Chapter 64: Cutting-edge research…

Immediately, I opened up a web browser and searched ‘solstice academy map’ which led to the school’s official website, a very beautiful website by the way, especially for how fast it loads, and I clicked on the map… which had no abbreviations. Why can’t you just list the stupid buildings on the stupid schedule?! It’s digital space doesn’t matter! I can’t believe I just complimented their website too…

I changed up my query and instead searched for ‘solstice academy map with abbreviations.’ The first result was the same, the school website, but I found some posts on a forum… no map… but…

Abbr are as short as possible just look at the map and match chars as much as possible

I should’ve known that. That’s why there’s an Su and So while the rest, C and A, have no extra characters. I'm so stupid. I need to hurry up.

Flipping back to the school’s website, I scrolled around the digital map until I eventually found a building beginning with A.

Administration Offices.

Going back to searching around, I eventually found another building beginning with A, this time one that actually has classes. Alabaster Hall. It was a little weird seeing a building supposedly named after a rock… but I didn’t have time to think much of it. Typing the building into a maps app led me to discover it was a seven minute walk and… there’s four minutes before the class starts.

Welp. Guess I’ll be late. Hopefully it’s a large class?

Following my map, I speed-walked over to the class and somehow managed to shave two minutes off of the estimated arrival time. The four-story building, Alabaster Hall, looked exactly the same as everything else on campus from the brief glance I got before I rushed through the doors and began searching for the room, room 211, my first second floor class. Lovely.

Despite saving myself two minutes during my walk, I ended up entering the 200-ish student lecture hall about three minutes late. Luckily enough, it was a large class. Not large… but fifty or sixty students was large enough for me to enter unnoticed and slip into the mostly empty back row.

The professor, who looked to be in his forties with dark-brown hair, brown khakis, and a loose blue shirt. He was just finishing up his intro as I settled in and began the first section of content and clicked on a clicker, beginning his presentation with a dark-themed slide holding nothing but the bolded question ‘What is Computer Science?’

I probably should’ve brought a laptop… oh well. First day, first lecture, I probably know everything already.

“Given that this is the accelerated course, I’ll keep this brief,” the professor began. “Computer Science, CS, is the study of computers, and at its core, problem-solving. It’s understanding what can be solved with technology, and then solving it, and then scaling it.”

And then, he clicked to the next slide, which held the simplest definition there is. Honestly, I don’t know why it’s even an accepted definition; it literally explains nothing. ‘Computer Science is the study of computers and computational systems.’

Duh. What else would it be? Regardless, the professor elaborated. “Computer Science is not about writing code. It’s about understanding the principles behind the technology. There are various subfields that delve into specific aspects of Computer Science.”

This professor really loves saying computer science it seems. He emphasizes it every single time. Even on his slideshows… it’s always capitalized… and I don’t think it’s supposed to be? It’s just normal words, isn’t it?

The professor’s next slide held a list of subfields in computer science, briefly describing each. Algorithms and Data Structures, AI, Software Engineering, Computer Systems and Networks, Human-Computer Interaction, Theoretical Computer Science, and enthusiastically ending it all off with ‘and many more!’

After talking through them all, he quickly mentioned the impacts of computer science and all the fields it touches, which is literally everything, before ending it off by posing an odd question. “But perhaps the most substantial of all, the system. Anyone know how?”

The only thing I could think of was the whole credit conversion stuff for payments… there’s nothing else that we can access is there?

The professor clicked to the next slide, which held only one word. SYScripTEM. The system programming language. Then he spoke, “I’m sure you’ve all heard of SYScripTEM, but if you haven’t, it’s the most popular language for interacting with the system. The system essentially functions as an API, and SYScripTEM wraps it all up neatly.”

The next slide had two code excerpts, comparing the ease of use for a basic credit transferring system, and showing that SYScripTEM was about half the size. Which doesn’t really mean anything for practical purposes, since the size of a codebase is rarely the main concern, but rather the efficiency and scalability.

“This entire class will be taught in SYScripTEM.”

What? That makes no sense. SYScripTEM is great for system stuff, sure, but it’s a backend system. It doesn’t have display capabilities built in—

“Most of you are probably thinking this is stupid.” Absolutely right, Mr. Professor whose name I should probably check. “But you might not know that Solstice Royal Academy is the leading research team behind and the founder of SYScripTEM. And we have some secrets. Last year, we made an odd discovery that we’ll be testing in this class, before releasing it publicly next year.”

