“It’s called a fifty one percent attack, occurring only when one hacker gains the majority of a network’s computing power. Hence the name.”

Cameron Lowes, his legs crossed and straddling his CloudTop, has waited fifty eight minutes of the sixty minute lecture at the edge of restraint. At the mention of hackers he shoots his hand up.

“Though it is the greatest weakness to any blockchain, a network of sufficient and decentralization reduces the chances of any organized party seizing enough nodes to make such an attack possible.”

Cameron’s arm twitches. He flings it around like a renegade garden hose before yelling “Mr. Musil!” No heads turn to Cameron, for this is not anything unusual in Blockchain 101.

Professor Musil scans the room, searching for any student aside from Cameron who has pointed out the inaccuracy. Of course there are none. “You have the floor, Cameron.” Musil completes the statement with an audible sigh.

The sophomore computer engineering student shifts from his cross legged stance to plant both feet on the floor. He’s in the driver’s seat now. “You need to cross your T’s in ‘fifty’.”

This time the students sit up, snapping close their foldable smartphones and leaning closer to see that Musil had indeed left one stray line from the title on the whiteboard.

The professor’s grin does not show teeth, the ringed lights from the ceiling making the slits look like a snake’s. He wants to retort, Cameron knows, but risks seeming prejudicial among the first row liberal arts majors, who are only enrolling in Digital Currencies 101 because they heard it was the easiest elective. It’s only easy because Musil makes it easy.

“Attentive as always, Cameron.” His footsteps to the blackboard are tiny bouts of laughter, Cameron’s not withstanding.

It takes five minutes after the lecture resumes before Cameron zones out once again, this time examining the curves of the whiteboard’s aluminum frame. They remind him of a castle’s walls, too rigid and too uniform to be organic, their logic and efficiency evoking their own beauty. Musil’s whiteboard canvas—the fortress’s hollow centre—holds the remnants of the professor’s thoughts warred with marker. They resemble a hundred sketches Cameron has seen before in popular tech magazines. His interest wanes in an instant.

“Lowes. Hey.” The prodding voice comes from beside Cameron, freckle-faced with red hair in braids that look not unlike a cable bus. Cherry lips. “Semiconductor's next. Let’s peace?”

The arts majors from the front row lean against the hallway outside the lecture hall, their wearables hanging from their necks. Cameron eyes the devices, appraising their worth, long enough to garner inquisitive stares. “I bet they don’t know half of what those are capable of.”

Before Cameron says something he regrets, Liza pulls him out of earshot of the artw majors. “If you didn’t always stress the little shit then Musil wouldn’t throw you sixties. Have some sense.”

“I’m doing worse than those leftist pricks?” Cameron makes to turn but stops at Liza’s surprisingly firm grip. “Shit. Have you been working out?”

Liza releases her hold, walking in pace beside them down a hallway of clear glass looking out into the university’s preserved courtyard. Red and brown leaves form piles underneath the skeletal trees, matching the sad brown stone behind them. The sky is overcast and Cameron guesses it will rain in the next seventeen minutes.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

But despite the drab undertones, Cameron had long since moved the image of his home from the farmland of southern Idaho to here. He was city, through and through, and could never return home.

“Read it to me again,” says Liza. “Actually, just the title.”

Cameron’s phone is ten generations back, too new to be vintage but too old for anyone to recognize. Hitachi lasted barely one whole fiscal year before its CEO was arrested for violating sanctions, crushing operating system support and fading the network into obscurity. What’s left is a little corner of the WWW, unsupported. He’s happy with that.

“Everything is Calculable: A Departure from the Arts.”

Liza laughs, almost stops him from walking as they round a corner. “I believe Musil attended a liberal arts school, but yes, even still, you’re sick. What will we have once the calculating engines take over?”

“Our bodies. Our judgment.”

“Both are art.”

“Aesthetics can be calculated! Proportions are appealing. Nose shape, width between the eyes, curve of the jaw line. Balance is the be-all-and-end-all.”

Liza shakes her head, but the conversation halts at the front door to the semiconductor lecture hall. Inside are the other sophomores, barely two weeks in and already gripping vente sized coffee cups with skeleton hands. They stick in pairs or solo, too soon to form cliques tied not to hometowns but to the scripting languages they prefer, along with shared interest in solo projects. It’s not a surprise that a quarter of them will drop out early when discovering the next big augmented reality app, or something more nefarious.

But even the sophomores, with their heads tilted down to their cellphones that occupy corner networks, are too engrossed to be usual. It’s then that Cameron gets the idea to pull out his own phone and tune into the campus news feed.

“Did you see anything?” he asks.

Liza scrolls through the same channels on her over sized foldable. “Nothing. Check the National Post.”

Cameron sighs, knowing he would have no other reason to review such slander, but does so and sees “Nothing. Where else?”

They spend a minute scouring the front pages of the Web, finding nothing telling. Whatever it is must be fresh, emerging, trending. It will spike in two minutes, but that’s nothing like discovering it right now. What channels were these guys perusing?

The first clue comes on the tongues of two boys in the front row, murmuring to themselves, looking up once they see Liza.

She leans over. “Something interesting?” She lets loose a won smile meant to carouse the two.

They seem to not notice it, or the pleasure sensors in their brains are dulled by streaming porn, vape drugs or stunted growth. Cameron tries his luck, puts a hand on Liza’s shoulder. “Old news already,” he says.

The fatter of the two boys looks at the other as if the words are an affront to his masculinity. “Black Fire,” he says to Cameron, leaning back in his chair. “Ever heard of that shit, softy?”

Softy? “I’m third year, noob,” Cameron says, wondering if it passes.

Liza, tapping into a channel of social awareness that Cameron is completely ignorant of, puts a hand on his hip. “Sorry to bother you,” she says, donning that smile once again, “but Black Fire? Where can I play that?”

Fat and Fatest sigh, but it’s the latter who speaks again. “It’s not a game, you know. It’s a drug. Black Fire. The Black. Into the Black, get it? Once you go-”

“I get it,” says Cameron. “What about it?”

The boys look to be fed up with this newfound ignorance. The lesser of the two fatties turns his phone so Cameron and Liza can see. “The Devs are back, and they’re stirring up shit already. What’s their game?”

The Devs. Cameron lets that point sink in, having forgotten the name for so long that, for a moment, he can’t trace it. But he does, and he turns, pulling Liza to the side. “Liz?”

“Yeah?” The girl squirms only for a moment to pull her arm away. “What is it?”

“Let me copy your notes again, please. My mom’s calling.”

Liza blinks before nodding and walking back into Semiconductors 101. Right behind her is the substitute instructor, Cameron forgets his name, but knows he’s down Liza’s backside not because he’s interested in her shoes. The instructor closes the door, leaving Cameron pacing outside.

Why now? He thinks.