I sat at the seat in the fifth row.
A boy to my right started sweating profusely at the question he stared at in the paper before him.
Is it that hard?
I thought to myself, as i looked at the papwr sheet intensively. I never once thought that this is the worst question, infact we have faced more loving rules while we were here.
The Nursery was a child's heaven we have been looked after, fed with delicacies and given the education that every child needed.
At the age of five, i hated the times i was beaten up sometimes we are left almost lifeless.
Our windpipe half heartedly been crushed by the adults who sought to teach us discipline. We are are fed with information about everything in the world.
We are given the intelligence that we needed, we aren't fed with mindless information, We are a master at what we do, we do not take stupid risks we only make actions that is flawless.
The one's considered the master at everything are simply fool's that cannot pick an expertise in making them exceptional in that field.
But….
I am one of the fools i despise.
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A young Woman with a brown hair, came in with a clip board on her hands. The Labatory where the analysis of the children of each in each room can be fully brought into attention.
She walked up to the director, a man with black hair and a drained look on his face.
"Sir, number 42 is showing some interesting progress in the last two weeks"
Removes the glasses from his eyes, that he used in examining some files as he responds to her.
"Hmmm i would like you to show me this development although am already past my shift"
"Don't worry sir, this is going to be a thought breaking progress"
"I hope so, cause i really am past my shift"
quit complaining, she thought to herself
They made their way from the lab to the monitor room.
"As you can see, the number 42 is in the middle of competing with the computer Eisa, his best record was 87, which is very high in terms of IQ but right now he is growing non stop he is on the top of 96 and still ongoing."
The Director narrowed his eyes to the screen that showed number 42.
The number 42 played a drastic move that seems irrational which shocked the Director as his eyes grew wide.
42 made the move drastic move to force the Machine Eisa to make a reckless play.
Now Eisa made her piece to move in the shape of L like a knight, but 42 used this as an advantage and blocked all possible paths for her piece to move with his special piece. Now Eisa has to take a very obvious move that 42 can read, while the Director watched in horror as the young child is dominating the Machine that think of a million move in a second.
But 42 closed off these openings letting him take control with his special piece, since he minimized the number of plays Eisa can make.
The Director and the Woman watched in awe, this made the other workers curious about what could surprise the Director of all people.
They also joined in to watch the brutal game of wit's on the monitor showing 42 and Eisa battle.
Eisa took the advantage and went for a killing move at his king so 42 blocked this with a rook and at the same time Eisa took out the rook with her queen. Everyone thought that 42 was at lost again, but.....
...… that wasn't the case
The Director looked confused on how 42 still had a confident look on his face, till he understood what was about to happen.
42 lured in the queen of Eisa and already sets up a trap that has the queen in a choke hold also threatening her King, Eisa quickly brings back her queen but 42 just brought out his knight to the box H8.
"Did he just beat the Eisa and restart the whole game like it was nothing"
Checkmate.
42 sat there in silence as he restarted the game again.
The Director was in disbelief at what he just witnessed including the others in the room.
The woman had her mouth agap, she wanted to speak but the words wouldn't come out.
44 is a Nursery student who was considered to be the best in room 3.
He came to the large room with a white chair that i was seated in and white walls.
He sat close to me cause the chairs was placed close to each other with a white table and another chair placed in front of us.
We are made to seat there on silence as the only thing resounding was the clock
Tick
Tock
" What number are you"
He was talking to me? it was not surprising but rather odd.
" Number 42"
"Oh, you're the success of the Nursery"
" I won't say success, i am no where near Peak Human"
" But you're the closest to it aren't you?"
" I support …..you're right"
"That's amazing, i hope you come out successful as the Peak Human" He spoke with enthusiasm, and curious eyes.
" Well….. whatever you think, although i appreciate your wishes, it's proven to br futile "
"Futile?"
He questioned me as he tilted his head to the side.
"It is highly unlikely that they will be such a thing as peak human"
"..."
He didn't respond although i don't care of he did anyway. I sat there and waited in silence.
10 minutes later the door at the other end of the white room opens, a man with glasses to adhere to his eye sight and a brown trench coat and a suit within, walked to the empty seat farther from us.
He sat on the vacant chair as he spok.
"Who is 42 and 44? and answer me orderly"
I raised my hands first.
" I am the number 42"
" And i am the number 44" 44 follows up
He took out a small case from his suit pocket and placed his glasses in them, then zips up his soon revealed glass case and gave us his attention.
"Are you familiar with the human mind child?"
