The whole classroom went silent.

Someone's grip slipped and a pen clattered to the floor.

"Vivienne filled half the board.

"He got it in two lines?"

Even the math teacher looked at the board, a little startled.

"Percy, this is beyond the syllabus."

"I know, sir."

Percival grinned, teeth white and easy.

"But on a multiple-choice question, I say faster is better. High schoolers shouldn't turn their noses up at college-level knowledge."

The math teacher smiled.

"Everyone, Vivienne's derivation was completely correct, but to save time in an exam, you might all want to hear how Percival explains it."

"Eh, no need to make it complicated."

Percival tossed the chalk down carelessly.

"Anyone interested can go read the Princeton Companion to Mathematics. I've got the original English edition—come borrow it from me after class."

"No way… he's even read that?"

"Norman and Vivienne are finished now."

Percival listened to the low murmurs around him.

Then he smiled and cocked an eyebrow at me.

"Grinding away like a bookworm gets you nowhere. Save your energy."

I smiled.

"Your steps do give the right answer, but only because the function in this problem is continuous at the zero point."

Norman propped his chin on his hand too.

"Right. Take a different problem, plug in the Fourier transform and L'Hôpital's rule, and you won't necessarily get the right answer."

Percival's eyes finally sharpened a little as he looked at us.

But the mockery was still there.

"Have you two even studied higher mathematics?"

"A little."

"Then why run your mouths? Isn't college knowledge more useful than all your dead memorization?"

"It's not dead memorization. College formulas have their limits, and high school methods are safer for everyone."

"Come argue with me after you've finished linear algebra and complex analysis!"

Percival strolled back to his seat.

He slouched against the backrest.

He traded a glance with Winston.

But the other students were left completely lost.

"I've heard of linear algebra, but what's this complex thing?"

"Functions can be complex now?"

"So advanced. I'm gonna grow a brain cell."

The math teacher's gaze held a new note of admiration.

"You'd all do well to learn from the methods of our two transfer students, Percival and Winston. They're useful on multiple-choice questions."

When class let out, the same students who used to crowd around Norman and me, begging us to explain problems, swarmed to Percival and Winston's desks instead.

The two of them worked one on each side, walking everyone through multiple-choice questions.

"This one? L'Hôpital's rule, instant kill."

"High school methods make this one a pain. This one gets into signal processing."

"Newton-Leibniz works, but if you want it faster, just memorize this."

The other students couldn't help sucking in a breath.

"Geniuses really are geniuses! If you sent those two bookworms up here, one page of paper wouldn't be enough for them to write it all out."

Leaning by the door, Norman and I looked at each other at the same moment.

"You hear what they're teaching?"

I asked.

Norman watched them. "I heard it."

"Ridiculous or what?"

"A little too ridiculous."

I really couldn't hold back.

"Ease up on the lessons.

"When the function tends to infinity the whole model falls apart, and force your formulas onto it then and the answer's guaranteed wrong."

Percival and Winston turned to look.

They smiled.

"What, the grind champ can't stand to watch?"

I gave a scoff. "Tch!"

"You two are leading them astray. When they get it wrong later, are you going to take responsibility?"

"You two—jealous, is that it?"

The class president planted himself in front of us, hands on his hips.

"If you can't even follow college-level material, maybe keep your mouths shut, yeah?"

"Right, learn to understand it before you start yapping."

"What, it takes you all day to work out what they get in two lines, and now you're rattled?"

Norman and I laughed, the kind of laugh that comes from pure disbelief.

"Look how touchy they are."

"Whole face just changed color."

"That's the sad little ego of a couple of grind-kings for you."

I'd had enough.

"Not every piece of college math actually works here. Before you go reaching for a Monte Carlo transform, how about checking your boundary conditions first?"

"Vivienne, since you're so worked up, why don't we make a bet?"

Percival shoved the class president aside.

"A bet on what?"

A flyer for the mathematical modeling competition slapped down onto the desk.

"The National Mathematical Modeling Competition. High schoolers can enter too. You game?"

Norman and I traded a glance.

"We're game. What's the wager?"

"Whoever wins the higher award. The losers give up college admissions."

Percival and Winston Simmons laid their exam registration slips on the desk.

"You in?"

"Mathematical modeling?

"Oh man, you have to write code for this! Percy, Winston, you guys can code too? Is this... C language?"

"No, we usually use MATLAB."

"Mattress? Like a store?"

Percival and Winston looked at each other.

Then burst out laughing.

"Forget it. The software you need for modeling—you wouldn't get it even if we told you."

"Man, what do Vivienne and Norman even have to bring to this?"

"Two grind-kings, what's there to compare? They're big shots at school, sure, but against Percy and Winston they don't stand a chance!"

Norman and I looked at each other.

We each took out our exam registration.

