Nathan's Equilibrium

The keyboard was cold and bristly under my fingertips--space bar, ctrl, W--like snake scales. I breathed in, out, in, out. My heart slammed at my throat.

Beside me Nathan stuttered, stumbled over half-spoken words. "I- Professor, it- I don't know how it got there- I didn't mean-"

"You didn't mean to open ChatGPT?"

I stared ahead across the lecture hall, eyes fixed on the paneled walls and blackboard displaying the remaining exam time in big, looping white letters. 45 minutes. I tried not to look down, at the heads that spun back, eyes up and wide. The whole room was coiled like a sour knot. Computers clicked, a clock ticked.

"Really, Professor Lanning. I must have had it open before and--"

"Let me see it again."

"What?"

"Let me see the tab again."

I dragged my eyes down back toward my screen, vision meaninglessly glazing over the questions and answers–not that I knew the answers, anyway. I shuddered, I breathed, and slowly, slowly scrolled. I clicked a bubble, scrolled, clicked another. Nathan tapped his mouse twice.

The clock ticked, the room silently hummed. I could feel Nathan bristle as the professor read.

"Ok--Nathan. You are going to close your computer, wait here, and see me after the exam is over."

"Professor, I didn't know! I--"

"You read the syllabus just like everyone else. Do not try that, young man."

"I can't fail this class- Am I gonna get in trouble?"

"No, I'm taking you to Dave and Busters. Yes, you're in trouble. God. Every single class: ChatGPT. You think I was born yesterday? You think I’m not on the internet?" He scoffed, then paused. "What is that?"

"What is what?"

"That tab, right there, next to it."

"Oh... uh, it's, uh, Discord, sir."

"Discord..." Professor Lanning mused. Even though I'd nailed my eyes to my screen I knew the professor now had his bearpaw-hand cupping his bearded mouth, squinting. It was something he did when someone asked a stupid question, or when the midterm average came out as a C minus. "You're talking about the exam there–who is that? Who are you talking to?"

My finger twitched on the mousepad. It took me seconds before I realized I was frozen. Nausea bloomed in my stomach and burned in my throat. I bit my lip, tasted blood. Then I kept scrolling, clicking, praying, feeling the eyes of the class slice across us.

“‘Wariosballs57.’ Who is that? Who are you talking to?" Professor Lanning repeated. Nathan didn't speak. "Nathan."

Then the professor sighed, and his gaze cast about the room like a skilled hunter. "Ok," He said, louder now. "This is good. This is really good. Right there, you're talking about the question on the ‘prisoner's dilemma.’ So, Nathan, I'll make you a deal. If you go outside right now with the TA, and tell them who you're cheating with, I'll give you a 50 instead of a zero."

Computers stopped clacking; the room listened, watched. “Really?” Nathan asked.

“Yes.” Professor Lanning answered immediately. “You have five minutes.”

In the icey whirlpool of my stomach I now felt the fire of fear. Please, Nathan. Please. I breathed again, slowly. Reminding myself. Nathan wouldn’t do that, he wouldn’t do that. We’d gotten through worse, ever since Middle School. He wouldn’t do that.

“But!” Professor continued. “While Nathan is gone, whoever his accomplice is can come forward. Rat yourself out! Which is great if Nathan stays buddies with you and doesn’t rat you out, because instead of a zero you’ll get a 50. Or, better yet, if he rats you out and you rat yourself out, we’ve got two rats with two zeros on their final exams.”

The lecture hall rang, and then silence was filled again with the persistent, annoying, infuriating clock.

“But that’s not fair! What if–”

“None of it’s fair, Nathan. This isn’t even the ‘prisoner’s dilemma.’ Either way you’re screwed because you cheated. This thing isn’t about self-preservation, this is about how much you’re willing to sacrifice for your little accomplice-friend. How much do you care about them? And how much do they care about you? Capisce?”

“Y-yes, sir.”

“Yes, professor.” He corrected. Then Professor Lanning leaned up, his jeans squealing louder than they should in the huge room. He made a clicking noise with his mouth. “Samantha! Can you take him to the hallway?”

