Is this destiny?

Michael stepped to the side when he saw Sarah approach Oni.

"How are you doing?", Sarah asked Oni.

Oni took a deep breath and looked confidently at Sarah. "I will not show fear."

"Good. Don\'t try to beat Marija at her game. She is more experienced than you are."

Oni was confused. But it was only for a moment before it turned into anxiousness. "Are you saying that I can\'t win?"

"No. As long as you don\'t give up, there is always a way to victory. The rule for not using tools is against Marija. She has more experience than you but for years she is relying on automation her tools are providing and even if she knows how they work internally, it will be a mental adjustment to execute those steps manually."

Oni nodded in understanding before looking at Sarah expectantly: "Any last minute tips?"

"A good foundation can beat edge techniques if used properly. Marija knows more of them, don\'t allow that to intimidate you. It is not a competition on who uses the most patterns or the latest techniques. Focus on the basics and pick a direction you are the most comfortable with. She is underestimating you, use that to your advantage. The most important thing is that you focus on your strengths."

Oni took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. She feels the need to be of use to Sarah and to help her out and not to disappoint her and at the same time she wants to get rid of Marija and all this is stressful. Oni would rather go on ten missions by herself where she needs to beat up someone or sneak in to steal information than to do this.

Oni was startled when Sarah patted her shoulder.

"Hey… relax.", Sarah said softly with a smile. "Even if you lose, you are still my daughter. Treat this as a game… a test. And you are good at taking tests, right? We have that thing in common."

Oni looked at Sarah and then her eyes met Michael\'s and she saw that Aiden is standing behind Sarah and he gave Oni an encouraging nod and Oni\'s eyes swelled with tears. She knows that they are all like a family, but right at this moment she felt that these three people are giving her an unconditional support and love and her heart expanded from emotions.

Oni hugged Sarah. "Thank you…", she whispered.

Sarah inched away and gave last few tips: "Remember that the first 30 minutes you are building your defense. Take your time. No matter how fast you finish, the time will not stop until it runs out. Go back and revise your solution, use this to score a point on optimization. And for the attack, don\'t stop until the time is up. Remember that who finds the most vulnerabilities gets a point and no matter how good coder someone is, the gaps exist. Keep the rules on your mind and how you can score points. It might seem that you can score points only while attacking, but the match has three parts. Don\'t neglect the deployment. Doing that properly can make or break you. And the final thing: use this…", Sarah pointed at Oni\'s temple.

Oni nodded in understanding. By having a solid defense code, she will reduce the amount of gaps and even if Marija is super-fast, she can\'t find problems which are not there. The rules say how all the points are won in the attack phase, but if she does her defense well, she can optimize her code and reduce gaps which Marija can find and that is worth two points which is enough for victory.

"Are both of you ready?", Mishi asked Oni and Marija. He saw them nod and started the timer on the wall: "5… 4… 3… 2… 1… Go!"

Each of the girls took few seconds to look at the file they need to protect. It is a plain text file with few sentences written in it.

Both Oni and Marija were typing on their keyboards with their fingers moving like a flash.

The audience sat on the sofas on the side and talked in whispers while watching both Oni\'s and Marija\'s screens projected on the wall.

Aiden pulled Sarah closer and whispered: "You are a great mother."

Sarah looked at him and smiled. She knows that he said that because of the advices she gave to Oni. He heard everything through the ear stud.

Sarah leaned onto Aiden and observed the code appearing on the screens with interest.

Everyone was gazing on the wall. Well, everyone except for Michael.

Michael\'s eyes were glued to Oni\'s serious expression, focused on the screen in front of her. He smiled when her face lit up because she figured out something, and he frowned when her eyebrows came together. Michael wished to help Oni out, but even if he goes there by her side, he can\'t do much. The computers are not his forte so the only thing he could do is to give her his silent support. He checked the time… the defense part will be done in just over 4 minutes. So, in one hour this will be done and no matter what the outcome is, he and Oni will head to Paris. For their date. Oh, he also needs to talk to Aiden before they leave.

About half an hour later...

Oni and Marija were about halfway in the attack part which lasts 30 minutes, when Marija reached Oni\'s file.

Oni exhaled in defeat. It took Marija about fifteen minutes to drill a hole in her defense and to reach the file. It is still encrypted, but the fact that Marija has it, shook up Oni\'s confidence.

Oni glanced at the statistics on the screen.

[File retrieved (and read): none

Code counts:

Marija: 1503 lines of code with 8532 characters

Oni: 1221 lines of code with 6215 characters

Vulnerabilities found:

Marija: 24 found

Oni: 22 found]

Oni sighed. Considering that Marija already has the file, her skills are undeniably better than Oni\'s even without using the tools. For the code optimization, Oni has a big advantage. For the vulnerabilities, it is close.

If code counts don\'t change, Oni needs only one point to win between getting to Marija\'s file and finding more vulnerabilities.

Oni decided: she will stop going for Marija\'s file. Oni will go for vulnerabilities and score her point there.

Oni sees this like a round cake with Marija\'s file in the middle. It is easy to take bites from the edges of the cake and possibly find issues, while the deeper she goes, the more challenging it gets. So, Oni will focus on the edges and with every bite she takes, she is closer to the center. The only problem is the time… will she have enough time to reach that center and fetch that file? Well, if she takes enough bites from the sides, she can find enough vulnerabilities so that getting to the file is not necessary in order for her to win. 

Michael smiled when he saw that Oni resumed her work with renewed vigor. It is obvious that she thought of something.

Marija was frustrated. Everything is taking so much longer because she can\'t use her tools. She wrote tools so that she does not need to do these tedious things manually, and now it came back to bite her by hindering her work. Her frustration was rising with every line of code she wrote, and she ignored the fact that she is getting sloppy.

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