Talk to Jennifer

<Note: Minor **** Note spoilers in the chapter. IIRC plot points given away all happen in the first few episodes.>

Back in the lounge, you see that Jennifer’s still watching something on her laptop.

“So it’s Attack on Titan today?” you ask Jennifer, slipping onto the couch.

“Well, I would have watched **** Note, but you weren’t around, so…”

“So?”

“So I took things into my own hands,” she says. “You know, the way that people are supposed to deal with adversity.”

“Huh. My coping mechanism looks a lot more like listening to downtempo electronica on my bed and staring at the ceiling, overthinking all of my problems until they get ten times worse.”

“Yo, too real,” she says. “I just keep watching anime.”

“Yeah, that sounds better. Let’s do that instead then,” you say, just as the end credits begin to roll.

She flips open the episode of **** Note that the two of you were on, and as the opening theme begins to play, you shift against the couch.

“The couchback is a little hard, don’t you think?” you ask.

“I never really noticed it,” Jennifer says. She’s slouched way back, and you wonder if she’ll develop chronic back problems by the time she can no longer claim health insurance as a dependent.

“Oh, your spot must be comfier then,” you say, smoothly sliding next to her and throwing an arm around her shoulder. She leans into you, and the two you watch in rapt attention as Light dramatically writes another name into his notebook, signing another **** warrant.

“What would you do with the **** Note?” she asks you. There’s a bit of a feral glint to her eyes, something that stirs some emotions deep within you.

“Well, I’ll tell you what I wouldn’t do. I wouldn’t have used my father’s confidential police credentials to figure things out. That fucking cost Light 11 bits of anonymity!” you reply.

“What? You’re going to have to explain that one,” Jennifer says.

“So there’s this guy on the internet who figured out that you could view the hunt for Light as a search problem — and to uniquely specify one person out of 7 billion, you need 33 bits of information, since 2^33 comes to just over 7 billion,” you say.

“Okay, that makes sense,” she says. “But 11 bits? How costly could that have been? Like surely revealing that he was Japanese through the timing of his killings would have been worse…”

“Nah, according to the analysis, that only cost him 6 bits. This was by far his costliest mistake from an information theory perspective… but what the fuck do I know,” you say.

“I know what you’ll do now if you got the **** Note,” Jennifer says.

“What?”

“Buy ten fricking textbooks and study the math behind this shit until you’ll never get caught,” she laughs.

“You got me there,” you say. “What about you? What would you do with the **** Note, I mean?”

“Easy,” she says. “I’d use it to take notes in class. And if anyone so much as asks a stupid question, I’d nuke them off the face of the planet.”

“That’s disappointingly mundane.”

“Careful, I’d consider writing your name too, after that,” she says, looking up at you.

“Oh, you wouldn’t dare,” you say.

“You’re right, this is too comfy,” she sighs, her head resting on your shoulder.

You watch the next two episodes together, poking fun at the show, when you realise that it’s getting late. It’s getting late, and you do have an early class tomorrow.

“Aw, you sure you can’t stay for another episode?” she asks you.

“Next time, we’ll do it in your room,” you promise, and she nods happily at that.

Jennifer +15