Time's Up: Every Moment Counts

by Vasu Velamur

  Ranga whistled a song from “Alaipayuthey” and danced like Madhavan (actor). Vashist tried to get the warmth of the water to be exactly 86 degrees centigrade for his bath. He blended both hot and cold water into the tub and stuck his index finger to gauge the correct heat. Vindhya thought about only one thing, dinner. What should she have for the night with this current hunger level? She heard her stomach rumble sounds, and it got louder and louder.

  The device was kept in Ranga’s room and placed on top of the cot. They were busy hunting for a charging point. The outer case of the device had no gaps, slots, or any sign of a charging port. It mesmerized them. They did not know how to power up the device, nor could they charge it. Hunger reminded them to take a shower and gather again to investigate the device later.

  Vindhya was the first to come out dressed, and she was way happy after a hot shower. She could get into her dress—the night suit and with her hair opened up. She was ready to invade the dinner. The trekking attire that covered her entire body was not part of her normal wardrobe. Now in her backyard, she bubbled with energy and waited for Ranga to join. Ranga was also quite casual in his attire for the dinner. He had the device in hand, waiting for Vashist, who they knew would come dressed in formal nightwear. He did not disappoint them when he entered with a red and white striped pajama with matching Kurta.

  “Guys, let’s finish dinner and sit with this device please” begged Vindhya.

  “I’m too hungry and need to grab something soon,” said Vashist. He adjusted his kurta to let more air go inside his stomach.

  ‘Alright then, I arranged a table for us in the restaurant. Let’s move fast”.

  The rest followed her with only food in their mind.

  Saturday 8:42 PM

  The dinner was over and they had sumptuous hands at the buffet present. They were charged up for the night session. The entire group played “Antakshari” because of the rain which spoiled their campfire plans. The three in question went to the terrace and explored the device, and planned to join the group later.

  “First, let us experiment with this device and then connect with the group” suggested Vindhya. With a big beeda in her mouth, her words were not distinct. “It’s not fair to avoid any group events”.

  Ranga picked his teeth. “Yes, I also think we should join, but a bit later.”

  Vashist nodded since his mouth was full of gulab jamun. He was busy munching them. The excitement in the air was too much for them. As soon as the lift door opened, the 3 rushed out and went into a corner. There was a single light and some wooden chairs arranged as though set for them.

  They sat in a round table fashion and Ranga was the first to get his hands on the device. He tried pushing and pressing at all corners of the device, but the screen did not work. As time went on, desperation grew. Everyone tried their hand at getting the device to power it on. After 10 minutes of sheer struggle, none of them could get it to work.

  “What a waste of time. It looks fantastic, but the impact of falling on the ground could have wrecked the device. A cute one” said Vindhya, rubbing the device like a cat.

  ‘Impact is not the cause” jumped in an irritated Vashist “we do not know the power button. If we get hold of it, then it’s easy”

  “If you are so sure, why don’t you find it?”

  “Yes, I am going to. Will take some more time”

  “How much—for once I want to time keep you, Vashy”

  “Give me exactly 5”

  “Done, not a second more” said Vindhya and set the timer on her phone, “but I’ll try it out first”

  She grabbed the device from Ranga and meddled with it. The boys turned over the parapet wall and looked at the moon. Not knowing what to do after 2 minutes of exploring, she got frustrated at the blank screen. When about to throw the device at Vashist, something strange happened. The device immediately powered up. It displayed amazing south Indian dishes placed for dinner as a screensaver. This jolted Vindhya and she got up and shrieked, “Guys come and have a look at this screen, I promise”.

  The other two sprung up and came close but saw only a blank black screen. Vindhya begged them to believe her “I am sure I saw a beautiful south Indian dinner set on a beach front”.

  “Then how come it is gone now?” asked a curious Vashist

  “OK, let me say that I believe you for a second. Tell me what did you do to bring that?”

  “I did nothing, stared at the screen, and thought about dinner.”

  “Then let me try it out. How long did you stare?”

  “Around a minute”

  Vashist did the same thing, and then the screen powered up again. This time, instead of the dinner table, something else popped up. It was a movie poster for the Avengers series. Both Vashist and Vindhya were in a state of shock. Vashist said, “I was planning to go to this movie next weekend and thought about that a few minutes back.”

  Then both of them gave the device to see what came up for Ranga, but he refused. He was in a deep thinking mode. He was sure that this device would be of some use to them in finding out what crashed the helicopter. “If I am right, this device should be operate-able and will help us find out about the crash,” pondered Ranga. He also agreed with them that the device showed what is deep inside the mind of those who held it.

