the invisible villain

Racing cars and pins - 2

They were back working on the car next morning, immediately after two men joined them at the garage. The older one was Benny, the chief mechanic of the team whose car they were building, and the other one was Jarvis, who was Benny’s assistant and also the older man’s son. They were also half owners of the team. After the hellos and the introductions, there wasn’t one word spoken unrelated to the car. They were all business, every one of them. And they were all so completely engrossed, it was as if they were in a world of their own.

Justine made time for Abe in the first week, bringing him up to speed with what she did. A lot of it was beyond him, because it involved engineering and dynamics, none of which he had ever studied. She only wanted his help running the numbers, to help with the complex calculations and the simulations. The first day she sat with him long enough to explain all this. Starting the second day, the time she had for him kept reducing. By the second week, she was doing it all herself, just as she had been doing before. It was just faster and easier.

Akira smiled at Abe, like this was within her expectations. That night she sat with him after dinner. After everyone went to bed, tired and asleep long before actually hitting their beds. They were sitting on the porch. Akira and Ludwig with beers in their hands, and Alex with grape juice.

“Just do your thing,” Akira said.

“My thing?” Abe asked.

“Yeah,” Akira said. “You know, what you do. What you’re good at. That’s actually what I called you here for. Also, that’s what I think you should be getting a degree in. Computers.”

“Computers?” Alex asked, grinning.

“That’s funny,” Ludwig said, grinning too.

“Ha ha,” Abe said. “Got it. What you want me to do, I mean. The degree part, I don’t get. How is it I’m in computers?”

“That’s true,” Akira said. “You’re not exactly into computers. They’re just the perfect tool. But, suppose you study in the certain fields of study which are directly related to what you do, and those certain fields fall under the study of computers, wouldn’t you be studying computers? I don’t mean for you to get a conventional degree in computer engineering. We’re not going to college. We’re getting degrees in the things that interest us. Now you understand?”

“Yeah,” Abe said after a while.

“Good,” Akira said. “Check this out.”

She handed him a tablet she bought just for him, the website open listing the specific degrees she was talking about being offered by some of the biggest universities in the world.

“Pick tonight,” she said, as she was leaving. “I’ll be paying tomorrow. This part of your academic journey will be on your favourite teacher.”

“Alright,” Alex answered loudly. “Pick more than one,” she said to Abe much softer.

Ludwig nodded vigorously.

Abe went through the list and picked three. Networking. Algorithms. Programming. They weren’t exactly degrees. Rather, they were specialisations. But with enough of them, from these big universities, would be as good as a degree? At least they would satisfy Alex.

“Yes, they do satisfy,” Alex said. “As long as you get at least five. That’s three you’ve selected. Two more should do.”

“Thanks Alex,” Abe said, beaming.

The next day, the three of them got started too, working for the race. Ludwig decided to help too, because he had to stay, and he couldn’t be doing nothing. And they had worked together long enough to find the groove effortlessly.

Alex gathered data on the other teams, their cars, their drivers, the owners. Ludwig gathered everything there was on the tracks, the championship, the rules. And Abe, accepted all the data. And began mining the data for trends and patterns and anything that would help in any way.

All of this took a month. Then, they really started. There was so much they could learn on the dark channels, from those information channels that most wouldn’t be privy to. Secret places the three of them could traverse freely because that was where they truly lived and worked and felt a belonging to. This was their world. They knew where to go and how to get what they wanted. And they knew exactly what they wanted. Black material on everyone. The competitors. Their own team. The management of each of the race tracks. The management of the championship. The companies sponsoring the teams and the races. They gather everything.

This was data a hundred times larger. And Abe’s expertise showed very clearly in how easily he managed the new data. They were building simulations too. To arrive at the conditions necessary to guarantee their victory. And for that, the three of them weren’t enough. Since they couldn’t get Akira, they got outside help. In some ways not as good as Akira. In others, so much better.

“I’m not coming over,” Timmy said on the voice chat.

There were no more than a handful of people Timmy communicated with on a voice chat. These were people he trusted, and more importantly, liked. And the one among the three he liked was Abe.

“That’s perfectly fine Timmy,” Abe said. “We just want your expertise. Remember Turnkey? This is something like that.”

Turnkey was a very popular racing game launched a few years ago. The game was as good as racing got on computers and consoles. But that wasn’t why it was so popular. The developers themselves released a builder kit, which allowed players to customise their car to the finest detail. So much so that it was as if the players were building their cars. And some players got so involved, they learned everything about engines and fluid dynamics and everything a mechanic building a real car would know, just so they could build the best car in the game. Timmy had built his own car from the ground up. He was one among the hidden dragons, a term used to refer to players who were good enough to be among the highest ranked players, maybe even better, but refused to play in wider and popular competitions, instead preferring to play in their own circles. It was in the game the Abe and Timmy crossed paths, and developed a friendship. Timmy tutored Abe on building his car. And Abe had impressed Timmy with his work, even though he was working with ready-to-use mods.

“So you’re building a real race car?” Timmy asked, for the tenth time.

“Yes and no,” Abe said. “Yes, we are working with Akira who is building a race car. No, we aren’t directly involved in the process. We are more in the shadows. We’re preparing simulations, to ensure our car’s victory.”

“Who’s we?” Timmy asked.

“Alex. Ludwig. Me.”

“Okay. They’re okay. So, you’re scoping the competition.”

“Yes.”

“I like that. I’m in.”

And like so, they had their own expert.

Timmy helped them with understanding the competitors’ cars. Because they couldn’t understand all the terms and the numbers or what they meant, Timmy wrote a program that quantified the different factors, giving each a number between 1 and 5. And then an overall number for each car, each racer, each team, each track. The program allowed for a direct comparison of the car they were now building against the competition. They were even able to get some data on the cars some of the competitors were building for the races. Not a lot. But every little bit was significant.

Abe shared this data only with Akira. They didn’t want to drag the others into the shadows, as Akira called it. Akira used the data to improve her car.

In the simulations they ran, Timmy replaced the cars with pins. Of different colours for different teams.

“Keeps us from getting distracted,” he said, explaining his choice. “The pins won’t enamour us like cars would. And our attention would be focussed on the right things. The numbers.”

Seven months later, the car was ready for the races. They had a celebratory dinner at the garage. With pizza and chicken and beer. They ate until they were stuffed. And drank until they were drowning inside. And then collapsed right there in the garage, a safe distance from the car.

Abe and the others had run innumerable simulations everyday, improving the simulations with every new piece of information they gathered. They could safely say they had simulations for at least fifty percent of all possible scenarios. And that was a big thing. They had a party of their own, the night before the car was ready, the night before Akira and Jarvis drove the car a few laps each, testing the car fully. Timmy raced them all in Turnkey. Showed them his car. Showed them his garage, in which he had three more cars he had built. He Alex and Ludwig borrow one each, for the race. Abe had his own car. They raced all night. Timmy won almost every race. Abe winning the rare few Timmy didn’t. Ludwig was happy just being in the car. And Alex was perfectly happy having destroyed Ludwig. She couldn’t concern herself with the experts of the game.

“Beat me on a real street, and then we’ll talk,” she told Abe and Timmy defiantly.

To which Abe and Timmy remained mute. Abe because he knew he could never beat Alex in a real car. And Timmy because he couldn’t drive.