Back to: Byte Betrayal – A Jenks Adventure

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.

Across from Jenks’s stall stood Alex, a vibrant burst of colour and creativity amidst the sea of monotony. With her shock pink hair and punk-inspired attire, she exuded an air of rebellious energy that drew the eye of everyone who passed by. He’d always admired Alex, ever since their first project together in the first year. She asked good questions, she was playful with her code, she made him lift his game. Her stall was a testament to her creative vision, filled with meticulously re-imagined retro-tech items that captivated the attention of passersby.

‘OpenEyes’ – Identity Theft, back-tracking software, her booth read.

Old cassette tapes had been transformed into quirky art pieces; their magnetic ribbons twisted into intricate patterns that shimmered in the dim light of the sports hall-cum-expo hall. Nearby, a vintage rotary phone had been repurposed into a functioning Bluetooth speaker, its rotary dial replaced with sleek, modern controls. A set of vintage typewriters sat lined up, their keys clacking away as visitors typed out their search requests.

But it was Alex’s centrepiece that truly stole the show—a dazzling sculpture crafted from salvaged computer parts, its intricate design a fusion of past and future. As visitors marvelled at the retro-futuristic aesthetic and bold design, Alex stood nearby, her enthusiasm infectious as she explained how her code worked; not only how it protected you but also located the perpetrators for the authorities to deal with.

In a world of cookie-cutter presentations and uninspired displays, Alex’s stall stood out as a beacon of creativity and originality. And as Jenks watched her effortlessly engage with the crowd, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of admiration mixed with envy.

In the corner stood Fredrick and his entourage, their booth surrounded by a throng of eager onlookers. The air buzzed with excitement as people jostled for a closer look at his display. But to Jenks, it was clear that the spectacle was nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

Fredrick had a knack for captivating audiences with his charismatic charm and smooth-talking rhetoric. He had mastered the art of selling an illusion, drawing attention away from the lacklustre substance of his work with flashy presentations and empty promises.

Behind the flashy displays and polished presentations lay a tangled mess of lies and half-truths designed to prop up his fragile ego. Rumours circulated among the students; some claimed he exploited first-year students, using their naivety and eagerness to write code for him. There were even darker rumours of blackmail and coercion.

But despite the whispers and rumours, Fredrick continued to bask in the adoration of the crowd, his smile never faltering as he worked the room with practised ease. To the unsuspecting eye, he was the epitome of success, a shining example of what could be achieved with charm and cunning.

Jenks shook off the feeling that he wasn’t receiving the recognition he deserved, reminding himself that he wasn’t catering to the typical audience present at the expo. While others may be content with impressing parents or local businesspeople looking for a way to spend a Wednesday afternoon, Jenks had set his sights much higher.

He reflected on his upbringing, the absence of his parents – lost to the complexities of the care system and the passage of time. They were distant shadows in his life, their absence leaving a void that he had learned to fill. That’s why he pushed himself at the gym. That’s why he pushed himself at coding. And he wouldn’t let others push him, or the few people he cared for, about. He refused to let his past define him or limit him.

He’d spun his wheels at full revs, he could sleep when he was dead. Today his wheels would get traction and he’d be away! His parents may never have attended an event like this, but their absence only served to fuel him, to prove himself, to show the worth of him, to make others respect him.

Jenks squared his shoulders and focused on the task at hand. He had chosen to set his benchmark higher, to gamble on the big payoff against his own ability, more than most could imagine. This was a prelude, the big prize would be the Crypto Expo in LA, the university was raising funds to send a delegation – and he was going to book his seat at the front… leading the charge!

Jenks heard himself say, ‘Dr Cooper just said an alumni that would stun us, she didn’t say who.’

‘And didn’t it occur to you to ask? Of course not,’ Emily chided him playfully.

The sports hall hubbub reverberated with students, parents and the holy grail, businesspeople! Executives from some of the sorts of companies Jenks would die to get recruited by. The very thought made his heart race. This was it, his chance to show that a kid who grew up in foster care could stand tall among the giants of tech.

The university had really pushed the boat out. They knew that to attract the best people from the best companies, not just their HR recruiters, they needed to wine and dine these VIPs. So, it made it easy for the undergrads to know who was worth putting the extra attention into – they were the ones waving their fizzing champagne flutes, filled with the most reasonably priced bubbly.