  The minutes ran and Vindhya got pure enjoyment as Vashist struggled with the device. The timer clock was reset again. When Vindhya counted the last 10 seconds, Vashist threw the device on the center table. He shouted aloud “Damm it, How does someone switch this thing on—I think we need to cut open the screen”

  The moment the words OPEN came out of his mouth, the device screen blinked. After 2 seconds, the device was functional. It had the face of a lion set as the wallpaper. Everyone was elated and gathered around the center table. At last, they found the mechanism; it was a voice-activated system. Hence no power button was present. To check out, Vashist immediately said, “Shut down.” Then the device flashed ‘Shutdown in Progress’ and within 2 seconds it went blank.

  “Hey Vashist, give it to me. Do not play now. We have very little time,” Ranga requested the control of the device. “Let me see what’s there inside it”.

  “Vashist, yes, give it to him and let’s not waste time playing with it” tiptoed Vindhya and went to her seat.

  Ranga once again gave the command ‘OPEN’ and waited for the device to start up. The wallpaper came and then he tried to swipe across the screen to get into the device’s main screen. The next hurdle popped up.

  On the screen were 6 dashes, and it was asking for the password.

  “Shit” Ranga said in frustration “it’s going to take a while to find it out. We cannot open it without a password.”

  “‘Why not try to factory reset it, then we can set a new password,” suggested Vashist.

  “And lose all the data that is there, let’s try a few known passwords first”

  “like?”

  “‘ADMIN123”

  “Try it. Let us see. I doubt a sophisticated device like this to have such an easy password”

  “What’s wrong with trying?”

  “Guys” intruded Vindhya “Stop fighting and see if we can get the device to work”

  Ranga started typing and then did some more typing and then more typing. He seemed to be keen to crack the password, but could not. “What can it be?” he thought aloud.

  “If at least we knew who the owner was, then we can try something” smiled a cynical Vashist. “Right now it’s like searching for a needle in the haystack”.

  While this was on, the screen suddenly displayed a HINT button. Ranga became energized once again with a hint. He pressed the hint button, and the screen displayed an 8 digit number. He read the next numbers in the series, followed by 8 dashes. The number was 5-6-9-1-0-4-4-9

  “Great” sighed Vindhya “this is going to be an endless night. See, art is my area, so I leave this to you guys but make it fast”

  “Sure we will,”
replied Ranga, who was now energized. If you quiz him with a puzzle, he will make sure he solved it before he sleeps. Vashist was equal to the task. Since he is very methodical and time conscious, he was not in a mood to go for it but wanted to help Ranga,

  “This does not look like a Fibonacci series, nor does it look like a magic square,” said Vashist. He tried to help them and wanted to go to sleep soon.

  “This does not look like the Gray code or the busy beaver sequence to me”

  ”To me, this is not a hint but a total distraction to throw the device down,” said a sarcastic Vindhya. “It’s above your IQ Ranga”

  “Let it be, but I will not sleep without solving this one.”

  He murmured the Grandi’s series formula, then the Turing machine series formula. Vashist, for his contribution, dug into calculus for patterns. To Vindhya, it looked like a series of random numbers with no logic.

  “Guys, I do not think that there is any logic here” she yawned and showed that sleep was around the corner.

  “Hey, Vin, even random numbers have a formula hence it is not tough to crack this one.”

  15 minutes passed and no change in the situation. They had no clue on how to link these numbers to a series and find the next one. Vindhya had helped them by getting a few plain sheets of paper and now they were all gone. Done with lots of formulas and scratches and shredded pieces. The two guys were completely focused on the puzzle and not ready to leave the place.

  “Look here guys, either we sleep or join the game with the group” requested Vindhya. “There is no use sitting here endlessly”.

  “What do we do then?” asked Vashist.

  ‘We can try to solve this before we leave for back for college’

  “Give us 10 more minutes. That’s all is required,”

  He and Ranga did a high-five and gestured to her for 10 last minutes. The counter restarted. Vindhya listened to Kishore Kumar’s songs and watched the moon above. She was so confident that the 10 minutes would run out and these guys could not make it. Some time passed, and she called out “Hey guys, only 4 minutes left.”