Jogging, a shrill nasally voice, “Of course, Professor.” It was our TA.

There was a flurry of movement to my left. I didn’t look, just kept scrolling–out of habit, a hypnosis. Scrolling, clicking, scrolling, though the scrolling felt more like running now. Nathan got up, bolted chair flipping up violently. Two pairs of footsteps up the stairs. The door opened, hissed closed.

Silent. Breathing. Ticking.

Then Professor Lanning began to walk down the center. Slowly. “Well!” He announced, as if beginning a lecture. “Welcome to Intro to Econ! Today we’re going to learn Game Theory! Take notes because this is gonna be on the final!”

Step, step, step.

“You all know the stakes. Someone in here is a cheater. Someone thinks they can come to my class and pass it without doing the work. What makes you special, huh? What makes you so important? What makes you so supreme that you can just pull up your little AI website and make all of academia irrelevant?” He paused at the bottom of the stairs, whipping his body all the way around. Facing the class, arms open. “The only thing that makes you special is the fact you are Nathan’s buddy. Nathan’s pal. Nathan’s co-conspirator. And maybe, just maybe he will save you.” A pause, the class watching. “Maybe.” He said quieter.

I try to look as normal as possible. Another face in the stunned crowd, frozen. But my mind churned, bubbled like my gut. I imagined Nathan out there right now, what he was thinking. Dreading, probably. Imaging his Mom–that helicopter parent of a woman–just laying it down on him. Tearing up old festering scars of failure with her amethyst manicured fingers. Bleeding broken truths, crying hopeless futures. That fate was sealed, I couldn’t do anything about that. But maybe I could ease it, maybe–

“Maybe.” Professor Lanning said one more time, cupping his mouth with his hand. Scanning the faces, hunting, prodding, prickling. Then he teared his hand away, bellowed: “Where the fuck are you, Wariosballs57!?”

The silence was stifling, and despite themselves trickling laughs peppered the room.

“Yeah. Yeah!” The professor pointed at everyone he could see laughing. “Laugh! Fucking laugh! None of this shit is serious, right?” His voice was strained now, high-pitched, desperate. “Wario’s balls! Wario’s balls! Take out your phones and record me! Post it on all your Snapchats and Instagrams! Wario’s balls!”

Mid-sentence he began to march up the stairs–fast. Any part of me that was withdrawn, contemplative, spat itself back up, flopping like a fish. I jumped and hoped he didn’t see.

Professor Lanning stopped at my row again, Nathan’s row, and looked down with cold, narrowed eyes. To Riley, the girl who sat by the aisle, to the empty seat, to me, and then to everyone beyond. “You wouldn’t be stupid enough to sit right next to each other, would you?” He chuckled to himself, shook his head. “No, no.” Then he looked down. “What d'you think, Riley? Think they’d be stupid enough to sit next to naughty Nathan?”

“Um…” Riley mumbled, as if unsure if the question was rhetorical. “No, Professor Lanning, I suppose in this situation, it would be more strategic to sit far apart… as to…” She froze as she turned to find the professor hanging over her expectantly, then continued. “--as to make it easier to hide the cheating by making it less concentrated… spatially.”

Professor Lanning arched back up, nodded slowly, grinning. “Very good, Riley. It would make more sense, wouldn’t it? Not that cheating on an exam I gave ample opportunities to prepare for was particularly intelligent, anyway.”

Another silence, as if waiting for laughs. None came.

“Well,” Professor began again, leaning down, looking at Riley’s computer. “Let’s see this exam you have here. Ah yes. Why, Riley, would you be able to show me what you put for the ‘prisoner’s dilemma’ question?”

“Yes, professor, of course. Um…” She scrolled furiously on her mousepad, fingers slipping, then came to a stop. “Um, here.”

“Well would you look at that! Exactly correct. B, Nash’s equilibrium.”

“Professor Lanning, I– I promise I didn’t cheat. I studied! Look I don’t have any other tabs open–”

“That’s all great, Riley, really great. But if you want to show me you understand the ‘prisoner’s dilemma,’ explain it to me now.” He leaned up. “Explain it to the class! According to Nash’s equilibrium, how should Nathan, and Wariosballs57 for that matter, proceed?”