From just off to his side he could hear Ben stuttering through his pitch, and a helpful academic chaperone asking the right questions, but the VIP was only paying lip service.

Jenks’s memory fired off that feeling of pained regret… why hadn’t he helped? Should he help this time? This time he would help!

But then an interested parent fired off the perfect question for him, ‘So, what’s all this about?’

Jenks recalled just how his pride swelled and confidence just grew, like the bubbles in champagne that just seem to appear and effervesce. Jenks was out of the starting blocks, ‘Well, do you know what’s the biggest limiter of modern blockchain, what’s holding back the industry?’ he started, ‘It’s the vast amount of energy needed to maintain the full chain of data – that’s why it’s called blockchain.’

‘Here,’ added Emily, ‘add a link to our paper ‘blockchain’’

She handed the parent a few Christmas ‘make-your-own-paperchain’ links, and the parent played along, adding their links to the long paper chain as they listened.

‘Your average blockchain adds hundreds of links, recording each, and every transaction, every second, all the way back to the very first minting of that coin or data point. So, a single coin has trillions of pieces of links to maintain, to secure its identity, and therefore its value. Running the servers that hold all that information is costly and sucks energy. Crypto isn’t ecologically sustainable,’ informed Jenks.

A listening mum laughed, ‘I’ve got ‘me cards luv. I don’t do fairy money.’

Jenks loved this, she’d played perfectly into his narrative, he could recall his confidence growing as more people stopped to listen, ‘Of course not, you don’t need your bank to track your money transferring to the store, to the hairdresser, or from your employer to you. You don’t need to worry about the council balancing traffic flows across their conurbation, or how the hospital secures your medical data – it’s all blockchain – it’s all secure!’

For a moment, he felt like a rockstar, explaining his revolutionary idea to an eager audience.

As he looked out across the booth, Jenks’s out-of-body experience let him ‘take in’ how many people he’d drawn in, they’d loved him, they were getting it!

Then a voice of a disinterested VIP from the neighbouring stall piped up, ‘That’s all solved, son, you’re late to the party mate!’ The VIP sloshed around his reasonably priced bubbly, spilling some of it on to his cheap crumpled polyester suit, ‘God, what are they teaching these kids?’ he asked no one in particular.

Jenks didn’t even skip a beat, ‘Quite right, there are blockchains that regularly truncate and discard-’

‘SEE?! He even knows it’s useless…’ cut in the VIP, his chins wobbling in agreement.

Jenks felt his fists clench, and he fixed his smile, what an obnoxious nob, ‘Which, which, which…W’

‘Spit it out – another stutterer,’ The VIP chastised, ‘Please!’

Emily picked up the baton, ‘Which is the weak point of their systems,’

She demonstrated how the links must be broken to shorten the chain. And Jenks had swept in with his hazard embossed link, ‘Which allows malware and hackers in.’

The academic chaperone whispered into the VIP’s ear and tried to steer him away from the argument, ‘Oh and you… and your little girlfriend have done what teams of coders, highly paid coders couldn’t – give me a break!’ slurred the dignitary.

Jenks felt his nails dig into his fist again, he knew his fixed smile had dropped, but he focused on getting the presentation across to everyone else. ‘I’ve looked at nature, at the very building block of us, we have so much data encoded into our DNA double helix.’ Jenks told the gathered crowd.

The VIP finished his bubbly, grabbed another one and wafted a dismissive hand at Jenks, ‘yeah right’, as he moved on.

Jenks continued to expound, occasionally tracking the VIP as he moved on to their next victim. ‘So my code, at regular intervals, converts the blockchain into ‘bases’ and structures them into ‘pairings’ and then constructs them into a double helix to further shorten them.’

Jenks recollected looking over to Emily, who was using the paperchain to show how the twisted chain was significantly shorter. ‘How is this any more secure?’ came the question from another champagne flute holder.

‘There’s no point of destruction; the chain is intact, always,’ Jenks explained.

‘I can’t see how it saves energy,’ another queried.

‘A single sperm holds all the data to make a new person, a football field-sized data centre struggles to hold half of that. With my double helix compression, our data would be super condensed. And that saves storage space, which… saves energy – gigawatts!’ Jenks replied.

‘But how do you access the information? Surely you can’t wait years for it to grow back?’ another asked.

Jenks chuckled inwardly at this. ‘Like genes, we have markers, so we just unpack that specific data – with my proprietary code – not the whole blockchain. So it’s secure, now, tomorrow, and always!’

