The Venomous Agendas competition calendar was simply infernal, but the AMC12 was offered even for those who weren't part of the official team. Some decided to participate at the last minute, caught in the Math Madness frenzy, so that, even though the official team took the A version, many people were ready to enter the B version, whose school entry was paid out of playoff revenues. Including Randy, Shane, Ted, Curtis, Zack (the strong safety) and Florence. Especially with the promise of extra credit for the first four math classes...
It was obvious that the chances that one of those supernumerary contestants qualifying for the AIME were low; yet several questions asked during the first three rounds were drawn from past AIME editions. But with the first-round victory, now the playoff frenzy went beyond the town alone; the parish media made it so that the whole parish had their eyes on the Venomous Agendas as the Southern regional final draws near. And the neighboring parish whose school was eliminated in the first round as well, but beyond these two parishes there wasn't any real interest.
Elsewhere in the state, people instead turned to the high school football championship. Without necessarily reaching Texan proportions, it was still an event people clearly preferred to a mathletic tournament.
Speaking of second and third rounds, however, the Venomous Agendas beat respectively the Owls of the Archimedean Upper Conservatory (Florida) and the Colonials of the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (Virginia). The latter constitute the biggest mathletic rivals of their next opponent, Whitman. However, the Vikings start wondering if the Venomous Agendas would not become their other big mathletic rival.
"Oh, crap... it's the Venomous Agendas again! We beat the Village School last week, but the Venomous Agendas?" Zhou, the one that blamed Geneviève for their SRA loss, questions again.
"Venomous Agendas? They were the only team that defeated us in the regular season, but we shall show them that the playoffs are another game entirely!" the coach then points out to the team.
"What are we doing wrong that we can't seem to defeat the Venomous Agendas when it counts? There are three players to neutralize!" a Vikings mathlete asks them.
"We can't "neutralize" a player in this competition the way we could neutralize a player in a football or a basketball game!" another Vikings mathlete sermons him.
"Gen caused us to lose the Square Root of the Answer last year, she also caused us to lose our regular-season game! If we can't counter her, we're toast!" Zhou screams at his teammates and is about to strangle one.
"Zhou, if anything, Marcia is the greater threat, not Gen. Obviously, Gen is a very good player, but Marcia is just faster. She's the fastest opposing player we ever faced"
"Remember our loss against the Venomous Agendas; it was a very tight game, and it came down to her vs me! From here on out every game will be tightly fought! As before, we must take them out now or face the consequences later!" Zhou keeps believing that Geneviève is responsible for all of Whitman's mathletic problems on the national stage.
"Now, the game will begin in a few moments. Third time's the charm, right?"
The parish newspaper, the school announcements talk of tonight's game as a game that is billed as a third clash of mathematical titans, an inter-state rivalry as it can't happen at the high school level otherwise. But one of Zhou's teammates makes the mistake of treating this game as if it was played in person. In the Venomous Agendas' locker room, while the group's equipment is being installed...
"You're all nervous, I see it. But we are now too deep in to give up now. We beat them in the regular season, we can do so in the playoffs, and the bursts of speed are ours! It would be a little disappointing if there was someone among you five that does not qualify for the AIME, especially when we consider that some short-answer questions are drawn from past AIMEs!" Trent designates the five players whom he can rely on to be part of the top 5 no matter what.
Bizarre... I wonder why my other two female teammates put so much pressure on themselves for this tournament. Krista I would understand because the AIME is comparatively less stressful vs playoffs including the same questions, but Geneviève seemed to have anxiety at times. She appears much less sick in the SRA preliminary round in January, but the higher the competition level, the sicker she gets, Marcia thinks, while, for some reason, she doesn't seem to have intense dizziness or migraines.
"As a precautionary measure, please all take your energy drink cans before the game! No matter what happens, I want you to know this. It's the experience of a lifetime that will inspire future Venomous Agendas classes to take their studies seriously!" Marcia then distributes the drinks.
"It's everything the town, the parish even, talked about for weeks! But the good sign is that the new students will have more extra credit in math than ever" Vontae points out while the new students can, in comparison, take their time to answer the questions.
"The parish is used to see us win in the mathletic arena, and we must be judicious in our bursts of speed! It could have worked against opponents like Permian or Georgetown Prep, but here we're not talking about that kind of opponents; everyone can win it all from now on" Geneviève points out.
"Stop making us panic!" Cory asks her girlfriend, visibly on the verge of panicking.
"Don't panic. Please apologize if we kept radio silence during the playoffs, but since we have the impression that our performances don't count in the result..." a more marginal player complains.
"I say, just do your best and cross your fingers for the AIME" the coach tells him.
Ouch. It's like being a second stringer, or even a third stringer, on a championship team. Yes, there is joy, but if we believe certain films, some TV shows, this joy can quickly prove to be a poisoned gift, the second line representative thinks, especially when he imagines that some players in his situation could exploit collective titles on their college applications to create false expectations because they contributed almost nothing other than their presence.