“Um…” Riley looked around, brushed an auburn lock from her oval glasses and swallowed hard. “According to Nash’s equilibrium, both parties can statistically gain the most by both defecting–”

“Both ratting each other out.”

“--yes. But, Professor Lanning, I don’t mean to–to overstep but Nash’s equilibrium doesn’t exactly apply here. Nathan is already convicted, but, um, the other one–”

“Wariosballs57.”

“--yes, has not. This gives them the advantage in either decision. The only way that Nathan doesn’t get a zero is if, um, Wario, doesn’t defect but Nathan does.”

“Indeed.”

Even though Professor Lanning was seats away, it was as if his coffee-tinged breath was hot on my nose, spittle slapping my cheeks and forehead. I breathed, tried to think. Tried. I could speak up now, but–Nathan knew the consequences for that, too. My Dad would find out. Find out I hadn’t stopped seeing Nathan like I promised him, and worse, that we’d secretly both arranged to get into the same college. He’d probably hit me again, harder than before, and tell me that I’m a disgrace to Mom’s memory; but that wasn’t the part I was worried about.

“What do you think?” I jumped, and this time he saw. Professor Lanning’s eyes were locked with mine. “What do you think?” He asked again.

“Wha—”

“You. Whatever your name is cuz you never speak. What should Wario do?”

“Oh, uh–” I realize I’m stuttering, stumbling, struggling, but I can’t do anything to stop it. It’s like sleep paralysis, an out of body experience, tied tight to the train tracks while the freight barrels down onto me. “Uh…” Louder and louder and louder. Say something. Say something!

Suddenly, the back door hissed open. “Professor Lanning? It’s been five minutes.”

“Perfect. Fan-tastic. Bring him in, Samantha.”

The door yawned further, and Nathan shuffled inside. Cheeks flushed, eyes dropped. I could see it on his face immediately: he hadn’t told her anything. But it was wracking him, fissuring him on the inside. Regret. And terror.

“There he is. Naughty Nathan.”

“He wouldn’t tell me, Professor Lanning—“ Samantha began.

Big hand met mouth, and then was pulled away. “You can’t calculate for this.” He muttered to himself. “But there’s still a lesson here, something you all will actually learn. Something you’ll remember.” He paused, and the fire in his glare at Nathan was enough to light a match. Beside him, somehow, Riley tapped away at her computer.

Slowly, deftly, poised to pounce, Professor Lanning moved up towards Nathan. One step at a time. I caught Nathan’s eyes and fell into them, our dreads becoming one, becoming whole. There was grief in that gaze, too, an anticipation of apocalypse. It was all falling apart.

Then Nathan snapped his eyes away towards somewhere random, somewhere safe.

The professor moved forward. “Why?” He asked, voice shaking, rage mixed with an almost academic curiosity. “Why do you think you could get away with it, hm? What made you think that this class was the one to butcher? To infect with your–with your–rat pestilence.” He stopped in front of Nathan, jabbed a boney finger in his face. “Do you know how much time I spend grading your tests, annotating your papers, and replying to your stupid fucking emails? Hm? Do you even think about the shitty position that you cheating puts me in? No, you don’t care!”

Nathan was shivering now, looking at the finger like it was a knife about to stab him. I wanted to run up there, to hug him, to take him away from this pain, to do anything.

I could speak. I should speak. I’m going to speak.

But out of the bellowing, the breathing, and the ticking of the clock–there was the soft trill of an Airdrop notification on my Macbook. Instinctually I turned, confused, but then I leaned forward.

It was from “Riley’s Macbook Air,” and atop the white background of the image, typed in big, black Impact font letters was: “Tell Nathan to rat on me.”

My head spun, and Riley was already staring back, eyes wide and insistent. She nodded quickly, then jerked her head towards the top of the room. There Professor Lanning continued.

“It’s the pandemic, it’s gotta be. It’s gotta be! I can’t keep changing the syllabus like this, I can’t can’t keep going like this!”

I looked to Riley again, for confirmation. Seriously? She nodded again, lowered her head and looked up grimly, and mouthed the words, “Do it.” And so I dragged my eyes away, back up towards Professor.