But just as he was finishing answering the question, Jenks felt his attention being pulled over to Alex’s booth, where ‘that’ VIP was pointing accusingly at her. Jenks couldn’t hear the exchange.

‘Mr Jenkinson! Please describe the consensus mechanism used by your blockchain and its advantages,’ the Dean prompted.

In this memory of the incident, the Dean and her alumni were picked out in a halo of light. He’d immediately recognised Dr Cooper’s guest. It was Hathaway, this tech guru had been out of his wildest wish list. She’d been famous from before Jenks could remember, one of the few who’d stayed the test of time. She was the Bill Gates of coding, she was the Elon Musk of data, she was the Jeff Bezos in almost all smart devices. She and the Dean, they just… glided from the back of the crowd, as it parted for them, to be up close – and very personal. It was a religious experience for Jenks. Hathaway’s perfume filled his nostrils. She wore her age with pride. Her lips moved but he couldn’t recall the words; it was like birdsong. But that smell! It seemed to generate its own set of colours. It was heady, with an idea of strength and a softness that only really expensive perfume can achieve.

When Jenks snapped back into the reality of the day, he remembered seeing Emily staring at him, and then Ms. Hathaway, and then the Dean. ‘Well?’ Emily prompted.

‘Sure?’ Jenks tried.

‘You’re sure?’ gushed Ms. Hathaway, ‘I love to see how others solve code problems…’

She just helped herself to his PC, and started to tap away at the demo running on Jenks’s computer. Shocked, Jenks looked at Emily, what had he inadvertently agreed to? Surely, she’d be too old to understand modern code? That would be left to her company’s coders, her tech people, wouldn’t it? This was for show, for the dissipating crowd, for PR fluff, wasn’t it? Would she see the holes and shortcuts in it? That the university exam board had missed? The shoddy patches that held different pieces together? Would she see his genius? Or his folly?

‘Don’t worry, Nora got me to sign an NDA,’ said Hathaway conversationally.

‘Nora?’ spluttered Jenks and Emily in tandem.

Hathaway continued tapping and chatting, ‘Well, I don’t think it’s right for the only dropout-with-a-doctorate to be kowtowing to titles. Levelling, that’s the way I work,’ then indicating at the screen, ‘This is an interesting choice…’

‘Well…’ Jenks started.

‘…all yours?’ Hathaway interrupted.

‘Just… standing on the shoulders of giants,’ Jenks replied, his eyes begging her to stop, his lips repeating back one of her lines in a recent interview.

Hathaway locked Jenks’s eyes, they glistened with a glint of mischief, ‘…what do you think of it here?’ and then she returned to the code.

The multi-billionaire Hathaway was tapping away at his code, like an intern looking through a company’s filing system! The most successful female in tech, was sitting at his demo, wanting his input. Jenks just wanted to pinch himself. All his Christmases had come at once. The ones where you got what you really wanted, not just the care homes’ well-meaning, but absent, custodians assigned a gift – based on age, sex and a tick sheet of interests filled in 8 months ago. Surely this would get some of the other big executives to notice what he’d done, the vast achievement he completed.

‘Well…’ Jenks checked with the Dean.

‘Speak freely, you’re amongst friends, right Nora?’ Hathaway said.

Jenks felt himself go through all his gears, wishing he’d chosen something else… but he so wanted Hathaway’s confirmation… and this could have been his only chance… she told him to speak freely – didn’t she? Oh, why didn’t he just say the usual bullshit? Couldn’t he just say it this time, change the past? He cleared his throat… ‘well…’

‘Good, you’ve said that…’ teased Ms. Hathaway.

‘The tech is out of date, the support is from the stone-age, our work is owned by the university, we get the huge debts to manage for the rest of our lives, they get IP and licencing deals that grow their profits, and I could have done this without any of their support,’ splurged Jenks.

‘…could you now?’ murmured Hathaway to herself.

Dean Dr. Nora Cooper jerked Jenks to one side and snarl-whispered, ‘That’s not fair Mr. Jenkinson, your IP is academically shared, we’ve given you a lot of rope and leeway, god knows you’re not an easy individual to deal with…’

Jenks couldn’t retrieve all of the Dean’s berating; it just became a noise in his ears. He did recall Emily’s eyes full of disappointment, yet again. All her time spent helping him rehearse responses to questions, to get his presentation honed, to keep people on his side. He’d let her down with his lack of discretion, his need to tell it straight, honest without favour, always. Her shoulders slumped.