Once in position for this quarterfinal game, the Venomous Agendas face, once again, the deafening sound of the crowd of 4600 that purchased $15 tickets to see their favorites solve mathematics problems at the center of the football field... speaking of problems, Zhou scores the first point of the game.
"Unlike what the Venomous Agendas usually did this season, for the first time, the opponents scored the first point" Randy tells his teammate.
"Oh?" Ted asks, bewildered.
"Marcia will score our first point, as per usual..."
The Venomous Agendas seem, as hard as they try, to keep their heads above water, and they do so for the first two problems. Even if Marcia scored their first point, the third problem represents a golden opportunity to take the lead.
That the probability to have twice the same color by taking a ball in each bucket is worth 0.58, I willingly accept. We then have 0.4*16/(16+N)+0.6N/(16+N) = 29/50. Or again 320/(16+N)+30N/(16+N) = 29, or 320+30N = 29N + 464, thus N = 144, Vontae thinks while, for the first time of the season, he scores the first point on a problem.
"The Venomous Agendas are in the lead, eleven to ten!" the home announcer howls on the PA system.
"Venomous! Agendas! Venomous! Agendas!" the crowd chants, Curtis included.
But why, despite that I answered faster than even Vontae, I didn't score a point? Did I get it wrong on either of the first two questions without knowing? the representative of the second line wonders, desperate to show that he can contribute to the team's successes.
As questions go on, the lead is gained and lost very quickly, and everyone listening to either the parish radio or is at the stadium only cares about the scoreboard, and the rapid motion of numbers on it; the problems become increasingly harder. The following problem starts bothering everyone. It's about a tray that's made with a particular cut of length square root of 17 in a corner; the other details are losing people, other than the answer can be expressed under the for Nth root of M, and we must calculate M+N. This time, Geneviève answers first, taking the lead with the answer of 861, but it seems that the doubt is sown on both sides; both sides try their best but the Venomous Agendas have been a little slow, knowing that any error can cost them, as much as there are three right triangles to consider.
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"Both teams are tied; both teams played a perfect game. The tiebreaker is the average completion time. And the winner of this quarterfinal game is..." the home announcer shouts in the system with a drum roll. Whitman.
"Boo!"
And thus, the Venomous Agendas leave the football field under the boos of the crowd, very disappointed about their elimination in a tiebreaker. It was the biggest mathletic game for most people on the team and lose such an important game hurts them a lot. That, even though the last question was actually a final AIME question from a past year.
However, the atmosphere at Bethesda is different while the Vikings won by a tiny margin. Especially for Zhou.
"Finally, we have beaten these God-forsaken Venomous Agendas! They caused us problems all season, and they caused us problems in the Square Root of the Answer before that!" Zhou triumphantly points out.
"If it took the tiebreaker to win against them, then we must be fully prepared for the final four to come down to tiebreakers! I can't imagine, say, University High Trojans to be somehow worse than the Venomous Agendas" the coach then sermons the players.
"Speaking of University High, they clinched the Western division. But we don't know yet which divisional champion we'll play next" another mathlete points out.
"Regardless of who we play, we must treat them all the same as we had the Venomous Agendas; they had what it takes to go all the way, they played very good games all season long. Except that there is no boogeyman for us to exploit" Zhou adds his comments.
"Wait a minute; are we talking about the same University High that won it all two years ago? That school in California?" another mathlete is questioning.
And then the whole team feels like this defeat broke their backs. A close loss, yes, but that devastated everyone. Everyone is ready to scream at each other in the locker room, even the second stringers.
"How is that possible?" asks Marcia, furious of seeing that the burst of speed which has been her trademark, hasn't worked here. "We played the best game of our lives and we were beaten by an irreducible fraction of a second?"
"How will this loss make us look to the eyes of colleges? Will we be able to put this on our college applications?" Vontae asked, after being exposed to several players that already started their college application process, asks what that implies.
"Even going into the quarterfinals of a national mathematics tournament already represents a big mathletic success that most people, even those who dream of Ivies, and attend them, can only accomplish in a dream. That said, I am responsible for this loss", announces a Cory that seems visibly affected. I have been a little slow on this sequence.
"You might have been responsible for this loss, but we all had a role to play! Even though, in our hearts, we know we lost by a fraction of a second, the public will not see it as a simple photo-finish loss! It really wasn't much, I could have been faster on the last question" Krista adds her lament.
"Krista, you seemed happy to be here; you were saying that you came here to participate in contests that your old schoolwould never have been able to do, you were ready to transfer just to compete with me! Now that you tasted it, you are telling me that the public will not see our loss as a simple photo-finish loss?" Gen questions her teammate with a tone that leaves no doubt about her state of mind.
"It's obvious that the town gives a lot more attention to you than to even Marcia or me. You're the star here, for the town every success, and failures, too, of this team goes through you first and foremost! But I don't regret anything"
I might be wondering if the parish media will remain as jingoist as in the regular season... from now on everything will be about the VMC! Our pretty run is now over, for most of us there won't be a next time. The public will only take away, from this season, a score and a ranking, to their eyes, we are the brightest students in the parish! Gen thinks while this discussion seems to go in circles.