“Tell me, Nathan. Please. Please. Why did you do it?”

Silence, ticking. Nathan opened his mouth. “I– I had too many other finals and–”

“Bullshit. Tell me the real reason.”

Desperately, I searched for Nathan’s eyes, subtly craning my neck. But he was fastened in, locked in deadly equilibrium.

“It was–” Nathan began. “It’s–it’s been a hard semester for me so it was difficult to–”

“Bull-fucking-shit!” I leaned further back in my chair, the two people above me looking down. “You could have contacted me about extenuating circumstances, like I advertised on the syllabus and many, many times in class. I’m reasonable! I’ve been reasonable!” He turned quickly to the class. “Haven’t I been reasonable!?”

The clock snapped like a singer keeping beat.

But in that tiny moment Nathan looked down to me in desperation, and we met in between. I could tell he saw something had changed in my eyes, then his eyes followed. I snapped my gaze down to Riley, who also looked up at him, then me, then him, then Nathan and I returned to each other. It all happened in a second, but just long enough for Professor Lanning to see something was wrong.

“What?” He snapped. “What? You’re looking down at your classmates like they're gonna help you? You’re looking at Wariosballs57? None of them can save you!”

He breathed in, then quickly spun around Nathan’s body. “Here here,” He gripped his shoulders from above, fatherly, then extended a hand out to the hall as if showing Nathan the kingdom he’d come to inherit. “Look at all of them, all 145 of them, all doing the same exact test. Now, Nathan, if you don’t tell me exactly who you were cheating with, every single last one of these students will be getting a zero.”

Sensation erupted: movement, voices, laptops slamming shut.

“You can’t do that!” Someone shouted from the front of the class.

“Yes I can! Yes I fucking can! I am the Professor!” He stepped out from behind Nathan, and shouted over our heads. “I signed away my life to have this job. Years of grad school, of job searching, getting rejection letter after rejection letter, all because I knew in my heart that I wanted to teach. It was this class, this exact class, where I decided that was what I wanted to do. Professor Winley… he–it–it opened my mind! When you see the world as a ‘prisoner’s dilemma,’ it all becomes so much more clear! So much more clear. Wars and nature and life and love–the real world: it’s the same dilemma, over and over and over again. And you don’t win by just being nice and staying quiet, but you don’t win by only betraying either. You have to be kind, be forgiving… but you also can’t take shit. You have to demand respect. Respect! Respect… That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

Professor Lanning drooped over the top railing, rocking back and forth on his feet, rubbing the railing with his big hands like he was revving a motorcycle. No one moved. No one breathed. Except the clock.

“It’s her, Professor.” Nathan said quietly, voice still shaking.

Gradually, almost painfully, the Professor raised his head and followed Nathan’s extended finger. Down, down, down, until he landed on Riley.

“It was Riley.”

The girl let out a loud “eep,” slamming her computer shut with a snap, head spinning around the classroom. Her chest heaved, eyes wild. Then she looked up to the man above it all. “Professor Lanning, I–”

“Riley…” Professor Lanning said slowly, but still cutting her off. “Riley…”

He sounded tired, exhausted. But he raised himself nonetheless, plodding back down the steps with a kind of limp resolution. He stopped beside her. Now she buried herself in her knees, copper curly hair surrounding her, coiled and trembling and hiding.

“Riley,” The professor said once again. “Show me your computer.”

She slowly unraveled herself, never looking up. And with a quivering hand she peeled the computer open. I could see it was open to a Discord profile.

“Wariosballs57.” He said, defeated. 

He just breathed for a moment, looking at it. Observing. Then he gazed up at the ceiling, then back to the class. “It’s you who betrayed me.” Professor Lanning said softly.

Half-stumbling he made his way down to the bottom of the lecture hall, gripping the railing then the podium for support. He stopped, wobbled, turned, and looked above us all: to the clock. He turned back. 

Then the class watched, silently, as Professor Lanning carefully picked up an eraser and chalk and changed the “45 minutes” to “30.”

He put them down and collapsed in his chair.