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to groups of two and then do that one more time to find the heaviest.
    The answer using that method would be three. It would work but she was certain that answer was too obvious. She could see the shadowy figure on the other side with his hand above the white balls. He had probably come to the same conclusion. Now it was a race to see if they could figure out how to find the heaviest with only two measurements.
    But it didn't make any sense to find the ball with two measurements. Gabby paced around the room, keeping her attention on the shadowy figure in the next room. If he lunged for the balls, she'd be forced to go with her initial solution of three.
    The weighing saucers on each chain were wide enough for all the balls. Gabby wondered if she could balance them all onto one pan and let the heaviest one trickle off.
    That way seemed ludicrous. Besides the impossible task of holding it so steady that the heaviest would fall, she couldn't be so sure that the difference in weight would be enough to create that drag, and even more so, she wasn't sure the physics model of this particular portion of virtual space would actually oblige her idea.
    No. The solution had to be something else. Gabby checked the other room to find the boy standing before the table with his arms crossed.
    Gabby crouched down to be eye-level with the eight white balls. She could not detect any differences between them.
    Then she stood and examined the scale. It's an on and off switch, she decided. One or zero. Up or down. It would take three weighs to find the answer.
    She shook her head trying to dislodge the faulty thinking. Something about a switch tickled her thoughts. Maybe it wasn't direct logic but a form of fuzzy logic like Pavelka's or Lukasiewicz's?
    Gabby pounded the table in frustration, knocking two of the balls on to the floor. She picked them up and reached to start putting them onto the table when she stared at the six remaining.
    The scale wasn't an on and off switch. It had another mode called equal when the two sides were perfectly in balance. Gabby smiled. She knew how to measure it in two.
    By placing three on each side and two on the table, she could use the balanced nature of the three balls to determine if the two held the heaviest ball.
    She wanted to put the balls onto the table, but she took a calming breath. She'd been denied entrance to the Black Gate many times before for rushing through her decision. She had to be sure that there wasn't a loophole.
    Gabby decided to replay the instructions once more before she tried her solution.
    The announcer's voice returned to her ears, played through the cochlear implants: "...tonight's challenge is to find out which puzzle ball weighs more using the scales the least amount of times. When you have completed the task, hit the red button!"
    She played it again, hearing the verbal trap the second time around. When she turned to face the shadowy wall, the announcer's voice returned, this time not a playback and began counting down.
    "Only sixty more seconds to decide! Hurry contestants!"
    She saw the boy on the other side starting to put his white balls onto the scale, so she started shouting and waving her hands. The shadow boy hesitated with four balls in his cupped hands.
    The countdown was just passing fifty. Gabby stared at the wall and decided to take a chance. She stepped through the wall into the shadow room. The boy and the room were still shadowy, but the scales and balls were now clearly visible. She sighed in relief.
    The announcer had said "which puzzle ball," which indicated that only one ball in the two rooms was heavier. The designers were either leaving it up to luck or had planned a forced alliance.
    Gabby grabbed the other four balls and walked back through the wall. The shadow boy followed her.
    With less than thirty seconds left, she thought hard about a solution for sixteen balls. When it got down to twenty seconds, she decided on the most obvious solution and put eight