"Then it's settled. The losers give up college admissions."

Word got out that the four of us were entering the modeling competition.

The whole school went wild.

Given the four of us and where we stood academically.

And since some colleges counted an award like this toward admissions.

The school didn't step in.

A modeling team was three people to a group.

Everyone was clawing to get onto Percival and Winston's team.

Nobody needed to be told what admissions credit meant.

But when it came to Norman and me.

Not a single person was willing to round us out into a three-person team.

In the end I had to strong-arm a humanities-track girl from the class next door into joining us.

"How about we call our team Everstride? What do you think!"

"Whoa—as in surpassing Norman Gilbert and Vivienne Larkin! I can already see those two rising to greatness!"

Percival and Winston high-fived.

Then arched an eyebrow at Norman and me.

I really couldn't take it.

"Hey, Norman, let's put the old stuff aside for now. If we can't beat them this time, the two of us are in for some serious humiliation!"

"Relax."

Norman slung on his backpack, the one far heavier than mine.

"Just don't drag me down and we're fine."

The competition started soon after.

The school cleared out a computer lab specifically for us.

At Percival and Winston's request.

Spectators were allowed in.

And it was livestreamed to the entire student body to watch and learn from.

The humanities girl on our team stared at the dense wall of problem text.

Then looked up, ready to cry.

"What do I do? I'm a humanities student, I can't make heads or tails of these giant blocks of text."

"Heh. Quantitative stock market analysis."

Across from us.

Winston let out a scornful little laugh.

He shot me a glance.

Then yanked his keyboard over and started coding.

“Wait, Winston's already writing code?”

“I've heard the college guys who enter these things spend forever analyzing first. Some don't even start writing until the last night.”

“Winston, maybe think it over a little more?”

The two lucky recruits Percival and Winston had roped in watched the pair who'd already dived in, looking a little worried.

Winston let out a scoffing laugh.

“It's not hard. Train the model on five years of daily data from the S&P 500, derive the optimal hedge ratio from Itô's lemma, run a Kalman filter……”

“Okay, okay, okay!”

The lucky recruit threw up both hands.

“I'll go buy you two an iced latte.”

Over here, Norman and I were still working through it.

“The approach really is pretty much the same. Itô's lemma does work here. But from what I heard, they don't seem to have accounted for the tail boundary conditions.

“If the market throws an extreme anomaly, the program will keep buying up positions like crazy, and they'll lose everything.”

Norman gave a quiet scoff.

“For all we know, they don't even realize that boundary condition exists.”

“Still hashing it out? We're almost done!”

Clive, who was paired with Percival and Winston, happened to walk by.

I shot him a look and didn't answer.

He glanced again at the strategy we'd written out on paper.

Then he suddenly pointed at us.

“Hey! Isn't this the Itô whatever filter thing Percy and Winston were talking about?”

“Oh my god! The two big brains are copying somebody else's answer!”

The students in the room laughed out loud.

The kids in the livestream laughed too.

The sound carried across the room to Percival and Winston.

Still typing away at his code, Winston's mouth curved.

“Doesn't matter. They can copy our strategy, but they can't copy how good our code is.

“If they can even submit a finished project, that counts as a win for them.”

Percival snorted a laugh.

Clive shook his head. “You two keep hashing it out. I'm off to get iced lattes.”

Every last detail.

Norman and I kept at it clear into the evening.

The girls I'd recruited had already brought us four iced lattes, and all four were empty.

Finally.

We started writing the code.

I'd barely typed the first letter.

When across the room, someone shoved his keyboard away.

“Done! This one's easy. Not enough of a challenge.”

Percival stretched too.

“Not as tough as Casey last year. I mean, you spot the model at a glance, right?”

“I'm guessing a lot of people place this year.”

They came past us.

Both of them stopped.

They looked at the first module I'd just typed out.

Percival got a kick out of it.

“This is all wrong. That loop is pointless!”

“The organizers test runtime too, you know. Itô's lemma has a way cleaner way to write it.”

“Nope, nope, you two are getting cut for sure.”

“Participation award, tops.”

Shaking their heads, the two of them walked out of the computer lab.

That left Norman and me glued to the screen, hammering away at the keyboard.

Until two days later.

The night before the submission deadline.

That was when we finally walked out of the lab.

Percival and Winston had been messing around for two days straight.

By the time we came back to the classroom.

The two of them were still explaining to everyone what a “Kalman filter” was.

Every set of eyes on them was shining.

“Is this even a contest? You two have it in the bag!”

“I'm dying. The two grind kings are about to lose their shot at college.”

“Norman and Vivienne care about their pride the most. Bet they'll be crying while they retake the year, ha!”

Norman and I stood in the doorway with our backpacks.

They spotted us.

“Look how rough they look. Guess they know they're done for.”