Jenks recalled seeing a lot of his shoes and the sports hall walls, as his head flopped around like a fish choking. It was then his eyes latched on to Alex, and ‘that’ total arse of a VIP. He could see that Alex was going bright red. The nob was spitting words at her. The obvious venom in his intent written all over his body language. She was deflating like a hot air balloon on fire. They’d always shared a quiet rivalry, pushing each other to new heights. The VIP’s academic chaperone tried to pull him away. Now, seeing Alex in distress, he felt a protective surge—he couldn’t just stand by.

The tension, that had started with the Dean’s dressing down, now welled up like a volcano, the red mist filled him. His muscles tightened. His fingers locked into fists. He felt his shoulders widen. The definition of his gym-hardened physique crystallised. And then it happened. The VIP released his chaperone, sending her stumbling, and jabbed his accusing finger hard into Alex’s chest. Jenks just gently, but firmly moved Dr. Cooper to one side, saying, ‘excuse me…’

In his memory, Jenks was next to the guy in just one step, demanding, ‘Hey! What’s wrong with you?!’

The drunk VIP twisted his head around, finger still planted on Alex, to take in his accuser. An evil little smile spread across his face. ‘Oh, it’s pretty muscle… go back to your obsolete lies.’

Through the fog of his memories, Jenks felt his face try to contain the snarl that rippled across it. As the VIP turned his attention back to his current victim, Jenks half-stepped, half-pushed himself between him and Alex, while opening up his physical dominance to square up to the prick, spilling the guy’s drink on him in the process.

The VIP let his anger show and pushed Jenks back, knocking the Dean as she tried to defuse the situation. Now, in hindsight, every move seemed to be in slow-motion, but in the heat of the moment, on that day, everything had felt so condensed. If someone had asked him just afterwards who threw the first punch, he couldn’t have said for sure… but now, in sports replay mode, he saw the truth. What he’d intended to be a push back had turned into a heavy slap as the VIP shifted his weight. Then there were a few test-swinging fists from Jenks – but this VIP landed every punch, drunk or not. Yes, Jenks got a couple of lucky blows in, but nothing special.

And then another scream went up, ‘Bastard!’

And he’d looked.

Why had he looked? Had he known that she’d find it? Was it his own shame that had really distracted him? Jenks just couldn’t say. But that single second. That single distraction opened him up for the jaw cruncher from the VIP. Jenks had gone sprawling, landing by Ms. Hathaway, she’d twisted around to confront him, pointing at the computer screen, fury written all across her face, ‘You stole my code!’ she screamed at the prone Jenks.

The whole hall had gone deathly still. ‘Who else have you plagiarised?’ she accused.

The Dean blathered something about academic rigour, Jenks felt the hot jibes of the VIP, his laughs echoed in his ears. His stomach turned over, again, just like it had that day. The pain was as visceral now as it was last week.

As the vision of that horrid day evaporated, leaving the emotional pain in its wake, Jenks could hear – clear as a bell – the Dean promising a full review of Jenks’s work, and any wrongdoing would be fully punished within the letter of the university’s policies.

In a dark panelled room, the Dean’s voice reverberated in Jenks’s head, her voice like ice, ‘Mr. Jenkinson. I trust you’re aware of the gravity of the situation?’

‘We take accusations of plagiarism very seriously here at the university,’ the Dean continued, her tone stern. ‘And given the evidence presented against you, I’m afraid we have no choice but to launch a full investigation.’

Jenks felt his stomach churn at the thought. The investigation meant digging into every aspect of his work, every line of code, every algorithm. If they found even a hint of wrongdoing, his career would be over before it had even begun. The promise of taking his groundbreaking work to any of the world crypto and blockchain events had already fallen out of reach. If only he could just escape to…

Now, Jenks stood there, waiting to go in, waiting for the executioners’ blade to fall. What could he say to them, to convince them, to keep his dreams alive?

‘Come!’ came the call from inside.

Jenks drew in his breath, looked around to Emily, and forced his lips up into what he thought should look like a smile. She returned the favour. They exchanged a look, an acknowledgement. She tried to reach out a caring hand. But it never reached him.

Jenks took a step to the door. His hand grasped the handle.

He slowly let out the breath and used all his strength to turn the handle.

Jenks opened the door to his future.

And stepped through.