~ At the first break for commercials Joel came rushing out on stage with the make-up lady in tow. He fussed with Ta's hair and then he waved a hand at Jaden's face.
"That bite thing is still way too visible. Do something about it!" he demanded of the girl next to him. Jaden immediately took a step back and warded off a brush with a raised hand.
"No. It is fine, Joel," he commanded firmly. "My eye is sore and I do not want anyone else messing with my face, understand?" Joel didn't have time to argue, as the clipboard lady was frantically waving him and the other crew members off of the stage.
"Welcome back!" chirruped Elwin to the camera, like some insanely happy cricket. "If you've just tuned in, you've arrived right on time for our shows' signature game: That Sounds About Right!
As Elwin went on to tell the audience all about the game and its rules, which happened to be almost exactly the same as the rules for Define It, Jaden caught himself tuning everything out and letting his mind drift.
"You should be paying attention," his mind admonished him. "This could be important."
"Eh, I've seen the show before. I know the rules."
"Still, you could be given valuable additional information."
"But I'm so tired. I just want to-"
"Jaden." He jumped at the sound of his name, and then he realized that Elwin was back in his podium and gesturing at the board. "The first round goes to you. For 20 points. Here's your question:
"While you are watching a lunar eclipse, a man leans over to you and says that the moon has now reached penultimate totality. What does he mean?"
For a moment Jaden considered trying the bluff again, but decided against it. Cal looked relatively smug after hearing this one. Jaden quickly ran through an explanation of totality and penultimate, all the while thinking that if he kept getting questions like these, winning would be easy. As Jaden had suspected, Cal agreed with his explanation and the score went to 50/20.
The game drug on and Jaden found himself becoming more and more detached. That fact wasn't exactly hurting his performance though. The fog that settled over him seemed to put a surreal, sharper edge on his focus and drown whatever anger and nervousness he had left in him.
"Vin, I'm looking for a quick egress. Tell me where I can find it."
"Takyle, for 20 points, please give an example of a tautological statement."
The scores hovered irritatingly close, Team 5 never quite pulling even, but coming dangerously close. After a round boringly devoid of bluffing, when it came to Andrew's turn he took a chance to widen the gap between scores.
"Andrew, please describe the effects of hysteresis."
"Hysteresis is a medical condition that affects only women. One of the effects is a softening of bones, and typically it causes yellowed skin and hormone imbalance. It usually only occurs in women who have already gone through menopause," Andrew explained.
Jaden looked over at Team 5 to catch Vin's response. He didn't know what hysteresis was himself, but he figured that if Andrew was bluffing, it was a pretty good one.
Vin didn't think so though. A grin spread over his face and he punched the red button in front of him.
"Ooh, we have a rejection!" exclaimed Elwin excitedly. "Vin, you are correct; Andrew's explanation was not satisfactory. You have a chance to steal those points if you can describe for us the effects of hysteresis."
"That I can Elwin," said Vin, smugly. "It's when an effect lags behind a cause. Like a piece of iron being magnetized. If you have a system with hysteresis, it means that you can't tell the output just by looking at the input of that moment, you have to see the input history to make a prediction. That is hysteresis."
"That is correct!" cheered Elwin. And just like that, the scores were even.
"This is just getting more and more exciting," Elwin gushed. "Both teams are doing extraordinarily well, and we have ourselves a tie coming up on the end of our show! Don't go away, we'll be right back after this short break!" ~
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