  To break the monotony of the silence, Vindhya called to the guys. “Hey Vashist, if you can help me can you go down and get me some of those Raspberry Pie tarts, please. You cannot solve it anyway”

  “Shut up, Vin. I cannot do it and we are almost done cracking it now. Don’t disturb us with your strawberry kinds of stuff”

  “It’s not strawberry, it’s Raspberry”

  “Hush, stop it Vindhya”

  Ranga got up and asked, “what do you want?”

  “I want Raspberry Pie tarts” whispered Vindhya, not to disturb Vashist

  “That’s it—Got it,”

  “What you got it, I only told you. They had raspberry pie tarts there”

  “No—I got the sequence” Ranga rushed towards his phone but could not find it. ‘Vashy, can you do a little help for me?”

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “Open google and type the first 100 digits of Pi for me”

  Vashist did as instructed and this is what it showed in his phone browser

  Digits of Pi First 100 decimal places

  3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679

  Ranga snatched the phone from Vashist and ran through the sequence again. Then once again yelled, “Yes, got it. Didn’t I tell you?”

  “What?” asked Vindhya.

  “Here it is. These numbers are the 10th, 20th, 30th digit of Pi. The sequence. So the next sequence is 11th,21st, 31st, etc. So the value for the next 8 digits is 8-2-5-6-5-5-0-8.”

  Ranga typed hurriedly the values in the password screen and hit the enter button. And Ho—they were into the device. Ranga then ran and hugged both of them, and happiness and energy once again flowed into them. He said “thanks Vin for your pie tart, that was the hint that made me solve the problem”

  “If you had solved or not, I would have gone there to have some now. So come on guys let’s enjoy the success in a befitting manner”.

  Ranga and Vashist were still in the euphoria of solving the series and did not know what was going on there. She rushed to the lift. Once inside the lift, they all agreed that they would explore the device tomorrow morning. Now they would go have the desserts and join the gang for Anthakshari.

  ∞∞∞

  Chapter-3

  The First Puzzle

  Sunday 8:22AM

  The sun was shining brightly and chances of the downpour like last night had low probability as of now. It was clear skies and perfect weather for the planned activities. They had planned to visit the tea museum and the organic spices farm nearby. While the entire group got excited, the three friends never displayed the same. The entire group was ready for a sumptuous breakfast. It comprised steaming Idlies, hot Pongal, Vadai, and watermelon juice.

  The friends agreed that while going to the museum, they would spend their time exploring the device. The search for the truth of what happened moments before the crash was their primary aim. They packed a small backpack with the device and extra food for the way. They mingled casually with the others after their separate trekking episode. Others in the group demanded details about the trekking experience. All were curious and surrounded her since she was the right person to spill out the details. The other two boys were tight-lipped and moody, too.

  “So how was the trek yesterday? You still look tired” said one friend.

  ‘Oh! It was great. You guys missed the fantastic scenery. The sunset and the deluged rains,” went on Vindhya “and we still live that experience”

  “Only you say that,” commented one girl “look at the other two guys. They look like beaten black and blue by a grizzled bear”. Everyone laughed. Vindhya twitched her mouth but then got back in control. “Look at the photos and then talk baby” Vindhya’s response was sharp for once.

  “Sure we want to see them,” said the girl with both her thumbs upwards.

  “Let me collect all the photos from the 3 phones and upload them to the cloud and then share it with you”

  “Sure, but do it by today, please. Not at your usual speed” commented one more girl. Everyone clapped and did their ritual Hi-Fi with each other. Defaming Vindhya was one of their favourite pastimes.

  Irritated, Vindhya left the group and went near the guys. She mumbled, “only if these two guys behaved normally they will not troll me like this”

  “Ignore them Vin” said Ranga, as usual, still meddling with his phone “they are always like that.”

  “What do you mean they don't do the same? Stop poking your phone and come mingle with others please”.

  “OK, but only till we finish the breakfast, then we fiddle with the device. Accept?”

  “Done.

  The three of them got up and went with the crowd for some hot breakfast.

  Sunday 9:02 AM

  Nothing happened during the entire duration of the breakfast. Except for a few recycled old jokes in new WhatsApp forward messages. It was about vadai and Vadivelu jokes. As time went by, the three friends grew anxious about when the group would dissolve. They wanted to explore the new device.

  Vindhya was the most anxious and hinted in many indirect and direct ways of saying let’s get to the room first. Get to the room and then decide what the plan is for today. As the train was in the evening, no outdoor activities were planned. This gave the group the much needed time to be alone.

  While Vindhya was busy rushing back to the room, Vashist appeared, busy searching for the papers. A puzzled Vindhya enquired, “Hey Vashy, what are you looking for? Train timing?”