Name: Professor "Q" 
Date: / /20 
Total Items: One (1) chessboard, initial setup 


Setting: 1:1 
Output: One (1) chessboard, white king's pawn moved 
up 2 spaces. 


Input: board as above, with black pawn moved to legal 
position 

Setting: 1:1 

Output: One (1) chessboard, as above with white queen 
moved diagonally to legal position. 


Professor "Q": Yes, I've been playing chess with 914. 
Yes, I'm aware it's probably non-sentient, but that hardly 
explains why it's winning. 


+ Show Test Logs, Part 3 


Name: Dr. C 


Nothing to See Here 


David, Age 0 


“He’s such a brilliant child,” his mother said to the nurse. The nurse 
smiled, indulging the new mother. Every first time mother thought 
her child was special. “No really!” The mother stroked the child’s 
head full of hair as she tried to explain. “His hearing is amazing. He 
knows when his father is coming down the hall... Look!” 


The nurse nodded again, noticing that even as the child’s father 
strolled in the door, the tiny head turned to look before the man even 
rounded the doorframe. She put it off to coincidence, and the 
mother's fatigued state. 


David, Age 4 


“David, what are you doing in your Sunday best?” His mother 
laughed at the sight of him, all gussied up, hair well oiled, tiny shoes 
shined, and tie inexpertly tied around his young neck. “You'll ruin it if 
you play in it.” 


“| wanna look my best for Father,” he said, his young eyes on the 
door. He smoothed his jacket again, those wide eyes hopeful. 


“Oh, dear... my darling boy...” She reached out to touch his 
shoulder, well used to his antics. “Your father is still on deployment. 
He won't be back for another month, at the least.” It was rough being 
the wife of a government agent. He was always on deployment, off 
to some exotic locale, to make deals, or, maybe, and here her mind 
rebelled even as it offered the alternative, maybe something worse 


Her husband had some amazing stories, but there was always 
something he held back. It didn’t matter. He came home to her, 
eventually. And he kept her and her loving boy supported. Let the 
neighborhood biddies gossip about her being a single mother. The 


ring on her finger said otherwise. 


“He'll be here,” the boy said. “There was an accident, with an old 
friend. He needs us now.” He stood proud, as the man of the house 
his father always told him he was. 


His mother shook her head, and opened her mouth to go tell him to 
change. It was at that moment the door opened, and her husband 
stepped through, looking ragged and haggard in his dress blues. 
She went to him, and held him, and, in the joy of their meeting, any 
oddness in her child was forgotten. 


David, Age 12 


“| don’t understand. He’s a brilliant child. You yourself said he’s 
passed all your tests with flying colors. Why do you want to hold him 
back?” David listened to his mother in the principal’s office. His seat 
in the hall wasn’t close enough to hear what was being said, but he 
listened anyways. 


“Your son has several, ah, developmental problems. He’s always off 
daydreaming, watching clouds, or doodling in his notebook. He 
never plays with the other children. He rarely turns in homework.” 
The principal exchanged a glance with David's teacher, and placed 
his hands on the table. “And, of course, we believe that he is 
cheating on his tests.” 


“I see,” his mother said, her back ram rod straight, her eyes focused 
on her hands. People assumed she was submissive, weak willed. 
That, being a woman, and a minority, she would just roll over and let 
things be. In a lot of ways, that was true. But never when it came to 
her son. Her gaze rose, and both men took an involuntary step 
backwards. “I assume you have proof of this?” 


Out in the hallway, David grinned to himself. While this had been the 
most likely course of events, that didn’t mean it was what was 
actually going to happen. It was nice to be proven right. Of course, 
he’d have to change his behavior, somewhat, to help his mother, 
and mollify the teachers. It was worth it, to see how things went. 


David, Age 15 


“’m sorry David. | can’t keep doing this to you. I’ve been cheating on 
you," his girlfriend confessed, tears brimming in the corners of her 
eyes. She’d wanted to tell him for weeks, so, of course, he’d been 
aware of it the entire time. 


"Mhmm," he replied, distracted. 


"With your best friend!" She hadn't meant to say it, but when he 
didn't respond like she thought he would, she had to say something. 


“| Know,” he said, as he continued his drawing, a photorealistic 
image of some grey humanoid, strapped to a bed. 


“You're just always drawing, and you never seem to actually listen 
to- You know?” Her head snapped back to stare at him. “What do 
you mean you know? How could you know? No one else knows! | 
haven't told anyone, and Brad said... oooh, did he tell you? | told 

him to wait, I'd do it myself!” He hadn’t told anyone, although he’d 
been sorely tempted. David had watched to make sure. 


“Yes.” He said. “He told me.” A lie, but lies came so easy to him. 


