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Chapter 1 – The Dignitary’s Visit

As Jenks stood there, he couldn’t fathom how it had come to this. A week on, his jaw still ached. The force of the blow still sent shivers down his spine. And then there was her. That woman – surely, she knew, she MUST understand the reality of what he was working with. Of all the people, she must ‘get’ the potential of his research, of his work.

But she’d still ruined it all.

And now he waited, waited for the door to open, waited to face them all. It was the only thing the university was talking about… he could see it in his peers’ eyes… the accusations echoed through the stale, stuffy British university halls.

Jenks’s palms were sweaty, his mouth parched, and his legs had turned to jelly.

Just like that day, just like how it all started…

Jenks’s mind wandered back, pulling him back to face it all again. He turned to Emily, who returned a hollow smile, not like the gleaming, glistening one she wore a week ago. She’d been bouncing with excitement as they’d hauled the contents of their stand down the corridor to the university’s ‘End of Year’ expo. She’d given him a new polo top that morning; as it stretched across his chest, it displayed his toned muscles. She’d giggled with delight as she’d helped him on with it – promising to help him out of it later too!

The smell of the sports hall filled Jenks’s nostrils, and the musty scent brought back memories of countless nights spent coding, alone but hopeful. The old corridor of the university faded as the expo came into view. He saw, again, the range of students all bringing their work to showcase. The fashion students were hauling tailors’ dummies, long suit bags, and big thin cases. Jenks suspected that these held their initial drawn designs. For most visitors, they were the big noise, the spectacle, but he wasn’t here for most people. Design students had their section, as did the media students, all of which got better placing in the expo. His class was relegated to the back wall, with minimum-sized stands.

The university expo was meant to be a showcase of his triumph. For Jenks, it was more than just a project—it was his ticket out of obscurity, a chance to prove that his brain could overcome the legacy of a lost family and countless foster placements. His double helix-crypto blockchain wasn’t just an innovation; it was his lifeline.

Jenks could still hear the buzz of the crowd, feel the tension in the air as he and Emily prepared their presentation. She had been by his side, as always, her unwavering support a beacon of hope in the chaos of his mind. Together, they had poured their hearts and souls into the expo, determined to make their mark on the world. Emily continued fluffing the stand, trying to make those double helices stick in place, worrying about who the Dean was bringing to see his work. Jenks could hear her muffled voice ask, ‘What did the Dean actually say? Did she say a name? I could have done some research on them.’

Looking at their stand, taking it in, a lump grew in Jenks’s throat as he tried to suppress a tear. This was going to be his moment of triumph—a testament to the countless sleepless nights and sacrifices. His double helix-crypto blockchain, his magnum opus, was poised to revolutionise the blockchain world, probably the crypto one too. He remembered coding in the oddest places—on the toilet, between reps at the gym, during lunch breaks at his part-time job. Every line of code was a lifeline to his future. He glanced at Emily, her reassuring smile a constant reminder of why he started this journey. ‘It has to be perfect,’ he whispered to himself. ‘It is perfect… isn’t it?’

Jenks caught Emily’s eyes as she sought an answer to her question; he shrugged an apology. He looked around, taking in some of the other stands. His peers effortlessly engaged with the crowd, their charisma and charm drawing people in like moths to a flame.

A sinking feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. Compared to the sleek professionalism of his peers’ displays, his stand looked like something thrown together at the last minute by a blind gorilla wearing a tutu and hobnailed boots.

His stand looked like it was decked out for Christmas, in the mid-June humid heat! To be fair, the blockchain visualisation was a Christmas link chain he’d been given. It festooned around the big screen they’d borrowed from the media labs and booth, plus a festive bit draped on the laptop running his code. Maybe they should have come up with a better visual? This was his moment, but what if they didn’t see the value in his work?

He was fighting the urge to run, to avoid being humiliated by people who he’d spent years trying to fit in with. To avoid being ‘that kid’ again, sneered at, rejected by yet another group of people, another family. How could he compete with their polished professionalism when his own stall looked like a budget DIY project gone wrong?

He’d wanted to keep it simple and honest, to focus on the content and its features. He wanted the focus to be on him. Now he wasn’t sure. No, he was sure. He was sure he should have made it showier. He was sure he’d have to pull all the stops out.

Emily touched his arm, ‘You’ve got this. Not everything that glitters is gold – but you are!’

Jenks put his hand on hers, fought against his jelly legs and dry mouth, and nodded softly. Jenks interrogated some of the local stands.

One stand down, Ben was doing a surprisingly swift trade. His project did something in machine learning, even though he called it AI, it was a long way from it. The visitors to his stand pointed at things, had stuff to interact with, read his project’s benefits and suggested how it could work in their lives. Jenks had none of that happening at his stand.

Jenks’s internal committee jumped on the opportunity to question everything. Was his research truly as revolutionary as he had believed, or was he simply out of his depth in a sea of innovation? Would anyone care about his work? Would anyone even bother to come and see what his work was about? Most wouldn’t even understand the area he was working in, never mind how it would transform their lives. Would that matter? This wasn’t a popularity contest. He just needed one person, one industry insider, to see his work. They’d give him the funding and time to make it a market-ready offering, wouldn’t they? Or would they steal it? See his path and just get their researchers, their coders, to mimic his creation. Just as long as they didn’t inspect the full code, he’d be safe, he’d protect his work. Jenks shook off his paranoia, shook off Ben’s showmanship, and let his gaze wander.

_{© Lewis Webster 2024 – all rights reserved}