Don't Mess with the Girl with Candy novel Chapter 692

Byron’s eyes were glued to the large rolling screen, where he saw Tucker’s name, clear as day. He had actually won two consecutive rounds and was now in the third. Tucker’s skills were mediocre at best; how could he possibly have surpassed him?

By now, news of Tucker breaking his own record and entering the third round of the finals had spread like wildfire back home.

“Impossible,” Byron muttered, clutching his phone as his eyes grew cold. “It has to be pure luck. He’ll probably get knocked out in the third round.”

That had to be it. Byron decided he would wait right there for Tucker to be eliminated. Trying to steal his spotlight and make a name for himself? Not on his watch!

Soon, the third round concluded, and the list of advancing contestants was announced. Byron craned his neck, only to see Tucker’s name once again. He advanced again? Did Tucker really have the ability to create programs worthy of the top three rounds?

Anyone who made it to the third round of this competition had some serious skills. To stand out from that group required something truly extraordinary. What on earth had Tucker created?

Byron sat frozen in place, staring at the screen so intently he was practically grinding his teeth to dust.

—

Meanwhile, in a corner of the audience, Juniper was texting Luella. Luella had just informed her that agents from Sigma Network had quietly arrived on the island, bringing not only elite operatives but also two large shipments of cargo, presumably weapons and equipment to use against the Subterra Vanguard.

Luella: [The old fox came well-prepared, but the Subterra Vanguard isn't to be trifled with.]

Juniper glanced at the list of finalists, then her fingers moved slowly across the screen. [He can bring it in, but that doesn’t mean he’ll get to use it.]

The competition started, and the eight programs began to play. A collective gasp rippled through the crowd. As expected of the final round, every single entry was astounding.

But one, titled “Glimmer” on the far-left screen, was particularly captivating. After its demo program finished, the code began to decompress itself.

Imagine looking at a world map on your phone, seeing it as a flat plane. But if you keep tapping on a single location, the map zooms in, and in, and in… eventually transitioning from a macroscopic view to a microscopic one. That’s what this was. A model the size of your palm contained entire countries, mountains, and rivers—everything that exists on Earth, expertly compressed into a tiny package by a master programmer. As the program decompressed, this small model began to expand, revealing all its compressed contents one by one.

Gasps of amazement filled the hall.

The rules stipulated that a contestant’s submission could not exceed 64 kilobytes. For context, a single photograph is often larger than 100 kilobytes. The audience was on the edge of their seats, wondering just how much this tiny program could possibly generate.