The next day, a joker placed « For sale » posters in front of the houses of the team members as well as the coach's, as if that joker wanted to auction off the members of the team to the highest bidder for the AIME and the VMC after this bitter loss against Whitman. She had a conversation with her mother:
"Can you explain me what this sign means? Who did that?" Gen's mom asks her daughter.
"We lost last night; it was very tight, and it took very little" Gen answers her mother.
"I was on the first row last night and you were the fastest on the last question"
"I blame myself: if I was a few seconds faster, if my teammates were a few seconds faster, here we are and we would be in the semi-final! To win we would have needed to play three games like this one..."
"I don't understand the questions, and neither does dad. Don't be so harsh on yourself, nor your team"
"Don't be so harsh on yourself, nor your team? Easier said than done, especially when we made sacrifices during the past three months and the crowd was next to useless this season! If I attended any other school, we might have been in an announcement at most, and you would probably be among the only ones to follow us but here, the entire parish is, or rather was, behind us! Until the very end"
"But the parish newspaper went with a bold prediction, not about the VMC but another contest"
"The parish newspaper knows nothing about mathletics beyond the Math Madness and the VMC. We might be the Southern vice-champions, but what prediction could it make? Our defeat took everyone by surprise!"
"Look at this: the parish newspaper predicts that one between Krista and you will qualify for, hang on tight, the EGMO!"
"Has the parish newspaper lost its mind? We lost in the Math Madness quarterfinals, a competition, that does not go further than questions on the AIME and they still dare claim that I am good enough for the EGMO? From what I know about this competition, it's much more difficult than everything the Math Madness, the AIME or the VMC could throw at me! I might have had a perfect season, and Krista too, but the EGMO is a long-proof competition; the VMC as well but the VMC is much more accessible than the EGMO! On top of that my preparation for the EGMO is woefully inadequate!"
"But still!"
"Being able to excel at a certain level does not mean we can take the next step. Marcia said she wasn't the same kind of mathlete as I"
"What do you mean? All that I have seen from her this season is that she's very good, too"
"She's more of the kind to answer without understanding what the answer is made of. For an event where speed is important, you want someone like her, so long as the event isn't too hard. If it's for an attempt to qualify for the EGMO you want either me or Krista. Now that this tournament is over, I might be wondering what glory my teammates can take away from it. Speaking of which, I must make a couple of adjustments on my college applications"
A few moments later, there are angry Venomous Agendas fans, mad at Gen, who show up on her doorstep with pitchforks on hand, and don't take it kindly to her...
"How could you do this to us? You were supposed to lead us to victory, mathletic glory!" Zack screams at her.
"We incurred a devastating loss on the national stage! Give us a good reason for us to let you continue to study here!" screams a Florence whose face becomes basic (i.e., red).
"Listen, this game was lost by an irreducible fraction of a second. Yes, I could have answered a few seconds faster, but the same went of my teammates!" Gen vehemently clamors. "There are two opportunities left to win again this season, the AIME and the VMC"
"You made it so that people went around solving special math problems that are much harder than the exams for extra credit and for what purpose? To stress them out?" asks a parent of a student in geometry.
"What are these questions?" asks the child of the unhappy parent, while showing the questionnaire. "We never covered the material to solve this!"
"You think the administration stresses the students out intentionally with the promise of extra credit? The administration simply wanted to give a chance to students to do what their idols did, just with more time. I am sure that, when the AIME comes, there will be takers for extra credit. On top of that, the mathletic contests that we enter bring benefits so that we get better in class by solving harder problems than what's on the tests. Hence the systematic usage of extra credit when competitions are underway" Gen explains to the angry mob.
Is that it? Geneviève is describing the kinds of things that make me green of jealousy towards Randy and Ted! They can count on their girlfriends for practically any academic issue, I can't! Zack thinks while Geneviève realizes that the way the administration relentlessly pursued mathletic glory is causing serious damage...
"You pushed the town to make intellectual excesses! Because of the competition's intellectual excesses, a lot of our students are traumatized of the material because of false promises of extra credit!" Zack accuses Gen.
"Zack? Zack!"
Geneviève starts hyperventilating, as if the words intellectual excesses triggers a panic attack in her. Last time I had a panic attack over intellectual excesses, it started with Krista, and now I am held responsible for all the intellectual excesses this extra credit plan could have caused in this town? What did I do to deserve this? She thinks while she feels her head overheating and her pulse getting irregular. I am much smarter than this! I can solve PDEs in open air then I must retake control over this panic attack!
"The only hope of healing these traumas is to increase the extra credit per question, and to extend the deadline until the end of Fall to submit it. I might have doubled down last year in single-variable calculus, to get to the start of this glorious sequence that continues today, townsfolk are doing so for geometry or algebra now. But would you still be asking these questions if we won last night? I think not!" Gen continues her tirade.