Josefer Martin - Growing up Super - Chapter 2

"Mr. Martin."

"Mr. Martin?"

"Mr. Martin!"

"Oh," I shook my head, trying to clear my mind and get back to the task at head. "Um, yeah Ms. Delarosa?"

"If you have been paying attention Mr. Martin, you would have known what I had asked you, but since you seem incapable of doing so, I'll repeat myself," scolded my quite upset Computer Programming teacher. "How would you write a sort to organize this data," and she indicated a table she had written on the white board which had about twenty-five entries, "by a user selectable parameter?"

I bit my lip, "Let me think." I knew it would come to me, it just would take a while. "Ah," I exclaimed. I then spouted off the code for a quick treesort that branched off in a four dimensional structure. I had seen a two dimensional version of it in practice final.

"Um," stammered Ms. Delarosa, "could you come up here and make a diagram so your classmates, and I, can understand?"

I smiled, "No, I can't."

She looked angry, again, "And why can't you?"

"Simple" I said, leaning back in my chair, "it's a four-dimensional sort, which means that to illustrate it, we'd have to live in a universe with at least five spacial dimensions. We've got three. Thought, I can illustrate a two-dimensional version, if you'd like."

"Sure," she said, unsure of what she'd gotten herself into.

I quickly walked up to the front and opened up a text editor, "First, I've got to write it out." I typed the code for a rudimentary 3-D model of three generations of the two-dimensional tree sort, and then rendered it. "As you can see," I explained, "while it's more complex to visualize then a more simple nested treesort, or any other kind of nested sort, it takes about thirty percent less time. On a list of two dozen items, it's not a difference, and you could get away with the nested sorts, but once you get into the thousands, or even millions, say if you're trying to determine the password within a set length, it's use become much more apparent."

Ms. Delarosa became shocked, not knowing what to say, "Um, well, thank you Mr. Martin, you can sit down now."

With a smile on my face, I walked back to my seat, and sat back down. I wasn't sure if what I had said actually would have worked, but that wasn't the point. It got Ms. Delarosa off my back, and she wouldn't know how to check to see if it worked.

I leaned back in my chair, content that I wouldn't be bothered until the class was over.

I thought back to the day my intuition kicked in. It was March of my seventh grade year, Jessica's acrobatics had kicked in just before Christmas, but I wasn't worried, since guys usually develop after girls. I was practicing my gadgets after school, putting together random pieces of electronics and mechanics until I got something that worked. I had been working on my goggles, the ones that Mike had stolen earlier today, but then they were just beginning to be special.

"Let's see," I had said, "the LED goes here." I soldered down an LED, hoping that it'd be a light source for the HUD. Then, as Mike had said seven months earlier, it just kicked in, and I figured out the exact nature of the circuit. At first I thought that, like some people, my secondary power was an enhancement of my primary power. i was overjoyed, but then, as I thought about it, I figured out it could have been like Mike's power, hyper intelligence.

"Hey, Mike," I said, looking over the pile of books he had in front of him, "I think my secondary power's manifested."

He put down the Calculus book he was studying, "So, what you got?"

"Not sure," I said, "maybe a boost to my gadgets, maybe hyper int like you."

"Well," he said, standing, "there's a test we can do."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," he grabbed a book of puzzles out of his backpack, "these are pretty easy for me, let's see how you do." He tossed it to me, and I caught it.

"Let's see here," I opened it up. They were sudoku puzzles. I grabbed a pencil out of my pocket, and started. At first, it wasn't any faster then I usually did, but then, I went faster, each new answer hastening the next. I finished the puzzle in two minutes, flipped the page, and started the next one. This one took my a minute, then the next one took my a bit less, but only because I had to extend the lead twice since it broke. After the tenth Mike spoke up.

"Joe, wait, stop," she pleaded.

"What?" I said, finishing the eleventh.

"Joe, you're not hyper int, or else there wouldn't have been a learning curve. I think you're an intuit."

"Intuit?"

"Think Sherlock Holmes, only quicker and without the deerstalker hat," he began, "but we'll have to talk with the principal to set up a test. I'm thinking at least a grade three, perhaps higher."

I smiled, "A grade three, that'd be great."

"But hey, you're still only an intuit. I'm still smarter then you."

"Thanks, you're a real uplifting guy."

"Hey, just telling it like it is."