"What the hell?!" Joey exclaimed, struggling against his restraints. All four of them had their hands locked in medieval stocks so that they couldn't escape the guillotines above them. "What kind of sadistic theme-park attraction is this?"
"Stop squirming like that," Seto ordered sharply. "It won't do you any good. Just let me think this through and we'll be free soon enough."
In front of them were four buttons, each with a unique label: 00, 11, 10, 01. All they knew for a fact was that three of the buttons would cause the blade to drop, and one button would free them.
"How can you act so calm?!" Joey shouted, continuing to babble in panic until Anzu managed to plant to plant a firm kick on his rear end.
"Calm down, you big baby," she scolded in irritation. "None of us will be able to figure this out if you don't shut up!"
"Do you have any ideas, Yugi?" Seto asked, staring down at the numbers, then up at the letters. He was starting to see a pattern.
"No, but you look like you might have a thought about this," Yugi answered nervously. Seto felt bad for him, the poor little pacifist trembling with fear.
"Maybe..." Seto was hesitant to say anything in case he was wrong. They only had one chance to get this right while keeping them all in one piece.
"Well, what are you thinking?" Yugi asked. Focusing on the puzzle itself helped him to maintain some degree of composure.
"The answer is eleven," Seto said, and he could feel Seth agreeing with him. He reached to push the button, but Anzu's voice stopped him.
"Wait! Don't touch that!" she cried. "How do you know? Explain it to us."
"I've been working with computer programming a lot, so I'm used to seeing computer data bytes everywhere," Seto began, only to be interrupted.
"What's a data byte?" Joey asked, still looking nervous, but restraining himself from panicking so as to avoid another kick from Anzu, whose eagle eyes fixed him with a stern look.
"A bit is the smallest unit of computer data," Seto explained with a sigh. "It's composed of a single digit that has one of two values: zero or one. A byte is any set of multiple bits. These," he said, pointing down at the buttons and numbered buttons, "Are binomial bytes to me, not just numbers. And those," he pointed up at the letters, "Cumulatively, form a byte. Break the lines and circles down into pairs, and you have the same four binomial bytes: one-zero, one-one, zero-zero, zero-one. You could also look at it as the permutations of 0, 1, choose two, allowing for repeats, as a part of the branch of math called combinatorix—"
"Enough with the nerd talk, just get to the point already!" Joey shouted, making Seto scowl. "I don't see any numbers on the wall, so I still don't understand how you think eleven is the answer."
"You asked me to explain my process, didn't you?" Seto asked sourly.
"I get it now!" Yugi said, his eyes lighting up. "It's eleven because it's the only number distinguished from the others at all. I mean, the fact that it's pointing down makes me kinda nervous, but—"
"So are we certain that's the answer?" Anzu asked, unwilling to pay the price of an incorrect answer.
"Yep," Seto said, reaching down to push the button labeled "11." They all held their breath until they saw Seto be freed. Then they breathed heavy sighs of relief and followed suit.
"How did you figure that out so fast?" Anzu asked, but Seto just shrugged.
"I work for KaibaCorp, and they only hire smart people." He smirked as he turned to face the blond and added, "Sorry, Joey."
YOU ARE READING
Rock Bottom: Season Zero
FanfictionYGO AU: What if Seto and Mokuba were never orphaned? What if Joey's parents never got divorced? What if Noah Kaiba was never hit by a car? What if Ryou's mother and sister had never died? What if Marik had never killed his father? What if the Millen...