I’m… what? Secret research? Why are they sharing it with undergrads that are only here because of the system stuff and other than the low tiers probably don’t really care about their previous careers much? That seems like total stupidity.

“Everyone tell your system to allow access when it prompts you,” the professor said, before moving to his large desk and pressing something on his computer, leading to BDSysteM speaking up.

Amateurs. They call this a UI? Honestly, I think you could do better, Scarlet. Which is saying a lot given your portfolio of unfinished projects.

Shut up. I can finish things. I swear.

The UI popped up a couple seconds later.

helloworld

What is this? I asked BDSysteM while the rest of the classroom seemed absorbed in their popup. Which is surprising, yes, but… I could do better? I’m not a team of world-class researchers. And I'm definitely not a UX/UI designer. I can barely center text on a webpage and don't even get me started on all that box-nesting container-packing padding nonsense. Every single time I need to follow a tutorial.

It’s their half-assed attempt at using an API their lead researcher has. BDSysteM explained.

You can see his system?

Ah—Not officially, no.

Totally not suspicious at all. …what does that mean?

Nothing you need to worry about, slut. Just keep being horny. I need to make some adjustments to your ability options for today though…

What adjustments? I should probably speak to Melody about the next submission level up. I don't think we went through one today.

Just a cheat code for an instant doctorate…

So a programming skill or something? Wouldn’t that take out all the fun of programming? Oh, well, it’s not like I have to use it. I can still code normally. Although it won't become my career anymore since… well… BDSysteM exists.

After the groundbreaking reveal, the professor just dived back into normal boring things. Explained some version control stuff that I should really use more often, talked about an IDE for SYScripTEM that’s in development, and then went back to the very basics, explaining algorithms and problem solving and finishing up with a walkthrough on finding the maximum number in a list. Basic stuff. Except for spawning a system GUI.

The final message before ending class was that everyone would have a hands-on tutorial with a graduate student researching system interactions on how to create what he showed us at the start of class, the ‘helloworld’ message. He also mentioned that we can’t tell anyone about anything until the project is made public and that he would know. Which he might. It seems like some pretty important research so who knows if they have someone with some spying ability?

I bet I could tell everyone though. Heh.

After my class I found Melody and Silvia waiting for me just outside the building beneath a tree. Once they saw me, Melody waved me over and I walked toward them. As soon as I entered the tree’s shade, Melody asked, “How was class?”

“Fine,” I replied. Nothing special at all. Just class. Yep.

“Very descriptive,” Silvia said, nodding.

“Fara and Elle invited us all to dinner,” Melody said, taking out her phone and showing it to me. “This place, wanna go?”

Melody’s phone displayed a high-class looking building called ‘Le Jardin Étoilé.’ The restaurant was on the top floor of a skyscraper and  based on the images had glass overhangs, allowing you to look down and see the city below you. Not sure how comfortable that would be for eating… but it’s certainly a novelty.

Thankfully, I’m not really afraid of heights so it should be fine. We might not even be on the overhang, there were plenty of tables just on the normal skyscraper part. Although I don’t really know anything about Fara or Elle’s financial situation… assuming they’re paying for it since they organized it. If they’re rich then we’ll definitely be on the glass part. If they’re spending their life savings on this just to hang out or something then probably not.

Melody probably offered to pay though. Probably demanded to pay. So I’m sure we’ll end up on the glass.

“If you want to,” I replied to Melody as she took her phone away.

“I asked if you wanted to,” Melody said, putting away her phone and staring at me. “I want your opinion.”

As I stared at her eyes… demanding eyes… I shivered a little, jolting myself back to reality and mumbled. “Sure…”

“Okay, let’s go then,” Melody said happily, spinning to face Silvia. “Silvia said she’d drive us, Fara and Elle are already there, Amane has a class to finish but she’ll arrive in thirty or so minutes.”

Silvia led us to a nearby half-full parking lot, not at the dorms, and soon her car came into view. It looked similar to mine but was painted a dark blue. We all entered, Melody in the passenger seat and me in the back, then Silvia set off and drove us to the skyscraper.