Master Function

I knew you'd find me here. Of all people, you would be the one. I only wish you didn't have to find me this way.

I never had the nerve to tell you this, but... I'm a bit - psychic. No, not just a bit. Not even just psychic. Let me explain. Oh, how to explain so that you'll understand? Well, I guess I'll have to start at the beginning.

* * *

As you know, I've always been a math whiz. That's why you never liked me. You would deny it, but I know. I was smart, I wasn't a sports fan, I looked like tapioca pudding with strawberry topping and sprinkles. Sure, you liked blonde guys better than a pock-marked red-head like me. But you could handle my looks. It was my brain that turned you off. It scared you. It made you angry.

You always wanted to be popular. You always tried to look your best, but it was never enough to be popular. The best way you got the attention you wanted was to show how smart you are. That was enough for you, even though the attention was just to get answers for the social studies test. When I came with my head full of calculus, fractal geometry, and group theory, solving Rubik's Cubes for dollars during lunch, I took everything you had away from you.

The problem started before that, though. It started with my interest in a theory of probability. I won't bore you with the details. Anyway, using this mathematical structure I found a sort of "master function" that could be used to predict the future. Not just that, but that's enough for now.

That's how I found you. The numbers indicated that I would find a girl here, in the location of this school, that would have a significant effect on my life. Input more variables, and I narrowed it down to you. And when I first saw you, I knew it was real.

The beauty of the Master Function is that I could see a way to expand it. The math is complicated, even for me, but it pretty much allows you to know everything. The past, the present, the future. Every little detail of an object's structure, even people's personalities. All I had to do was assign value to a variable, and I would know anything about anything, at any time.

I could have used it to find a cure for cancer, work for world peace, find out why the dinosaurs died, or have my own psychic hotline. My first thought, though, was to use it to know you better. It was perfect, because I was still too nervous to talk to you. Funny how uncertain you can feel even when you know it's a sure thing.

That's how I know everything about you. That's how I know you never liked me. But our lives were still closely bound by the numbers, and for this future to come to fruition, all I had to do was get your attention.

I knew you would think I was cute enough to go out with, and that you like a guy who is smart. But I still couldn't bring myself to ask you out. So I decided to show off how smart I was. I devised games of chance I couldn't possibly lose. I solved Rubik's Cubes for audiences at lunch, and they paid to see how fast I did it. I figured that by the time I got you to notice me I would be smart and rich to boot.

Oh, you noticed. No one asked you to do their homework anymore. No one leaned over your way to see what the answer to Question 6 was. You never overheard anyone say, "Ooh, Crista is so smart." Oh, you couldn't help but notice. And you hated me.

I knew you hated me. I couldn't tell what I was doing wrong. No matter how I fit the variables in the inequalities, the overwhelming probability was that you were close to me. I would work the function for hours, work until the numbers blurred into an image of your soft round face, jade green eyes, long, wavy black hair, and the way your glasses are always low on your nose, threatening to fall but never do.

Then I had an idea. Why had I not thought of it before?

I input the variables to form a scenario in which I told you everything. I told you all about the Master Function, how we were meant to be, how it was all part of the very fabric of reality that we should be together. I would tell you everything I know about you as proof of my knowledge. I would tell you that... I love you.

The results were remarkable! The probabilities were greater than ever before, a millionth of a percent of a chance that I was wrong! For the first time in my weeks of trying to find my way into your heart, I found it. And it was so simple. All I had to do was be honest.

That's when you moved away. That's when the police got involved. The whitecoats, too. I tried so hard to make you believe me. You were so scared - I'm so sorry! Oh... hulp! Hich! Hold on - sniff! No, it's okay. I'm - okay... okay....

I'm sorry. I made you think I was a serial killer or something. At least - let me tell you how I got out of Whiteford Hall. That's - a good story. Hehe.

By the time your parents called the cops on me, I had pored over the Master Function so many times that I had it memorized. I didn't need those fancy calculators or even paper anymore. I knew it so well I barely had to think about it.

So in the lockup I knew everything about the walls, doors, floors, ceiling - enough to know that everything was solid and there was no escape. But I also knew the guards very well. I especially got to know the lady that brought the food. Hehe, that's assuming that it was actually food. I swear I could taste the cardboard. Anyway, I knew all about the guy she was dating behind her husband's back. Even better, I knew all about why she wasn't married to her first husband anymore. I also knew where his body was, and where the hitman could be found. Get the picture?

