was a way I could just put things with other things — and they’d just work! I wish there was something that would help me help things talk to each other.
It doesn’t have to be secure; it just needs to do the laziest and most important thing ever. It just needs to have this dumb thing say hi to this other dumb thing.
Uncharacteristically, Euclid threw his hands up, contorting his face into the mocking exaggeration of a pre-teen mid-tantrum.
Euclid (yelling): BUT NOOOOOOO!!! That would be logical! It would be too dangerous to have a way to make these things interact through a common protocol! So now I have to build all this CRAP — and put things together using custom crap! Which just ends up with crap made from crap!
Choosing each footing carefully, Py started walking to his twin as he surveyed the carnage. Almost every surface had something on it. From what he was piecing together Euclid was actually building something, well some things… They looked like a mixture of Lego blocks and matchsticks that created another set of objects. The way it collapsed showed Py something only he could see. He saw his brother's thought process. He saw a cryptographer's logic. The same logic that Diffie-Hellman had in making the public key infrastructure. This was the problem, it was secure, and math would have made it strong, but it needed physical strength. Py could understand the beauty of cryptographic entropy.
Py: Looks like it worked…at some point. What happened?
Euclid: I bumped into it with my bag.
Py: Damn… is this for the "thing" you've been commissioned for?
Euclid: No, I finished that a few days after the contract was signed. This is for something much harder… I've been working on a token, well, tokens…
Py's face showed his disappointment. Euclid saw it and tears of anger formed in his eyes as he explained:
It's not like that. Only one person can solve this, but it's a multi-part token that leads you through different challenges. Em introduced me to the concept when she told me about the AI Agents that she was using for her pen-tests. The problem that I discovered, is that it's not as simple as she made it out to be. Each agent works differently, speaks its own language, and optimizes for different things. Getting them to collaborate without everything falling apart? Needed something that I thought I figured out.
By this time the whole squad was walking around taking notes careful to leave things where they fell as they slowly started making sense of the mess. Em was getting Euclid out of his mood in a way only she could. Somehow, she had worked herself onto his shoulders and was driving him around by his eyebrows as she asked what's this? What the hell was that? Can I eat that? Is this really how you see the world, must be nice to be tall.
He never spoke about his encryption algorithms or cyphers, but here he was explaining everything. It felt like he was asking for help without actually asking for help. Em was the only one understanding even a fraction of what he was saying. She was getting it, and Py was picking up on the concepts as he started moving things around.
Saylah was skillfully organizing the pieces and matching them with sketches as Yves was recording everything on his phone and making verbal notes about possible outcomes. Hero was being Hiro, taking in all the information at once as she stood in the best place to see everything and everyone; thoughtfully gnawing on her knuckle. This group of unlikely geniuses involuntarily slipped into a flow state as each took in the bits of information that Euclid was sharing. None of them had even the slightest clue what they were doing, but they were all equally invested.
The tech sabbatical was something that they all craved more than most anything else, and here they were delaying it because a puzzle had presented itself. Puzzles… If one thing connected all of them, it was the curiosity of solving the unsolvable. They were all experts in things that were so niche they could only speak freely about them to others that were in those respective realms too. This was their blessing and curse all wrapped up in one. As kids they all agreed that they would not talk about hard things unless Hero was there. She was the translator, the storyteller, the analogy expert who connected the seemingly unconnectable.
Py saw it first, then Em, next in a violent jolt (thanks to Em) Euclid saw it too. Hero took all the different colored markers from the dry-erase board and started connecting things, but it was random and disorganized. It didn't make sense, but each color seemed to call to a different person.
Em slid off Euclid's shoulders like a toddler as she rushed to her backpack and ripped the laptop out. As soon as it was opened, she didn't budge but her eyes danced between a darkened screen and the lab as she muttered to herself. Euclid stood there, obviously solving something only he could see. A sweet-smelling smoke started to permeate the lab as Saylah started working on an electrically conductive glue she invented. Py worked closely with her as they picked up mismatched shards and started to put them together.
Euclid started to say something, and Hero interrupted him with a click of her tongue, then pointed his attention to something else. He furrowed his brow, then went off to make an adjustment or two elsewhere. Yves was like a dancer who seemed to move in patterned chaos throughout the night. Between Hero and Euclid, everyone had been orchestrated like a team doing whatever it was they were doing, but they had done it a million times before.
The sun rose and fell. Food appeared and disappeared. Time stopped existing. Apart from a sound or two, the lab was silent. No words were spoken, no questions asked, just work being done organically. They were tools being connected to a purpose with the assistance of a translator who didn't even know the reason for putting one to another. The only one who had the slightest clue of what finished would look like had been Euclid.