He watched that path for a moment, watched her storm from the 
room to confront his former best friend, watched as they had a huge 
fight, watched as the boy spread rumors that she was easy, watched 
her reputation ruined, her teen pregnancy, the joy of having a baby 
quickly turning into the depression of having to care for it, and her 
slow decline into drugs and prostitution later in life because of it. It 
was amazing the way little things built up. The good ones or the bad. 
Everything piled up, weighed you down. At the last moment, just 
before it wouldn't have mattered, he took pity on her. 


“No, I’m sorry. I’m angry.” He wasn't. “I loved you.” He hadn't. “If he 
makes you happier than me, go to him. But if he hurts you...” He let 
it drift off, allowed her to fill in the blanks herself. 


And, again, he watched, as the two of them became the best known 
couple of the school, prom king and queen, married at just after 
college, and then he stopped watching, because it hurt. They had a 
beautiful life ahead of them. His life hit a brick wall in just a year. 


“I’m sorry David, you're just so...” She searched for words, and then 
shook her head. She kissed him on the forehead, then walked out of 
his life. 


David, Age 16 


“David, we need to talk.” His father pushed the door open without 
waiting for a response, and then stopped, staring appalled at the 
multitude of art David had stapled to his walls. 


Here, a white and gray creature stood atop a mound of headless 
bodies. There, a beast dissolved in a green pool. The father could 
even pick out himself, and some of his exploits. He ignored his son, 
instead letting his hands drift from a picture of himself killing a man 
like wolf, one of him standing victorious atop a pile of clockwork, and 
-here he blushed- a rather explicit one of him in bed with three green 
tinged females. 


“It’s true then, isn’t it.” It wasn't a question. He continued to study the 
art on the wall, unwilling to take his eyes from the pictures to look at 
his only, acknowledged, son. 


David said nothing. 


“I’m sorry,” his father said, eyes focused on a picture of a dead man, 
a ruby and silver medallion laid on his chest. “I’m sorry | wasn’t here. 
| could have seen this earlier. Stopped it all before it started." 


David said nothing. 


“| can't... | can’t hide it. Not in my own family. Not with everything 
that’s gone before. | have enough pressure because of the others, 
and now, with your uncle...” He turned his head, his eyes moving to 
a picture above David’s bed. A boy strapped in a chair, blood 
dripping from empty sockets. “But maybe there’s still something | 
can do.” 


David watched all the things his father didn't say. He watched as he 
ran off, only to be hunted down and dragged into a little box for the 
rest of his life. Or shot, by a nervous agent. Or turned into a 
vegetable, like the uncle he'd never met. He sees so many 


alleyways, but, in the end, they all lead to three choices. Death, box, 
or this. 


David said nothing. 


“| have... well... he’s not a friend. A working acquaintance? He knew 
your grandfather. They call him a power eater. He’s a resource of 
last resort. It will...” His father's eyes drifted downwards, catching 
sight of a picture below the bed. An image of an innocent faced red 
haired boy. “It will hurt. But it will make you safe.” 


Still, David said nothing. 


“Well?” His father demanded, sharper than he had intended, as he 
turned to his son for the first time. He was shocked to see tears 
stained his sons usually stoic face. “Well?” He said again, his voice 
raised. “Don’t you have any thing to say?” 


“It doesn’t matter,” David said, his eyes locked with his father. “I’ve 
watched all the ways. I’ve looked at everything we do. It doesn’t 
matter what | say. It still happens. Sometimes it happens sooner. 
Sometimes it happens later. That’s when it’s the worst." His father 
looked away, unable to keep eye contact. "So, no, | have nothing to 
say." 


The older man turned back to the pictures, focusing on one that 
looked like his own father, standing over an opened grave. It steeled 
his resolve, which was what it was there to do.“I’m sorry, son.” His 
father said. "| Know you think you’re smart but sometimes, there are 
no good answers. I'll... I'll go set this up.” His father, a man who had 
faced down elder gods without blinking, fled from the simple raw 
emotion of his own child. 


David said nothing. 

David, Age 16 2 

David screamed. He screamed for a long, long time. 
David, Age 18 


“So, your mother was right. It didn’t work.” His father gazed down 


upon his blind son and the artwork on his desk. It lacked the picture 
perfect quality that it had before the eater, but it was still 
recognizable. Six girls dead. A seventh one pregnant. The older 
man looked away, wishing he could scrub his memories clean of 
some things. But someone had to remember. 


“No. | told you it wouldn't.” David didn’t look up. It wouldn’t have 
mattered. He saw the present just as easily as he saw the future. 
Where his gaze landed was entirely up to him, no matter where his 
body pointed. 


“We can try again,” his father said, as placing one hand on his sons 
shoulder. It was immediately shrugged off. “We can find the spot it’s 
coming from, dig it out...” 


