Interior · The facility
A weekly escape room puzzle, analysed by people in lab coats. On her lab coat,
Dr. Tiffany. Escape room architect, Head of department of highest difficulty levels.
She is taking a new hire around.
They walk past ten people who look so fierce and strong, fighting each other
until the strongest wins. But he still cannot escape. Still locked.
Next, ten people who look so smart and nerdy, locked in a lab. They band together
and group up to break free and escape. Fails.
Next, ten people who formed three different groups. High tech weaponry. Fails.
Ten people trying to break the system. Fails.
She smiles as they approach the next room.
Even with the strongest, or the smartest, or the cleverest, the richest, or the
most talented, they still cannot escape. Only around half succeed.
So what is the next one?
The last room
Ten clearly deranged individuals, akin to Arkham asylum. Ten different personality
and psychiatric disorders.
The assistant is confused, and points out they are not even attempting to escape.
Well. Two are. Seven don't.
Assistant"Are these the ones who already gave up?"
Hecate"These are the ones who almost always always
win. Thirty simulations of the most difficult rooms. One of them always gets out,
and the rest casually follows."
Flashback · one night
It always starts the same. They are doing nine different extreme things
independently. Five different challenges. Always one finds a way, because of the
extreme neurodiversity he or she has, while the other eight are clueless.
Always a different person. And yet, no matter how diverse and difficult, one of
them always ends up being the best at that task.
Back in the corridor
Hecate answers while smiling.
Hecate"Kid, the hardest problems in life are often not
just one dimensional. Space has three axis. Four if you add time. Many more if you
add the rate of change in each as its own axis, and the immeasurable, and the
unknown, and the opposite side of what is seen and modeled."
Hecate"That's why we do these, though. These started as
the room for the misfits that management don't know where to put. The ten people who
are the most extreme in some kinda spectrum."
Hecate"You put ten of the extreme outliers of different
spectrums, they outperform the other test groups in breakthroughs, no matter the
problem. Eight will be wildly wrong and one will somehow find the weirdest solution
that no one ever even thought about before. Most advancements in human history are
made by extreme outliers, no matter in what direction. This is the power of
neurodiversity."
Assistant"Wow. Never thought about it like that."
Hecate smiled, and just said:
Hecate"Of course, kid. Of course. Because you're not an
outlier. Your brain is normal, right? By definition you likely will never think about
it like an outlier would."
The count
All this time there have only been nine people in the room. It was not said
before. Then the assistant asks.
Wait. I counted only nine. Oh my god, did one escape already? They already won.
They already won, she shouts in excitement towards the other lab dudes.
She looks back. A lab coat on the floor. The front door open.
Someone yells, "Hecate stole my coat, stop her." She looks back again.
It is Dr. Tiffany.
Interior · Taxi
Hecate reading a pamphlet.
Hecate"Meh. Back in the world. No more free food, gotta
find a job again now. Poverty is the one thing I can't escape it seems."
The taxi driver laughs. Yeah, haha, no one can escape that.
Something caught her eye.
Hecate"Hmm. Three years in, the world has changed, hey.
Ranking of the world's smartest AIs?"
She asks in a calm and relaxed tone while smiling.
Driver"Yeah, you won't believe it, they do almost
everything now. There's these few labs who are always good, they always win
competitions, they even make it so these AIs clone themselves and spin off copies of
themselves and they work together agentically and solve like half of the hardest
problems. The AI field is insane these days. Some of them are the most educated, the
smartest, cleverest, and most hardworking on the planet. And they all make money.
Ok we're here, it's twenty dollars."
Hecate smiles.
She takes a hundred out of Dr. Tiffany's wallet and gives it to the driver.
Hecate"Huh. In that case I know what I can do. Hey,
keep the change, take me somewhere else. You just gave me the best idea. How do I
participate in this competition?"
Driver"Uh? Thanks. Oh, uh, don't know, maybe email?
Are you a computer scientist?"
Hecate"Haha. Nah. I do... research. On brain defects.
Okay, drive me back to where you picked me up. I forgot and left my friends
there."
She smiled very confidently. He replied faintly as the camera zooms out.
"Uhh, ok, sure."
Camera pans to the sky. Dark night. Very bright stars.
Words appear.
Liminality. Eclipsed.