:24:00
- It was that way when I got there.
- Doh!
:24:09
Puzzle line?
:24:11
Puzzle line?
:24:14
Now, I've traveled 10,000 miles
in the past 24 hours.
:24:17
So I've had a lot of time to reflect
on this. Correct me if I'm wrong.
:24:20
But I believe neither one of you has
ever said the words "puzzle line" to me.
:24:26
Before Mercury went operational,
we ran a standard validation protocol.
:24:30
The works. Double sets of paired
Cray supercomputers...
:24:33
fricking velociraptor machines
chewing at Mercury 24 hours a day.
:24:36
Mercury came out unbent.
:24:38
Awesome, sir. It was finally a code
that couldn't be broken.
:24:41
But there was one last thing
to check out. The, um... geek factor.
:24:46
Human beings will fool you sometimes.
We thought it important...
:24:49
We slipped a message
in one of those egghead word games.
We dared amateurs to crack it.
:24:54
- We were sure nobody would ever call.
- But somebody did.
:24:59
His name is Simon Lynch. He lives
in Chicago. He is nine years old.
:25:04
And he has deciphered a message written
in the most sophisticated code...
:25:07
the world has ever known...
:25:09
in a geek's
puzzle magazine.
:25:12
I don't recall
ever authorizing...
:25:15
anyone to put any message...
:25:17
into any magazine!
:25:19
That couldn't just happen.
A kid couldn't just pop it open.
:25:24
Not only is he nine years old,
he is handicapped. He is autistic.
:25:29
Yes, that explains it.
:25:31
So our $2 billion code
is an open book...
:25:34
- to people of diminished capacity?
- No, sir.
:25:36
Autism isn't synonymous
with diminished capacity.
:25:39
Autistic people are...
They're shut off.
:25:42
But it's not unusual
for an autistic person to be a savant.
:25:45
- Oh, a savant!
- He may not be able
to actually decipher the code.
:25:48
- It might just appear to him.
- Right. He didn't calculate anything.
:25:50
He just saw it. Like those stupid
pictures at the mall. You stare at them.
:25:54
- All of a sudden you're looking
at the Statue of Liberty.
- Exactly.
:25:57
This is not a stupid picture
at the mall.