Yeah, well, it didn't quite go as I thought. I knew she would panic, and I knew that because I threatened her I would be escorted outside the station at exactly 4:57 p.m., and a van would be waiting to pick me up. I forgot to look farther ahead to see where the van was going.

Whiteford Hall. An old hollowed-out university dorm on the outside, sterile institutional white on the inside. Dozens of whitecoats. Prison-style bunk rooms for the mildly looney, bare padded-wall rooms for the seriously disturbed, and lab rooms with all kinds of medical paraphernalia for the more... intense types.

My bunkmate was Frenkie, and he heard things other people didn't hear. I couldn't hear them either, but the numbers gave me a rough idea. Not that I knew his thoughts - that limitation I never found a way around - but from his past behavior I could make some guesses. It was nothing too bad. He would steal things, and he'd tried to kill himself twice, that being why he was there.

I told Frenkie that I heard the voices, too. I told him they told me to take things. I told him they wanted him to beat down the man who would come in ten minutes to give us new sheets. I knew he wouldn't trust me at first. I knew he would trust me, though, when I said the voices were telling me some bits of his childhood. I'd tell you what they were, but... I really don't want to know anymore.

Eight minutes after I had his attention - ten minutes after my prediction - a whitecoat who was important enough to have a name tag but not to have a better job than linen exchange, came through the door. He didn't come all the way in. He just dropped the new sheets inside the door. He made a quick apology because the beds were supposed to be made while the patients were in the dayroom but the laundry service was - something, I forget.

Frenkie was on him immediately. He grabbed the poor whitecoat by the hair, slammed his face on the wall, and kicked him in the guts and crotch and ribs and head when he fell squirming on the floor.

Of course, the cameras saw everything. I slipped out as alarms blared and guards and syringe-wielding whitecoats stampeded through the halls. Most of them did something with Frenkie, and two followed me. They were probably told my location by whoever was watching the cameras. It didn't matter, though. I knew where every person was in the whole facility. I knew every blind spot that the cameras couldn't see. I knew where the fire exits were, which way to run, which way the guards would shoot, and which button to open the gate. Dodging bullets is a rush like no other.

The next few weeks I spent finding my way... to you. I avoided the highways because the police were still looking for an escaped mental patient. I stopped in little shops where the probability of being recognized was slim, stealing food to live on. I slept where there was at least minimal shelter against the rain, the snow, the wind. I went and went, never wondering what my family was thinking, what my friends were doing. All I knew was that I had to find you. And it had nothing to do with math. This was, uhh... intuition, I guess.

Along the way I stopped armed robberies in convenience stores, rescued people from being mugged, or worse. I saved three puppies and a 7-month-old baby girl from a car wreck, knowing that I had three minutes and seventeen seconds before it exploded. The mom, who was driving, was thrown out of the car and was unconscious, but not dead, on the street and no one else was near enough to help.

I don't need to tell you these parts, though. You know that much already. You saw the headlines that said, "Escaped Whiteford Patient Prevents Fourth Murder," and many others like them. You read how I just seemed to be at the right place at the right time, then I was never seen again. At least, not until the next time.

I see now, in your past, it got you thinking, Hey, maybe he really is psychic. It made you think. It made you remember. It made you... feel.

Three days ago, for the first time since Whiteford, I looked for your signature in the Master Function. I found you looking for me. I knew you'd come here, under this bridge. The headlines were marking my trail for you, showing you I was coming to your place, even though I shouldn't know where it is. You couldn't wait. You wanted to meet me partway. I knew you'd look here.

So I waited. And you came.

I just wish you didn't have to find me this way. Dirty, smelly, torn rags of clothes two sizes too big. I look like a frikkin' hobo!

No, you don't have to -

Oh, no, I'm going frikkin' crazy! Everything I did was going wrong. I didn't know why the numbers said one thing and life said another. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to think. And now - this isn't happening.

Maybe - maybe if I didn't know any of this, we would have met and I wouldn't have acted so smart and maybe you would have liked me and I wouldn't have been locked up this has all been driving me crazy! And you - and... and...

Oh....

I've waited for this hug for so long. How did you know how bad I needed this?

Are you psychic, too?