Page 32 of The Statistically Unlikely Reunion

I’m up by five the next morning, but by the time I peek into my bedroom, Lucas is already gone. He’s taken the painkillers and the Gatorade and left me a note:

I’m telling Brody you served me Gatorade. Or, in his words, Satan’s piss.

It’s what he’s written underneath that makes my blood run cold. Instead of writing his name, Lucas signed it Sagittarius A*.

And if he was sober enough to hear that much, who knows what else his clever mind has figured out.

10

IT’S. NOT. EVEN. CLOSE

BEFORE

Everything at regionals goes our way.

Because it’s what Lucas and Brody trust me to handle, I distribute the problems after skimming each. I can tell right away that the fates are with us.

Two of the problems happen to align with the combinatorics sections I’d assigned myself. There’s a physics-adjacent problem that makes Brody do a little jig when I hand it to him, earning us suspicious looks from the nearby teams.

Five are right in Lucas’s wheelhouse. I don’t expect him to finish all of them.

Except of course he does.

He’s Lucas Fucking Murray, the guy Caltech grad students come to when they’re struggling with their algorithmic problem sets.

Brody and I each solve and code three, and when I see that Lucas is struggling with his last solution, I take over. It’s not hard for me to see the small error he made, and I’m the faster coder. By the time I look up, we’ve completed eleven out of twelve.

The second-place team, from UCSD, has solved nine.

I was so lost in the last bit of coding that I forgot to check the scoreboard. It takes a moment for me to realize the Arjun-Xinzhe-Dmitry trio has only finished eight, which means it’s not even close.

Dmitry’s words.

It’s. Not. Even. Close.

Arjun is so furious he slams the ICPC-provided laptop and doesn’t stop cursing until one of the judges comes over to reprimand him officially. “My father will buy you a new one—he’ll buy everyone here a new one.” Arjun’s voice is dismissive, as if the expense of a new laptop is trivial.

The official remains (unsurprisingly) unimpressed. “You can apologize, and then we can start some paperwork.”

Arjun backs down immediately and shuffles towards his teammates, muttering about the unfairness of today’s competition, that the problems at last year’s worlds were far more sophisticated, requiring a much higher degree of understanding. More nuanced coding.

Basically implying-not-implying that Arjun himself didn’t fail . . . the judges and contest-writers failed him.

The awards ceremony has barely concluded when Arjun approaches Lucas, who has his head down, still scribbling on a scratch piece of paper trying to figure out that twelfth problem. No use telling Lucas the contest is over—he’s never been able to walk away from a puzzle.

It takes a couple of tries before Arjun finally manages to get Lucas’s attention.

“You can tell them she had an emergency.”

Arjun is still in dress slacks and a now-wrinkled button-down. His formal bandhgala has been tossed to the side, but his attire makes it clear—he expected to not just place, but win. He was photo-ready for his moment.

And now, he’s in damage-control mode.

“You’ve proven your point. You’re the man. You solved five. I’ll even admit I missed what an untapped talent Brody is.” Arjun looks at Brody, who raises an eyebrow, derailing Arjun completely. “You happy? You’re Lucas Fucking Murray, you break curves and see the shit other people miss. But you can’t seriously be considering going to nationals with Lorelai?”

Lucas is silent, and Arjun leans forward, a note of urgency in his tone. “If she has an emergency, if she can’t make it, we’re allowed to apply for a substitute. Take me to nationals and I’ll get you to worlds.”

While I don’t believe Lucas would betray me, I hate that Arjun has identified me as the weakest link.