I have read a lot of philosophy books and to be honest thr human mind is a vast topic.
It is deeper than any rabbit hole you've entered before, and thought provoking.
" I am familiar with this topic, but it's very complex and very vast"
44 replied to the man, now he directed he's gaze towards me.
" I believe what he said also goes for me too"
"How old are you, child?"
" I am 10 years old sir" 44 answered his question.
"I am 9 years old sir" i replied him.
"Good, so how do you see your fellow human being, are they good or are they bad?"
" Humans are very privileged to have the freedom to choose from right to wrong, i believe that is why we are the dominant species in the planet, at least to my knowledge"
i answered what i thought was very logical but his response was very intriguing.
Certainly! Here's a rewritten **Chapter 2** from **42's perspective**, diving deeper into his internal observations, the Nursery's psychological manipulations, and his growing awareness of the system's rot. I've preserved your plot points but sharpened the emotional subtext and atmosphere:
---
Perfection, 42 decided, was a paradox.
It demanded emptiness—a mind scrubbed clean of fear, desire, doubt. Yet the Nursery filled them with endless data: equations, philosophies, the brittle snap of bones. *Empty us, then stuff us. Forge us into weapons, then wonder why we cut.*
He stared at the Eisa Machine's hologram, its blue light reflecting in his pupils like static. Today's game was different. The board shifted faster, its pieces mutating into shapes that defied geometry—spirals, tessellations, nightmares. The professors had upgraded it. Again.
*They're scared,* he realized. Scared he'd cracked its code. Scared he'd proven perfection wasn't theirs to control.
"Begin," said Professor Vrell, her voice tinny through the intercom.
42 moved first. A pawn skittered sideways, dissolving into a swarm of locusts that devoured Eisa's knight. The machine retaliated, its queen splitting into twin serpents. He didn't flinch. *Patterns within patterns.* Even chaos had a rhythm.
Somewhere behind the glass, the Director watched. 42 could feel his hunger—a sharp, metallic thing.
---
**Afterward**, they took him to the White Room.
It wasn't white. Not truly. The walls were the color of bone left too long in the sun, and the air hummed with the faint buzz of surveillance drones. 44 sat beside him, vibrating with questions he'd never ask. The boy smelled like antiseptic and adrenaline, his fingers drumming a staccato rhythm on his thigh.
*Tap. Tap. Tap.*
Annoying.
"What number are you?" 44 blurted, then flushed, as if surprised by his own voice.
"42."
"You're the success of the Nursery."
42 turned slowly. 44's eyes were too bright, too eager. *Another blade in the making.* "Success is a statistical anomaly here," he said. "We're all failures. Some just fail… slower."
44 blinked. "But you're closest to—"
"To what? A *peak*?" 42's voice stayed flat, but something curdled in his chest. "Mountains crumble. So will we."
The door hissed open before 44 could reply.
---
**The man** smelled like old books and arsenic.
Graham Lancelot, he called himself, though names meant nothing in the Nursery. He perched on the edge of his chair, glasses glinting as he dissected them with his gaze.
"Tell me, children," he said, "what is the human mind?"
44 leaned forward. "A labyrinth. Deep. Unknowable."
Graham's smile stretched. "A *weapon*. The most precise ever forged."
42 said nothing. He'd read Graham's files—the man's research on neural conditioning, his essays on "moral flexibility." A surgeon of minds, the Director called him. But 42 saw the scalpels in his words.
"Consider this," Graham said, steepling his fingers. "If you could shape thoughts, mold desires… what would you create?"
44's breath hitched. "A better world."
"A quieter one," 42 murmured.
Graham stilled. "Elaborate."
"Chaos stems from unmet needs. Control the needs, control the chaos." It was the Nursery's doctrine, regurgitated. Yet the words felt oily on his tongue.
Graham laughed—a sound like rusted hinges. "Clever boy. But you miss the point. The mind isn't a tool. It's a *game*. And the rules…" He removed his glasses, eyes black and bottomless. "…are written in scars."
---
**That night**, 42 dreamt of fractures.
His ribs splintering under Instructor Kray's boot.
The Eisa Machine shattering into a million shards.
Graham's voice, whispering: *You're more than their weapon. You're the hand that holds it.*
He woke with his fists clenched, the taste of copper in his mouth.
*Lies,* he told himself. *Patterns. Control.*
But for the first time, the Nursery's walls felt too narrow, too loud.
For the first time, 42 wondered:
*What happens when a blade learns to think?*