Escape Velocity

Chapter Nineteen

Our desks were pushed back and the chairs arranged in the front of the room in a single row. I stopped at the threshold. Animals know when they see a trap. This was a trap.

Ms. Tyson said, "Come on in. Don't let the new set-up throw you."

I paused at the end seat nearest the door but went against instinct and sat in the middle with Melisse to my left. Olivia grabbed the end before I could change my mind. Guess Christina was still pissed a little about Ben because she sat next to Liz, leaving the empty seat next to me for Kate.

Yay.

Ms. Tyson leaned against the edge of her desk. She rubbed her hands together in a mad scientist with a wild idea kind of way. "Let's do another thought experiment today, girls. About survival."

That was a subject I understood. I was all about survival, despite the recent decision to pick a middle seat. I hadn't gotten this far without expecting the unexpected, to be on the lookout for scammers, known and unknown. Gramp said I had valuable instincts. I hoped he was right. I hoped I was like my great-grandmother.

"Today is about team-playing ability. You will be paired with the person next to you. Please adjust your seats to face each other."

Melisse and Olivia sat opposite each other, then me and Kate, and Christina and Liz. I figured the winners would be Christina and Liz. Christina could be a supportive team player, and Liz was brilliant. In the past, there was no way Kate and I could be effective together, but I was ready to gamble on the slim possibility it might work.

Uh-huh.

"Here's the scenario: You are stranded on a desert island. Your survival time is determined by the choices you and your partner make. There are three possible outcomes. Option one: You and your partner both choose cooperation so you both will survive four years. Option two: Neither of you chooses cooperation so you both will survive two years. Option three: One person chooses to cooperate, and one does not. In this final case, the cooperator survives one year, and the non-cooperator survives seven."

Christina said, "The non-cooperator is the one rewarded. That doesn't seem right."

"I encourage you to think this through."

Liz said, "Think it through? That means there's a catch, right?"

Ms. Tyson said, "The catch is that you can't discuss it with your partner. You have ten minutes to decide your choice without knowing your partner's decision."

Christina's groan spoke for all of us.

"When you're ready, write down the option you've chosen and your name and fold the paper in half."

Gramp came to my mind again. When he said, "Engineering is failure, iteration, successive approximation," I asked what it meant. He said it meant you are closer to success if you make adjustments after each failure. I'd applied the concept in the construction of FetchBot. It was time to try it elsewhere.

Time to risk failure.

If I went with non-cooperation in an attempt to max out survival at seven years, it would backfire. Dual non-cooperation meant two years, not the desired seven. And I knew—knew—Kate would not cooperate with me. Things don't change that much. We were too out of balance to make a good team.

But for me, cooperation was the right answer. I didn't care what Kate did. It was time to make a decision based on what was right, not what was safe. Even if it meant I lost the contest by having a one-year survival. It wasn't about some mind game. Being trapped with another person for real and living six years after that person died seemed the opposite of how I'd choose to live.