Prologue: Square Root of Commuting

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Disclaimer: This story is heavy on the use of academic material, especially mathematics. Please continue your reading at your own risk!

January 2023, rural Southwest Louisiana. It is the first day of classes after the holidays, and Geneviève, the star mathlete of the Venomous Agendas, harbors high hopes for the rest of the mathletic season. Referring to the high school by name is taboo in this rural region outside of official communications, so the locals always refer to everything related to it as the Venomous Agendas, or VAs, which is the school's team name in athletics, in everyday parlance. Students, teams, you name it. On the surface, it would seem like the Venomous Agendas' school is, academically, just one's ordinary rural high school.

On the bus taking her to school, she starts reflecting on the weeks to come. Marcia is the student I consider my closest friend, but isn't on the math team. Éliane, while on the math team with me, is a senior while I'm a junior, and so I only have AP calculus BC with her. Because every sports team struggled this year, all our extracurricular hopes for the year lie in this single-variable calculus contest called the Square Root of the Answer, this Friday, and the AIME at the end of the month. In short, mathletics. Shane might call me obsessed, and some people at school, too, but at least I can get along with most of the students. So here's our chance to show the town that one doesn't need sports to be proud of the school!

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