The icy air of the convention center slammed into me as soon as I opened the doors. Music pounded through the building. People fell in and out of rooms as they moved from one party to another. Goons1 patrolled the halls and checked on people in the parties. I looked up, rooms thrummed with energy on all three levels of the building. People in all-black, in leather, in costumes, with spiked hair, and spiked collars danced, waved glow sticks, and bounced beach balls above the crowds. DEF CON always felt like a homecoming, even if I didn't join the parties.

  I hurried through the building, past the wall of stickers that screamed things like, “Elect more hackers!” and, “Hack the planet!”, to the back of the convention center, where the exhibit area was. It would officially be closed by this time of night, but I hoped maybe someone might still be there.

  The doors to the exhibit hall were shut, but I heard voices inside. I pulled on the handles. Locked. I had lock picks with me, but the lock was an RFID reader.

  As I stood there deciding how to get in, the doors opened. A man walked out. He wore all black and looked tired. He looked at me. I looked at him. We looked at each other. He noticed my bright-pink lunchbox and looked at the tips of the plants that stuck out the side of my bag, but did not show any reaction. “Someone in there needs… plants.” I said. He held the door open for me.

  I navigated through the black curtain partitions until I found the Biohacking Village. I approached a table where a few people sat eating pizza. They looked up as I approached.

  “Hello,” I waved and grinned. One of them smiled, one raised his eyebrows, the other just stared at me. “I was hoping someone could help me with something…” I trailed off, I had no idea how to explain this. I hadn’t rehearsed in my head.

  “With what?” Asked the guy who had smiled at me. He had blue hair and steampunk goggles on top of his head. He looked like he was in his 20s. He lowered his pizza back to his plate.

  “I’m trying to hack something…” I said. I shifted my weight and clutched the strap of my bag tighter.

  “Well, you’ve come to the right place.” Said the guy who had not smiled. He wore a black DEF CON shirt, looked to be in his 40s, and was bigger than the blue-haired guy. He wore normal, clear glasses and looked grumpy.

  “I need help identifying a symbol.” I felt my palms start to sweat and my cheeks get hot. “I think it’s… important…” I trailed off.

  “We can try, but you might be better off asking someone who specializes in cryptography…” Said the woman who had raised her eyebrows when I walked up. She wore a cybergoth outfit. She had dreads threaded with blue glowing cords, wore a black leather outfit, black leather mask, had light blue contacts, and bold black and blue makeup. It was hard to tell, but I thought she might be in her 30s. “Why do you have plants in your bag?”

  I looked down at the plants. “They need good homes. ” She raised her eyebrows again.

  “Most people trade stickers or alcohol.” Said the guy in the Defcon shirt.

  “I don’t have any of that.” I said. My anxiety grew. The icy fluorescence of the light made my eyes water. I pulled my sunglasses down over my eyes.

  The guy with blue hair got up and pulled out a chair. The other two cleared a space on the table. He gestured for me to sit down.

  “Come show us this puzzle.” He said with a warm smile. I went and sat down. “By the way, I’m Pop Lock and Sprocket, but you can call me Sprocket. That’s Blue Screen of Beth,” he pointed at the cybergoth, “and that’s Dave.” He pointed at the guy in the DEF CON shirt. “But he likes to spell it like D4v3, ya know?” He motioned the spelling in the air with his finger. I nodded. I set my bag and photon detector on the cleaned patch of table.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “I’m Nightshade.” I said.

  “Hi, Nightshade.” They all said in unison.

  I smiled and bobbed my head. The silence went on until Sprocket said, “So, you have a puzzle…?”

  “Yes!” I pulled out my laptop and spun it around so they could see the screen. “There’s this symbol. I think I need to match it somehow, like with my body I think? Look,” I touched the keypad, “It reacts when I touch it… that’s why I came here to the Biohacking Village because… you guys… do that?” They all leaned in closer.

  “Have you figured out how the waves relate to the symbol?” Asked Sprocket.

  “I think they need to match the symbol. But… they don’t. I thought maybe, if I at least knew what the symbol was, it might help me figure out how to get them to match. But watch this,” I hummed and showed him the readout and how the waves changed to crazy lines.

  “Ok, don’t freak out, but I need to show you something else.” I told them, as I helped Sprout out of my bag. He set the plants down, then sat on the table next to the computer, facing me. The three biohackers stared at him.

  Sprocket asked, “Did you make that? Is it, like, some kind of AI robot?”

  “Um. He’s not really that. He’s more of just whatever he is.” I said.

  “Sure.” Said D4v3.

  “Could you hum so they can see what happens on the screen?” I asked Sprout. He hummed.

  “Whoa…” They gasped, as they watched Sprout’s blue line perfectly trace a small part of the symbol.

  “So this little… thing… is able to trace a line with its voice…” Sprocket said.

  I didn’t like him referring to Sprout as a . “Yes, Sprout is helpful in a lot of ways.” I said.

  “And you built him?” Blue Screen of Beth asked.

  “It was a collaborative effort.” I said. It was freezing in that building. I took the sweatshirt from around my waist and put it on. I pretended not to see them looking at each other with expressions of… surprise? I thought their interest in Sprout was probably just normal curiosity, but I wanted to guide their focus away from him. “So, anyways, it seems like we need to match the whole symbol.”

  “I think there are some crucial gaps you need to fill in for us before we continue. Like, where did you get this puzzle, and why are you trying to hack it. That might give us a jumping off point to start solving it.” D4v3 said.

  So I told them I’d received a message from B4ruch, and that he’d challenged me to unlock something that he couldn’t, and that if I could, that it had the potential to help the world.

  “He said he didn’t know how to solve the final puzzle. He said I would probably need help, so I came here.” I traced a loop with my finger to show them, “This looks like a lima?on — you know, those annoying things from calculus, so it makes me wonder if the whole thing is something to do with math.” I sat back in my chair. While they stared at the symbol, I reached for a slice of pizza. Sprout groaned.

  “What else am I supposed to eat?” I whispered at him as I shoved the cold pizza in my mouth. “So hab you guys eber seen thith sthimbol?” I asked through a mouthful of pizza. They all shook their heads. I swallowed.

  “He said solving this would help the world?” Sprocket asked.

  I responded through another mouthful of pizza. “Yeth, something like that." Sprocket grinned. Dave’s face didn’t change. It was difficult to see if Beth had any reaction because she wore a mask that covered the lower half of her face.

  “So it’s legal?” D4v3 asked.

  “I’s morally right.” I responded. He stared at me. “It’s my equipment, it was me B4ruch sent the message to, it’s my fingerprints on this project, I’ve already assumed the risk. I’m not interested in dragging anyone down with me, I just want to finish what I started.”

  He pondered that for a minute as I ate another bite of pizza. No one else spoke. Finally, he said, “Is anyone from cryptography still here?”

  “I’ll go look around.” Sprocket said. He jumped up and disappeared through the black curtains.

  We sat in silence until he returned.

  Sprocket burst back through the curtains with a person, an older clean-cut guy wearing a black polo and glasses. Sprocket brought the guy around the table to show him the symbol, “Take a look at this, do you know what it is?” The new guy looked at it.

  “Oh cool, the Riemann zeta function.” He said.

  1 are DEF CON volunteers who help with a wide variety of things to make sure the con runs smoothly.