Ticket to Disneyland!

Johnson was pretty average in Quantum Mechanics 101. His grades in Relativity Theorems also sucked. He was not proud of it and made it a point to read extensively before he started his sophomore year. It was his sheer luck to have landed at MIT with truly average grades. May be the panel took pity and took notice of his project on Understanding Vector Angular Motion at Joints of Robotic Arms that landed him in the cosy hostel room at MIT about an year ago. He was getting nostalgic about how his father taught him Electromagnetic Theory in Grade Six and how he always goofed up with simple formulae. He wished he had paid more attention to his elementary courses. Of course, he couldn't survive in the brutal competition that was waiting for him in the Sophomore. Robotics was a subject coveted by the best of the best of the best at MIT. It indeed was the 'in' thing. He simply had to study Advanced Robotics. 

He wished for a miracle - and it happened. 

There on the LED board, Krypton lights read:

Advanced Robotics Class:

1. Ramsey Hawkins

2. Sharon David

3. Rishi Subramanium

4. Arthur Collins

5. Jacob Miller

6. Stuart Harrington

7. Ayesha Jones

8. Johnson Matthews

9. Peter Wilkins

10. Ruskin Potter

He was excited to be a part of the elite ten to be taught by the legendary Shaun Drake - the man who single handed revolutionized robotics and took the merely walking talking robot to a new level where they would soon be the cause of discussions on ethics in parliaments world over. What he did not notice as it was conspicuously noticeable to others by its sheer absence was the name of Andy Halter from the list. Andy was by far, the most talented student whose stories went far beyond winning competitions and publishing research papers. Andy was a prodigy. He aught to be there on the list but for the gross indiscipline that is best not mentioned to protect the ethos for which MIT stood for.

Andy, as his unpredictable nature warranted, thought to single out a person who filled his truly deserving seat. It turned out to be No. 8 by the complex killer algorithm that he devised for the 'most unsuitable person amongst the 10 in the list of Advanced Robotics class'. He thought and as it turned out that his algorithm was flawless.

No. 8 - Johnson Matthews would have to pay for his mediocrity, for his seat in Advanced Robotics.

Johnson was highly excited, though he could feel the weight of less than hard work that he put in studies on his shoulders. He would have to do God-knows-how-many-things to set the wrongs right to be able to compete with his flawlessly geeky class. Now he wondered, why he wasted so much time having fun with combinatorics in Grade 2, Vector Analysis and Triple Integration that people could do with eyes closed by Grade 4. It was like the life's miseries were flashing before him one by one.

It was Johnson vs Andy - hardly suitable to be compared even with the David vs Goliath story. 

Andy, in all his frustration had started displaying what parents would call delinquent behaviour. Missing classes, evading compulsory CERN certified practicals, etc. His room was an enigma whose crytic code was yet to be decoded. No one knew if he slept or not. Soon, no one cared. Andy, came out once a month religiously to stock up his room to purchase stuff to survive and to buy things from Shin-Science-Store [S CUBE]. He was hardly noticed except by a bare few who happened to see him there. After all, it wasn't every day a student was found at S CUBE - the popular haunt where famous physicists and philosophers enjoyed discussions alike and bought stuff necessary for their projects and research. It was almost out of bound even for guys like Andy.

'Knock, Knock!' - came a mechanical voice at Johnson's door at an unearthly hour of 3 a.m. Yes, it was a voice and not the knock at the door. Sleepily, as he opened the door, all he could see was a smart young guy carrying an advanced vector analysis book in his hand [vectors is the only thing that made MIT possible for him and was the only thing that he was good at] The only problem was that he did not recognize the person standing in front of his door.

'Yes?'

'Hi Johnson, you may not recognize me but I know you very well. I am Peter Jackson. I read your paper on Vector Angular Motion. I must say I was more than impressed.'

He was vigourously shaking Johnson's hands while all Johnson could think of was to go back to bed and sleep. He had an impossible test to tackle tomorrow and it wasn't perhaps the best time to tackle fans. 

'Yeah, thanks. Errr, listen Peter, can we talk tomorrow...I was actually sleeping..have a test to take tomorrow...'

'Oh, sure...am sorry to hold you up for so long..see ya!'

'No problems, good night!'

'Good bye', chuckled Peter and scuttled away in an unlikely unconvincing unseeming unhuman strut. Johnson was way too sleepy to observe that.

He woke up groggy eyed next morning. And soon, the thought of the impending test jolted him out of that laziness that kept him to bed. After following the usual shit, shave, shower routine, he picked his bag and was ready to kiss his most treasured possession - the framed Ticket to Disneyland with which his grand father took him to the most amazing place in the whole of US of A in his early childhood. That ticket meant way more to him than it would mean to a collector had it been put under hammer at Christie's. All that remained was a beautiful gold etched frame with an impression of a rectangular paper that was stuck to it on one side and the photograph of his grand father on the other.

Three rooms away, a visibly satisfied Andy was staring at a tiny piece of paper that would fit perfectly into Johnson's empty frame. Along with him, a mechanical human form was sitting back straight, as if ready for his next orders...