“And have him eat more of who and what | am? No. No. | won't be 
turned into some brain dead idiot, coloring my life away, like what 
you did with my uncle.” David said. His hand gripped the brush 
awkwardly as he scrawled across the painting, dark colors 
streaming from his brush as he formed obscure symbols around the 


girl. 


“You don't have a choice!” His father snapped, his usual iron control 
slipping, his voice booming loud in the small room. He reached for 
the brush, wrenching it from his sons grasp, unknowing of what the 
runes might represent, only interested in preventing them. “We 
either fix you, or | have to lock you up! | will not see another of my 
kin in those cells.” 


“| don’t need to be fixed." David said, his voice hushed. "I’m not 
broken.” Now David’s head rose. His eyeless face gazed at the 
window, or perhaps through it. “But you’re right. You won't see 
another of your kin in those cells, not if | have anything to do with it." 


"| do have a choice.” He cocked his head to the side, as if listening 
to someone. “I always had a choice. | just didn’t look far enough. 
You see, I’ve had a talk with my aunt.” 


The old man immediately went on point. His head up, eyes open, 
body tense for fight or flight. He backed against the nearest wall 
looking around him, taking in every detail, prepared for an ambush. 


When one was lax in showing, he let his hand drift to his sidearm, 
and addressed his son. “You'll be an outcast. Always on the run. I'll 
have to tell them, have to have them look for you. | have my duty, 
my job.” 


“| Know. You'll always have your job. You always did. But | can 
always be one step ahead. Just like her. Goodbye. Tell mother | love 
her.” Even as he spoke, his body faded, the color leeching from it in 
an instant, followed by the solidity, until there was only an outline 
that slowly faded into the dust in the air. 


His father watched, and raising one hand. “Goodbye David.” 
David, Age 21 


And so he went to live with his Aunt. It was not an easy life she 
offered him, but it was a free one. He could smile, and, though 
forced, it was the beginning of happiness. 


In the first year he was with her, he learned how to guide his visions. 
To set them in their place, so they came when he called, not when 
they wanted. It was grueling work, the mental equivalent of learning 
to stroll up the side of Mt. Everest. With practice, came ease, and 
skill. 


In the second year he was with her, he learned what was needed to 
aide her in her work. He used his visions to watch over the 
shoulders of scientists as they punched in their passcodes to keep 
people imprisoned. He used his art to draw detailed maps of 
locations that needed infiltrating. Most importantly, he listened to 
those agents already out in the world, reporting back on how best to 
free their brethren. 


In the third year her went to her with a simple request. 
“| want to do more,” he told her. 


“More?” His aunt carefully closed the book in front of her, a slight 
frown on her face. “You do so much already. What more would you 
like to do?” 


“I’ve had... visions.” He made a face as she smiled in 


commiseration. “More so than usual, | mean. Ones that | think... | 
think they’re a call for help.” 


“Show me,” his aunt declared, reaching out to take his hand. 


In acell in a hospital in Singapore, a girl shook, uncontrollably. Her 
every movement caused her to vibrate, her body bounced around 
the room as she tried to fight it. Sometimes, she could hold it in, long 
enough to eat, to drink, and then back again to her vibrations, 
sometimes so hard she destroyed what she touched. 


In Seattle, a large eyed man slumbered under a bridge, safe in the 
arms of a concrete troll. When he begs, he does so mutely, because 
he had long ago seen the damage his voice could do. Just because 
you can make people do as you wish, it doesn’t mean you should. 


In the jungles of Peru, a person of indeterminate gender, slithered 
through the undergrowth. It raised its head and flicked out its 
tongue, as it sought its prey. It had been kicked out of its home, for 
being tainted by the other. 


On the streets of London, someone plied their trade, looked for any 
John who might need a quick fix. The body changed, against its will, 
becoming what their client wanted them to be, no matter how much 
the mind rebelled. 


A sentient idea lodged itself in the dirty thoughts of the worst scum it 
could find, as it tried desperately to feed on those that would not be 
missed, not understanding that it was making things worse just by 
doing this. 


A red headed woman from the opposite team jumped with a start as 
she realized someone was looking for her. She was reaching for her 
rifle, even as the scene shifted, aware that someone was looking at 

her. 


Again and again, scenarios played out in their heads, showed them 
children, adults, humans, and otherwise, in need, unaware of their 
shared history. If he still had working tear ducts, he might have 
cried. Because, in each of them, in their faces, he saw traces of his 
own. Black, white, Asian, scaled, amorphous, he still felt the kinship, 


that feeling that they were like him. 


“Ah. You’ve found your kin,” his aunt said, nodding. “I wondered if 
you would.” 


“Are they all...” He said, letting it trail off as he looked further down 
each pass, seeking places he could intervene.