031

The rest of the lesson was spent in this kind of way with the students trying to find the answer while the teacher rejected them one after another. The teacher himself was rather proud of himself. With just a few lines and a circle, he could make those youths ponder for quite a long time. Being a teacher wasn't that difficult at times. He didn't expect them to find the answer right away and even as the bell rang, no one had.

Before he left, he told the class: "This is your homework for next time, try to find the answer to this problem"

…

There was a ten-minute break between lessons and the youths began to fervently discuss during this moment of rest. Ivan and the three girls were particularly excited and chatty about what Ron did. On the other hand, Ron was explaining himself, trying to make them understand he was right. It was a matter of money after all. It was only after Laila explained things to him that he understood the teacher wasn't complimenting him back then. He frowned as he didn't expect that. Maybe he would have to buy pens and papers too… After a moment, he decided against it. Money was still much more important to him. He didn't want to buy something he had no real need for.

They exchanged about that, then about the teacher's questions. Especially the last one, none of them managed to find the right answer. After a moment, they asked Ron about his opinion. Since he was already working as an engineer, he must have deep understanding on such things. They expected to be enlightened by him. He shrugged and gave a random answer: "We never talked once about the time it took for the spaceship to get there so, I don't know?"

What he meant to say was that he had no idea because the teacher omitted a lot of important things. The teacher wanted to know the speed of the spaceship but he never once said anything related to it so, he couldn't even understand how he wanted them to find an answer. Of course, Ron would never have been able to find the answer. But the fact was that he found the question to be wrong in itself. He was at least aware that if you wanted to know the speed of something, you needed to know the time it took to go from A to B. At least, from his experience travelling into space, time was an important factor.

Laila and the group had their mouths wide open as they realized what Ron meant. Or rather, as they realized something from what Ron said. It was true that they only knew one thing: distance. How could they calculate a speed with only this variable? They had been taking the question the wrong way. It had been a trap from the start.

Vanessa couldn't help but say: "This teacher is truly sneaky"

Nancy sighed and Laila asked Ron: "Why didn't you give him the answer if you had it?"

Ron was surprised. He didn't know what she meant by that, didn't he just stated clearly that he didn't know? What was she on about? He was getting ready to retort but Nancy spoke first: "Probably to give us a chance? Isn��t that right Ron?"

It wasn't right at all but Ron simply nodded. He was already too far behind on comprehending what was going on. It was better to simply go with the flow. After that, they kept chatting about how to best answer, whether to point out it was a trap or pick a spaceship model and base their answers on that… They asked Ron about his opinion again, expecting a lot after his first answer. This time, he didn't say much: "Anything is fine, I guess?"

They nodded as if his words had been wise, surprising him. They interpreted as "As long as the answer isn't wrong, it is right" and were already thinking on what to do. They were even planning to work in a group to create a detailed answer. That's how the five of them ended up, in ten minutes, ready to start a whole project from a single question… It was quite the drive.

…

The bell sounded the second class of the day. An old man entered their classroom. They did the usual greeting routine and the older man went to sit behind his desk. He was slightly fat and had short white hair. His eyes, behind thick black glasses, were sharp looking.

He introduced himself shortly: "I will your Professor in Advanced Robotics, you may refer to me as Mr Zervas"

The students waited as the teacher began to take out something from his bag. It was a ball the size of his hand that seemed to be made out of minerals. It was completely pristine in appearance. He dropped it on the ground in front of his desk. Then, holes began to open from the ball and lights appeared from it. They interlocked and turned into a holographic screen.

From it, one could see a face beginning to form. It looked just like a younger version of the old man on his desk.

Then, there was sound emitted from it: "Welcome everyone, I am Mr Zervas, your teacher for Advanced Robotics this year. It is a pleasure to meet you"

The student body looked between the hologram and the teacher behind his desk, they were wondering what was going on. Ron was not. He thought that maybe the two were brothers. After all, a family name belonged to an entire family, not just one person.

The next words from the hologram changed everyone's views on it: "Your first test will be simple: find out who between me and the man behind the desk is the real Professor and who is the robot. Feel free to do anything as long as you do not leave your seats. You can question us however you want. Good luck"