He was sitting at a soldering station when he looked up, caught Saylah's eye, and swapped roles. She sat down to carry on an unknown task, when the first word of the adventure came in the form of her calling Py. As he walked to her, she rose, placing the piece she held on the workstation so Py could do the next thing.
The sound of a small drill was like a dinner bell for cowboys. Everyone was looking at him delicately drilling, connecting, and filling the holes with Saylah's solvent. It was cloudy but mesmerizing as he handed it to Saylah for polishing. As it went from matted to glossy the spectrum of colors stole everyone's breath. It was clear that this was as far as anyone other than Euclid would be able to take this.
Saylah handed it to Euclid, as Hero pulled on his shoulder to steal another look. As she opened her mouth, an inhalation of a speaking breath was stolen from her. Euclid started moving the piece around. Somewhere along the lines someone made it pressure sensitive, and he was working on a pattern of something only he understood. Watching his fingers was like looking at someone dancing with headphones on. When his tempo would break, it seemed right, fluid, and meaningful, not abrupt. Then he closed his hand around it and all the pieces that had been reconstructed or redesigned started to do something.
A sound that you could feel in your chest touched all of them at once and Euclid's hand began to glow. When he opened it, the piece looked alive and called everyone in. It was like a flame drawing in moths. They wanted to touch but couldn't. It wasn't theirs to hold even though they were part of its creation, so, instead of touching it, they all held Euclid. Tears began flowing from the tip of his nose into his hand. Emotions started overwhelming everyone. Em, who would never show any, felt her sinus constrict as tears started to blur her vision. Before a single drop of eyeball sweat slipped out she took control back and blurted out:
Okay snot rocket, now that you've stolen all this time from us can we get out of here and into nature so I can do a lot of doing nothing!
That's who she is and how she deals with complex emotions. Yves wouldn't know how to respond to this, but Euclid knew. He kicked her in the shin and she involuntarily fell forward to grab it and Euclid wrapped his arms around her. She didn't know if it was her shin or her lungs that hurt more as everyone else piled into the hug. Hero made sure to be first so she'd get the best angle to punish Em and squeezed her as tight as possible.
Gary had told them that "friends are the family you choose," and he was right. This is a family, and whoever solves Euclid's token will become part of it. No questions asked, just like Saylah. They were siblings with different parents, and all those parents treated them like they were theirs. They came together at different points in life. Em’s parents met Euclid and Py’s parents because their mothers shared a midwife and birthing room. Hero and the twins met in daycare, but Yves had only been part of the crew for just over a year. Pranks and silence were their love language. It's not clear who did it, but someone let out the loudest fart ever and it was felt all at once by the collective.
The single entity that was a group hug dispersed like water from a balloon hitting pavement from a three-story drop. One by one they all came out of their laughter and started getting their backpacks. They all knew that the puzzle had been solved and it was now time to move on. Euclid was off to the side looking at the token and all the other pieces that were now synced to the encryption he configured when Py told him:
You don't know what she'll look like, only that you'll know that you cannot live without her when she's near you. He then glanced at Saylah who was leaving the soundproof faraday cage that was Euclid’s workspace as the door automatically shut behind her.
He handed him the necklace that held the token he made. See if it fits and let's get out of here before they leave us.
There was no denying how close he and Py are. The token almost fit perfectly; Euclid just had to make a quick change to it so that it would put pressure on the latch. Looking around he saw that the only option he had was a greasy napkin. As he was laughing at the irony of this Em opened the door, poked her head into the room, and yelled:
Hey fart-master, let's get going already!
I wasn't the one that farted you half-sized human!
That's exactly what someone with earthquake cheeks would say! Em replied turning out of the doorway into the hall as Euclid yelled back in stuttered half thoughts. He would have to finish this argument later, but now he needed to lock up. He turned off the soldering station lamp, encrypted his computer that started the shutdown sequence, and entered the security activation code at the doorway before turning off the lights.
Standing at the elevator Em pushed the palms of her hands into her cheeks making a fart sound as Py slapped Euclid's pack off his shoulder, marking the official start to the remaining sabbatical time. The elevator operators booming laugh joined the chorus of Yves, Hero, Saylah and Em as Euclid yelled out:
Only the farter would keep farting Em!
As he threw his pack over his shoulder and raced Py to the elevator, his token swayed with his strides as a symbol of his family today and a beacon for the one to come in an unknown tomorrow.